The Lost Gettysburg Address

by David T. Dixon

  Charles Anderson was a dynamic force on the stump, traipsing all over the state to assist in the Whig Party crusade. At one point, an exasperated Eliza complained to her mother-in-law that her husband was “out electioneering again.” She hated politics and yearned to see Anderson return from the road.6 His extraordinary efforts paid off, as he was elected by a comfortable majority. Whigs dominated the state senate but were badly outnumbered in the house. Whig gubernatorial candidate Mordecai Bradley outpolled popular Democrat David Tod by a mere thirteen-hundred votes. Clay won Ohio’s twenty-three electoral votes by a margin barely exceeding six thousand with more than three hundred thousand ballots cast. The celebration was short-lived. After all the returns were in, the grand prize had eluded the Kentuckian yet again. James K. Polk was reelected president. Clay’s destiny was to be one of the greatest American political leaders to never win the nation’s highest office.

  Newly elected Senator Anderson traveled to Columbus in December 1844 to begin a short and stormy stint in the legislature. The great national issue of Texas annexation loomed large, overshadowing state business. Some Whig hardliners even suggested that such an event, which Polk would surely accomplish, might be grounds for immediate disunion. Although Anderson strongly opposed annexation, he was not in that radical camp. The freshman state senator focused on his new role, immersing himself in typical Whig concerns: railroads, turnpikes, and benevolent institutions. While he achieved some minor success in these efforts, Anderson took a position of conscience that was so controversial and so offensive to most of his constituents, that it would seal his fate as a one-term senator while he was still learning his way around the statehouse. A bomb exploding on the floor of the senate might have caused less noise than that which Anderson created near the start of the Forty-Third Ohio General Assembly.

  Many whites feared a sudden influx of what they perceived to be ignorant, immoral escaped slaves and free blacks into the free states of the West. This concern led many border states to pass a series of codes restricting the freedom of their black neighbors. The Ohio “Black Laws” were enacted in 1803, shortly after the territory achieved statehood. A wide range of sanctions required free blacks to register with local authorities and to provide proof of freedom upon demand. The statutes proscribed harsh penalties for harboring undocumented persons of color. Technically free, the black population of Ohio had few of the privileges of white residents. Being exempt from the yoke of slavery did not mean that one was a full-fledged citizen. The status of nominally free black residents was troubling to Anderson. His own views on race were a confused muddle of conflicting emotions, experiences, and principles. He was certainly not a radical abolitionist like firebrand fellow senator Benjamin F. Wade, yet his own moral principles urged him to find ways to ameliorate the poor condition of these “wretched beings.” Anderson resolved to take action.

  He proposed a measure that would do away with one provision of Ohio’s codes for black people. Statutes prohibited blacks from testifying in civil and criminal cases. Eliminating one provision that so clearly stood in the way of fair trials might be a first step toward gradually eroding the entire odious collection of laws. The senate erupted in heated debate. Anderson gave an eloquent speech on the senate floor that sent the opposition press into hysteria. “Niggers! Niggers!! Niggers!!!” screeched the Dayton Western Empire, whose editors accused Anderson of turning his back on his Kentucky heritage and engaging in “Niggerology.” Helped by an overwhelming Whig majority, the bill passed on February 20, 1845, and was referred to the house. It was a dead letter when it arrived, however, given the thirty-two to four seat dominance of the Democrats there. The annexation of Texas drowned out all other news just two weeks later, and Anderson’s effort was all but forgotten.7

  One man who did not forget was rising political star Salmon P. Chase. Chase was disappointed that Anderson had refused to align himself with the new Liberty Party. He wrote the young state senator, chastising him for not having the same kind of zeal against the extension of slavery as he did in opposing the Black Laws. Liberty Party editors sneered in silence at such Whig actions they felt avoided the more pressing issues of the day. Anderson ignored them. As long as Clay was alive, Anderson would remain his loyal disciple and follow his lead.8

  Unaccustomed to working every day in the public eye, Anderson simply toiled in the statehouse until he ruined his health. The asthma that plagued him his entire life was back, despite an arsenic solution that his doctor had prescribed. What Charles needed was some time away in a healthier climate. Friends recommended a sea voyage, and Anderson jumped at the idea. He was granted a leave of absence and left Columbus in early March. The trip turned out to be much more than an extended period of convalescence. It was the trip of a lifetime.

  Anderson spent nearly six months alone in Europe indulging his insatiable desire to advance his learning in art, history, and nature. Landing in Barcelona in late April 1845, his sojourn took him through northern Spain, southern France, and down the Rhone River. He cruised in the Mediterranean Sea, visiting Italy, Greece, and Turkey. He met with the sultan twice in Constantinople. From the Black Sea, Anderson ventured up the Danube River through Germany and northern France, ending his long odyssey in London. The trip exceeded his grandest expectations and kindled a lifelong dream of a diplomatic appointment. By October the dreamer had nearly run out of money, and responsibilities beckoned back home. When the Ohio legislature opened session in January, Anderson returned to his seat and resumed his place in the middle of controversy.9

  A petition from the Society of Friends of Whitewater, Indiana, just across the state border, motivated Anderson to renew his attack on Ohio’s unfair Black Laws. These codes restricted free movement of blacks between the two states, obstructing commerce. According to the young senator from Dayton, these statutes were “unconstitutional, grossly wrong and unjust in principle and integrity.” The restrictions were “brutal and inhumane in practice,” Anderson exclaimed, amounting to “a stain of disgrace blotting our laws.” He urged their immediate repeal. Anderson’s fellow Whigs saw little opportunity to pass any such legislation, however, as the lower house was still dominated by Democrats. The petition went nowhere, and Anderson’s political reputation ebbed.10

  The problem with Anderson, as his peers saw it, was that he stood so firm on principle while ignoring the cardinal rules of republican politics. Legislative success required artful compromise and prescient timing. Anderson was deficient in both areas. Former colleague George F. Drake recalled that Anderson’s “brilliant talents” were diminished by his “dogmatic and to some extent intolerant” stands that too often left him in the minority. When Ohio’s Black Laws fell just a few years later, it was not the result of furious assaults from true believers like Anderson or abolitionists like Joshua Giddings, but rather through the crass political deal-making that Anderson so abhorred. When his term ended, no one dared suggest that he run for reelection. By refusing to play the game by the politicians’ rules, Anderson had alienated all parties. His nascent political career appeared to be over. It was time to follow his brother Larz’s advice and commit himself fully to his chosen profession. Cincinnati was the logical place to begin anew.11

  Larz Anderson made sure that his youngest brother would not fail in this latest attempt to restart his career. Now that Larz was no longer a practicing attorney, he spent most of his considerable energy managing the estate of his father-in-law, Nicholas Longworth. Longworth was not just the richest man in Cincinnati. He was the second wealthiest man in the nation. His personal attorney, Rufus King, took Charles Anderson in as partner, and the family moved to the Queen City in 1847. This placed the younger Anderson brother under the watchful eye of his mentor and squarely in the middle of elite society in the burgeoning metropolis. The results were just as Larz expected. Anderson was an immediate success at the bar and in social circles. He and his partner shared a love for the arts and a dedication to public service. King is remembered as the father o
f the Cincinnati library system and left a considerable endowment to various charitable organizations.12

  Anderson flourished in his new environment. He used Larz’s connections to gain access for himself and his friends to the highest places of power, both in the West and in the nation’s capital. With family friend Zachary Taylor now in the White House, the Andersons of Cincinnati, backed by the Longworth fortune, wielded considerable influence. In the summer of 1849, Anderson reported being “quite enamored of Old Zack and his family,” while making the high society rounds in Washington City. He spent time with Thomas Ewing, the foster father of his good friend William Tecumseh Sherman, and Ewing’s daughter Ellen, who was destined to become Sherman’s wife. It was a tight little circle in the capital city, and Anderson relished the opportunity to peek into the salons of power. The allure was irresistible to him.13

  While Charles and his oldest brother discussed paintings and sipped sherry with polite society, their brother Robert was once again doing his duty, despite fighting for a cause he thought unjust. The annexation of Texas had started a war with Mexico that lasted the better part of two years. Robert and his longtime friend Winfield Scott played key roles in the conflict. The wounded Robert emerged as a hero, but these accolades were bittersweet. Charles was closer to Robert than any of his brothers, and it pained him to know that his favorite had suffered so much for such an ignoble purpose. What was this national delusion called “manifest destiny,” the thing that sparked such boorish imperialism on the part of his beloved country? Anderson the scholar decided to study the issue in his usual painstaking manner. After he had finished his analysis, he parsed out all of the illogical rhetoric of this immensely popular notion. He delivered a masterful demolition of the manifest destiny concept, thus placing himself virtually alone among contemporary white intellectuals on the subject of race theory.14

  The issue of race had perplexed Charles Anderson from childhood. He found it nearly impossible to reconcile his moral misgivings concerning slavery with the political expediency that enshrined the peculiar institution into the Constitution. It was a repugnant bargain, yet it held the Union together. The innate superiority of the white race was a nearly uncontested scientific fact to practically every white American, from John C. Calhoun to renowned abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Pseudoscientists calling themselves “phrenologists” claimed that skull measurements proved that innate differences made the Negro race akin to a separate species. Historians and politicians of the day added fuel to the fire when they suggested that the natural characteristics of an Anglo-Saxon “race” meant that white people were chosen by God to rule lesser humans. This was more than Anderson could stand. He launched a withering attack on the idea of an “Anglo Saxon destiny” at the Philomathesian Society at Kenyon College on August 8, 1849. Few if any in the audience that day had heard anything remotely like it.

  The speech itself was a tour de force of logical argument and probably the finest rhetorical effort of Anderson’s life. Unlike his peers, Anderson did not oppose manifest destiny merely because of its crude violence or its potential impact on the balance between slave and free states. Rather, he questioned the rationale behind the doctrine, dismantling the argument point by point. This false creed was so universal in its adoption and so insidious in the way it pandered to the pride of elite and poor whites alike that it created huge barriers to anyone bold enough to challenge it. The first error that Anderson exposed was the myth of an Anglo-Saxon race. Ancient historians like Tacitus never mentioned the Saxons. Neither the Saxons nor the Angles ever represented a majority of peoples inhabiting the British Isles. Like the Americans, according to Anderson, the British throughout history were composed of the most “mongrel and heterogeneous stock of people on earth.” There could hardly be an Anglo-Saxon destiny when that race itself did not exist.

  The mere idea of racial destiny was preposterous, in Charles Anderson’s view. First, it was more than presumptuous for any people to claim that they could divine God’s will. Throughout history, one empire after another felt convinced that it was destined to rule. Many justified violence and even genocide in the name of racial superiority and destiny. All of these empires eventually fell. The great achievements of ancient cultures and those of the British-American people were due mostly to circumstance. Who was to say, for example, that the achievements of Americans in constructing a free and prosperous republic were any greater than the artistic triumphs of the Italians or the technical advances of the ancient Chinese? Was the successful American experiment the result of a providential racial destiny, or the product of great leaders seizing a moment in time? Americans who continued to believe in what Anderson described as “a fallacy in philosophy, and untruth in history, and an impiety in religion” would someday face a harsh reckoning.

  Anderson went on to challenge even the most sacred tenet of this racial philosophy: the idea that blacks, or Mexicans, or any other ethnic group were inherently inferior to white people. Here he used his audience’s own religious beliefs to support his case. The Bible taught the unity of the species, Anderson argued. At various times throughout history, different races of men achieved dominance—not by virtue of any inherent superiority but as a matter of favorable circumstance. In other words, conditions in certain areas of the world allowed their residents to develop more quickly than others living in a less-than-ideal environment. This nurture-versus-nature view clashed forcefully with the self-serving arguments of manifest destiny adherents. Even America’s lowly nineteenth-century Catholics—despised by many—saw themselves as the Jews of old did: “a royal priesthood, a people set apart.” Anderson’s logic suggested that free blacks who competed with whites for jobs, or even slaves (considered vile and ignorant by some), could achieve as much as whites given the proper circumstances was just too much for some to bear. Others, like Larz Anderson, simply laughed it off. Larz sent a copy of the speech to Orlando Brown, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the time, thinking it would “amuse” him with its “monomania” against Anglo-Saxons.15

  Charles Anderson’s unusual speech drew the attention of the press and public outside of Ohio. He reprised the address before the New England Society of Cincinnati. After hearing it delivered on December 20, 1849, some political leaders insisted the speech be published and widely circulated. As was the case throughout his long life, Charley’s penchant for drawing a crowd and delivering compelling, often entertaining orations, made him one of the most popular and controversial speakers in the West.16

  A talent for public speaking was a useful tool for an attorney. In June 1850 partners Anderson and King represented Dr. William R. Winton in one of the most sensational criminal cases ever heard in Ohio. The wealthy and respected doctor, an 1837 graduate of the Ohio Medical College, specialized in surgery to correct deformities of the limbs. When he was approached by the parents of eighteen-year-old Harriet Keever, Winton offered to treat her club foot in his own home. The unfortunate girl became pregnant and accused the doctor of seducing her. Imagine Charles Anderson reflecting back on his talks with Larz regarding the “low acts” that both despised in the political realm. Was defending a man accused of raping an innocent invalid any less onerous? Still, Anderson agreed to defend the doctor in Preble County Court.

  There he faced a hostile jury and a public enraged by the heinous nature of this apparent crime. Anderson used all of his considerable skills of debate and persuasion to create reasonable doubt as to his client’s guilt. The alleged rapes took place while the doctor’s wife and the local minister chatted in a room next door. The victim did not cry out or attempt to run away after five supposed molestations. She was driven home by the doctor and arranged to see him for a follow-up appointment months after she left his home. She only made her accusation after the birth of her child, nine and a half months after she left the doctor’s residence. Despite the lack of credible evidence and the conflicting testimony of the alleged victim and her family, Winton was convicted of “seduction,�
� a lesser charge than rape. Judge Crane’s instructions to the jury were clear: they either had to find the defendant guilty or declare that the young woman was nothing more than a “perjured strumpet.” Anderson admitted in his closing argument that such a verdict in the face of so little evidence would shake his faith in the legal system. In reality, he knew better than to expect perfect justice in an imperfect world.

  Anderson’s losses in the courtroom and on the stump did little to tarnish his image or his growing celebrity. His entire thirty-five-page closing argument was published the following year. His rapid rise to prominence on a larger stage did not go unnoticed by state party leaders. Despite being all but banished from political life just four years earlier, a considerable effort was made to nominate Charles Anderson for the United States Senate in 1851. His well-known independence made him a potential compromise candidate, as Whigs and Democrats grappled with the popular Free Soil Party movement in a fast-changing game of party realignment.17

  Anderson himself appeared a little bemused at the prospect of being used as political barter. The machinations began in November 1850, when Judge Holt, Anderson’s older brother Larz, and other prominent Democrats prepared to support Charles’s candidacy, rather than allow the Free Soil Party to triumph. “I prefer the weakest Democrat in Ohio, representing a large and honest party,” Anderson wailed, “to one of those traitorous fanatics or knaves, though he be Webster in intellect or Clay in statesmanship.” A confused mess of backroom dealings concluded at the Whig caucus in January 1851, where Anderson was beaten, as he had predicted, “by some damned small fry” named Hiram Griswold. The vote was twenty-six to twenty. Griswold and the Whig Party were crushed in the election at the statehouse. Benjamin Franklin Wade emerged as victor on the Thirty-Seventh ballot. Wade went on to serve three terms and become one of the most radical Republicans in Washington.18