Stark Mad Abolitionists

by Robert K. Sutton

  As the delegates to the Lecompton Convention were decidedly from the pro-slavery camp, delegates to the Leavenworth convention were just as decidedly from the more radical wing of the antislavery camp. The new Leavenworth Constitution granted full citizenship and voting rights to African Americans, and it empowered the new state legislature to draft legislation for universal suffrage. It provided for public and higher education for the future state’s children. And it allowed married women to own property independent of their husbands.197 The convention adjourned on April 3 and submitted the constitution to the citizens for ratification on May 18, 1858. Kansas residents approved the new document, submitted it to Congress, where, because of its radical provisions, it had no chance for approval.

  The Kansas Territorial Legislature probably recognized that the Leavenworth Constitution would never pass muster in Congress, so in its 1859 session, it called for yet another constitutional convention to be held at Wyandotte in July of that year. One author made the astute observation that the first three Kansas constitutions were written to frame issues, whereas the fourth, the Wyandotte Constitution, was written to form a state.198 Delegates were elected on June 17; they gathered in Wyandotte on July 5. Thirty-five Republicans and seventeen Democrats, with an average age of thirty-five, attended the convention. There were eighteen lawyers, sixteen farmers, eight merchants, three manufacturers, three physicians, one mechanic, one land agent, one printer, and one surveyor.199 For various reasons, the warhorses from the free-state faction of Bleeding Kansas, such as Charles Robinson, James Lane, and others, did not participate.

  Because the makeup of the convention included liberal, moderate, and conservative factions, the debates were often contentious. Not open to debate, however, was the issue of slavery, so Section 6 read: “there shall be no slavery in this State, and no involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” But other issues were not as easy to resolve. Conservative delegates wanted to exclude free blacks and mulattoes from the new state and limit the rights for white women. As a compromise, the constitution read that “every white male person, of twenty-one years and upward” was granted the full rights of citizenship, which, of course, meant women, African Americans, and Indians were denied these rights.

  The site of the future capital entered the discussions as well. Several towns vied for the honor. It was clear from the outset that Lecompton had too many unpleasant memories and thus would not become the seat of government. Of the eight communities in competition, three were finalists—Topeka, Lawrence, and Atchison. Topeka put the most effort into its candidacy and won the straw poll, followed by Lawrence and Atchison. Although the convention’s vote was nonbinding, on November 5, 1861, in a statewide election, Topeka was selected as the new state capital.

  On October 4, 1859, by a vote of 10,421 to 5,530, the citizens of Kansas voted to adopt the Wyandotte Constitution. Although the Wyandotte Constitution was much more balanced than the first three, and although Kansas met the criteria established to enter the union as a state, it would take a year and a half until it was admitted.

  A few weeks after Kansans voted to approve their new constitution, a politician who had begun his rise to recognition a year earlier, with his debates for the US senator’s seat in Illinois, spent a week in eastern Kansas. Abraham Lincoln crossed the Missouri River from St. Joseph to Elwood, Kansas, on November 30. He visited Troy, Atchison, and Leavenworth, received warm receptions—although the outside temperature was bitterly cold—and gave speeches at each stop. Most Kansans at the time were staunch supporters of William Seward for president, and they didn’t take Lincoln’s possible candidacy for the nation’s highest office very seriously. One person who did take him seriously, however, was James Lane. Lane met Lincoln during his Kansas tour, instantly became one of his strongest supporters, and campaigned for him in 1860.200

  Two weeks after Abraham Lincoln’s visit, on December 17, 1859, an institution of the earliest years of Kansas, the Herald of Freedom, printed its last edition. George Brown mentioned—in passing—that he was having a difficult time buying paper for his newspaper, thus the next edition or so might not be published; he gave his readers no indication that this was the end of his newspaper. For the past two and a half years, the Herald had been losing readers and advertisers to the Lawrence Republican. The editors for both papers had been carping at each other frequently, and Brown lost the battle.201 Brown’s paper probably lost readership because his message was not in tune with the readers in Lawrence. He was a moderate antislavery advocate, whereas the people of Lawrence were becoming more radical in their opposition to slavery.

  The Wyandotte Constitution was submitted to Congress, and in April 1860, the United States House of Representatives voted 134 to 73 to admit Kansas. But it was tabled in the Senate. In the meantime, the country was in the midst of the greatest crisis in its history. Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate, was elected as president. The one plank in the Republican platform that was unacceptable to the South stated that a Republican Administration would do all within its power to permanently prohibit the expansion of slavery into the territories. Although there was no legal mechanism to do so, shortly after Lincoln’s victory, South Carolina seceded from the Union in December, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia by the middle of January 1861. South Carolina, and the other southern states that left the Union, did so by calling for a convention to determine whether the state wanted to remain in the Union or leave. With the absence of the senators from these states, however, the way was now clear for Kansas’s admission to the Union. Thus, on January 21, 1861, the Senate voted to admit Kansas. President Buchanan, who had stubbornly tried everything in his power to make Kansas a slave state, signed the admission bill on January 29, 1861, making Kansas the thirty-fourth state.202

  The Lawrence Republican reported the news two days later. “Glorious Intelligence! Kansas in the Union! We have received the glorious news that Kansas is admitted into the Union.” The writer continued, “we hear the jubilant news vocally heralded in the streets, and the sounds of the ‘spirit-stirring drum’ admonish us that the ‘immortal [Lawrence] Stubbs’ are glorifying the event. All hail! We are citizens of the United States once more, partners in ‘Hail Columbia,’ ‘Yankee Doodle,’ the stars and stripes, the Declaration of Independence, and the Fourth of July!”203

  The people of Lawrence and Kansas were jubilant with statehood. But the future looked ominous. By the date of Kansas’s admission, six southern states had already seceded from the Union. What would happen? Would the South be allowed to go its separate way, or would the North be willing to wage war to reunite the Union? These and other questions were unanswered when Kansas was admitted as the thirty-fourth state.

  PART III

  THE WAR

  11 My Life Belongs to My Country, But My Heart Belongs to You

  LAWRENCE, KANSAS, WAS NEVER FAR from the thoughts of Amos Lawrence, and he was delighted when Kansas finally became a free state. But his namesake town was not his only interest. He agreed to serve as treasurer for Harvard, and he led the fund-raising effort to build a major natural history museum at the behest of faculty member Louis Agassiz. As regional tensions increased, however, he did everything in his power to try to keep the nation together. He and several other “representatives of the conservative elements of Massachusetts” traveled to Washington with a petition containing fifteen thousand signatures, urging Congress to pass the Crittenden Amendment. In December 1860, Kentucky Senator John Crittenden had proposed a constitutional amendment that, among other provisions, would permanently protect slavery by forbidding the passage of any amendment or action of Congress that would interfere with the institution of slavery in any way. As the year 1860 drew to a close, Lawrence recorded in his diary that December 31 brought “a sad ending of one year in the history of my country; I fear the last year of our happy union.”

  Lawrence had good reason for discour
agement about his country. The recent presidential election had clearly demonstrated the nation’s deep political divisions. He had thrown himself—in partnership with other former Whigs—into creating and supporting the Constitutional Union Party, with John Bell from Tennessee as its standard bearer for president. Lawrence reluctantly agreed to run as the party’s candidate for the governorship of Massachusetts. He lost, but was not unhappy with the results. Edward Everett, who had represented Massachusetts in numerous political offices and had served as the former president of Harvard, was the vice presidential candidate. The party was silent on the issue of slavery, but instead campaigned on the single issue of keeping the Union intact.204

  The Constitutional Union Party (some referred to it as the National Union Party) was one of four parties with candidates in the presidential race of 1860. Abraham Lincoln was the choice of the new Republican Party, which promised to do everything in its power to keep slavery out of the territories. Stephen A. Douglas, the candidate for the Democratic Party, ran on the platform he had been espousing for years of allowing the people of the territories to decide whether they wanted slavery or not under the concept of popular sovereignty. Finally, the southern faction of the Democratic Party split from Douglas and nominated John Breckenridge from Kentucky to run on a separate ticket on the platform of protecting slave owners’ rights to take and hold their human property in the territories without restrictions.

  Abraham Lincoln won with one of the smallest popular vote totals in history at 39.6 percent, and won in the Electoral College with 180 of 303 votes. Between the election in November 1860 and Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states, starting with South Carolina, had seceded from the Union, and four others would follow to establish the Confederate States of America. The delicate balance between slave and free states, which started with the Constitutional Convention and continued with compromises that held the nation together for decades, crumbled with Lincoln’s election. The Republican promise that slavery would be prohibited in the territories was the final nail in the coffin of national unity. Slave owners believed their institution was dynamic and could expand into the territories within the continental United States and even into future territories in the Caribbean and other parts of the Americas.205

  President Lincoln promised that he would not interfere with slavery in the areas where it existed in 1861. But the slaveholding South was fearful that closing the territories to slavery was the first step toward abolishing slavery throughout the country. They saw this action as a threat to their current and future livelihoods, and for good reason. In 1860, there were nearly four million slaves in the United States. About 385,000 white families, roughly 30 percent, in slave states owned slaves, and of that number, 12 percent owned twenty or more slaves. About 30 percent of the nation’s population lived in the South, but 60 percent of the wealthiest individuals were concentrated in the South. Further, the per capita income in the South was nearly double that in the North. The value of slaves in the United States—again in 1860—was more than three billion dollars, which was greater than the combined value of railroads, factories, and banks in the entire country, or on another scale, greater than all land, cotton, buildings, and goods in the South.

  Amos Lawrence, of course, did not own slaves, but he was as wealthy as most of the largest slave owners in the South. Unlike most of them, he did all he could to try to hold the country together. But once the nation split in two, Lawrence devoted his considerable energies and fortune to the Union war effort. He offered his services either to lead a regiment or to use his business skills to support the North. In 1862, he almost single-handedly raised the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry Unit, commanded by Harvard graduate Charles Russell Lowell. Many members of the regiment were Harvard graduates from many of the leading Massachusetts families. To fill out the ranks, Lawrence offered between $100 and $200—from his own pocket—as an inducement to any man who would volunteer to join.206

  While Amos Lawrence was busy supporting the war effort in the East, residents of Lawrence, Kansas, reveled in their new statehood status—but only for a couple of weeks before the opening salvos of the Civil War erupted with the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In many ways, the new crisis was not that different from the old one. If Missouri opted to join other slave states and secede from the Union, Kansas would be isolated from other loyal states; but even if Missouri remained in the Union, the slave owners along the Kansas border would almost certainly support the rebel cause. For better or worse, no matter what her neighbor did, from their years of struggle to create their free state, the people of Lawrence and the rest of Kansas were probably better prepared for battle than any citizens of any other state.

  In the days following the capture of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to put down the rebellion. Charles Robinson was elected as the state’s first governor, and one of his first actions was to issue the call for recruits. The men of Lawrence immediately answered the call. George W. Deitzler, an early resident, and one of the six free-state men imprisoned for treason in 1856, agreed to serve as the commander of the 1st Kansas Infantry Regiment; O. E. Learnard, another early resident and veteran of the Border War, was second in command. Samuel Walker, nemesis of the Border Ruffians for his leadership in the successful attacks against Fort Titus and other pro-slavery strongholds, joined the 1st Kansas and was selected captain of Company A. Frank B. Swift, leader of the “Lawrence Stubbs” in the border conflict, joined and became the captain of another company. Samuel Wood, another veteran of the Border War, was selected as commander of Company I, 2nd Kansas.

  Other early Lawrence residents volunteered as well. Civic leaders such as Caleb S. Pratt, the city clerk, joined. The Haskell brothers—Frank, who would later become the leading architect in Kansas, and Dudley, who would later be elected to the US House of Representatives—were among the earliest recruits. Not to be left out, four of Lawrence’s clergymen volunteered as chaplains to various regiments during the war.207

  Volunteers were instructed to make their way to Leavenworth—where the 1st Kansas reported—and to Lawrence, where the 2nd Kansas organized. From the muster records of the 1st Kansas Infantry Regiment, we are can draw a fairly complete picture of its makeup. Nearly 50 percent of the recruits came from the town or surrounding area of Leavenworth, followed by Lawrence, providing 12 percent; Atchison with 9 percent; and the rest from other towns across the state. Altogether, twenty-eight communities from around Kansas were represented. Not surprisingly, only one soldier listed Kansas as his place of birth—since most had arrived only a few years earlier. Nearly 50 percent of the regiment noted that they were foreign born, with the largest number listed as natives of Germany. Looking at the roster of Company G of the 1st Kansas, we can also glimpse a representative sample of professions. Of the 110 enlistees, about 10 percent would be classified as professionals, including artists, a professor, and a surveyor; about 47 percent were skilled craftsmen, such as blacksmiths, harness makers, printers, coach makers, cigar rollers, masons, and a confectioner; and the remaining 43 percent were laborers or farmers. Again, looking at Company G, the average age was identical to the national average age of twenty-six. There were twelve teenagers, sixty-seven in their twenties, twenty-seven in their thirties, three in their forties, and the oldest was fifty-one.208

  The people of Lawrence welcomed the recruits for the 2nd Kansas with open arms. A soldier from Leavenworth, probably Sgt. John M. Mentzer, wrote to the Leavenworth Daily Times that “the people of Lawrence brim full of the Union spirit. The stars and stripes float from almost every corner of the streets, and [from] most of the public and private buildings…. Many of the little delicacies of life, to which a soldier is generally a stranger, find their way into our ‘quarters,’ accompanied by the well wishes of fair donors. The people here appreciate the worth of volunteers, and know how to treat them.”209

  From all indications, t
hese new Kansas recruits or, for that matter, recruits from all over—North and South—were excited at the prospect of fighting the enemy. Although some Kansas soldiers had tasted battle during the Border War, even these veterans were not prepared for what lay ahead. All recruits, when they arrived in Lawrence or Leavenworth, were immediately consumed with the rigors of training, and some learned very quickly—and in some cases, very forcefully—that their lives would be different. Several young soldiers in Captain Walker’s Company A, training at Camp Lincoln near Leavenworth, decided it would be fun to go into town, break into a whiskey shop, roll out a barrel of liquor, and help themselves to its contents. They were caught, placed under guard, and their fate was turned over to Major Samuel D. Sturgis, who was in command of the regular army in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth. Sturgis ordered that each of the offenders be tied to a cannon and receive fifty lashes. A reporter for the Lawrence Republican was incensed with the barbarity of the punishment and offered the opinion that Sturgis should be “court-martialed” for his actions.210 Sometimes, under the close living conditions, tempers flared. An argument broke out between two soldiers in Captain Stockton’s Company G, and one stabbed and killed the other. The murderer was tried by his peers in a court-martial proceeding; he was convicted and sentenced to be shot by a firing squad. The sentence was carried out, and thirty soldiers, some with live cartridges, others with blanks, performed the deed.211

  By the end of the war, over 22,000 Kansans in nineteen regiments and four artillery batteries fought for the Union. That represented 20 percent the state’s population of just over 107,000 in 1860. Kansans also suffered one of the highest casualty rates, with 8,500, or a little more than 38 percent.212