Civil War Issues in Philadelphia, 1856-1865 9781512815672

Table of contents :
Acknowledgment
Contents
Introduction
Prologue: Philadelphia
Part I: Prewar Issues
1. Party Views in 1856
2. Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Question
3. The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party
Part II: Crises
4. John Brown’s Raid
5. Secession
Part III: War
6. Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers
7. Democrats, Negroes, and Conscripts
8. Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

Civil War Issues in Philadelphia 1856-1865

Civil War Issues m Philadelphia 1856-18 65 by

William Dusinberre

Philadelphia

University of Pennsylvania Press

© 1965 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania

Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 64-16340

7446 Printed in the United States of America

To David Donald

Acknowledgment

I AM INDEBTED ESPECIALLY TO PROFESSOR ROBERT CROSS,

and to Professors Eric McKitrick, William Leuchtenburg, John Garraty, and David Potter, who have criticized most or parts of the manuscript. The Samuel Fels Fund, Columbia University, and Yale University each contributed generous financial assistance. Many services were kindly provided by the staffs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Library of Congress, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the National Archives. My father and mother struggled against awkward expression in the text. Verena Haefeli persistently attempted to reduce cliché and provoke interpretation. My greatest obligation has grown from the scholarship, extraordinary pedagogy, counsel, self-sacrifice, and friendship of the person under whose guidance the book was originally planned, Professor David Donald. W. D.

Contents Introduction

11

Prologue: Philadelphia

19

Part I: Prewar Issues 1.

Party Views in 1856

27

2.

Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Question

48

3.

The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party 62 Part II: Crises

4.

John Brown's Raid

83

5.

Secession

95 Part III: War

6.

Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers

127

7.

Democrats, Negroes, and Conscripts

151

8.

Conclusion

179

Index

191

Introduction

T H I S BOOK P R O P O S E S

AN A L T E R E D

PERSPECTIVE

ON

THE

national political issues of the Civil War era. Its theme, although derived from the investigation of political opinion in a single Northern city, should nevertheless be suggestive for a considerable portion of the North. Philadelphia was the country's second largest metropolis, a far more important city than in later years, and its location in the "Middle States" gave it a political atmosphere probably similar to that in the large area extending from New York City and much of New Jersey, through southern Pennsylvania, to the southern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Before continuing, we should glance at three major interpretations of the war. According to the popular view, the North gradually became aroused about the inhumanities of slavery and finally elected an antislavery President. When Southern secession provoked war, the North naturally seized the opportunity to effect its humanitarian ideal by abolishing slavery. A revisionist interpretation stresses the ill consequences of the abolitionist and radical Republican agitation against slavery. According to this view, Northern radicals (together with their counterparts, the Southern "fire-eaters") provoked an unnecessary war by arousing popular emotions about issues which, rationally considered, were of little importance. In the wartime North the most noteworthy po11

12

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

litical disputes took place, not between Democrats and Republicans, but between disruptive radicals and sober conservatives within the Republican Party. Conservative Republicans, it is implied, had much in common with the great bulk of the Democratic Party, which loyally supported the war; "Peace Democrats" were of comparatively little significance. A third interpretation alleges that the Republican Party, basically concerned with economic objectives, paltered about slavery as a smokescreen for its less than altruistic purposes. During the course of my research on Philadelphia, it became clear that none of these interpretations accurately described the local situation, though each contained an element of truth. Sympathy with abolitionism was weak. One is constantly surprised at the strength of moderates within the anti-Democratic party.* Lacking enthusiasm for extremist antislavery policies, these men nevertheless eventually gave determined support to the decisive measures favoring Negroes. To a much greater extent than is usually realized, they were moved simply by the interests of white men—not so much economic interests as political ones. For example, the Kansas dispute aroused concern, not only because of slavery itself, but also because of the attempt to force slavery into the territory against the will of the great majority of white settlers. Some influential Philadelphians who opposed drastic concessions to the South during the secession crisis were impelled, not so much to help slaves, as to assert the Northern majority's right to settle national political issues without having to concede so much to the Southern minority. * The term "anti-Democratic party" designates the "American," the "Peoples," and the "National Union" organizations, which successively formed the principal opposition to the Democratic Party in Philadelphia.

Introduction

13

Far more important than the variances between conservatives and radicals in the anti-Democratic party were the vast differences between that party and the Democrats. Democratic leaders in the prewar years followed a surprisingly pro-Southern policy, which tended to mislead Southerners as to the state of Northern opinion; and from the time of the Emancipation Proclamation until the end of the war, Democrats displayed an astonishingly bitter hostility to the Republican conduct of the war. My research gradually made it apparent that most white Philadelphians regarded Negroes as members of an inferior race that might be treated contemptuously, with impunity. Anti-Negro rhetoric was a major political weapon of the Democratic Party, while non-Democratic politicians repeatedly deflected their opponents' charge that they sympathized with Negroes, sometimes using anti-Negro arguments themselves to achieve this purpose. (Anti-Negro attitudes have provided a central theme, for they appeared wherever one looked.) Prewar discussions of slavery, the local reaction to John Brown's raid, the response to wartime emancipation, even the debate on wartime troop-raising methods—all were deeply affected by the existence of antiNegro feelings. The influence of these attitudes is worth reflection, for what was true in Philadelphia was probably true in a more considerable portion of the North than is nowadays remembered. What Philadelphians thought and did about Civil War issues is the general topic of this book. Little personal, economic, social, or religious background is presented, though the high social position of many leading critics of the Republican conduct of the war becomes apparent, as does the upper and middle-class background of those former Whig voters whose shifting from one party to another greatly influenced the elections from 1856 to 1862.

14

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War Issues

in

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Otherwise, social-background information is difficult to find and hard to assess. For example, since census summaries for individual wards do not tell what country immigrants were born in, the presumed political differences between Irishmen and Germans cannot be verified. The wards were so large, and therefore the population of each one was so heterogeneous, that ward analysis of election returns is seldom revealing. There is little information as to the political views of leading merchants, and the weekly commercial journal rarely expressed political opinions. Since sermons did not often deal with political questions, it is difficult to speak about religious background. Therefore, I have indicated the main outlines of opinion, presented the best thinking which was being done by political leaders, and described local events relevant to national issues, but necessarily included few speculations about the background factors which might help further to explain this thinking and activity. This book is based partly on the letters preserved by President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian, and by the state's Democratic Senator, William Bigler. Republican ideas and strategies appear in Lincoln's correspondence and in a wide variety of other collections, mainly held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The Historical Society also possesses, in the diary of Sidney Fisher, one of the most remarkable political records of the era. Since the author had family connections with Philadelphia's leading Democratic critics of the war and social relations with the most important conservative Republicans, his journal is a unique source for private opinion in the city. Even more valuable is the copious detail with which the diarist reveals his own thinking, illuminating the process by which conservative men came to support radical measures.

Introduction

15

Newspaper editorials and politicians' speeches are the main sources for statements about political opinion. Editorials would not be entirely satisfactory documents for the study of opinion in the twentieth century, however, for we are accustomed to a city's having only one or a very few publishers; to newspapers' being heavily dependent on advertisers; and to the publication of so much mere entertainment that the editors' political views have comparatively little influence on circulation. In mid-nineteenth century Philadelphia the situation was quite different. The number of local papers was so great that an extraordinary variety of viewpoints could be represented. Advertising was not such an important revenue source; some editors, therefore, were so dependent on income from subscribers that they had to be responsive to subscribers' opinions. Papers relied so much on furnishing news and opinions, and so little on supplying entertainment, that editors had another strong reason to adapt their political writings to the public's taste. For example, at the announcement of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 every editor eschewed direct appeal to humanitarian sentiment toward Negroes, suggesting that editors believed readers would not be moved by that argument. Thus editorials—and politicians' speeches as well— sometimes reflected previously-formed public views. An even more important reason for relying on these sources is that editorials and speeches were powerful agents in shaping opinion. Indeed, this was the main function of the several newspapers which were subsidized by political parties. When in March, 1861, all editors explicitly or implicitly advocated abandoning Fort Sumter, one is justified to suppose that the public would have acquiesced in this policy had Lincoln adopted it.

16

Civil War Issues in

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On complicated issues the public sometimes did not have an opinion, but in these cases editorials and speeches are useful sources for their own sakes. The thinking of a single publicist about the habeas corpus privilege, for instance, is not representative, but it helps clarify the meaning of individual freedom in wartime. My analysis of Philadelphia opinion is set within the framework of an interpretation of the war which will become apparent as the individual issues are examined. The narrative begins no earlier than 1856. This date excludes the Mexican War and the breakdown of the Whig Party, but permits discussion of all the fundamental prewar attitudes, and of two of the main prewar controversies. Part I portrays these fundamental attitudes as they appeared in 1856, and the two controversies—the fugitive slave question and the territorial issue—as they developed until 1858. Part II is devoted to the John Brown affair and the secession crisis. Part III analyzes wartime issues: the treatment of dissenters, the Negro question, and the recruitment of short-term soldiers when Confederate armies approached Pennsylvania. On nearly every topic we shall find ourselves reminded of this book's major theme, the pervasive influence in an important Northern city of the same antiNegro views which so deeply affected the South.

Civil W a r Issues in Philadelphia 1856-18 65

Prologue: Philadelphia

REMEMBERING

THAT

THEIR

CITY

HAD ONCE

BEEN

THE

greatest in North America, Philadelphia^ in the 1850's were fiercely jealous of New York. The local eclipse dated from the shift of American grain production west of the Allegheny Mountains, whose position athwart central Pennsylvania presented formidable obstacles to westward communication. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 sealed the local fate. Construction of neither a Pennsylvania state canal system nor of the Pennsylvania Railroad could prevent Philadelphia's falling far behind New York, as well as Boston and New Orleans, as a center for overseas commerce. The city preserved only its substantial domestic trade with the South and the West, of which the former was more important in the early 1850's but the latter more attractive by 1860 because of the railroad's extension beyond Pittsburgh. 1 In contrast to its commercial decline, Philadelphia's importance in manufacturing was only slightly behind New York's and far greater than that of any other American municipality. The city's manufacturing product in 1860 was almost as great as that of all eleven future Confederate 1 A reader requiring a more detailed documentation of the text than that furnished here is referred to a longer, microfilmed version also titled "Civil War Issues in Philadelphia, 1856-1865" (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1961). Hereafter cited as "CWI."

19

20

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

2

states combined. Production was mainly in small establishments; although a locomotive works sometimes employed 1000 workers, very few other factories had as many as 500 employees. 3 The flourishing condition of manufacturing attracted great numbers of workers and by 1860 the city counted 570,000 inhabitants,4 of whom nearly 30 per cent had been born abroad. Half of the immigrants were from Ireland, more than a quarter from Germany, and the rest mainly from England and Scotland. Large as was this foreign-born population, the proportion was actually less than that of any other important American city except Baltimore.5 The comparatively small number of immigrants may have been one of the reasons that an anti-foreign and anti-Catholic political movement thrived in Philadelphia in the 1840's and 1850's with greater strength than in any other city in the country—the proportion of foreign-born people was small enough that a political movement directed against them might hope for political success. Four per cent of the people in Philadelphia were 2

The criterion is the entry, "value added by manufacturing." United States, Bureau of the Census, 8th Census of the United States: ¡860. Manufactures, pp. 228, 251, 411, 522-527, 718. 3 Nearly all of the factories were owned by individual proprietors or by partnerships, rather than by corporations. These proprietors did not carry as much weight in community affairs as might have been expected from the value of their enterprises. Furthermore, only three of the city's 24 millionaires in 1857 were manufacturers, their products being patent medicines, sugar, and books. The rest of the millionaires were bankers, railroad men, merchants, land-owners, or members of families which had grown rich in commerce in earlier days. Edwin T. Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures (Philadelphia: E. Young, 1859), p. 128n., and passim. 4 New York (including Brooklyn) had a population of 1,100,000. The largest city after Philadelphia was Baltimore, with 210,000 inhabitants. Philadelphia's population was nearly twice as great as the free population of the whole state of South Carolina. 5 Fifty per cent of the inhabitants of New York, for example, were foreign-born, and the proportion was even greater in St. Louis and Chicago.

Prologue: Philadelphia

21

Negroes, a higher proportion than in any other city in the free states. 6 These Philadelphians were denied the right to vote and their children were obliged to attend segregated schools. There was no public secondary education for Negroes and the private high school established for them in 1852 had only 31 pupils four years later. Negroes who wished to ride on the city's horse-drawn streetcars had to stand on the platform outside the carriage, the seats inside being reserved exclusively for whites. Five serious antiNegro riots occurred in Philadelphia between 1834 and 1849. The presence of a considerable Negro population, and the proximity of the slave states of Delaware and Maryland, helped to shape the attitudes of many white Philadelphians toward Civil War issues. Before 1854 the city limits had enclosed only a tiny fraction of the county of Philadelphia. Within the city were concentrated some of the most well-to-do and some of the most depressed residential areas. South and northeast of the city limits, along the Delaware River, stretched poor working-class suburbs; middle and upper-class areas spread to the north and west. Much of the northern part of the county was farm land. During the twenty years before 1854 the old city of Philadelphia regularly voted for the Whig Party while the rest of the county tended to give majorities to the Democrats. In 1844 occurred two violent anti-foreign and antiCatholic riots, the worst the United States has ever seen. Mobs burned two Catholic churches and were prevented from burning a third (which had been used by Catholics as an arsenal) only by the intervention of state troops. Scores of Irish homes were burned and many people killed, espe6 Negroes comprised less than two per cent of the population of New York, and made up an even smaller part of the populations of Boston and Chicago.

22

Civil

War

Issues

in

Philadelphia

daily in the riverfront suburbs. When a movement developed to make the city limits embrace the whole county of Philadelphia, an important motive was the desire to extend the jurisdiction of the city police force over these working-class areas. The "consolidation" movement was successful in 1854, increasing the area of the city at one stroke from two to 130 square miles. Consolidated Philadelphia was governed by a bicameral council and a mayor. Practically the mayor's only power was to direct the city police force, other executive functions being largely controlled by council committees or, as in the case of fire protection, being performed by private organizations. In view of the need for protection against riots, however, the mayor's power over the police department was a crucial one. Alexander Henry's conduct of the police force from 1858 to 1865 in itself shows him to have been the best mayor Philadelphia has ever had. The mayoralty's political significance was increased by the subjection of the 600-man police force to the spoils system: if a Democrat succeeded a non-Democrat as mayor, he was expected to replace all the policemen of the previous administration with loyal members of his own party. 7 In the 1850's the spoils system also characterized appointments in the national government. The head of the custom house in Philadelphia had 200 political employees under his direction. This officer, together with the other chief federal appointees (the postmaster, who had 60 political subordinates, and the United States district attorney), could exercise a powerful influence in bringing the local party organization to support the policies of the President. Although the state administration was able to distribute 7 Dispatch, October 25, 1857; December 30, 1866; May 17, 1868. North American. May 28, June 2, 1856. All newspapers cited were published in Philadelphia, unless otherwise indicated.

Prologue:

Philadelphia

23

a few political plums to Philadelphia politicians, the other main focus of party power (besides the police department and the federal officers) was in the elective county offices. The county district attorneyship in particular was extremely important, and it was there that William Mann, the most powerful ward politician in the non-Democratic party, installed himself from 1856 to 1868. Mann could not, however, have been described as the "boss" of the city— political power was so widely diffused among ward politicians, "respectable" political leaders, newspaper editors, business and professional men, and the general public that no such thing as a boss existed in Philadelphia at that time. With so much as introduction to the local scene, we turn forthwith to national political issues.

PART I

Prewar Issues

1. Party Views in 1856

ANTI-NEGRO IMPULSES,

FEAR OF SECESSION,

DETERMINA-

tion to assert the rights of Northern white men, and antiCatholic nativism were respectively the dominant motives of Philadelphia's four major political groups in 1856. The candidates in the presidential election that year were 'James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian supported by both the Democrats and an important group of former Whigs; John Fremont, an ex-Democrat running on the newly organized Republican ticket; and Millard Fillmore, a former Whig nominated by the "American" Party. The Democratic Party journal in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvanian, asserted that Negroes were so dangerous that slavery was needed as a form of race control. To free the Negroes would jeopardize the peace, safety, and prosperity of Southern whites; a war of races would inevitably break out, disastrous to the inferior Negroes. "Which is to be preferred . . . ," the editor continued, "freedom, followed by speedy extermination—or mild slavery, accompanied with health and happiness?" 1 In contrast to the Pennsylvanian some Philadelphia 1

Pennsylvanian,

January 29, 1856.

27

28

Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

Democrats (such as State Chairman John Forney) opposed slavery, while many other were noncommittal, but party leaders were united in playing on voters' fear and hatred of Negroes. Although strong, open anti-Negro sentiment was very widespread among white Philadelphians in the 1850's, Democrats distinguished themselves by employing this sentiment as a major political tool. At mass meetings they carried banners on which "negroes were portrayed, stewed, fried, or roasted." "If free niggers are so elevated by the mere nomination of Fremont," the Pennsylvanian exclaimed, "their overbearing insolence would be insufferable, if there was any probability of his being elected. White people would hardly be allowed to trespass upon the sidewalk, but would be jostled into the street by these odoriferous Republicans." 2 Party leaders concentrated their heaviest fire upon abolitionism, which they coupled with Republicanism to prove the danger of a Republican victory. Although several of the founders of Philadelphia's Republican Party were abolitionists and most of the others were radical antislavery partisans, the party had fallen into more conservative hands by the time of the 1856 presidential campaign. 3 While abolitionists worked to abolish slavery in the Southern states, the Republican platform implied that the national government had no constitutional right so to act; 4 instead, 2 Dispatch, September 21, 1856; Pennsylvanian, October 11, 1856. The Democratic party appealed both to men in the highest social class, who felt sympathy for people of their own kind in the South (cf. text, pp. 109, 158), and to members of the most socially inferior class of whites, whose pride might be stimulated by the kind of sentiment expressed here. 3 Republican leadership is characterized in text, pp. 33-36, 41. Neither the state chairman in the 1856 campaign nor the main fund-raiser, Henry Carey, was an abolitionist or a radical antislavery man. 4 The Tenth Amendment forbade the national government to exercise power not delegated by the Constitution. No power was granted to

Party Views in 1856

29

the party aimed at abolishing slavery in the territories. The most important abolitionists favored breaking up the Union in order to free the North from any responsibility for slavery, but most Republicans were vigorous unionists. 5 A Democratic mass meeting in Philadelphia nevertheless adopted resolutions declaring that the Republican Party was controlled by abolitionists trying to overthrow the Union of the states. The Pennsylvanian featured abolitionism and abolitionist disunionism as the greatest issues of the election. It was politically expedient for Democrats to exaggerate the amount of extremism in the competing party, but the anti-abolitionist crusade clearly had other roots as well. Anti-Negro feeling and the passionate hatred of a certain type of reformer, which recurs occasionally in American experience, contributed to the Democrats' aversion. The term, "agitators," as applied to the abolitionists, testified to the fear of disrupting the racial order. The reformers, who were regarded as "sticking their noses into other people's business," provoked the antagonism of people who, though sensing that all was not well regarding slavery, preferred not to be reminded of the difficult problem. The abolitionists' shrill tone fed these sources of hostility, as did the lack of political sense which led their leaders to advocate disunion. 6 An incident of the 1856 campaign shows how even one abolish slavery in the states. During the 1861 secession crisis Philadelphia's anti-Democratic congressmen all supported a constitutional amendment, which received the required two-thirds majority in Congress, spelling out the understanding that the government had no authority over slavery in the states. The Constitution did, however, authorize Congress to "make all needful rules and regulations" for the territories, and to exercise exclusive legislation over the District of Columbia. 5 Abolitionists' conceptions of the differences between themselves and Republicans appear in text, p. 51. «Cf. text, pp. 51, 85-86.

30

Civil War Issues in

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of the most anti-Southern of Philadelphia's Democrats deliberately exaggerated the influence of abolitionists in order to discredit the Republican Party. A Washington slaveowner suggested to J o h n Forney that a Republican President might abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of Congress. Such an idea had never occurred to Forney, but he listened with delight. "I got this great thought f r o m a large property holder," Forney explained to B u c h a n a n . A n editorial based on this idea, he continued, would "arouse intense feeling in the adjacent states, besides being a good document to alarm conservative m e n in the North. You can hardly imagine how powerfully it can be elaborated." T h e resulting editorial was noteworthy for its praise of Southern devotion to the Constitution: Elect John C. Fremont [Forney wrote] and what will be the position of his administration? Every department of the Government will be filled with Abolitionists; the District of Columbia will become the head-quarters of all the projects and projectors of disunionism; Fanatics from England, and New England, will be encouraged to go there and reside; the slaves in the adjoining States will be excited to revolt; the conservative sentiment in the North will have perished in the vain struggle to protect the Constitution against its foes, and there will be no spot upon which devotion to that instrument can place its fulcrum, save among the people of the South, who will be assailed at their hearths and their homes, and made desperate by the awful combination against their interests and their lives. . . . Without the action of Congress, the government would be turned into a despotism by which sectionalism might be carried forward at the point of the bayonet. How long could the Union survive under the circumstances? Its days would be numbered. 7 7

F o r n e y to B u c h a n a n , July 7, [1856], Buchanan MSS, Historical Society of P e n n s y l v a n i a (hereafter cited as " H S P " ) . Pennsylvanian, July 12, 1856. (Italics appear in the original.)

Party Views in 1856

31

Forney was not the only Philadelphia Democrat who, by implying that responsibility for disunion lay wholly with the Republicans, seemed to promise acquiescence in Southern secession. The Pennsylvanian stated with emphasis that Fremont's "election must of necessity degrade the South, if not compel it to take arms to defend its own hearthstones from unprovoked aggression and spoliation." Democratic politicians in Philadelphia arranged for Southerners, some of whom avowed that a Republican victory would be the signal for secession, to be the featured speakers at an important election rally in 1856. Local leaders consistently refrained from expressing intent to resist secession. Democratic politicians valued the Union so highly that the need to save it was one of their chief rallying points against the Republicans; yet they valued it not so highly as to cause them to jeopardize their alliance with Southern Democrats by discountenancing disunionist talk from that quarter. 8 Most former Whigs supported the American or the Republican parties in 1856, but some joined their ancient political opponents instead. A few of these "Whig-Democrats" (such as William Reed, future Minister to China) permanently entered the Democratic P a r t y ; 9 most, however, deserted within a few years. Generally, they opposed 8 Pennsylvanian, August 26, 1856. (Italics appear in the original editorial.) September 18, 1856. Bulletin, October 6, 1856. A Democratic Congressman from Philadelphia, Thomas Florence, implied in April, 1860, that Southerners might need to secede to preserve their constitutional rights; his views were almost ccrtainly the same in 1856. Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess., Appendix, 229. Other illustrations of Democratic leaders' acquiescence in secessionism appear in text, pp. 7 8 - 7 9 , 8 4 - 8 5 , 87, 102, 104, 108-109, 121-122. 9 Other permanent converts included former Mayor Peter McCall; the President of the Select Council, George Wharton; and Samuel Randall, later Speaker of the national House of Representatives. The views of these atypical Whig-Democrats are portrayed in text, pp. 109, 118, 153, 157-158, 160.

32

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

the Democrats' territorial slavery policy,10 yet voted for Buchanan to preserve social order in the South and t o ssafeguard the Union. They tended not to be "racist" in the sense of stridently appealing to race hatreds, but wvere "racialist" in that they asserted the inherited inferiorityy of the Negro race. Though these men did not positively faavor slave institutions, their racialist views, together with tbheir fear of disorder, made them accept slavery because tthey feared any alternative. Congressman Job Tyson, a prominent Whig-Democirat, thought Negroes specially adapted to Southern heat ibut subject to deterioration in body and mind when they mowed northwards. Slaves really were not overworked, underffed, ill-clad, or unpreached to, he said. Deplorable as slawery might be, it had elevated the naturally inferior Negroes a n d had become intertwined with the habits, interests, soccial feeling, and religious responsibilities of the Southern whittes. Slaveowners needed security if they were to improve the condition of their slaves. The typical Whig-Democrats' views on Union were 'derived from Washington's Farewell Address. As another Whig-Democratic leader paraphrased Washington's views, the Union must be perpetuated if republican freedom was to be preserved, for freedom flourished only where there was military security, and security depended on holding the Union together. If the Southern states should secede, the Philadelphian Eli Price continued, pursuit of fugitive slaves and creation of a line of fortifications and custom houses between North and South would inevitably excite conflict. The North would surely use force to re-establish the Union and disastrous conflicts would ensue, after which the fragments of the Union would seek peace and tranquility under a military despotism. To avoid provoking this chain of 10

The terms of this policy are stated in text, pp. 62-64, 67-68.

Party

Views

in

1856

33

events, Northerners should repudiate the Republican Party, led as it was by dangerously impulsive men. 11 Profound antislavery impulses, in fact, drove most of the originators of the Republican Party in Philadelphia. Three of the city's fourteen delegates to the party's national convention were abolitionists and four others were radical antislavery men. The resolutions of a Republican meeting in early 1856 favored not only prohibition of slavery in the territories but also repeal of the fugitive slave law and use of the whole power of the government, within constitutional limits, against slavery. The early Republicans, however, were only a tiny minority in Philadelphia, with practically no support from either the city's professional politicians or its voters. The first Republican candidate for mayor, William Thomas, attracted less than one per cent of the total vote in May, 1856. Not until after the assault on Senator Charles Sumner and the outbreak of renewed border warfare in Kansas did any important local politicians regard the slavery issue as vital enough, and the prospects of the national Republican Party as good enough, to tempt them to join this organization. As soon as they did so, the local party's antislavery position was moderated. A mass meeting in August resolved that the election issue was not repeal of the fugitive slave law, nor abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, nor abolition of slavery in the states where it existed under the Constitution; the sole issue was declared to be prevention of the spread of slavery to the territories. The Republican politicians felt that they must not only modify the party's platform, but also disprove the Democratic accusation that they sympathized with Negroes. One 11 Globe, 34 Cong., 1 sess., 1628; 34 Cong., 3 sess., Appendix, 321326. [Eli K. Price], An Appeal for the Union (pamphlet, 1856: H S P ) .

34

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

way of doing this was to turn anti-Negro sentiment against the Democrats themselves. William Kelley, the best-known Republican spokesman, charged that the South Carolina Democrat, Preston Brooks, "regards negro slavery as the only element in this contest. Think of it, my fellow-citizens, you who earn your bread by the sweat of your brow; think of it, sons of mechanics, laboring men, niggerism is the only element in this contest, says Mr. Brooks! But there is another party in the contest—white laboring men—the Anglo-Saxon, and the whole Caucasian race—working with its own hands. D o you believe the colored race a superior race to that to which we belong? No, you do not. Do you believe they are more enterprising, more educated, more capable of exertion? No, you do not." 12 When Kelley attacked slavery, he was careful to do so in terms which would not offend the anti-Negro sentiments of white workingmen. His text was a sentence from a proslavery speech, recently delivered in Philadelphia by a Southern Democrat. "There is," Kelley quoted the Southerner as saying, "a difference of opinion in regard to the question whether it is better for capital to own its labor or to hire it." He went on to ask: Do you think it would be better that the capitalist who employs you should own you? . . . Why, you poor son of Ireland, did you know, when you were flying from the oppression of that land, that you were coming to one in which you might get a benevolent master to own you? You German, who have roamed at least personally free on the banks of the Rhine, did you think that on the banks of our Southern rivers there were men ready to protect you from the ills of life by buying you for five hundred or seven hundred dollars, and owning you and your posterity? They think it a great deal better that capital should own labor than hire it! Pray, will you not go and sell yourselves, my fellow-citizens? [Laughter and applause], 12 Bulletin,

October 10, 1856.

Party Views in

1856

35

Only after imaginatively describing slavery in terms of the lives of white men did Kelley feel free to speak of Negro slaves. He then tried to appeal to the human sympathies of his audience by describing the separations of families by slave sale and by quoting Benjamin Franklin's prayer for mercy and justice to the distressed race. Kelley could make persuasive antislavery speeches, yet also use anti-Negro rhetoric, because his primary motive was antipathy to Southern political leaders, not friendliness to Negroes. 13 Like many other former Democrats, Kelley attacked slavery more vehemently than did most of the conservative former Whigs, who made up the great majority of the new party.14 These Whig-Republicans, such as William Meredith, a former Secretary of the Treasury; Henry Carey, a noted economist; and Morton McMichael, editor' of Philadelphia's most substantial newspaper, the North American, resisted "Southern aggressions," but also decried "Northern fanaticism." Slavery itself did not threaten their interests and the moral force of antislavery sentiment would not have sufficed to make them support an antislavery party. Extravagant actions of Southerners in defense of slavery, however, such as the intrusion into Kansas of proslavery forces from Missouri and the assault on Senator Sumner, stirred these conservatives as slavery itself never could have done. McMichael, chairman of a meeting to 1 3 William Kelley, An Address . . . October 3rd. 1856 (pamphlet: H S P ) , p. 8. Compare text, p. 37. Contrast also his speech, mentioned on p. 169, with that quoted on p. 175. Kelley, who served an apprenticeship in his youth, was the sort of anti-Southern political leader who identified with Northern workingmen against Southern "slave aristocrats." Compare the later views of Philadelphia's other famous Democrat who turned Republican, John Forney, p. 148. 1 4 Democratic and formerly-Democratic leaders were probably in general more vehement than Whigs; furthermore, those few Democrats who felt strongly enough to break from their party tended naturally to be more emphatic than men who had not passed through such an experience.

36

Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

protest Representative Brooks's caning of Sumner, discussed free men's right to free speech, not the wrongs of slaves. Protection of political rights of Northern settlers in Kansas concerned the North American more than whether or not slavery ultimately was established in the territory.15 When Whig-Republicans turned to the institution which lay behind Southerners' political behavior, they expressed a certain understanding for the slaveowners, sometimes rooted in a belief in the natural inferiority of Negroes. The great majority of Southerners were humane, declared the North American: "masters and slaves are personally attached to each other. It is not that men are cruel, but the circumstances of slavery, which men cannot control, are barbarous, and must be." Sidney Fisher, a gentleman of leisure who published essays in the North American, held slavery to be an evil, destined to eventual death, but wrote that at present the inferiority of the Negroes and their fitness for servitude made slavery necessary in the South.16 What Whig-Republicans wanted was not abolition of slavery but a change in the spirit of the national administration. Opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories gave a focus to this wish. To effect the desired change, Whig-Republican leaders encouraged Northerners to claim political power in some proportion to the North's social and economic preponderance. Sidney Fisher, for example, tried to stir Northerners to a sense of their rights and their strength by attacking any Southern claim to equality of power in administering the government. A Sumner protest meeting warned the South not to underestimate North American, June 7, May 31, April 28, 1856. Ibid., June 5, 1856. [Sidney Fisher], "Kanzas and the Constitution," North American, July 31, 1856. Fisher's essay, with its racialist views, was circulated all over the country as Republican propaganda, 100,000 pamphlet copies being printed. 16

Party

Views in 1856

37

Northern strength, and implied that the North would use force to prevent secession. 17 In urging the North to assume a strong posture, Republicans needed to consider the possibility of resistance. Kelley treated the matter summarily: if Southern disunionists should attempt to prevent the inauguration of a Republican president, he averred, "the free laboring men of the North will drive them and their slaves [author's italics] into the Gulf of Mexico, or down into Mexico itself." 18 Underlying this facile talk was the conviction that the South would not secede, because secession was not in its interest. Some Republicans, for example, believed slaveowners needed the Union to guarantee Northern assistance in the event of a serious slave insurrection. Numerous Philadelphians of all parties supposed that Negroes would revolt if not firmly restrained. A reflection of Southern alarms, this belief seemed to be substantiated by events such as the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia (1831) in which 55 whites had been killed, and by the bloody rebellion in Santo Domingo (i.e., Haiti), near the end of the eighteenth century. People did not, however, realize the great differences between the Caribbean island and the American South. 19 Fear of insurrection was mainly the apprehension of the whites living in a system which dis17

Ibid. North American, June 7, 1856. Kelley, op. cit., p. 4. White rule was much stronger in the South than in Santo Domingo since the proportion of whites to Negroes was much greater, and the slave population less concentrated. The Southern ruling class was less divided than that of Santo Domingo; mulattoes, for example, were not an influential class. Self-rule by local whites was firmly established in the South, but conditions in Santo Domingo had been unstable as the result of the movement against French rule. Southern slaves, on the whole, were less badly treated. Compare George Bundy Smith, "The Anti-Slavery Movement in the French West Indies, 1789-1848" (Senior thesis: Yale University, 1959), passim. 18

19

38

Civil

War

Issues

in

Philadelphia

couraged frankness between members of the two races and left the whites ignorant of the thinking of Negroes. Only halfway through the Civil War did it become clear that the expectation was mistaken. As has been shown, some Democrats used this apprehension to justify slavery; Republicans sometimes used it to demonstrate that the South could not afford to secede. "As to the threats of disunion and separation," declared the North American, "they are simply nonsense. The South cannot exist without the Union. We are now the forced custodians of her cherished institution; and as long as we are compelled to defend the southern masters . . . against their own slaves . . . we must keep our unruly wards in as convenient limits as possible." 20 Republicans supposed, furthermore, that Southerners understood how the Union imposed powerful constraints upon Northern unrest about slavery. Should the South try to secede, these constraints would be swept away and the North might really try to effect an abolitionist program. Secession clearly was not in the South's interest, argued Fisher: "whilst the Constitution lasts . . . party arrangements, commercial interests, family ties, easy intercourse, above all, love for the Union and a sense of its benefits, combine to make the relations of North and South safe for the South and a blessing to both. But destroy the Union and the Constitution, then Northern strength becomes at once the enemy of southern weakness." Southerners, realizing that the North would not peacefully acquiesce in secession ^North American, August 11, 1856. This seemingly obscure phraseology, "our unruly wards," did not puzzle the North American's readers. So deeply did they believe in the possibility of slave rebellion that they understood "our unruly wards" to refer to the slaveowners—wards in the sense of being dependent on Northerners for assistance against a major insurrection.

Party

Views in 1856

39

and that the South was not strong enough to win a war, would not try to secede in the first place. 21 Convinced that disunion was not in the South's interest, Republicans little attended whether Southerners might act contrary to this supposed interest. Instead, a vast antislavery sentiment was presumed to exist among a class of Southern whites conscious of oppression by the slave owners. Because Democratic alarmists, for party purposes, often stressed the prevalence of disunionism, Republicans undervalued the evidence.22 Believing that Fremont's victory would be peaceably accepted, party leaders predicted that this victory would be followed by a reduction of sectional discord. Closing the territories to slavery would cause slave prices to fall so that eventually the Southern states would dispose of the institution in their own manner. A Democratic victory, on the other hand, would cause an increase of Southern demands and thus an exacerbation of sectional discord. Although Republicans were mistaken about which Southern demands would be put forward between 1856 and 1860, their estimate of the general effect of a Democratic victory was accurate. 23 More popular in Philadelphia than the Republicans was a short-lived anti-Democratic group known as the American Party. This organization advocated increasing the length of time before an immigrant could become a naturalized citizen, criticized the Democratic administration for appointment of foreign-born politicians to high posts, and 21 Fisher, op. cit. Edwin T. Freedley, The Issue, and Its Consequences (pamphlet, 1856: H S P ) , pp. 8-9. 22 Freedley, op. cit., p. 15. North American, November 3, September 20, May 31, 1856. 23 Freedley, op. cit., pp. 17-18, 14-15.

40

Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

favored the continuation of readings from the Protestant Bible as part of public school exercises. An American Party appeal was phrased in the following terms: For For For For

your your your your

Country's sake! Children's sake! Open Bible's sake! Protestantism's sake!

I call on you to vote for Millard Fillmore. An American Party speaker declared, "The foreigners have only a secondary right to vote and their place is, if they can get in, after the Americans have all voted [Loud applause], . . . Americans shall rule America! [Deafening applause]." 24 An incident of the presidential campaign suggests the tenor of political conflict. Fire companies were privately organized and were often associated with a political party. One day in October, members of both Democratic and American fire companies traveled to Baltimore where they participated in violent election riots. The visit was repaid a few days later; a false fire-alarm sounded about midnight and members of the American fire companies ran along South Street, throwing stones at the houses and crying, "Come out you damned Irish." In the ensuing riot an American fireman killed someone with a pistol and 34 people, mostly firemen, were arrested by members of Philadelphia's Democratic police force. American politicians in Philadelphia were originally contentedly silent about slavery, for many of their constituents — w h o were anti-Negro as well as anti-Irish—opposed any Inquirer, November 3, October 10, 1856.

Party Views in 1856

41

sort of benevolence toward Negroes. Jacob Broom, one of the two local American Party members elected to Congress in 1854, explained how the Democrats tried to provoke his party into breaking its silence. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, he said, was an attempt by Southern Democrats to halt the American Party's rapid growth in the South. The Democratic stratagem was to introduce a measure which Northern Americans would denounce, then to quote these denunciations in the South to discredit Americans there. To defeat this iniquitous Democratic scheme, Broom believed, Northern Americans must concentrate on the nativist issue and avoid offending Southerners on slavery. The Congressman therefore voted consistently with Southerners and Democrats on the territorial slavery question. 25 Although at least two-thirds of the Philadelphia "KnowNothing" lodges supported a pro-Southern policy in February 1856, increasing numbers of American politicians refused to cooperate. William Millward, the second American congressman, originally supported a pro-Southern policy but soon voted with the Republicans. In mid-1856 a leading Fillmore supporter, deserting the American candidate, was rewarded with the position of Republican state chairman. The two anti-Democratic parties successfully fused their tickets for the state and local election in October. Democrats nevertheless won this election by a narrow margin, probably as the result of thousands of illegal votes cast by unnaturalized aliens supplied with naturalization certificates forged by Democratic politicians. 26 This result 25 Ledger, October 28, 1856. Daily News, April 2, 1857. Globe, 34 Cong., 1 sess., 150, 153-154, 692, 1540-1541, 1628. North American, January 29, 1856. 28 Democrats in a position to know admitted that fraudulent naturalization certificates had been circulated. Joseph Baker to Buchanan, June 27, July 4, 1857; June 1, 1860, Buchanan MSS. H. M. Phillips to Manton Marble, September 30, 1864, Marble MSS, Library of Congress.

42

Civil

War Issues

in

Philadelphia

made Fremont's chance of winning Pennsylvania in November so small that the American state chairman, John Sanderson, refused to coalesce with the Republicans for the presidential election. Congressman Millward, however, led rebellious Americans to support a joint ticket, with the result that Philadelphians had four choices in November. They could vote for the Democrats, for Sanderson's "straight" Fillmore ticket, for a fusion ticket with Fillmore's name at the top of the ballot (which in effect was a vote for Fremont, 27 though most voters probably didn't clearly understand this), or for a fusion ticket with Fremont's name at the head of the ballot. The November election confirmed all the other evidence of the weakness of the antislavery movement in Philadelphia. About 53 per cent of the legal voters balloted for the party which had made anti-abolitionist and anti-Negro appeals the center of its campaign. Another 36 per cent preferred Fillmore to Fremont. (Half of these, however, voted for the "Fillmore-fusion ticket" and thus suggested that they would support a Republican instead of a Democrat if these were the only two choices.) Fremont received only 11 per cent of the votes under his own name. 28 Several D e m o c r a t i c politicians were convicted of perpetrating frauds. Dispatch, July 19, N o v e m b e r 29, 1857. A l e x a n d e r K. M c C l u r e , Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : J o h n C . Winston, 1905), I, 258. F r o m these sources I have very roughly estimated the n u m b e r of f r a u d u l e n t votes at 3000. W h e n these are subtracted, D e m o c r a t s received 51 per cent of the legal votes in Philadelphia. In upstate Pennsylvania they obtained less t h a n half, and probably would have lost the state without Philadelphia's illegal ballots. 27 Since the electors o n b o t h fusion tickets were pledged to cast their ballots for whichever candidate could get a m a j o r i t y of electoral votes in the whole country, and since Fillmore had no chance of winning, a vote for the fusion ticket headed by Fillmore's n a m e was effectually a ballot for F r e m o n t . 28 Again, I have very roughly estimated the n u m b e r of f r a u d u l e n t D e m o c r a t i c votes at 3000. Cf. note 26.

Party Views in 1856

43

Though Buchanan did not secure a popular majority in the country as a whole, he became President by winning the electoral votes of practically all of the slave states, as well as of a few free ones. We conclude the survey of opinion in 1856 by showing the wide variety of Philadelphia newspapers, and by introducing the two which had, respectively, the largest daily and the largest Sunday circulations. Most local papers were strictly identified with some party which they seldom criticized; several of the publications, indeed, survived only by party patronage. The News, edited by John Sanderson, naturally supported Sanderson's "straight" Fillmore ticket; the Bulletin and the Sun backed the Fillmore-fusion ticket; the Times was bought by Republican politicians to support their party; 2 0 and the Pennsylvanian and the Argus were organs of the Democratic Party. The German Democrat, Philadelphia's only foreign language daily, also endorsed the Democrats. Among the papers which appealed to former Whigs, various shades of opinion were evident. As shown above, the North American represented a conservative element among the supporters of Fremont. The Evening Journal— so conservative that it openly opposed universal white male suffrage—was founded by former employees of the North American to lead Whig voters into the Democratic Party. The Inquirer, while endorsing Fillmore, never expressed a preference between the straight and fusion tickets. Two important publications professed to be independent. The Public Ledger, a penny paper with the largest circula29

The collapse of the Times in 1857 was a further sign of the weakness of the antislavery movement. Not until 1867 was a dailv paper established in Philadelphia that showed great concern for Negroes, and it died in 1873.

44

Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

tion in Philadelphia, often aimed its editorials at calming down political passions. By suggestion rather than explicit instruction, it directed its readers to a Democratic position less pro-Southern than that of the Pennsylvanian. A degree of balance was thus restored to the city's daily press, otherwise weighted against the Democratic Party. The other professedly independent newspaper, the Sunday Dispatch (which had the largest circulation of any of the city's half-dozen Sunday papers), was a mixture of mendacious anti-Democratic propaganda; independent, courageous, and iconoclastic crusading; scandal; and sentimental fiction. This paper vehemently opposed the Democratic slavery policy but was not uncritical of Republicans—the nomination of Fremont, in particular, struck the editor as a piece of stupidity.30 "The chains which the Missouri border ruffians and the power of the South are endeavoring to place round the freemen of Kansas," the editor had predicted, "will be doubly riveted by this most inexpedient and foolish nomination. The slave interests will triumph; the vacillating, imbecile, wicked administration of Franklin Pierce, will be sustained by the complete triumph of the odious principles" laid down in the 1856 Democratic platform. 31 The Dispatch occasionally showed an unusual balance in reporting about Negroes. These reports customarily were written in the sardonic, contemptuous tone used by all Philadelphia papers when referring to Negroes, and the editor wrote once that "it would be beneficial for this country if the whole black population could be removed 30 Fremont seemed to lack the personal qualities and the political experience for the Presidency, while his Democratic past and the rumor of his having had a connection to the Catholic church damaged him among American Party sympathizers. 31 Dispatch, June 22, 1856.

Party

Views

in 1856

45

from the soil to some other clime." In the same article, however, the writer mentioned the "ungracious restraints" imposed on Northern Negroes; once he even gave a word of praise to some of the activities of one of Philadelphia's abolitionist societies. 32 According to the popular understanding of the Civil War era, opposition to slavery characterized the North. In the next chapter we shall find that, in fact, a number of Philadelphians were deeply concerned for Negroes. And we have already encountered the resistance to Southern political behavior, together with the sense of the wrongness of slavery, which brought to the antislavery movement men who had no particular sympathy for Negroes. Furthermore, there were thousands of Philadelphians who would vote Republican instead of Democratic, if no third choice were available. Nevertheless, what catches our attention in 1856 is not the potential strength of the antislavery movement, but all the contrary indications. We wonder at the openness and central importance of the anti-Negro appeal, at the bitterness of opposition to the abolitionist movement, at the degree to which Democratic leaders followed a pro-Southern course, and at the extent to which anti-Negro forces existed within the American Party. We are impressed by the defection of certain leading Whigs to the Democratic Party, and by the smallness of support for Fremont even among non-Democratic voters. Among the Republicans, finally, we are surprised at the degree to which the movement was impelled by resistance to Southern political behavior, rather than by sympathy for Negroes. To some extent these facts may be explained by pecu32 Ibid., May 25, June 8, 1856.

46

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

liarities of Philadelphia's situation. The city concentrated within its limits an unusually large proportion both of those socially lower-class whites susceptible to demagogic appeals like that quoted on page 28, and of those upper-class whites who sympathized with their Southern compeers. Trade and family connections with the South were strong, and Negroes comprised a comparatively large fraction of the local population. We should not, however, overemphasize Philadelphia's distinctiveness. Anti-Negro Democrats like President Buchanan and his Attorney-General, Jeremiah Black, were residents of central and southern Pennsylvania, and the American Party was strong in these same parts of the state. The anti-Negro temper, indeed, was probably powerful in the wide strip of the North between the slave states and the region of New England influence, and we must seek causes common to the whole area. The most important factors may have been proximity to a considerable Negro population, association with anti-Negro Southern whites, and the weakness (except among Quakers, who no longer formed a large proportion of the population) of the particular kind of Protestant ethic which so encouraged humanitarian idealism in the region of New England influence. Contact with areas where large numbers of Negroes lived tended to produce anti-Negro feelings, for the Negroes on the average were even less civilized than their white neighbors. This lower average level produced contempt for the Negroes, and anxiety among many whites for the preservation of whatever civilization they might—perhaps through hard struggle—have attained to. Furthermore, underlying the individualistic, socially competitive, egalitarian society of America was an unspoken assumption

Party Views in 1856

47

that men who claimed the rights of this society were worthy to claim them, because on the average, they met certain minimum standards of civilization. Since many Negroes did not meet these standards, a conviction grew that Negroes did not deserve to share the rights. The intent of white men to deny the rights then increased their antagonistic and contemptuous feelings. Rivalry over jobs, living space, and status further developed the antagonism of those whites who already, for other reasons, felt hard-pressed in the social struggle. Bad conscience, and ignorance of how Negroes were thinking, made white men fearful, while association with Southern whites frequently increased antiNegro feeling. Whatever the validity of the explanation, the fact is clear: strong, widespread anti-Negro sentiment was the decisive factor making Philadelphia's political atmosphere so different from that popularly supposed to have characterized the North during the Civil War era. From general attitudes we turn now to specific issues. The first of these—the fugitive slave question—was connected with the controversy over the presence in the North of a small group dedicated to the overthrow of slavery.

2. Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Question

THE MOST STRIKING F E A T U R E OF AMERICAN

POLITICS IN

the 1850's was the anti-abolitionist outcry of proslavery Southerners and Northern Democrats. T o Southerners abolitionists were dangerous incendiaries whose doings furnished the most persuasive grounds for secession; Democrats, in both North and South, felt repugnance for the movement, but at the same time exaggerated its magnitude as the most effective means of discrediting non-Democratic parties. T o discover what kind of fire lay behind this smoke, so far as Philadelphia was concerned, we shall examine legal and illegal activities of local abolitionists. The latter subject leads to analysis of the fugitive slave question. Philadelphia's abolitionists were divided between two separate organizations, the "Abolition Society" and the "Anti-Slavery Society." The former, founded in 1775, abandoned public conventions in the 1840's and could muster no more than 18 persons for a membership meeting during the secession crisis. Most of its $ 2 0 0 0 annual budget during the 1850's was used to maintain a school for, and otherwise to benefit, local Negroes. The Society's directors, 48

Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Question

49

generally Quakers, were with one exception virtually unknown to most Philadelphians. 1 By far the better known organization was the AntiSlavery Society. The formation of this association in 1834 had provoked a series of riots during which houses and other property of Negroes were destroyed, abolitionist publications thrown into the river, and the abolitionists' new meeting hall burned. The Pennsylvania Society may possibly have been influential during the 1840's, but its strength was declining during the succeeding decade. The local abolitionist newspaper had to be suspended in 1854 and the Society's annual expenditures declined one-third from 1856 to 1858. 2 After 1854 Pennsylvania abolitionists subscribed to the (New York) National Anti-Slavery Standard, but the number of such subscribers had fallen 25 per cent by the beginning of 1857. Perhaps 0.3 per cent of the state's white adults in 1857 were abolitionists in the strict sense of the word. 3 The leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society were whites of unorthodox religious affiliation, or else Negroes. Lucretia Mott, a nationally known abolitionist, and her husband 1

The exception was Passmore Williamson, whose renown sprang from the slave case described in text, pp. 51-52. 2 Expenditures were $6,800 (Oct. 1, 1855—Sept. 30, 1856); $5,700 (Oct. 1, 1856—Sept. 30, 1857); and $4,600 (Oct. 1, 1857—Sept. 30, 1858). Since the Panic of 1857 struck Philadelphia only on September 25, 1857, the decline in the Society's expenditures was probably not mainly attributable to it. 3 At the beginning of 1857, 750 Pennsylvanians paid for the Standard, while about 1000 more received it as non-paying "subscribers." I have guessed that there may have been two abolitionist readers of each paper and that in addition there may have been a few hundred abolitionists who did not read it. Pennsylvania's adult white population in 1860 was 1,350,000. The Anti-Slavery Society's decline was probably caused by growing consciousness of abolitionism's serious political implications, and by a sense that slavery's existence did not in itself affect Northern interests sufficiently to justify the risk of violent Southern reactions.

50

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

James, President of the Pennsylvania Society, were Quakers, as was one of the two vice-presidents. The other vice-president was Robert Purvis, a white-skinned Negro,4 and the clerk was William Still, whose father had been a slave in Maryland. The best known minister associated with the Society was William Furness, a Massachusetts Unitarian who came to Philadelphia in 1825. The most active organizer, James McKim, had been a Presbyterian minister in central Pennsylvania before breaking with his denomination during the 1830's. The state Society's legal activities included conventions, which drew a maximum attendance of 300 convinced abolitionists; the "anti-slavery fair," which attracted a wider public and raised about $1500 annually; and various types of public lectures. Speakers such as the Boston minister, Theodore Parker, delivered a series of seven lectures at the Anti-Slavery Hall each winter. Abolitionists attracted sustained attention in Philadelphia, however, only in a separate lecture series sponsored by the "People's Literary Institute." 5 Held in a meeting place much larger than the Anti-Slavery Hall, this series dealt with other topics as well as slavery, and was dissociated in the public mind from the unpopular Society.6 Scheduled appearances of the New York abolitionist, George W. Curtis, before the Institute during the crises of 1859 and 1860, therefore, excited 4 Purvis was the grandson of a South Carolina slave woman. His grandfather was German-Jewish and both other grandparents were English. Born free in Charleston, he was at an early age sent north where he acquired education and wealth. 5 I have no evidence to prove influence by abolitionists upon management of this institute. The North American, December 14, 1860, however, implied that it was not really a literary society. 6 Democratic hostility toward abolitionism is shown in text, pp. 2 8 30, 49, 59, 77, 79, 8 6 - 9 1 , 108-109, 133, 135-137, 139-142, 148, 157, 166-167, 171. The dislike of most non-Democrats for abolitionism is described on text pp. 35, 77, 88, 9 1 - 9 3 , 103, 134, 138. Cf. text, p. 61.

Abolitionism

and the Fugitive

Slave Question

51

much more interest than was directed toward lectures at the Anti-Slavery Hall. The peculiar views of the leading local abolitionists are suggested by their refusal to vote in presidential elections, since every President was oath-bound to enforce the Constitution's fugitive slave clause. These abolitionists, wishing to avoid responsibility for the rendition of fugitive slaves, sought to dissolve the union with slave states. The liveliest disputes at the annual conventions arose between officers, such as Vice-President Purvis, and members who dissented from the dominant disunionist view. Although some members voted in presidential elections, no officer of the Pennsylvania Society cast a ballot for Fremont nor did any contribute money to his campaign. 7 "The difference between the anti-slavery movement and the Republican Party is one of principle, and is heavenwide," declared the Society's annual report a few weeks before the 1856 presidential election: The one is opposed merely to the spread of slavery; the other is opposed to its existence. The one resists the slave system only so far forth as it seeks to extend itself into new territories; the other regards this question of extension as a mere side issue and seeks to cut up the old system by the roots. The one is pledged to respect slavery in the states; the other declares its purpose, with the help of God and good men, to overthrow and abolish slavery in the States. The one boasts that it is 'the white man's party,' and disclaims as a motive of its action, all sympathy with the negro; the other avows itself as primarily the black man's party.8 The most famous case involving local abolitionists oc7

New York National Anti-Slavery » Bulletin, October 17, 1856.

Standard,

October 16, 1858.

52

Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

curred in 1855 when a North Carolinian, intending to embark from New York for Central America, came through Pennsylvania with three slaves. In 1847 the legislature had withdrawn the right to bring slaves "in transit." A Quaker abolitionist, Passmore Williamson, accompanied by six Philadelphia Negroes, told the slaves they could claim their freedom; a fracas ensued, and the slaves escaped. The local Negroes were then arrested and two convicted of riot. Williamson's denial that the escapees had been in his custody led a Democratic judge to jail him for contempt of court. Pennsylvania's fledgling Republican Party quickly adopted the prisoner as its first candidate for state office but he received less than three per cent of the state's vote. A mass meeting of local Democrats resolved, in 1857, that Pennsylvania should renew its protection of slave property in transit and the issue was taken up again by the Pennsylvanian during the secession crisis. Republicans cited the case as evidence that Democrats sought to make slavery a national, rather than merely a Southern, institution. In addition to the foregoing activities, members of the Anti-Slavery Society were involved in the illegal "Underground Railroad." By way of "stations" in homes of sympathizers, fugitive slaves were sent northward, often to Canada where they were safe from seizure by United States authorities. One of the country's first well-organized underground railroads began in Philadelphia about 1838 with Robert Purvis as "President." Disrupted by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the organization was revived in 1852 with William Still as head of the "Acting Committee" of the so-called "Vigilance Committee." Two other Negroes served on this committee as well as one white man, Passmore Williamson. If law enforcement officers had felt it expedient to expose

Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Question

53

the underground railroad, they could easily have done so; they need only have investigated facts reported in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. This paper described in 1857 each of 47 fugitive slaves recently forwarded to Canada. 9 Names of the members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee had been published by the abolitionists, who took pleasure in openly defying the Fugitive Slave Law. Stations on the railroad were not publicly identified but were often located in obvious places—at the home of Robert Purvis, for example, or at the houses of abolitionists such as the Motts. William Furness, the well-known abolitionist minister, was the railroad's most important fund raiser, while the editor of the (Quaker) Friend? Review also gave financial assistance. Although Philadelphia's federal officers usually performed their duties faithfully when a fugitive had been located, they never tried to destroy the underground railroad itself. About 1100 fugitive slaves passed through Philadelphia from 1853 to 1860. The underground railroad was most active from 1855 to 1858, as appears in the following list.10 9

Standard, June 27, August 8, 1857. The articles, written by Still, were designed to help separated members of fugitive slave families find each other. 10 The number of fugitives was as follows: 1853-56 504 (Recorded in William Still's manuscript journal, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery MSS, HSP.) Rail 1857-60 444 (Recorded in William Still, The Underground Road [Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872], passim.) 1853-56 27 (Estimated number of fugitives not recorded in Still's journal. See CWI, 62n.) 1857-60 126 (Estimated number of fugitives not recorded in Still's published volume. See CWI, 63n.) Total 1853-60 1101 Philadelphia's underground railroad was probably more active during the 1840's than the 1850's. Robert Purvis stated in 1895 that the road through Philadelphia had carried an average of one passenger a day when he was active. A Delaware Quaker, Thomas Garrett, is said

54

Civil

War Issues

in

Philadelphia

Estimated Number of Fugitives on Philadelphia's Underground Railroad, 1 8 5 3 - 1 8 6 0 1853 58 1854 121 1855 158 194 1856 1857 269 141 1858 1859 103 1860 57 Total 1101 In 1856 half of the fugitives escaped from Maryland, onethird from Virginia, and the rest from Delaware, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina; none came from the seven states which seceded prior to Lincoln's call for troops in April, 1861. There were three main routes by which slaves reached Philadelphia. Those who lived east of the Susquehanna River were usually forwarded via an underground railroad station in Wilmington. Those who lived west of the river usually crossed the southernmost bridge at Columbia sixty miles west of Philadelphia. Occasionally slaves from North Carolina and Virginia were hidden by ship captains on boats destined northward. On March 25, 1856, for example, 22 fugitives arrived, nearly all by boat. From Philadelphia they were sent either to New York City or along a line leading through Wilkes-Barre to Syracuse, N.Y. to have helped 2100 fugitives during his many years of activity before and after 1850. The only accurate estimate of the number of fugitives in the nation as a whole appears in census returns for 1849 and 1859. Philadelphia's experience suggests that the annual national total may actually have been twice as great in the mid-1850's as the census reported for 1859.

Abolitionism

and the Fugitive

Slave Question

55

Nearly all the escapees in 1856 were under 35 years old, the great majority being in their twenties. About thirty per cent of the fugitives were women and girls. Seven mothers came bringing their children. In four cases men said that they had been separated from their wives by slave sale before escaping. The fugitives usually said that they had fled because of bad treatment, because of fear of being sold, or simply because of a desire for freedom. 1 1 The legal status of fugitive slaves was governed by a famous clause in the Constitution and by federal and state legislation. The Constitution stated that fugitive slaves from one state might not be freed by laws of other states, but "shall be delivered up on claim" of the owner. 12 The federal law of 1793 permitted claimants to apply to either federal or local courts but did not regulate recovery of fugitives in detail. It did not specify, for example, that a claimant must secure a warrant before seizing a suspected Negro, nor did it make any special provision to prevent kidnapping of free Negroes. During the country's early years enforcement of this law was left mainly to local officials. Certain justices of the peace were said to have colluded with men who kidnapped free Northern Negroes for sale in the South. 13 Thirty Philadelphia Negroes were kidnapped and sold during the mid-1820's, 14 whereupon the state legislature enacted strin11

William Still, Journal, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery MSS, HSP. The journal is the fullest surviving manuscript record of operations of any underground railroad station in the country. 12 Article IV, Section 2. ™ North American, December 8, 10, 11, 1860. 14 G. M. Stroud, A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States (Philadelphia: 1856), p. 94, cited in Russell B. Nye,

56

Civil War Issues in

Philadelphia

gent deterrents. The state law required a claimant to secure a warrant before seizing a Negro, and denied justices of the peace jurisdiction over fugitive cases. In 1842 the Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional in the well-known Prigg case. The court's ruling, based on the principle of federal supremacy over matters within federal jurisdiction, seemed to release state governments from responsibility for enforcing the fugitive slave clause. As the invalidation of the state law reopened the way for kidnapping, the legislature moved again to prevent the practice. The personal liberty law of 1847 manifested a sharpened antislavery spirit. Its provisions are worth analysis for their bearing on the theory of secession. According to secessionists (and to some non-secessionists as well), the Constitution was a contract between states, and when one group of states violated the terms other states were released from their obligations. Hence, to justify secession, one needed only prove that Northern states had violated the Constitution; the most plausible evidence appeared in the personal liberty laws.15 The Pennsylvania law of 1847 again forbade kidnapping of free Negroes. While not denying slaveholders the right to seize fugitives, the law banned "tumultuous" seizures and thus offered state officials an excuse for obstruction. Recoveries had to be made through federal courts, Fettered Freedom (East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1949), p. 209. A case of a similar attempt to kidnap a Philadelphia Negro in 1860 is described in the Ledger, April 17, 1860. 15 Secessionists emphasized the contract theory because their movement arose so largely from fear of Negroes' freedom, rather than from nationalistic sentiment such as animated the contemporary movement to unify Italy. Italians could argue simply that their nationality had a right to independence from Austrian rule. American secessionists, unable to rely mainly upon this nationalist doctrine, had to turn to a legalistic theory.

Abolitionism

and the Fugitive Slave Question

57

for state courts were denied jurisdiction. State judges, however, were authorized to inquire whether proceedings in the federal courts were legally conducted. 18 This last clause was open to legitimate criticism but had little effect, because probably no state court tried to correct federal proceedings. The law's other provisions can best be assessed in connection with the national Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This law specified that the question, whether a seized Negro was a fugitive slave, must be determined speedily by a federal judicial officer, not by a jury. Defenders of the law declared that Northern juries might fail to render fugitives, and that protracted hearings would permit mobs to obstruct justice. The law denied a seized Negro the right to testify. Since a slave was not permitted to testify in his own behalf in a Southern court, it could be argued that he ought not to be rewarded with this right for running away to the North. If the alleged fugitive was really a free Northern Negro, denial of jury trial, requirement of summary procedure, and denial of the right to testify were serious violations of personal right; but successful Philadelphia politicians of the late 1850's did not say so, for they did not care to identify themselves as advocates of Northern Negroes' rights. Since Philadelphia was the seat of a federal District Court, alleged fugitives seized anywhere in eastern Pennsylvania were brought to the city for hearing. Probably about ten such cases took place during the 1850's. The first Negro captured under the 1850 law, Adam Gibson, was given a summary hearing, adjudged a fugitive, and 16

A provision of the 1847 law, denying federal officers the use of state jails to imprison alleged fugitives, was repealed in 1852. A further clause, theoretically objectionable but practically of minor significance, abolished a slaveowner's right to sell a slave who had already escaped.

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Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

sent to the claimant in Maryland. Gibson was really a free Northerner and the claimant, finding that the Negro sent him was not the slave he had lost, permitted him to return to freedom. 1 7 In the second case the Democratic judge decided, almost certainly correctly, that the alleged fugitive was not the slave claimed, and therefore freed the Negro. 18 The third case, which occurred in 1851, seemed to defeat the purpose of the new law. Two Maryland claimants, accompanied by federal deputies, tried to seize an alleged fugitive forty miles west of Philadelphia. Negroes and a few white Quakers assembled and one of the claimants, Edward Gorsuch, was killed by a Negro, while the second claimant was badly hurt. The killer escaped to Canada on the underground railroad. About 29 Negroes and three white men were taken to Philadelphia to be tried for treason. The federal marshal, a Whig, finding that two of the Negroes were really fugitive slaves, permitted them to escape. Eventually the rest of the Negroes and whites were acquitted by the Philadephia jury. 19 This episode naturally discouraged claimants from coming north to find fugitives. James McKim, who was largely responsible for reorganizing the Vigilance Committee in 1852, boasted publicly in New York a few years later that since Gorsuch's death and the defeat of the treason trials, the Fugitive Slave Law was practically a dead letter. Nevertheless, other cases occurred prior to 1856: the Philadelphia Commissioner became known for promptness in returning fugitives to the South. 20 17

Dispatch, July 24, 1859. Still, op. cit., p. 349. Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), I, 385. The judge was the one who jailed the abolitionist, Passmore Williamson. He later upheld the proslavery position during the Lecompton controversy in Kansas. !» Still, op. cit., pp. 348-368. 20 Dispatch, June 14, 1857; January 15, 1860. 18

Abolitionism

and the Fugitive Slave Question

59

A proceeding in 1857 suggests the tenor of opinion at that time. When federal deputies seized a suspect in central Philadelphia, Negroes were intensely indignant but otherwise there was little stir in the city. The hearing was held in Independence Hall; being told that Negroes had threatened to seize the prisoner, the Commissioner excluded all members of that race except defense witnesses. Thereafter Negroes crowded the street outside, but there were only enough white spectators moderately to fill the court room. Unconvinced by attempts of defense witnesses to prove that the accused had been an indentured servant, the Commissioner remanded him to slavery. Thereupon the Democratic marshal offered $100 to help purchase the Negro's freedom if abolitionists would contribute; this was a safe offer, since everyone knew that abolitionists refused on principle to pay for a human being's freedom. A large police force was sent to the railroad station that night in case Negroes should try to free the departing prisoner, but no Negroes were to be seen. No Philadelphia newspaper commented on the case editorially except the Pennsylvanian, which criticized abolitionists' hypocritical philanthropy in refusing the marshal's offer. The law had been efficiently executed, the case attracted little attention among the white population, and the whole affair was soon forgotten. 21 There were three more proceedings before the outbreak of war. In December, 1857 an alleged fugitive was seized and quickly sent south, the case attracting practically no public attention. 2 - In April 1859, however, a new commissioner remained unconvinced of a prisoner's identity and (to the astonishment of abolitionists and Negroes) 21 Standard, January 24, 31, 1857. North American, Bulletin, Ledger, Journal, January 17-19, 1857. 22 Standard, December 26, 1857.

Pennsylvanian,

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Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

ordered him released. This man, quickly expedited northward on the underground railroad, was almost certainly a fugitive; it was the first time a Philadelphia judge had made such a release. Apparently the commissioner did not deliberately try to frustrate the fugitive slave law, but conscientiously believed the prisoner's identity insufficiently certified. 23 The final experience was in March 1860, when another captive was ordered south. A crowd of Negroes and three or four white men attempted to rescue him outside the Philadelphia court house, but Mayor Alexander Henry's police beat them off and arrested the leaders, two of whom were convicted by a local jury and given jail sentences. The prisoner was effectually returned to slavery. 24 With these cases as background it is easier to assess the effect of the personal liberty law. The Gorsuch killing had indeed discouraged recovery of fugitives. In the late 1850's, however, if a slaveowner could find his slave, he could be fairly sure of assistance from federal officers in Philadelphia. Excepting the Whig marshal in the Gorsuch case, these officers executed the law conscientiously; the single instance of a mistaken release was balanced by the previous condemnation of a free Negro. The personal liberty law had virtually no effect in denying a slaveowner's rights, since the owner had adequate recourse in the federal courts. The main trouble, from a slaveowner's point of view, was that no one broke up the underground railroad. The Democrats who held federal office during most of the 1850's were certainly not sympathetic with abolitionists. 23 Doubt as to the prisoner's identity was caused by a receipt book which seemed to indicate that he had been employed in Harrisburg long before the escape of the claimant's slave. North American, Ledger, News, April 4-9, 1859. Dispatch, April 10, 1859. L.C.M. Hare, Lucretia Molt (New York: 1937), pp. 231-232. 2* North American, Ledger, March 28-31, 1860. Dispatch, April 1, May 27, June 3, 17, 1860.

Abolitionism

and the Fugitive Slave Question

61

That they nevertheless refrained from action against the railroad indicates that the public attitude toward abolitionism was more complex than the small number of supporters would suggest. The critical section of the public in this connection was the large group, mainly non-Democrats, whose attitudes toward abolitionists were neither sympathetic nor thoroughly hostile. The members of this group participated as a matter of course in the habit of looking down on Negroes, and they were content to leave slavery alone as long as it left them alone. Many of them did, nevertheless, feel uncomfortable about slavery, and might be stirred from quiescence if proslavery men should try to jail Northerners for helping fugitives to escape. Local juries might well refuse to convict those who assisted fugitives—especially since the white abolitionist leaders tended to be socially respectable, upper-middle-class people. Thus, men who had no wish to be involved in abolitionist activities might nevertheless defend agents of the underground railroad from attack. As Democratic voters seem not to have paid the railroad much attention, there was little political advantage for Democratic leaders to gain by attacking it, while there was something to lose by stirring the latent feelings of many non-Democrats. If one day, however, abolitionists should openly sympathize with an inciter to Negro rebellion, the public response would be so antagonistic that Democratic leaders would react vehemently. Meanwhile, prior to John Brown's raid, it was the dispute over the slaves in the Western territories which most deeply affected local opinion. This important controversy will show, in its clearest form, the operation of the North-South alliance within the Democratic Party.

3. The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party

SINCE THE FUGITIVE SLAVE QUESTION WAS OF M E R E L Y OCCA-

sional interest to most Philadelphians, and perpetuation of slavery in Southern states was generally taken for granted, the territorial question was the main focus of the slavery controversy during the first years of the Buchanan administration. This issue had threatened to be so disruptive to the coalition of Northern and Southern Democrats that party leaders had earlier adopted a decentralist formula: the question of slavery (at least in certain of the territories) was to be determined by local settlers, thus sparing the government in Washington decisions embarrassing to Democratic unity. When the formula was applied to Kansas, however, it failed of its purpose, for the national government eventually had to make a controversial decision as to its meaning. The way the Democrats' intersectional alliance worked in practice was strikingly demonstrated by the reaction in Philadelphia to this decision. As introduction to the Kansas controversy we shall examine the Dred Scott decision, the election of 1857, and the complex factionalism which rent Philadelphia's Democratic Party. The factional situation will help us to see how most party leaders, forced to confront the ambiguity 62

The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party

63

of the decentralist formula, came to act as they did. We shall then assess the effect of Democratic policies in nurturing a new anti-Democratic coalition. The contest for Kansas began in 1854 with the "KansasNebraska Act," which repealed the ban on slavery prescribed by the Missouri Compromise. Although most early settlers came from free states, the proslavery party controlled the new territorial legislature as the result of 5000 Missourians' crossing the border to cast fraudulent votes.1 Two hundred settlers were killed in guerrilla warfare between partisans of the legislature, sanctioned by the Democratic national administration, and a rival government of antislavery Kansans. In March 1857, while strife continued in Kansas, the Supreme Court rendered the Dred Scott decision. Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that Negroes were not citizens of the United States and could not be citizens of any individual state unless that state's government specifically so declared; and he implied that Negroes had no rights except such as the white race might choose to grant them. The court also ruled that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature had a constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory. This ruling was based on the Fifth Amendment, which denied the federal government the power to deprive any person of his property without due process of law. Philadelphia's press was not especially critical of the decision. The largest paper, the Ledger, assented without complaint and criticized a New York journal for intemperately attacking the Court. The Daily News, an Ameri1 Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), II, 385.

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can Party paper which claimed the city's second greatest circulation, expressed pleasure that Negroes were denied citizenship. The editor disagreed with the ruling that Congress had no power over territorial slavery, but declared emphatically that everyone, including the Republicans, must submit. Thus Americans found in the decision a convenient way of attempting to discredit Republicans. Since Pennsylvania Democrats supported the KansasNebraska Act, with its assumption that a territorial legislature could permit or prohibit slavery, they found the ruling embarrassing. An anti-Negro declaration, however, would lose no votes. The state convention therefore endorsed the denial of citizenship to Negroes but avoided mentioning the other part of the decision.2 Republicans naturally protested a ruling contrary to the whole spirit of their party. The North American, for example, denied that the decision was binding, since the Court itself had declared that it lacked jurisdiction. Sidney Fisher, writing in the same newspaper, condemned the Chief Justice's description of slavery. Fisher (who thought slavery necessary in the South) felt that slaves should be protected by legal rights, but Taney's opinion treated slaves as no different from any other kind of property. This false view, Fisher believed, must make slavery odious to the civilized world. 3 A protest meeting of Philadelphia Negroes was controlled by Negro abolitionists. Citing the Court's decision as final confirmation that their race could be nothing but an alien, degraded class under the Constitution, the abolitionists urged Negroes to refuse "contemptuously" to 2

Ledger, March 10, 1857; News, March 10, May 16, 1857; Pennsylvanian, March 10, June 11, 1857. 3 North American, March 7, 10, 13, September 5, 1857. Sidney G. Fisher, Diary, April 4, 1858, HSP.

The Territorial

Question

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Party

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support the government. Despite strong opposition, the meeting adopted resolutions embodying these sentiments. 4 Although the Dred Scott decision antagonized Republicans and embarrassed many Democrats, it did not cause an immediate outburst of public discussion in Philadelphia. Several papers avoided mentioning the decision editorially and most others quickly dropped the matter. Politicians scarcely alluded to the case during the 1857 election. The decision, nevertheless, had an important implication which led to the disruption of the Democratic Party in 1860. If the right to own slaves was so absolute that it could not be infringed even by a territorial legislature, ought not this right to be protected by Congress? Was not Congress obliged to enact a territorial slave code to protect slaveholders' rights everywhere in the territories? Not even Philadelphia's Democratic leaders would have answered "Yes" in March, 1857. 5 That October an election in Pennsylvania showed how the slavery question was being treated, or ignored, on the eve of the renewed Kansas controversy. The Republican candidate for governor was none other than David Wilmot, author of the famous proviso. His opponents were William Packer, a Democrat, and Isaac Hazlehurst, a Philadelphia lawyer nominated by the American Party. A few weeks prior to the election a disastrous bank panic struck the city, and the rapid spread of unemployment made propertied men fear rioting during the winter. Public attention focused on the banks (theoretically liable to lose their charters as penalty for suspending specie payments), * Standard, April 11, 5 Most party leaders that the protection or decision of the settlers

1857. would have answered "No," on the grounds exclusion of slavery should be left to the in each territory.

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and the state legislature hastily assembled in emergency session. By bribery bankers secured passage of a relief bill on election day itself. During this time of financial stringency, anti-Democratic parties devoted little attention to the slavery question. The American Party—which of course had never stressed slavery—demanded a high tariff to halt the depletion of the banks' gold reserves. Hazlehurst vigorously advocated the protective tariff in Philadelphia and resolutions at a meeting just before election day were devoted almost exclusively to that issue. While exalting the Union, the resolutions otherwise ignored the slavery question and subdued the nativist appeal. 8 During the panic even Republicans played down slavery. The editor of the North American felt that every other interest must be subordinated to securing a bank relief bill from the recalcitrant legislators. Except for printing a letter of Wilmot's on the tariff, the paper did not once editorialize about the gubernatorial contest until the day before the election. Wilmot himself, though his reputation was built on the slavery question, avoided that matter in addressing Philadelphians and discussed instead nativism and the tariff. He probably understood that most Philadelphians were little disturbed by slavery's existence in itself, and that many of them were liable to be antagonized by promulgation of extreme antislavery views. Not until Southern behavior had seemed increasingly to threaten Northern interests did decidedly antislavery views become widely influential in the city. The Democratic Party, therefore, was the only one of Philadelphia's political organizations to stress slavery dur8 News, 4, 1857.

October

9,

12,

1857; Dispatch,

September

27,

October

The Territorial

Question

and the Democratic

Party

67

ing the 1857 election. Packer devoted nearly his whole Philadelphia speech to this issue, attacking Wilmot's record, defending the clauses in the Constitution which favored slaveowners, and palliating the fraudulent procedures of the proslavery party in Kansas. Other party leaders, however, appealed to antislavery sentiment by predicting that Democratic policies would lead to Kansas' becoming a free state. 7 Public revulsion against the banks was probably the reason that the Democrats—traditionally hostile to bank corporations—won Philadelphia by a slightly larger margin than a year earlier. 8 Packer attracted 53 per cent of the city's vote as compared with 2 8 per cent for the American candidate and 19 per cent for Wilmot. Shortly after Packer's victory, developments in Kansas and Washington brought the great majority of local Democratic politicians to adopt a position decidedly more proslavery than that expressed during the campaign. The Democrats' territorial policy was stated in three seemingly consistent provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act: ( 1 ) When the territories were admitted as states, they were to be admitted with or without slavery as their constitutions might prescribe at the time of admission. ( 2 ) Congress's intention was declared to be to leave the people of a territory free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. ( 3 ) The new legislation was justified by reference to the principle of congressional non-intervention with slavery [authors italics] in the territories. The law did not explicitly require that a proposed con7

Pennsylvanian, October 13, 12, 1857. The comparison is with the percentage of legal Democratic votes in the October, 1856 election of state officers. Cf. text, p. 42n. 8

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stitution for statehood be submitted to a referendum, but submission had been usual in other territories. When the proslavery Kansas legislature, in early 1857, authorized election of a constitutional convention, the question of a plebiscite was left to the convention. Machinery for election of delegates was placed in the hands of the proslavery party, which had perpetrated the previous frauds. Antislavery Kansans therefore boycotted this election, with the result that the convention at Lecompton, Kansas, unanimously favored slavery. A single clause of its draft, permitting importation of new slaves into Kansas, was to be submitted to referendum but the rest of the constitution, protecting slaves already in the territory, was to go into effect without popular ratification. The antislavery majority, having meanwhile gained control of the legislature, arranged a separate referendum where voters could reject the whole Lecompton constitution. 9 The three supposedly harmonious principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act now proved mutually inconsistent. According to the first provision, Congress should admit Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. Such a result, however, in view of the obvious fact that a majority of Kansans opposed slavery, would violate the spirit of the second principle, popular sovereignty. The Act's third principle, congressional non-intervention "with slavery," then proved ambiguous. If the controversy was essentially about slavery, Congress should admit Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. On the other hand, if the controversy was essentially about popular sovereignty, "nonintervention" no longer applied: Congress should refuse to 9 Balloting 75 per cent Allan Nevins, Sons, 1950),

in the winter of 1857-58 indicated that approximately of Kansan voters opposed the Lecompton constitution. The Emergence of Lincoln ( N e w York: Charles Scribner's I, 133-175, 2 2 9 - 2 4 9 . 2 6 8 - 2 6 9 .

The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party

69

admit Kansas under a constitution unpalatable to the majority of its residents. In mid-November President Buchanan adopted the former interpretation, but Senator Stephen Douglas, the Illinois Democrat who had sponsored the law, led powerful forces opposed to admitting Kansas under the proslavery constitution. Most Democratic politicians in Philadelphia, though heartily disliking the proslavery party's tactics in Kansas, were anxious to remain in Buchanan's good graces. The great body of them quickly resolved the conflict of loyalties in favor of the proslavery party. To see how this happened, we need to glance at the complex factional divisions within the local organization. An important differentiation among Democratic politicians was between those who worked especially among foreign-born and Catholic voters, and those closer to native Protestants. Lewis Cassidy, a criminal lawyer who had recently run for district attorney, was a prominent Catholic leader. He and his associates, the most important supporters of Mayor Richard Vaux. had more power than anyone else in distributing police department patronage. Other politicians especially concerned with the Irish Catholic vote were Robert Tyler, son of ex-President John Tyler; James Van Dyke, United States District Attorney; and James Campbell, Postmaster-General in Pierce's cabinet, who was now one of the "outs." Each of these leaders had his own personal following which might or might not work in harmony with the other Catholic factions. 10 A major non-Catholic politician was John Forney, who led Pennsylvania Democrats to their narrow victory in 10

This section and the following one are based chiefly on letters in the Buchanan MSS and the William Bigler MSS, HSP. Full documentation is furnished in CWI, Chapter 3, notes 31-56.

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1856. Coming from upstate, Forney was unpopular with most Philadelphia Democrats. Furthermore, even though he used anti-abolitionism in the most unscrupulous way, he was hated by Southern Democrats, who sensed the dislike of slavery which coexisted with Forney's anti-abolitionism. Robert Tyler, his successor as chairman of Pennsylvania's Democratic Party in 1858 and 1859, was a native of Virginia deeply interested in promoting the Southern cause and destroying Forney's influence.11 Party unity was further shattered by rivalry between national and municipal officeholders, and by a feud among the chief national officeholders themselves. Buchanan appointed non-Catholic friends of Forney as Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, and as Postmaster. These powerful federal officers consistently acted against the Cassidy faction of local officeholders. In addition, a bitter personal quarrel developed between the new Collector, Joseph Baker, and U.S. District Attorney Van Dyke (a holdover from the Pierce administration), who often allied with the local officeholders. In these feuds politicians had three potent weapons: they could charge corruption, 12 they could accuse their opponents of disloyalty to the national administration, and they could try to acquire the prestige of 11 Tyler believed, as early as 1850, that the South's only salvation lay in secession. 12 This weapon was easy to employ, for nearly all officeholders were guilty of gross misconduct or at least subject to justified suspicion. Baker accused Van Dyke's associates of forging the naturalization certificates used in the 1856 election. Van Dyke in turn charged Baker with an important role in distributing these same fraudulent certificates. Accusations against Forney were lodged by a respected army officer. Buchanan's postmaster, guilty of financial irregularity, was eventually dismissed but the previous postmaster did not get back his old job, for his own misconduct had come to light: he was obliged to disgorge no less than $25,000.

The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party

71

leading party demonstrations. None of these weapons was spared during the Lecompton struggle. John Forney, as an editor of the Pierce administration's Washington newspaper prior to 1856, had enjoyed power and profit and he wanted both under Buchanan. He understood that the President-elect had promised to reward his efforts in the 1856 campaign with editorship of the new administration's Washington newspaper. In early 1857, however, he aimed higher, seeking election as Senator from Pennsylvania. Though Buchanan helped Forney to win the Democratic nomination, and though Democrats had a three-vote majority in the state legislature (which elected the Senator), Forney's prospects were undermined by opposition within the party. Robert Tyler wrote to Pennsylvania's Senator William Bigler, "It is better for your interest that ANY MAN in Pennsylvania should go into the Senate or Cabinet than Forney." 13 In the event, three Democratic legislators helped to elect the Republican-American nominee, Simon Cameron. Buchanan was now in a difficult position for he did not want Forney to be editor of the administration journal, probably for fear of the wrath such an appointment would provoke among powerful Southern Democrats. Forney, unappeased by the substitute offer of a lucrative but powerless diplomatic post, turned to Philadelphia to found a Democratic journal which might replace the Pennsylvanian. Sensing danger to Democratic unity from rivalry between two journals, and being dissatisfied with the editorial incompetence of William Rice (proprietor of the Pennsyl13 The double underlining (small capitals) is Tyler's. Tyler to Bigler, December 22, 1856, Bigler MSS.

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Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

vanian), Buchanan sought to help Forney buy out the old paper, but he hesitated to grant enough funds from Post Office Department patronage to meet Rice's exorbitant price. The Pennsylvanian was therefore still in business when the first issue of the new paper, the Press, was published in August, 1857. The line taken by the Press was determined by Forney's hostility to Southern Democrats, instrumental in blocking his ambitions; by his pique against Buchanan; by his desire to retain influence among Democratic voters; and by his wish to cultivate good relations with almost anyone who wielded political power. In August, before Buchanan had taken a public stand, Forney demanded that the forthcoming Kansas constitution be submitted to a popular vote. Three months later, when the Press joined Senator Douglas's Chicago newspaper in attacking the Lecompton constitution, it was immediately embroiled in bitter controversy with the Pennsylvanian. The Pennsylvanian's reasoning shows how Philadelphia Democrats could justify a proslavery position despite initial misgivings. The editor knew perfectly well that the proslavery party had committed gross frauds in the most recent election.14 Disapproving both the failure to submit the whole constitution to popular vote and the rigging of the election machinery for the referendum, the editor concluded nevertheless that the convention's work should be accepted.lr> His argument depended on the Kansas- Nebraska Act's principle of "non-intervention by Congress with slavery." As this principle would have permitted Congress to intervene to protect popular sovereignty, the editor silently omitted the words "with slavery." The new doctrine of "non-intervention" bound Congress to admit 14

Pennsylvanian, November 20, 1857. Ibid., November 25, 1857.

The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party

73

Kansas under the constitution drafted under authority of the legal territorial legislature.16 Another argument to rally Democrats to the administration was that a party split must be avoided. A split would have been, in fact, very much to the Pennsylvania's advantage, for Rice's best chance to renew his share of Post Office printing profits was to drive Forney into opposition. The Pennsylvanian therefore seized every opportunity to point to the Press's heresy, while Forney printed nothing but eulogy for all Buchanan's doings except his Lecompton policy. The Press urged the administration not to make Lecompton a party test, but making it a party test was exactly what Rice wanted. United States District Attorney Van Dyke was also interested in promoting a split because of his rivalry with-Collector Baker, who had been using his custom house position to support the Press against the Pennsylvanian. As soon as the possibility of a party schism appeared, Van Dyke began organizing a mass meeting whose ostensible purpose was to demonstrate the loyalty of Philadelphia Democrats to Buchanan's controversial position. Many leaders of the movement for a public demonstration had been officeholders in the Pierce administration who opposed Buchanan's nomination in 1856; as "outs," they sought now to win the favor of the new administration. Many long-time Buchanan men, including Collector Baker and the postmaster, thought the meeting would do no good and might do much harm. 17 Buchanan himself was uneasy about the demonstration but Van Dyke went ahead with 16 The legalistic argument was most clearly stated by the former Chief Justice of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, Ellis Lewis, who was chairman of the pro-Lecompton meeting described on the following pages. Ibid., December 29, 1857; June 2, 1858. 17 Prior to the announcement of Buchanan's position, the great majority of Philadelphia Democrats favored submission of the Lecompton constitution to a referendum.

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his plans. Evidently the district attorney, whose appointment was due soon to expire, felt that such a meeting would strengthen his public status so that the President would be forced to reappoint him for fear of seeming to disavow such a zealous supporter. An essential part of a political meeting in the 1850's was a long list of "vice-presidents" whose names, published in advance, lent an appearance of widespread support. Publication of such a list for Van Dyke's meeting forced every prominent Democrat quickly to take a public stand on Lecompton. Collector Baker and the postmaster reluctantly signed the call as did most other important local Democratic leaders. Only two major factions abstained: Mayor Vaux together with the Cassidy Catholic faction which dominated his administration; and Forney and a few of his followers. A crowd of about 3000 heard local party leaders advocate Kansas's speedy admission under the Lecompton constitution. The meeting's resolutions included one, probably written by Robert Tyler, which endorsed the extreme implication of the Dred Scott case: "it is incumbent upon Congress to protect within the Territories all the rights of property . . . [which the settlers] enjoyed within the States from which they respectively emigrated." 18 Insistence of Southern Democrats upon federal protection of slavery in all territories caused the Democratic Party to break up in 1860; that a meeting of Philadelphia Democrats was already on record for this demand doubtless encouraged proslavery leaders. Forney, though tempted by renewed administration offers, finally refused to support the Lecompton policy, thus losing the printing contract to Rice. He probably estimated 18

Pennsylvanian, December 29, 1857.

The Territorial Question and the Democratic Party

75

that, in the long run, marginal Democratic voters in Philadelphia would not support so pro-Southern a policy as Buchanan was pursuing. A very small proportion of the other old-time Democratic politicians followed Forney's lead, but most of them endorsed the administration's stand at party gatherings, albeit with indications of dissatisfaction. Even the Cassidy faction voted for Lecompton at the 1858 state convention in order to get a candidate of theirs nominated. When the matter was brought to a decision in Washington, all the city's Democratic congressmen supported the proslavery policy. 19 The episode showed how far the policies of Northern Democrats were affected by the alliance with Southern leaders. Buchanan, fearing his Southern allies, backed down from his original intention of insisting that the Kansas constitution be submitted to a popular vote. 20 Pressure from the national administration then led Philadelphia Democratic leaders to support the proslavery party despite their distaste for this party's methods in Kansas. Only politicians independent of administration favor—such as Forney, whose paper depended on local readers, and the Cassidy faction, entrenched in the municipal government—did not endorse the pro-Lecompton mass meeting. Once the administration declared itself, it was pushed by the mechanics of local factionalism toward making support of the Lecompton policy a test of party fidelity. Insecure Democratic politicians—either "outs" (the former Pierce officeholders), or those "ins" most fearful of being pushed "out" (Rice and Van Dyke)—were the most zealous in publicly demonstrat19 Even the widely circulated Public Ledger—a paper which usually did not advocate extreme pro-Southern measures—consistently advocated Kansas's admission under the Lecompton constitution. Nevins is mistaken as to the Ledger's position. Nevins, op. cit., I, 272. Ledger, December 7, 9, 1857; February ?, 8, 1858; April 21, 1860. 20 Nevins, ibid., pp. 169, 229-249.

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ing allegiance to the administration policy, and in demanding compliance from the doubtful. In the course of this demonstration, local Democrats found themselves backing the claim for a territorial slave code. Most Democratic politicians supported Buchanan, but a few old-time leaders and the majority of Whig-Democrats were alienated. Most of these temporarily backed a new alliance formed between Americans and Republicans. People who had acquiesced in the Dred Scott decision could nevertheless support the new coalition, for the Supreme Court's ruling would not be violated if Congress rejected Kansas' application for statehood under the Lecompton constitution. Furthermore, a coalition proved more attractive to non-Republicans now that the issue had shifted from Negro slavery to white self-rule. As Sidney Fisher later wrote, in his exaggerated way, "Not one in a thousand of the [American] people cares much whether . . . [Kansas] be a slave State or a free State; but millions do care, most deeply, whether slavery is to be forced upon it against the wishes of the people." 21 An early and important expression of discontent was a meeting organized by a handful of anti-Lecompton Democratic leaders to counteract Van Dyke's demonstration. Since the Cassidy faction would not commit itself, Forney had to call upon an outside speaker. Anti-Lecompton sentiment, however, proved much stronger among Democratic voters than among the politicians, as shown by the turnout for this demonstration, by the success of Forney's new paper, and by the size of the Democratic protest vote at the next presidential election. 22 The conservative Evening Journal expressed the alienation of many "Whig-Democrats" from Buchanan. Though 21

North American, February 24, " See p. 101 of text.

1858.

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glad to uphold Southern rights against abolitionists, the editors would not assent to Southerners' disregard of Kansans' right to ratify their constitution. There was a point beyond which it would be a burning disgrace to make concessions, the Journal declared; Southerners would do well to realize that secession would lead to war. 23 Dissatisfied with both parties in 1858, the editors in 1860 became Constitutional Unionists.24 Their defection from Buchanan was a clear indication of the discontent of many Whigs who had voted Democratic in 1856. American Party views appeared in the Daily News, which took a sudden interest in the slavery question when Democrats started fighting among themselves. Always outspokenly anti-Negro, the News now attacked the Lecompton constitution on the ground that its confirmation wduld cause an influx of Negroes (i.e., slaves) into Kansas; the editor wanted to keep Negroes out of the territory. What really appealed to the Americans was that Philadelphia Republicans seemed to be abandoning their antislavery position in favor of popular sovereignty: on such a platform Americans and Republicans could unite for the next election. 25 The terms of the new alliance, consummated during the first half of 1858, were that a new organization called the "Peoples Party" would be formed; the Republicans would water down their antislavery views to the popular sovereignty plank; and the Americans would water down their anti-foreign program to the plank of "Protection of American Labor against the Pauper Labor of Europe." This development explains two distinctive features of 23 Journal, October 30, 31, November 1, 1856; March 23, December 9, 21, 31, 1857; October 11, November 17, 1858. 24 The Constitutional Union Party in 1860 received approximately ten per cent of the national popular vote. Non-Democratic Southerners voted for it, as did some Northerners. 25 North American, November 9, 1857. News, December 4, 10, 29, 1857.

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Philadelphia's Peoples Party. The party minimized the slavery question partly in order to avoid offending the Southern customers of Market Street merchants, but mainly in order to conciliate the intolerant, nativist, anti-Negro American Party. Similarly, the Peoples Party emphasized the tariff question partly because Philadelphia's economy depended so heavily upon manufacturing, but partly because the tariff question was the ideal channel for directing nativism into more politically acceptable expression. The first victory of the new alliance occurred in May 1858, when Mayor Vaux was defeated by Alexander Henry, a former Whig whose conservatism led him in 1860 to vote for the Constitutional Unionist candidate rather than for Lincoln. Since special local factors influenced the mayoralty campaign, the state election in October, 1858, is a better one for judging the impact of the Lecompton issue. By October Buchanan's policy had been defeated by Congressional insistence on a referendum in Kansas. During the election campaign in Philadelphia, the Peoples Party blasted the President for attempting to deny Kansans popular sovereignty, but did not discuss the slavery question per se. For obvious reasons Democrats said nothing about Kansas except that peace had been restored and the question removed from politics, thanks to Buchanan. The usual anti-Negro appeal took a special form: Democrats dubbed the Peoples Party the "Mulatto" Party, offspring of miscegenation between the Americans and the "Black" Republicans. If the Republicans disrupted the "confederacy," declared a popular speaker at the main Democratic preelection rally, Pennsylvania would go with the South, where Washington's and Jackson's remains were buried (enthusiastic applause). The Hudson would be the dividing line. The speaker then appealed to Irishmen: unless the treason

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of New England was eradicated, he said, "the ultimate consequences must be the calling of a new convention, to form a still more perfect Union, leaving the New England States with their treason and incendiarism attached to the British Provinces, where they naturally belong. . . . (rapturous applause)." 28 The Democrats suffered a heavy electoral setback, their share of the city's vote falling from 53 per cent (in 1857) to 45 per cent. The major cause was the defection of WhigDemocrats. The Peoples Party's concentration on the tariff issue was not sufficient to attract these voters, as was proven in 1860 when most Whig-Democrats deserted the Peoples Party, though it continued stressing the tariff. The second main cause was the defection of the Forney faction. Although the Press continued to describe itself as Democratic, it opposed all but one of the party's congressional nominees and slanted its news coverage in favor of the Peoples Party. This party's cry for protection of American labor did not win votes of traditional Democrats in the poorest wards; its chief value was probably in cementing the AmericanRepublican alliance rather than in causing breaks in Democratic ranks. The Lecompton policy, in other words, was the main reason for the Democratic setback, but reaction against the policy was concentrated in middle and high income areas rather than in the poorest parts of the city. 27 An account of Civil War issues must stress the role of the Democratic Party. Feeling obliged to ally with Southerners in order to win national elections, many Northern Democrats were led by the workings of the alliance to sup26 The speaker was Charles W. Carrigan, w h o was nominated and nearly elected to Congress in 1862. Pennsylvartian, October 11, 1858. 27 These two paragraphs are based on ward analysis of election returns, summarized in CWI, pp. 325-327.

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port proslavery measures. Philadelphia Democrats, for example—by backing the Lecompton policy, by endorsing a territorial slave code, and by applauding talk of Pennsylvania's seceding with the South—encouraged Southerners to increase their demands and misled them as to the probable Northern reaction to secession. The long-continued cooperation of the Northern Democratic Party with proslavery Southerners, indeed, was one of the most important tactical errors which led to the Civil War. The existence in the North of anti-Negro feelings was the main reason that Northern Democrats could continue so long to support proSouthern policies. For the moment, the party's discipline had been maintained only at the cost of a sharp electoral setback. By May 1860, however, Philadelphia Democrats again won a majority of the city's votes, as the consequence of John Brown's raid. We turn now to the crisis which this raid precipitated, and to the much greater alarm which followed soon afterwards, disunion itself.

PART II

Crises

4. John Brown s Raid

THE 1 8 5 9 CRISIS RESULTED FROM AN A T T E M P T BY ARMED

Northerners to precipitate slave insurrection in Virginia, and from sympathy for the attack expressed by a muchpublicized Northern minority. Southerners' deep fears of rebellion led to such vehement reactions that Northerners had to think seriously about two related questions: Should abolitionists be permitted to hold meetings during a time of crisis? What could be done to inform Southerners of the true state of Northern opinion? John Brown, after committing the worst outrages done by Northerners in the Kansas struggle, came east to raise funds among fellow abolitionists for a new project which he described to a few of them. In late 1859 he and twenty followers seized the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, killed two townspeople, liberated about ten slaves, and waited, half-believing that nearby slaves would flock to their standard. Within 36 hours most of the band had been captured or killed by United States soldiers. Tried in a Virginia court, Brown was sentenced to be hanged at noon on December 2. 1 Abhorring the idea of slave insurrection, for both ra1 Allan Nevins, The Emergence Scribner's Sons, 1950), II, 70-97.

of Lincoln

(New York:

Charles

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tional and irrational reasons, most Philadelphians strongly disapproved of the attack. Democrats and non-Democrats, however, disagreed sharply as to its significance. Democrats blamed it on Northern abolitionism in general and tried to implicate leading Republicans. Non-Democrats regarded the raid as the irresponsible action of a few crazed individuals.2 Philadelphians' original judgments were modified by Brown's behavior during imprisonment, and by actions of Virginians. The prisoner's manly deportment and religious fervor excited the admiration of some people who disapproved of the raid itself. Virginia's Governor Henry Wise alienated non-Democratic Philadelphians, and even some Democrats, by marching the state militia around in a way calculated to impress his constituents, who experienced recurrent fears of insurrection. T o avoid making Brown a martyr, a number of people—including Democrats— wished Wise to have the prisoner sent to an insane asylum rather than to the gallows.3 Such views were shared by neither extreme Democrats nor abolitionists. The Pennsylvanian, now linked more closely than ever with the Buchanan administration,4 attended increasingly to disunion. Taking for granted Southerners' right to secede, in view of Northern provocation, the editor urged them not to do so. If the Republicans should win the 1860 election and should attack Southern rights, 2 Ledger, October 19, November 8, 9, 1859. Pennsylvanian, files, November, 1859. North American, November 2, 5, 1859. Ne»s, October 20, 21, December 2, 8, 1859. Dispatch, December 11, 1859. W. D. Lewis to Henry Carey, November 2, 1859, E. C. Gardiner MSS, HSP. 3 W. D. Lewis to Carey, November 2, 1859, E. C. Gardiner MSS. Ledger, November 4, 24, 28, 1859. Dispatch, November 20, 1859. 4 Buchanan's chief local officeholder, Collector Joseph Baker, had finally arranged to have William Rice bought out. Baker's brother (husband of Buchanan's niece) edited the journal, which continued to subsist on administration patronage.

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he predicted, half of the people of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York would rise against them in bloody civil war and would call upon their Southern brethren to send military aid, even armed slaves, in order to suppress the Northern traitors. 5 Philadelphia abolitionists meanwhile expressed growing sympathy for the insurrectionist. One or two of them, knowing in advance of Brown's intentions, had disapproved, but Still, McKim, and Williamson helped a Negro follower of Brown's to escape. In mid-November the anti-Slavery Society reiterated its pacifist sentiments, but lauded Brown's purity of motive and his heroism since capture. Wendell Phillips, the Boston abolitionist, praised the leader of the Santo Domingo slave insurrection in a Philadelphia lecture, and abolitionists scheduled a meeting in one of the city's largest halls to coincide with the hour of Brown's execution. Southern students, who made up nearly half of Philadelphia's medical school enrollment, turned out for the Brown demonstration as did other ardent Southern sympathizers. The audience which filled National Hall was therefore composed of numerous foes of abolitionism in addition to veteran abolitionists, recently converted abolitionist sympathizers, a thick sprinkling of Negroes, and sensation-seekers. Many policemen were present, for everyone knew that anti-abolitionists had once burned the abolitionist hall and probably would have broken up the recent Phillips lecture, had not Mayor Henry forestalled them with 120 policemen. William Furness brought listeners to tears, as the moment of the execution approached, by reading Brown's letters from prison. Anti-abolitionists, however, hissed Furness's comparison of the prisoner with another insurrectionist, 5

Pennsylvanian, November 23, 1859; files, November, 1859.

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George Washington; cries of "Fight" drowned out reading of the last letter. Other speakers portrayed Brown as the nation's noblest citizen and called for fighting the enemy with the help of the slaves. So extraordinary was it for a Negro to address a crowd composed partly of Southern sympathizers that, when the Negro Robert Purvis took the platform, the audience burst into hissing and applause, with wild interruptions at every phrase: "coward fiends of Virginia," "have sowed the whirlwind," "the trembling despots of Virginia." Virginians in the audience, calling on an antiabolitionist Philadelphia merchant to speak, were angered that policemen interposed. Anti-abolitionists gave great cheers for Governor Wise and Virginia, followed by groans for Brown, as the meeting ended. At the same moment a few hundred Negroes and sixteen white sympathizers attended a meeting at a Negro church. When a minister declared that part of his family was in slavery, there were cries, "So is mine," from all parts of the church. Two ministers, denouncing the social degradation of their race in Philadelphia, criticized Philadelphia Negroes for truckling to the whites. A committee was appointed to meet Brown's body at the railroad station the next night, as it was carried north, but Mayor Henry wrecked this plan. At the appointed time a crowd gathered, including many Negroes and 300 Southern medical students, but Henry assembled a large police force, banned unauthorized persons from entering the station, and prohibited the body's being detained in Philadelphia. 6 Local residents suddenly found themselves in difficulty: alarmed Southerners might conclude that Philadelphia was abolitionist because it tolerated Brown sympathy meetings 8 North American, December 3, 5, 22, 1859. Pennsylvanian, ber 29, December 1, 3, 1859. Ledger, December 3, 1859. December 4, 1859.

NovemDispatch,

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instead of showing solidarity with Southern whites. The quasi-Democratic Ledger, declaring that assaults and incendiary speeches were promoting disunionism in the South, characterized Northern talk of using force to prevent secession as "braggadoccio." "Is black servitude so much opposed to the moral progress of the world. . . ," the editor asked, "that the political debasement [by Northern force] of fifteen millions of white freemen is to be preferred to it?" 7 The Pennsylvanian had a different question to ask. Whites and Negroes had assembled in large numbers and openly made Brown's acts theirs: in other words, they unhesitatingly advocate insurrection, murder and a servile war in the South. Although such meetings are unlawful and treasonable, the Mayor of this city interposed with his police force, not to prevent them, but to arrest any law abiding citizen who should dare to proclaim his views or dissent from those of the meeting. . . . Shall meetings be held in our midst wherein treason and murder are openly and daringly taught? . . . Or shall the conservative . . . citizens . . . assemble together, and by peaceable means, if possible, and if not, by a resort to arms, end this agitation, either by silencing the agitators forever, or by driving them from the country? 8 Plans were immediately laid for a great mass meeting to sustain Southerners against encroachments on their constitutional rights. An allegedly non-partisan committee issued invitations to address the meeting to twelve Buchanan supporters, six partisans of Fillmore, and one Fremonter. The resolutions committee was appointed almost exclusively of men who had backed Buchanan. 9 The only paper to coni Ledger, December 3, 1859. 8 Pennsylvanian, December 5, 1859. 6 Ibid., December 8, 10, 12, 1859. News, December 9, 12, 1859. North American, December 8, 1859. William Reed to Buchanan, December 6, 1859, Buchanan MSS.

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demn this demonstration in advance was the Bulletin, a Peoples Party journal, but the endorsements by the North American and the Daily News obviously were not wholehearted. Morton McMichael, editor of the North American, wrote that the meeting could do no good unless it censured Southern disunionism as much as Northern abolitionism, since the two were equally blameworthy. Even the fanatical must be allowed free speech, he continued; Northern imprudence deserved the same forbearance accorded that of the South. Cannons boomed four times during the day of the demonstration and streamers flew from all public buildings as well as from hotels and ships in the river. That evening a group of the city's principal merchants sat on the platform of the great public hall, which was decorated with banners proclaiming, "Union Forever! Pennsylvania Greets her Sister State, Virginia, December, 1859." Fifteen thousand or more persons assembled, despite a hailstorm, so that a second meeting had to be arranged for the overflow crowd. Mayor Henry, however, did not participate in the proceedings, nor did McMichael or the editor of the Daily News, and the crowd was overwhelmingly Democratic. The resolutions, read by the sole participating Republican leader, reproved Northern encouragement of slave insurrection and condemned Northern laws interfering with rendition of fugitive slaves. Although the permanence of the Union was affirmed, no determination to enforce such permanence was indicated and no reference was made to Southern disunionism. Nearly all the speakers were Democrats who used the meeting to stimulate anti-abolitionist fervor. Slavery was a necessity, said Benjamin Brewster; for Southern whites to liberate the Negroes would be an act of self-slaughter. ExMayor Richard Vaux predicted that the miserable aboli-

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tionist faction would never again be permitted to assemble in Philadelphia to foment its doctrines of treason. Another speaker implied that Mayor Henry's failure to suppress the abolitionist meetings justified anti-abolitionist mob action. When Furness, Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phillips, and Joshua Giddings were named, the audience responded with deafening groans and cries of "Hang them all," whereupon the speaker retreated a little to calm the passions he had so successfully aroused. 10 The most popular speaker received applause at every sentence as he declared that travelling abolition lecturers should be taken from the rostrum, tried, convicted, and hanged. 11 Collision between abolitionists and Democrats seemed imminent when the annual Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery fair and convention opened a few days later. City officials made the abolitionists take down a sign they had hung across the street and evicted the fair from its site, making it continue in a less desirable location. Brown's raid, however, had stimulated abolitionism and the fair was unusually successful. At the convention Lucretia Mott spoke for "peaceful insurrection"; several other abolitionists plainly suggested the use of force. 12 10 Giddings, an abolitionist congressman from Ohio, had spoken in Philadelphia in October. North American, December 8, 22, 1859. Pennsylvanian, Ledger, December 8, 1859. Jere McKibben to William Bigler, December 8, 1859, Bigler MSS. 11 Soon afterwards Governor Wise bombastically demanded of Northern states whether they meant bona fide to adhere to the Constitution. William Reed, drafter of the Union meeting's resolutions, wrote Buchanan that the demonstration, though a perfect success, "would have been a failure as complete had Governor Wise's Message been then received. . . . Are not our Southern friends hard to take care of?" December 9, 1859, Buchanan MSS. 12 Some of Furness's parishioners came armed to the Unitarian church, fearing that the minister would be attacked for his part in the Brown meeting. William Still, The Underground Rail Road (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 663. Pennsylvanian, December 13, 15, 16, 1859. North American, December 20, 1859.

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A lecture at the Peoples Literary Institute by a New York abolitionist, George W. Curtis, focused all the feelings accumulated since the raid. The Pennsylvanian and the Ledger printed an unsigned advertisement for a rally outside the lecture hall, "to adopt such measures as the exigency may require. . . . All who are determined that no more hireling incendiaries shall be permitted to make their inflammatory addresses in our loyal city, are invited to attend." A correspondent of Senator Bigler boasted that an organization comprising many of the "wealthiest and most respectable of our citizens . . . will be there in force." 13 A crowd of five thousand assembled outside the hall to hear a general in the local militia, and other speakers, warn the abolitionists not to hold their meeting. Mayor Henry, however, vigorously protected the lecture, though he had no sympathy for Curtis's ideas. He arrayed fifty policemen in front of the platform, scattered another fifty through the audience, massed 400 more at the rear and outside, and himself sat on the stage as a symbol of municipal authority. A couple of bricks and a bottle of diluted sulphuric acid were thrown through the window and a youth mounted a wheelbarrow with the cry for action. The crowd surged forward to break up the meeting by violence, but one hundred extra policemen poured out of the building and succeeded in stopping the attack. Thirteen persons were arrested including three Southern medical students, one carrying a dirk and another a loaded pistol. Inside the building the Republican, William Kelley, introduced Curtis to the crowd of hundreds of persons, who were treated to a comparatively moderate statement of abolitionist views. The police arrested three more people for hissing, but the most important case was dismissed by a magistrate who 13 Pennsylvanian, Ledger, December 13, 15, 1859. Jere McKibben to Bigler, December 15, 1859, Bigler MSS.

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declared the mayor should have banned the meeting. About a third of the Southern medical students withdrew from the Philadelphia schools—at least temporarily 1 5 —in protest against Mayor Henry's protection of the lecture. The unpopularity of the mayor's conduct among local residents was shown by the Select Council's refusal (by a 1 6 - 5 vote) to endorse his action, although the Peoples Party held a 16-8 majority. The Curtis lecture was made a chief issue of the subsequent municipal election, in May 1860, and the majority of Philadelphia voters responded by balloting against the mayor, who ran several hundred votes behind his ticket. Peoples Party politicians, however, falsified the election returns and Henry continued in office after I860. 1 6 T w o effects of Brown's raid have been shown: the renewal of abolitionists' vigor, and the increase in Democratic votes. A third effect, the hardening of attitudes of conservative Whig-Republicans against Southerners, is illustrated by diary entries of the arch-conservative, Sidney Fisher. This record suggests why Philadelphia conservatives came eventually to support the most radical anti-Southern measures. At first the diarist's sympathies lay with the slaveholders. "The m a n is no doubt a monomaniac . . . ," Fisher wrote just after learning of Brown's raid. "It seems too clear that Brown had advisers and aid among the prominent abolitionist politicians. . . .What security has the South against 14 Ledger, North American, Pennsylvanian, December 16, 17, 19, 1859. Dispatch, December 18, 1859; January 8, 15, 1860. Jere McKibben to Bigler, December 17, 1859, Bigler MSS. George W. Curtis to Henry Carey, January 8, 1860, E. C. Gardiner MSS, HSP. 15 In March, 1861 more than half of the graduates from Philadelphia's two largest medical schools were from slave states, a proportion comparable to that of earlier years. 19 McClure, Old Time Notes, I, 402.

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the horrors of servile war, or the constant dread of it?" The Philadelphian was disturbed by sympathy shown for the insurrectionist. "Brown shows the spirit of a martyr," he reported, "and what is worse, he will be regarded as a martyr by thousands throughout the North." Brown had excited "the sympathy of a large and dangerous portion of the N o r t h e r n people," he wrote just after the meetings of December 2. Fisher's hostility to the abolitionist movement, however, was outweighed by his antagonism to the doings of Southern leaders and their Northern allies. From the first he regarded the troubles which Brown unleashed as "the fruits of the monstrous excesses of Southern politicians for the last three or four years and of the repeal of the Missouri compromise"; and this attitude was strengthened by reports of the new Congress's first session: There was a general, emphatic and earnest disclaimer on the part of the northern members of any sympathy with Brown's enterprise [the Philadelphian wrote], . . . The Southern politicians however, disregarded this, and went on with their violent denunciations. . . . Their violence is producing the very feelings they affect to deprecate. . . . The Southern politicians, for party purposes, industriously represent the whole North as banded against slavery and the South, whereas, their only safety lies in the fact, well known to every one here that the great mass of the Northern people, are friendly to the South and willing to support all its just and some of its unjust claims. Finally, threats to rights of Northern white m e n — t h e advocacy at the Union meeting of hanging abolitionist lecturers, and the attempt violently to break up the Curtis lecture—caused the Philadelphia conservative to consider f u n d a m e n t a l issues:

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[Southern] politicians are . . . connecting the cause of abolition with the cause of liberty, order and civil rights [Fisher wrote]. These have been destroyed in the Southern States for the sake of slavery. . . . The friends of slavery are attempting to destroy the same blessings in the North. . . . Events are showing that . . . [civil rights], the Union and slavery are incompatible. . . . Which then shall we sacrifice? . . . Every right thinking, conservative man will answer—preserve all three if possible; if that be not possible, sacrifice] slavery first. 17 A s Fisher recorded his c h a n g i n g reactions, other conservative P h i l a d e l p h i a n s a r r a n g e d a d e m o n s t r a t i o n which they t h o u g h t m o r e a p p r o p r i a t e than the U n i o n meeting. M a y o r H e n r y , M o r t o n M c M i c h a e l , H e n r y Carey, J . E . T h o m s o n (president of the Pennsylvania R a i l r o a d ) a n d other P h i l a d e l p h i a n s w r o t e a c a r e f u l invitation to leading n o n - D e m o c r a t i c S o u t h e r n e r s : " T h e wicked attempts which have b e e n m a d e , f o r partisan purpose, to implicate the great b o d y of n o r t h e r n conservatives in the odious crime m a k e this a n a p p r o p r i a t e time to express good will to Southerners." Accordingly, o n J a n u a r y 14, a select c o m p a n y of 4 0 0 S o u t h e r n e r s a n d P h i l a d e l p h i a n s dined at the A c a d e m y of M u s i c ; the possibility of f o u n d i n g a new Constitutional U n i o n Party was in everyone's mind. Such a party might unite n o n - D e m o c r a t i c N o r t h e r n e r s with those Southerners — f o r m e r l y W h i g s — w h o h a d voted A m e r i c a n in 1856 and more recently had been k n o w n simply as the " O p p o s i t i o n . " M c M i c h a e l , as master of ceremonies, expressed detestation b o t h f o r people w h o tried to impute sentiments of s y m p a t h y with B r o w n to N o r t h e r n conservatives, and f o r B r o w n ' s sentiments themselves. T h e dinner proceeded fairly h a r m o n i o u s l y until a T e n n e s s e e C o n g r e s s m a n , J o h n M a y 17 Sidney Fisher, Diary, October 19, 21, November 5, 25, 27, December 3, 5, 8, 16, 1859, HSP.

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nard, chided the Peoples Party for its prospective connection with the national Republican convention. Should Republican Senator William Seward be nominated and elected upon his previously expressed principles, declared the Tennessean, he could not carry on the government for a week. Maynard's unexpected declaration provoked a great outburst of applause and hisses18 and caused McMichael to speak frankly about disunionism. He entirely dissented from much that Congressman Maynard had said. Seward's election, though regrettable, would not have the foreshadowed results, for the Union was destined to remain forever. The meeting broke up in angry recriminations.19 It is clear that John Brown's raid, and the Southern response, intensified the characteristic attitudes of each group in Philadelphia. The abolitionists' disregard for rational calculation led them to sympathize publicly with a man who struck the powerful Southern whites exactly where their greatest anxieties were concentrated. Democratic leaders, seeking to capitalize on most Philadelphians' disapproval of the raid, attacked the rights of local whites to free assembly, and omitted to convey to Southerners the real nature of unionist sentiment in Philadelphia. Certain nonDemocrats, stirred by threats to Northerners' civil rights and to their interest in maintaining the Union, became hardened in anti-Southern opinions, while even the abolitionist cause found new listeners. The Brown affair was a prelude to the far more serious crisis which began only a year later. 18 The speaker then declared, in explanation, that no Southerner would accept office under Seward. 19 North American, January 12, 16, 1860. Dispatch, January 15, 1860. Ledger, January 16, 1860.

5. Secession

THE SECESSION CRISIS WAS A T I M E OF GREAT CONFUSION IN

Philadelphia. No less than three public demonstrations— radically differing in spirit—displayed divisions of opinion on the serious issues at stake. A city-sponsored meeting in December, 1860 expressed sentiments not greatly different from those of the anti-abolitionist rally during the Brown crisis. Determined unionists, dissatisfied with this affair, held their own demonstration. This was followed by a third, arranged by the pro-Southern wing of the Democratic Party, which cautiously advocated Pennsylvania's seceding if all the slave states should do so. Even within these three groups there was disorder and indecision. Supporters of the city-sponsored rally were not clear whether to use force to preserve the Union: they generally opposed "coercing" the South, yet favored employing military might to defend the government's forts. Leaders of the second meeting were divided as to whether the North should make concessions on slavery, and some of them temporarily, in December, favored letting the South go in peace. Some members of the third group had first wanted vigorous action against secession, while others felt that even their own meeting did not go far enough in favoring the South. When war broke out in April, 1861 the great mass of 95

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Philadelphians strongly supported the government; this resulted partly from the explicit purpose of most anti-Democrats to hold the Union together, and from the latent attachment to the Union of many Democrats whose sentiments had not been expressed by leaders of the party's extreme wing. Nevertheless, in late March 1861, editors of all local newspapers had temporarily backed the abandonment of Fort Sumter, which would have led to Southern independence. The decisive factor in April was not unionism alone, but a sense of political self-respect, which would not grant to violence what it might have granted to negotiation if Southerners had kept their military force in leash. Before examining these events we shall characterize the presidential election of 1860, which precipitated disunion. Factional splits during the campaign foreshadowed those of the subsequent crisis. In 1859 and 1860 both parties were plagued by schism. Important political goals were to hold together one's own coalition and to disrupt the coalition of one's opponents. Among Democratic politicians were two major groupings and one minor one: the pro-Buchanan faction centered at the custom house, the anti-Buchanan group gathered around Vaux and Cassidy, and the small Forney clique associated with the Democratic state administration. The Pennsylvania party chairman in 1859 was Robert Tyler, a supporter of the President. He and Buchanan labored to bring the state organization behind the latest Southern demand, that Congress protect slavery in all territories. 1 The Vaux-Cassidy Democrats, having refused to support the pro-Lecompton mass meeting, naturally disliked Tyler's leadership, but they remained loyal to the party. Forney's 1

Buchanan to Tyler (copy), June 27, 1859, Buchanan MSS.

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faction, on the other hand, perpetuated the Lecompton schism by staging a separatist Democratic convention in early 1859. Forney soon entered secret negotiations with Peoples Party leaders, which led to his election as Clerk of the national House of Representatives. 2 Vaux-Cassidy Democrats tried to seize control of the local organization before the 1860 Democratic national convention. To the insurgent movement were soon attracted pro-Southerners such as Van Dyke (the bitter opponent of Buchanan's custom house director, Joseph Baker), and former Pierce officeholders like James Campbell. Since the Vaux-Cassidy faction was hostile to Buchanan's slavery policy, but the pro-Southerners were not, another issue had to be found: the insurgents declared themselves for siate rights as against domination of the party by national officeholders. Eventually the state convention appointed from Philadelphia to the national convention about four insurgents and six pro-Buchanan men. The national convention at Charleston broke up in disarray; Philadelphia's pro-Buchanan delegates voted with Southerners on the critical issue of congressional protection of territorial slavery. When the convention reassembled, most Southerners again seceded, a few Pennsylvanians going with them. The remaining Democrats named Douglas for President, while the seceders nominated Breckinridge. Though Douglas was the regular nominee, Pennsylvania's pro-Southern state committee authorized Democratic electors to vote either for him or for Breckinridge. This decision provoked the Vaux-Cassidy faction and the Forney group to set up a rival ticket, pledged solely to Douglas. 3 The 2 Factionalism portrayed in this section is documented in CWI, Chapter 5, notes 2-18. 3 Baker wrote Buchanan, "The Catholic Church to a man almost is against us, and for Douglas." September 7, 1860, Buchanan MSS.

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schism was not necessarily fatal, for Democratic victory in the October gubernatorial contest might produce a reunion before the presidential balloting in November. The Peoples Party also suffered internal discord. Proponents of alliance with Southern non-Democrats clashed with opponents of this strategy. Senator Simon Cameron conducted a personal feud against the gubernatorial nominee, Andrew Curtin. Nativists, Forney Democrats, Republicans, and Constitutional Unionists had all to be conciliated. Many party leaders sought at first to ally with Southern non-Democrats by finding some formula for the slavery question, by stressing a non-slavery issue, or by discovering a mutually agreeable presidential candidate. The ill-fated dinner at the Academy of Music had been intended as the first step toward such an alliance. By May 1860, however, when a Constitutional Union ticket was formed with the Tennessean John Bell as standard bearer, its prospects were so poor that few local politicians were willing to lend support. Meanwhile certain Republicans made the extreme antislavery leader, the flour manufacturer, William Thomas, chairman of a Republican committee separate from the Peoples Party. The Southerners were doubtful allies when gained, "IF gained," wrote Thomas, reminding readers of the disaster after the 1840 election when Northern Whigs had allied with the Virginian, John Tyler. Thomas's committee was unwelcome to the editor of the North American, McMichael, and to his chief assistant, James Harvey, a native of South Carolina. Although these men would have been glad for the Republicans to nominate John Bell, they determined to support Lincoln rather than back Bell on the Constitutional Union ticket, which had no chance of vie-

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tory. McMichael and Harvey feared that a separate and extremist Republican organization would jeopardize their attempts to convince nervous Philadelphia conservatives that Lincoln's principles were not essentially different from those of Bell. The editors hoped that Constitutional Unionists would vote for the Peoples Party gubernatorial candidate in the crucial October election, but despite their caution Philadelphia's Constitutional Unionist paper (the Evening Journal) eventually backed the Democratic nominee. A peculiarly situated member of the coalition was John Forney, who publicly supported Douglas but was secretly consulted by Peoples Party leaders in Curtin's nomination for the governorship. Forney, unlike members of the VaiixCassidy Democratic group, had no genuine liking for Douglas; by this time he backed the Illinois Senator merely as the best way of defeating the purposes of the Buchanan administration. Besides the political divisions, a bitter personal rivalry disrupted the Peoples Party campaign. Since Curtin and the chairman of the state committee, Alexander McClure, disliked Senator Simon Cameron, the Senator set up a rival state committee, whose Philadelphia members were drawn from the two opposite extremes of the party. John Sanderson, leader of the "straight" American movement in 1856, became Cameron's principal Philadelphia spokesman, while William Thomas, the most extreme of the important Philadelphia Republicans, also joined Cameron. Conservative Whig-Republicans wished a plague on both committees and eventually Henry Carey had to set up a third one to finance the campaign. Many Peoples Party spokesmen, such as McClure, stressed the tariff issue in Philadelphia, to divert voters' at-

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tention from possible consequences of Republican views on slavery. Even William Kelley—who had been known only for antislavery views—made a speech for protection. 4 Other leaders, however, resolutely discussed slavery and disunion. Ex-Secretary of the Treasury Meredith urged Northerners not to give way, as they had in 1820 and 1850, to secessionist threats. The North American published a six-column speech on slavery just before the election and even the tariff spokesman, McClure, strongly attacked disunionism and urged voters to accept the Southern challenge. Party leaders privately apprehended secession but resolved to continue their course. "Only four years ago," declared the North American sarcastically, "these unselfish patriots [the Democrats] had the Union on the very verge of dissolution, and their sole refuge was the election of Mr. Buchanan. Honest but timid men were deluded by that outcry. . . . 'Conservatism' was then, as now, the catch word of the day. . . . [Their] gongs are no longer alarming." 5 In the October election the Democratic gubernatorial candidate received 51 per cent of the city's vote, about the same as Democratic nominees for state office four years earlier, with the difference that the former frauds were not repeated. Practically all anti-Lecompton Democrats and Whig-Democrats returned to the Democratic fold. 6 Outside 4

In later years his tariff speeches earned him the nickname, "PigIron" Kelley. This appellation has tended to make historians forget that Kelley's antislavery interests preceded, and were for a long time much stronger than, his interest in the economic issue. 5 Harvey to Lincoln, June 13, July 4, 1860, Lincoln MSS, Library of Congress. North American, September 26, October 1, 4-6, 8, 1860. 6 The Democrats did not succeed in recapturing any local congressional seats, mainly because they did not fuse with Constitutional Unionists for these contests. Philadelphia's new congressmen, in fact, were markedly more hostile to slavery than those elected in 1858. The sole pro-Buchanan congressman, failing to secure renomination, was replaced by an anti-Lecompton Democrat. William Kelley, who introduced George W. Curtis's famous lecture during the Brown crisis, sue-

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Philadelphia, however, Pennsylvania Democrats were badly defeated, their vote falling from 49 per cent of the total, in 1856, to 46 per cent. Curtin was elected because in upstate Pennsylvania, by contrast to Philadelphia, Democrats could not recapture the votes lost in 1858. The result was so decisive as to end any chance of a local Democratic-Constitutional Unionist coalition, which might defeat Lincoln in the November poll. Although Douglas Democrats formally acquiesced in the state committee's electoral ticket, Forney sabotaged this arrangement by continuing to print the separate Douglas slate. Realizing that the Democratic fusion ticket was certain to lose, and wishing to show their dissatisfaction with the Buchanan administration, over one-quarter of Philadelphia's Democrats voted for this separate slate; thousands of other Democrats simply stayed home on election day. Fear of secession had precipitated a bank panic on October 26, but this did not deter many Peoples Party voters. Lincoln thus received a larger share of the vote than Curtin, the result being shown below: Rest of Philadelphia Pennsylvania Bell (Constitutional Union) 9% 2% Straight Douglas 11 2 Fusion Democratic 28 39 Lincoln 52 57 Like Buchanan in 1856, Lincoln obtained less than half ceeded a conservative Peoples Party congressman. In the neighboring district an even more strenuously antislavery Republican was elected— W. Morris Davis, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott. See text, p. 164n. That most Whig-Democrats voted for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and then for the Constitutional Unionist presidential nominee, is shown in CWI, pp. 163n., 325-326.

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of the national popular vote, but by carrying the free states he secured a substantial electoral college majority. When the result was determined, South Carolina started the procedure which in six weeks led to secession, and several other states followed suit.7 During the crisis the main questions discussed in Philadelphia were whether force should be used to preserve the Union, and whether substantial concessions on slavery should be offered. Some people were outright supporters of secession. Pierce Butler, who owned a plantation in Georgia and had been chosen in 1856 as one of Philadelphia's Democratic presidential electors, openly voiced his intention of going south to fight. Robert Tyler, chairman of Pennsylvania's Democratic state committee in 1859, said that Pennsylvania should join the Southern confederacy. The Pennsylvanian, controlled by Buchanan's chief officeholder in Philadelphia and financially connected with Democratic Senator William Bigler, warned Republicans of bloody civil war in the North if they tried to use force against secession.8 Influential Democratic ward politicians like Lewis Cassidy held a very different view.9 They favored concessions on slavery, but would fight to uphold the government's authority if worst came to worst. Although often not clearly 7

Just before the November election the Pennsylvanian published an "Epitaph for the Union," written by the Philadelphian, Benjamin Rush, grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The American government had been designed as exclusively one of white men, Rush wrote, but unprincipled leaders in some Northern states had betrayed the design. He predicted disunion if Lincoln won, and placed the blame entirely on Republicans. South Carolinians happily reprinted the article, in early November, to encourage secession. Pennsylvanian, November 2, 1860. Dispatch, December 30, 1860. 8 Fisher, Diary, December 26, 1860. Philip G. Auchampaugh Robert Tyler (Duluth, Minn.: H. Stein, printer, 1934), p. 306. Pennsylvanian, January 8, 1861; December 6-8, 10, 12, 1860. 9 North American, January 7, 1861.

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expressed, this proved to be the view of the great body of Philadelphia Democrats and of most businessmen and factory workers, who resolutely supported the government at the beginning of the war. A third position was assumed by ward politicians of the Peoples Party such as District Attorney William Mann. Belligerent unionists, these men had generally disliked the Republican stand on slavery, but now many of them turned against making concessions to the South. John Sanderson, for example, thought the personal liberty laws should never have been passed, but now the government's whole power should be used to make Southern states recede from their position, before any free state was asked to repeal a law.10 In December history seemed about to repeat itself, for George W. Curtis was again scheduled to address the Peoples Literary Institute at a time of crisis. This time, however, Mayor Henry persuaded the lecture hall owner to withdraw use of his building, and the meeting was held in West Chester twenty miles from Philadelphia's anti-abolitionist mobs.11 To scotch the idea that the city was abolitionist, the municipal Council chose the day of Curtis's lecture for a great demonstration of cordiality to the South. All business was to be suspended for two hours and delegations of factory workers were to parade to Independence Square. Though the demonstration was designed to be a little less partisan than the 1859 meeting,12 it did no more than the 10 Dispatch, December 2, 1860. North American, December 3, 1860. John Sanderson to Leonard Swett, December 7, 1860, Lincoln MSS. 11 Later in December another abolitionist, Henry Ward Beecher, was scheduled to speak in Philadelphia. Mayor Henry, who had been severely criticized for discouraging the Curtis lecture, this time took determined measures to prevent a mob's assembling; the lecture proceeded without trouble. 12 Democrats and Constitutional Unionists made up only 4 / 6 of

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earlier meeting to make Southerners conscious of Northern resistance to secession. The resolutions began by recognizing the contract theory of the Union—the secessionists' most persuasive rationale—and then asserted that some Northern states had violated the fugitive slave clause of the contract. One was left wondering whether the conclusion, "The Union cannot perish without eternal reproach to us," meant anything more than that Northern states should terminate this breach of contract. The only orator who spoke determinedly for the indissolubility of the Union was a Peoples Party leader. The other five speakers concerned themselves with what Northern states could do to cleanse their own records. Especially they recommended repeal of Pennsylvania's personal liberty law, the mildly objectionable but innocuous provisions of which have been discussed. The most noted speech was delivered by a Democratic state Supreme Court judge, George Woodward, who asserted that slavery was divinely sanctioned. The judge declared that the government had no authority to prevent secession; what the situation called for, he said, was proof by Northern states of their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. 13 During December a certain indecision was evident within the invited orators instead of nearly 18/19, as in 1859. One of the two selected Peoples Party speakers, however, was an obscure officeholder nearly as yielding as the Democrats and Constitutional Unionists; and the address of the single resolute unionist was placed at the meeting's conclusion after a good part of the audience had probably returned to work. 13 Woodward privately expressed regret that Pennsylvania was not seceding with the South. The Democratic Party nominated him for governor at the height of the Civil War, in 1863. Woodward to Jeremiah Black, November 18, 1860, cited in Kenneth Stampp, And the War Came (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950), p. 49. Pennsylvanian, Ledger, December 14, 1860. North American, December 7, 14, 15, 1860.

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the Peoples Party, its councilmen being evenly split as to the wisdom of holding the Union meeting, and the North American's editorial policy sometimes fluctuating. McMichael strenuously advocated preserving the Union, but occasionally interpreted "Union" to mean something less than all of the states, and he even printed two essays favoring peaceable recognition of secession. William Lewis, one of the city's most respected Whig-Republicans, declared in the first essay that the Republican Party could not be expected to give up its principles regarding slavery, and that even if it did, its concessions would not satisfy the South. Though dissolution of the Union would result in occasional armed conflicts between North and South, Lewis could see no remedy; for if the government should try to use force against secession, large bodies of volunteers from the free states would simply rush to the aid of the seceders. Sidney Fisher, author of the second essay, also predicted wars between the severed parts of the Union and he foresaw establishment of standing armies. But these, he felt, would be lesser evils than the great civil war which would surely follow any attempt at coercion. 14 Most Peoples Party ward politicians had no use for peaceful disunion and cheered instead William Mann's avowal of willingness to march to Washington to aid the inauguration, if need be, at the point of the bayonet. 15 Castigating Buchanan's conduct, the militants searched for l

* North American, December 5, 6, 8, 12, 18, 20, 31, 1860. Other important Whig-Republicans willing in December to recognize secession included the economist, Henry Carey, and the North American's Washington correspondent, James Harvey, whom Lincoln soon appointed Minister to Portugal. Carey to George W. Scranton (draft), December 20, 1860; Harvey to [Carey?], Thursday [Dec., 1860], E. C. Gardiner MSS. 15 Pennsylvanian, December 31, 1860.

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a hero to elevate as a symbol of determined unionism. The hero was found when Major Robert Anderson, commander of the federal troops at Charleston, secretly moved his soldiers from an exposed position to Fort Sumter, where they could not be captured without a major bombardment. This move to strengthen the federal position outraged disunionists, halted the drift in the North toward accepting secession, and encouraged an attempt in Philadelphia to rally sentiment less complaisant than the Union meeting toward Southern demands. To plan the new rally one hundred leading politicians from all parties assembled at the Board of Trade, including even the well-known Breckinridge Democrat, Judge Ellis Lewis. So long as resolutions were limited to enforcement of federal laws upon the South, discussion proceeded harmoniously. When a Forney Democrat advocated repeal of the personal liberty act, however, District Attorney Mann objected to such a distraction from what he regarded as the meeting's primary aim. Much more serious was Ellis Lewis's blanket endorsement of Southern Democratic views about slavery and his proposal to acknowledge Southern independence if the North failed to recognize its own constitutional duties within a reasonable time. So unacceptable were these ideas to Peoples Party leaders that a two-day adjournment was declared. Constitutional Unionists and Democrats captured control of the committee when it reassembled. They promptly resolved that only peaceful measures were to be used toward the South, yet the government was to protect its forts with military force.16 Constitutional Unionists and many Democrats, in other words, distinguished defending the forts 16 Penrtsylvanian, Inquirer, Ledger, January 7, 1861. North January 4, 1861. Dispatch, January 6, 1861.

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from "coercion." The widely-circulated Ledger drew the same distinction. Thus, when the great majority of Philadelphians supported war in April, many did so neither to destroy slavery nor even simply to preserve the Union, but to rebuke violence against the last vestige of the government's authority. 17 Peoples Party militants, together with Cassidy and Forney Democrats, had been distracted from the Board of Trade meeting by a report of Sumter's being besieged. They immediately planned a mass demonstration, and went ahead with this plan even when the report proved false. Anderson's move had revived the spirits of despondent unionists, and William Lewis (author of the essay favoring recognition of secession) consented now to chair the meeting. Names of many Democrats such as ex-Mayor Vaux appeared on the list of vice-presidents, and Vaux's most powerful supporter, Lewis Cassidy, was temporary chairman. 18 A vast crowd turned out to applaud demands that the government reinforce the forts and sustain itself with all its powers. The resolutions, though not specifically advocating force for anything more than defense of forts, gave blanket endorsement to any other measures the administration might take to enforce the laws. So fragile was the meeting's unity, however, that the organizers quickly adjourned it for fear of disruption if slavery compromises should be suggested. Pro-Southern Democrats immediately organized a coun17 Ledger, December 28, 1860; January 5, 1861. The distinction between preserving the Union and upholding the government's authority was carried to an extreme by Sidney Fisher, who, after the war's outbreak, favored fighting until the South had been defeated (in order to uphold federal authority) but thought that perhaps the North should then expel the Southern states from the Union. 18 Constitutional Unionists such as Mayor Henry did not support the meeting, nor did Buchanan Democrats.

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terdemonstration, while the former Postmaster-General, James Campbell, expressed their attitudes to Buchanan. "Although South Carolina has acted in some respects rashly," he wrote, "yet we should not forget the wrong which has been inflicted upon the South. The spirit [author's italics] of the Constitution has been violated, and we must not forget that if they now tolerate the induction into office of purely sectional candidates, with the open avowals of hostility to their institutions uttered by Mr. Lincoln himself; it may only be the commencement of aggressions which may lead to their entire subjection." 19 Menacing remarks against the pro-Southern meeting prompted Mayor Henry to send a large police force to protect the crowd which, though smaller than that at the Anderson meeting, again overflowed the city's largest hall. The resolutions, drafted by such former officeholders of the Buchanan administration as William Reed and James Van Dyke, not only acquiesced in peaceful disunion, but declared that secession of the whole South "may release this commonwealth to a large extent from the bonds which now connect her with the confederacy." In such an event Pennsylvania would have to call a convention "to determine with whom her lot should be cast, whether with the north and east, whose fanaticism has precipitated this misery upon us, or with our brethren of the south, whose wrongs we feel as our own; or whether Pennsylvania should stand by herself, as a distinct community" in order to aid reunion. This radical idea was met first by silence, but the audience of more than 4000 Philadelphians ended by cheering it more than any other resolution. 20 19

January 10, 1861, Buchanan MSS. North American, Ledger, Inquirer, Press, J a n u a r y 17, 1861. Pennsylvanian, J a n u a r y 18, 1861. Dispatch, J a n u a r y 20. 1861. J. R a n d o l p h Clay t o Buchanan, January 18, 1861, Buchanan MSS. 20

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An imposing group of socially prominent Philadelphians addressed the meeting. Buchanan's personal banker was chairman and every other speaker bore a name distinguished in Philadelphia's society—Wharton, Ingersoll, Reed, Brewster, Kane, and Bradford. 2 1 These men alleged that Northerners had violated the Constitution, implied more or less clearly the hope that Pennsylvania would join the South, and complemented their utterances of sympathy for Southern whites with anti-Negro declarations. George Wharton, for example, regarded secession as justified and plainly expressed his desire to go with the South if a choice had to be made. 22 Charles Ingersoll, grandson of a signer of the Constitution, said that he would give all his blood for the South, while William Reed implied that in the event of disunion Pennsylvania should join the seceders. The audience responded enthusiastically when Ingersoll approved slavery. Benjamin Brewster (who eventually attained the office of Attorney-General of the United States) said that when a white man fled his apprenticeship in Maryland there were no abolitionists to aid him "because he wasn't a nigger. Curl his hair into wool, blacken his face, and make him stink a little, and he would be an object of dearest interest—a nigger." The speaker expressed confidence that his listeners would never shed the blood of their Southern brethren. 23 During January and February most Philadelphians were neither as uncompromisingly anti-secessionist as the Anderson mass meeting, nor as pro-Southern as the meeting 21 Frank W. Leach, "Genealogies of Old Philadelphia Families" (bound vols., H S P ) , "Wharton," "Ingersoll," "Reed," "Kane," "Bradford." Dictionary of American Biography, III, 26 (B. H. Brewster). 22 When he made this speech, Wharton held the position of U.S. District Attorney in Philadelphia. Buchanan had appointed him in 1860 to replace Van Dyke. 23 North American, January 17, 1861.

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just described. The public generally favored concessions on slavery, opposed an indiscriminate display of force against the South, but supported using force in case of a showdown. 24 A crucial indication that Philadelphia would fight if worst came to worst was a secret memorandum presented to Buchanan at the end of January by seventeen local business and civic leaders.25 At workingmen's conventions anti-coercionist Democrats failed to get explicit recognition of their views. The Democratic state convention did adopt anti-coercionist resolutions but, sensing public reluctance to abandon Sumter, avoided mentioning this decisive issue; thus, when the attack on the fort changed the whole aspect of things, Democratic leaders could support the war without contradicting their party platform.26 24

Abolitionists formed an exception. Probably the Anti-Slavery Society's officers promoted disunion in early 1861, for the secretary recorded (after the war's outbreak) that minutes of two meetings held between February 13 and April 12 had been "mislaid." 25 This document was signed by the presidents of Philadelphia's two largest banking corporations, two of the most powerful private bankers, three outstanding merchants, and several millionaires; by the mayor, two state Supreme Court justices, and the former Minister to England; and by a railroad president and Philadelphia's most famous manufacturer. The presidents of both the 1859 and the 1860 Union meetings were among the endorsers. Though the list of signers did not include the banker A. J. Drexel, any of the five Democrats who held high federal and state judicial posts in Philadelphia, nor the presidents of the two major railroads, it did, at least, contain the names of several leading Constitutional Unionists and a sprinkling of Democrats, as well as numerous supporters of the Peoples Party. January 28, 1861, Buchanan MSS. That only one manufacturer was on the list indicated, not that manufacturers opposed using force in case of a showdown, but that manufacturers were not as influential as bankers, merchants, and socially prominent men in the city's non-political elite. 20 The Pennsylvanian was considerably more extremist than the state convention. Northern Democrats should put down the Republican disturbers of the public peace, the editor cried; "if you cannot do so by peaceful means, you will have to resort to other and more unpleasant means. . . . If war is to be made . . . let it be 'rather against the cause, than the effect of the present troubles.' " Pennsylvanian, February 19, 1861. (Italics appear in the original.)

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The Peoples Party meanwhile blocked the slavery compromises desired by a large part of the public. 27 William Meredith, Philadelphia's delegate to a special national peace convention, feared that if the Republican Party abandoned its whole platform, the pretensions of the South would be renewed. Similarly the city's most famous lawyer, Horace Binney, believed the question of Southern dictation should be met and settled, even if by civil war. 28 Refusal of these Whig-Republicans to acquiesce in Southern demands thus arose not so much because they cared about territorial slavery, as because they wanted to re-establish Northerners' right to exercise their legitimate influence at Washington. Abraham Lincoln's refusal to compromise probably sprang in part from a similar desire, but when he visited Philadelphia on his way to the inauguration, he argued for his policy out of his concern for the human rights of Negroes. The Declaration of Independence "gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance . . .," Lincoln said. "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle—I was about to say I would sooner be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it."29 Only in his inaugural address did he make it clear again that the federal government had no constitutional power to lift the weights from the slaves. By discussing the matter on his way to Washington, without referring to the limitations on the government's power, Lincoln needlessly contributed to the Southern whites' fear of an unconstitutional abolitionist program. 27

The most frequently discussed proposal would have guaranteed slavery in all present and future territories south of the 36°30' line— in Nicaragua or Mexico, for example, if these lands had later been annexed. 28 Fisher, Diary, January 30, February 6, 1861. 29 North American, February 22, 1861.

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The crucial task confronting the new administration was to decide about the two important Southern forts remaining in the government's possession. In December 1860, when the issue was first raised, no Philadelphian would publicly have suggested abandoning these forts. Even the Pennsylvanian had originally endorsed Major Anderson's move to Sumter, but shortly after the Anderson meeting Philadelphia's pro-Southerners changed their attitude. The Pennsylvanian editorialized in February: "Goaded to madness by the threats and warlike preparations of the dominant party in the free States, who up to this hour have insultingly refused to redress their wrongs, . . . [the seceding states] may determine to take possession of these forts. . . . To prevent civil war, is it not true policy, true statesmanship, to let the States occupy the forts intended for their protection?" 30 Alienated from Buchanan by the Lecompton affair and by the President's failure to lead the resistance against secession, Peoples Party men and many Democrats at first made the defense of the forts their rallying point; but when Buchanan left the White House on March 4, his opponents felt free to abandon their own intransigence. During mid-March a report that Sumter was to be evacuated prompted every Philadelphia daily paper, explicitly or implicitly, to support such a move. Realizing that withdrawal of the troops would probably end any immediate hope of restoring the Union, the editors more or less clearly—though reluctantly—advocated peaceful acceptance of secession of the seven extreme Southern states. 31 Wishing to avoid war, the editors hoped that yielding 30

Pennsylvanian, February 22, 1861. North American, March 20, 1861. Inquirer, March 21, 1861. Bulletin, March 29, 1861. Journal, March 5, 7, 18, 1861. Ledger, March 9, 12, 23, April 3, 1861. See also note 35 below. 31

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to the Southerners would prove the best way toward reconstructing the Union at a later time, and toward ending the commercial crisis. The North might conquer the South, James Harvey wrote, but it could never subjugate it; therefore the only way to preserve the Union was to permit secession and give Southerners time "to come to their senses," when they would voluntarily return. 32 Pointing out that local commerce was in the doldrums, the Ledger asserted that business needed an end to political uncertainty. The whole country had felt relieved, the editor wrote, since announcement of the probability of abandoning Sumter. The North American predicted that everything would soon be all right for commerce if confidence were restored in the permanence of peace: "Let the cotton states have their gulf and plunge into it if they choose. If they remain together for two or three years it will do a world of good toward softening their tempers and teaching them a little common sense."33 A favorite argument of editors was that they and their readers bore no responsibility for the decision. If Sumter had to be abandoned, the Bulletin declared, the blame rested entirely with the treasonable Democrats who had undermined the government's position. The necessity for recognizing disunion rested simply upon the seceders' strength, the Journal maintained; the rebels deserved extermination but they were powerful, so the North did 32 North American, March 20, 21, 25, 27, 1861. 33 Businessmen's interest in an end to political uncertainty could be used as an argument for any decisive policy, for example either for or against abandonment of Fort Sumter. Merchants to whom Southern debts were due had an interest in peacefully acknowledging secession: one of the war's first effects was to bankrupt many of them. Fisher, Diary, May 19, 1861. G. H. Boker to John Forney, November 21, 1864, Lincoln MSS. Ledger, March 23, 1861. North American, March 22, 19, 1861.

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not send military forces as otherwise it would have done. 34 Necessity had led Lincoln to act without reference to what the people might like, Forney reported; but the "necessity" of evacuating Sumter did not prevent the editor from describing the supposed decision as a "glorious act."35 By late March nearly all papers favored assembling of a national convention. One editor said that a convention was needed to recombine the states, but most journals acknowledged that such a convention eventually would set the terms for separation, with the hope that the northerly slave states could be held in the Union. 36 A few Philadelphians called for militant action, but so far as one can judge by the evidence at hand, most people would probably—like the editors—have acquiesced in disunion if Lincoln had adopted such a policy. 37 On March 29 the President decided to send supplies (but not reinforcements) to Sumter, whose garrison otherwise would soon have been starved out. Lincoln felt that 34 T h e Journal n o w represented the Douglas Democrats, its f o r m e r Constitutional Unionist proprietor having sold it after the 1860 election. Bulletin, March 20, 1861. Journal, M a r c h 27, 1861. 35 Nevins' account of Forney's attitude in late March is mistaken. F o r n e y argued for recognizing Southern independence. The War for the Union ( N e w Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959), I, 57. Press, M a r c h 21, 23, 25, 1861. 38 Ledger, M a r c h 9, 1861. Inquirer, M a r c h 21, 1861. Press, M a r c h 25, 1861. North American, M a r c h 29, 1861. Bulletin, M a r c h 29, 1861. Journal, April 4, 1861. 37 Opposing a b a n d o n m e n t of Sumter were the abolitionist minister, William Furness; a prominent literary figure, S. Austin Allibone; and an influential iron m a n u f a c t u r e r , J a m e s Milliken. N o mass meeting was held during M a r c h nor was any other sign given of widespread discontent with the drift of affairs. T h e Whig-Republicans, William Lewis, H e n r y Carey, and Sidney Fisher all acquiesced in recognizing S o u t h e r n independence. As early as F e b r u a r y two of the most radical antislavery Republicans, William T h o m a s ( w h o m Lincoln soon appointed Collector of the P o r t ) and Congressman-elect W. M. Davis, had been willing peacefully to recognize secession.

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he could not permit the government's authority to be derogated so far as would be implied by abandonment, without any quid pro quo, of nearly the last symbol of its power over the Southern states. He knew the Confederates would probably regard his move as reason for beginning war. This decision did not correspond to public opinion in Philadelphia, yet it found quick support in the city. Philadelphia editors had reluctantly advocated abandoning Sumter in the belief that such was administration policy. Most editors had expressed confidence in the new administration and none except the Pennsylvanian had suggested less than full support for the government in case an attack were made on the fort. When the administration's real policy became clear, editors quickly discarded the views expressed during late March and early April. By April 8 all Peoples Party journals and Forney's Press indicated their support of the forthcoming war and hastened to stir up willingness and eagerness to fight.38 In searching for reasons to uphold his belief that war was justified, McMichael expressed concern about the country's foreign relations in the event of permanent separation, talked about the government's duty to protect Southern unionists from the Confederates, and argued that the government must do something to show that it retained the power to assert the law and enforce order. Before long he arrived at what, as can be seen today, was the best reason for preserving the Union, namely that the existence of an independent Confederacy would jeopardize the military security of the remaining states.39 38 North American, April 5, 6, 9, 10, 1861. Bulletin, April 4, 8, 1861. Inquirer, April 6, 1861. Press, April 6, 8, 1861. 39 During the war McMichael occasionally recurred to military security as a primary reason for preventing disunion. He believed that

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The quasi-Democratic Ledger and the Douglas-Democratic Journal also supported the government, though taking a little longer to make up their minds. The Journal proposed an expansionist war to seize Cuba, Mexico, and Canada, in order to avert hostilities between North and South. Together with virtually the whole Democratic Party, the paper opposed a bill to strengthen the Pennsylvania militia. Nevertheless, on April 11, the editor approvingly quoted the phrase, "My country, right or wrong." Ought Democrats, he asked "supinely stand by" and see their great country ruined merely because a party obnoxious to the great majority of the people had limited power? No, he answered, though declaring at the same time that secessionists had had much cause of complaint. By no means all Democrats agreed with the Ledger and the Journal, but since the Pennsylvanian had expired from lack of government patronage, the only daily to continue publishing anti-coercionist views was the obscure Argus.40 Although many Philadelphians favored concessions on slavery and were reluctant to initiate coercive measures to save the Union, few could accept without warlike indignation the affront to the government's authority represented by bombardment of its fort. For several days prior to if secession had been permitted, wars between North and South would probably have ensued, fostered by boundary conflicts, Confederate efforts to promote secession of additional states, and disputes over fugitive slaves. The South would have become a military despotism in order to maintain slavery, he thought, and this would have threatened the North with even greater military insecurity. North American, June 7, 30, 1862. Many Philadelphians were influenced by the idea contained in Washington's Farewell Address, that neighboring powers must inevitably fight recurrent wars and maintain standing armies. Standing armies were condemned as profoundly dangerous to republican liberty. Cf. text, p. 32 above. «» Ledger, April 10, 11, 1861. Journal, April 8, 9, 11, 1861.

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April 13 public feeling and the editors' urgings had been intensifying each other, and when news of the bombardment was published that day, crowds quickly mobbed the few individuals who dared publicly to express secessionist views. Even greater indignation raged on Monday the 15th after the astonishing news of Sumter's surrender. A Sunday paper meanwhile described the Southern connections of General Robert Patterson, General George Cadwalader, and Pierce Butler, and alleged that on a single block of Walnut Street, in the city's richest neighborhood, lived in palatial residences no less than seven Virginia families, five South Carolina and Mississippi families, and ten other families from slave states. 41 On Monday tumultuous crowds marched through the streets demanding displays of unionism from these and other suspected secessionsympathizers. Several thousand persons visited General Patterson's house, shouting, groaning, and smashing windows. Although the General came out to try to make a speech, policemen finally had to break up the crowd. Another mob visited Cadwalader's house but the General satisfied it by offering to lead any one there to fight the secessionists. Robert Tyler, the former Democratic state chairman, had to take refuge in the court house to avoid violence, and soon departed south to side with the Confederacy. Mobs visited offices of several suspected Southern-sympathizing publications, demanding that the flag be flown as a unionist symbol. The Argus, a couple of Sunday papers, 41 Patterson owned extensive sugar plantations in Louisiana. Cadwalader, renowned as the c o m m a n d e r w h o had firmly suppressed Philadelphia's great anti-Catholic riots in 1844, held large tracts in M a r y l a n d . Pierce Butler had possessed 350 slaves in the deep South until failures in stock speculation obliged him to sell. Descriptions of slave life on Butler's plantations, published by his f o r m e r wife, Frances Kemble, later served as devastating N o r t h e r n war propaganda.

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and the Catholic Herald, Episcopalian Recorder, and Presbyterian Christian Observer were all forced to make such a display. The most intense indignation was directed against the weekly Palmetto Flag, an avowedly secessionist publication. In December the proprietor had been the main inciter to violence against the abolitionist lecturer, Henry Ward Beecher. His office would now have been destroyed by a mob of different persuasion except for police intervention. Mayor Henry appeared at the Palmetto Flag's third story window, assured the multitude that no traitor would be allowed to rear his head in Philadelphia, and asked respect for the publisher's individual rights. The crowd dispersed, however, only on the understanding that the proprietor would "suspend" the paper. The next day the North American, sometimes so concerned about mob rule, printed no condemnation of the crowd's behavior but demanded that the publisher permanently cease operations. No further issue of the Palmetto Flag ever appeared. 42 On Monday mobs tore the clothes off one suspected secessionist, placed the head of another in a noose before police intervened, and roughly treated several others. A display of flags was forced from Collector Joseph Baker (whose successor at the custom house had not yet been installed), from the Democratic President of the Select Council, and from a recent Democratic nominee for Congress. On Tuesday the crowd visited the houses of Josiah Randall, one of the most pro-Southern Whig-Democrats, 43 and of William Reed, former Minister to China. Mayor Henry appeared again to subdue the mob at Reed's house. When he threatened that the police would take lives if 42

North American, Inquirer, April 16, 1861. Age, October 3, 1864. Josiah Randall was the father of Samuel J. Randall, Democratic Speaker of the national House of Representatives from 1876 to 1881. 43

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necessary to preserve the peace, the crowd dispersed and the orgy of rioting came to an end. Noteworthy in the city's first reaction was the absence of reference to Negroes or to slavery as reasons for going to war. On one occasion the anti-secessionist mob even amused itself by driving a Negro to cover while waiting for a suspected pro-Southerner to display the flag. The Sunday Dispatch put forth a host of reasons why Philadelphians should support the government, but never once mentioned Negroes or slavery. 44 Although substantial pro-Southern sentiment existed in the city, most Philadelphians firmly supported the government at the beginning of the war. The Ledger, equivocal whether supplying Sumter had been wise, declared that after the bombardment the question was simply whether a person was for or against the government. The wellknown Constitutional Unionist, Joseph Ingersoll (chairman of the 1859 Union meeting), was a leader in pledging full support. Ex-Mayor Richard Vaux believed peaceful reconciliation to have been possible but let his name be used to back the government, as did most anti-Buchanan Democrats. Many pro-Buchanan leaders were dismayed by Lincoln's actions in April but, as Joseph Baker wrote, "for their own safety [they] are compelled to be passive; and none are permitted, in this community to express sentiments in favour of a peace policy." Baker reported that after the mob scenes of April 15 and 16 there had been no disturbance to the peace in Philadelphia, but several Breckinridge Democrats had received threatening letters. A vigilant committee had been organized, he said, to visit persons suspected of Southern sympathies. 45 44 45

Inquirer, April 16, 1861. Dispatch, April 21, 1861. Baker to Buchanan, April 29, 1861, Buchanan MSS.

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We recur to certain striking features of the crisis: the difference of Philadelphia's electoral behavior from that of upstate Pennsylvania; the prominence of pro-secessionists; the hesitation of most Constitutional Unionists and moderate Democrats to try to refute secessionist arguments; the widespread distinction between coercion and defending the forts; the apparent inconsistency between the trend toward recognizing Southern independence, in late March, and the enthusiasm for war a few days later; the more militant support of Union by ward politicians than by upper class political leaders; and the existence of material as well as sentimental reasons for preserving the Union. Probably the main reason why Philadelphia Democrats (in contrast to their upstate colleagues) succeeded in recouping their losses of 1858 was that Philadelphia had a considerable number of Constitutional Unionist voters, who were greatly concerned to conciliate the South. It was their defection from the Democrats which mainly caused the party's local setback in 1858; when they supported the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 1860, local Democratic ranks were full again. The upstate defectors of 1858 may have been a very different type from Philadelphia's Constitutional Unionists: they were probably (like the Wilmot defectors of 1 8 5 4 - 5 6 ) long-time Democrats, native Protestants who had been attached to the Democratic Party because of its democratic and economic tenets, not because of its pro-Southern, anti-Negro policies, nor because of its giving protection against nativist, antiCatholic forces. When in 1858 they broke with their party over its stand on the territorial question, the break was final. The infrequency of this type of voter in Philadelphia —where Catholic, anti-Negro, or pro-Southern motives were stronger in binding voters to the Democratic Party—

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accounted for Philadelphia's differing electoral behavior. As to the city's pro-secessionists, the extent to which their leaders had found favor with Pierce and Buchanan is a revealing sign of the tenor of the last two prewar administrations: James Campbell had been in Pierce's Cabinet while Robert Tyler, William Reed, and George Wharton had all held Buchanan's confidence; the Pennsylvaniati was edited by the President's nephew-in-law. Numerically much more important than pro-secessionists were the moderate Democrats and Constitutional Unionists, whose opinions preponderated at the Union meeting in December. By concentrating on repeal of the personal liberty laws, these leaders aimed at avoiding war, yet their strategy appears to have been misdirected. We can see that it would" have been useful to remind Southerners that the Constitution did not authorize a state to withdraw from the Union, unless three-quarters of all the states consented; 46 and to insist that the extra-constitutional right to revolution might justly be invoked only if the South was denied due representation in the central government, or if its rights were gravely impaired. The South's representation in both House and Senate was, in fact, disproportionately greater than the size of the South's enfranchised population. Northern practices concerning fugitive slaves did not constitute a weighty enough impairment of Southern rights to justify revolution. On extra-constitutional grounds, therefore, the South's right to secede was smaller than the North's right to prevent secession. It would have been useful to warn Southerners that moderate Northern opinion might support a war, if secessionists acted rashly; to put aside the legalistic arguments about violation of a contract; and to emphasize that on the real issue—the security of 46

i.e., by constitutional amendment.

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slavery in the South—Southerners' fears were exaggerated. The Southerners were protected by constitutional restraints, by some Republicans' desire to avoid provocation, by the active assistance of Northern Democrats, by the South's congressional representation, and by the bargaining power which its electoral votes gave it. The apologetic attitude adopted instead, by so many Philadelphia leaders, did not help Southerners to act rationally. In part, this attitude was caused by the desire to be conciliatory, but another cause was the influence of the traditional anti-Negro and anti-abolitionist crusade. Accustomed to aiming their fire at these convenient targets, many Philadelphia leaders did not realize that the secession crisis demanded a different use of energies. The widespread acceptance of the distinction between coercion and protecting the forts suggests that, if secessionist leaders had not shot first at Sumter, they might have succeeded in their enterprise. So many Philadelphians distinguished coercion from defense that the city's reaction to a call for troops would have been very different, had Sumter not first been attacked. One wonders whether opinion in the farther Northern states was somewhat similar to that in Philadelphia; if so, Lincoln might never have felt able to call for troops in the absence of such an attack. If troops had not been called out, disunion probably would have succeeded and there would still be two nations instead of one. The South would have proceeded toward the catastrophe which would eventually ensue in the absence of federal intervention to defend the region from the consequences of unconstrained domination of its society by the local whites. The fact that most Philadelphians supported the government after the attack, though recently they had seemed

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willing to abandon Fort Sumter, implies that to some extent they fought over a peripheral issue (the affront to the government's authority), rather than over the fundamental issue (the continued existence of the Union). Philadelphians might nevertheless claim rationality in fighting, for nations have good reason not to accept certain kinds of affront. Furthermore, the belligerent response to the affront at Sumter was largely caused by most Philadelphians' deep loyalty to the Union. Militant expression of this loyalty characterized ward politicians, close to the passions of the mass of the people, more than it did upper class leaders. The chief popular passion seems to have been to stop the ruin of one's great country (as the Democratic Journal expressed it): evidence of the democracy's success locally in winning mass allegiance. In the case of upper class leaders, a primary motive for supporting the government seems to have been uneasiness about the military and political consequences of having a powerful, unfriendly neighbor along the southern border. Though Philadelphians' thinking was by no means clear, their intuitions appear on this point to have led them well.

PART III

War

6. Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers

USUAL PARTISAN STRIFE CEASED A B R U P T L Y ,

TERMINATED

by mobs and by the reaction of most Democrats against the attack on Sumter. Not until August, 1862, did Democratic leaders again arrange a mass meeting to discuss fundamental issues. Speeded by the Republicans' wartime decision to abolish slavery, however, full-blown opposition then quickly emerged, soon sustained by a new daily paper much more respectable-looking than the Pennsylvanian, and led by representatives of Philadelphia's highest society who weekly blasted the conduct of the war or the war itself. The opposition's main charges were that the Lincoln administration's policy of arbitrary arrests recklessly threatened the country's most precious heritage, civil liberty, and that its Negro policy threatened both to flood Pennsylvania with unmanageable Negroes, and to destroy the racial order of the South. Our first task will therefore be to find how far civil liberty was suppressed in Philadelphia, and what theories were devised to justify this suppression. We shall discover next what the preponderantly anti-Negro whites thought of the process which converted them into surprised emancipators of Southern Negroes. Then we can define the stages in the revolution of Democratic attitudes toward the war. Finally, we shall ascertain with what success local authorities in late 1862 faced the novel 127

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military problems posed by threatened invasion of Pennsylvania. After the rout of the Northern army at the first battle of Bull Run, federal military officials inaugurated in Philadelphia a mild version of the drastic procedure already used so successfully to stifle dissent in Maryland. The first victim was the well-known Pierce Butler, who as trustee of his brother's Georgia plantation went south after the outbreak of war and probably took an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Returning north, the erratic and indiscreet Philadelphian defended the Southern cause, openly wishing it success. 1 He was arrested on August 19 and incarcerated for a month in New York without trial or hearing, but a rich contributor to the Republican Party secured the prisoner's release on a pledge of good behavior. A few days after Butler's arrest, federal military officials in Philadelphia seized two thousand copies of the New York Daily News, a paper highly critical of the conduct of the war, and suppressed a local weekly, the Christian Observer. The latter publication, an organ of "New School" Presbyterians, criticized the behavior of Northern soldiers at Bull Run and advocated peace with or without Union. As the Argus had died from lack of funds not long after the outbreak of the war, suppression of the Observer removed the only remaining Philadelphia paper radically critical of administration policies. The government arrested six more men during the following week but quickly released them all. The last person for nearly a year to be seized was William Winder, a native of Maryland and a 1

Sidney Fisher, Diary, December 26, 1860; May 2, August 6, 8, 20, September 23, 1861; August 26, 1862, HSP. Fisher's informant as to the oath was Butler's mother, w h o had just returned from her son's residence in Georgia.

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son of an important general in the 1812 war. Accused of being a Southern sympathizer, Winder was imprisoned for more than a year in Boston without trial. 2 T o many Philadelphia editors the only question raised by these events was whether dissent should be suppressed by government action or by mob rule. John Forney, who by 1861 directed his venom against Southern sympathizers as unscrupulously as formerly he had attacked abolitionists, would have defended mob action against the Observer. The Inquirer on the other hand opposed an "unreasoning, mushroom mob," but praised stifling the suspect paper by "the calm, reasoning and ruling LAW." "To fight the traitors constitutionally would be . . . foolish," declared the Dispatch, while some journals denied even the right to criticize the policy of arbitrary arrests. 3 The chief constitutional issue was whether the administration could rightfully prevent use of the habeas corpus writ. In the article devoted mainly to Congress, the Constitution declared that "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public safety may require it." Chief Justice Taney ruled that habeas corpus could be suspended only by Congress, but Lincoln ignored this opinion and did not even secure indemnification from Congress when it convened in July, 1861. The first thorough attempt in Philadelphia to analyze the question was published by Sidney Fisher in August. Fisher regarded the habeas corpus right as the most important 2 Dispatch, August 25, September 1, 8, 15, 1861. Globe, 37 Cong., 3 sess., 1216. John A. Marshall, American Bastile (Philadelphia: T. W. Hartley, 1869), p. 286. That three of the men were speedily released is inferred from absence of mention of these men when Democrats later counted up the number of arbitrary arrests in Philadelphia. 3 Press, August 23, 1861. Inquirer, August 27, 1861. Dispatch, August 25, September 1, 22, 1861. North American, August 24, 1861.

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safeguard of freedom, but feared that judges sympathetic to secession might unjustifiably release prisoners brought before them. He therefore sought to avoid a prisoner's being produced in court and yet to secure the writ's chief benefit, which he thought was to force the government to disclose its reasons for an arrest. So long as the government explained these reasons, he maintained, it could refuse to produce the prisoner. 4 This interpretation, which would have destroyed the meaning of the habeas corpus privilege, was amply refuted by other local writers. A different justification for the President's action had to be found and Philadelphia's most famous lawyer, Horace Binney, attempted to fill the need. He argued that the power to suspend might be exercised by the President, whether or not Congress was in session; to justify this position, he disregarded the fact that the crucial phrase was located in the article devoted mainly to Congress, and ignored the practice in England, where the ministry could suspend habeas corpus only during a parliamentary recess. Another famous Philadelphia lawyer, William Meredith (who in May, 1861 had been appointed Attorney-General of Pennsylvania to save the reputation of the scandalridden Curtin administration), fundamentally disagreed with Binney. Approving English practice, Meredith felt that as soon as Congress reconvened it should have indemnified the President for his emergency action. The Philadelphian feared embarrassing the administration, however, and urged his Whig-Republican friends not to publish their disagreement with Binney. 5 The field was thus left to Democratic lawyers. So well* North American, August 29, 1861. 5 Fisher, Diary, January 13, 1862. Meredith to William (copy), May 2, 1862, William Meredith MSS, HSP.

Seward

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known was Binney, so unsound was his doctrine, so vital was the habeas corpus privilege, and so hungry were certain writers for legitimate opportunity to criticize the administration, that no less than thirteen Philadelphia Democrats published rebuttals. A few of the authors appended attacks on the whole theory of the war. Such attacks, though, were infrequent in early 1862 and were made only in pamphlets, not in public speeches nor in daily papers. The Democratic Evening Journal actually defended the President's right to suspend the habeas corpus privilege, on the ground that the Constitution authorized whatever the public safety required. 6 In dealing with slavery most Peoples Party leaders and some Democrats were guided by contradictory considerations: they wished to strike blows against the rebellious Southerners, but they also wished not to expose themselves to the charge of being abolitionists. Consideration for Negroes was practically never mentioned as a relevant factor. When in May, 1861, the North American began to discuss important changes in Northern policies toward slavery, the matter was treated exclusively as a means of hurting Southerners. The piracy of Southern privateers absolved Northerners from all considerations of fellowship, McMichael wrote—no longer should the North help protect Southerners against their slaves.7 This idea bore no immediate fruit, but after the smashing Northern defeat at Bull Run, antislavery ideas became more acceptable. Gen6 Binney substantially modified his original doctrine in pamphlets published in 1862 and 1865. J o h n T . Montgomery, The Writ of Habeas Corpus and Mr. Binney (2d ed.; Philadelphia: John Campbell, 1862), pp. 2 7 - 2 8 . E d w a r d Ingersoll, Personal Liberty and Martial Law (Philadelphia, 1862), pp. 5, 8, 25. 38. Journal, March 14, 1862. 7 North American, April 29, May 10, 1861.

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eral John Fremont, the former Republican presidential candidate, captured public attention by proclaiming freedom of all slaves of rebellious owners in Missouri. This proclamation was supported, at least by implication, by nearly every Philadelphia paper including even the quasiDemocratic Ledger. The most important justification was military: proclaiming slaves free would encourage them to help the North either by revolting or by fleeing their owners. Philadelphia editors were not clear which possibility was more promising, but sometimes at least they talked openly of slave rebellion. The cotton states would not return to the Union except through dread of insurrection, the Ledger argued. The North therefore should seize Southern coastal regions and announce non-enforcement of the fugitive slave law: four million slaves would be turned into friends, and the fear-stricken Southerners would anxiously seek to end secession. 8 Thus Southerners' fears of slave rebellion, which formerly provided a main argument against abolitionism, now promoted the antislavery movement. Traditional revulsion against insurrection, however, remained for a time so strong that newspapers generally concentrated on the second alternative, that slaves might flee their masters. The Inquirer declared that slaves must be "abstracted" from rebel service while the Ledger sometimes spoke ambiguously. By using resources which might be made available from the enemy's means, the editor wrote, the North could turn slavery into an element of weakness and imminent danger to the rebel cause." The impact of these arguments was not lost upon genuine abolitionists such as the Philadelphian, Charles Leland, 8

Ledger, January 23, 1862. Ledger, September 18, 1861; January 1, 1862. Inquirer, 2, 1861. Ledger, September 4, 1861. 9

September

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who edited a New York literary magazine. He explained to an acquaintance, "I have been advocating of late . . . Emancipation for the sake of the Union—and of free white labor. I have ignored—skipped—the Abolition platform and urge it as the only arm by which we shall ever conquer the South. . . . I began in the early summer to urge Emancipation from this independent and expedient point, and find that it is rapidly working its way through the voting masses of the West among thousands who will not swallow Abolition, pur et simple."10 Philadelphia editors who, unlike Leland, genuinely disliked the radical antislavery movement, painstakingly dissociated themselves from the dread word, "abolitionism." The current of events was rapidly drifting toward the "extinction" of slavery, declared the Ledger, hastening to add that it referred not to the desirable but the inevitable. 11 This juggling with words was not entirely out of place, for "abolitionism" signified an attitude as well as a program, and the editors eschewed the attitude while considering adopting the program. The movement toward abolition was delayed when Lincoln revoked Fremont's proclamation, which exceeded the terms of the recently enacted First Confiscation Law. When Congress reassembled in December, however, it whittled further at slavery and began considering new confiscation bills which would enact the terms of Fremont's proclamation and apply them to the whole South. Philadelphia's Peoples Party congressmen joined fully in these proceedings, but by late spring in 1862, some local editors were ready to call a halt. The Inquirer (which had attained Philadelphia's second largest daily circulation) 10 Leland to Henry Carey, October 16, 1861, E. C. Gardiner MSS. Italics appear in the original. 11 Inquirer, September 3, 1861. Ledger, September 4, 1861.

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implied that the confiscation bills were unconstitutional, 12 and its editor expressed no interest in federal aid to border states for compensated emancipation. The Dispatch inveighed against abolitionists and even the North American cautioned Congress against a new confiscation law.13 Apparently since the time of Fremont's proclamation a Democratic opposition had begun to emerge, which some Peoples Party men temporarily wanted to conciliate for fear of causing serious division within the North. Many Philadelphia Democrats fully supported the war at its outset and, at a gathering in late 1861, applauded William Witte for his version of recent history. Before the war Northern Democrats had conscientiously guarded the rights of their Southern brethren, the speaker declared, but when Southerners refused to yield to constitutional process, Northern Democrats rallied round the flag determined to compel them to respect the country's authority. William Lehman, the only local Democrat elected to Congress in 1860, quickly supported Lincoln's Sumter policy and even backed compensated abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Philadelphia's only strictly Democratic daily, the Evening Journal, spoke of the "humiliating decadency of Mr. Buchanan," poured contempt upon secession sympathizers, and proposed conscription in order to strengthen the Northern war effort. Though the editor opposed emancipation in Washington, he urged adoption by state action of compensated emancipation in the border states. 14 12

Since coming u n d e r new management shortly before the war, the Inquirer had appealed to readers of both parties and had become, next to the Ledger, the most independent of the daily newspapers. 13 Inquirer, M a r c h 7, 31, April 25, M a y 17, 18, 1862. Dispatch, April 20, 1862. North American, April 17, 26, May 10, 17, 1862. 14 Inquirer, N o v e m b e r 9, 1861. Globe, 37 Cong., 2 sess., 15, 1168, 1179, 1 192, 1648—49, 1655, 2068, 2361, 2363, 2536. Journal, October

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In contrast was a group of Southern sympathizers who at first expressed their views privately, but by early 1862 published pamphlets cautiously criticizing administration policies. The proprietors of the suppressed Palmetto Flag and Christian Observer had never had wide influence in Philadelphia, but the new critics were recruited from the city's social elite. Edward Ingersoll, grandson of a signer of the Constitution, and William Reed, ex-Minister to China, expressed skepticism of the war, at the end of pamphlets devoted to peripheral issues. The first Southern sympathizer to dare publishing a pamphlet on fundamental war issues was Edward's brother, Charles Ingersoll, whose Letter to a Friend in a Slave State appeared in March 1862. The author maintained that the North could never subjugate the South because of the low quality of the armies—Northern and Southern, he circumspectly added. Even if the North could impose emancipation, Negroes would gain nothing, for they would simply die off or be butchered in a war of races. If the North would only offer fair terms, the South would return to the Union. 15 Most Democratic leaders in early 1862 stood between the Journal and the Southern sympathizers, and agreed with the ideas of Charles Biddle (son of the famous Nicholas Biddle), who was elected to Congress at a special poll in mid-1861. Biddle was proud to uphold his native Pennsylvania's military reputation after Sumter by promptly joining the army, where he was serving as Colonel when sent to Congress. He disliked the dominant class in South Carolina and had opposed Buchanan's Lecompton policy, but his attitude toward Negroes gave the decisive turn to 22, 23, December 17, 19, 1861; January 23, February 19, 20, March 7, 8, 10-12, 1862. A Letter to a Friend . . . (Philadelphia: [J. Campbell], 1862), pp. 10-20, 26, 38, 59.

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his congressional career. Slavery had been deeply rooted in America by the providence of God, he declared, and its evils could be alleviated only by the state governments— federal action would turn the fertile South into a "howling wilderness of revolted negroes," leading to endless federal intervention for the Negroes' sake against the whites. Diplomatic relations with the Negro governments of Liberia and Haiti should not be regularized, for such a move would imply racial equality. "[We Congressmen] are the sentinels on the ramparts," he declaimed, "and it is our function to give the alarm. Sir, the repugnance to Negro equality is as strong in the middle States as it is at the South." Biddle cited northward migration of Negroes as an argument against freeing slaves in the District of Columbia. In early 1862 the abolitionist, James McKim, had secured cooperation of non-abolitionists in aiding destitute Southern Negroes, and soon one hundred Virginian ex-slaves had been brought to Philadelphia. Without public advertisement—for fear of stimulating anti-Negro feelings—William Still had obtained most of the newcomers farm jobs outside the city. Democrats made the secret doings of the abolitionist employment agency an issue at the next election and Biddle sounded the alarm in Congress. Passage of the emancipating act, he argued, would cause the railroad to relax its restrictions on carrying Negroes northward from Washington and "great swarms of fugitives—thousands and tens of thousands of them—may come like black locusts, and settle down upon us." Slavery institutions were "dikes," "floodgates that shut out an inundation" of Pennsylvania. Antislavery measures, furthermore, would discourage Southerners from submitting to the government. Southern unionists were a considerable group, Biddle believed; the

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North should cultivate them as allies against secessionists instead of driving them into Jefferson Davis's arms. 16 The Democratic state convention in July, 1 8 6 2 , expressed similar views. Democrats resolved unqualified support for the existing war but called for the overthrow of abolitionism, which "seeks to turn the slaves of the Southern States loose to overrun the North." Like Biddle, the convention castigated the Republicans' silencing of opposition, and muzzling of the press, as the worst kind of tyranny. 17 Stimulated by the discussion in Congress of a new antislavery measure, bitter party conflict raged again during the summer of 1 8 6 2 . The slow progress of McClellan's army toward Richmond had been halted in the Seven Days' Battle, whose discouraging outcome helped persuade the doubtful that desperate measures were needed to crush the South. Taney's idea in the Dred Scott decision that, constitutionally speaking, slaves were no different from other property, was now turned against slaveowners: in mid-July Congress authorized "confiscation" of the human property of all rebels, and employment of the former slaves in the Union army. True, this act might not mean as much as it seemed, for the rebelliousness of each slaveholder might have to be determined judicially before his slaves could be freed, and there was little likelihood of taking thousands of cases to court. An immediate consequence of the law, however, was Lincoln's secret announcement to the cabinet of his intention soon to issue his own emancipation proclamation. 1« Globe, 37 Cong., 2 sess., 1169, 1644-45, 2504-05. Inquirer, July 7, 1862.

17

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The next day the Inquirer's editor, who had just returned to Philadelphia (probably from Washington), began preparing public opinion for the new antislavery policy. The Inquirer had supported Democratic candidates in the 1861 local elections and had condemned the confiscation bill unsparingly in May 1862, but on July 23 it declared that the whole theory of the war must be changed. When McClellan's soldiers were exhausted after the Seven Days' Battle, the editor wrote, Negroes might advantageously have been used to build defensive positions for the Union troops. If the works had been attacked, the Negroes should have had arms to defend themselves; and having worked and fought, they ought not to have been returned to their owners. "Without a particle of that sentimental negro philism known as Abolitionism, we endorse this policy." Its announcement, however, should better come from the President, "upon whom the people rely as a true patriot, than from a factious and partisan Congress. Better from him, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as a legitimate exercise of war power, than from the agitators in Congress."18 The views of Peoples Party leaders appeared three days later at a great troop-raising rally. Heretofore there had been sufficient enlistments from Philadelphia, but authorities now believed a state or local bounty necessary if the troop quota was to be filled. A statewide bounty could not be enacted, however, for Governor Curtin feared obstruction from the General Assembly's Democratic majority and refused to convene a special legislative session. Private citizens therefore established a local Bounty Fund and the city council hurriedly added an appropriation of its own. The mass meeting aimed at stimulating donations to the Inquirer,

M a y 31, July 11, 23, 24, 1862.

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private fund and at encouraging enlistments; many prominent Democrats were induced to support the demonstration, over which Mayor Henry presided. At this supposedly non-partisan gathering, Peoples Party leaders promoted their own doctrines just as Democrats had exploited the Union meetings in 1859 and 1860. Mayor Henry, to be sure, simply appealed for singleness of purpose, avoiding reference either to Lincoln or to the recent antislavery measures. But the resolutions cautiously approved the controversial confiscation policy, and other speakers assaulted the principle of constitutional government during wartime. The Constitution should be put aside when the Union was dying, declared ex-Governor James Pollock; the government should not stick to the letter of the law but should fall back on the principle of selfdefense. Every means, even the employment of Negro troops, should be used to crush the rebellion. Northerners made no war on slavery, but when the nation was struggling for her life, all things which crossed her path should be overthrown. The speaker endorsed a suggestion from the audience that skulking neutrals should be hung to a lamp post. 19 Three days later, on July 29, the Democratic state chairman published the most outspoken attack on Republican policies yet issued by an official of the party organization. Should Southern Negroes be employed in the Northern army, the writer predicted, the atrocities of the Santo Domingo slave insurrection would be repeated on a larger scale. Continuation of the war was largely the fault of the abolitionists, who seemed determined that Southern whites should be exterminated or held in subjugation. For the 19 Inquirer, Press, July 28, 1862. The N e g r o troop issue is discussed in text, pp. 161-165.

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N o r t h to direct its energies against abolitionists was as essential as for it to oppose secessionists, because without the substantial extinction of abolitionism the Union could never be restored. 2 0 T h e Inquirer scorned the idea that rebellion could be defeated by campaigning against abolitionism, citing the mild words of Lincoln's inaugural address and those of Congress in mid-1861 as proof that conciliation failed to allay Southern apprehensions. T h e North American, reacting much less temperately, advocated imprisonment of the authors of the July 2 9 declaration. T h e conspirators w h o issued this address meant "no mere political canvass . . .," M c M i c h a e l wrote, "they mean violence" with " N e g r o rioting" as the first step. (Anti-Negro riots had already broken out in Cincinnati and Brooklyn and federal authorities claimed to have discovered the plot for a similar riot in Harrisburg.) "It may be said," McMichael continued, "that the smallness of the number of these malignants is a guarantee against their success; but this is a delusion. They propose to manufacture public sentiment of a morbid kind by an anti-negro excitement among the ignorant whites, and calculate largely upon this to create for them a powerful party." 2 1 Newspapers now alleged that sympathizers were informing the enemy of troop movements; editors demanded punishment of people w h o helped defend victims of arbitrary arrest; officials proposed loyalty oaths; and writers attacked constitutional restrictions on government during a time of revolutionary crisis. This last theme was developed by Sidney Fisher in the most substantial political treatise published in Philadelphia during the war. The Trial of the 20 Address of the Democratic State Central Committee, July 29, 1862 (pamphlet, H S P ) , pp. 11, 13-15. 21 Inquirer, August 5, 7, 1862. North American, August 5-8, 1862.

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Constitution, as the book was called, argued that the English practice of parliamentary supremacy should be applied in America. Congress was the "delegate of the whole power of the people" and could be bound by neither reserved popular powers, state rights, the Supreme Court, nor the constitutional amending process. Congress had "supreme power over the Constitution . . . to alter it as necessity or expediency may require." "Never before was a National Government so necessary as now,—a Government that can command, can coerce, can be a captain in the storm. . . . Nothing less than this can save us from anarchy and its consequence, a military despotism." 22 Amidst growing political tension, fed by news of military setbacks and marked by the first political arrest of a Philadelphian since 1861, 23 Democrats scheduled their first mass meeting to deal with fundamental political issues since before the war. Undismayed by rumors that the authorities or a mob might interpose, the organizers went ahead with the demonstration, which proved in some respects remarkably sympathetic to administration aims. The resolutions declared that dissolution of the Union would be the greatest possible catastrophe, as it would disrupt internal commerce, lead to border warfare and a standing army, and end America's glory as a world power. The audience responded warmly as William Witte extolled the record of Democratic soldiers fighting to suppress treason. Witte even praised the honest and patriotic Lincoln for his supposed opposition to abolitionism. The President had promised to treat emancipation solely for its effect on 22 Sidney Fisher, The Trial of the Constitution ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : J. B. Lippincott, 1862), pp. 6 0 - 6 4 , 195-201. 23 T h e arrested man, a Democratic ward politician, was carried to Washington and held six weeks before being released.

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restoring the Union; misled by this seeming repudiation of abolitionist intent, Witte predicted that the Democratic Party would soon be in power to support Lincoln, and the audience answered with deafening applause. 24 In other respects the meeting showed the Democrats' usual anti-Negro and anti-abolitionist intolerance. Witte invoked fear of freed Negroes' coming north to compete with white laborers and degrading them through miscegenation, and the resolutions declared sympathy with abolitionists to be as treasonable as sympathy with secessionists. The most famous speech was delivered by Charles Ingersoll, who privately rejoiced in Union defeats and hoped for Confederate success in the war,-'3 but naturally did not express these opinions in public. He made the meeting's first direct attack on the administration: "A more corrupt Government than that which now governs us never was in the United States, and has seldom been in any European part of the world," he charged. The government started with 700,000 troops and now wanted 600,000 more—what had it done with the army? The military results thus far had been insignificant. Hitherto "the whole object of the war . . . [has been] to free the nigger," but where would the country be with four million blacks turned loose into the Northern states'? The poor blacks would have their throats cut in a war of races. Two days later the federal Provost Marshal arrested Ingersoll, charging that this speech tended to discourage enlistments. John Cadwalader, the Democratic District Court judge, quickly issued a habeas corpus writ and declared that the arresting officers would be guilty of contempt 2* Dispatch, August 17, 24, 1862. Inquirer, August 25, 1862. Fisher, Diary, April 18. September 29, 1861; August 1, 25. 1862. Fisher was Ingersoll's brother-in-law and spoke with him frequently. 25

Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers

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of court if they failed to produce the prisoner. Washington then ordered Ingersoll freed; many Peoples Party men privately regarded the arrest as a blunder, but none of their newspapers printed a word of criticism.-'6 T o the painful information of McClellan's withdrawal from his position near Richmond was added, in September, news of a Union army's disastrous defeat at the second battle of Bull Run. Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania suddenly loomed and Governor Curtin hurriedly requested militia units to prepare themselves. Philadelphia's emergency force consisted of two rival organizations, the municipal Home Guard and the state Gray Reserves. The former, commanded by General A.J. Pleasanton (a Lecompton Democrat whom Mayor Henry had appointed), was under tutelage of a Council committee, the majority of whose members in 1862 were Democrats. The Gray Reserves, which had already been called into service once to help suppress coal miners in northern Pennsylvania, counted among its advocates both the Republican, Morton McMichael, and the Democrat, Charles Biddle. Theoretically these units together numbered 15,000 men, but in September, 1862, their ranks were pitifully thin. The officers did not command public confidence, General Pleasanton in particular being regarded as pompous and fussy. Mayor Henry unavailingly suggested unifying the two organizations and newspapers burst into criticism of their ridiculous squabbles. "We have dilettante soldiers, and generals of a parade day . . . ," the Press complained; "our local military organizations, as organizations, are worth26 Inquirer, August 25, 26, 28, September 2, 1862. Fisher, Diary, August 25, 26, 28, September 1, 1862.

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less." T h e Inquirer reported that in Philadelphia there existed unparalleled apathy, confusion, and want of confidence in local military leaders. Confusion mounted as the Confederates advanced in Maryland. The city charter so hamstrung the mayor that an emergency concentration of powers seemed essential, but there was no agreement on the proper form. Some people called for one-man rule under martial law; Democratic councilmen insisted that a Council committee retain a veto over the mayor's exercise of defense powers; the mayor requested instead that full powers, free from Council control, be granted a special commission of outstanding citizens. A Peoples Party judge contributed his mite by demanding death for traitors. Governor Curtin, on September 11, urgently called on Philadelphia to send 2 0 , 0 0 0 short-term volunteers the next day. Theoretically this was not an impossible request, for probably only about 2 0 , 0 0 0 of Philadelphia's 116,000 white men of military age were already away in the regular army. 1 ' 7 Less than 1000 volunteers, however, reported on the 12th, a result partly attributable to failure of the city's most widely circulated paper, the Ledger, to give the proclamation any encouragement. General Pleasanton, seeking a high c o m m a n d f r o m Curtin, unnecessarily delayed departure of four H o m e G u a r d companies ready to set off for Harrisburg. Volunteering proceeded so slowly during the next week that no more than 4 , 7 0 0 volunteers reached the state capital. Weapons supplied to some of the men were defective and food supplies so poorly organized that volunteers often had to purchase their own provisions.- K 27 Negroes were excluded f r o m the state's forces. See text, pp. 161165. 2 8 Press, September 5, 9 - 1 6 , 1862. Inquirer, September 6, 8 - 1 7 , 1862; F e b r u a r y 1, 1865. Ledger, September 12-15, 1862.

Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers

145

Three political arrests were made during the month following Ingersoll's seizure, but the prisoners were all quickly released. 29 Sharply contrasted with the small number of political detentions was the frequency of arrests of deserters. Four hundred and twenty men, accused of desertion or other military offenses, were held in Philadelphia, or were sent back to the newly formed regiments, on September 16 and 17.30 Fortunately for Philadelphia, on September 17 McClellan's army halted the advance of Confederate troops at the bloody battle of Antietam. When Lincoln learned that the Confederates were retreating, he decided to issue the preliminary emancipation proclamation which had been lying in his desk for two months. 31 The proclamation's terms were far more sweeping than those of the 1862 Confiscation Law, which left a slave's status dependent on the uncertain outcome of a trial of the owner's rebelliousness. The trial might never be held, for a victorious United States government would very probably grant amnesty to most slaveholders and lose thereby the power to confiscate. Lincoln's proclamation definitely declared free every slave in specified areas. It emanated from a man who had shown himself more representative of the national will, and hitherto much less subject to criticism, than the Republican congressional majority. The Inquirer's preference for action by Lincoln rather than by partisans in - 9 One of the men was released only after Judge Cadwalader issued a writ of habeas corpus. That the third man was quickly released is inferred from absence of reference to his case by the Democrats w h o protested such arrests. 30 Inquirer, September 17, 1862. 31 The proclamation was preliminary in that it announced that another proclamation would be issued on January 1, 1863, freeing slaves in areas then still in rebellion.

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Congress, and Lincoln's immunity f r o m criticism by most speakers at the recent Democratic demonstration, indicated the wartime President's advantage over Congress in announcing fundamental national policy. A Democratic criticism was that the proclamation resembled a papal bull against a comet, directed toward conditions outside its author's jurisdiction. Lincoln "freed" slaves in the Confederacy, but not those in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and areas already conquered by the Union army. T h e criticism was invalid, however, for the Southern states—unlike the comet—might be expected to be brought within the government's jurisdiction. For both political and constitutional reasons the proclamation had to be made against enemies, 32 not against slaveholders in Union areas. M o r e serious was the charge that the President invited slave insurrection by declaring that the government would not hinder slaves "in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." 33 This invitation was an error, as Lincoln seemed to recognize by removing it from the final proclamation. Although the emancipation policy was now backed by all the prestige of a wartime President, the reaction of most Peoples Party Philadelphians seems to have been extremely subdued. However much it might appeal to sentiments about freedom, the policy so abruptly ended the system of suppressing Negroes without which, many whites had assumed, anarchic racial conflicts would convulse the South — a n d it so completely contradicted what most Philadelphians had until recently supposed the government had any 32

The Commander-in-Chiefs little-defined military powers would much more readily be construed to include policies against a foe's resources than measures affecting the domestic institutions of loyal areas, with no obvious military purpose. 33 Inquirer, September 23, 1862.

Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers

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authority to do—that most Peoples Party editors could justify it only as a way of striking blindly against the enemy. Practically all Democratic leaders arrayed themselves indignantly against what they regarded as a perversion of a justifiable if unnecessary war into a mad crusade against the most cherished traditions of the white race. Traditionally allied with Southern Democrats, and expecting to resume the alliance when the South returned to the Union, Democratic leaders naturally tended to cling to their allies' ideals. The different reactions of non-Democrats and Democrats to emancipation, in other words, had their roots not so much in their attitudes toward Negroes as in their attitudes toward Southern whites. Writing about a week after Lincoln's decree, the Dispatch's editor reported that the people had received the new policy with startling silence. "Unpleasant as it may be," he declared, slavery must cease forever, for it was the source of the rebels' strength. The proclamation, furthermore, would remove the cause for future Southern assaults against the Union. The Inquirer's editor appeared nonplussed by Lincoln's action and offered no immediate response except to reprint editorials from New York papers. The first of these endorsed the proclamation because it would turn slavery from a source of strength into a source of weakness, perhaps of total destruction, for the rebels. Others of the reprinted editorials, however, thoroughly condemned the new policy. Not for two weeks did the Inquirer venture to publish its own opinion; then, expressing satisfaction at Southern fears of what the proclamation might lead to, the editor declared that Lincoln's action was a military right and necessity. The Ledger quickly disapproved the President's policy. Scorning the alleged military benefits, the editor charac-

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terized the decree as a mere paper proclamation. He blasted the abolitionists and circulated the idea—menacing to Philadelphia Negroes—that provocation of a slave revolt would lead to extermination of each racial minority in each area of the country. Forney's Press was a belligerently enthusiastic advocate of the new policy, but the editor did not express approval in terms of sympathy with Negro freedom. It was wonderful, Forney wrote, what patience and self-denial the Northerners had displayed "in fighting this war with smaller weapons, while the great engine of death still remained in the arsenal." The proclamation would end the rebellion soon, in a very summary fashion. It was the hand of avenging justice, the editor continued—if the proclamation was followed by servile insurrection, the responsibility was with the slave aristocrats themselves. The Bulletin, though mentioning that the proclamation would benefit the Union cause in Europe, and using the phrase "real dawn of freedom at the South," concentrated on the military argument. The quickest way to restore the Union, the editor maintained, was to "strike vigorous blows. . . . The President's proclamation . . . will be conveyed by the mysterious telegraphy that exists among the Southern negroes, to the remotest borders of Texas and Arkansas, and if the rebels do not submit by the end of the year, there will be risings of negroes all over the South, and the freed blacks will virtually become soldiers of the Union armies." The only local journal to argue for emancipation as an end in itself was the North American, and even this paper followed a long, circuitous path before appealing to humane motives. The death of slavery was a decree of fate, McMichael wrote. Slavery was infamous and irreconcilable with the age, and its overthrow was to be regarded with

Dissenters, Slaves, and Volunteers

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awe. The Northern army had learned to push on determinedly, disregarding comforts: the destruction of slavery, the editor implied, was another grim duty which must yet be executed with determination. The desperate activity of the rebels must be equalled. The North's side was that of hope, progress, and national glory; the Northerners must do their whole duty, and there would be a glorious reward. 34 The extent of Democratic bitterness against the proclamation gradually revealed itself. In early 1863 party leaders found new channels for expressing their discontent, and intraparty differences made way for a common opposition to Lincoln's policy. Even after Lee's armies had been driven back from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Democrats affirmed biblical justification for slavery as a prime element of their political faith, making emancipation the fundamental issue in a wartime gubernatorial election. Another year later, with the war's end in sight, Philadelphia's Democratic Congressman and nearly all his party colleagues still opposed an amendment conclusively banning slavery. We have seen that all three topics of controversy—military policy, civil liberty, and slavery—were the subject of a series of wartime improvisations. The peacetime omission to work out a balance of powers between council and mayor made it natural that the local governmental arrangements devised in the face of Confederate invasion were unsatisfactory. When the governor called the militia, personal ambitions and rivalries, and public mistrust of local military commanders, did not make for a very efficient military performance. Later experience showed that, in the absence of 34

Dispatch, September 28, 1862. Inquirer, September 24, October 7, 10, 1862. Ledger, September 25, October 4, 1862. Press, September 23, 24, 1862. Bulletin, September 23, 29, 1862. North American, September 24, 1862.

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government funds to equip volunteers and of confidence in the military authorities, sufficient militiamen would volunteer only for regiments equipped at the expense of wealthy citizens or associations, and commanded by colonels already acceptable to the soldiers. As to civil liberty, it is clear that dissenters were at first substantially intimidated by the policy of arbitrary arrests. Usually the government simply made "warning" arrests, only three prisoners being incarcerated for more than a few days. Excepting the Ingersoll arrest, this moderate policy could be justified at the beginning of such a war, in the nineteenth century, but the administration's omission to seek legislative sanction earned it well-founded criticism. The crisis of 1862 produced leaders ready to abandon written constitutional constraints on the national government, but in this sphere existing institutions proved their worth. Constitutional practices were largely maintained, Democratic opposition to administration policies was increasingly openly expressed, and the judiciary exercised a certain influence in preserving individual liberty. Profound disagreements over slavery policy had the result that, by late 1862, the dominant political motives of prewar years were again paramount. Democratic politicians marshaled anti-Negro sentiment once more into an antiabolitionist crusade. Most Peoples Party leaders, avoiding expressions of sympathy for Negroes, justified emancipation as a way of promoting interests of Northern white men. These motives were fully developed during the subsequent war years.

7. Democrats, Negroes, and Conscripts

THE SAME ISSUES AS IN 1 8 6 1 AND 1 8 6 2 — P O L I C Y TOWARD

dissenters, recruitment of soldiers, and the status of Negroes —remained at the center of political conflict, but the old issues appeared in new forms. Democratic dissent flourished, controversial troop-raising measures were introduced, and a movement even developed to loosen anti-Negro discrimination. We shall portray the new developments after glancing at the results of the 1862 election. Superficially the election returns suggested popular endorsement of emancipation, for the Peoples Party's share of the total ballot increased from 49 per cent (in October, 1860) to 52 per cent. 1 The increase, however, resulted from two contradictory political movements. About four per cent of the electors, reacting against antislavery measures or expressing disgust at the war, actually switched from the Peoples Party to the Democrats; but this movement was overbalanced by a contrary switch of about seven per cent of the voters toward the Peoples Party, driven there by Southerners' doings since the 1860 election. These latter voters were Constitutional Unionists, who 1 The Peoples Party had been but the old title is used here for for congressional candidates and stantially ahead of his ticket with

renamed the "Union" Party in 1862, clarity. The figures refer to the vote state officers. Mayor Henry ran sub54 per cent of the vote.

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h a d balloted Democratic in October, 1860, and had backed Bell a m o n t h later, because of their distaste for the Republicans. Since the Whig demise in 1854 they had resisted alliance with the antislavery party, but secession finally drove most of them into the Republicans' arms where they remained forever after. Although Constitutional Unionists were not enthusiastic about emancipation, by 1862 the South's conduct outweighed for them all other considerations. 2 O n J a n u a r y 1, 1863, the very day of the final Emancipation Proclamation, Mayor Henry delivered the inaugural address for his third term. T h e m a y o r — a Constitutional U n i o n i s t — m a d e absolutely n o reference to the momentous policy inaugurated that day, except to mention that diversities of opinion existed in the North concerning measures used a n d contemplated for suppressing the rebellion. 3 Philadelphia Negroes were careful not to offend their unenthusiastic white neighbors by public celebration. O n the day of the formal proclamation they gathered indoors, where they expressed thanksgiving mixed with fear of deportation f r o m the country, as proposed in the widely discussed "colonization" plan. 4 T h e scene was described in an abolitionist's letter to Lincoln: 2 Most Constitutional Unionists voted for Buchanan in 1856. against the Democrats in 1858, and for the Democrats again in October, 1860. These voters were referred to as "Whig-Democrats" in earlier chapters. I have estimated that in 1862 approximately four-fifths of the Constitutional Unionists voted for the Peoples Party. Illustrations of the ward statistics, on which the estimates in this and the preceding paragraph are based, appear in CWI, pp. 271-272. 3 North American, January 2, 1863. 4 In August, 1862, Lincoln advised Negroes to emigrate to Central America, and in the December annual message used the word, "deportation," in connection with colonization. Forney's Press—Philadelphia's most radical anti-Southern paper—had advocated colonization on the grounds that Negroes were forever inferior and that anti-Negro prejudice was ineradicable. Proponents of colonization were not always careful to specify whether they were referring to voluntary emigration or to forced deportation. Press, August 18, 1862.

Democrats, Negroes, and Conscripts

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I have been, all day, from early morning until . . . [nearly midnight] in the crowded Churches of the colored people of this City [the Philadelphian wrote], . . . Occasionally, they sang and shouted and wept and prayed. God knows. I cried, with them. . . . As one of their speakers was explaining the effect of your Act, he was interrupted by a sudden outburst, from four or five hundred voices, singing "The Year of Jubilee". . . . The places of business, controlled by the colored people were, generally, closed. In the private houses of the better class, festivals and Love feasts were held. There are, in this City, about 30-000, Colored People. They have 20 Churches. They all go to Church; for the Black man, like all Oriental or Tropical races, is devout. Today, all the Churches were open and filled. They have among them, many men of talent, education and property. There are several excellent orators. All of these, ministers and laymen, exhorted the people, to accept the great gift, with reverent joy; to make no public demonstration, no procession or parade; To indulge in no resentment for the past, and no impatience for the future. . . . The Black people . . . do not believe that You wish to expatriate them, or to enforce upon them any disability, but— that you cannot do all, that you would. . . . Some one intimated that you might be forced into some form of Colonization. "God wont let him," shouted an old woman. "God's in his heart," said another, and the response of the Congregation was emphatic. . . . 5 Formidable new Democratic opposition now appeared. As early as August, 1862 William Reed had advocated recognizing Southern independence, but his pamphlet was intended only for private circulation. In January 1863, however, extreme Democrats launched a public campaign against administration policies in weekly lectures at a new 5 B. Rush Plumly to Lincoln, January 1, 1863, Lincoln MSS. (Italics appear in the original.)

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"Democratic Central Club." The first speaker, Charles Ingersoll, proposed state conventions to negotiate with the South and suggested, in order to bring forth such a convention in Pennsylvania, that the legislature's Democratic lower house refuse war supplies. 6 About this time the Evening Journal changed proprietors and started vehemently criticizing the administration. The editorial on January 20 declared caustically that "none of the great benefits predicted from the emancipation has been realized. The slaves have not risen and cut their masters' throats. . . . Another grand effect of this great panacea for the Union was to frighten the South, and make them quake in their knees. This fond anticipation has not been realized. Many unprotected women and children may quake upon retiring for the night, while their protectors are absent in the army, but they must put their trust in God and their faithful house servants to protect them." Another editorial compared Lincoln's intellectual capacities unfavorably with those of Jefferson Davis. The war had passed into a stage which could have "no other purpose than revenge, and thirst for blood and plunder of private property." The South's military strength was presently greater than at any other time, the author continued, while the Lincoln administration "is incapable of . . . winning victory in the field." 7 For publishing such editorials the proprietor, Albert Boileau, was arrested near midnight of January 27 and taken swiftly to Baltimore. Though Lincoln had formally suspended the habeas corpus privilege in September 1862, the commanding general believed a Democratic judge 8

Reed, A Paper Containing a Statement and Vindication of Certain Political Opinions (Philadelphia: John Campbell, 1862). [Henry C . Lea], The Record of the Democratic Party, 1860-1865 ([Philadelphia, 1865

(?)]), pp. 10, 12. 7

Dispatch,

F e b r u a r y 8, 1863. North

American,

January 29, 31. 1863.

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would have invoked habeas corpus proceedings—thus challenging the constitutionality of the President's assumption of power—if the prisoner had not been spirited away. The newspaper promptly criticized the arrest, whereupon federal officers seized the office and suspended further publication. 8 Unlike the Palmetto Flag and the Christian Observer, the Journal was a paper of at least moderate influence, and its suppression brought forth Philadelphia's greatest wartime protest against arbitrary government. This protest did not come from conservative Whig-Republicans, though many of them disapproved the government's action. The Common Council's Democratic majority condemned the proceedings as unlawful and dangerous to public liberty, while the Select Council failed by only a single vote to authorize a $1000 reward for the arrest and conviction of each participant in the arrest. The legislature's lower house, also by a strict party vote, called for Boileau's return for trial in Pennsylvania. A local grand jury returned a presentment against the responsible federal officers, and the Democratic judge who had initiated this action called on the district attorney to prepare indictments. Democratic councilmen used the opportunity for bitter attacks on the Emancipation Proclamation, war profiteering, conscription, and arbitrary arrests. "Instead of taking unwilling drafted men to carry out Mr. Lincoln's bull against slavery," one speaker suggested, the government should make brigades out of rapacious army contractors. Another councilman complained that the imbecile administration was wasting away soldiers' lives in a war which could never be settled by freeing the slaves.9 Fortunately for the government, Boileau signed a recan8 A witness of the arrest was himself detained for a few hours to prevent his instituting habeas corpus proceedings before Boileau could be taken from the city. 9 North American, Inquirer, January 30, 31, 1863.

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tation before he could be converted into a full-fledged martyr. The proprietor disclaimed having authorized publication of the offending articles and promised never to allow similar ones to be printed, whereupon he was released and the paper resumed publication. The promise did the government little good, for Boileau immediately turned the journal over to Democrats not bound by it. While attacks on the conduct of the war were growing sharper, administration supporters organized to defend the government's policies. Republican electoral setbacks in many parts of the North, and fear of possible violence at the time of the formal emancipation proclamation, stimulated certain well-to-do Philadelphians to found the "Union League." A major purpose was to combat doctrines such as those of the Democratic Club, but the League also devoted its abundant resources to recruiting new Union regiments. Branches were soon organized all over the North. Dissent in the city reached maturity in March, 1863, with the establishment of a new Democratic newspaper, the Age. For the first time since the decease of the Pennsylvanian, the party's extreme wing had a reliable organ. Unlike the old paper (which had been a cheap-looking tabloid with a low-toned ward-politician character), the Age had the dignified appearance to appeal to people of the class which read the North American. The inaugural editorial was a cautious plea for radical change in Northern policies. The Age was to be conducted on "national" Democratic principles—implying that it would seek common ground for Northern and Southern Democrats. Thinking both of white men's civil liberties and of Negroes' slavery, the editor called for allegiance to the institutions guaranteed by the Constitution. If these were

Democrats, Negroes, and Conscripts

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undermined, the Union could not be saved and America's influence and power would become mock words throughout the world. Never criticizing any action of the South nor suggesting that any blame for the war lay with the seceders, the editor expressed hope that the Union would be reestablished in spite of the recent Congress's pernicious legislation and the administration's fatal errors. A few days later the Age characterized the Emancipation Proclamation as a miserable and criminal blunder, which left the South "no other choice but war to the knife." 10 The bitterness expressed here arose partly from anti-Negro feelings and from allegiance to state rights, but also from the despairing conviction that the North's military task—hitherto performed with appalling lack of success—was made only the more difficult by spurring Southerners' will to resist. Each week the Age printed verbatim reports of the lectures at the Democratic Club. One speaker, ex-Congressman Charles Biddle, charged that abolitionists sought by alliance with Negroes to extirpate the white race in the South. While Biddle nevertheless favored vigorous prosecution of the war, another lecturer—William Reed—advocated a truce even if this led to permanent disunion. From the beginning, Reed implied, he had believed coercion a mistake, but he had refrained from public speeches until he could utter his undisguised convictions. George Biddle, a leading Democratic lawyer, called for a temporary truce as did the Age itself, without saying that this would probably have resulted in permanent disunion. 11 From March until June two-thirds of the long speeches and reviews printed in the Age were composed by members of Philadelphia's social elite. Charles and George Biddle, 10 11

Age, March 25, 30, 1863. Age, March 25, 30, April 6, 1863.

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Civil War Issues in Philadelphia

Charles and Edward Ingersoll, William Reed, George Wharton, Richard Vaux, and Peter McCall poured forth a volume of oratory and writing which marked the greatest political resurgence of socially prominent leaders in the city's history. By no means all members of the elite were Democrats nor were all prominent Democratic leaders members of the elite, but the correlation was striking by comparison with the Peoples Party leadership and with that of the peacetime Democrats. The explanation lay in sympathy between socially prominent Philadelphians and people of their own kind in the South (sometimes strengthened by family ties); in the repugnance felt by some Philadelphians for the populistic tenor of Northern society; and in the need of a party, adopting policies widely regarded as traitorous, to dress in the robes of social respectability. Great crowds sometimes gathered outside newspaper offices where the latest news bulletins were posted. "Another terrible disaster—Retreat of our Army . . . The arbitrary arrest of Clement L. Vallandigham"—these were the Age's bulletins on May 8, for news of Chancellorsville arrived simultaneously with the arrest in Ohio of the North's leading war critic. Men on the street twice ripped down the bulletins and attacked a protesting newspaper employee, and a crowd of one thousand quickly gathered. That morning Forney's Press had urged, "Let us unite the North by any means. . . . Silence every tongue that does not speak with respect of the cause and the flag," and the mob now practiced these precepts by smashing the Age's windows and preparing to rush the office. Virtually the whole police force was called out and Mayor Henry appeared once again to prevent violence. While warning the crowd that the publishers' rights would be preserved, the mayor unofficially

Democrats,

Negroes, and Conscripts

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suggested conciliating the mob by removing the bulletin board, but the publishers refused. The crowd demanded that a flag be flown but the resolute Democrats defied them. When the mob tried to break into the office policemen pushed them back, but the crowd did not disperse for some hours. Protected by the police, Democrats could continue frankly expressing themselves. The next morning their paper denounced "the villainies of the miserable Administration at Washington," and alluded to the "painful imbecility and criminal blundering of the present Administration." The Age complained that military authorities prevented the paper's circulation in Virginia and pointed out that the Philadelphia police had not arrested the men who tore down the placards and attacked their employee. That evening a well-known New Jerseyan, lecturing at the Democratic Club, called for immediate peace and advocated permanent continuation of slavery as the pillar of Southern strength, security, and civilization. If the war in the North against personal liberty should go on, he implied, armed resistance against tyrants might become a duty. Meanwhile the police dispersed a mob gathered outside the club house, and a little later protected the speaker from a crowd threatening him at his hotel.12 Democrats now resolved to express themselves in Independence Square rather than in the comparative privacy of the Democratic Club. A great meeting on June 1 was to demonstrate against the treatment of Vallandigham, who had been exiled to the South. Rumors circulated that the protest meeting, the first in Pennsylvania, would be attacked. Masses of policemen were assembled in Independ12

Age, North 10, 1863.

American,

Inquirer,

May 9, 11, 1863, Dispatch,

May

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ence Square, a state militia regiment was armed, and federal troops were stationed at the arsenals and armories. In consequence the demonstration proceeded without disturbance. This meeting showed that the Emancipation Proclamation and other recent administration policies, together with despondency at the failure of Northern military efforts, had alienated many moderate Democrats, throwing them into closer alliance with their party's extreme wing. A leader of the Cassidy faction served as temporary chairman and two prominent moderates, ex-Mayor Vaux and Daniel Fox (Democratic nominee for mayor in 1862) let their names be used as vice-presidents. Charles Biddle explained the Vallandigham case to the large audience; while ex-Mayor Peter McCall declared that if a majority of the people wanted peace, peace would have to be made, no matter how much the administration might oppose it. The resolutions marked the high point of popular opposition to the war, for they omitted any reference to suppressing the rebellion but declared that if Democrats won the 1863 gubernatorial election, they would use state authority to rebuke federal usurpation and commence "reconstruction" of the Union. 13 While Democratic opposition mounted, the dominant party cast about for new troop-raising methods. The state's authorization of a draft in October, 1862, to fill its quota had produced furious activity. Politicians descended on Washington to get the draft temporarily postponed, the city council hurriedly boosted its bounty from $50 to $200, and precinct committees conducted a desperate canvass to prove that more Philadelphians had volunteered than appeared in the recruiting office's inaccurate records. Thus the 1862 !3 North American, J u n e 2, 1863.

Inquirer,

June 2, 1863. Fisher, Diary, May 31,

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quota was filled without recourse to the unpopular draft, but in mid-1863 a new call was made under the national conscription act. Until then Pennsylvania Negroes had been excluded from the army; it remained to be seen whether pressure to fill the troop quota would overcome the racist opposition which thus far had maintained the ban. At the outbreak of the war three companies of Philadelphia Negroes had organized, but the state government refused their services; Governor Curtin had even refused to let Negro soldiers from other states pass through Pennsylvania. Some Negroes had questioned the strategic wisdom of enlisting until the whites gave up their anti-Negro policies. "What do we enjoy," inquired one writer in 1861, "that should inspire us with those [self-sacrificing, patriotic] feelings towards a government that would sooner consign five millions of human beings to never-ending slavery than wrong one slave master of his human property?" Would facing the cannon's mouth be worth "the satisfaction of again hearing a casual mention of our heroic deeds upon the field of battle, by our own children, doomed for all that we know to the same inveterate, heart-crushing prejudice that we have come up under?" Professing to believe that the South might soon abandon its anti-Negro policy in order to get foreign assistance, this writer advised Negroes to remain neutral, prepared to help whichever side, North or South, should initiate a policy of equal rights. A teacher, Alfred Green, disagreed, arguing that Negroes should try to impress the whites through military service, without waiting for the whites first to stop being mean. Negroes should enlist despite the fugitive slave law, the Dred Scott decision, and all the other products of the antiNegro spirit. No nation [he continued] ever has [been] or ever wiil be emancipated from slavery, and the result of such a prejudice as

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we are undergoing in this country, but by the sword, wielded too by their own strong arms. It is a foolish idea for us to still be nursing our past grievances to our own detriment, when we should as one man grasp the sword. . . . We admit all that has been or can be said about the meanness of this government [including the Lincoln administration] towards us . . . ; but what of that; it all teaches the necessity of our making ourselves felt as a people, at this extremity of our national government, worthy of consideration, and of being recognized as a part of its own strength. When Negroes should all have been striking blows for freedom, Green lamented, they were in many respects more inactive and despondent than at any other time. "Some are wasting thought and labor . . . in counseling emigration . . . ; others are more foolishly wasting time and means in an unsuccessful war against it; while a third class, and the most unfortunate of the three, counsel sitting still to see the salvation of God." Green's opponent replied that military virtues were not what was needed to change white men's attitudes. No fighting will emancipate you from prejudice [he wrote]. Will anyone tell me that today a poor man, of little or no intellectual cultivation, from the Independent Government of Hayti [scene of the Santo Domingo slave insurrection], will be more respected in this or any country than one of the native born of this country, of our color? Did they not wield both fire and sword fiercely, to desperation, for the liberties they now enjoy? But to command respect, wealth and education must do it— they will do more towards destroying that prejudice which darkens our existence than all the fighting we can effect under the most favorable circumstances.. . . Momentary admiration for exhibitions of well drilled men and military tactics, which I believe would follow [an exhibition of Negro troops marching through the streets of Northern cities], would create sensation

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among the sight-lovers who swarm in all thickly populated districts; . . . [but a permanent and effective impression on the whites] must emanate from something deeper, more reliable than brute force. . . . The most ignorant, unprincipled desperado . . . may be the most perfectly disciplined soldier. 14

Democrats were horrified at the idea of putting weapons in Negroes' hands. "Do you remember how it froze our blood," Congressman Biddle had asked (referring to the Sepoy Rebellion in India), "to read of men who clasped their wives and daughters to their hearts for the last time, and then slew them to save them from the black demons, athirst with lust and rage, who swarmed around them? . . . Of the slave you can not make a soldier; you may make an assassin. But the shrieks of white households murdered, and worse than murdered, by the negro would appall the hearts and palsy the arms of more of the supporters of this war than all the race of Ham could take the place of." 15 The Negroes calculated that Democrats' lack of enthusiasm for the war, and the North's military setbacks, would finally result in Negroes' being accepted. A speaker in 1862 urged enlistment in Rhode Island, where Governor Sprague welcomed Negro volunteers. "Let Governor Sprague march a model regiment of colored men . . . through Chesnut Street, Philadelphia, and the effect would be wonderful . . . ," the speaker prophesied. "The whites would begin to ask each other—Why can't this be done in Pennsylvania? . . . The wives of pro-slavery Democrats would begin to ask, Why are our husbands drafted who don't want to go, and these colored people who do want to go, allowed to stay at home?" A second speaker opposed enlisting outside 14 Alfred M. Green, Letters and Discussions on the Formation of Colored Regiments (Philadelphia: Ringwalt & Brown, 1862), pp. 3, 14, 16, 18-19, 24-25. is Globe, 37 Cong., 2 sess., 1111.

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the state, for he believed a great change in public opinion was taking place, which would soon lead Curtin to accept Negro troops in Pennsylvania. Alluding to the army's retreat from the Richmond area, he predicted, "All we want is a few more reverses, and the change will be complete." 16 Two weeks later the Northern army had been defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and as the Confederates marched toward Pennsylvania, the North American printed the first petition favoring use of local Negro troops. T o divert anti-Negro prejudice, the white petitioners expressed the belief "that a white man is of as much consequence as a negro, and that the lives of white men can and ought to be spared by the employment of negroes as soldiers." The policy was not altered in 1862, but Peoples Party leaders were soon advocating a change. On the eve of emancipation Forney characteristically argued that, "If the slaves of Southern rebels are liberated, their free colored brothers of the North and West must no longer be kept at home in lazy ease." The North American favored Negro troops as did 18

Dispatch, August 17, 1862. The congressmen, William Kelley and W. Morris Davis, were among the most radical in Washington. For some years Davis had served on a New England whaling ship, under the immediate command of a Negro officer. Praising this man as the bravest and ablest of the ship's officers of equal rank, the congressman advocated letting Negroes earn equivalent positions of command in the army. He held "the poorest black man who sheds his blood in our country's battle, as more my brother than the highest and haughtiest aristocrat who plots this nation's humiliation by intrigues for truce or peace with armed traitors." Clearly Davis's view was not representative of opinion in Philadelphia. The explanation of his and Kelley's electoral success is found partly in the fact that neither man represented the poorest sections of the city, where anti-Negro sentiment was strongest. Other factors were that many voters agreed at least with the candidates' anti-Southern sentiments, and that most voters would support their party's candidate no matter what his views might be. The character of the Democratic nominees, furthermore, obliged voters to choose between extremes. (Davis's opponent in 1860 was Harry Ingersoll, owner of a plantation in Louisiana, who exiled himself in Europe during the war instead of remaining with his 17

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two local congressmen, who delivered long speeches on the subject. 17 The issue was not settled until the Northern army had been smashed at Chancellorsville and Lee moved again toward Pennsylvania in June, 1863. On the 12th the government created an "Army Corps of the Susquehanna," but the new commander's call for volunteers met with little response. There followed a new call from Lincoln supplemented by proclamations from the governor and the mayor, who asked that all businesses close so that recruiting could go forward. Businesses did not close, however, and few volunteers came forward. The first local response came from 150 Negroes who had been training quietly, but state officials refused their services and the volunteers had to return to Philadelphia. As no local official would assume responsibility for the unpopular move, the national government was prevailed on to issue orders, on June 19, which finally permitted Philadelphia Negroes to join the army. 18 brothers Charles and E d w a r d to p r o m o t e p r o - C o n f e d e r a t e policies.) Kelley's unusual demagogic appeal and his a r t f u l tailoring of speeches to his constituents' a n t i - N e g r o prejudices (cf. text, pp. 3 4 - 3 5 , 37, 175) also help to explain his electoral success. Finally, Davis never stood for re-election, being succeeded immediately by a c o n g r e s s m a n whose views approximated those of the North American. T h e speech cited at the beginning of this note was delivered when Davis was already a "lame duck," with nothing m o r e to f e a r f r o m the electorate. North American, September 8, 1862: J a n u a r y 3, 1863. Press, D e c e m ber 31, 1862. Globe, 37 Cong., 3 sess., 6 0 6 - 6 0 7 ; 6 5 4 - 6 5 6 . 18 T h e y were not allowed to join the short-term units but had to volunteer for three years, f o r which they were promised only a $10 bonus f r o m the private bounty f u n d and none f r o m the government. (At this time whites volunteering f o r three years were granted bonuses totaling about $300.) N e g r o soldiers were paid $10 a m o n t h , whites $13. A segregated c a m p for training N e g r o recruits was established north of the city limits and white officers were sent to c o m m a n d t h e m . By the war's end 8,600 Negroes had been credited to Pennsylvania's t r o o p quotas, about twice as m a n y as for any other free state. Some were S o u t h e r n Negroes recruited and trained at the expense of a committee of p r o m i n e n t white Philadelphians.

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As the new military crisis approached, astonishing freedom of speech ruled in Philadelphia. Lecturing at the Democratic Club on June 13 (the day after the first call for volunteers), Edward Ingersoll intimated that Democrats should arm to defend themselves against the administration. Southern resistance to abolitionism was natural and wise, he said; "Don't trouble yourselves about the disunion feeling in the South . . . , take the beam out of your own eye." Southern resistance, in fact, helped protect Northern liberty against the policy of arbitrary arrests: 1862 might be pointed to as the year "in which African slavery, as protected by the Constitution, saved the liberties of America." Northern Democrats should defend popular rights against the revolutionary assaults of the abolitionists, "peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must. Your Constitution provides that 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' That clause has full meaning." 19 The Democratic state convention, which assembled the day after Curtin's call for volunteers, adopted unionist resolutions but nominated for governor a man who had privately expressed regret, shortly after Lincoln's election, that Pennsylvania was not seceding with the South. The resolutions pledged using the government's whole power to maintain the Union, and scorned consenting to peace on disunionist terms. In place of emancipation, Democrats urged stronger guarantees for slavery if Southerners showed interest in returning to the Union. Rejecting a secret proposal from the Curtin administration that both parties nominate a Democratic general for governor, the convention named instead Judge George Woodward, known for his speech at the 1860 Union meeting. Woodward had 10

Age,

June 15, 1863. Italics appear in the original.

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denied that the government had power to stop disunion, and had defended slavery as divinely sanctioned. In 1863 he pictured himself as an opponent of a "transcendental, hypocritical, canting philanthropy that would overthrow the work of the founders and set up a negro despotism upon its ruins." 20 As Lee's army approached, the Age contributed substantially toward sapping Philadelphians' will to fight. The editor described Ingersoll's June 13th speech as sound and patriotic and blamed Pennsylvania's sorry military situation on administration blunders. Although the paper supported the calls for volunteers from June 16 to 18, during the next ten days it offered no encouragement whatever. Suddenly on June 29 the editor called for every man to come to the state's defense: "Without having a particle of faith in 'Old Abe's' wisdom or judgment," he wrote, "Pennsylvania will do her duty." Two days later, as the battle of Gettysburg commenced, the Age reported that all was apathy in Philadelphia for want of confidence in Lincoln and his disastrous administration. No more than 2500 local men had volunteered for emergency service by June 25, although the city should have furnished four times that number according to the President's call. There were complaints that Lincoln's emergency force might be required to serve as long as six months, and on the 26th not a single Philadelphian was mustered into federal service. That day, as Confederate soldiers approached York, Curtin appealed for volunteers 20 Age, June 18, 1863. Alexander K. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1905), II, 44. Woodward to Jeremiah Black, Nov. 18, 1860, cited in Kenneth M. Stampp, And the War Came (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950), p. 49; September 10, 1863, Black MSS, Library of Con-

gress.

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to serve for only three months, in the state militia rather than in federal service, and city authorities planned another great recruiting meeting. 21 Meanwhile, to get rid of the unpopular General Pleasanton, leading Philadelphians requested Lincoln to place the city's defenses in charge of George Cadwalader, but a Massachusetts officer was sent instead. The new general promptly blundered. Other speakers at the recruiting rally talked not of Negroes but of defending the freedom of whites; the new commander, however, tried to rouse martial fervor by describing Southern atrocities against Negro soldiers, and thus demonstrated how little he understood the local temper. Downtown Philadelphia's appearance that day was recorded by Sidney Fisher: "Recruiting parties were marching about with drum and flag, followed only by a few ragged boy[s]," he wrote; "—recruiting offices empty, —taverns and grogshops full. The people looked careless and indifferent. . . . The demagogues have spread abroad the opinion that the administration is corrupt and imbecile, that it is impossible to conquer the South and that we ought to have peace now on any terms." 22 Not until July 1, when the battle of Gettysburg had already started, were large numbers of Philadelphians mustered into the emergency forces. The first full regiment sent from the city had been kept up at the personal expense of William Thomas, the flour manufacturer whom Lincoln had appointed head of the custom house; and private organizations such as the Union League, the Merchants Exchange, and the Corn Exchange now financed about seven more regiments. Factory owners resolved to compel workers to drill half-days at the workers' expense. By the 21 North American, June 16, 17, 26, 27, 1863. Inquirer, Age, 24, 1863. Dispatch, August 2, 1863; January 10, May 1, 1864. ^ Inquirer, June 30, 1863. Fisher, Diary, June 29, 1863.

June

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end of the emergency 10,000 short-term volunteers had departed from Philadelphia, but most failed to reach the scene of hostilities until after Lee had been defeated. 23 Three events in early July showed how times were changing regarding race. On the 3rd, as news from Gettysburg began to reach Philadelphia, Negro soldiers paraded through the city streets for the first time. Benjamin Brewster (who had deserted the Democrats in 1862) invited a famous Negro abolitionist to his home and afterwards pronounced the man his equal in every respect—much to the astonishment of those who remembered Brewster's violently anti-Negro speech in January 1861. And on July 6, for the first time in the city's history, an elected politician joined Negro leaders in addressing a Negro meeting. This was Congressman William Kelley, who urged Negroes to enlist in the new regiments despite discriminatory pay. The Negro troop policy was bound to exacerbate the antagonism of many Philadelphians to the conscription law, which was already resented for its provision that well-to-do persons could purchase exemption for $300. Since Democrats disliked the draft, they might logically have been expected to welcome Negro soldiers as a means of reducing the number of white men who would be called. But when bloody draft riots broke out in New York on July 13, they were directed mainly against the Negroes. This was partly blind irrationality, by which despair at the cost of the war and fury at Republican policies turned against the nearest available victims. The hostility to the Negro troop policy had other roots, however, for the idea of a gun in the hand of a Negro touched the same fears which had made whites fearful of insurrection. Further23 Age, June 23, July 2, 1863. Inquirer, July 3, 1863; February 1, 1865. Fincher's Trade Review, August 15, 1863. Dispatch, July 12, 1863.

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more, the idea of a Negro's carrying a gun had an unconscious meaning—like the idea of a Negro man's having sexual relations with a white woman—as a symbol of that racial equality to which the emotions of many whites were so deeply opposed. Philadelphians thus anticipated anti-Negro draft riots in their own city. Although the first day's drawing proceeded peacefully (in a ward selected at a distance from the poverty-stricken areas where antagonistic Irish and Negro populations were concentrated), alarmed leaders requested Lincoln to intervene. Philadelphia had inadequate force and no general officer whom the community would obey, wrote a state Supreme Court judge. " I n a riot [the Negroes] . . . will be the first sufferers, and will be savagely murdered—The administration has asked the aid of these poor creatures—will it allow them to run the risk of massacre?" 2 4 In response to such solicitations Lincoln removed the unpopular Massachusetts commander and sent General George Cadwalader, a prewar Democrat who, because of his role in suppressing the anti-Catholic riots of 1 8 4 4 , had been requested originally. T h e draft proceeded peacefully, ward by ward, during the next two weeks. Although the Age temporarily moderated its editorial policy after the New Y o r k riots, the main credit for avoiding a bloody outbreak rested with General Cadwalader and Mayor Henry. Philadelphia had no riot, not because public opinion was greatly different from that in New York, but because the authorities had previously demonstrated their willingness to use force, impartially, to defend unpopular minorities from mob violence. 24 Fincher's Trade Review, July 18, 1863. John M. Read to Lincoln, July 16, 1863, Lincoln MSS.

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In the 1863 election some Democratic politicians denounced the rebellion, but most party leaders concentrated their fire on abolitionism, saying that they would willingly support the war only if the South were permitted to retain slavery. Charles Carrigan explained that "When this war was first commenced, I supposed it was a war for the defence of the Union; I was in favor of it. . . . [It] has become a war for the emancipation of the negro—a war for equalizing the blacks with the white race. I am now opposed to the war on account of its brutality. . . . It whips white men . . . for the purpose of enfranchising the black man." 23 Charles Biddle (who was now Democratic state chairman) used the traditional tactic of blaming both abolitionists and secessionists, but blasting abolitionists at length while implying that the secessionists' behavior was an understandable reaction. The Southerners desired reunion, he said; after the first Northern victories, "the mass of the Southern people could have been brought back into the Union . . . ; but the Abolition Party dictated a policy that set aside the Constitution, and presented in its place emancipation, negro equality and general confiscation. American white men do not submit easily to terms like these." 28 Since the Democrats' main plank was to overthrow the emancipation policy, party leaders took pains to justify slavery. Judge Woodward's speech at the 1860 Union meeting—cited by Democrats in 1863 as the best exposition of their candidate's views—showed that the Old Testament explicitly recognized slavery, Jesus never suggested Age, August 18, 1863. Biddle was the leading spirit in his party's campaign, since Woodward remained on the state Supreme Court and made no election speeches. Age, August 13, September 22, 1863. 25

26

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suppressing the institution, and Paul's writings abounded in slavery regulations. Property in man was divinely sanctioned if not divinely ordained, the judge had concluded. Biddle also circulated A Biblical Defense of Slavery, penned by the Episcopalian bishop of Vermont, as campaign material. 27 The Peoples Party took up the issue, the North American, for example, devoting its leading editorials to it for the last three days before the election. Anti-Democrats argued that Southern slavery differed in important respects from that sanctioned in the Bible. The sanction of the Old Testament was not conclusive, in any case, for polygamy, revenge murders, and other practices outmoded by the progress of civilization also were countenanced there. Finally, slavery was condemned, if not by the words, by the spirit of Jesus' teachings—the brotherhood of man and the "Golden Rule." 28 Thus the two parties had adopted fundamentally differing policies. The Democratic program was to repeal the Emancipation Proclamation and the conscription law; to meet the Southerners cordially with a proposal of reunion; to offer the South permanent guarantees for slavery; but to continue the war in the (allegedly improbable) event that the South would not return on these terms. The Peoples Party, on the other hand, advocated emancipation as an incident of a war for Union. 29 Perhaps because the North's military prospects had improved by election day, 54 per cent of Philadelphia's voters balloted for the triumphant Peoples Party candidate, Governor Curtin. Except regarding Negroes' status, no important new 27

Age, June 29, August 13, September 29, 1863. North American, October 6, 9 - 1 2 , 1863. Sidney Fisher in American Review, LXLVIII (January, 1864), 66, 6 8 - 6 9 , 71-74. 2 » Age, June 18, 1863. North American, September 25, 1863. 28

North

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issues were widely discussed during the war's last phase. We shall glance at the three old issues during this period. The problem of defending Pennsylvania arose again when Confederate forces briefly crossed the border in 1864. Soon afterward an observer described Philadelphia's "miserable condition. . . . If you could have been here last week, and have seen the effect of a sort of nightmare upon the city;—thousands of men trying to go, and not getting off; and have remembered that this has happened every year for three years, and that the nightmare only grows worse, I am sure you would agree that this spasmodic soldiering is the poorest thing possible, and that we had better get up something permanent that will enable us to send our militia off in a few hours." 30 Although several more men were arbitrarily arrested, 31 the government's repressive policy was comparatively mild after the Evening Journal case. Altogether during the war federal authorities made nineteen arbitrary arrests in Philadelphia: only six prisoners, however, were held for more than a few days. This policy had limited dissent before adoption of the emancipation program, but thereafter had proven worse than useless. Determined protests of Democratic orators, legislators, and judges had caused the government to retreat after the mistaken arrests of Charles Ingersoll and of the Journars proprietor. The remarkable fact during the war's later phase was how much freedom 30 E. Spencer Miller to William Meredith, July 18, 1864, Meredith MSS, HSP. 31 A man arrested in November, 1862, charged with enlisting men as substitutes and then enticing them away, was held in prison as late as June, 1863. A carpenter allegedly was exiled to the South in May, 1863. A Democratic supervisor of the administration of Pennsylvania's soldier vote law was arrested in 1864 and then released. Another Philadelphian was arrested in Ohio on September 20, 1864, on suspicion of connection with a Confederate raid, and imprisoned without trial until February 9, 1866.

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the government conceded when faced with wholesale attack on its conduct of the war, or on the war itself. The last mob action against dissent occurred just after Lincoln's assassination. Several men not displaying the desired respect for the dead President were badly beaten in the streets. The Age's office was mobbed, but once again police efficiently protected the Democratic journal. Mayor Henry advised leading Democrats to put bows at their windows to honor the President, saying that otherwise he could not be responsible for preventing mob violence; practically without exception the Democrats complied. The Ingersoll brothers, however, did not escape. In January Edward had suggested again that armed resistance might be necessary; and the evening before the assassination, speaking in New York, he proclaimed that he "yield[ed] to no man in sympathy for the people of the South—a gallant people struggling nobly for their liberty against as sordid and vile a tyranny as ever proposed the degradation of our race." Two weeks later, abused by a mob at a railroad station, he told an army officer to "Go to hell." They fought with canes, and as the crowd approached, Ingersoll brandished a pistol, whereupon police detained him. A mob milled around all afternoon, and when Charles Ingersoll arrived to visit his brother, they dragged him out of the carriage and beat and stamped on him, while police looked on. Though policemen finally intervened to save Charles's life, they failed to arrest the attackers. Whig-Republicans made no public protest but the Dispatch characterized the attack as "a brutal affair, disgraceful to all who participated in it, and discreditable to the community which will suffer such acts to be committed with impunity." 32 32 Fisher, Diary, April 2 1 - 3 0 , M a y 5, 8, 1865. [Lea], The Record the Democratic Party, 1860-1865, p. 16. Dispatch, April 30, 1865.

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The third wartime issue, the status of Negroes, was the focal point of the 1864 presidential election. Though advocates of a truce had written an ambiguous statement of their program into the Democratic platform, General McClellan publicly denied that he would countenance disunion. Sensing popular demand to carry on the war, Democratic leaders in Philadelphia were even more emphatic than McClellan in rejecting the possibility of a disunionist peace. Emancipation thus became, as in 1863, the main campaign issue. Democrats pointed to an influx of Negroes into Pennsylvania as proof that emancipation threatened local white laborers. Republican Congressman Kelley tried to deflect this argument by saying that the Negroes were merely fleeing from slavery. "Make the South free," he predicted disingenuously, "and there are not a thousand negroes in Pennsylvania who would not leave it." 33 Northern war prospects having again improved by October, the administration party won Philadelphia by the same large margin as in 1863; Lincoln's showing in November was even better. Within three months Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment, giving explicit backing to emancipation and extending it to the border states. Democrats adamantly opposed this policy, voting practically unanimously against it in Congress and in the Pennsylvania legislature. By 1865, however, the Inquirer (which had so hesitantly supported the original proclamation) was an enthusiastic advocate of emancipation. The editor characterized the amendment's adoption as a great moral victory and predicted that the subject, finally settled, would vanish from public attention. 34 33

Age, September 19, 23, October 5, 1864. North American, SeptemNorthrop ber 29, October 6, 8, 10, 1864. Joint Debates between George . . . and Hon. Wm. D. Kelley (pamphlet, HSP), October 3, 4, 1864 and passim. 34 Inquirer, February 1, 4, 1865.

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The question of Negroes' status would not conveniently vanish as the Inquirer wished. At the moment Congress was acting to abolish slavery, a strange event occurred in Philadelphia. A movement to end Negroes' exclusion from streetcar carriages had begun in 1859, with an article of William Still's anonymously published in the North American. Two years later members of the "Social, Civil and Statistical Association," a Negro organization, presented a petition of 360 prominent whites to the railway presidents, but received no satisfaction. A group of Quakers, having gotten a run-around from railway officers, boycotted the cars. In 1864 two lines agreed to admit Negroes. The next January James McKim secured cooperation of many prominent whites in public demonstration against the exclusion continued on the other fourteen lines. Peoples Party leaders nearly all avoided committing themselves and practically no Democrats, either politicians or non-politicians, took part in the meeting. Many Peoples Party lawyers, manufacturers, bankers, and ministers, however, supported the demonstration, whose president was the city's most famous manufacturer, Matthias Baldwin. A committee of whites appointed at this meeting visited the railway presidents, who avoided responsibility for an unpopular change by suggesting a referendum of the white streetcar riders. The protest committee agreed to this proposal and on January 31, the very day that the House of Representatives was approving the Thirteenth Amendment, an overwhelming majority of Philadelphia whites voted against letting Negroes sit in the streetcars.35 35 William Still, A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars . . . (Philadelphia: Merrihew and Sons, 1867), pp. 3-7, 9, 11-14, 16. Inquirer, January 13, 14, 1865. [B.P. Hunt], Report . . . Use of the Street-Cars (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Son, [1867]), p. 2.

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The Inquirer, which applauded slavery's abolition as such a great moral victory, printed a hypocritical account of public views on the streetcar proposal. "The prevailing opinion appears to be in favor of colored persons riding," the paper reported, "and, in order to make them as comfortable as possible, that separate cars should be set apart for their use, and that these cars should be driven by colored drivers and supplied with colored conductors. "Some went further than this, and suggested that, in order to make the thing more complete, the cars should be drawn by colored horses."36 We end, as we began, on a sour racist note. Democratic leaders had taken their usual stand, most Peoples Party leaders had avoided committing themselves, and not until after two more years of strife between North and South was segregation ended on local streetcars. Once again, as with the Negro troop issue, local politicians passed responsibility to an authority removed from the local electorate: it was the state legislature which finally ended streetcar discrimination. The contest to secure the national government's right to influence Southern race relations lasted yet another three years before Republicans, as a by-product of this contest, granted voting rights to Philadelphia Negroes—thus establishing the electoral conditions which later led to a profound revolution in the racial attitudes of local Democratic leaders. It can be seen that during the war's last years the differences between the Democratic and Peoples parties were acute. After the successful Democratic protest against suppression of the Evening Journal, opposition to the administration expressed itself openly. The Age was defended by 36

Inquirer,

January 31, 1865.

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police from mob violence, and ample protection was provided for the greatest popular demonstration against the war, a month before Gettysburg. Hostility to administration race policies was a major factor in the slow, chaotic, and inadequate response of Philadelphia's militia to federal and state demands. Thus, during the war's last phase, as throughout the Civil War era, anti-Negro feelings strongly affected the tenor of local life. The Democratic crusade failed for the most part, but it significantly weakened public support and efforts for the war. On the latest of the national issues affecting race relations, the Negro troop question, most Peoples Party leaders were moved by the military needs of the North, not by friendship for Negroes. Here as previously—pursuing legitimate interests of Northern white men regarding the fundamental issues of the era—these leaders helped to create less degrading conditions for Negroes in the South, and, eventually, in the North.

8. Conclusion

A R E A D E R MAY ASK W H E T H E R

P H I L A D E L P H I A W A S AT A L L

representative of the North. At first glance the city seems atypical because of its proximity to slave states, its trade and family connections with the South, and its comparatively large Negro population. But pro-Southern and anti-Negro sentiments were to be found in other places as well. For example, New York City's mayor talked of seceding with the South; its Daily News radically criticized wartime policies long before the Age was founded in Philadelphia; and its elected officials permitted anti-Negro passions to get out of hand in wild draft riots. Wartime anti-Negro riots also occurred in Brooklyn. New Jersey (where in 1860 Lincoln did not capture all the electoral votes) had little enough antislavery spirit that it fostered a Peoples rather than a Republican Party. This state was the home of Democratic leaders such as James Wall, whose Philadelphia speech in May, 1863, was more pro-Southern than even the Age would endorse. James Buchanan, Attorney-General Jeremiah Black, Judge George Woodward, and the 1862 Democratic state chairman, Francis Hughes, were some of Pennsylvania's outstanding anti-Negro leaders, residents of central or southern parts of the state, whose careers attested to racist influence outside Philadelphia. Cincinnati was noted for its Southern atmosphere. Ohio's Democrats in179

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eluded Clement Vallandigham, the North's leading war critic, and George Pendleton, the party's vice-presidential candidate in 1864, whose truce policy would have led to Southern independence. Anti-war "Copperheadism" was prevalent through southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The last-named state had a law banning immigration of free Negroes, and the speeches of its most famous Democratic leader, Stephen Douglas, abounded in racist appeals. AntiNegro sentiment, we may infer, was strong all the way from New York City to the southern part of Illinois. This was an area which contained perhaps one-fourth of the population of the free states—whose population, that is, was nearly as large as the total free population of the Southern Confederacy. Philadelphia's experience should prove suggestive for this considerable portion of the North. A reader may next ask what inferences can be drawn from the study of Philadelphia. To answer this question, we need to sketch a general view of the causes of the Civil War, different from the three main theories indicated in the introduction, one which proves to be consistent with Philadelphia's experience; and then to show how our knowledge of conditions in Philadelphia can supplement this general view. The deep South, it seems clear, seceded to preserve slavery—valued for economic reasons and deemed indispensable as a means of subordinating a feared race. The impulse to secession was given by the election of a Republican President, whose party was the focus of Southern fears for their institutions. The Republican electoral success was caused by Northerners' desire to change the spirit of the national administration, a desire which resulted mainly from the government's having favored the proslavery party in the territorial slavery dispute. Northerners went to war

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not to destroy slavery but to rebuff an affront to the government's authority, and to preserve the Union, to which they were attached by nationalistic sentiment and which they valued for fear of the military, political, and economic consequences of having a powerful, hostile, independent Southern neighbor. If we follow the idea that the "North" be considered not as a unit but as an upper three-quarters and a lower one-quarter, many details of Philadelphia's experience will have an important bearing on the question, How can the general framework sketched above be most accurately filled out? We refer here especially to feelings about race, to the forces behind the growth of Republicanism, to the attitudes of Northern Negroes, to the policy of President Lincoln, and to the actions of the Democrats. It is worth recollecting some of the evidence of antiNegro feeling in Philadelphia. The reader will recall the Pennsylvanian's talk of white men's being jostled onto the street by odoriferous Republicans; the Democrats' labelling their opponents the "Mulatto" Party in 1858; Benjamin Brewster's striking appeal to race hatred at the pro-secessionist meeting in January 1861; and Congressman Biddle's assertion that hostility to "Negro equality" was as great in the Middle States as in the South. Among anti-Democrats, we recollect William Kelley's accusing a Southerner of trying to make "niggerism" the only element in the 1856 election; the welcome which the Daily News, a supporter of the American Party, extended to the Dred Scott decision's denial of Negro citizenship; and John Forney's advocating, in 1862, colonization of Negroes, on the grounds of their permanent inferiority. An important element in the system of race beliefs was the expectation of Negro revolt, or of a war between the races, if Negroes were not

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suppressed. We have found that before the war this expectation was used both to justify slavery and to prove that secession was not in the interest of the slaveowners. It shaped reactions to the John Brown raid, affected the whole discussion of wartime emancipation, and was a prime factor in Democratic opposition to the Negro troop policy. The question arises, how widespread were the feelings of antipathy to Negroes? On the one hand, there can be no doubt of the sentiments of Democratic leaders such as Edward Ingersoll, Charles Biddle, and Charles Carrigan. The overwhelming rejection of the streetcar desegregation proposal indicates that sympathy for Negroes' aspirations was not widespread among either Democratic or Peoples Party voters. It is worth remembering the estimate of public attitudes implied in the Inquirer s argument for wartime antislavery measures: "Without a particle of that sentimental negro philism know as Abolitionism, we endorse this policy." On the other side was the attitude of abolitionists, of the several hundred Peoples Party voters who signed the petition to end streetcar desegregation, and of some Peoples Party leaders, such as the judge who appealed to Lincoln to protect local Negroes against a draft riot. One wonders whether other leaders of the Peoples Party had strong, humane feelings toward Negroes, which they preferred not to reveal. To judge whether this was the case, we need to look more closely at the motives of the party's four most prominent representatives, John Forney, Alexander Henry, Morton McMichael, and William Kelley. Forney was hostile to slavery and to extreme proslavery politicians, but there is no evidence that he ever cared for Negroes—his aims appear to have been to hurt the South-

Conclusion

183

erners, and to find the most powerful arguments to uphold the policies of the party to which he was attached. Though Mayor Henry may sometimes have felt compassion for Negroes, this feeling does not ever appear to have influenced his official conduct. Maintaining both public order and as much political freedom as possible, conciliating the South before the war, and concentrating in a nonpartisan way on winning the war once it started-—these were his motives in prohibiting John Brown's body's being detained in Philadelphia; in protecting the subsequent Curtis lecture; in avoiding reference to emancipation in his speech of January 1, 1863; and throughout his career. McMichael probably felt greater concern for Negroes, as suggested by his publishing the communication from the Negro abolitionist, William Still, in 1859, but other motives were much stronger. The editor sought to advance the political and economic interests of the well-to-do class of old Whigs, and therefore to promote the success of an anti-Democratic party within which propertied men could exert a major influence. When he himself aspired to political office in 1865 (he was elected mayor that year) he was careful not to commit himself on the streetcar issue. Kelley was more closely associated with Negroes' interests than the other three leaders, but his occasional appeals to anti-Negro feelings suggest complex motives. The strongest was probably a desire to vanquish Southerners, at first politically, later militarily. Fellow feeling for Negroes thus does not appear to have ranked high among the motives of the chief Peoples Party leaders. Consistent with all these conclusions is the evidence of the initial weakness of the local antislavery movement. We recall that Fremont obtained, under his own name, scarcely more than a tenth of the ballots in 1856. Philadelphia

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acquiesced in conscientious enforcement of the fugitive slave law—an extraordinary attempt to meet slaveowners' claims, considering what was demanded. The Dred Scott decision provoked little furor, and anti-Democrats avoided the slavery issue when Wilmot ran for governor in 1857. As late as October, 1860, the majority of Philadelphians cast their votes for the Democratic Party. The desire to avoid offense to Southern customers was a factor in weakening the local antislavery movement, but the anti-Negro temper of Democrats and Americans seems to have been a much more important influence. Philadelphia's antislavery movement, it is clear, did not thrive until actions of proslavery partisans infused it with life. The frauds in Kansas and the caning of Senator Sumner gave a certain impulse, and Buchanan's Lecompton policy led to a Peoples Party electoral success. Secession increased the attachment of Peoples Party ward politicians to Republican principles. After the outbreak of war, Southern victories stimulated a desire to turn the slaves against their masters, and the military contribution of Philadelphia Negroes was eventually accepted as a means of hurting the South. In the shift toward the Republican Party, Constitutional Unionists played a critical role. These former Whigs were so concerned to conciliate the South that most of them voted Democratic in 1856. Alienated by the Lecompton policy, they ran their own candidates instead of fusing with Democrats for the congressional elections of 1860, thus facilitating the triumph of certain antislavery spokesmen. 1 The Constitutional Unionists, however, supported the 1 The total vote for Democratic and Constitutional Unionist congressional candidates was 42,300, for Peoples Party nominees 39,500; yet only one Democrat was elected as against four Peoples Party men, including the radical antislavery candidates, W. Morris Davis and William Kelley.

Conclusion

185

Democratic gubernatorial candidates in 1860, and it was only the attack on Sumter which drove them definitively into joining with the Republicans. Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, the interests and feelings of local Negroes conflicted with what most white Philadelphians felt to be their own interests. The main political issue for Negroes could be only how much to express their dislike for the ascendant policies. They were discouraged from strong political action by their fear of whites. This fear was evident in the extent to which they submitted to the execution of the fugitive slave law, in their anxiety as to colonization, in the privacy of their celebration of emancipation, and in the degree to which they expressed their interests through non-political associations—especially in churches—which were less offensive to their white neighbors than political groups. That moderate tactics found favor among Negroes was shown also in the surprising opposition, at the meeting after the Dred Scott decision, to the proposal that Negroes should refuse their support to the government; and in the fact that certain Negroes tried to volunteer for the army prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. Southern actions finally introduced a period, which lasted until about 1870, when a substantial number of Northern white men understood that their interests ran parallel to those of Negroes. This was the brief era during which Peoples Party leaders, though not greatly moved by humane feeling, helped to secure less humiliating conditions for Negroes. The situation in Philadelphia presents a useful point of departure for interpreting the career of Lincoln, who has sometimes been portrayed as conservative and opportunistic in his antislavery policy. When Lincoln, in the debates with Douglas in 1858, was attacking popular sovereignty on the grounds that territorial slavery should be conclusively pro-

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hibited, Philadelphia's Peoples Party upheld popular sovereignty as its rallying point against Buchanan. In February, 1861, Lincoln's Philadelphia speech favoring Negro rights contrasted remarkably with the prevailing local tone. The new President appointed the most radical of the city's important Republicans as head of the custom house. His decision to supply Fort Sumter was more decisively unionist than was editorial opinion in Philadelphia at the moment. William Witte's speech at the Democratic meeting in 1862 makes the President's well-known letter to Horace Greeley appear as an astute move to disarm the growing opposition, while preparing the grounds for emancipation. After the proclamation was finally issued, the Ledger's opposition, the Inquirer's hesitation to declare itself, and Mayor Henry's later silence, all showed how far Lincoln's action was beyond the expectation of most local residents. In 1863 the President appointed a Massachusetts general, who felt deep sympathy for Negro soldiers, to command in Philadelphia, and only later replaced this officer with a man whose views corresponded more closely to the local temper. When the strength of Democratic opposition to administration policies is taken into account, the President's actions appear all the less conservative. Against the Philadelphia background, Lincoln seems remarkable for his resolution in maintaining the Union, for his concern for Negroes, and for his steady promotion, within constitutional and political limits, of antislavery principles. Sharply contrasted to the policies of the Republican and Peoples parties were those of Philadelphia's Democratic organization. The local leaders went far to meet the wishes of their Southern allies, as shown in their acceptance of the denial of popular sovereignty in Kansas; in a local meeting's endorsement of the territorial slave code as early

Conclusion

187

as 1857; in a considerable portion of the local delegation's voting with Southerners at the 1860 national convention; and in the state committee's authorizing electors to vote for Breckinridge. Pro-secessionist forces were influential in the city, and the Buchanan administration was surprisingly closely associated with these forces. During the secession crisis moderate Democrats (resembling in this respect most Constitutional Unionists and a few Peoples Party m e n ) were willing to accept and excuse secessionist arguments. A movement for a truce with the South attained considerable strength just prior to Gettysburg, and even afterwards the Democratic program of repealing the Emancipation Proclamation differed radically from the administration policy. This goes to show that, contrary to the opinion of some revisionist historians, differences between the parties were far more important than factional conflicts within each party—even though both parties were influenced by the prevailing anti-Negro temper. Considering the vigor of the Democratic opposition to Republican measures, and remembering the inadequate volunteering, the great number of deserters, and the necessity for military precautions against draft rioting, one must ask how much Democratic hostility to administration policies may have contributed to the catastrophic way in which the North conducted the war. So sharp were party differences that mob action and the threat of widespread rioting frequently recurred. Public order was fragile, civil liberty insecure. Democrats attempted to suppress abolitionist meetings during the prewar crisis; anti-Democrats tried to throttle their opponents during the war; and some leaders advocated a wholesale setting aside of constitutional practices. Defiance by the threatened minorities and resolute action by responsible

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officials helped to limit the violations of free expression. It is a disputed question whether historians should attempt to judge the men of an earlier age. Without discussing how far this amounts to the disputed kind of historical judgment, we find it useful to place ourselves in the situation of a mid-nineteenth century Philadelphian, to face the issues and choices which confronted him, and then to define an attitude toward the local leaders—and thus to the political issues—of the era. A person of liberal persuasion may be disposed to think well of the abolitionists, with their successful assistance to fugitive slaves and their recognition of the human rights of Negroes. Their outstanding representative was James McKim, the most active leader in reorganizing the underground railroad in 1852, in arranging aid to destitute Southern Negroes in 1862, and in promoting the streetcar desegregation movement in 1865. One is likely to be alienated, however, by the abolitionists' disregard for political calculation, especially at the time of the John Brown raid, when their unnecessary provocation of the Southern whites played a great part in aggravating the crisis. Extreme Democratic leaders, such as Robert Tyler or Charles Ingersoll, are not likely to win our confidence in their political wisdom, nor to gain our support for their suggested policies. Among moderate Democratic politicians one of the most able was the state chairman in 1863, Charles Biddle, a person of extraordinary intelligence and cultivation, who had dissented from Buchanan's Lecompton policy and had quickly put his military experience at the government's disposal after Sumter. Biddle distinguished himself also, however, by anti-Negro declamations, by justifications for Southern resistance ("American white men

Conclusion

189

do not submit easily to terms like these"), and by zealous seeking of biblical authority for slavery. As to the more radical of the Peoples Party leaders, one is likely, in the first place, to be struck unpleasantly by Forney's unscrupulousness and insincerity. Kelley was talented in persuading white men to recognize Negroes' interests, yet his demagogy and deviousness stir one's distrust of his motives and judgments. A more forthright leader was William Thomas, Philadelphia's first Republican mayoralty candidate, a man of sincere antislavery conviction who largely financed the local Republican Party during its infancy, and who kept up at his own expense the first local militia regiment to respond during the military crisis of 1863. But Thomas' political activities and writings show that he lacked the understanding and realism to be a major politician. One turns then to the more conservative Peoples Party leaders, Mayor Henry and Morton McMichael. T o be sure, neither was effectual in preventing the domination of the local party organization by corrupt ward politicians, nor did either show regard for workingmen's movements. McMichael cared little for protecting freedom of dissent during wartime, and Henry showed neither resolution during the secession crisis nor sympathy in his relation to Negroes. Mayor Henry did, however, display courage and great skill in maintaining order and freedom during the difficult seven and a half years of his administration, while McMichael was the most important local spokesman for a group of men who asserted Northern rights resolutely yet not irrationally, and who acknowledged, to a degree, the h u m a n rights of Negroes. Philadelphia's experience does not fill one with complacency at the glories of the era. O n the contrary, there

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was much meanness, ugliness, and cause for shame, and there was no hero. Yet one sees that the combined efforts of men such as McKim, Kelley, Henry, and McMichael— every one of whom had his failings—resulted in notable achievements, and that a number of important, though hesitant, first steps were taken toward the solution of what is still the country's most serious domestic problem.

Index

Abolitionism, opinions as to: by Democrats, 28-30, 48-50, 5 9 - 6 1 , 79, 84-91, 103, 1 0 8 9, 122, 133, 135-7, 139-142, 148, 150, 157, 166-7, 171; by Republicans and Peoples Party men, 35, 45, 50, 52, 61, 88, 91-94, 103, 134, 138; by Constitutional Unionists, 77, 90, 122 Abolitionists, relation to Republican Party, 28-29, 33, 52, 90, 10In; organization and attitudes, 48-51, 61, 153, 182; and fugitive slaves, 5 1 55, 5 8 - 6 0 ; and John Brown's raid, 83-86, 89-91, 94; in secession crisis, 103, llOn, 114n, 118; and wartime Negro issues, 132-3, 136, 152, 176, 183; evaluation, 188, 190 Age, 156-9, 167, 170, 174, 177, 179 Allibone, S. Austin, 114n American Party, 39-46, 63-66, 7 7 - 7 9 , 93, 99; see also Peoples Party Anderson, Robert, 106-7, 112 Antietam, 145 Arbitrary arrests, 128-131, 141-3, 145, 154, 173 Argus, 43, 116-7, 128

Baker, Joseph, 70, 7 3 - 7 4 , 84n, 97, 102, 118-9 Baldwin, Matthias, 176 Beecher, Henry Ward, 103n, 118

Bell, John, 9 8 - 9 9 , 101, 152 Biddle, Charles J., as Congressman, 135-7, 143, 163, 1 8 1 2; in 1863, 157, 160, 171-2; evaluation, 188 Biddle, George, 157 Bigler, William, 71, 90, 102 Binney, Horace, 111, 130-1 Black, Jeremiah, 46, 179 Boileau, Albert, 154-6 Bradford, Vincent, 109 Breckinridge, John, 97 Brewster, Benjamin, 88, 109, 169, 181 Brooklyn, 140 Brooks, Preston, 34, 36 Broom, Jacob, 40 Brown, John, 8 3 - 8 6 Buchanan, James, in election of 1856, 27, 30, 43, 46; in Lecompton contest, 6 9 - 7 8 ; connection with Pennsylvanian, 71-72, 84, 102, 121; connection with Southern sympathizers, 9 6 - 9 7 , 109, 109n, 121, 187; in secession crisis, 105, 112; as Pennsylvanian, 179

191

192

Index

Bull Run, 128, 131, 143, 164 Bulletin, 43, 88, 113-5, 148 Butler, Pierce, 102, 117, 128 Cadwalader, George, 117, 168, 170 Cadwalader, John, 142, 145n Cameron, Simon, 71, 98-99 Campbell, James, 69, 97, 108, 121 Carey, Henry, 28n, 35, 93, 99, 105n, 114n Carrigan, Charles, 78-79, 171, 182 Cassidy, Lewis, 69-70, 74-76, 96-97, 99, 102, 107 Catholics, 20-22, 69, 97n, 118, 120 Chancellorsville, 158, 165 Christian Observer, 118, 128-9, 135, 155 Cincinnati, 140, 179 Civil liberties: freedom of assembly, 83, 8 7 94, 103, 141-3, 159-160, 166, 178; freedom of press, 117-8, 128, 154-9, 174, 177; security against violence, 1179, 174; as political issue, 91, 127, 137, 139-141, 155, 159160, 166; evaluation, 150, 173—4, 187; see also Arbitrary arrests, Constitutional issues, Riots "Colonization" plan, 152-3 Confiscation laws, 133-4, 1378, 145 Conscription (see Troop-raising) Constitutional issues: federal government's powers as to slavery, 28-29, 111, 146-7, 171; Dred Scott de-

cision, 63-65, 74, 76, 137, 161, 184; fugitive slaves, 5 5 56; secession, 56, 104, 1089, 121; habeas corpus, 129131, 142, 145n, 150, 154-5; constitutional restraints during wartime, 129, 139-141; 150; see also Civil liberties Constitutional Unionists, and Lecompton issue, 77, 79; Alexander Henry as Constitutional Unionist, 78, 107n, 152; in election of 1860, 9 3 94, 98-101, 120, 184-5; in secession crisis, 103n, 106-7, 119, 121; in election of 1862, 151-2; see also Whig-Democrats Curtin, Andrew, in election of 1860, 98-99, 101; as governor, 130; and troop-raising, 138, 143-4, 161, 164, 167; in election of 1863, 166, 172 Curtis, George W„ 50, 90, 103 Daily News (New York), 128, 179 Daily News (Philadelphia) (see News) Davis, Jefferson, 154 Davis, William Morris, 10In, 114n, 164n-165n Defense (see Troop-raising) Democratic Party: sources of support and leadership, 21, 28n, 79, 120, 1512, 158; newspaper support, 43, 71-74, 76-77, 114n, 116, 134, 138, 156; operation of alliance with Southern Democrats, 62, 75, 79-80, 147, 186-7; factionalism, 69-71, 96-98; Cassidy-Vaux faction,

Index 69-70, 74-76, 96-97, 9 9 100, 102, 107, 160; Forney faction, 69-76, 79, 9 6 97, 99-100, 106-7; in elections ( 1 8 5 6 ) : 27-31, 4 1 - 4 2 ; ( 1 8 6 0 ) : 96-98, 100-1, 120; ( 1 8 6 3 ) : 1 7 1 - 2 ; ( 1 8 6 4 ) : 175; and fugitive slaves, 52, 6 0 61; and territorial slavery issue, 62-80; in secession crisis, 106, 110, 116; in wartime, prior to emancipation, 134—142; after emancipation, 147, 149-160, 175-7; evaluation, 94, 121-2, 186-9; see also Whig-Democrats, individual issues (e.g., abolitionism, secession) Dispatch. 44-45, 119, 129, 134, 147, 174 Douglas, Stephen, 69, 72, 97, 99, 101, 180, 185 Drexel, A. J., llOn E l e c t i o n s , ( 1 8 5 6 ) : 41-43; ( 1 8 5 7 ) : 65-67; ( 1 8 5 8 ) : 7 8 79, 120; ( 1 8 6 0 ) : 91, 97-102, 120, 184-5; 184-5; ( 1 8 6 1 ) : 138; ( 1 8 6 2 ) : 151-2, 160; ( 1 8 6 3 ) : 171-2; ( 1 8 6 4 ) : 175 Episcopalians, 118 Evening Bulletin (see Bulletin) Evening Journal (see Journal) Fillmore, Millard, 27, 42 Fisher, Sidney G., as diarist, 14, 91-93, 107n, U 4 n , 168; as publicist, prewar, 36-39, 64, 76, 105; wartime publicist, 129-130, 140-1, 172n Florence, Thomas B., 3 I n Forney, John, as Democratic leader, 28-31, 69-76; shift

193

toward Peoples Party, 79, 96-99, 101; on secession and conduct of the war, 114-5, 129, 143, 158; on Negro question, 148, 152n, 164, 181-3; evaluation, 189; see also Democratic Party (factionalism) Fox, Daniel, 160 Fremont, John, 27, 42, 44—45, 132-3, 183 Fugitive slave question, 33, 5 1 62, 106, 121, 132, 161, 184; see also Personal liberty laws Furness, William, 50, 53, 85, 89, 114n Garrett, Thomas, 53n German Democrat, 43 Gettysburg, 167-9, 178, 187 Gibson, Adam, 5 7 - 5 8 Giddings, Joshua, 89 Gorsuch, Edward, 58, 60 Greeley, Horace, 186 Green, Alfred, 161-2 Habeas corpus (see Constitutional issues) Haiti, 136, 162 (see Santo Domingo) Harrisburg, 140 Harvey, James, 98-100, 105n, 113 Hazlehurst, Isaac, 6 5 - 6 7 Henry, Alexander, direction of police force, 60, 85-87, 8 9 91, 103, 108, 118, 158 174; in elections, ( 1 8 5 8 : ) 78, ( I 8 6 0 : ) 78, 91, (1862:) 151n; on slavery issues, 88, 93, 139, 152, 186; on secession, 104, 107n, lOln; on conduct of the war, 139,

194

Index

143-4, 152; evaluation, 22, 170, 183, 189-190 Hughes, Francis, 139, 179 Ingersoll, Charles, on secession and war, 109, 135, 154; arrested, 142-3, 150; mobbed, 174; mentioned, 158, 165n, 173; evaluation, 188 Ingersoll, Edward, 135, 158, 165n-167, 174, 182 Ingersoll, Harry, 165n Ingersoll, Joseph, 119 Inquirer, party affiliation, 43, 134n, 138; on secession and wartime issues, 114-5, 129, 144; on emancipation 132—4, 138, 140, 145, 147, 175, 186; on Negroes, 176-7, 182 Journal, party affiliation, 43, 76-77, 99, 114n, 154; on the South and secession, 77, 113, 116, 123; early wartime views, 131, 134; temporarily suppressed, 154-6, 173, 177 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 62-64, 67-69, 7 2 - 7 3 Kelley, William D., on slavery and Negroes, 34-35, 37, 90, 100, 164n-165n, 169, 175, 181; on secession, 37; misleading nickname, lOOn; evaluation, 183, 189-190 Kemble, Frances, 117n Lecompton issue, 68-69, 7 2 80, 135, 184 Ledger, party affiliation, 43—44; on slavery issues, 63, 75n, 87, 132-3, 147, 186; on civil liberties, 90; on secession and

war, 107, 113-4, 116, 119, 144 Lehman, William, 134 Leland, Charles, 132-3 Lewis, Ellis, 73n, 106 Lewis, William D „ 105, 107, 114n Liberia, 136 Lincoln, Abraham, in 1858, 185; in 1860-1861, 98-99, 101, 114, 179; Philadelphia appointments, 105n, 114n, 168, 170; and habeas corpus, 129, 154; and emancipation, 111, 133, 137-142, 145-9, 152-3; criticized, 154-5, 162, 167-8; in 1864-1865, 174— 5; evaluation, 150, 185-6 Mann, William B„ 23, 103, 105-6 Maynard, John, 9 3 - 9 4 McCall, Peter, 3In, 158, 160 McClellan, George, 137, 143, 145, 175 McClure, Alexander, 9 9 - 1 0 0 McKim, James, 50, 58, 85, 136, 176, 188, 190 McMichael, Morton, 35-36, 93-94, 143; evaluation, 183, 189-190; see also North American Meredith, William, 35, 100, 111, 130 Military events (see Troop-raising, individual battles) Milliken, James, 114n Millward, William, 4 1 - ^ 2 Mott, James, 50, 53 Mott, Lucretia, 49, 53, 89, lOln Nativism,

20-22,

39^*1,

66,

Index 77-78, 120; see also American Party Negro insurrection, opinions as to, 30, 37-38, 83-89, 92-94, 132, 139, 146-8, 154, 1623, 169, 181-2 Negroes in Philadelphia, status of, 20-21, 48-49, 55-57, 161; prewar political activities, 49-53, 55n, 58-60, 6 4 65, 85-86; wartime activities, 136, 152-3, 161-5, 169, 176, 185; see also Troop-raising Negroes, opinions as to: by Democrats, 27-28, 64, 78, 80, 86, 102n, 109, 122, 1357, 140, 142, 150, 163, 171, 175-8, 181-2; by Republicans, 33-37, 181; by Americans, 40, 63-64, 77-78, 181; by Peoples Party men, 131, 138, 140, 150, 164-5, 1 6 9 170, 175-8, 181-3; by Constitutional Unionists, 32, 122, 152; by the general public, 44-47, 57, 119, 147-8, 1 5 2 3, 161-5, 168-170, 179-180, 182 New York. 19-20, 169-170, 179 News, 43, 63-64, 77, 88, 181 Newspapers, 15, 43-45, 6 3 - 6 5 , 112-9, 147-9 North American, policy and character, 35-39, 43, 156; on prewar issues, 64, 66, 88, 98-100, 176; on secession, 105, 113-5; on civil liberties, 88, 118, 129, 140; on emancipation and Negroes, 131, 134, 148, 164, 172, 176; see also McMichael

195

Packer, William, 65, 67 Palmetto Flag, 118, 135, 155 Parker, Theodore, 50 Patterson, Robert, 117 Pendleton, George, 180 Pennsylvania, 46, 101, 120 Pennsylvanian, management and character, 71-72, 84n, 102, 116, 121, 156; policy ( 1 8 5 6 1858), 27-31, 72-73, 181; on abolitionism, 28-30, 59, 87, 90; on secession, 52, 84, 102, llOn, 112, 115 Peoples Literary Institute, 50, 90, 103 Peoples Party, organization and composition, 76-79, 9 7 - 9 9 , 151-2, 158, 179, 184-5; in election of 1860, 91, 94, 9 9 100; in secession crisis, 103, 106-7, 111; on emancipation, 133, 139, 146-7, 150, 172; on Negroes' status, 164, 1768, 182-6; on civil liberties, 91, 139, 143; evaluation, 189 Personal liberty laws, 52, 5 6 57, 60, 88, 103—4, 106, 121 Philadelphia: economic conditions, 19-21, 65-67, 101, 113, 168; immigrants, 20-21, 34, 4 0 - 4 1 , 43, 69, 78, 170; political conditions, 21-23, 40-42, 69-76, llOn, 144, 149, 179; social classes, 20-22, 28n, 35n, 46, 79, 109-110, 123, 135, 1 5 6 8, 164n; see also Negroes, Southerners in Philadelphia, individual religious groups Phillips, Wendell, 85, 89 Pierce, Franklin, and his Philadelphia appointees, 44, 71, 73, 75, 97, 121

196

Index

Pleasanton, A. J., 143-4, 168 Pollock, James, 139 "Popular sovereignty" principle, 62, 65, 67-69, 72, 75-78, 185-6 Presbyterians, 50, 118 Press (see Forney) Price, Eli K„ 3 2 - 3 3 Public Ledger (see Ledger) Purvis, Robert, 50-53, 86 Quakers, 46, 49-50, 52-53, 58, 176 Randall, Josiah, 118 Randall, Samuel J., 3In, 118n Read, John M., 170 Reed, William B., 31, 89n, 1 0 8 9, 118, 121, 135, 153, 157-8 Republican Party, in 1855, 52; in 1856, 28, 33-39, 4 1 ^ 3 , 51; in 1857, 64-67; relation to other parties, 77-79, 98, 152, 184—5; see also Peoples Party Rice, William, 71-75, 84n Riots and near-riots, 22, 187; anti-foreign, 21, 40; antiNegro and anti-abolitionist, 21, 49, 85, 90-91, 103n, 169-170, 179; against Southern sympathizers, 108, 117— 9, 158-160, 174; see also Civil liberties Rush, Benjamin, 102n Sanderson, John P., 42-43, 99, 103 Santo Domingo, 37, 85, 139, 162 Scott, Dred (see Constitutional issues) Secession and the war, opinions

as to: by Democrats, 29-31, 7 8 80, 84-85, 87-88, 94, 1 0 2 123, 134-5, 140-1, 153-160, 166, 171, 175; by abolitionists, 51, 11 On; by Peoples Party men, 37-39, 66, 88, 93-94, 100-123; by Constitutional Unionists, 32, 77, 88, 106, 119-122, 152; by the general public, 95-96, 101123, 168 Seven Days' Battle, 137-8 Seward, William, 94 Slave insurrection (see Negro insurrection) Slavery and emancipation, opinions as to: by Democrats, 27-29, 66-67, 70, 87-88, 102, 104, 109, 131-7, 141-2, 146-150, 1 5 4 160, 166-7, 171-2, 175; by abolitionists and Negroes, 51, 86, 132-3, 152-3; by Republicans, 33-39, 64, 66; by Americans, 40—41, 66, 7 7 78; by Peoples Party men, 78, 93, 103, 111, 131—4, 138-9, 145-150, 156, 172, 175, 182-4; by Constitutional Unionists, 32, 152; by the general public, 45, 62, 65, 76, 94, 107, 110, 119, 147, 151-3, 156, 182—4 The South and its leaders, opinions as to: by Democrats, 30-31, 44-46, 75, 78-80, 86-89n, 97, 1034, 108-9, 131, 134-6, 142, 147, 157, 166, 171, 174; by abolitionists, 86; by Republicans, 35-39, 45; by Americans, 41; by Peoples Party

Index men, 92-94, 98, 103, 131, 147-8; by Constitutional Unionists, 77, 87-88, 103-4 Southerners, owners of Southern property, and Southern trade in Philadelphia, 19, 70, 78, 85-91, 98, 102, 113n, 117, 165n, 184 Sprague, William, 163 Still, William, 50, 52-53, 55n, 85, 136, 176, 183 Sumner, Charles, 33, 35-36, 184 Sumter, Fort, 106-7, 110, 112123, 134 Sun, 43 Sunday Dispatch (see Dispatch) Taney, Roger, 63-64, 129, 137 Tariff question, 66, 77-79, 9 9 100 Territorial slavery question, 3 1 36, 39, 41, 44, 51, 62-80, 96-97, 111 Thomas, William B„ 33, 98-99, 114n, 168, 189 Thomson, J. Edgar, 93 Times, 43 Troop-raising, financial aid for, 138-9, 150, 156, 160, 165n, 168; conscription, 134, 155, 160-1, 169-170, 172; Negro troop issue, 137-9, 161-5, 169-170, 177-8, 182; local defense, 178, ( 1 8 6 2 : ) 1 4 3 5, 149-150, ( 1 8 6 3 : ) 165-9, ( 1 8 6 4 : ) 173 Tyler, Robert, 6 9 - 7 1 , 74, 96, 102, 117, 121, 188 Tyson, Job, 32

197

Union League, 156, 168 Union meetings, ( 1 8 5 9 : ) 8 7 89, 92-93; ( I 8 6 0 : ) 103-6, 121-2, 166, 171-2 Union Party, 15 In Unitarians, 50, 89n Vallandigham, Clement, 158160, 180 Van Dyke, James, 69-70, 7 3 76, 97, 108-9 Vaux, Richard, 78, 158; as antiLecompton leader, 69, 74, 96-97, 99; on abolitionism, 88; on secession and war, 107, 119, 160 Wall, James, 159, 179 Wharton, George, 3 In, 109, 121, 158 Whig Party, 21, 31, 43, 9 3 , 1 5 2 : Whig-Democrats, 31-33, 43, 76-79, 100-1, 118, 152n; see also Constitutional Union Party, McCall, Randall, Reed, Wharton Whig-Republicans, 35-37, 9 1 94, 99, 105, 111, 114n, 155, 174 Williamson, Passmore, 49n, 52, 85 Wilmot, David, 65-67, 120, 184 Winder, William, 128-9 Wise, Henry, 84, 86, 89n Witte, William, 134, 141-2, 186 Woodward, George, 104, 166, 171, 179