68 “It is now Sunday morning”: J. Madison Cutts, ed., A Brief Treatise upon Constitutional and Party Questions, and the History of Political Parties (New York: D. Appleton, 1866), 100; but see also Gerald M. Capers, Stephen A. Douglas: Defender of the Union (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), 120.
69 “When the white man governs”: Abraham Lincoln, “Speech on Kansas-Nebraska Act,” in Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832–1858, ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York: Library of America, 1989), 328.
70 “viewed from the genuine”: Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. Philip Foner (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1999), 621.
70 “Slave States are places”: Lincoln, Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 331.
70 “Necessity drove them”: Ibid., 338.
70 “Ask us not to repeal”: Ibid., 320–21.
71 “Is it not probable that”: Ibid., 335.
71 “For who after this”: Ibid.
72 “We went to bed”: Quoted in the fine account of Albert J. Von Frank, The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s Boston (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 207.
72 “covenant with death”: William Lloyd Garrison, “The Covenant with Death,” The Liberator, July 21, 1854, 24.
73 “The white people owed”: Quoted in Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 137.
73 “Who can be serene”: Henry David Thoreau, “Slavery in Massachusetts,” in Collected Essays and Poems (New York: Library of America, 2001), 346.
73 “Let us teach, urge, encourage”: James Redpath, The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern States (New York: A. B. Burdick, 1859), 84.
74 “to kill every God-damned abolitionist”: Quoted in David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis: America before the Civil War, 1848–1861, completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York: HarperCollins, 1976), 203.
74 “I say let the Indians”: Quoted in the fine T. J. Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (New York: Vintage, 2003), 47.
74 “full of whiskey and resentment”: Potter, The Impending Crisis, 201.
75 “The territory was covered”: Redpath, The Roving Editor, 341.
76 “that the military authority”: Quoted in “John Quincy Adams on Slavery Emancipation as Affected by War,” New-York Tribune, September 1, 1861; see also John Fiske and John B. McMaster, A History of All Nations, vol. 23 (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1905), 106.
76 “liberty and slavery are eternally”: John W. Blassingame, ed., The Frederick Douglass Papers, ser. 1, vol. 2 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979–1992), 482; see also Benjamin Quarles, Frederick Douglass (Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1948), 61–163.
76 “silently epitomized”: William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854–1861, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 79.
76 “But the reckless”: Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 2, 273.
CHAPTER 4: DEMOCRACY
78 “love Yankeedom less”: Quoted in Theodore A. Zunder, “Whitman Interviews Barnum,” Modern Language Notes 48 (January 1933), 40.
79 “of the good little girl”: Quoted in A. H. Saxon, P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 175.
80 “sensible Dramatic version”: Edward Kahn, “Creator of Compromise: William Henry Sedley Smith and the Boston Museum’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Theatre Survey 48 (2000), 72.
80 By the time he published: For information on Barnum, see Struggles and Triumphs; or, Forty Years’ Recollections of P. T. Barnum, ed. with introduction by Carl Bode (New York: Penguin, 1981), 23; Saxton, P. T. Barnum; Bluford Adams, E Pluribus Barnum: The Great Showman and the Making of U.S. Popular Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Neil Harris, Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
80 “Our life is an apprenticeship”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Circles,” in Emerson: Essays and Lectures, ed. Joel Porte (New York: Library of America, 1983), 403.
80 “We had ceased”: Milton Hindus, ed., Walt Whitman: The Critical Heritage (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971), 56.
82 “the very God Pan”: Bronson Alcott, The Letters of Bronson Alcott, ed. Richard L. Hernstadt (New York and Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1969), 211.
82 “heartiness & broad generalities”: Henry David Thoreau, The Correspondence of Thoreau, ed. Walter Harding and Carl Bode (New York: New York University Press), 444–45.
82 “What is there in the people”: Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. 1 (Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1906), 212.
82 “Thoreau’s great fault”: Ibid.
83 “The best writing”: Ibid., 374.
83 “I greet you”: See the excellent David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), 341–42.
83 “priapic”: Thomas Higginson, Contemporaries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900), 77.
83 “I look in vain”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet,” in Emerson: Essays and Lectures, 465.
83 “Mr. Walt Whitman”: Quoted in Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: A Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980), 209.
84 “In every department”: Walt Whitman, Complete Poetry and Collected Prose, ed. Justin Kaplan (New York: Library of America, 1982), 1330.
84 “Yes, the world’s a ship”: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (New York: Library of America College Editions, 2000), 66.
85 “The West”: Adam Goodheart, 1861: The Civil War Awakening (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 222.
85 John C. Frémont was: See Richard Slotkin’s fine The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Athenaeum, 1985), 199, and more generally, Tom Chaffin, Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire (New York: Hill & Wang, 2002), and Allan S. Nevins, Frémont: Pathmaker of the West (Lincoln, Nebr.: Bison Books, 1983).
87 “The merest baby”: Quoted in Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 47.
87 “Whether or not Frémont won”: Evert Duyckinck to George Duyckinck, Oct. 20, 1856, Duyckinck Family Papers, NYPL.
88 the antislavery Republicans won: The voter turnout and the election results encouraged Republicans, who won 1,336,924 votes in the free states, versus 1,222,066 for Buchanan and 394,647 for Millard Fillmore, as Whig. In the free and slave states, the vote was 1,338,171 for Frémont; 1,863,991 for Buchanan; and 892,659 for Fillmore. See Lewis Clephane, Birth of the Republican Party (Washington, D.C.: Gibson Bros., 1889).
88 “the negroes received an idea”: Sophia Hawthorne to Mary Mann, Dec. 30 [1856]–Jan. 2 [1857], Berg Collection, NYPL.
88 “to consider the practicality”: Quoted in Brenda Wineapple, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 89. The original source is the pamphlet advertising the Worcester Disunion Convention at the Houghton Library, Higginson Collection, Harvard University.
89 “We are treading”: Quoted in Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, 1852–1857, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947), 494.
90 “safely say”: For an excellent summary of these issues, see Kenneth Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 92–109.
90 “secretly made a pawn”: Ibid., 92.
90 In the stunning 7–2 decision: The literature on the Dred Scott case is voluminous. Among other sources, I have depended on the invaluable Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
91 “Man cannot hold”: Frederick Douglass, “Two Speeches by Frederick Douglass: one on West India emancipation, delivered at Canandaigua, Aug. 4th, and the other on the Dred Scott decision, delivered in
New York on the occasion of the Anniversary of the American Abolition Society, May, 1857”: Frederick Douglass Papers, LC, 30.
91 “The sun in the sky”: Ibid., 31–32.
91 ”did not mean to say all were equal”: Abraham Lincoln, “Speech on Dred Scott Decision, June 26, 1857,” in Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832–1858, ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York: Library of America, 1989), 398.
92 Again, the Dred Scott decision: See again the important arguments of David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, America Before the Civil War, 1848–1861, completed and ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 290, which I am summarizing here.
92 “you noticed that the time”: Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. 2 (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1915), 382.
93 “Land! Land! is the cry”: Quoted in Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War, 1859–1861, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 157.
94 “Walker is all things to all men”: Quoted in John McKivigin, Forgotten Firebrand: James Redpath and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 35.
94 “By God, sir”: Quoted in Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, vol. 2, 250.
94 “broken-down political hacks“: Quoted in ibid., 230.
95 as one Kansan noted: See ibid., 236.
95 “Cuba! Cuba!”: “The Covode Investigation,” 36th Congress, 1st Session, Report No. 648, 119.
95 “The fractious cabal”: George Templeton Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong: 1835–1875, vol. 2, ed. Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 381.
96 “I am sick to death”: Quoted in Eric H. Walther, The Fire-Eaters (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), 110.
97 “When I am on one”: Quoted in Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 251.
CHAPTER 5: SOVEREIGNTY
99 “The end of the cable”: “The Telegraph Celebration. Military and Civic Parade. Speech of David Dudley Field,” New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 2, 1858, 8.
100 “American Mind, American Opinions”: “Speeches of Gov. King and Senator Seward,” The New York Times, Aug. 16, 1858, 3.
100 “two continents have been penetrated”: Quoted in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Aug. 21, 1858, 1.
101 “Yesterday’s Herald said”: George Templeton Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong: 1835–1875, vol. 2, ed. Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (New York: Macmillan Company, 1952), 408.
101 “There is no such thing”: Savannah Morning News, Aug. 31, 1858, 1.
104 “They instituted among themselves”: Quoted in David L. Bigler, “A Lion in the Path: Genesis of the Utah War, 1857–1858,” Utah Historical Quarterly 76 (Winter 2008), 6.
104 “In temporal things”: Quoted in Larry Schweikart, “The Mormon Connection: Lincoln, the Saints, and the Crisis of Equality,” Western Humanities Review 34 (Winter 1980), 16.
106 “they desire a kingly government”: “The Mormons and Their Doings,” DeBow’s Review 22 (May 1857), 491–92.
107 “Religion of Sensuality”: Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong: 1835–1875, vol. 2, 376.
107 “those twin relics of barbarism”: Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions (Minneapolis: C. W. Johnson, 1893), 43.
107 “At whatever cost”: “The Mormons,” Harper’s Weekly, April 25, 1857, 1.
108 “loathsome, disgusting ulcer”: Quoted in “Kansas—The Mormons—Slavery: Speech of Senator Douglas, Delivered at Springfield, Ill., June 12, 1857,” The New York Times, June 23, 1857, 1.
108 “upon the ground”: Ibid.
108 “Why deprive the Mormons”: “Lincoln’s Springfield Speech,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 19, 1857, 2.
108 “Supersede the Negro-Mania”: Quoted in Philip G. Auchampaugh, Robert Tyler, Southern Rights Champion, 1847–1866: A Documentary Study Chiefly of Antebellum Politics (Duluth, Minn.: H. Stein, 1934), 180–81.
109 “At the present moment”: Buchanan quotations are from James Buchanan, “Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-Fifth Congress” (Washington, D.C.: Cornelius Wendell, 1857).
109 “lie in the grand pathway”: Quoted in Bigler, “A Lion in the Path,” 4.
110 Young’s replacement: Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 286. I have taken certain details about the Mormon evacuation of Salt Lake City in the previous paragraphs from this fine volume.
111 “The eyes of the whole Union”: Quoted in Dallas Herald, August 1, 1858, 2.
111 “You are like Byron”: Quoted in Don E. Fehrenbacher, Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), 98.
111 “Let Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln”: Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text, ed. Harold Holzer (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), 3.
112 “He is the strong man”: Quoted in Ronald C. White, Jr., A. Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2009), 258.
112 “If slavery be a blessing”: Quoted in Avery Craven, The Coming of the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 320.
113 “The general recognition”: “The Political Future,” The New York Times, March 5, 1858, 4.
113 “He has shown”: “Stephen A. Douglas,” The Portsmouth Journal of Literature & Politics, June 5, 1858, 1.
114 “In my opinion”: Paul M. Angle, ed., The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 22; see also “Senator Douglas at Home; Triumphant Demonstration!,” The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, July 12, 1858, 2.
114 “diversity, dissimilarity, variety”: Lincoln and Douglas, The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, 18, 20. See also Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), for a brilliant analysis of the Douglas position and its moral shortcomings.
117 “I am not nor ever have been”: Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, Comprising His Speeches, Letters, State Papers, and Miscellaneous Writings, ed. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, vol. 1 (New York: Century Company, 1894), 370.
118 “Does he [Douglas] mean”: Lincoln and Douglas, The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, 68.
119 “If the slaveholding citizens”: Fehrenbacher, Prelude to Greatness, 140–41; see also Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 352–59, for a good overview and analysis of the matter.
119 “Compared with this”: John G. Nicolay and John M. Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, vol. 2 (New York: Century Company, 1890), 163.
119 Gone too was his hope: In “ ‘Buchanan’s Blunder’: The Utah War, 1857–1858,” Military Affairs 25 (Fall 1961), 122–23, Richard D. Poll and Ralph W. Hansen interestingly argue that “inadequate communications” were in part responsible for misunderstanding both on the part of the Buchanan administration, although it did not investigate the allegations against the Mormons, and on the part of the Mormons, whose mail was put under embargo; “the facts did not support the alarms of either party to the conflict.”
119 “glorious destiny”: Quoted in Robert W. Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 683.
119 “We live in a rapid age”: Ibid., 684.
120 “the Senator from Illinois”: Judah P. Benjamin, CG, 36th Congress, 1st Session, May 22, 1860, 2241.
121 “an independent foreign policy”: See T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 281; in fact, chap. 11 of this book is a fine summary of the relationships among Vanderbilt, Walker, and the U.S. g
overnment.
122 “As soon as the Cuba question”: CG, 35th Congress, 2nd Session, Feb. 25, 1859, 1352.
122 But Republicans such as: See Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward (New York: Harper & Company, 1900) 1, 472–78.
122 “The Senate is the propagandist”: CG, 35th Congress, 2nd Session, Feb. 25, 1859, 1355.
123 “Shall we give niggers”: Ibid., 1354.
123 “The injustice and despotism”: Pleasant H. Stovall, Robert Toombs: Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage (New York: Cassell Publishing Company, 1892), 137.
123 “He may go tell”: CG, 35th Congress, 2nd Session, Feb. 25, 1859, 1356.
124 “The social intercourse”: Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb: Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, vol. 2, ed. Ulrich B. Phillips (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913), 453.
124 “If you will stand with me”: Quoted in William Y. Thomson, Robert Toombs of Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966), 132.
CHAPTER 6: REVOLUTIONS NEVER GO BACKWARD
126 “Better have a little”: Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, in Autobiographies, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Library of America, 1994), 367.
126 “refuses to oppose”: Quoted in the superb Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 302.
126 Adams had said: See John Stauffer, Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (New York: Twelve, 2009), 144–51. Note that many of the Liberty Party’s members moved over to the Free Soil party. For a cogent analysis of Douglass’s and Lincoln’s different political points of view, see also the excellent volume by James Oakes, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007).
127 “To him, your celebration”: Frederick Douglass, “ ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’: An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852,” in The Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John W. Blassingame, vol. 2 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982), 371.
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