A Disease in the Public Mind

by Thomas Fleming

  • • •

  Meanwhile, slavery was paralyzing that crucial arm of the federal government, Congress. When the legislators gathered for their first session under the new president, it took sixty-three ballots to elect a speaker of the House of Representatives. The contest was between the previous speaker, Whig Robert Winthrop of Massachusetts, and Howell Cobb, a Georgia Democrat, with eight other candidates churning on the fringes. For three weeks the House’s walls vibrated with furious oratory. The Whig Party virtually dissolved in the cauldron, as southern Whigs deserted in favor of Cobb. Finally, for the first time in its history, the House voted to accept someone who won by a plurality, rather than a majority, and Cobb became the speaker.

  So rancid was the antagonism between proslavery and antislavery congressmen, even the most trivial jobs, such as doorkeeper of the House, became a contest that depended on the applicant’s allegiance. With Cobb in command of appointing committee chairmen, a congressional revolt was soon fermenting. The admission of California would tip the balance of free versus slave states, sixteen to fifteen, in the Senate.

  It was time for desperate measures, and seventy-three-year-old Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky summoned his dwindling strength and undertook the rescue of the imperiled Union. With masterful oratory and even more masterful backstairs negotiations, Clay asked Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun to join him in a package of compromises that would, he hoped, settle the issue of slavery without bloodshed or further divisive rancor.

  California would be admitted as a free state. As for New Mexico and Utah, two territories that were within California’s borders when conquered and then purchased from Mexico, Clay urged that they remain neutral on slavery for the time being, in spite of the Wilmot Proviso (which had never been approved by Congress). Next came a tough new fugitive slave law that would provide both money and legal machinery to capture runaways. Finally, the slave trade, but not slavery, would be abolished in the District of Columbia.

  To the amazement of many people, southern congressmen displayed little enthusiasm for defending the Washington, DC, slave trade. The slave pens in the vicinity of the White House were to be dismantled. For the first time, the free blacks of the district would live without fear of being kidnapped and sold south.10

  • • •

  For abolitionists, especially of the Garrison sort, compromise was still a filthy word. They unanimously denounced Clay’s political package. This surprised no one, of course. More unexpected was a speech by Senator Clay. Speaking as a Kentuckian, he issued a warning to his fellow Southerners. Secession was not and never would be a peaceful solution. The Americans of the Midwest, of which Kentucky was a geographic neighbor, would never tolerate the idea of letting a foreign state control New Orleans and the immense commerce from their farms that flowed down the Mississippi River for export to a hungry world. Webster followed Clay with a speech extolling the vital importance of the Union. The abolitionists condemned him as a traitor to New England.

  Calhoun, too ill to speak, let a Virginia senator read his speech, while he glared out at the Senate with the angry eyes of a man who accepted nothing, including his imminent death. (He would expire of chronic lung congestion four weeks later.) His words declared he accepted the compromise but warned it would never work unless Congress and the president “did justice to the South” by guaranteeing her the right to bring slaves into all the remaining western territories. Even more important must be an absolute and total end to “the agitation of the slave question.”

  These three famous voices did not by any means stifle further debate on the compromise. The oratory lasted for weeks. But sheer exhaustion began to play a part in a growing sentiment to accept these four proposals. This willingness was somewhat ironically accelerated by the sudden death of President Taylor from a stomach disorder and the ascent of mild-mannered Vice President Millard Fillmore of New York. Partly at his suggestion, the package was broken into four separate bills and passed individually, under the leadership of a strong new voice in the Senate, Democrat Stephen Douglas of Illinois.

  It would take another year to learn whether the South would accept the compromises of 1850. In the state elections of 1851, the two political parties, Democrats and Whigs, were temporarily irrelevant. The contest was between unionists, who were in favor of the compromise, and secessionists. The unionists met their opponents with a steady and frequently steely denial that secession was a constitutional right. Backed by Henry Clay’s warning, James Madison’s denunciation of nullification and secession came back to life with surprising force. The unionists won in every state except South Carolina, which remained loyal to its lost prophet, John C. Calhoun.11

  • • •

  In the North, where Slave Power paranoia remained strong, the compromise of 1850 proved to be a temporary truce. The revised fugitive slave law rapidly became unacceptable in New England. Even aloof Ralph Waldo Emerson, the nation’s best known writer, who strove to avoid all types of extremism, was enraged. (He had urged abolitionists to love their southern neighbors more and their colored brethren a little less in the name of civic peace.) “This filthy enactment was made in the Nineteenth Century, by people who could read and write. I will not obey it, by God!” declared The Sage of Concord.

  The law empowered federal officials to draft northern citizens to assist them in catching and detaining runaway slaves. If a local federal marshal refused to pursue the fugitive, he could be fined $1,000. Any citizen who aided or concealed the runaway was liable to the same fine. All the slave catcher needed was an affidavit from a slave’s owner to seize a runaway. Jury trials were banned. A hearing before a federal judge was the only legal procedure permitted.

  In states where abolitionist sentiment was strong, there were legal counterattacks. The Wisconsin Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional, freeing a fugitive slave named Joshua Glover. Vermont’s legislature passed a “habeas corpus law” that required state officials to do everything in their power to assist a captured runaway. In other states, local juries regularly acquitted men arrested for helping runaways. An infuriated President Fillmore threatened to send the U.S. Army to support federal authority.

  The most sensational challenge to the law came in 1853 in Boston, where a Virginia runaway, twenty-year-old Anthony Burns, was arrested. New Hampshire–born President Franklin Pierce, elected by the Democrats in 1852, made it clear that he was going to enforce the law in the name of sectional peace. Undeterred, an enraged crowd stormed the courthouse and battled with fists, clubs, and knives against outnumbered U.S. marshals. In the melee, a deputy marshal was fatally stabbed. But the lawmen finally drove the protestors into the street.

  A grimly determined President Pierce rushed hundreds of troops to Boston and a hearing was conducted before Judge Edward G. Loring, who served as commissioner of the federal circuit court in the state. His ruling was a foregone conclusion—Burns must be returned to his owner. While a huge crowd screamed insults, the soldiers lined the streets from the courthouse to the harbor, where a ship waited to take Burns back to Virginia. One Bostonian said he and his friends “went to bed one night old fashioned conservative compromise Whigs and woke up stark mad abolitionists.”

  Not long after Burns left Boston, William Lloyd Garrison presided over a huge protest meeting, at which he burned copies of the Fugitive Slave Act and the U.S. Constitution. Abolitionists launched a movement to dismiss Judge Loring. After another three years of agitation in and out of the legislature, a new Massachusetts governor fired the jurist. The new Democratic president, James Buchanan, promptly gave him an appointment in the federal government.

  Among the manic antislavery crusaders in New England and the Midwest, this rescue only confirmed the virtual omnipotence of The Slave Power.12

  John Brown grew this beard to hide his identity while reconnoitering Harpers Ferry for his 1859 raid. He was wanted for murdering five defenseless men in Kansas and ordering his sons to chop up their bodies with swords, while their hor
rified wives and children watched. Brown regularly denied his guilt for this atrocity. Library of Congress

  Here is the John Brown that the beard concealed. Note the grim mouth and glaring eyes of the fanatic. One can almost hear his war cry: “Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin.” Library of Congress

  Many Virginians considered Captain Robert E. Lee to be George Washington’s heir. He was married to Mary Custis, the founder’s step great-granddaughter. In the war with Mexico, Lee won promotion to lieutenant colonel for his daring and leadership. President Lincoln offered him command of the Union Army in 1861. In one of the hidden turning points of American history, Lee refused the offer. National Archives

  Quaker John Woolman urged slavery’s abolition through patience, prayer, and gentle reproaches. Hatred was foreign to what one biographer has called his “beautiful soul.” Woolman died in England, urging the British to free the slaves of the West Indies. The seed he planted led to peaceful emancipation in 1833.

  Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston on a slave ship in 1761 at the age of seven. She learned to read and write almost immediately and in 1773 published a book of poems. In 1775, she dedicated a poem to General Washington. He paid tribute to her “great poetical talents” and invited her to visit him. It was a first glimpse of the remarkable freedom from race prejudice that led Washington to free all his slaves in his will. Library of Congress

  Colonel John Laurens persuaded George Washington to back his proposal to free 3,000 slaves to serve in the Continental Army. The Continental Congress voted its approval. Some historians have called their vote the first emancipation proclamation. Sadly, Laurens was killed in a skirmish and the idea died with him. National Park Service

  When President Thomas Jefferson approved Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of St. Domingue (Haiti) in 1802 to restore French rule, he created a nightmare that became a disease of the Southern mind—fear of a race war. Yellow fever destroyed the French army and the enraged Haitians killed almost every white man, woman, and child on the island. From France Militaire, 1833

  Short, stocky Jean Jacques Dessalines was the black general who fought Napoleon’s invasion of Haiti and ordered the slaughter of the surviving French men and women on the island. But his hatred extended only to French whites. In 1804, he sought American recognition of Haiti’s independence. President Jefferson persuaded Congress to reject his letter. The next president to send a diplomat to Haiti was Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

  In 1822, inspired by the example of Haiti, Denmark Vesey proposed to kill all the whites in Charleston, South Carolina, seize ships in the harbor, and flee. Some blacks revealed the plot the day before the rebels were to strike. Vesey and many of his followers were hanged. The South’s fear of a race war grew deeper.

  In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison launched The Liberator, a newspaper that demanded the immediate emancipation of the South’s slaves. Although he claimed to be inspired by God, Garrison repeatedly compared slavery to rape and preached hatred of slave owners and “The Slave Power”—his name for the southern states. Almost single-handedly he created a disease in the public mind. Library of Congress

  Ex-President John Quincy Adams was elected to Congress soon after Andrew Jackson defeated him in his bid for a second term. Although Congressman Adams promised to represent “all the people,” he gradually became an outspoken foe of “The Slave Power” and helped turn abolitionism into a political movement. Library of Congress

  Thomas Jefferson Randolph was Thomas Jefferson’s oldest grandson. In 1833, he called for the gradual emancipation of Virginia’s slaves and participated in a ferocious debate on the issue in the state legislature. Numerous Virginians admitted slavery was a great evil. Randolph’s proposal lost by only five votes. Thomas Jefferson Foundation

  Theodore Dwight Weld was a brilliant preacher who converted thousands to the cause of abolitionism. But he gradually realized he was contradicting his belief in a loving God by preaching hatred of slave owners. He quit the crusade he had done so much to create. Library of Congress

  On almost every road in every county of the South, armed men patrolled each night, challenging every black man or woman they met, to make sure they were not plotting a revolt. Above is a slave patrol operating near New Orleans. These patrols underscored the South’s constant fear of a race war. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated History of the Civil War, 1895

  In Southampton County, Virginia, in the summer of 1831, a black preacher named Nat Turner launched a race war that killed more than sixty white men, women, and children. He called on his followers to imitate the example of “Santo Domingo”—as Haiti was called at that time. From Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which Was Witnessed in Southampton County, 1831

  Harriet Beecher Stowe often amazed people by denying she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “Who wrote it?” they asked. “God,” Mrs. Stowe replied. When President Abraham Lincoln met her in 1862, he supposedly said: “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that made this great war.” Library of Congress

  Josiah Henson was the real Uncle Tom—the Maryland-born slave whose story gave Harriet Beecher Stowe the idea for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But Stowe’s Uncle Tom had very little resemblance to the tough, shrewd, independent man of business that Henson became. Library of Congress

  Horace Greeley was the editor of the New York Tribune, America’s leading anti-slavery newspaper. When Civil War loomed, he was horrified. But he could not control his managing editor, Charles Dana, who repeatedly called for war in fiery headlines. Library of Congress

  Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery and became a leading voice calling for abolition. In the 1850s he met John Brown, who urged him to join the raid on Harpers Ferry. Douglass warned Brown that it would end in disaster. After the Civil War, Douglass worked with President Ulysses Grant to win civil rights for the freed slaves. Library of Congress

  Dred Scott was a Missouri slave whose master took him to Illinois, a free state. Scott claimed this made him and his wife and two daughters free. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that as a slave Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in federal court. Three months later, Scott’s owners freed him and his family. The court’s decision convinced many northerners that the judges were under the evil influence of “The Slave Power.” Library of Congress

  In 1861, ex-President John Tyler proposed a peace conference to avoid an imminent civil war. He argued that diffusion—the spread of slavery into the western territories—was the only way to avoid a bloody clash. Already slaves were 40 percent of the South’s population. Confining them to the Southern states forced the South to choose between a civil war and a race war. When President-elect Lincoln rejected Tyler’s proposal, the ex-president called for Virginia’s secession. Library of Congress

  In this illustration, John Brown and his men fire on citizens of Harpers Ferry from the doorway of the federal armory. Hundreds of militiamen responded to the town’s call for help and took cover in nearby buildings and on the looming heights. Harpers Ferry became a trap for Brown and his raiders. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1859

  A New York Tribune reporter concocted this story of John Brown kissing a black child on his way to his execution. “Faking it” was a well-established custom in American newspapers until the early twentieth century. This became one of the many abolitionist myths about Brown that made Ralph Waldo Emerson and others compare him to Jesus Christ. Library of Congress

  Few people are aware that the first battle of the Civil War was fought in the streets of Baltimore. The Sixth Massachusetts regiment was attacked as they marched through the city to board a train to Washington, DC. The regiment suffered four dead and seventeen wounded. In return, they killed twelve rioters and wounded dozens. Marylanders blamed the abolitionists of Massachusetts for starting the war. Library of Congress

  This map, reprinted from Harper’s Weekly magazine, shows the Union and Confederate armies clashing at Manassas Junction, with Bull Run
Creek flowing through the battlefield. General Lee was the unseen planner of the battle. Thanks to his foresight, fresh Southern troops arrived by railroad to overwhelm the weary Union men.

  On July 22, 1862, President Lincoln read his first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Secretary of State William Seward is on the president’s left, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sits midway down the table on the right. Seward persuaded Lincoln not to issue the epochal statement until the Union had won a victory, lest it seem like “the last shriek” of an exhausted government. Library of Congress

  Taken in February 1865, this picture shows the deep weariness that the war inflicted on Abraham Lincoln. But when a senator visited him on April 14, he was amazed by the cheerful, energetic man who shook his hand. The war was virtually over and “The Tycoon,” as his aides called Lincoln, was preparing to forge a peace of reconciliation. Alas, that night he went to the theater. Library of Congress

  CHAPTER 17

  From Uncle Tom to John Brown

  The uproar over the Fugitive Slave Act inspired a woman to begin writing a novel that she first published, in the custom of the day, as a serial in a newspaper. Her choice was The National Era, Washington, DC’s abolitionist paper. Harriet Beecher Stowe was the daughter of the anti-Catholic crusader, the Reverend Lyman Beecher, and the brother of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a passionate abolitionist. She called the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly.