The Field of Blood
Page 45
112. Giddings, diary entry, December 14, 1838, in Julian, Life of Giddings, 52.
113. Liberator, February 14, 1845; Salem Register, February 10, 1845; Bellows Falls Gazette (Vermont), February 15, 1845.
114. Globe, 28th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 6, 1845, 256.
115. Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.), February 8, 1845.
116. Giddings, History of the Rebellion, 210; Julian, Life of Giddings, 174; Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.), February 8, 1845; Adams, diary entry, February 6, 1845, Memoirs, 12:162; Globe, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., July 11, 1856, 1121 app.; Huron Reflector (Norwalk), February 25, 1845. See also chapter 2.
117. Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio), February 25, 1845.
118. Jacob Collamer (W-VT) to Mary Collamer, February 4, 1844, University of Vermont Libraries’ Center for Digital Initiatives, cdi3.uvm.edu/collections/item/collamerC01f015i002&view=transcript.
119. Giddings to Laura Giddings, January 23, 1842, in Stewart, Joshua R. Giddings, 71.
120. French, diary entry, December 9, 1836, Witness, 69.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid., January 6, 1843, Witness, 146.
123. Adams, diary entry, January 2, 1843, Memoirs, 11:285.
124. Ibid., June 18, 1842, 11:180.
125. Ibid., February 22, 1844, 11:516–17.
126. Globe, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 4, 1841, 322 app. For an insightful analysis of the rhetoric of this speech, see Patricia Roberts-Miller, “Agonism, Wrangling, and John Quincy Adams,” Rhetoric Review 25, no. 2 (2006): 141–61. As Roberts-Miller notes, scholars who dismiss this speech as “irrational and uncalculated” entirely miss the validity of Adams’s comments about violence and its congressional implications. Ibid., 143. Richards notes the anti-dueling law as a moral victory for the North in the midst of the gag rule furor. Congressman John Quincy Adams, 131–35.
127. See for example New Hampshire Sentinel, February 28, 1844, which states that Southerners challenge Northerners because they know they can’t accept a challenge without destroying their reputations.
128. Giddings, diary entry, December 14, 1838, in Julian, Life of Giddings, 52
129. Globe, 28th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 6, 1845, 256. On the insult inherent in antislavery petitions by women, see Zaeske, “‘The South Arose as One Man’”; Jennifer Rose Mercieca, “The Culture of Honor: How Slaveholders Responded to the Abolitionist Mail Crisis of 1835,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 10, no. 1 (2007): 51–76.
130. “Address of John Quincy Adams,” 58–59.
131. Shelden argues that bullying and bravado were just for show, but a watchful national audience was precisely what gave such displays their power. Humiliation before a widespread public could destroy a reputation and damage a career. In addition, often there was very real fear of bloodshed. Washington Brotherhood, 39–40 and passim.
132. Washington Greenhow to Wise, February 5, 1844, Henry A. Wise Papers, UNC. See also G. S. Henry to Robert L. Caruthers, August 5, 1841, Robert L. Caruthers Papers, UNC.
133. Doctrine Davenport to Ebenezer Pettigrew, August 10, 1843, in Brown, Edward Stanly, 91; Thomas S. Hoskins to William Graham, May 9, 1842, ibid., 83. For electioneering fodder accusing Stanly of cowardice, see ibid., 90; “The Campaigns of a ‘Conqueror,’” undated, UNC. For the carefully worded apology: Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio), May 31, 1842. Stanly and Wise had an ongoing grudge match, brawling at least twice and nearly dueling three times. In 1841 their fisticuffs sparked a House brawl and nearly led to a duel. Eight months later, harsh words (Coward! Cur!) led to talk of another duel. The caning incident that sparked talk of another duel happened days later. Fight #1: Globe, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., September 9–11, 1841, 444–45, 447, 451; French, diary entry, September 13, 1841, Witness, 124–25; Adams, diary entry September 9, 1841, Memoirs, 11:11; House Journal, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., 513–14. Fight #2: Globe, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., May 4, 1842, 476–78; Adams, diary entry, May 4, 1842, Memoirs, 11:148; French to Henry Flagg French, May 13, 1842, BBFFP. Fight #3: Adams, diary entry, May 7, 1842, Memoirs, 11:151; Brown, Edward Stanly, 83–86.
134. Globe, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., June 26, 1856, 1476. On Hale, see esp. Sewell, John P. Hale; Earle, Jacksonian Antislavery, 78–102. Earle’s discussion of Hale’s conversion from loyal Democrat to antislavery advocate is particularly good.
135. On abolitionists and manhood: Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood; Stanley Harrold, American Abolitionists (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 44–46; Donald Yacovone, “Abolitionists and the ‘Language of Fraternal Love,’” in Meanings for Manhood, ed. Mark C. Carnes and Clyde Griffen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 85–95.
136. W. Claggett to Hale, March 7, 1844; Charles D. Cleveland to Hale, March 24, 1844; Amos Tuck to Hale, January 15, 1845; James Peverly to Hale, January 16, 1845, in John Parker Hale Papers, NHHS.
137. The meeting passed the resolutions before adjourning in an uproar; the antislavery editor Nathaniel Rogers insulted Pierce. Boston Courier, March 21, 1844; “Proceedings of the Annual Town Meeting in Concord, March 12, 13, 14, 15, 1844,” 21–22, accessed August 18, 2012, at www.onconcord.com/books/2histcity_reports/1844.pdf; History of Concord, New Hampshire, 1:415; Nichols, Franklin Pierce, 125–29; Cole, Jacksonian Democracy, 217. For other doughface self-defenses, see the speeches of Charles Atherton (D-NH), Globe, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., December 23, 1841, 36 app.; and Jacob Thompson (D-MI), ibid., 31st Cong., 1st Sess., June 5, 1850, 661 app.
138. Cole, Jacksonian Democracy, 230; Wallner, New Hampshire’s Favorite Son, 128; New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette (Concord), October 22, 1846.
139. On slavery and the New Hampshire Democracy, see Cole, Jacksonian Democracy, 216–33.
140. Giddings’s resolutions concerned a rebellion on the Creole. John Botts (W-VA) first proposed resolutions punishing Giddings, but when people objected, Weller rephrased the resolutions as his own and then moved the previous question. Globe, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., March 21, 1842, 343.
141. Adams, diary entry, March 22, 1842, Memoirs, 11:114. On censure, see Jack Maskell, “Expulsion, Censure, Reprimand, and Fine: Legislative Discipline in the House of Representatives,” CRS Report No. RL31382 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, June 27, 2016), 12, fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31382.pdf, accessed May 15, 2017.
142. Giddings, diary entry, February 12, 1839, in Miller, Arguing About Slavery, 347; Julian, Life of Giddings, 70.
143. On the joint efforts of Giddings, William Slade, Seth Gates, and others—many of them staying at Ann Sprigg’s boardinghouse, nicknamed “abolition house”—see Brooks, “Stoking the ‘Abolition Fire in the Capitol,’” 541; idem., Liberty Power, chapter 2; Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830–1844 (New York: Harbinger, 1933), 179–80. On networks of influence, see also James B. Stewart, Joshua R. Giddings and the Tactics of Radical Politics, 1795–1864 (Cleveland, Ohio: Case Western Reserve, 1970).
144. In Liberty Power, Brooks reveals how Liberty Party lobbyists prompted congressmen to make antislavery trouble on the floor to spread a Slave Power message.
145. Adams, diary entry, March 22, 1842, Memoirs, 11:114.
146. See for example Painesville Telegraph, April 13, 1842; Weekly Ohio State Journal, April 20 and 27, 1842.
147. Giddings to Joseph Addison Giddings, May 19, 1842, in Stewart, Giddings, 76.
148. Jenkins and Stewart, “Gag Rule,” 29–31.
149. Chicago Democrat [undated], BBFFP.
150. Not every fight between 1836 and 1844 was explicitly caused by the gag rule debate, but it poisoned the atmosphere enough to have an impact. The top five fighting Congresses were (in order): the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh.
151. Wise to unknown, December 2, 1846, Henry A. Wise Papers, UNC. Wise was talking a
bout his congressional sparring generally.
152. Adams, Memoirs, February 5, 1841, 10:413–14; see also www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad41_240&year=1841&month=02&day=05&entry=entrycont&start=0.
153. Globe, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., December 21, 1843, 62; Adams, diary entry, December 21, 1843, Memoirs, 11:455, 457.
154. Jenkins and Stewart, “Gag Rule,” 22, 27–28.
155. Adams, diary entry, December 3, 1844, Memoirs, 116. The Senate’s far more indirect gag rule lasted six more years. Wirls, “Overlooked Senate Gag Rule,” 133.
156. Adams, “Address to Constituents,” 57; Thomas F. Marshall, “Speeches of Thomas F. Marshall of Kentucky on the Resolutions to Censure John Q. Adams” (Washington: Blair & Rives, 1842), 5. Marshall wrote a preface explaining his speeches’ significance.
5. FIGHTING FOR THE UNION
1. Cresson, Journey into Fame, 17–18, 107.
2. On the importance of Texas to Southerners as a slaveholding republic in the western hemisphere, see Karp, Vast Southern Empire, 82.
3. On Texas, see ibid., 82–102; Joel H. Silbey, Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Mark J. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional Crisis (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University, 1996); Morrison, Slavery and the American West; and Potter, Impending Crisis, passim.
4. Whig newspapers predicted that the well-liked French might keep his job; Democratic papers taunted Whigs—who claimed to be above party—for their eagerness to oust the hyperqualified French in favor of a Whig. See for example Richmond Whig, May 28, 1847; Albany Evening Journal, May 29, 1847.
5. E. C. Cabell to the editors of the Daily National Intelligencer, January 15, 1848; French to the editors of the Daily National Intelligencer, January 24 and 26, 1848. Particularly helpful on the proviso in a congressional context is Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004).
6. French to Henry Flagg French, December 12, 1847, BBFFP; French, diary entry, December 16, 1847, Witness, 197.
7. French, diary entry, November 27 and December 30, 1849, Witness, 210–12.
8. French, diary entry, May 23, 1848, Witness, 202. French gave a eulogy for Adams at a meeting of the Board of Aldermen on February 25, 1848. “Proceedings in the Board of Aldermen and Board of Common Council, of the City of Washington, on the Occasion of the Death of John Quincy Adams” (Washington: John T. Towers, 1848), 5–8, www.mocavo.com/Proceedings-of-the-Corporation-and-Citizens-of-Washington-on-the-Occasion-of-the-Death-of-John-Quincy-Adams-Who-Died-in-the-Capitol-on-Wednesday-Evening-February-23-1848-Volume-2/269014/13#13, accessed February 23, 2014.
9. French, diary entry, February 22, 1848, Witness, 199.
10. Richards, Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams, 202–203.
11. French to unknown correspondent, 1847, in Robert R. Hershman, “Gas in Washington,” Columbia Historical Society 50 (1948–50): 146. In the fall of 1847, French visited Professor Joseph Henry of Princeton, a noted expert on electricity, on telegraph business, but discussed the mast with him as well. It was taken down on June 18, 1848. See also William Charles Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2000), 179–80.
12. It took sixty-three ballots and nearly three weeks to elect a Speaker, and another week and twenty ballots to elect a clerk. For a detailed account, see Jenkins and Stewart, Fighting for the Speakership, 155–74. On the fight, see Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., December 13, 1849, 27; Nathan Sargent, Public Men and Events from the Commencement of Mr. Monroe’s Administration, in 1817, to the Close of Mr. Fillmore’s Administration, in 1853, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1875), 2:351; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, December 13 and 16, 1849, DOP; Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio), January 1, 1850; National Era (Washington), December 20, 1849.
13. The House hadn’t yet elected its new sergeant at arms. Ultimately, Nathan Sargent, who had held the post in the previous Congress, kept it for the Thirty-first Congress, when the exhausted House voted to keep several officers from the previous Congress rather than spend more weeks organizing. Sargent, Public Men and Events, 2:351; Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., December 13, 1849, 27.
14. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., December 13, 1850, 28. Emphasis in original.
15. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, December 13, 1850, DOP.
16. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., December 13, 1850, 28–29.
17. Ibid., 29.
18. Ibid., 26.
19. Cobb to Amelie Cobb, December 20, 1849, The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, 2 vols., ed. Ulrich B. Phillips, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1913), 2:179, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1911.
20. New York Evening Post, January 8, 1850.
21. French, diary entry, January 6, 1850, Witness, 213. Forney was a strong James Buchanan supporter. On Forney’s Southern leanings, see New York Evening Post, January 8, 1850; George W. Julian, Political Recollections 1840 to 1872 (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, 1884), 78. Julian voted for French.
22. French, diary entry, January 6, 1850, Witness, 213; idem., “To the Editors,” January 14, 1850, in Daily Union (Washington), January 15, 1850; Forney, “To the Editors,” Daily Union, January 19, 1850.
23. Forney, “To the Editors,” Daily Union, January 19, 1850. When Campbell died the following year, Forney became Clerk and gave government printing contracts to his Daily Union partner A. Boyd Hamilton, thereby keeping the paper from going under. Elwyn Burns Robinson, “The ‘Pennsylvanian’: Organ of the Democracy,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 3 (1938): 350–60; cited on 350.
24. French received a cluster of votes from Western Democrats, a few Northern Whigs, and three of the House’s six Free Soilers, receiving at most eighteen votes. See chapter 6.
25. Defecting Democrats included South Carolinians William Colcock, John McQueen, Joseph Woodward, James Orr, and Daniel Wallace; Andrew Ewing (TN); David Hubbard (AL); and Abraham Venable (NC). Venable said they supported Campbell because they didn’t think Forney could get enough votes to win, and they wanted to get down to business. Letter to the editor, Daily Union, January 13, 1850. Forney’s chief supporter, James Buchanan, was “deeply mortified” at Forney’s loss, and stunned at the “defection” of Southern Democrats. Buchanan to A. Boyd Hamilton, January 12, 1850, www.historyforsale.com/html/printfriendly.asp?documentid=5234.
26. On antislavery Democrats, many of whom bolted the party, see esp. Earle, Jacksonian Antislavery.
27. French to Henry Flagg French, January 20, 1850, BBFFP.
28. Ibid.
29. Particularly useful studies of the Compromise of 1850 include Holman Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1964); Holt, Political Crisis of the 1850s; Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850; Landis, Northern Men, chapter 1; Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, eds., Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s (Athens: Ohio University, 2012); Freehling, Road to Disunion, 1:487–510; Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: UNC, 1997), 96–125; Varon, Disunion!, 199–231.
30. On the link between sectional honor, degradation, and the Civil War, see esp. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Honor, Humiliation, and the American Civil War,” in A Warring Nation: Honor, Race, and Humiliation in America and Abroad (Charlottesville: UVA Press, 2014), 80–
105; idem., “Shameful Submission and Honorable Secession,” in The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s–1880s (Chapel Hill: UNC, 2001), 177–202; Varon, Disunion!; and Olsen, Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi; Bowman, At the Precipice, chapter 3.
31. These threats mesh with Varon’s account of the rise of disunion talk as “a process” in the early 1850s. Varon, Disunion!
32. For similar logic in the clash of proslavery and antislavery settlers in Kansas, see Kristen T. Oertel, Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender, and Violence in Pre–Civil War Kansas (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2009), 87–108.
33. Only 48 of the 124 Southern congressmen signed the “Southern Address.” Holt, Rise and Fall of the Whig Party, 386–87. On the address’s impact on the sectional crisis and Southern rights, see esp. Silbey, Storm over Texas, 144–46; Holt, Fate of Their Country, 51–55; Freehling, The Road to Disunion, passim, esp. 473–86. On the Missouri resolutions—known as the Jackson Resolutions, after Claiborne Fox Jackson, who proposed them—see Chambers, Old Bullion Benton, 340–43.