The Field of Blood

by Joanne B. Freeman

  Some newspapers condemned both men as well as Congress. A Pennsylvania paper took the long view, declaring the incident “a disgrace to the Nineteenth Century.”152 A Vermont paper waxed histrionic: “O Senators and Pistols! O Gunpowder and dignity! O Law-makers and bullets! Shame, shame!”153 The real villains were “Senatorial bullies,” charged a New Jersey paper: “instead of minding the business of their constituents, they—these grave Senators—only think of it!—are daring one another, almost daily, like schoolboys, to knock chips off their hats.”154 The solution was simple, claimed the Boston Herald: “If one-half of our Congressmen would kill the other half, and then commit suicide themselves, we think the country would gain by the operation.”155

  Fighting was deplorable and something should be done: it was a lamentation speech writ large. But just as such hand-wringing accomplished little, its press equivalent rang hollow. Even as the press condemned congressional fisticuffs, it cheered and booed combatants with full force. National compromises were being forged by congressional gladiators egged on by a national audience, North, South, and West, and the nation’s ongoing slavery debate gave them plenty to fight about. Fence straddlers on the issue of slavery would find it increasingly hard to find electoral traction. Benton suffered this fate. With his mixed views on slavery, he lost reelection to the Senate in 1851, a stunning defeat after thirty years of service. There were bad times ahead.

  For the moment, however, there was peace. Four months after the Foote-Benton scuffle, the Senate passed a series of bills that the House passed one month later. California was admitted as a free state; popular sovereignty would decide the fate of slavery in New Mexico and the Utah Territory; slavery was preserved in the national capital, though the slave trade was banned; a stronger Fugitive Slave Act would require all U.S. citizens to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves; and Texas gave up some of its western land and received compensation.

  Compromise and community had prevailed in Washington—a fact worth celebrating—and on the evening of Saturday, September 7, with California newly granted statehood, celebrate Washington did. Fireworks boomed. There was a hundred-gun salute. The Marine Band marched down Pennsylvania Avenue playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Yankee Doodle.” Crowds went from boardinghouse to boardinghouse applauding congressmen, who were all too happy to speechify in response. According to one onlooker, it was “a night on which it was the duty of every patriot to get drunk,” and congressmen did their duty. (The next day, a badly hungover Henry Foote blamed his stomach trouble on “bad fruit.”) Dr. Jonathan Foltz, an attending physician to presidents and duelists (he was present at the Cilley-Graves duel), noted that he had “never before known so much excitement upon the passage of any law.”156 Congress was receiving an all-too-rare standing ovation, evidence of how dire the crisis had seemed.

  But as much as the Compromise soothed a sectional crisis, it had a mixed impact on sectional sensibilities. The sustained Southern bullying campaign had schooled Northern onlookers in the gut realities of Slave Power dictation. Proudly proclaimed a policy and expanded to include the institution of Congress and the Union, Southern ultimatums and threats drove home the power and humiliation of Southern bullying. Just as French hoped, Northerners were seeing Congress’s skewed dynamics for themselves—not for the first time, but with a new power. They emerged from the crisis of 1850 with a keener sense of their rights and a sharper understanding of the power of Southern threats.

  They also gained powerful models of resistance. The many men who vocally defended Northern rights on the floor taught home audiences what Northern resistance felt like. A letter to John Parker Hale in April 1850 shows the personal impact of this sectional combat on a home audience; the writer praised Hale for standing up to the Slave Power but worried about “the degradation of the North,” which would inspire feelings of “self degradation.” For constituents as well as congressmen, the link between sectional honor and personal honor was profound, and congressmen were an all-important link between the two in North and South alike.157

  Thus the paradoxical outcome of the 1850 Compromise crisis. On the one hand, Americans gained a deeper appreciation of the Union and its fragility—an appreciation born of that fragility. On the other hand, they gained deeper convictions and stronger feelings about the very things that were threatening that fragile Union: slavery, sectional rights, and fear of sectional degradation.

  It was both the nation’s and Franklin Pierce’s bad fortune for him to become president in 1853 at this time of tensions and paradoxes. A man with a foot in both sectional camps, a Northerner who catered to Southern interests for the sake of the Union and his party, Pierce was the ultimate compromise candidate, a logical choice at a time of crisis-born compromises. But his concessions would prove deadly. In 1854, when the slavery status of the Kansas and Nebraska territories came up for debate, Pierce’s South-centric statecraft would rekindle the crisis of 1850 and magnify it tenfold, launching a national crisis that would catch French in the cross-fire.

  As Pierce’s longtime friend and supporter, French gave the Pierce campaign his all, though it wasn’t easy. It was hard to wage a national campaign at a time of sectional strife, and as a disillusioned Democrat, French faced personal challenges in waving the party flag. But he so deeply believed in Pierce as the man of the hour, so firmly believed that Democratic policies could save the Union, and was so good at the letter-writing, backslapping, hand-shaking, and songwriting that went into successful campaigning, that he devoted himself to the cause. In a sense, French had been training for the Pierce campaign for decades.

  Perhaps Pierce could bind North and South. Perhaps he could steer the ship of state through the slavery crisis. Perhaps he would reward French with a plum job; the spoils of victory could be sweet, and French was struggling to get by. (He was voted out of the presidency of the Magnetic Telegraph Company in 1850.)158 French hoped for all of these things. But in the end, he was disappointed. He didn’t get the reward that he was yearning for: the well-paid position of marshal of the District of Columbia. He rarely even managed to get Pierce’s ear, though he dreamed about it—literally; in December 1852, worried that Pierce didn’t “see how the wires are pulled” in Washington, French dreamed that he and Pierce went into a stable loft and “sat down on the hay & talked over things.”159

  Ultimately, Pierce’s disastrous slavery policies proved disastrous for his friendship with French. By the end of 1855, French’s thirty-year friendship with Pierce had fallen victim to the slavery crisis, and French was on his way out of the Democratic Party.

  6

  A TALE OF TWO CONSPIRACIES

  THE POWER OF THE PRESS AND THE BATTLE OVER KANSAS (1854–55)

  Franklin Pierce’s presidency was ravaged by ill omens, but none more tragic than the death of his only child in a train accident on January 6, 1853, as the president-elect and his family traveled home to Concord after the holidays. Not more than an hour into their trip, a broken axle sent their train car tumbling down an embankment; eleven-year-old Benjamin Pierce was the only immediate fatality.1 Franklin and Jane Pierce entered the White House in a state of collapse. When Pierce was inaugurated on March 4, there were few festivities; what little ceremony there was Pierce performed “like a man,” French thought. The soft-hearted French had been stricken at hearing of Bennie’s death. Months later, he still came close to crying when he glimpsed the boy’s portrait—“that mild, innocent countenance”—in the White House.2 French’s “AFFECtionate Sone” Ben, as Ben described himself, was seven years old at the time.3

  As a grieving father, Pierce took office with widespread public sympathy, something of a blessing after a trying contest. Whig campaign fodder had seized on Pierce’s obscurity, asking incessantly: Who is Franklin Pierce? They gleefully pointed out that even the Democratic press didn’t know who he was; at least one Democratic paper hailed their new candidate as General John A. Pierce, while others showered him with an array of middle initial
s, though he had no middle name.4 In response to Pierce’s declaration that he knew “no East, no West, no North, no South,” the Whig press shot back: “Neither does the East, West, North or South know Gen. Pierce. The coincidence is truly remarkable!”5 Pierce’s drinking problem also came under attack, as did his war record, which paled in comparison with the Whig candidate General Winfield Scott’s decades of military service going back as far as the War of 1812. The Whig press branded Pierce the “hero of many a well fought Bottle,” published a miniature “book” titled The Military Service of General Pierce, and smirked at how he fainted on the battlefield (twice) during the Mexican War, in one case because of a “sense-taking” groin injury.6

  Franklin Pierce during his presidential campaign in 1852. One-of-a-kind images produced without a negative, daguerreotypes had limited circulation, but reached a broad public when reproduced as engravings. (By Albert S. Southworth and Josiah J. Hawes. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

  But the campaign wasn’t purely personal. Whig and Democratic newspapers harped on each candidate’s loyalty to the Compromise of 1850. “Finality” on the issue of slavery was a buzzword of the campaign, and Pierce had no problem committing to it. His sweeping endorsement of the Fugitive Slave Act made that fact clear. In a public-minded letter sent to a friend at the Democratic Convention, Pierce said that the Union’s survival depended on Northern willingness to avoid antagonizing the South with “unnecessarily offensive” resolutions. He himself would “never yield to a craven spirit, that from consideration of policy would endanger the Union.”7 Pierce’s use of the word craven shows how complex doughface politicking continued to be. He was declaring himself too brave to back down on supporting the South—the very stance that many damned as doughface cowardice. His Whig opponent Winfield Scott was more ambivalent on the Compromise, as was his party, giving Democrats an electoral bludgeon that they used to full effect.

  Pierce’s South-friendly politics proved particularly problematic for Southern Whigs and Northern Democrats, who rose to the challenge with claims that sailed past the bounds of the believable with nary a look back. While Northern Whigs denounced Pierce as a slave to the Slave Power, Southern Whigs tarred him as a closet abolitionist who had denounced the Fugitive Slave Act in a speech in New Hampshire. (“More Yankee Tricks!,” screamed the Richmond Whig, accusing Pierce of revealing his abolitionism only in New Hampshire, far removed from Southern ears.)8 Northern Democrats took that abolitionist charge and ran with it, praising Pierce as a comrade in arms with John Quincy Adams in the war against gag rules.9 Southern Democrats, in turn, cited Northern Whig anti-Pierce screeds as proof that he was true to the South. In essence, Northern and Southern allies waged conflicting campaigns, banking on the limited reach of some local papers and the likelihood that the public wouldn’t know lie from truth.10 Neither party had a single Frank Pierce running for president; they had Northern and Southern Pierces of opposing politics, an accurate reflection of the state of the nation and a clear indication of trouble to come.

  The Washington Union walked a very thin line as the party standard-bearer, promoting Pierce as “The Man for the Times”—a man for all sections—singing his praises with vague generalities and countering Whig accusations.11 French did a good deal of singing and countering. Indeed, French played a key role throughout the campaign, even helping to secure Pierce’s nomination. As he explained in his diary, his “whole soul was in the matter.”12 As early as March 1852 he began to drop Pierce’s name into any and every conversation on the coming election, even obtaining from Pierce a vague letter of interest to show around. As an honorary delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and more important, as its reading secretary—where his famously strong lungs did good work—French lobbied delegates from every state in the Union, even boarding at a hotel that housed key delegates rather than with the New Hampshire delegation. Ultimately, he helped to persuade men from ten state delegations to support Pierce as a last resort.

  A cartoon from Pierce’s presidential run mocking his proslavery and antislavery reputation. To the left, pleased abolitionists and Free Soilers see a black man eclipsing Pierce. To the right, equally pleased Southerners see Pierce eclipsing a black man. (Eclipse & no eclipse or two views of one object by J. Childs. Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

  French’s last victory on that count was a vital one. In a remarkable twist of fate, he got Henry Wise, Pierce’s former drinking buddy, to commit the Virginia delegation. As mercurial in his politics as in his temperament, Wise had started his career as a Democrat, bucked his party and become a Whig in Congress, and now had returned to the states’ rights Democratic fold with the rise of the slavery crisis. To get Wise’s support, French had to confront the event that had kept Wise and Pierce at odds for fourteen years: the death of Jonathan Cilley. Pierce hadn’t exchanged a friendly word with Wise since 1838, refusing even to shake his hand. Did Wise bear a grudge? French asked. Wise didn’t; he understood Pierce’s feelings on losing his friend.13

  In the final push, Virginia led the way to Pierce’s nomination. “I do as sincerely believe that I brought about that nomination as I believe I am alive!” French crowed.14 Wise gave French due credit in a letter to Pierce, adding that it was “singular” that in 1844 Wise had promoted another man for president who had previously given him the cold shoulder—James K. Polk. (Wise also told Pierce that in response to questions about Pierce’s drinking problem, he had regaled delegates with the story of their drunken romp in 1836, declaring it the one and only time that he had seen Pierce drunk. A few months later, while stump-speaking for Pierce, Wise got involved in a scuffle on the podium.15 Having Wise on your side was a mixed blessing.)

  With the nomination in hand, French gave his all to the campaign, even hanging a picture of Pierce next to one of George Washington—“the first and last Presidents!”—in his home.16 As he put it, “I have rode and I have run,—I have written and I have spoken—I have recd. and disbursed lots of cash—I have poured out my own money whenever it has been necessary—in fact I have done all that might become a man, and some things that possibly may only become a partizan.”17 Indeed, French wore many hats during the campaign. He was treasurer of the National Democratic Committee, responsible for collecting and dispensing vast sums of money from all over the Union. As chairman of the Executive Committee of Washington’s Jackson Democratic Association, he tried to get Democratic associations from around the country to correspond with him in the hope of promoting “mutual action.”18 By his own account, he wrote almost every day for the Washington Union as well as its short-term spin-off, The Campaign. And because he was known to be Pierce’s close friend, he fielded hundreds of queries about the candidate, assuring all that “Pierce is a sure card.”19 The work was never-ending, persisting even beyond Pierce’s election when French was bombarded with hundreds of requests for jobs in the Pierce administration. “I am annoyed, bothered, vexed, amused & troubled with the drift-wood of party, which has been set afloat toward Washington, by the rising of the democratic tide,” he griped to his half brother Henry after Pierce’s inauguration. “[E]very man who ever threw up his beaver [hat] & whoora’d for Frank Pierce” expects to be led on to fortune.20

  As a core newspaper flack for Pierce’s campaign, French had his work cut out for him. The very thing that made Pierce a perfect compromise candidate—his virtually nonexistent public image—made promoting him a challenge. Even the Union seemed to damn Pierce with faint praise. An early campaign biography for the paper, probably written by French, lauds Pierce as a quiet but hardworking congressman who was well liked for his good sense, good manners, and good temper, though French cannily added that Pierce had an insider’s knowledge of the fine art of doling out patronage, thereby inviting the hundreds of letters that would plague him in months to come.21 A second article went so far as to praise Pierce’s mediocrity, arguing that the “idea that the presidency is a reward due for eminent or brillian
t services in the council or in the field” was dangerous in a democracy, a backhanded slap that the Whig press was quick to point out.22 Pierce’s longtime friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, his official campaign biographer, didn’t relish his job. “It was a hard book to write,” Hawthorne admitted, “for the gist of the matter lay in explaining how it has happened that, with such extraordinary opportunities for eminent distinction, civil and military, as he has enjoyed, this crisis should have found him so obscure as he certainly was, in a national point of view. My heart absolutely sank, at the dearth of available material.” To Hawthorne, only a “romancer” could have managed it.23 The book ultimately cost him scores of Northern friends because it defended Pierce’s doughface views on slavery.24

  In the end, Pierce won by a landslide in the Electoral College, but with a close popular vote, a telling sign of the unsettled state of public opinion.25 In free states, 14,000 more votes were cast against Pierce than for him.26 The Democracy was losing power in the North. Even so, with a South-friendly Northerner elected president, national affairs settled down.

  The respite was short-lived. In 1854, the territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska unleashed the sectional maelstrom once again. Senator Stephen Douglas’s (D-IL) proposal to allow the two future states to determine their own slavery status based on popular sovereignty opened the floodgates of a full-fledged sectional crisis; in effect, Douglas proposed to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the agreement that had long tamed (though certainly not solved) the slavery problem by drawing a line across the continent, dividing states into slave and free. By 1854, the Compromise had achieved the status of a sacred pact; its proposed repeal suggested that no pact between North and South, however sacred, could be trusted.27 This erosion of faith in cross-sectional bonds would subsume national politics in years to come.