As the tide turned in September, things worsened for Lincoln's political opponents. McClellan released a public letter on September 8 that expressed his belief that he could not look into the eyes of his old troops and tell them their sacrifices to save the Union had been in vain.13He felt obligated to repudiate the peace platform of his party, which threw the Democrats into disarray. In the Shenandoah Valley, General Philip Sheridan burned a path of victory against Jubal Early, eliminating the Confederate threat to the capital. Another perception of the war had shifted dramatically. It was not certain that Lincoln would carry the election, but the political and military terrain had changed—making the radical and dangerous plan to reach deep into Southern lines no longer necessary.
Though the plan Douglass and Lincoln had formulated was looking less likely, many around the country were learning of Douglass's visits to the White House. Democrats were eager to use this as ammunition against Lincoln. In 1858, Stephen Douglas had used an imagined relationship between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to bait the voters. Six years later, an actual relationship was an inviting target, and Democrats used it for racial demagoguery. One campaign pamphlet issued by the party reprinted Douglass's quote, " . . . the President of the United States received a black man at the White House just as one gentleman received another." Democrats used the visit to the White House by a figure as reviled as Frederick Douglass as appalling proof that Abraham Lincoln was too radical for the American people, and worse, that this war was being carried on for abolition purposes Americans would not endorse.14
However, Douglass's relationship with the president was a source of pride in the black community, some of whom saw the Democrats' ire over this connection as somewhere between distressing and amusing. James Rapier, a black army surgeon, wrote sarcastically to a friend, "Did you ever see such nonsense!" Mocking racists, he continued, "The President of the United States sending for a 'Nigger' to confer with him on the state of the country!15
Because Democrats were so eager to exploit these types of racist reactions to Douglass's presence, Douglass found that he could not play the type of public role in the Republican campaign he might have wished, because Republican candidates did not want to be labeled as the Negro party. He bitterly described it as being like a child "put out of the room when company comes." He wanted to speak on this injustice but, not wanting to hurt a party whose victory was necessary for the possibility of emancipation, decided it would be best to do so after the election.16
Douglass was shocked to discover that William Lloyd Garrison, his bitter former mentor, ran a letter in the Liberator that Douglass had written in haste to an English friend earlier in the year, when his frustration with Lincoln had been at its highest and before their White House meeting. The unfortunate publication revealed his wish that a more fervent antislavery candidate might replace Lincoln. When Douglass wrote it, he was supporting John Fremont, who had now dropped out of the presidential race, and the Democratic party had not yet nominated George McClellan.
After the unauthorized publication of his letter, Douglass wrote to Garrison and said he did not deny having wanted a man with "a firmer faith in the immediate necessity and practicability of justice and equality for all men, than have been exhibited in the policy of the present administration." He added that he made no secret that, "I, like many other radical men, freely criticized, in private and public, the actions and utterances of Mr. Lincoln, and withheld from him my support." Things were different now, and the choice was clear to Douglass between Lincoln and McClellan. Now, "all hesitation ought to cease and every man who wishes well to the slave and to the country should at once rally with all the warmth and earnestness of his nature to the support of Abraham Lincoln." Douglass believed that the platform the Democrats had set out would be the "heaviest calamity of all these wards of war and blood" because it would "sacrifice and wantonly cast off everything valuable purchased so deeply with the precious blood of our brave sons.17
Douglass, like many other black leaders, fervently believed that the issues most central to the black community needed to be injected into the presidential campaign and heeded by the American public—and that the Republicans' determined silence on slavery and voting rights had to end.
Sixteen South Carolinians, four of whom were black, had shown up at the Republican convention in Baltimore. One was the renowned hero Robert Smalls. Born a slave in South Carolina, Smalls had been working on a 147-foot vessel in Charleston. When the white crew went ashore to sleep for the night, Smalls and a small group of allies took over and set sail for freedom, picking up his family and a number of other enslaved people along with way. By both escaping slavery and robbing the Confederacy of a gunboat, he warranted praise from black and white northerners alike at a crucial time, when men like Douglass were asserting that black men did have the courage to fight in the war.
Yet Smalls's remarkable exploit was not enough to earn official recognition from the Republican convention. The party's platform did endorse the immediate end to slavery by a constitutional amendment as well as the protection of black soldiers; but while the anti-Lincoln radicals gathering in Cleveland had approved of measures offering political equality to black citizens, the Republicans meeting in Baltimore rebuffed the measures and Robert Smalls. The Republicans were making it clear that they would not risk losing this election for any reason.
The National Convention of Colored Men in Syracuse demanded that the rest of the country hear them during this election. The call went out from the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet, a longtime black leader who had lost a leg to a circulatory problem as a young man, but had not let that dull his zealous work for equality. Like Douglass, he was born a slave in the countryside of eastern Maryland. When Garnet was nine, his father, Joseph—a proud man who taught Henry that he was descended from the chiefs of western Africa—packed up the family for a relative's funeral, but that was not their real destination. Through the woods and swamps, they headed on a long, perilous trip to freedom in New York City, the same place that Douglass's journey ended twelve years later.18
Garnet advocated a radical form of black nationalism, and he often found himself clashing with the more charismatic Douglass on a variety of issues, particularly Garnet's support of voluntary colonization projects in Africa and the Caribbean. Their rift was also personal, as Garnet saw Douglass as an opportunistic and vacillating leader, while Douglass saw Garnet as arrogant and wrong for the future of their people. They often battled for leadership at black abolitionist conventions.
Henry Highland Garnet, circa 1881. Photograph by James U. Stead.
Garnet was then serving Washington's Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. He had come close to powerful men but was reminded of Douglass's ascendancy: The minister repeatedly called on Lincoln but had never been invited in. Garnet told fellow emigration sympathizer Martin R. Delany that because black people who had tried to get into the White House were "expecting something and coming away dissatisfied," so the president had resolved to "receive no more black visitors."19
The National Convention of Colored Men convened at seven P.M. on October 4 in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. There had been national conventions of black leaders in the antebellum period but none in nine years. About 150 men attended, from eighteen states, including slaveholding states such as Mississippi and North Carolina. Some of these men had fought in the war, some had been enslaved, and many had led free black communities in activism for years. To Garnet's dismay, the convention elected Douglass its president, offering another reminder of his preeminence. That night, as Garnet was walking alone through the streets of Syracuse, a group of Irish-Americans leaving a tavern noticed the disabled black man and knocked him to the ground. They took his silver-plated cane and degraded this dignified man by forcing him to crawl through mud.20
The convention continued the next day in Wieting Hall. When word of Garnet's ordeal filtered through the hall, a collection was raised for him to replace the cane. Rivalries aside, to h
ave one of their own humiliated like this, especially during a conference at which they were asserting full citizenship, was horrifying. It made their business at hand more pressing.
On the platform was the flag of the First Louisiana Native Guards, who had so bravely proved the merit of black soldiers at Port Hudson and elsewhere. This battle flag was a deliberate reminder of the sacrifices that had been made so that the demands the speakers asked for would be heeded. Douglass spoke again on the second night. He discussed the recent disturbing speech by Secretary of State William Seward in Auburn, New York, in which Seward mentioned the possibility that if the war were to end in the autumn (which the fall of Atlanta in September had made possible), the issue of emancipation would end up in the courts. Everyone knew that was not a prospect to be accepted. They needed a constitutional amendment to end slavery forever. It was clear that the Emancipation Proclamation was not enough.
Equal rights through the elective franchise were now firmly on the black agenda. Douglass's address forcefully made this argument, asking, "Are we good enough to use bullets, and not good enough to use ballots?" Delegates thought the speech so effectively conveyed their case that they ordered ten thousand copies printed. After more speakers, the night ended with the singing of "Battle Cry of Freedom."21
Over the course of the next two days, they passed resolutions that were to be sent to the president and Congress affirming their patriotism; thanking them for the gains of the past four years; appealing for equal rights, equal treatment of their soldiers in pay, labor, and promotion; requesting the creation of opportunities and safety for freedmen; and protesting any regeneration of the Union with slavery. John Rock, a remarkable Bostonian who was both a doctor and a lawyer, articulated the feeling of the men in the hall when he proclaimed, "We ask the same for the black man that is asked for the white man; nothing more, and nothing less."
As for the choice in the election, that was clear. There was Lincoln's party "for Freedom and the Republic; and the other, by McClellan, is for Despotism and Slavery . . . The fate of this Republic will be settled in this contest." Some radical abolitionists never came around to supporting Lincoln because of his reconstruction plans, but the black leaders of this convention did not share this opinion. They were lending their support to Lincoln while making their demands of him unambiguous. Douglass was at the helm of a landmark moment in the formulation and advancement of a black political agenda in a presidential election.22
Some black soldiers experienced the same dilemma and ultimate conclusion when it came to the election of Lincoln. Charles W. Singer, stationed in Louisville at the time, wrote, "though we abhor him when we consider the many injustices he has allowed to be practiced on colored men, we cannot but think him a better object than George B. McClellan." Singer referenced discrimination against his comrades in arms, Lincoln's proposal for compensated emancipation in the border states, and colonization as matters that gave him pause, yet these did not outweigh his belief that no man on the continent other than McClellan was "more desirous of seeing the South achieve her independence with human slavery."23
When Election Day came, Douglass felt he had "certainly exerted myself to the uttermost in my small way to secure his reelection . . . by speeches, letters, or other electioneering appliances."24He had been confident since mid-October, after Sherman's and Sheridan's military successes had remade the political equation, that Lincoln would win. Even if Grant was still mired in a great siege outside of Petersburg, the Union would now press on to victory, which meant he had no reason to press Lincoln further on their plan. Once that siege was lifted (something Grant had demonstrated he could do at Vicksburg), then the vastly superior federal troops could smash on to Richmond to seek the final destruction of Robert E. Lee's army.
All over the country, the majority of black men who could vote, and many who could not, supported Lincoln. Though the nation had yet to bestow suffrage on the black community of Nashville, they held their own election in a protest. It would not affect the official tally but it did reveal the depth of support for Lincoln: He finished with 3,193 votes, while McClellan garnered only one.25
It was a glum, rainy day in Washington as the future of the country was decided at polling stations around the country. The White House was quieter than usual, with cabinet members attending to election duties elsewhere and Stanton sick with chills. Journalist Noah Brooks quoted Lincoln as saying, "I am just enough of a politician to know that there was not much doubt about the result of the Baltimore Convention, but about this thing I am far from being certain; I wish I were certain." At seven o'clock, Lincoln went to the War Department to begin receiving telegraphs communicating the results around the country, though it would take another two hours before anything meaningful came into his hands. Positive word came from Maryland, Massachusetts, then Pennsylvania, usually a decisive indicator. But a long wait drew out more suspense before the rest of New England, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin came in. Thankfully for Lincoln, Illinois was still faithful. It was clear to Lincoln by midnight that the country had decided it had not given up on him, or on the hope that the country would find deliverance from this violent tempest. Lincoln was subdued when he received the final tally, too worn to be anything but relieved and comforted.26
The institution of slavery in Maryland had come to an end when a revision of the state constitution was ratified on November 1, 1864. Less than a week before the election, a group of black people left their triumphant church service and descended on the White House to pay tribute to this momentous occurrence. Following a torchlight parade and band music, the crowd arrived outside the building and cheered for the president, who eventually appeared. Lincoln called out, "I have to guess, my friends, the object of this call, which has taken me quite by surprise this evening."
A leader of the gathering answered, "The emancipation of Maryland."
Lincoln told the jubilant crowd, "It is no secret that I have wished, and still do wish, mankind everywhere to be free." The crowd applauded, as Lincoln speculated that it would be as much of a good for his race as for theirs. He desired that all would now move forward; "Who have been emancipated, will use this great boon which has been given you to improve yourselves, both morally and intellectually; and now, good night." Lincoln retreated back into White House to shouts of approval.27
It took Douglass only sixteen days after the Maryland emancipation to return to Baltimore for the first time since he had left as a fugitive.
From roughly age eight to thirteen—when his owner sent him back to the fields of the Eastern Shore for the worst years of his life—and then from sixteen to eighteen, Douglass had lived in the labyrinth of cobblestone streets known as Fells Point. It had not been part of the original Baltimore Town and that separateness, a world unto itself, remained in Douglass's memory. Its essence was the water—every inch of the place smelled of it. The land hooked into the harbor, the streets fed into the shipyards, and upbringings led to sailing, caulking, fitting, chandlery, or carpentry on the ships. He had learned to write by copying the names of the ships docked there. Douglass's owners, the Aulds, lived on a road where brick row homes and one-and-a-half-story frame houses stood in a line. But that was only half of Fells Point. The poorer folks lived in the alley houses that packed an elaborate web of dirty back streets, with one water pump for several struggling families.
Walking through the Baltimore streets, Douglass was filled with nostalgia. Despite the pain of his childhood, he had never stopped loving Maryland, and he was always searching to reconnect to or redeem the past. He spoke six times over the next two weeks in Baltimore, but there was one place where he fit in perfectly. Radicalism was part of the fiber of the Bethel AME Church, and their first minister, Daniel Coker, had been born to a white indentured servant mother and slave father in 1780. He had escaped to New York, but after converting to Methodism, had returned to his home state. Coker led a group to form the first independent black congregation and became one of the first African
-American antislavery writers with his book, A Dialogue between a Virginian and an African Minister. Bethel's influence and popularity grew in the antebellum period. The congregation's action on slavery was aggressive and their worship style was unrepentantly lively.
Bethel had played a huge role in Douglass's life. His relationship with organized religion become thornier as his life went on, but his early years formed his understanding of black Christianity. Douglass also was reunited with the now elderly Charles Lawson, who had told the strikingly gifted boy he was destined to do great work for the Lord.28
Within the church, Douglass now found congregants packing the room with many guests in the pews, including some white Marylanders, in anticipation of his return. A distinguished-looking Douglass walked down the isle of the church hand in hand with his sister, Eliza Bailey Mitchell. Word about the famous orator Frederick Douglass coming to Baltimore had reached all the way to Talbot County, where she heard the good news. She left home and traveled sixty miles in the hope of reconnecting with a brother whose life had taken a radically different course. Douglass had not seen his sister in almost thirty years. Slavery's rules forbid any correspondence, and he had not known if she was even alive. He wrote, "Our meeting can be better imagined than described."29
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