Ohio History Journal

THE ELECTION OF 1848 IN OHIO*

 

 

BY ERWIN H. PRICE

 

 

CHAPTER I

THE LEGISLATIVE AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

In the year 1848, in Ohio, the Whig administration,

under Governor William Bebb, was drawing to a close.

In the Legislature, there was a Whig majority whose

efforts were sometimes embarrassed by an energetic

group of Democrats. This opposition, moreover, had

the advantage of working with the party in power, in

national politics at Washington. The Ohio representa-

tion in Congress was predominantly Whig. In the Sen-

ate, however, the Buckeye State was represented by one

Whig, Thomas Corwin, and one Democrat, Wm. Allen.

The close patronage of that day filled federal offices all

over the land, with trusted agents of the party in power,

thus building up a hierarchy that was inclined to

hearken to good counsel. The complaint was often

made, by the minority editors, that their papers were

held up in the post office at crucial times.1 Federal ap-

pointees generally kept in touch with the drift of local

 

* A thesis presented for the degree of Master of Arts, Ohio State

University, 1927.

1 Editorial on the efficiency of the Post Office in Ohio State Journal,

January 16, 1848.

(188)

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio          189

politics; there were even charges of their overweening

influence in the State Assembly.²

Legislation forms the natural soil from which party

issues arise in political campaigns. The laws reflect the

good or evil in civic policies undertaken by one party

and opposed by another, or more often each party

strives to take unto itself the credit for policies that are

seen to be good, and to blame its opponent for those that

fail. The Whig legislators in Ohio had made a record

in which the party professed great pride. On the side

of finance, they pointed to a bank-law and a tax-law as

well as to provisions for discharging the state debt. Al-

most every Whig local convention includes praise for

these measures, in its resolutions.³ From 1816 to 1845,

there was a persistent demand for bank reform. The

Locofocos had given this demand the form of a cry for

what was called individual liability.⁴ Individual liabil-

ity, as a policy of safety, consisted in the requirement

that all bank-directors of state banks be men of prop-

erty, and that they be made personally liable for default

of their institutions. The Locofocos had regarded this

policy as a sort of panacea for the ills of banking.

Their efforts had resulted in its partial adoption by the

State legislature when called upon to charter new insti-

tutions.

In April, 1848, the public mind was focused on the

entire question of State-banking by an event which the

Whig press featured as a final proof of the folly of all

 

2 Letter of a correspondent attributing the withdrawal of Democrats

from the Senate in the apportionment controversy to the influence of "Wash-

ington" in Ohio State Journal, March 6, 1848.

3 Resolutions submitted to the Central Committee from various locali-

ties, in the Ohio State Journal, January to December, 1848 -- passim.

4 Ohio Statesman, January to December, 1844.

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190       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

hopes based on individual liability, the failure of the

Wooster Bank.⁵ It had been chartered by a Democratic

Legislature in 1834.6 Ten years later its charter had

been amended by the addition of an individual liability

clause in a Legislature of which the Senate was Whig,

the House Democratic.⁷ The bank of St. Clair, chart-

ered with a similar liability safeguard, had failed at an

earlier date, as had some others of the same kind; but

their fall did not arouse the public interest as did the

Wooster calamity, coming during the heat of a great

campaign.⁸ Whig editors did not fail to point the moral;

they regarded the bank of Wooster as a grand example

of the weakness of individual liability, forgetting for

the time that the Whigs themselves had aided to pass

the amendments in question.⁹ Not that individual lia-

bility was the cause of the bank's failure; the point was

that this panacea had not kept it from failing. The gen-

eral state banking law, that was in force in 1848, had

been passed under Whig auspices. It provided that

the holder of bank-notes, from state banks, might have

at all times the right to change them to specie. Provi-

sion was made, by an ordinance of the Board of Control

(September, 1848), for the keeping of funds sufficient

for the purpose, in each of the main branch banks in the

various towns.10 The misfortune of the Wooster Bank,

as will be seen later, was that it had been exempted from

certain requirements of the general law.

 

5 Ohio State Journal, April 8, 1848.

6 Ohio Acts of Local Nature of the Session of 1834, 76.

7 Second section of an act to amend the Charter of the Bank of

Wooster, Ohio. Ohio Laws, Vol. 42, 19.

8 Editorial on history of individual liability, in Ohio State Journal,

April 17, 1848.

9 Ibid., April 20, 1848.

10 Report of Bank inspection, in Ohio State Journal, September, 1848.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio         191

Early in 1848, the Whig Legislature had created a

sinking fund, to be increased in succeeding years,

whereby the state debt might be liquidated.11 In 1836,

when the Democrats came into power, the state debt

was, in round numbers, $5,000,000. By February,

1845, it had increased to more than $19,000,000.12 No

doubt the advancing wealth of the community and the

increasing demand of transportation, which led to heavy

expenditures for canals, roads, etc., at least partly justi-

fied the increase. Of course, the Whig press took ad-

vantage of the situation. Both parties were, perforce,

engaged in the work of public improvements. The

figures seem to show that Democratic operations on the

canals had been more costly per mile than those of the

Whigs. Washouts and attendant damages partly justi-

fied the difference, however.¹³ The expense occasioned

by the Mexican War was sufficient to complete the Whig

financial bill of particulars.

The experience of the Democracy with individual

liability not having been flattering, the leaders of the

party began to attack the state system of banks of issue.

Their usual reflection was that promises to pay, made

by banks or bank stockholders, were not very reliable

capital.14 That seems to be the thought of the best minds

of the party. Chase, of Democratic antecedents, admits

in his letter to Ely Nichols, a "great mistrust of govern-

ment banking."¹⁵ It were better, the Democrats said,

not to rely on any kind of bank paper. To the Whig

11 Report of Legislation, Ohio State Journal, January 27, 1848.

12 Auditor's Report of State Liabilities, February 15, 1845, Doc. 47.

Report, Board of Public Works, 1841-1850.

13 Ohio Statesman, March 30, 1843.

14 Ohio Statesman, March 30, 1848.

15 Dodson, S. H., "Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase,"

in Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1902, Vol. 2, 142.

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192      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications policy of state-banks issuing notes convertible into specie, they opposed the idea of no banks of issue at all, but a candid reliance on specie, in the first place.16 Their candidate for governor became known, among his other

soubriquets, as "hard money Weller." Indeed, to the more radical elements, all banks were anathema. "There is a concerted effort on the part of the Locofoco press, to break the banks of this state, for political purposes," wrote the Cleveland Herald. "The Pack have opened 16 Resolutions of the Democratic State Convention, in Ohio Statesman, January 12, 1848.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio      193

on the Sandusky, Norwalk, Clinton, and Circleville in-

stitutions."¹⁷ These attacks consisted of published

statements to shade the credit of the particular banks.

In resolutions of the Democratic State Convention,

there is liberal criticism of the exalted powers of the

bank commission and a charge of secrecy. In matters

of taxation, discrimination in favor of state banks was

loudly condemned for not having produced the desired

result of driving out foreign bank paper. The taxation

measures of the Whigs are indicted on the general count

that the entire duplicate is $300,000 greater in 1848

than 1844. The Democrats did not offer much criticism

on Whig plans for paying the state debt but they dis-

agreed with their manner of disposing of state lands.

The expense of the Mexican War, the Ohio Democrats

justified in their defense of the war itself, and they were

of one accord on that matter.

The War had a bearing on a state issue of another

kind, one that was part of a general policy thrown into

strong relief by the expansionist activities that began

with the annexation of Texas. Agitation on the Black

Laws was not new, especially on the Reserve the popu-

lation of which was, "for all practical purposes," Abo-

litionist.¹⁸ It had existed for years before this time and

was an issue on which Governor Bebb had been able to

ride into power, by a small plurality. In the year 1845,

a renewed effort to repeal these laws had failed in the

Assembly, but by a smaller margin than ever before.

With the exception of the Abolition papers, the press

of the year 1848 does not feature the question of their

 

17 Cincinnati Enquirer, cited in Ohio Statesman, September 20, 1848.

18 Smith, T. C., "The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the North

West", 90.

Vol. XXXVI--13.

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194      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

repeal but the movement in that direction, while uncon-

scious, was unmistakable. This was true because the

war policy engendered a wide-spread sentiment on the

subject of the negroes and the "peculiar institution."

Opposition to the Black Laws came to be a practical

thing when the anti-war principles were formulated.

The recruits to these principles came from both parties

at once and were ready to join in the work of destruc-

tion when the proper time should come. These laws

were cruel and unjust; they denied to the free negro in

Ohio not only equality of privileges, education and ac-

commodation; they denied him the right to testify in

court against a white man. It is not strange that with

the advent of the Mexican War the pulse of Ohio quick-

ened on this subject. While there were many men of

Democratic antecedents, like Chase,¹⁹ for example, who

opposed the infamous laws, yet the outcome of the elec-

tion seems to justify the opinion that opponents. were

for the most part Whigs.

Of the issues in national politics, some were germane

to the war program; others were the general questions

of policy on which there had long been a division of opin-

ion. Among the latter the tariff question assumes its

usual importance. At this time the country was under

the Walker Tariff, with its low schedule. Even Pennsyl-

vania had been beguiled into supporting the Democracy

by fair promises regarding protection.²⁰ The Whig

policy at the North was well known on the matter of

tariff and examination of the various resolutions of

Ohio local conventions shows the party of that state to

 

19 Dodson, op. cit., p. 132.

20 Woodburn, J. A., Political Parties and Party Problems, 54.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio          195

be in strong accord with the general stand. They glory

in the principle of protection.²¹ The resolutions of the

Democrats, on the contrary, are full of confidence in the

Walker Tariff, showing no tendency to depart from the

classic theory.²² They likewise are strong in their en-

dorsement of the Sub-Treasury System which is vio-

lently assailed by the Whigs.23 Although the Demo-

crats go through the formality of condemning a United

States bank, their opponents are strangely silent on this

point. They content themselves with a desire for "a

sound and uniform currency." Whigs of the Twelfth

District in Ohio criticise the Locofoco profession of

"hard money" as follows: "They have, by passing the

Sub-Treasury Law and the issuing of the treasury notes

by the government, taken the most effective means of

withdrawing the precious metals from circulation, by

substituting instead thereof, an expensive paper circu-

lation, of uncertain and fluctuating value" -- a condi-

tion which was alleged to bear heavily on the West.²⁴

Of the other issues, not related to the Mexican War

in a direct way, the most important was the one raised

by President Polk's veto of the Rivers and Harbors Bill

of 1847. In the resolutions of the Whig State Conven-

tion, held at Columbus, in January, the President is

charged with hair-splitting in the reasoning of his veto

message.25 The Democratic State Resolutions are silent

on the subject, but there is abundant argument in the

 

21 Resolutions of various Whig local conventions, in Ohio State Jour-

nal, January to December, 1848, passim.

22 Resolutions of Democratic local conventions, in Ohio State Journal,

January to December, 1848, passim.

23 Resolutions of Whig Convention, in Ohio State Journal, January 20,

1848.

24 Ohio State Journal, March 20, 1848.

25 Ohio State Journal, January 20, 1848.

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196     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Democratic press, to the effect that Congress had not

the power to legislate for internal improvements within

the States.²⁶ The Whig editors of Ohio dwelt upon

these statements with bitter emphasis. They gave them

the widest publicity in the hope, no doubt, of appealing

to the interests of the lake and river people. In these

tirades, President Polk is presented to the Western mind

as the Dragon guarding the gates of Paradise. A news-

paper in the southern part of the state, commenting on

the passage of a steamer for considerable distance up

the Scioto River, ironically adds that it might have pro-

ceeded to Columbus, but for the presence of Polk roots

in the channel. The resolutions of the local Whig Con-

ventions are almost unanimous in treating this phase of

the Democratic attitude. No effort was spared to make

it a casus belli.

The approach of the Mexican War-cloud made sum-

mary action on the part of the President unavoidable.

The natural result was that his haste became the basis

for a charge of executive usurpation. A number of his

other acts, the veto of the Rivers and Harbors Bill, the

Oregon bluff, and the alleged arbitrary distribution of

appointments lent color to the charge. The Democrats

were in complete accord, everywhere in Ohio, in regard

to the blame for opening of hostilities with Mexico. In

the words of the administration and of the resolution on

this point, adopted by the State Convention at Colum-

bus, "War existed by the act of Mexico herself".²⁷ The

Whigs, however, rested the onus of the War entirely on

the shoulders of the President and proceeded to chastise

 

26 Ohio Statesman, January 10, 1848.

27 Ibid.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio         197

him in speeches, pamphlets, and resolutions. The

Whigs of Greene County resolved: "that James K. Polk

was guilty of wanton usurpation, in ordering United

States troops into the territory beyond Corpus Christi,

without the intervention of Congress."28 In taking the

role of opposition to executive usurpation, the Whigs

were appealing to a popular tradition. Tom Corwin

was fond of tracing the party lineage from its tem-

pestuous career under Andrew Jackson to those Whigs

in England who defied the King.²⁹

The other questions which are patently involved in

the War and its aims become apparent when the senti-

ment of the country during its progress is drawn from

the press. The Democrats who endorse it visit upon

their adversaries the nickname of "Mexican Whigs."30

The state resolutions not only applaud the War, but go

far enough to say, in agreement with the President, that

"no conclusion of hostilities can be honorable to the

United States, which shall not bring us indemnity for

the past and security for the future."31 Other resolu-

tions contain vehement denunciations of the stand of

the Anti-War Whigs. This was not only because the

latter opposed the War itself, but also for the reason

that they feared and tried to forestall the expected addi-

tion of territory, to which Democratic talk about in-

demnity clearly referred.   Moreover, such resolutions

were the definite answer to certain unmistakable dem-

onstrations on the part of the Northern Whigs.

 

28 Resolutions of Greene County Whigs, in Ohio State Journal, January

14, 1848.

29 Morrow, Josiah, Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin, 48; Speech

of Corwin at London, Ohio, reported in Ohio State Journal, October 7, 1848.

30 Ohio Statesman, January 16, 1848.

31 Ibid., January 11, 1848. Congressional Globe, Twenty-ninth Cong.,

2d sess.

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198      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

In Congress, the Ohio Senator, Thomas Corwin, had

made himself the star of the futile drama of the oppo-

sition. On the eleventh of February, 1847, the so-called

"Three Million Bill" came up in the Senate.³² It was

an act providing for additional appropriations to pursue

the War to a definite and honorable finish. Webster,

Crittenden, and Corwin had a little conference and

agreed, as Corwin understood it, not to vote for appro-

priations for a war of conquest. When it came to a

vote, however, his two confreres deserted him, not hav-

ing really concurred in the same opinion. Undaunted

by his isolation, the Ohio Senator launched into an elo-

quent denunciation of "this unholy war." He was bit-

ter and unsparing in arraigning its authors. "If I were

a Mexican I would tell you: 'Have you not room in

your own country to bury your dead men? If you come

into mine, we will greet you with bloody hands and wel-

come you to hospitable graves'." This was the expres-

sion that received the most caustic condemnation of the

Democrats. It has been said that no speech delivered in

the Senate was more widely read, more frequently

quoted, more warmly admired, or more bitterly de-

nounced.³³

The reaction to the anti-war speech on the part of

the old line Whigs of Ohio was most cordial. Of the

hundred or more formal expressions of sentiment sub-

mitted to the organ of the Whig Central Committee by

the local conventions, hardly one omits an endorsement

of this speech. A score of them mention Corwin as first

 

32 Morrow, op. cit., 48-49.  Ibid., 312.

33 Morrow, op. cit., 48-49. Ibid.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio       199

or second choice for the presidency.³⁴ These expres-

sions showed that Corwin's bitterness found an echo in

county, representative district, and village. His name

was frequently coupled with that of Columbus Delano,

Ohio representative in the House, because of similar

statements of opinion in his remarks on the Civil and

Diplomatic Appropriations Bill.³⁵ To the Democrats,

these two men were hideous examples of Mexican

Whigs. In the eloquence of Corwin they heard only

gilded treason of which they attempted to make him

ashamed. The strongest reaction of this sort was a pe-

tition from certain Locofocos of Richland county to the

State Senate, praying that: "Honorable Thomas Cor-

win be asked to resign his seat in the Senate of the

United States," and further that "he be imprisoned in

the Ohio Penitentiary for the duration of the war."

The Judiciary Committee, to which the petition was re-

ferred, being of course predominantly Whig, substituted

an expression of confidence in him. Charles Reemelin

and Edson B. Olds, Democratic members of the Com-

mittee, drafted a minority report, however, which was

published in the party organ.³⁶

The vehemence of these recriminations, the fact of

such genuine condemnation of an aim that normally en-

lists the most patriotic feelings, both point to the inside

content of the war policy. They indicate that there was

something in the issue which partly curdled the patriot-

ism. The Wilmot Proviso had already indicated what

it was. It showed pretty clearly that in regard to the

 

34 Local Whig resolutions, reported in Ohio State Journal, January to

December, 1848.

35 Congressional Globe, Twenty-ninth Cong., 2d sess., 278.

36 This minority report appears in Ohio Statesman, January 12, 1848.

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200      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

division of opinion over the War, the real issue was not

whether the United States should or should not conquer

new territory but whether or not territory should be

taken from the foreigner to nourish the Moloch of slav-

ery. That this was true of Ohio sentiment also at that

time there can be no doubt. On the same day that the

Wilmot Proviso passed the House, and before the meas-

ure was introduced, Jacob Brinkerhoff presented a joint

resolution from the legislature of Ohio "relative to ex-

cluding slavery from Oregon Territory and any other

territory which may be hereafter annexed to the United

States."³⁷ After Corwin's anti-war speech, the Franklin

County Representative in the Ohio General Assembly

introduced a series of resolutions on this subject which

were still more definite. The second of that list of reso-

lutions contains the declaration that "the State of Ohio

neither seeks nor advises the acquisition of new terri-

tory." The first reads in part, "that foreign territory

purchased by the nation or conquered by the na-

tional army, is, and in the nature of the case, must be,

subject to national control."³⁸ These words express the

intention to stop the enemy on the first line of defense,

if possible, by preventing the conquest of territory. If

that is not possible, then the nation will control those

territories and there will be a chance to prohibit slavery

in them by congressional action. Perhaps more than

anything else the resolutions disclosed a mistrust of the

motives of the South in the territories, that may or may

not have been justified.

Four of Ohio's nineteen representatives voted against

37 Journal of the House of Representatives, Twenty-ninth Congress. 2d

Sess., 344-346.

38 Resolutions of Ohio Legislature, reported in Ohio State Journal,

January 18, 1848.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio    201

the Proviso. In the subsequent contest this proposition

became the platform of those who held that slavery

should not enter into the new territories. In the po-

litical thought of Ohio and no doubt of the whole north-

west, it was identified with the Anti-Slavery clause of

the Ordinance of 1787. The two were referred to in-

terchangeably by press and convention but most often,

the terms of the Ordinance were used by the drafters

of resolutions. So far as could be determined in this

work, the Whigs of Ohio were unanimous in support

of the principle. The Whigs of Gallia County, at Gal-

lipolis, March 25, 1848, were in favor of extending the

Ordinance of 1787 to Mexican Territory.³⁹ About the

same words were used by the Belmont County Resolu-

tions and this language seemed to be conventional among

the Whigs.⁴⁰ Realizing that it was hopeless to oppose

the annexation of territory, they fell back on the de-

termination to control the destiny of that territory, once

it was annexed.

The Ohio Democrats were not entirely adverse to

the Wilmot Proviso.  It had been introduced by a

Pennsylvania Democrat, and Brinkerhoff and Fries, of

the Buckeye Delegation, had helped him. One wonders

from their language whether the Whigs were not often

inclined to shy at the Proviso proper because it had been

hatched by a Democrat in Congress. An editor writ-

ing late in the campaign on this subject wishes to re-

mind his readers that the "new Wilmot Proviso is ex-

clusively Whig property," having been "first introduced

 

39 Ohio State Journal, April 5, 1848.

40 Ibid., April 17, 1848.

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202      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

into the Oregon Bill in 1845, by that staunch Whig,

Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston."⁴1

If the Wilmot Proviso was, or had been made, ex-

clusively the property of the Whigs, all of them were

not satisfied with its doctrine. The report of their

proceedings at the National Convention certainly proves

that fact. Yet, in the House of Representatives at

Washington, were two men, Joshua Giddings and J. M.

Root, elected in part by Whig votes, who would gladly

have narrowed that party's property to the Wilmot Pro-

viso alone. Although they were members of the Lib-

erty Party which had frankly accepted the slavery issue

as dominant, they were cooperating with the Whigs of

their own districts and received nominations at their

hands.   The Democratic State Convention chose to

doubt the legal theory of the Proviso but it does not

follow that all Ohio Democrats concurred in that doubt.

Jacob Brinkerhoff and George Fries, Democratic Con-

gressmen from Ohio, would accept no doctrine concern-

ing slavery in the territories but that of the Wilmot Pro-

viso.⁴² They were within the Democratic Party and

were qualified to lead great numbers of their co-parti-

sans to newer views. Root and Giddings, in spite of

their positions in an anti-slavery group, retained enough

of the savor of earlier connections to be able to play

the same role in the Whig Party.

Beside the men of Whig or Democratic antece-

dents who were against slavery in the territories, were

those of the type of James G. Birney and Sam Lewis.

They were practical men also and had for years formed

 

41 Ohio State Journal, September 28, 1848.

42 Speech of Mr. Brinkerhoff in State Democratic Convention, re-

ported in Ohio State Journal, January 10, 1848.

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The Election of 1848 in Ohio      203

the heart and core of the Liberty Party. Already they

were seeking alliance with kindred spirits.  In their

shift from the severe anti-slavery position to that of

simple opposition to slavery in the territories they were

followed by a great many of their fellow Liberty men.

Despite the lingering radicalism which seemed to tint

their views at first, one cannot help believing that the

older parties were sending out men to meet them.

Chase was committed to the practical aim of rap-

prochement among all the groups opposed to slavery in

any way. In a manner outside the arena, unfettered by

the interests of the officeholder, he was laboring to make

the dreamers more practical and the old line men more

decided in their views on slavery. In the latter part of

March, Mr. Root made a speech in Congress in which

he referred to the "vast prestige" that the United States

would enjoy from Mexican territory. He declared fur-

ther that a prominent issue in the next campaign would

be the Wilmot Proviso. "I, for one, am prepared to

meet it," he continued; "so is Ohio; so is the North."⁴³

Here, then, was the issue on which Chase and his co-

laborers could depend to rally the divergent anti-slavery

men. Furnishing a sort of middle ground between the

two extremes of absolute abolition of slavery every-

where and of the policy of non-interference, the Proviso

was at once a temptation and an opportunity to com-

promise.

 

43 Speech of Mr. Root, in State Democratic Convention, reported in

Ohio State Journal, March 28, 1848.

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204     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

LOCAL AND NATIONAL CONVENTIONS

A defeated proposition is sometimes the most puis-

sant of all political forces because its very failure

awakens sympathy and brings new adherents to its

standard. The Senate destroyed the Wilmot Proviso

after it had passed in the House. It never took its place

in the statutes of our country; it was never in all its

legislative history more than a mere proposal. Before

the end which it sought could be realized, war swept

away the evil it was meant to remedy. Despite this

fact, however, it had in it a principle which went back

to the early years of the Republic. The popular mind

saw that principle incorporated in the Anti-Slavery

clause of the Ordinance of 1787 at a time when its jus-

tice had been unchallenged. That fact added the force

of tradition to the views of those who opposed slavery

in the territories. Before 1848, however, there had

long ceased to be any show of the former unanimity;

there were many opinions. In the spring of that year,

the Proviso lay before the two great parties, destined

to be embraced with fervor in some quarters and tim-

idly rejected in others.

In 1847, in the New York Democratic Convention,

David Dudley Field, leader of the Anti-Slavery Demo-

crats, proposed a resolution that "while the Democracy

of New York would faithfully adhere to the constitu-

tion and maintain the reserved rights of the States, they

would still declare their uncompromising hostility to the

• 17
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     205

extension of slavery into territory now free."¹ The

measure was defeated and the Anti-Slavery Democrats

left the Convention. This group saw loyalty to the anti-

slavery principle first and party loyalty next. Believing

in the justice of their views, they determined to carry

the quarrel to the National Convention. For this pur-

pose, they held a Convention of their own at Herkimer

from whence went forth a call for a convention to elect

delegates to go to the National Democratic Convention

and speak the voice of New York's Free Democracy.²

This proceeding led to the nickname which their con-

temporaries bestowed upon them. They were called

Barnburners because of their willingness to risk the

integrity of the Democratic Party for the sake of de-

stroying an evil tendency. The Herkimer Convention

meant something in American History not only because

of the issue which formed it but because of the per-

sonnel of the gathering. Churchill Cambreleng, friend

of Martin Van Buren, presided over the meeting, and

the ex-President's son John reported the resolutions.

The body was addressed by David Wilmot and thus

the stamp of authenticity was placed on the proceeding

by the national champion of its principles. The call

was sent forth for a convention, to be held on Wash-

ington's Birthday, 1848, for the purpose of electing

Barnburner delegates. These delegates were to go from

New York to the National Convention to dispute with

the Hunkers for seats. "The Herkimer Convention,"

Van Buren's biographer says, "was an important pre-

liminary to the formation of the Republican Party."³

 

1 Ohio State Journal, June 7, 1848.

2 Woodburn, op. cit., 79, 80.

3 Shepard, E. M., Martin Van Buren, 418-419.

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206      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

From the pen of Salmon P. Chase comes an expression

on the significance of this move of the Barnburners

which shows that the gesture was not lost on Ohio. "It

was a great blow for liberty and right, that struck at

Herkimer.   The conventions of both parties in your

state had repudiated the only measure, which during

the last quarter of a century, has been brought forth, of

an anti-slavery character."⁴ The home of the writer

was in Cincinnati where there was at the time a Barn-

burner newspaper, the Cincinnati Signal, edited by

James W. Taylor, who identified himself with subse-

quent movements of the faction.⁵

The current of policy in the Ohio Democracy, at

least before the State Convention, betrayed no very

great discord. Months before either state or national

conventions had been held, the organ of the State Com-

mittee carried at its mast-head the names of Cass for

President and Weller for Governor.⁶ While this seemed

to indicate unanimity, evidences are not lacking of dis-

ruptive tendencies. The State Convention was held in

the second week of January, in a large theater audito-

rium, at Columbus.⁷ A resolution was introduced at

the outset to pledge the Convention to Lewis Cass' can-

didacy for President. Benjamin Tappan, editor of the

Ohio Press, spoke against the proposal. Mr. Brinker-

hoff, member of Congress, made a few remarks against

it also. He said that he had been told that Cass did not

concede the power of Congress to legislate for the terri-

tories. If that were true, he added that he was not in

 

4 Dodson, op. cit., 124-126.

5 Letter of correspondent to Cincinnati Signal, quoted in Ohio State

Journal, August 10, 1848.

6 Ohio Statesman, January 1 to October 7, 1848.

7 Ibid., January 11, 1848.

• 19
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     207

favor of Cass' candidacy. Later acts of Mr. Tappan

seem to show that he was in earnest. As for Brinker-

hoff, because of his connection with the Wilmot Proviso,

in the previous Congress, it is hard to see how he could

have spoken otherwise. It is worth noting, in this con-

nection, that the speech of Brinkerhoff was not reported

in the Ohio Statesman, but found a prominent place in

the report of the leading Whig organ of the State.⁸

The resolution was referred to the Committee on Reso-

lutions and then found a place in the final declarations

of the State platform. After disposing of this matter

and before the report of the committee, they proceeded

to ballot for the candidate for Governor. Weller, Wood,

Duncan, and Lowe were in the running with Wood as

chief rival of the first named. Duncan and Lowe re-

ceived very small votes and were hardly serious com-

petitors. The result of the first ballot stood: Weller

146, Wood 118, Duncan 19, and Lowe 7. Weller of

Butler County was the final choice and thus became the

candidate of the Democracy for Governor of Ohio.⁹

Cursory reference has already been made to the re-

port of the Committee on Resolutions. It opened with

a declaration against a United States Bank, expressed

confidence in the Walker Tariff, laid the blame for the

War on Mexico, and strongly condemned the attitude

of the anti-war Whigs. There were also, as has been

indicated, an endorsement of the Sub-Treasury System

and a condemnation of the Whig banking policy in the

State. The latter clause was coupled with the statement

that hard money was the only constitutional currency.

8 Ohio State Journal, January 10, 1848.

9 Ohio Statesman, January 11, 1848.

• 20
 

208      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Besides the declaration committing the Party in Ohio

to the candidacy of Cass and a resolution complimentary

to Colonel Weller, there was also one in favor of a con-

vention for revising the Constitution of Ohio. On the

greatest national issue of the campaign, the convention

having endorsed Lewis Cass, follows also his political

opinion exactly as Brinkerhoff had defined it. After

deprecating in very courteous language the extension of

slavery, their decision is that "not to the Congress of

the Union, but to the people asking admission into the

Union, belongs the power to declare what institutions

shall exist in the territory thus asking for admission."10

Having delivered themselves of this grave ultimatum,

the Democratic delegates repaired to the American

house to listen to speeches and songs and to drink to

the health of the "gallant Colonel Weller."11  Here they

no doubt enjoyed further that harmony which the press

of the Party described as characteristic of the great

meeting. Perhaps this unanimity was overdrawn. The

speech of Brinkerhoff and Tappan on the proposed en-

dorsement of Cass, and the presence of a Barnburner

newspaper at Cincinnati, would seem to indicate an echo

of the Syracuse discord. Eli Tappan threw down his

hammer on the first of June and closed the office of the

Ohio Press. His statement of June 30, 1848, justified

his conduct. He writes: "I feel it to be equally my

duty, to withdraw from the position of editor and serv-

ant of my party, as soon as I can no longer support its

leading measures and candidates."¹² Gray of the Plain

 

10 Resolutions of State Democratic Convention, in Ohio Statesman,

January 11, 1848.

11 Ohio Statesman, January 11, 1848.

12 Ohio Press, May 31, 1848.

• 21
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      209

Dealer, after referring to him affectionately (?) as "old

Gimlet-Eyes," writes: "We should have been glad to

have been rid of him years ago. Had he bolted twenty

years ago, this state would now be as permanently

Democratic as Pennsylvania. Every bolt adds five thou-

sand votes to the Democratic Party."¹³ Whether this

be true of the Democratic malcontents or not, the fact

remains that there was no bolt at Columbus, of the na-

ture of the Syracuse withdrawal. In Ohio, there were

perhaps no such bitter memories as in New York.

Above all, there was no favorite son of the Buckeye

State whom the popular fancy could picture as a martyr

to the two-thirds rule.

A task for the State Convention had been to select

two delegates-at-large to the National Convention.

David Disney and John P. Edgerton were the men

chosen. The selection of the others was left to the con-

gressional districts. The Whig editors pointed out that

"Mr. Polk was well represented in the number" because

there happened to be two post-masters, a United States

marshal, and a district attorney in Ohio's delegation.

Prominent among them were R. P. Spalding, Thomas

W. Bartley, District Attorney for Ohio, Sam Medary,

editor of the Statesmen, Thomas W. Drake, of the Ohio

Legislature, and others well known in the local councils

of the party.14 The grand convention met pursuant to

call on May 22, 1848, in the Old Universalist Church at

Baltimore.15

Andrew Stephenson of Virginia was elected Presi-

dent of the Convention after organization had been com-

 

13 Ohio State Journal, quoting Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 10, 1848.

14 Ohio State Journal, January 10, 1848.

15 Ohio Statesman, May 23, 1848.

Vol. XXXVI--14.

• 22
 

210      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

pleted under the temporary chairmanship of James

Bruce. Mr. Norton, of Massachusetts, moved that all

rules be accepted as of 1844 excepting the two-thirds

rule. Some little discussion followed this, Yancey, of

Alabama, favoring the two-thirds rule and Morse, of

Louisiana, opposing. The upshot was, however, that

the two-thirds rule was adopted without serious objec-

tion.16 A resolution was then passed to permit two of

the bolting Barnburners and two of the old Hunkers

to address the body in defense of the right to be seated.

The Hunkers' representatives were Sen. Daniel Dickin-

son and Mr. Foster, while the bolters chose J. C. Smith

and Preston King. In his speech, King, referring to

the solemn endorsement of the Wilmot Proviso by the

Ohio Legislature, declared that principle to be the ulti-

matum of himself and his associates.17 In this allusion,

he was appealing more to Whig precedent than to that

of the Ohio Democrats, who, as has been noted, turned

down the Proviso in the State Convention. The advo-

cates of the Barnburners received, on the whole, scant

courtesy from the South. They were continually inter-

rupted, and when they first took the floor there were

cries of protest against their speaking at all. They held

out firmly, however, refusing to pledge themselves to

the "candidate of the Convention" or to abide by its rule

on their own qualifications.18 This arrangement fell

cold on the ears of the Barnburners; they had come to

Baltimore to be justified and not to be placated. After

the resolutions had been reported, Churchill Cambreleng

rose and read a protest against the seating of both sets

 

16 Ohio Statesman, May 24, 1848.

17 Ibid., May 25, 1848.

18 Ohio State Journal, May 27, 1848.

• 23
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     211

of delegates. Then respectfully declining to be seated

in the Convention, the Barnburner delegation went away

"to a place provided for them."¹⁹ On May 25th, Gen-

eral Lewis Cass was nominated.

The resolutions adopted were clear and precise;

most of them need only to be mentioned. They opened

with an assertion of the principle of strict construction,

as applied to the powers of the National Government.

In accord with this, there is a disavowal of the right

of that government to commence and carry on a system

of internal improvements, or to assume, directly or in-

directly, the debts of states contracted for that purpose.

On the principle of taxation, they are in favor of no

more revenue than is necessary to defray the expense

of the government. There is also condemnation of

the protectionist doctrine. A United States Bank is de-

nounced as unconstitutional and "calculated to place the

business of the country in the control of a concentrated

money power." On the issue of the public lands, oppo-

sition was expressed to any law for the distribution of

their proceeds among states. An evident bid for the

foreign vote inheres in the statement against "abridg-

ing the present right of taking citizenship" and owning

land. The Mexican War is heartily approved and peace

advocated on just principles of "indemnity for the past

and security for the future." There are also compli-

mentary resolutions to Mr. Polk and one expressing

congratulations to the French on the recent revolution.

The Eleventh Resolution voices decided opposition to

"the removal of the executive qualified veto."20

19 Ohio State Journal, May 29, 1848.

20 These Resolutions are referred to as given in the Ohio State Journal,

June 6, 1848.

• 24
 

212      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

These resolutions are not different from what was

generally expected from the Democrats for the most

part they are repetitions of principles that were tradi-

tional in the party. Both sides of the slavery contro-

versy awaited the expression of the Convention on the

status of slavery in the territories. The resolution on

slavery could not be said to have defined an attitude on

its status in new territories.  The statement of the

Convention is simply that "Congress has no power un-

der the Constitution of interfering with or controlling

the domestic institutions of the several states and that

such states are the sole and proper judges of everything

pertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the

Constitution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists or oth-

ers made to induce Congress to interfere with the ques-

tion of slavery or to take incipient steps in relation there-

to are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dan-

gerous consequences." This statement is not different

in substance from the plank on the same subject in the

platform of 1840. There is possible cause for conjec-

ture, however, as to what was meant by forbidding

Congress to interfere with slavery in the states "or to

take incipient steps in relation thereto."  Could these

words have had reference to the control of slavery in

the territories or in the District of Columbia as an "in-

cipient step" toward the entire regulation of the sub-

ject by Congress? However that be, there is no doubt

that those who had hoped for a definite, unequivocal

statement, on one side or the other, were disappointed.

Of the language used, General Commander said that

it was good as far as it went, but it did not go far

enough. The minority of the Committee had made a

• 25
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio             213

 

report in favor of an open denunciation of the Wilmot

Proviso. If this report had been accepted, he would

have assured General Cass of the vote of South Caro-

lina but he feared that he could not do so now. This

criticism offered from the Southern standpoint was un-

doubtedly based on truth. The platform did not take

open ground on the Wilmot Proviso, but it is hard to

imagine language that could have more completely sanc-

tified the existing institution.21

The Eighteenth resolution presented the names of

Lewis Cass and W. O. Butler to the people of the

United States as Democratic candidates for the national

honors of President and Vice-President.  The state-

ment on the question of slavery in the territories might

be too moderate for the South Carolinian; but to the

Barnburners who read it in the light of their own ex-

periences at Baltimore, it must have seemed sufficiently

definite. If the language of the platform did not make

the Democratic attitude clear to them, the character of

the candidate could not fail to do so. Whether or not

this estimate of the situation is just, the events of the

campaign ought to reveal.

A comparison of the Ohio resolutions with those of

the National Convention discloses that although there

is not absolute harmony, there is, nevertheless, no pro-

nounced discord. On all the strictly national questions

mentioned in the Columbus document, there is practical

identity of sentiment.  Those who rejoiced over the

smoothness of the waters, in January, must have been

happy to see a good articulation between the state and

national principles in May. On the matter of the ex-

 

21 Ohio State Journal, May 30, 1848.

• 26
 

214      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications tension of slavery, the commitments of the State Reso- lution are much more definite than those of the National document. Those who differed from the main trend in New York State were strong enough to organize a bolt; the same element at Columbus became stragglers to fol-

low after the Barnburners. From Ohio no divergent current flowed to Baltimore; from New York went a group, first to divide the counsel of the party and next to leave it, in order to build a Jericho for other refu- gees. The possible effect of this action became the oc- casion of prophecy during the whole campaign.

• 27
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     215

The next subject of conjecture concerned what the

Whigs were going to say about this matter at Philadel-

phia. In the latter part of the year 1847 and early in

1848, many local conventions were held by the Whigs

in Ohio. If they failed to agree on any group of can-

didates they did give voice to fairly unanimous senti-

ments on political policy. The Whigs of Greene county,

meeting on January 1, 1848, indicated Corwin as their

choice for President and Columbus Delano for Gov-

ernor.²²  Wyandot County Whigs, meeting at Upper

Sandusky on January 12, recommended Corwin for

President and John Cary for Governor.²² At Steuben-

ville and Hillsboro, on January 8 and 12, respectively,

Colonel James Collier was endorsed for Governor.23

"Any good Whig" is a frequent expression in regard

to a candidate for the Presidency.24 Warren County

Whigs also voiced their preference for Corwin and De-

lano, while Pike County stood for J. J. VanMetter as

first choice for the governorship.24 Logan added itself

to the list of counties which preferred Corwin and De-

lano.24 Other choices for governor are Colonel Elias

Florence and Wm. P. Cutler, of Washington County.25

Many resolutions, especially on the Reserve, express a

preference for Seabury Ford, who perhaps had a great-

er following than any other in the Northern part of the

State.

A meeting held in the late summer of 1847, at Leb-

anon, Warren County, produced some interesting conse-

quences. Its purpose was to afford Representative John

 

22 Ohio State Journal, January 14, 1848.

23 Ibid., January 16, 1848.

24 Ibid., January 17, 1848.

25 Ibid., January 18, 1848.

• 28
 

216      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

N. C. Schenck an opportunity to "give an account of

his stewardship in Congress." Among those present

were Governor Bebb, John Woods (Auditor of State)

and Jeremiah Morrow, of Warren County, who pre-

sided.  Of this meeting, the Hamilton Intelligencer

says that it was at first called for Warren County,

alone, but an invitation being extended to the people

of neighboring counties to attend, it became in fact

a convention for the southwestern part of Ohio.²⁶ A

Committee on Resolutions was appointed on which

Lewis D. Campbell, of Butler County, took a prominent

place.²⁷ According to his own statement, Mr. Campbell

was the author of the resolutions drafted by the com-

mittee.28 The following is their most pronounced

declaration: "As Whigs of Ohio, we contend for the

success of our principles and no man who is not a thor-

ough Whig, approved by the Whig Convention, can

receive our support for the Presidency, now or here-

after." The other statements of principle adopted by

this body will be considered later.  The statement

quoted above is one of a number of things which tend

to explain and to justify the not unimportant role of

Mr. Campbell in this campaign.

When the State Convention assembled at Columbus,

in January, he was present as delegate from the Butler

County district. Being placed again on the Committee

on Resolutions, he submitted several of those that had

been drawn by the Lebanon assembly and they were

adopted as part of the state platform.28 Those of the

 

26 Speech of L. D. Campbell, in Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848

(Extra).

27 Hamilton Intelligencer, September 2, 1847.

28 Speech of L. D. Campbell, in Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848

(Extra).

• 29
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      217

state resolutions that are not worded exactly as the

Butler County meeting worded them convey the same

meaning.   The following is identical in both:  "We

have abiding faith in the cardinal principles and meas-

ures contended for by the Whig Party in the contests

of 1840 and 1844 -- Protection to American Indus-

try -- a sound and uniform currency -- internal im-

provements -- opposition to the Sub-Treasury system

and eternal resistance to executive usurpations." Both

condemn the Mexican War and laud Corwin for his

speech on the dominant issue in national politics: "We

deprecate a war of conquest and strenuously oppose the

acquisition of Mexican territory, but if additional ter-

ritory be forced upon us, we will demand that there be

neither slavery nor involuntary servitude therein,

otherwise than for punishment of crime." In regard to

the presidential candidate, the Convention pledged the

vote of the State to "any true Whig who may be pre-

sented as nominee."29

On the sixth ballot, Seabury Ford was nominated for

governor, receiving 180 votes, while Delano, his nearest

competitor, received 85, and James Collier, 14.30 Joseph

Vance of Champaign County, and John Sloane of

Wayne, were chosen delegates-at-large to attend the

National Convention. It was then recommended to the

congressional districts of the state that they meet by

county or district at an early date to select the local

delegates. These delegates were then to choose the two

electors at large, as soon as the nomination should be

 

29 Hamilton Intelligencer, September 2, 1848. See also Whig State

Resolutions, cited below.

30 Ohio State Journal, January 20, 1848. Whig State Resolutions, in

Ohio State Journal, January 20, 1848.

• 30
 

218      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications made at the National Convention. Thereafter, in the districts, the people were to designate electors as soon as possible.30 These measures, together with the desig- nation of a State Committee, were included in the

Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-first resolutions.30  Mr. Campbell proposed for these resolu- tions certain substitutions calculated to lead to an ex- pression of the will of the rank and file.30 The proposed 30 Ohio State Journal, January 20, 1848. Whig State Resolutions, in Ohio State Journal, January 20, 1848.

• 31
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio       219

substitution was somewhat cumbersome and bitterly un-

welcome to the organizers of the Convention. Meeting

with Uproarious contumely, it was withdrawn in time

to prevent its proponent from falling entirely out of

grace. Taken in connection with the resolution regard-

ing the genuineness of the candidate, drawn at the Leb-

anon meeting in August, 1847, this attempt indicates a

lingering mistrust of the political motivation of the

Party.

The preferences which appear in the local platforms

during the period after the State Convention are some-

what varied on the matter of the Presidency. Ash-

land,³¹ Champaign,³² Erie,³³ and Harrison³⁴ endorse

Henry Clay as first choice, and Greene County names

him as second choice with Corwin as the preferred.³⁷

Warren, Lake, Clinton,³⁵ and Miami36 Counties also

mention him either as first choice or as second choice

after Corwin. Outside of Cincinnati, the Xenia Torch-

Light declared that every paper in the Miami Valley had

come out for Corwin as candidate for the Presidency.³⁸

Another favorite son, Judge McLean, is frequently

mentioned, but his boom is not strong in comparison

with that of the eloquent anti-war senator. The Elyria

Courier vigorously attacks the Ohio State Journal for

not championing the cause of McLean as energetically

as that of Corwin.³⁹ As for Clay, there does not seem

 

31 Ohio State Journal, March 2, 1848.

32 Ibid., April 24, 1848.

33 Ibid., March 3, 1848.

34 Ibid., April 22, 1848.

35 Ibid., March 7, 1848.

36 Ibid., March 6, 1848.

37 Ibid., February 29, 1848.

38 Ibid., February 11, 1848, quoting Xenia Torch-Light.

39 Ibid., April 21, 1848.

• 32
 

220      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

to be any marked sentiment against him among Ohio

Whigs. Those who do not endorse him in so many

words seem to hold his candidacy as a measure which

they would embrace without hesitation, if they thought

it promised success.

None of these candidates were sufficiently in the

clear on the big issues to be able to carry a majority

both North and South. The national party manipu-

lators knew this; so they cast about to find a man who

was uncommitted. No men are more notoriously out

of the ebb and flow of politics than military men, and

with the memories of 1840 in their minds, it is not

strange that the Whigs began to turn to this possibility.

Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor presented them-

selves as the two great figures of the recent struggle.

Scott was living in the North, Taylor in the South. Thus

in addition to the fact that the latter had not aired any

views on the Wilmot Proviso, his residence and personal

interests were in his favor. Living on a plantation in

Louisiana, known in the southwest as a master of

slaves, Taylor seemed the better fitted to woo the South

to the Whig standard.

His first contact with the people of Ohio, on the

subject of the presidency, was through James W. Tay-

lor, the Barnburner editor of Cincinnati.  Early in

1847, the editor sent to General Taylor an editorial re-

garding the question of slavery in the territories,

frankly inquiring whether he endorsed the sentiments

therein expressed. The statement read in part: "The

only path of safety for those who will hereafter fill the

presidential office, is to rest in the discharge of execu-

tive functions. The extension over the Continent be-

• 33
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      221

yond the Rio Grande of the Ordinance of 1787, is an

object too high and permanent to be baffled by presiden-

tial vetoes."  May 18, 1847, General Taylor replied,

briefly and simply acknowledging "his high opinion

and decided approval of the views and sentiments" ex-

pressed in the editorial.⁴⁰ Later the Free Soilers de-

clared that the General disavowed this letter.⁴¹  How-

ever that may be, the letter appeared, in the spring of

1847, in the Barnburner sheet, and was given some cir-

culation throughout the State. However, the people of

Ohio seem not to have been favorably impressed with

Taylor's candidacy. The Whig organ of the State finds

him not its "first choice for the presidency, owing to his

manner and habits of life," but avows a willingness to

support him, should he define his position clearly enough

to win the nomination.⁴²

It would be hardly fair to attribute this attitude to

any want of confidence in the General's ability or integ-

rity. His military successes had given him a good deal

of popularity even among those who most heartily con-

demned the Mexican War. As a man he had the char-

acteristics of simplicity and sincerity which have al-

ways appealed strongly to the common people, most of

whom do not prize the rigidness of party ties.  His

friends may have had the design of making him an in-

dependent candidate; there is some evidence tending in

that direction.43 The Allison letter to which reference

has been made contains statements that show a great

 

40 Cincinnati Signal, quoted in Ohio State Journal, June 17, 1848.

41 Hamilton Free Soil Burner, October 10, 1848.

42 Ohio State Journal, February 8, 1848.

43 Cincinnati Gazette, February 3, 1848.

• 34
 

222      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

indifference to party politics;45 yet it must have been

clear to both Taylor and his friends that such a position

offered no chance of victory. The only avenue open to

him was furnished by the Whig Party. If he had made

an open statement in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, the

Whigs of Ohio would probably have stayed with him to

a man. The fact that he did not do so seems to be their

strongest objection to him.

Wherever expediency seemed to dictate a military

man, the local conventions were apt to prefer Scott.

Others, to guard against the eventualities of the future,

would stand for "any good Whig."⁴⁴ The instructions,

which Lewis Campbell carried as a delegate to the

Philadelphia Convention, are illuminating on this point.

They were drawn in March after the State Convention

at Columbus.⁴⁵ In his speech at Lebanon, after his re-

turn from the Convention at Philadelphia, he said that

the following part of his instructions was intended to

exclude General Taylor: "That the delegates now ap-

pointed are hereby instructed to vote for Thomas Cor-

win, as Whig Candidate for the Presidency, as first

choice of this district" -- and after that -- for any good

man, known to be a Whig, a whole Whig, and nothing

but a Whig." More definitely still, a letter attached to

Campbell's commission recommended a bolt from the

National Convention, if any attempt should be made to

rush that body for Taylor. The Secretary referred in

writing to this letter and made it a part of the instruc-

tions.⁴⁶

 

44 Ohio State Journal, March 3, 1848.

45 There is evidence that the Democrats considered nominating Taylor

in advance of the Whigs. See Phillips, Ulrich, "Toombs, Stevens.

Cobb Correspondence", 86.

46 Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848.

• 35
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     223

February 22, 1848, the call was published for the

Whig National Convention, to be held in the old Chinese

Museum, at Philadelphia. Among the delegates sent

by Ohio the more prominent were Joseph Vance, John

Sloane, Samuel Galloway, Secretary of State; Daniel

Tilden, John A. Bingham, John Sherman, and Lewis

Campbell. When the Convention assembled on the sev-

enth of June, the star of Clay seemed to be in the as-

cendancy.⁴⁷ The Ohio delegation was pretty solidly op-

posed to Taylor. From the tone of resolutions drawn

before the State Convention, it appears that Clay might

well have gotten the vote of the Ohio delegation. The

love of the Sage of Ashland seemed to be so deeply

rooted in Ohio that where he was not mentioned among

the preferences it was because there was no need of

doing so. Those that mention him as second choice

evidently do so either with the thought of availability in

mind or the desire to compliment favorite sons.

Pennsylvania stood for Clay first, with Taylor as

second choice. When the Ohio Delegation met on Mon-

day evening, Mr. Campbell says that they agreed to pull

for Scott because it was being said that the Whigs must

nominate a military man to oppose General Cass.

When the Butler County man suggested a committee of

conference from the various states going for Clay, Web-

ster, and Scott, in order to ascertain who was the strong-

est man, his plan was vetoed by a "venerable Ohio dele-

gate in whom we all placed much confidence.^"48

Mr. Campbell's account of the proceedings to this

 

47 Ohio State Journal, February 22, 1848. Dyer, Oliver, Great Sena-

tors, 68 et seq.

48 Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848.

• 36
 

224     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

point tallies with that of Oliver Dyer, newspaper cor-

respondent who was present at the Convention.  He

says that Thurlow Weed was standing back of Taylor's

candidacy, as he had been secretly for some time.

Weed's reason for this position was his conviction that

only Taylor could carry the day for the Whigs. Agree-

ing with him in this particular and perhaps acting as

his agent at Philadelphia, Truman Smith of Connecti-

cut awaited patiently the chance to throw the vote of

his state for the General. Mr. Dyer says that Weed

worked personally with the New York delegation, leav-

ing the Pennsylvania and Ohio groups in the hands of

influential men of their own number. This latter fact

obviously accounts for the action of the "venerable

Ohio Delegate." Thus Ohio was encouraged to stand

for Scott and to believe that compromise would fix the

choice eventually upon him.⁴⁹ The aim of the whole

proceeding was clearly to break the hold of Clay at the

outset. Weed knew his ground; as will be seen later,

he had prepared the way for Whig victory. Believing

that Taylor's personality fitted the specifications, he

would not permit the divergent sentiments of the body

to unite against his candidacy.

On the first day of the Convention, the Taylor men

came in organized for a drive. They had kept a sep-

arate headquarters, met the various incoming delega-

tions, and scattered bulletins and broadsides through

the city in favor of their candidate. J. M. Moorehead

of Greensboro, North Carolina, was chosen permanent

President of the Convention, the Southerners having

courteously yielded the temporary speakership to the

49 Dyer, op. cit., 68-86.

• 37
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      225

North.   Seventeen of the Southern delegates were

members of Congress familiar with the rules of the

House which had been adopted to guide the delibera-

tions of the Convention. The opening of the meeting

and the arrangement of the preliminaries was attended

with much confusion and it was well into the second

day before the balloting could take place.⁵⁰ Texas not

having sent any delegates, was represented by Louis-

iana on many of the important committees and in cast-

ing the vote.

At about five o'clock in the afternoon, at the instant

of the completion of the preliminaries, a motion was

made to proceed with the balloting, there having been

as yet no effort to define the principles on which a can-

didate could stand. Mr. Campbell then arose and sub-

mitted, as an amendment to the motion, a resolution of

the following tenor:  "As it is the first duty of the

representatives of the Whig Party of the United States

to preserve the integrity of the principles of that party,

the claims of no candidate can be considered by this

Convention unless the candidate stands pledged to main-

tain and carry out the cardinal principles of the Whig

Party." This expression was greeted by the South-

erners with howls of protest and a scene of the greatest

excitement followed. After a short debate during which

Campbell begged of the South "ground enough to plant

our flag-staff on," the amendment was tabled, or toma-

hawked, to use the expression of its proponent.⁵¹

The result of the first ballot stood: Webster 22,

 

50 Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848.

51 Dyer, op. cit.; 73 et seq.  cf. Ohio State Journal, June 12, 1848.

See also Speech of Mr. Campbell, reported in Hamilton Intelligencer,

loc. cit.

Vol. XXXVI--15.

• 38
 

226     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Scott 43, Clay 97, Taylor 111. Hoping for better re-

sults, the Clay men labored with their deserters during

the interval between ballots. Those results did not mate-

rialize, however; the return of the second trial was:

Webster 22, Scott 49, Clay 86, Taylor 118. The Con-

necticut delegation under the lead of Truman Smith was

still holding firm for Clay. This gave hopes to those

who were toiling for the peerless leader; so they joined

forces with the Webster men and the Ohio delegation

in support of an adjournment which took place, amid

great confusion, at ten o'clock at night. About mid-

night, seventy-five or eighty of the Clay, Scott and

Webster delegates were convened and addressed by

Governor Jones of Tennessee who pleaded with Ohio

and Massachusetts to join forces for Clay. The voice

of the "venerable delegate" was raised again, however,

to declare that Ohio could never be carried for Clay.⁵²

This does not seem to have accorded with the sentiment

of the Ohio Whigs as heretofore expressed. There is

no doubt that the North had been disappointed in him

in 1844 but it was part of the nature of his genius to be

able to come back to the people's affections. Little or no

resentment appears in the many expressions of Ohio

Whigs on the possibility of his candidacy. The just

conclusion seems to be that the great Kentuckian could

have carried Ohio if any Whig could have done so.

The next morning, before most of those who had at-

tended the midnight conference were present, the Ohio

delegation under the influence of this member passed

resolutions against such a proceeding. When the third

ballot was taken, Truman Smith suddenly threw Con-

 

52 Dyer, op. cit., 73 et seq.

• 39
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      227

necticut's five delegates to Taylor.⁵³ This action was

the occasion of the wildest enthusiasm among the Gen-

eral's supporters. The excitement having subsided, the

fourth vote was taken and was found to stand: Taylor

171, Scott 63, and Clay 32.54 On the first ballot Ohio

had given 20 votes for Scott, 1 for Clay, 1 for Taylor,

and 1 for Judge McLean. In every succeeding ballot

she had cast at least twenty votes for Scott.⁵⁵

When the nomination of Taylor was announced,

Mr. Galloway, of Ohio, made a motion to declare a re-

cess for the purpose of consultation. Amid shouts and

jeers from the South, this motion was ruled out of

order despite the eloquent protests of the Ohio man.

Two Ohio delegates, Daniel Tilden and John A. Bing-

ham, attempted to focus the attention of the body on

the subject of slavery in the territories; but their ef-

forts were entirely unsuccessful. Mr. Tilden's resolu-

tion was tabled.⁵⁶  Mr. Bingham, attempting to read

his resolution ratifying the nomination of Taylor "on

condition that he was in favor of Whig measures and

opposed to the extension of slavery," was allowed to

proceed as far as the words "extension of.  .  ." There

his voice was drowned by the angry protests of the

Southerners.  Intermingled with the general clamor,

were heard cries of "Fire-brand," "Kick it out" and

"Lay it on the table."⁵⁷  Needless to say the motion

dropped out of sight and with it perished every effort

to commit the Whig Convention to a definite stand on

the Proviso.

53 Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848.

54 Ohio State Journal, June 12, 1848.

55 Ibid.

56 Dyer, loc. cit., 73 et seq.

57 Hamilton Intelligencer, July 25, 1848.

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228      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

The rest of the time was then consumed in listening

to flowery speeches. Some of these were the eloquent

orations of backers-out among whom were many Ohio

men. Joe Vance had opposed General Taylor but he

"knew when he was licked." Delegate Gunn had "come

here as a Whig and as a Whig expected to support the

nomination." Colonel James Collier "pledged Ohio to

do its duty."⁵⁸ The editor of the Ohio State Journal,

Whig organ of the state, applauded Vance's speech, a

few days later, under the caption, "Glorious old Joe

Vance."⁵⁸

This was not the reaction of all of Ohio's delegation,

however, nor of all the convention. Allen of Massachu-

setts, with a speech against "the discipline of the South,"

led the way to a different position. For this act of

temerity on the part of its delegate, the Old Bay State

tasted more of the famous discipline. The Vice-Presi-

dency which was first intended to go to Abbott Law-

rence, was actually given to Millard Fillmore of New

York.⁵⁹ Galloway and Campbell were warm in their

denunciation of the Convention's action. "I am," said

the former, "the advocate of Free Soil and free terri-

tory. . . . This platform, my constituents cannot

and will not abandon. If a candidate is orthodox on these

fundamental principles, they and I can hail and receive

him. If he is not, he will be nailed by us, as base coin

to the counter." Mr. Campbell openly declared that he

would not vote for Taylor at all, and he menaced the

South with "that great moral principle which has fast-

ened itself so firmly on the free Whigs of Ohio."60

 

58 Ohio State Journal, June 14, 1848.

59 Wilson, Henry, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, 2, 137.

60 Ibid.

• 41
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     229

Later, at the Worcester Convention called by the Massa-

chusetts malcontents, he stated his intention to go back

home to consult his constituents, after which, he added,

"I will take my position and it will be right."61

After the nomination had been accomplished, Henry

Wilson secured the use of a lecture room in the Museum

for a meeting of the irreconcilables. Present at that

meeting from Ohio were Lewis Campbell, Samuel Gal-

loway, J. C. Vaughn, and Stanley Matthews. Mr. Wil-

son, of Massachusetts, presided temporarily, and John

C. Hamilton, son of Washington's famous secretary,

was chosen as permanent chairman. There were in this

assembly men from Maine, New Jersey, New York,

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Ohio.⁶² They had

battled valiantly and in vain to secure some concession

to principles in a National Convention that was thinking

in terms of men. The proceedings of the group will be

better dealt with later. Among other things done, a rep-

resentative was named to attend the Ohio State Inde-

pendent People's Convention at Columbus.⁶³

The Democratic State Convention had suggested the

illegality of the Wilmot Proviso; if the National Con-

vention did not express itself so definitely, its intentions

on the subject were clear enough. If the articulation

between state and national declarations had been in the

case of New York what it was in that of Ohio, there

would have been no doubt about the outcome. Especially

is this true when considered in the light of the Whig

situation. In spite of the issue raised by the Wilmot

Proviso, Ohio Democrats for the most part remained

 

61 Ohio State Journal, July 3, 1848.

⁶² Wilson, op, cit., 2, 137 et seq.

63 Ibid., 142.

• 42
 

230      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

within their national party, but the Whigs of the Nation

and of the State of Ohio showed less cohesion. In this

situation, which way would Ohio go in the election of

1848?

 

CHAPTER III

OHIO IN THE BUFFALO CONVENTION

There was some solid sentiment behind the grimaces

of the angry group at Philadelphia and a substantial

part of it was in the Buckeye State. On the eighth of

July, at Bellgrove, in Madison County, a mass meeting

of all parties was held, for the main purpose of oppos-

ing the Philadelphia and Baltimore nominations. The

strongest element in its constituency was the Whigs.1

Papers like the Elyria Courier and the Ashtabula Sen-

tinel were open and bitter in their disapproval of Tay-

lor. The latter journal, edited by a son of Joshua Gid-

dings, commented on the establishment of the Ohio

Standard, as a Free Soil Organ, at Columbus, as fol-

lows:   "How  gloriously will the forthcoming sheet,

under the guidance of such men as Hamlin and Vaughn,

contrast with the late adhesion of the State Journal to

the Southern mandate in favor of slavery's appointed

vice-regent."² The statement is the more significant be-

cause of the fact that this Mr. Vaughn had been editor

of the Cincinnati Gazette and was a delegate to the Whig

National Convention. There, on the Western Reserve,

indeed, little difference of opinion seems to have mani-

fested itself. Mr. Smith declares that within a week

after Taylor's nomination every county on the Reserve,

 

1 Ohio State Journal, July 8, 1848.

2 Quoted in Ohio State Journal, July 7, 1848.

• 43
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      231

in defiance of party lines, repudiated the nominee and

called for an independent candidate.³

The too evident designs of the South in the Mexican

expansionist program had crystallized the political feel-

ings of these people into a bitter aversion to slavery that

lost sight of other issues. The men of this part of Ohio,

lately arrived from New England, with the moral quick-

ness of their Puritan forbears, took little account of ex-

pediency and held the opportunist in contempt.⁴ There

was a local fusion and a forgetting of party ties in a

common zeal of which the very name, Giddings, sug-

gests the type.

The people of north-eastern Ohio were not alone

in this attitude, nor did they move without leaders. In

the years preceding 1848, the same passion had been

enlisting the most brilliant minds of the State. By the

year 1848, they were prepared to make the most strin-

gent personal sacrifices in the cause. Advised that he

had been selected to defend the negroes captured from

a vessel, The Washington, whose status as a slaver was

in question, Mr. Chase wrote: "Please say to the com-

mittee, that my services are cordially at their disposal;

but I can accept no fee in a case of this kind."⁵ Sam

Lewis, Ohio's first State Superintendent of Schools,

after or during the riot against the National Era, in

Washington City (1847), sent a letter to the editor

proffering aid.  "Should the mob have proceeded to

carry out their threats, you may draw on me at sight

for one hundred dollars and for one hundred dollars for

two months to come, to rebuild and continue the pub-

 

3 Smith, op. cit., 128.

4 Dodson, op. cit., 134-142.

5 Dodson, loc. cit., 134-141.

• 44
 

232      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

lication of the Era," he wrote. "I can wear old clothes

and go back to my bread and water fare, but I cannot

see the last vestige of liberty destroyed by a mob."⁶

The man who received this letter was Dr. Gamaliel Bai-

ley, the Cincinnati abolitionist and former editor of the

Philanthropist. By the aid of Ohio Anti-Slavery men,

Chase, Birney, Giddings, Lewis, and others, he had been

made editor of the National Era at Washington where

he became the efficient national voice of anti-slavery

sentiment in the country at large. These were men who,

to the torrent of feeling, could add insight, breadth of

view, and political savoir.

The Liberty Party was the political custodian of

anti-slavery capital, mainly because it had taken the

principle into the field and had been on the firing line.

Chase and Lewis were perhaps its most outstanding fig-

ures in Ohio. The former, after acting with the party

at an earlier time, was slowly exerting a kind of prac-

tical influence upon its members.  Even as early as

1845, James G. Birney had hoped to transform the Lib-

erty group from a "one idea" party into a general radi-

cal reform party.  The indifference of Chase at this

time, however, defeated the project.⁷ Chase was a pris-

tine Democrat; occasionally he tuned his ears to the call

of the pack and he never quite gave up the hope that

Democracy would yet absorb the anti-slavery doctrine.

But the effort to broaden the platform of the Liberty

Party did not subside.  In June, 1847, the Liberty

League was formed at Macedon Lock, New York, under

the influence of William Goodell and Lysander Spooner.

 

6 Lewis, Wm. G. W., Biography of Samuel Lewis, Chap. 26.

7 Smith, op. cit., 101.

• 45
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      233

Its long series of resolutions purported to provide the

more appealing platform desired by the best men within

the party. Gerrit Smith was nominated for President

and Elihu Burritt for Vice President.⁸ The response

of the old line Liberty men of Ohio to this action was

not at all cordial, however; they seemed to deprecate the

step of the New York Convention and heaped criticism

on the head of Spooner and Goodell.⁹ If Chase was

indifferent to Birney's effort he opposed the Macedon

Lock candidate on practical grounds. In his letter to

John Thomas of Cortlandville, New York, he warmly

approves Gerrit Smith as a man, but hesitates to rec-

ommend him as a Liberty Party candidate subject to

the proposed Convention of 1847.10 The keener judg-

ment of the Ohio Liberty man taught him that the ef-

forts of Gerrit Smith and the earlier aims of Birney

represented quite forlorn hopes. He saw that the Lib-

erty Party could not be broadened from within because

the rank and file refused to take up the larger cause.

The only course feasible for a role of influence was

amalgamation, by means of compromise, with elements

in other parties.

There is evidence of this attitude on the part of the

Ohio statesman as early as 1846. In one of his letters

to Joshua Giddings, he refers to a proposed political

union, evidently outlined in a previous letter, and to

which the congressman seems to have demurred. His

purpose to seek alliance with other forces appears clearly

from his words: "What I am willing to give up is

names, separate organizations; what I am not willing

 

8 Smith, op. cit., 101.

9 Salem Anti-Slavery Bugle, October 29, 1848.

10 Letter of S. P. Chase to Thomas, June 24, 1847, in Dodson, op. cit.

• 46
 

234      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

to give up is principles and consistent action both with

reference to men and to measures."¹¹ He mentions also

a Liberty Creed which he has drawn up and enclosed

in the letter for Giddings' inspection. It is intended to

replace one which his correspondent had prepared and

submitted for his approval, a clear indication of the pur-

pose of Salmon P. Chase to speak for the Liberty Party

of Ohio. Again and again this aim of a great union

of anti-slavery men appears in his letters. To Sumner,

he wrote in the autumn of 1847: "And now what is the

true policy of practical, do-something anti-slavery men?

Shall we stand apart -- Whigs, Democrats, and Liberty

men -- and neutralize each other? Or shall we unite?

I am for union."¹² Sumner had referred to Chase's

arguments before the Supreme Court, in the celebrated

Van Zandt slavery case as a possible basis of constitu-

tional interpretation upon which to rally the anti-slavery

forces of the different parties.  This suggestion is

highly pleasing to Chase, who would have delighted in

such a role. He continues: "Why cannot we all unite

on them, and so for the practical measures thence re-

sulting -- Wilmot Proviso, slavery abolition in the Dis-

trict and the like?" Of course he is sincere in his op-

position to slavery in all its forms; there is no doubt

that he would have enjoyed the honor of being its exe-

cutioner.

With his mind occupied by these ambitions, he was

anxious to postpone the call for a National Liberty Con-

vention until some time in 1848, in order to await the

action of the two great parties.  In June, 1848, he

pleaded with Leavitt, the most important leader of the

11 Dodson, op. cit., 122.

12 Ibid., 122-124.

• 47
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio        235

Liberty Party in the East, to defer that assembly until

the spring of the coming year.13 In a letter written a

few days later to John Thomas of Cortlandville, he made

the same suggestion, that the Liberty men wait until

spring for this important matter.¹⁴ Such was also the

position of Edwin M. Stanton of Ohio and of Joshua

Leavitt. It was strenuously opposed, however, by the

Gerrit Smith faction because in agreement with the old

timers of the party, they wished for the retention of

Puritan standards.¹⁵ The Anti-Slavery Bugle, of Salem,

Ohio, the organ of this group in the State, raised its

voice against the proposed postponement.¹⁶ A corres-

pondent of the Cleveland American noted another false

chord. "I see the Western Citizen has nominated John

P. Hale as candidate for President," he writes. "Why

go outside the party for a candidate?"¹⁷ In July, a

writer in the Cincinnati Herald deprecates the fact that

many who still rank with the party drift toward Judge

McLean or Silas Wright.¹⁸ A letter of Chase's to Pres-

ton King, under date of July 15, 1847, speaks warmly of

Silas Wright and intimates that it is time to be finding

out his views before the Liberty Convention meets.¹⁹

This course was no doubt predicated on the possible

nomination of the well-beloved New Yorker for the

presidency, by the Democrats. His untimely death cut

short all hopes for the New York friends and put an

end to Chase's dream of leading his Liberty followers

into the fold of Democracy through the door of the

13 Letter to Joshua Leavitt, Dodson, op. cit., 124.

14 Ibid., loc. cit.

15 Anti-Slavery Bugle, July 25, 1847.

16 Ibid.

17 Cleveland American, quoted in Ibid., June 25, 1847.

18 Cincinnati Herald, quoted in Ibid., July 9, 1847.

19 Dodson, op. cit., 121.

• 48
 

236      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications Wilmot Proviso. These nods and becks on the part of Chase and his confreres cast about them a fog of mis- trust. They made the conservative element all the more determined to call the convention in the fall of 1847.

The committee in charge of the National Conven- tion being in the hands of the opponents of Chase and Stanton, the call was issued for a convention at Buf- falo on October 20, 1847.20 Here met the last national concourse of the Liberty men with one hundred and forty 20 Anti-Slavery Bugle, October 29, 1847.

• 49
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     237

delegates and many outsiders who were interested in

the issues.  There were twenty-three Ohio delegates

present and Sam Lewis was chosen president of the

meeting. The Liberty League was much in evidence.

The Business Committee reported the main resolutions

which were passed. Gerrit Smith then made a minority

report proposing two resolutions which were voted

down.²¹ They embodied the creed of those whose hopes

were bound up in the separate existence of the party.

The first declared it to be the duty of the Liberty party

to become a permanent party and to extend its platform

to embrace "all the political wants of the country, espec-

ially anti-land monopoly, free trade, and universal suf-

frage without distinction of color." The second was

the Spooner doctrine which pronounced slavery entirely

unconstitutional anywhere in the United States. Lea-

vitt tried to throttle discussion on the subject but Gerrit

Smith succeeded in making an eloquent appeal for his

principles.²¹ It was hopeless, however, for the very

words of the resolutions mark them as the work of an

impractical mind. The principal statement of the ma-

jority report declared for the exclusion of slavery from

the national territories, its prohibition in all places under

the United States government and the discouragement

of it in the States where it already existed.²² Stanton

and Chase made a futile effort to defer nomination of

a presidential candidate to a later time. Seeing that

the tide was strong for Hale, however, Stanton made a

warm speech in support of him and he was nominated

for the Presidency, with Leicester King, of Ohio, as his

 

21 Anti-Slavery Bugle, October 29, 1847, loc. cit.

22 Anti-Slavery  Bugle, loc. cit.

• 50
 

238      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

running mate. The failure of the Smith Resolutions

was an unwholesome chalice to the conservatives. "They

have cut loose from principle and the right and the lean-

ness of Meroz will be upon them," was the way the

action was characterized by the Anti-Slavery Bugle.²³

If Chase and Stanton failed to prevent a nomination,

they succeeded signally and well in the platform. The

principles of the Liberty Party were modified to meet

the views of the men who knew how to accomplish ul-

terior results by moderate measures. They had made

an open link in the Liberty chain by means of which the

party strength might be joined to forces yet to appear

in the national arena.

From the correspondence of Ohio Liberty Leaders

with the great statesmen of the East, and from an ob-

servation of movements in New York, at this time, it

is easy to see the hopes nourished by them and the events

which gave force to those hopes. Six days after the

meeting of the Buffalo Convention, the Herkimer Barn-

burner demonstration was held. John Van Buren pre-

pared an address to the people, David Dudley Field

wrote the resolutions, and the Free Democracy of New

York came vividly into the public eye.²⁴ It is not strange

that practical men, some of whom, like Chase, spoke the

Democratic language, should be influenced by these de-

velopments.  They could not help rejoicing that the

foundation stone, the Wilmot Proviso, rested under both

the Barnburner structure and their own. After com-

menting jubilantly on the Herkimer meeting, Mr. Chase

continues as follows, in a letter to Charles Sumner:

"In this state of things, what is to be done? Can not

23 Anti-Slavery Bugle, loc. cit.

24 Wilson, op. cit., 127.

• 51
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     239

a great convention of anti-slavery men be held at Pitts-

burgh, next May or June, to put a ticket in nomination

which will at all events receive votes enough to carry

the nominees in the house? I have a good deal of faith

in a movement of this kind."²⁵ To these hopes kindred

aspirations were added as the voice of Ohio Whiggery

spoke more clearly day by day on the Proviso, and as

the cry for a military candidate narrowed down to the

demand of the South for Taylor, the Louisiana slave-

holder.

Thus the policy of the Liberty men began slowly to

take shape under the stewardship of the more liberal

element. The defeated faction retired to mourn through

a quasi-pietistic press, the fall of Gerrit Smith and the

triumph of politics over ethics. The car of the progres-

sives ran over them wailing their protests. Early in

May, a call was published by the state committee of the

Liberty Party summoning a convention to meet at Co-

lumbus on Thursday, June 22, 1848.26 It did not feature

the arguments of Spooner or the abolition of slavery in

the states; its aim was the practical one of the other

group. "It is probable that the question of the exclu-

sion of slavery from the national territories will make

the great and paramount issue in the coming election

of the President" -- so ran the opening statement. Then

followed the expression of a hope that either the Whig

or Democratic Convention would nominate a candi-

date who would represent "our views on this subject."²⁷

Failing this, there was a prospect that the friends of

freedom would rally on this one issue and present an

 

25 Dodson, op. cit., 124-127.

26 Ohio State Journal, May 12, 1848.

27 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

• 52
 

240      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

independent candidate for the suffrage of the people.

The call was signed by S. P. Chase, R. B. Pullen, A. O.

Moore, Sam Lewis and Stanley Matthews.

Chase presided at the Convention which was held

at the State House in pursuance of this call.  It was

largely attended and passed a series of resolutions among

which was one declaring against any Liberty nomination

for Governor. John P. Hale and Leicester King were

nominated for President and Vice President, in accord-

ance with the action taken at Buffalo in the year pre-

ceding.²⁸

This meeting seems to have been timed so as to take

place while another one of more universal character

was in progress in the same city. On May 20, 1848, a

call appeared in the Cincinnati Gazette for an Ohio Mass

Free Territory Convention to express the popular feel-

ing on the extension of slavery.²⁹ It was an expression

of the sentiment so universal on the Reserve and else-

where and was signed by three thousand voters from

thirty counties. This body assembled on June 21, 1848,

at Medary's Hall above the office of the Ohio Statesman,

but because of its increasing numbers was forced to

accept the hospitality of Auditor Woods and retire to

the House of Representatives.³⁰ There were one thou-

sand delegates composed of Whigs, Democrats, and

prominent Liberty men.³¹ The last fused rapidly with

the elements from other parties and there is plenty of

evidence to show that both conventions were planned

by the same heads. Chase, Lewis, and Matthews fig-

 

28 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

29 Cincinnati Gazette, May 20, 1848.

30 Smith, op. cit., 129.

31 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

• 53
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio        241

ured in both assemblies. Sawyer of Cincinnati presided

and the more prominent officers were Whigs or Demo-

crats. A committee of one from each congressional

district was selected to make nominations for permanent

officers. This committee then appointed a committee

on resolutions. A letter was read from Nathaniel Guil-

ford of Cincinnati. E. S. Hamlin came forward and

after reading a letter from Joshua Giddings, addressed

the Convention; Joseph Vance of Knox County made

an address also.³² Perhaps the greatest speech of the

occasion was that of James G. Birney, former Liberty

candidate for the presidency and at this time domiciled

in Michigan. For several years he had not occupied a

place in politics commensurate with his genius because

an accident had interfered with his powers of speech.33

Chase of the Committee, prepared the resolutions.

They are a statesman's best effort, admirably express-

ing the smoldering sentiment of the people.³⁴ They

begin by repudiating the nominations at both Philadel-

phia and Baltimore, as obnoxious to the people's wishes.

Referring to "the Proviso of Jefferson prohibiting the

existence of slavery after 1800 in all the territories of

the United States," this platform recites historical au-

thority through a period of fifty years to prove that the

policy of the nation toward slavery has been not to

"extend or nationalize it" but to "limit and localize"

the offensive institution. On the immediate issue, the

declaration of the Convention is very clear to the effect

that "we accept the issue tendered to us by the slave-

 

32 This Joseph Vance is a Knox County Free Soiler and must be

carefully distinguished from Joseph Vance of Champaign County.

33 Ohio State Journal, June 21, 1848.

34 These resolutions are taken as reported in Ohio State Journal, June

21, 1848.

Vol. XXXVI--16.

• 54
 

242      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

holders, as to their demand for more slave states and

for more slave territory, and our answer is: "No more

slave states, no more slave territory!"

Seeing the principle thus keenly delineated, one can

not help admiring the hard sense of the leaders in reach-

ing out to join hands with every progressive group in

the North. There was a warm approval of the legal

opinions of Judge McLean to the effect that the institu-

tion of slavery could not exist anywhere excepting by

special enactment; that the relation of master and slave

is entirely artificial. The stand of John P. Hale, the

"first rebel against Hunkerism and Slavery in the Dem-

ocratic Party," is sincerely complimented.  Preston

King and John Van Buren are lauded for "their in-

domitable courage and inflexible perseverance" in lead-

ing the bolters of the New York Democracy. The reso-

lutions also express great honor for the manly actions

of the New York Barnburners in refusing to accept

seats in the Democratic National Convention on terms

dictated by the slave power. There are overtures ad-

dressed to the various leaders of the bolting Democrats

and the Progressive Liberty men. To capture the sym-

pathies of the Northern pioneer and the wage-earners

of the East, the platform contains a plank in favor of

free grants of public land as a real free soil policy. In

addition to these alluring proffers there is a great deal

to admire in the consummate skill with which Chase

coordinated the movements of the Liberty men and the

Free Soilers in Ohio without losing the good will of the

former. As for the Whigs, it will be remembered that

Mr. Vaughn, a member of the little group of malcon-

tents at Philadelphia, was present at the Columbus Con-

• 55
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      243

vention as the bearer of an important message. Partly

as the result of his presence, a call went forth from the

Ohio Capitol which invited all friends of freedom, "op-

posed to the election of Lewis Cass or Zachary Taylor,"

to assemble in convention at Buffalo on August 9, 1848,

to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice

Presidency of the United States.³⁵

The part of Ohio men in these political maneuvers

was beyond a doubt monumental. No small portion of

the planning and outlining of the field was due to the

genius of Chase alone, alert, keen and leaning toward

the Democracy. Yet, if we may trust the accounts of

men who witnessed personally many of the moves and

countermoves, the ground wires for the Buffalo thun-

derbolt were laid by national manipulators who were

not friendly to the Democrats. The Barnburner tinder

lay heaped up high in the State of New York where it

had been nursed by interested parties to await just such

a spark as the call that went forth at the instance of

the bolting Whigs.

When the news of the bolt at Baltimore became

known in New York a vast concourse of Barnburners

awaited, in City Hall Park, the arrival of messengers

from the Convention (June 6, 1848). It is said that the

meeting there was set for the afternoon of that day

under the secret influence of Thurlow Weed, as exerted

through Barnburner friends.³⁶ Weed's genius was al-

ways at the service of the Whigs but his power and his

friends were everywhere. He seems to have had the

 

35 All the foregoing discussion, inclusive of quotations, is drawn from

report of the resolutions of the convention as reported in Ohio State Jour-

nal, loc. cit.

36 Dyer, op. cit., 59-68.

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244     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

happy faculty of ingratiating himself with men. His

reason for being interested in the time of the demon-

stration at City Hall Park was that he wished a large

group of Whigs, who were to be his guests at the Astor

House, to witness the disaffection of the New York

Democrats. When the vast meeting was held in the

Park amidst the greatest indignation and enthusiasm,

the messengers who addressed them were Cambreleng,

Tilden, and Field. These men were the past associates

and partisans of Van Buren, the man who, his friends

insisted, had been sacrificed to the sanctity of the two-

thirds rule. The whole move of the malcontents from

Syracuse on, had rallied round this alleged martyr, and

prominent among the engineers of its beginning was

his own son.³⁷ The Whigs were consistently frightened

by the anticipated Free Soil bolt; they were made to

believe that every encouragement must be given to the

Barnburners, and that the Whig candidate should be

a man to whom Van Buren would not hesitate to give

possible aid by his presence in the struggle. For that

purpose, who could be better than a candidate without

a political past? If the Democratic bolt was to mate-

rialize, the Whig leader would have to be free from

any of the earlier rancor of his party toward Van Buren.

Thus Weed's aim was two-fold, to choose the proper

Whig candidate and to assure his success by the split

in Democracy's rank.

The result was that the Barnburner National Con-

vention was sitting at Utica by June 21 for the purpose

of nominating a presidential candidate.³⁸  Ohio was

represented by a number of delegates among whom were

37 Dyer, loc. cit.

38 Ibid., 67, et seq., and Ohio State Journal, June 21, 1848.

• 57
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     245

Benjamin Tappan and James W. Taylor. The latter

addressed the Convention in a very eloquent speech.³⁹

After a becoming display of modesty, Van Buren per-

mitted his name to be used with the long foreseen re-

sult that he received the nomination.⁴⁰ The Utica Con-

vention was contemporaneous with the Columbus Con-

vention. A glance at the flattering resolutions taken

by the latter with regard to the Barnburners and the

preoccupations of Chase with eastern leaders of Democ-

racy shows the cut of the whole cloth.  There is no

doubt that the stirrings in the breasts of the Liberty

men and the restlessness even of the Whigs received a

strong impetus from the activities of the recalcitrant

Democrats of New York.

In the months before the meeting of the Free Soilers

at Buffalo, speculation and prophecy were rife as to

the question of the candidate. However, there is a good

deal to show that the keener minds entertained little un-

certainty on the point. The fact is, the candidate was

ready; the past had created him. This did not, of course,

keep the Liberty men from fighting for John P. Hale

nor the fond adherents of Ohio leaders from advocating

their favorites.  Perhaps the three most outstanding

possibilities were John P. Hale, Judge McLean of Ohio,

and Martin Van Buren.

Hale was already in the field as Liberty candidate.

He was an earnest opponent of slavery, a debater of

some judgment and a great deal of good humor, and

was very much admired by his followers. Chase was

on friendly terms with him, but did not have him in

mind as leader of the third element in the campaign.

39 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

40 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

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246      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

In spite of his being a Democrat, prudent minds must

have seen that his appeal was not universal enough for

the desired purpose. Interesting letters were exchanged

between Chase and Sumner on the subject of John R.

McLean. They show a rather serious consideration of

him especially on the part of the former but also a rather

marked desire to see his opinions change in certain ways.

"I wish with you," wrote Chase, "that Judge McLean

had a stronger backbone of constitutional anti-slav-

ery."⁴¹ In a former letter, he had expressed the con-

viction that Judge McLean "went wrong on the Van

Zandt case but was with us" in opposition to the ex-

tension of slavery.⁴² In Chase's letter of June 15, 1848,

to John P. Hale, he voices a "sincere" regret that the

Liberty Party made any nomination for the presidency

at their convention.⁴³ He had hoped, according to his

expression in this letter, that Hale would go into the

Senate "as an independent Democratic Senator" to oc-

cupy very nearly the same position to the Democratic

Party on its Anti-Slavery side as Calhoun, on the pro-

slavery wing -- all of which amounts to a delicate sug-

gestion to his correspondent, to withdraw and get out

of the way.⁴⁴

The inference from these letters is that Chase was

delegated to draw out the Judge and to decoy him into

the third party field if possible. His labors on the bench

had given him a deserved popularity and he was known

to be against the extension of slavery, but not on the

same grounds as the Wilmot Proviso people. Being a

 

41 Dodson, op. cit., 115-116.

42 Ibid., 128-132.

43 Ibid., 134-136.

44 Dodson, loc. cit.

• 59
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     247

Whig and popular in Indiana and Ohio, it is probable

that some of the Free Soilers looked with favor on him.

Chase's efforts to get an expression from him seemed

to have failed, however. Samuel Galloway, it will be

remembered, had placed the name of McLean in nomi-

nation at Philadelphia and afterwards withdrew it.45

Later the Whig press attributed to the Judge a state-

ment to the effect that he felt bound to stand by the

Whig nominee because his own name had been before

the Convention.⁴⁶ A short time before the Convention

of the Free Soilers at Buffalo, the Ohio State Journal

imputed to Chase the statement, made in a meeting of

Free Soilers, in Truro Township, Franklin County, that

Judge McLean had withdrawn his support from Tay-

lor.⁴⁷ From the Neil House, Chase wrote an indignant

letter to the editor in which he denied the charge and

likewise the assertion that McLean's name had been

before the Philadelphia Convention.⁴⁸  His warmth in

regard to the latter point tends to show that he was

trying desperately to have McLean's name before the

Buffalo Convention. It is not possible to determine

whether or not he was misquoting the Judge, but he

must have said a good deal in regard to his potential

candidacy. He was hardly likely to misrepresent the

situation either, because McLean was his father-in-law.

From these occurrences it seems fair to assume that

Chase went to Buffalo with some sort of ambition for

McLean.

On August 8, 1848, the pilgrims of freedom began

 

45 Ohio State Journal, June 12, 1848.

46 Ibid., July 27, 1848.

47 Ibid.

48 Ohio State Journal, July 28, 1848.

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248      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

arriving at Buffalo from all points of the compass.

Among them were Whigs, Democrats and Liberty men

who had answered the call for the assembly of the free

territory elements of all parties in order to take meas-

ures against the invasion of slavery into the undefiled

West. Opposing editors of the Whig Party labored to

show that no Whigs of any consequence were present.

The opposition generally, tried to ridicule so motley and

varied a body.   Gray, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer,

who covered the Convention for his own paper, used

vivid language in describing it. "The Oberlin Canopy

was lighted up," wrote he, "and bright the lamps shone

o'er--Barnburners, bolters, sore-heads, sick Whigs, and

darkies."⁴⁹ Reports said that the Convention was large

but by no means so large as expected, that the Whigs

were all going home because of lack of company and

that the gathering was exclusively an Abolition-Barn-

burner affair.⁵⁰ The report of the proceedings, as taken

from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, showed a very

pronounced abolitionist influence, it is true.⁵1 The old

Liberty men formed a heavy contingent, but some of

their most influential men were of Democratic antece-

dents.⁵1 These together with the Barnburners must

have given a flavor of Democracy to the otherwise

varied group. It was often referred to as the Con-

vention of the Free Democracy and it has been pointed

out that behind the chairman's desk, in the main com-

mittee room, hung a picture of an old barn, with the

legend beneath it: "Let it burn for conscience sake."⁵²

⁴9 Report of the Buffalo Convention, in Cleveland Plain Dealer, quoted

in Ohio State Journal, August 14, 1848.

50 Ohio State Journal, August 14, 1848.

51 Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, quoted in Ohio State Journal, Au-

gust 15, 1848.

52 Woodburn, op. cit., 6-81.

• 61
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio       249

The group of men who went to Buffalo from Ohio

were not of the sort to be mocked. They included in

their number James Briggs, Jacob Brinkerhoff, Profes-

sor Mahan, of Oberlin College, Samuel Lewis, and S.

P. Chase.⁵³ The last named had an influence greater

in many ways than that of any other person present as

delegate unless it be Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts.

Joshua Giddings is roundly criticised by the Whig press

for absenting himself from Congress to attend the Con-

vention.⁵⁴ An outbreak of speechmaking preceded ac-

tion. General Nye of New York, a Barnburner dele-

gate to Baltimore, retold the story of their grievance

and referred also to Henry Clay as another noble son

of Liberty sacrificed on the altar of slavery.⁵⁵ Samuel

Lewis and Joshua Giddings both addressed the Con-

vention in eloquent and  telling  speeches.⁵⁷ Samuel

May, the Abolitionist who had been for dissolution of

the Union, now saw in the movement culminating on

this day, "hope renewed."⁵⁶ The earlier part of the

assembly seems to have taken on the appearance of an

old time abolitionist meeting. In addition to the pres-

ence of many abolitionists, Henry Bibb, a fugitive slave,

was permitted to address the Convention. Gray, of the

Plain Dealer, refers to him ironically as "Chancellor

Bibb" because of his discussions of legal points and

reports the aversion of one of the delegates "to taking

his cue from a nigger."⁵⁸ This dark coloring in the

assembly, however, is only an evidence of the fact that

53 Wilson, op. cit., Chap. 13.

54 Ohio State Journal, August 17, 1848.

55 Ohio State Journal, August 14, 1848.

56 Wilson, op. cit., 154.

57 Ibid., loc. cit.

58 Ohio State Journal, August 17, 1848.

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250      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

radicals and moderates have gotten together on some-

thing tangible; it presages danger to the slavery in-

terest.

Chase had not been able to forestall a boom for Hale.

The New Hampshire man was genial and personable;

his following in the Free Democracy was not trifling.

When a letter came from Van Buren that was hesi-

tant and demurring in tone, the hopes of Hale's friends

rose to a high pitch. The party of Van Buren was keen

enough to read the opposite meaning between the lines

of his letter. They quickly checkmated the Hale adher-

ents by proposing Hale and Dodge for President and

Vice President, thus angering the friends of Charles

F. Adams who was already expectant of nomination.⁵⁹

In order to simplify the proceeding, it was at last pro-

posed to choose a nominating committee which should

consult calmly on the situation and report its recom-

mendation to the whole body for ratification or rejec-

tion. The personnel of that committee when chosen in-

cluded Chase who was its chairman and B. F. Butler.⁶⁰

Chase had a certain interest in McLean but the reti-

cence of the judge and the absence of any demonstration

in his behalf forced the Ohio man to drop him. Butler

was the trusted friend, admirer, and pupil of Van

Buren. As John Van Buren and Cambreleng had been

on hand at Herkimer, and Cambreleng later at City Hall

Park and Utica, so was Butler present on this occasion

to take his turn at the wheel of the Little Magician.

In a speech eulogizing his subject and referring to his

many pleasing personal traits, Butler deftly convinced

 

59 Dyer, op. cit., 96-97.

60 Ohio State Journal, August 17, 1848.

• 63
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     251 the Committee that Van Buren would accept the nomi- nation. He did not succeed in accomplishing his pur- pose, however, without encountering the ghost of the ex-President's past.

His own personal enthusiasm for his old teacher led him into fields remote from politics. He detailed the facts concerning Van Buren's country home at Lin- denwald, told of his own visits there, and of moments of intimacy that revealed the interest of his host in his farm and its growing crops. Brinkerhoff of Ohio in-

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252      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

terrupted him rather rudely at this juncture and called

out: "Damn his cabbages and turnips. What does he

say about slavery in the District of Columbia?"⁶¹ This

question had behind it the memory of Van Buren's mes-

sage of 1837 in which he promised not to disturb slavery

in the District. The frequent references of the press

to the subject show that it still haunted the minds of

the Ohio Democrats from whose number Brinkerhoff

came. Butler proceeded with great courtesy and good

humor with his speech, entirely undaunted by the shock.

He took it upon himself to promise that Van Buren

would not veto such a bill were it presented to him then.

The result was a complete triumph for Van Buren.

When the final vote was taken, it stood Van Buren 244,

Hale 151, scattering votes 71.62

Of the Committee on Resolutions, the two most pow-

erful figures were Chase and Butler. A glance at the

platform discloses the fact that its authorship was

shared to a large extent by the former because some of

its statements are repetitions of the Columbus Resolu-

tions.⁶³ The remarkable feature of them is their variety

and completeness; there are principles in abundance to

equip a new party for a long political journey. The

language in which they are worded breathes dignity and

grace as well as discriminating judgment. The conven-

tions of the two old parties are condemned for having

weakly surrendered principle to availability. On con-

temporary matters there is a criticism of the alleged

 

61 Dyer, op. cit., 101.

62 Ohio State Journal, August 14, 1848.

63 The discussion of the platform which follows was drawn from the

platform as reported in Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, copied in Ohio

State Journal, August 15, 1848. See also for State Free Soil Resolutions,

Ohio State Journal, June 16, 1848.

• 65
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     253

"compromise bill" then pending in the Senate and a

declaration in favor of the immediate organization of

Oregon and the Mexican territories along lines of

"freedom and established institutions." There is also

a plank demanding cheap postage for the people, re-

trenchment in the national expenses, and election of all

United States civil officers by the people. Likewise there

is, inconsistently enough, a plank advocating internal

improvements in rivers and harbors, by the Federal gov-

ernment. On the tariff question it was declared that

there should be enough tariff to provide for paying off

the public debt.  The free grant of public lands was

also emphasized as an appeal to the West and to the

working class of the Northeast. This was to become a

more or less permanent influence in the history of

parties.

On the general subject of slavery, the historical

resume of policy appeared which had been first drafted

at the Columbus Convention. The legal basis of the

position lies in the statement that slavery exists by

virtue of state law alone and that Congress has no

power to introduce it where it does not exist already.

In the words of Chase, "Congress has no more power to

make a slave than to make a king." From this axiom

comes the conclusion that "it is the duty of Congress

to relieve itself of all responsibility for the existence

and continuance of slavery" wherever it possesses con-

stitutional authority to legislate on the subject.  In

other words, the proper course is for the government

to prohibit slavery in all territory under it by congres-

sional action.

Their meaning becomes clear in the light cast upon

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254      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

these resolutions by the occurrences at the time of their

report to the Convention. Casting about for slogans,

the expression: "No more slave states, no more slave

territory" was used. Chase arose and suggested that the

words be changed to "no more slave states, no slave

territories."⁶⁴ The storm of applause which greeted

this epitomized expression of the sense of the Conven-

tion is evidence of its accuracy.

There is a moral elevation in these sentiments that

is rather foreign to the politics of the day. The refu-

gees from the houses of Democracy and Whiggery had

gone away to inhabit a more comely dwelling. The

press might berate Van Buren and shake under his nose

the skeletons of his alleged pro-slavery past, but he

stepped onto a platform swept clean of the slave holder's

debris. As to the construction of that platform, it is

no use to impugn the motives of the Barnburners nor

to lay at their candidate's door the charge of revenge-

ful opportunism. It is not clear, it does not seem true

that he was animated by personal motives, as such, and

it is not just to impute to him the evil passions of his

associates. The purposes of history have often been

served by the agency of prejudice. Those Liberty men

who, like Professor Mahan of Oberlin, hesitated a while

on the candidate, were willing to yield on that point for

the sake of being the architects of his principles.

On the threshold of a great national campaign, one

possibility appeared rather clearly on the horizon -- that

one of the two old parties would receive punishment for

venal pro-slavery, although both were guilty. Another

fact still more clearly outlined on the horizon was the

 

64 Dyer, op. cit., 103.

• 67
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     255

dedication of a mighty organization to the Wilmot Pro-

viso principle. Eyes of faith foresaw from this hour

the time when the "stone rejected of the builders should

become the head of the corner," through the rise of a

new party to considerable influence. The role Ohio men

and Ohio sentiment played in this development, as has

been seen, was an important one. Of all groups present

at the Buffalo Convention, Mr. Dyer says that the Ohio

galaxy shone brightest. Chase's labors to prepare the

field in the Liberty Party and the services of the Colum-

bus Convention from which went forth the call for Buf-

falo are still stronger evidence.

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

THE CAMPAIGN IN OHIO

The two candidates of the old line parties can not

be said to have been clearly at odds in their opinions on

slavery nor indeed in their opinions on any of the other

great questions. This was due largely to the non-com-

mittal policy of one of them. However, as to general

character and personality, they present very striking

contrasts. The Whig candidate was a military man.

His virtues and his faults were those of the soldier.

His conduct during the Mexican War was marked by

good judgment, moderation and excellent success. He

had never held public office in any civil capacity and

there is no doubt that his reaction on political matters

were rather feeble and colorless. In civil crises, one

would expect his actions to bear the precision and arti-

ficial despatch of the military program. In civil life,

he was a Louisiana planter who owned slaves.

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256      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Lewis Cass was a man of another school.¹ He had

been born in New Hampshire of English Puritan an-

cestry and his father was a soldier in the Revolution.

After a fairly good classical education at the Exeter

Academy, he came with his father to Ohio where he

began the career which was to associate forever his name

with the history of the Northwest. He took part in

the war of 1812 and witnessed the disgrace of Hull at

Detroit. At the time of his nomination, he was not new

to the duties of civil office; he had filled the post of gov-

ernor of the Northwest Territory and had served as

Commissioner of Indian affairs; he had also been am-

bassador to France and when nominated was in the

United States Congress as Senator from Michigan. As

governor of the Northwest Territory he had distin-

guished himself by a salutary and business-like admin-

istration. His early associations and successes in the

Northwest and in Ohio had given him some popularity

and made him in a certain way the mouthpiece of the

West in the Senate.   His diplomatic experience in

France and his activities during the British war had

given him a hatred of England and made him an en-

thusiastic admirer of French civilization. He enjoyed

some prestige as a scholar and has left some books which

reflect contemporary society.

The availability of Taylor was based on at least two

facts; his position as a slaveholder, which had influence

on southern opinion; and his very obvious taciturnity in

regard to matters political, especially the Wilmot Pro-

viso. To these might be added the ever present in-

fluence of military success -- a thing of which the

1 Biographical matter on Lewis Cass, which follows, is drawn from

McLaughlin, A. C., Lewis Cass, passim.

• 69
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     257

Whigs knew the power among people. In the begin-

ning, Cass must have seemed most acceptable to the

Democrats because of his supposed hold on the affec-

tions of the old Northwest. This was counter-balanced

by his unpopularity with the Barnburners because of

his part in defeating the nomination of Van Buren in

1844. The New York Barnburners had had a cham-

pion in Silas Wright whom they had groomed for the

Democratic nomination and whose friendship for Van

Buren was ominous for the Hunkers. When Wright

died, this cause of apprehension was removed and Cass'

stock rose on the market accordingly. It might have

been expected from his associations in the Northwest

Territory that Cass would be an exponent of the fam-

ous anti-slavery Ordinance. His position on this point

before the year 1846, however, was only less doubtful

than that of Taylor; but by the year 1848, he was com-

pletely identified with the opposition to the Wilmot Pro-

viso, being to that extent more open in his views than

his adversary. This also gave him a better currency

in the South because between the Wilmot Proviso and

opposition to it slavery could not hesitate. To the mili-

tary achievements of Taylor, the friends of Cass op-

posed his part in the War of 1812, which if not spec-

tacular, was at least honorable. His friends hoped that

these facts together with his popularity in the North-

west would give him the strength necessary for elec-

tion. To his hopes, on the other hand, Van Buren and

the Barnburners represented the fly in the ointment.

An analysis of the possibilities exposes two salient

questions that vitally concerned the ambitions of the

two candidates. They were: "Could Cass' hold on

Vol. XXXVI--17.

• 70
 

258      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

the Northwest be made to counterbalance the disaffec-

tion in New York? Could the Anti-Slavery Whigs of

the North be made to swallow Taylor, a slaveholder, as

President of the United States ?" On this point it is well

to note that the Taylor malcontents were scattered about

at the North while Cass opponents in the Democracy

were assembled in the State of New York, with the

chance before them of throwing the largest State in

the Union into the scales against him.

The activities of the press in Ohio and elsewhere

were directed, as they generally are, toward bringing

out the sentiments of the candidates on important ques-

tions. The most frequent query among the dissatisfied

Whigs in regard to General Taylor was: Is Taylor

really a Whig? A still more important one concerned

his views on the Wilmot Proviso, on which point the

General maintained, for a long period, a most baffling

silence. Reference has already been made to the letter

of James W. Taylor, the Barnburner editor of Cincin-

nati, which put up to the candidate-to-be the matter of

the Proviso in a few paragraphs, and openly asked if

it met his views. The response accredited to Taylor in

the publications of the editor may be taken to show a

disinclination to veto the measure should it be passed,

but nothing more.² The anti-slavery press of Ohio is

responsible for the statement that Taylor disavowed his

answer as it was published in the Signal.³ He may have

done so, especially in the South. This is not to be un-

derstood, however, as an assertion on the part of Gen-

 

2 Cincinnati Signal, May 18, 1847, quoted in Ohio State Journal, June

17, 1848.

3 Hamilton Free Soil Banner, October 10, 1848.

• 71
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio       259

eral Taylor that he would veto the Proviso if presented

for his signature.

His letter of acceptance is most colorless in senti-

ment, containing no pledge of any sort.⁴  He attempted

to set at rest conjecture on the question of his Whiggery

by a letter written to Captain J. S. Allison under the

date of April 22, 1848. He here makes the statement

that "he is a Whig but not an ultra Whig," and, if

elected, "will not be the mere president of a party." He

adds some matters regarding the veto power, which he

believes should only be used sparingly by the executive

in cases of a clear violation of the Constitution or "mani-

fest haste and want of consideration by Congress." On

all other subjects, the tariff, internal improvements, etc.,

he declares that the will of the people as expressed

through their representatives in Congress ought to be

respected and carried out by the executive.⁵ In a sec-

ond letter to the same man under date of September 4,

1848, he reiterates his statement regarding his Whig-

gery, and adds that he would have accepted the nomina-

tion from the Democrats, but in so doing would not

"abate one jot or tittle of his opinions as written down."⁶

"He was not," he continued, "a party candidate, in that

straitened and narrow sense which would prevent his

being the candidate of the people." These two letters

were widely circulated in Ohio and appear in nearly

every Whig paper of any consequence in answer to

those who would doubt the sincerity of the candidate

on party questions. They seemed to indicate that Tay-

4 Gideon, J. & S. G., "A Brief Review of the Character, Career and

Campaigns of General Zachary Taylor", Washington, 1848, (Republished

from the North American and United States Gazette, Philadelphia).

5 Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

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260      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

lor would follow pretty closely the wishes of the people,

and to convey the idea that executive functions had been

abused. This happened to be then, as it generally is, a

rather popular appeal. His failure to state definitely his

own views on the Wilmot Proviso, internal improve-

ments, and other matters, is thrown in the shade in the

press of the Ohio Whigs by specious endorsement of his

non-partisan liberalism.

On the matter of internal improvements, Taylor's

letter to Allison says, at least by implication, that he

would not allow his veto to stand in the way of such a

program.⁷ Cass had already attempted to straddle or

evade this issue in the previous year. Invited to at-

tend the Chicago Rivers and Harbors Convention to be

held in July, 1847, he sent a reply courteously thanking

his correspondent and stated simply "that circumstances

would put it out of his power to be present at that time."⁸

This letter became the subject of frequent comment by

the Whig papers in Ohio and was accepted as proof

undeniable of Cass' stand on internal improvements.

Thereafter, when approaching this subject in the course

of his editorial tirades, the Ohio State Journal editor

loved to identify Cass as "the man who met with a cir-

cumstance just before starting to the Chicago Conven-

tion which prevented him from having an opinion for

the public eye in relation to the improvement of Western

harbors and rivers."⁹ In June the Democratic candi-

date was called upon to answer a question regarding

the internal improvements issue during a speech which

he was making at Cleveland. The answer which he

 

7 Gideon, op. cit., 8.

8 Ohio State Journal, May 8, 1848.

9 Ohio State Journal, January 26, 1848.

• 73
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      261

gave was somewhat equivocal. "The noise and con-

fusion which pervades this vast assembly will, I appre-

hend, prevent my being heard by all present. I can but

refer you to my votes as recorded and my sentiments as

heretofore expressed on these questions."¹⁰ The Whigs

of Ohio did not fail to ring the changes on "the noise and

confusion" speech all through the campaign and pointed

out that the question had been put by Judge Wood, him-

self a Democrat, with no intention to embarrass the

candidate.11 The campaign rhymer of the Whigs trans-

lated the Chicago Convention letter into song as follows:

"Let Cass run his chances--we think circumstances

Will prevent his attendance, you know.

Old Zach fights to win--he's good looking--he'll come in

With a shout from Ohio."12

The compliment to the Old Hero may be of doubtful

truth but there is no doubt that the Whigs of Ohio built

much on the "circumstances" of General Cass.

President Polk's message of July, 1848, devoted

some discussion to the proposed organization of new

territory, and asked for an appropriation of $12,000,000

to complete the Treaty of Peace with Mexico. On the

former subject, the President recommended immediate

organization of the new territory and extension of the

laws over it. In regard to all the slavery controversy

in the territories, he let it be known that he inclined

favorably to compromise and had a very bad opinion

of "dissension."¹³  Commenting on the bill pending in

the House for the organization of Oregon Territory,

 

10 Cleveland Herald, June 19, 1848.

11 Cleveland Herald, loc. cit.

12 Ohio State Journal, January 26, 1848.

13 Published in Hamilton Intelligencer, July 10, 1848.

• 74
 

262      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

the passage of which was delayed by efforts to take

from it the clause forbidding slavery, the Ohio State

Journal declares that the Territory of Oregon is, by the

express terms of the Missouri Compromise, free terri-

tory -- a manifest inaccuracy. On learning that a com-

mittee had been constituted to provide a compromise on

the subject, the editor stated unequivocally: "We ear-

nestly hope that no such effort will be allowed to suc-

ceed. We want no more compromises on the subject of

slavery."¹⁴  Similar comment in other Ohio papers

leaves no doubt as to the stand of the Ohio Whigs, what-

ever be the undisclosed opinion of their candidate.

When the vote was taken on the question of laying on

the table the bill containing the proposed compromise

feature, nearly all the Whig representatives from Ohio

and some of the Democrats voted in the affirmative.¹⁵

This action concerned only the Mexican cession lands.

When the Oregon Bill was considered, the clause giving

the veto power to the governor was stricken out by the

House which, however, refused to remove the ordinance

against slavery. The Wilmot Proviso was resumed and

the bill put upon its passage. It passed the House by a

large majority, Ohio Whigs voting in its favor.¹⁶ For

this action they received the universal endorsement of

the press of their party in the State.

The Whig editors exhausted the arts of political

ventriloquism in trying to put into the mouth of Taylor

language on the Wilmot Proviso that would be accept-

able to the northern conscience of their party. Yet so

far as has been found up to the present the Old General

 

14 Ohio State Journal, July 22, 1848.

15 Ohio State Journal, August 3, 1848.

16 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

• 75
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     263

never expressed himself in terms any more definite than

the shadowy implications of the Cincinnati Signal let-

ter of 1847, and the Free Soil Banner says that he after-

wards disavowed that. At the opening of the year 1848,

Cass' opinions on the Proviso were rather clear; since

he held to an altogether different theory on the matter

of slavery in the territories, he was against the Proviso.

The story of how he arrived at this view was told

and retold by Whigs and Democrats. In August, 1846,

the Three Million Bill came before the Senate on the

last day of the session, about a half-hour before noon.

A motion being made to strike out the Proviso then

forming a part of the measure, John W. Davis of Mas-

sachusetts took the floor, and talking against time, re-

sisted the motion and gave his reasons. The session

closed without a vote. The Democratic press took up

the speech of Davis and laid to his door the defeat of

the Proviso in the Senate. All over the United States

he was blamed for having caused the failure of the meas-

ure in the Senate. The Ohio Statesman and the Demo-

cratic press in Ohio generally seized upon this incident

as a typical case of Whig perfidy.¹⁷ Subsequently his-

torians have justified his conduct on the ground that

there was no hope for its passage and that he really

saved the measure from immediate defeat. George

Rathbun, representative from New York, declared in

the Utica Convention that he conversed with Cass on

the afternoon of the adjournment during a trip on the

train between Washington and Baltimore. Cass then

regretted that Davis had talked the Proviso to death

and stated that all the Northern Democrats in the Sen-

 

17 Ohio Statesman, July 11, 1848.

• 76
 

264      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ate had agreed to support it following the lead of Allen

of Ohio. At the next session of Congress, in a conver-

sation with Rathbun and Brinkerhoff of Ohio, Cass de-

clared that if it came to a vote he was for the Proviso.18

This speech of Mr. Rathbun was reported largely and

broadcasted through Ohio by the Whig papers.      It

was reported in substantial agreement by some of the

Democratic papers during the campaign.¹⁹ McLaugh-

lin, Cass' biographer, admits its practical truth, and

that the later acts of the Michigan Senator were incon-

sistent with his remarks made at this time.²⁰

In regard to the question of slavery in the terri-

tories, four views obtained in this period of history. The

Wilmot Proviso was based on the constitutional power

of Congress over the territory and meant actual prohi-

bition of slavery there. The Southern leaders, under

the influence of Calhoun, subscribed to the property

theory, resting on the legal obligation of protection to

the individual in his ownership of slaves. The view that

the Missouri Compromise line should be extended to

the Pacific was based on the same constitutional as-

sumption as the Wilmot Proviso. Dickinson of New

York is credited with having first suggested that the

real right of decision in municipal legislation on this

great subject was in the people of the territories con-

cerned. Cass and after him Douglas were the men who

introduced and popularized it in politics.

On December 24, 1848, Cass wrote the famous Nich-

olson letter, which was addressed to A. O. P. Nicholson

 

18 Ohio State Journal, July 14, 1848.

19 Ohio Press, May 8, 1848.

20 McLaughlin, op. cit., 232-233.

• 77
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      265

of Nashville.21 It represents the birth of this new and

potent idea impregnated with a spirit of self-determinism

and freighted with grave possibilities. Distinctly it was

the voice of the great Northwest speaking with a hearty

confidence in the people's judgment and free from anti-

slavery prejudice. Like Judge McLean, the writer be-

lieved slavery could only exist by virtue of positive law.

He admitted the power of Congress to make rules and

regulations governing territory in a general way, but

he did not include within that field of regulations the

right to make municipal law or to define the relation of

husband and wife or of master and servant or of master

and slave. The function of municipal legislation of that

sort would appertain to the territorial legislature, by

which Congress should provide for the expression of

the people's will through law.²²

This stand of Cass was accepted and appreciated

by many slavery men in the South. In a letter from

Thomas W. Thomas, a Georgia planter, to Howell Cobb,

under date of June 5, 1848, the writer asked if Cass did

not vote against attaching the Proviso to the Three Mil-

lion Bill, and went on to endorse him because he stood

for "fifty-four forty" and for the acquisition of Mexi-

can territory.²³ The fact that Cass did so vote on the

Proviso and was forced to defend his change of senti-

ment in the Senate was the cause of much adverse com-

ment in the Whig Press. This was in March, 1847, and

Senator Miller of New Jersey was the man who forced

him to explain himself. The text of his remarks at

 

21 McLaughlin, op. cit., 239.

22 Copy in Ohio State Journal, July 18, 1848.

23 "Letter of Howell Cobb," in Annual Report of American Historical

Association for 1911, 2 Vol. -- Vol. 2, 107.

• 78
 

266      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

that time is substantially the argument of the Nichol-

son letter.²⁴ The charges which accompanied the testi-

mony of Rathbun and Miller were to the effect that

after the death of Silas Wright, Cass broke restraint

and prostrated himself before the slavery interests of

the South.²⁵ McLaughlin, in his preface, states his own

conviction that the Michigan Senator's change of heart

was not due to motives which are open to suspicion, and

he bases the finding on the fidelity of men of probity,

in Michigan, to his cause.²⁶

The comment of the Free Soil press in Ohio on the

position of the two candidates in regard to slavery is

illuminating. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's editorials

are to the effect that Cass is acceptable to the North on

the slavery question because he believes slavery illegal

unless established by positive law in the territories, and

that for that reason a prohibition is not needed.²⁷ A

letter addressed to the Plain Dealer from Georgia states:

"You profess to be cooperating with the Democrats

South to elect a President. If you will come to Georgia

and make yourself known, if you do not receive a pres-

ent of two gallons of tar and a bolster of feathers, it

will be owing to the stinginess of your Whig and not

your Democratic friends."²⁸   Elsewhere appear long

lists of exchanges professing to come from Southern

papers such as the Augusta Republic, the New Orleans

Bee and the Review, of Marion, Alabama. They uni-

 

24 Ohio State Journal, July 14, 1848.

25 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

26 McLaughlin, op. cit. Preface.

27 Cleveland Plain Dealer, quoted in Hamilton Free Soil Banner, Oc-

tober 10, 1848.

28 Anti-Slavery Bugle, December 1, 1848.

• 79
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      267

formly endorse Taylor because "he is in favor of the

extension of slavery."²⁹

Moreover, in every local campaign, this issue on

the Wilmot Proviso is the touchstone of political fitness.

L. D. Campbell, Whig candidate for Congress, received

the endorsement of the Free Soilers of the Second Ohio

District because he answered their questions unequivo-

cally on this point in favor of the Proviso. He stated

that he believed Congress had power to prevent

slavery in the territories, and that he would vote for

such a law. In a public meeting held at Lebanon, he

completely floored Baldwin, his Locofoco adversary, who

attempted to dodge on the matter of slavery in the ter-

ritories.³⁰  Daniel Duncan, Whig candidate for Con-

gress from the Franklin County District, believed that

that body would report a bill dividing the new territory

on the "36-30 principle" and "could not under any cir-

cumstances be induced to vote for an extension of

slavery over another foot of territory."³1 General Tay-

lor, he said, would stand by the will of Congress, veto-

ing only in case of unconstitutionality. Cass would veto

any bill containing the Wilmot Proviso while Taylor

was pledged to approve any bill passed by Congress, not

clearly unconstitutional. To Duncan the situation was

very clear; he was a Taylor man. To Root and Camp-

bell, neither candidate of the two old parties seemed

possible.³² Accordingly the Ohio State Journal treated

them both to a liberal course of hazing. Dr. Alexander

Duncan of Cincinnati based his candidacy for Congress

 

29 Free Soil Banner, October 10, 1848.

30 Ohio State Journal, August 17, 1848.

31 Ohio State Journal, August 3, 1848.

32 Hamilton Intelligencer, August 3, 1848.

• 80
 

268      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

on ground similar to the Plain Dealer views -- for Cass

and the Wilmot Proviso. Such a position seems nearly

as untenable as the Whig editors painted it.³³

The presidential campaign was energetic and full

of the usual amount of petty recriminations.³⁴ Against

Cass it was alleged that he had dined at the public table

until he was enormously rich, and that he had sponsored

in the Northwest Territory legislation to effect the sale

of white vagabonds into slavery.³⁵ At this time, the

Democratic candidate was very stout in figure and the

Whigs affected to credit this to his alleged "ten rations

a day" as commissioner of Indian affairs.³⁶ Long

tables were published disclosing fabulous sums which

he had drawn in salary and perquisites from the Na-

tional Government. Of Taylor, it was said that he had

insulted the Ohio volunteers by his reprimand of a cer-

tain soldier from Coshocton who had stolen chickens in

Mexico, and that he owned land between the Nueces

and the Rio Grande.³⁷ The fact that the American party

had recommended him at one time for President was

used to identify him with the nativist doctrine. Pam-

phlets in the German language were distributed by the

Democrats to broadcast this information.³⁸ Extrava-

gant verbiage featured the hand-bills that were circu-

lated to stimulate the voter to action. One announcing

an address to be given by Alexander Duncan at Leb-

anon, describes Thomas Corwin as "licking the blood

 

33 Ohio State Journal, July 17, 1848.

34 Some of these accusations were based on fact; others were undoubt-

edly the fabrications of prejudiced minds.

35 Ohio State Journal, October 18, 1848.

36 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

37 Ohio Statesman, August 3, 1848.

38 Ohio State Journal, October 21, 1848.

• 81
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio                                        269 from the sword of General Zachary Taylor."39                              An- other playing on the theme of military glory, depicts the speaker, John B. Weller, as about to "stand up in your midst and take counsel with you, more fearless than

when standing on the blood-red field of Monterey when death yawned and blood flowed on every side."40 The declarations and conduct of the two candidates 39 Hand-bill announcing meeting at Lebanon, to be addressed by Alex- ander Duncan, July 14, 1848.    Bound with "Scott Battery and Other Papers," Ohio State Library. 40 Hand-bill announcing a meeting to be addressed by John B. Weller, June 24, 1848, at Sidney, Ohio.  Bound with "Scott Battery and Other Papers," Ohio State Library.

• 82
 

270      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

for governor followed rather faithfully the example set

by the presidential aspirants. Coming from the West-

ern Reserve, it seems to have been pretty generally felt

by the Whigs that Ford was against slavery and for

the Wilmot Proviso.   His silence, however, was as

marked as that of General Taylor; he seems to have

been committed to the policy of watchful waiting. If

he had any tendency to defend Taylor's principles, he

was justified in waiting for a declaration of them. As

for Weller, his speeches generally showed a desire to

interpret according to his needs the views expressed in

the Nicholson Letter. For instance, in an address at

Columbus on August 14, he thus dealt with the argu-

ment of Cass:   "Slavery existed in Louisiana when

purchased and in Texas when annexed; but the terri-

tory we have now acquired from Mexico is free terri-

tory and unless Congress establish slavery there it can

never exist there."⁴¹  In so much, according to his

Columbus speech, he disagreed with Cass. He goes on

to distinguish between the Wilmot Proviso and the Ordi-

nance of 1787 by saying that the latter is a compact while

the former might be repealed by the next Congress if

passed. He added, however, that he was opposed to any

interference with slavery. His question -- What is

the difference between Cass and Van Buren on the

slavery question, anyway? -- was evidently intended to

placate anti-slavery sentiment.

The two candidates for the office of governor were

of exactly opposite types. Weller, of Butler County,

was a successful politician and had served in the House

of Representatives from the Butler District when

 

41 Ohio State Journal, August 19, 1848.

• 83
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio        271

scarcely of legal age.42 Coming into Ohio as a young

man, he practised law after studying in the office of

Jesse Corwin, whom he afterwards defeated for the of-

fice of County Prosecutor. He seems to have been a

rather brilliant man, and his rise in politics was rapid

and spectacular up to the time of his race for the gov-

ernorship. His chief adversary in Butler County was

Lewis Campbell, the Whig bolter. In their youth, at

the time when both were strangers in Ohio, they had

shared the same room and the same bed at Hamilton.

Afterwards they were pitted against each other in the

race for the office of representative and Weller was the

victor. Since there had been so much activity in the

past, the Whigs experienced little difficulty in finding

rents in his garments. Grave irregularities in the ad-

ministration of local offices were charged against him,

and the method of attack was rude and brutal -- the

more so in that gross exaggeration was resorted to.

In his record in Congress, however, certain things

were pointed out that tended to show sympathy with the

slavery interests. He had introduced a measure cen-

suring Joshua Giddings for having presented resolu-

tions defining the power and duty of the general gov-

ernment in regard to slavery in the territories.43 No

less than three times in the session of 1842 he had voted

with the South to lay on the table the bill to do away

with the celebrated Twenty-first Rule regarding slavery

that was so long opposed by John Quincy Adams.44

"There is perhaps no man in Ohio," writes the State

 

42 Bartlow, B. S., et al., "A History of Butler County," 914-915.

43 Journal of House of Representatives, Twenty-seventh Cong., 2d

Sess., 571.

44 Ohio State Journal, August 31, 1848.

• 84
 

272      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Journal man, "who is a more uncompromising supporter

of slavery and more unequivocally opposed to its ex-

tinction or restriction than John B. Weller of Butler

County. In his stump speeches in the southern part of

the state he denounces the Jefferson Proviso as a hum-

bug."⁴⁵ If Weller was a friend of slavery he did not

allow it to appear in his speeches in Columbus and in

the northern part of the State. At Maumee City and

Elyria and elsewhere on the Reserve, he contented him-

self with calling the Wilmot Proviso unnecessary.46

Seabury Ford came with his parents from West

Mountain, Connecticut, to Ohio as a youth.47 He is

said to have been one of the first two Ohio students at

Yale University, the other being his friend, the Rev-

erend D. Witter. At Yale he was a classmate of the

uncle of Rutherford B. Hayes. Returning to Ohio he

studied law under Samuel Phelps of Painesville and

later with his uncle, Judge Hitchcock. He was after-

wards successful as a lawyer but never became wealthy

and retained a great love for the country and for farm-

ing. He served two terms in the Ohio Senate, where

he had been twice speaker. He had also been Speaker

of the Ohio House. Much was made of his record by

the Whigs, who loved to refer to him as "cheesedom's"

candidate, meaning that he came from the Reserve and

from.the midst of a dairy country. His simplicity and

rural New England prudence were also much celebrated.

His political record in the State of Ohio was undoubt-

edly good. On matters of currency and banking his

head seems to have been level; he vigorously opposed

 

45 Ohio State Journal, August 31, 1848.

46 Quoting Elyria Courier, Ibid., July 8, 1848.

47 Ibid., July 31, 1848.

• 85
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     273

the celebrated Plunder Acts of 1837 and 1840. In 1844,

Ford had supported Clay. The Democratic press of the

period cast few or no reflections on his integrity and

honesty -- a pretty safe indication that his character

was above reproach. Mr. Riddle's comment on his po-

litical career has every appearance of justification.48

"Few men in Ohio had so long a period of service in

the legislature. No one was, on the whole, so useful

to the State. At his entrance upon public life, the State

was groaning under an enormous debt for expensive,

unfinished, and generally unproductive canals. She

was without any system of finance either as to banks

or taxation and her system of common schools was rudi-

mentary."49  It would be too much to attribute the

amelioration of these conditions to any one man. How-

ever, in the matter of banking at least, even the most

conservative Democrats have little to say against the

program that had been strongly advocated by Ford in

the Whig Party. Chase refers to it with approval in

his correspondence.50

On the matter of currency, Mr. Ford believed that

the state should establish and maintain a banking sys-

tem that would furnish a uniform currency. To this

end he worked during his period of legislative activity

along with the leaders of his party. The Baltimore Sun

says of the Ohio banking system in 1848: "The State

Bank of Ohio has become the most important money

institution on this continent. With thirty-seven branch-

es covering the whole State all bound together with

one common interest, and in all important respects all

48 Riddle, Albert G., "A History of Geauga County."

49 Ibid.

50 Dodson, loc. cit.

Vol. XXXVI--18.

• 86
 

274      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

governed by one head, the Board of Control, it now is-

sues five and a half millions of currency and sustains

an accommodation line, in the way of notes and bills

discounted, of several millions, holds two millions of

specie, and has a cash capital of three million, four hun-

dred thousand."⁵¹ The Board of Control consisted of

a president and delegate from each branch of the State

Bank and had care over the affairs of the respective

branches for the faithful administration of which all

of them were jointly and severally liable. The State

Bank issued paper only through its branches. A rule

was adopted at the meeting of the Board of Control on

July 18, 1848, requiring each branch to keep on hand

in its own vaults the amount of gold and silver coin re-

quired by law as a basis of its issue.⁵² This rule was

alleged to dispense with the necessity of deposits in

Eastern Banks as a basis of circulation. The stand of

Weller and the Democratic press on the subject of banks

has already been the subject of consideration. At a

late session of the State Legislature, a law had been

passed forbidding any officer of the State Banks of Ohio

to pay out over his counter bills of any bank located

outside the State of Ohio. The Democrats used this

law to rebuke the Whigs who had supported a state

system by the argument that it would keep out of the

State of Ohio doubtful paper from the banks of other

states.⁵³ Exemption from taxation for the State Bank

bills of Ohio and certain other discrimination in regard

to taxing bank property, which proceeding had been

urged by the Whigs for the same reason, was likewise

51 Baltimore Sun quoted in Ohio State Journal, July 17, 1848.

52 Ibid., July  18, 1848.

53 Ohio Statesman, March 8, 1848.

• 87
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio        275

criticised as failing to produce the desired result. The

Democratic state platform contained condemnation of

this alleged favoritism. It is significant that the organ

of the Whig State Central Committee, in its report of

the resolutions, omits this clause of the platform, while

it appears in the report of the Ohio Statesman.54

After the failure of the Wooster Bank, the Whig

press engaged in an amusing controversy with the

Democratic papers as to which party was responsible

for the charter and general legislation under which it

was organized.55 It appears from these charges and

countercharges, inasmuch as neither denies facts

brought forth by the other, that Whigs participated in

the chartering of the Bank and later in the relaxing of

the rule requiring that transfers of stock be made only

on the books, in favor of the Wooster institution. Laws

regarding banking for which the Whigs received credit

were those requiring that individual liability of stock-

holders obtain,56 that deposits be held in eastern banks

to cover drafts, and that certain safeguards be taken

concerning the transfer of bank stock.57 The individual

liability clause was inserted, so the Whigs declared,

under Democratic pressure, and they hastened to charge

that the Wooster stockholders were themselves busy

decrying the bank's paper so that they might buy it at

a debased value.58 To all these charges made against

their ideas on state banking and finance the Democrats

had replied by nominating "hard money Weller" and

 

54  Ohio Statesman, January 10, 1848. See also, Ohio State Journal,

January 10, 1848.

55 Ohio Statesman, April 18, 1848.

56 Ohio. Acts of a General Nature, 1843-1844.

57 Ibid., loc. cit.

58 Ohio State Journal, May 2, 1848.

• 88
 

276      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

turning down Judge Wood because he was not "hard"

enough.59 If, however, the State Banking system of

Ohio deserved any of the praise so abundantly bestowed

on it by the Baltimore Sun there is no doubt that some

of that praise went also to the credit of Ford.

The views of the Whig candidate for governor on

state policy were largely a matter of record. He came

from the Reserve and the Democratic press does not

charge him with general opinions on slavery in its

local aspect, that are in any way different from those

of his section. Weller on this point, however, may be

justly charged with having straddled the local issue and

at least with having followed Cass on the national issues

if he did not agree with every respect of his doctrine. It

could hardly be expected of him that he would be in

favor of repealing the Black Laws. Ford was not so

definite on national questions, no more definite than

was Taylor. His silence seemed too profound to be en-

tirely genuine. His adversaries affected to translate it

in the way most satisfactory to their ambitions. The

difference in the maneuvers of the two candidates is

clear. Weller attempted to please both the northern and

southern parts of the state on slavery and the Black

Laws, but in general stayed with the leader of the na-

tional ticket on federal issues. Ford's stand on local

issues was a matter of record but on political policies

and candidates he chose to be silent. The practical point

involved concerns the relative merits of silence and dis-

simulation when one is in close quarters.

The Democrats in Ohio were urging, on state mat-

ters, some other policies which tend to unite them in

 

59 Ohio State Journal, June 16, 1848.

• 89
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio        277

sentiment with a movement that had begun much earlier

in the East. Taken in connection with that movement,

the anti-bank stand and the other matters about to be

mentioned present themselves as part of a larger design.

The Ohio Statesman thought that the State ought to

make a new constitution and that that constitution ought

to contain a clause against state banks, a reform of the

judiciary, and a clause providing for the election of more

of the state officers by the people. Among the officers

mentioned are auditor of state, judges, clerk of courts,

and board of public works. To these the friends of the

negro, both Whig and Democratic, added protective

measures that would dispense with the Black Laws.60

This program is uniform in being a consistent de-

mand for more democracy in the state government. The

anti-bank idea belongs with the other suggestions for

the reason that in the minds of the common people gov-

ernment banking was often allied with corrupt policy.

The defense of the veto on the ground that the president

is the people's tribune is also consistent with this posi-

tion. A great number of constitutions were thus

changed in the western states between the initiation of

the Equal Rights or Locofoco movement and 1850. The

persistence of the name "Locofoco" as applied to the

Ohio Democrats by the Whig papers, is in itself evi-

dence of this liaison.61 The proposal for a new constitu-

tion was warmly opposed and even scouted by the

Whigs.62

A certain impetus was given to this demand by some

60 Ohio Statesman, March 10, 1848. See also Ohio State Journal, Feb-

ruary 7, 1848.

61 Trimble, Wm., "Diverging Tendencies in the New York Democracy

in the Period of the Locofocos." 396-421.

62 Ohio State Journal, February 22, 1848.

• 90
 

278      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

events that had occurred in the Ohio Legislature in

January of 1848. An apportionment bill was passed by

the Whig House and sent to the Senate against the op-

position of the Democrats. It provided for dividing

Hamilton County into two districts for purposes of rep-

resentation in the State Assembly, in such a way as to

give the Whigs a certain preponderance.⁶³ The Loco-

focos immediately decried the bill as a violation of the

State Constitution, which provided for representatives

and Senators to be "apportioned among the several

counties according to the number of white male inhab-

itants above twenty-one years of age in each."⁶⁴ This

practice of dividing a county had never been resorted

to before, but the Whigs claimed that if the legislature

could unite several counties it might also divide a single

county. On February 11, when the bill came up to the

Senate, that body disagreed to certain amendments

made in the House after the report of the joint commit-

tee and after the Senate had already passed the measure

in its original form. A prominent Democratic Senator,

Dr. Edson B. Olds of Circleville, immediately left the

Senate.⁶⁵ The question was not pressed to a vote at that

time, but came up again on the fourteenth. The Senate

was about to vote on the question raised by the House

amendments when fourteen other Democratic Senators

followed the example of Olds on the eleventh and with-

drew leaving the body without a quorum.⁶⁶

The action of the "Absquatulators," as they were

called, was prompted by the conviction that the Demo-

 

63 Ohio State Journal, February 10, 1848.

64 Ohio Constitution, 1803.

65 Ohio State Journal, April 13, 1848.

66 Ibid., February 14, 1848.

• 91
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      279

crats were being cheated out of the dominance which

they enjoyed in Hamilton County, by a violation of the

constitution of the State. Only two Democrats remained

in the Senate--Edward Archbold and Nicholas Spind-

ler. The fifteen repaired to a room in the American

Hotel where they held an indignation meeting and took

certain action alleged by the Whig papers to have been

"revolutionary."67 The bill was signed by the Speaker

of the Senate after its return with the offensive amend-

ments removed, however, and the Whigs universally ac-

claimed it as law. The Democratic papers pointed out

that it had not been passed the second time, that is, after

its return to the Senate, but had become law by signa-

ture of the Speaker of the Senate when that body was

not legally in session. The Whigs reverted to its pas-

sage in the first instance, when everything was ap-

proved save the amendments, to prove its genuineness.⁶⁸

Feeling ran high and the remarks of the Democrats

were outrageous and bitter. Colonel Weller is alleged

to have stated at Eaton that if the Locofocos succeeded

in getting a majority of the popular votes of the state

in the elections, they would have a modification of the

Apportionment Law, "if it had to be done at the point

of the bayonet."69 A county paper reports that Mr.

Byers of Wayne County, who was one of the fif-

teen, avowed that it was their intention to resist with

force any effort of the Senate to compel their attend-

ance. While riding home on the stage-coach, he was

said to have declared that the "Absquatulators" had

 

67 Ohio State Journal, March 9, 1848.

68 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

69 Cincinnati Gazette, March 11, 1848. See also Dayton Journal and

Eaton Register quoted in Ohio State Journal, March 13, 1848.

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280      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

armed themselves in Room 18, American Hotel, for

that purpose.⁷⁰

It would require a very detailed account to follow

the current of editorial comment on this move of pro-

test. The Whigs were furious and charged their ad-

versaries with desiring a bloody Revolution. They com-

pared the "Absquatulators" to the Revolutionists then

agitating French politics, referring to the alleged boss of

the Democratic Party in Ohio as "Citizen Sammedary,"

and to his colleague whose name was Mat Martin, as

"Matmartine."  Nearly every set of local Whig reso-

lutions drawn up after January 10 contains bitter de-

nunciations of the "Absquatulators," the nefarious fif-

teen who wanted to overthrow the government of the

state. Spindler and Archbold were painted in glorious

settings in the Whig papers while their Democratic

brethren flayed them as traitors. Archbold sent out

cards to his constituents defending his action and charg-

ing the fifteen with servile obedience to Dr. Olds and

Sam Medary, the latter of whom he alleged to be the

genius of this doubtful coup.71 The Democratic stand

is declared with virulence by the Ohio Statesman. "Ohio

has no apportionment law. The Democratic members, to

their honor be it spoken, defeated the damnable tin-pan

project. Let the Whigs elect under it if they dare;--

let them attempt to carry out this high-handed and dan-

gerous scheme. But before they do so, let them inquire

whether such an attempt will be peacefully submitted to,

or whether it will end in violence and anarchy."72

On the tenth of May, the irate Democracy met in

 

70 Summit Beacon quoted in Ohio State Journal, March 11, 1848.

71 Cincinnati Gazette, March 15, 1848.

72 Ohio Statesman, March 10, 1848.

• 93
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     281

convention at Columbus to determine what should be

done in so grave a crisis. They took a revolutionary

step in imitation of their French prototypes, by the cre-

ation of a committee which was dubbed the Committee

of Public Safety. It was composed of prominent men

from different localities whose task was to hold the

members of the party in line for the execution of the

action decided on at Columbus, and to meet on occasion

to confer for the public good. There were twenty-one

men in all on this committee, among them A. E. Wood,

Clement L. Vallandigham, and Sam Medary.⁷³ Their

resolutions called on Governor Bebb to convene the Leg-

islature for the passage of an apportionment law. In

case he failed to do so, the resolutions recommended

"ulterior measures."  The latter expression was then

defined to mean that the Democrats would vote under

the Whig Apportionment Law, electing as many of their

legislative candidates as possible. Then these candidates

were to refuse to serve, which action would put an end

to the law-making power provided for in the then Con-

stitution. It would then, the resolutions stated, devolve

on the sovereign people to frame a new constitution. In

case of the Governor's refusal, provision was made to

assemble a state convention in December to devise means

of sounding the people on the subject of a new constitu-

tion.⁷⁴ The language of the resolutions seems unduly

serious and marked by a frivolous elevation of tone.

The fact is, many Democrats took exception to the spirit

of the program, and Mr. Sherer of Ross County went

 

73 Ohio Statesman, May 12, 1848.

74 Resolutions of the Convention reported in Ohio Statesman, loc. cit.

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282      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

on record as opposing the expression, "ulterior meas-

ures."75

It is not hard to see why the Whigs put the Demo-

crats to the trouble of a revolution in order to defend

themselves. It must be remembered that the complex-

ion of the next state legislature was not the only stake

involved. At that time the local legislature chose a host

of State officers now elected by the people. Moreover,

this was the year for electing a man to succeed Wm.

Allen, "Ohio's tall Senator." The Lima Argus reports

that only one Whig was found in Hamilton County to

defend the Apportionment Law. He said that "the

Whigs were in a tight place and had to strain a point

to get out of a bad snap.^"76 To the Democrats, how-

ever, the whole fiasco seems to have occurred as a gol-

den opportunity to foist a Locofoco constitution on the

people. Their most genuine reaction, perhaps, was one

of bitter resentment, although it is well known that the

question of a new constitution was taken up in earnest

a few years later.

Such was the condition of politics in Ohio when in

midsummer the prospect of a third party loomed up on

the eastern horizon. The Whigs at first seem to half

welcome the approaching spectre, fearing the Devil less

for their own sins than for those of their neighbors.

The Ohio State Journal wrote: "A terrible punishment

sooner or later awaits the party that for mere lust of

power, becomes derelict of principle. Mr. Van Buren,

to the Locofocos, is the embodiment of that truth which

in 1844 the party abandoned. At first the little cloud he

rode upon was no bigger than the human hand but it

75 Ohio State Journal, May 12, 1848.

76 Lima Argus, quoted in Ohio Statesman, March 10, 1848.

• 95
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     283

reaches now far and wide about the horizon -- the low

roar in the distant sky is now detected to be thunder."77

The same paper, however, did not fail to scourge the

Whig bolters, Root, Campbell, and Giddings, for their

cruel apostasy, but thought the Free Soilers would only

draw upon those Democrats who had been Van Buren

men from the start.⁷⁸ "There are thousands in Ohio

who looked toward the Buffalo Convention with hope,"

he adds, "who since it has acted will turn their backs

upon the nominee.^"79 The Free Soilers, however, had

made no promises on the matter, and their campaign

opened in Columbus with the establishment of E. S.

Hamlin's Ohio Standard, a paper at the head of whose

editorial columns appear the names of Van Buren and

Adams as candidates, together with the letter of Gen-

eral Jackson recommending the former as Polk's suc-

cessor.⁸⁰

Thereafter during the campaign, while not ceasing

to point out that Van Buren's rod was for the backs of

the Democrats especially, the Journal man attacked the

Free Soiler with a virulence too genuine to be disinter-

ested. Not only did he criticize the omission of the Dis-

trict of Columbia anti-slavery declaration in the Buf-

falo platform, but he went back into the past of "Little

Van" to trot before the public the dark shades of what

he called a pro-slavery career. Thus the Whigs put in

evidence Van Buren's inaugural address as President in

which he opposed the abolition of slavery in the District

 

77 Ohio State Journal, August 5, 1848.

78 Ibid., August 1, 1848.

79 Ibid, August 12, 1848.

80 Ohio Standard, August 12, 1848.

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284      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

and promised to veto such a bill if passed.⁸1 Likewise

his vote as Vice-President, when the Senate was tied on

the bill which permitted a censorship of the mails in

the interest of the slavery power, was the subject of

comment.⁸2 The Free Soil Banner pointed out in answer

to this what was manifestly true, since the accuser him-

self put it that way, that the vote was merely a vote of

courtesy to allow the engrossing of the bill.⁸³ It was

likewise recalled to Giddings that he had made a speech

in the House bitterly criticising Van Buren for his ac-

tion in extorting a large sum from the British govern-

ment in payment for slaves aboard the Comet and En-

comium.84

The Anti-Slavery people, according to the tenor of

the Whig press, had prostituted their integrity and bar-

tered away their principles for the sake of gain. The

charge of insincerity was freely made against the Barn-

burners, who in the state of New York "adhered to all

the ancient absurdities and abuses of Locofocoism.^"85

They were, moreover, noticed to be "absorbing the Abo-

litionists and making an organization to put into power

their own leaders."⁸⁶ A correspondent of the Signal,

the Ohio Barnburner organ, wrote that the Barnburn-

ers could not support Ford because he was a bank man,

a Whig, and "thoroughly committed to the miserable

system of state policy which has prevailed in Ohio for

the past five years." He decided also against Weller,

and added that neither could they support a Liberty

81  Richardson, Jas. D., "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," Vol.

IV, 1535.

82 Ohio State Journal, August 18, 1848.

83 Hamilton Free Soil Banner, September 25, 1848.

84 Ohio State Journal, August 17, 1848.

85 Ibid., July 23, 1848.

86 Ohio State Journal, loc. cit.

• 97
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      285

candidate if there were one, since the Liberty men fav-

ored laws preventing the arrest of fugitive slaves, while

the demand of the Barnburners was for a law creating

a state independent treasury system.⁸⁷ The Free Soil-

ers waged an energetic campaign at any rate, deter-

mined to make themselves felt. In regard to the Presi-

dency, E. S. Hamlin declared the big aim to be to throw

the election into the House where he thought "we might

trust Mr. Van Buren to do the rest by cheating," an

evident pleasantry which was repeated in several

towns.⁸⁸

In this campaign of publicity for the Free Soil

Party, Chase was exceedingly active. On the twenty-

fourth of July, with Keith, he addressed a meeting in

the Market House at Columbus in which he labored to

prove that the Whigs of the North were not bound by

the action of the Party, and spoke of having heard at

meetings of both the old parties free territory spoken of

as a policy of each.⁸⁹ Later in the campaign, he toured

the Reserve in an effort to detach the Whigs and Demo-

crats there from their allegiance. At the same time Gid-

dings was in the Miami Valley on the same errand. Ac-

cording to the Whig press, neither was meeting with the

success anticipated.⁹⁰ Chase admitted that his attempts

to detach the Democrats on the Reserve from their

moorings were not very much appreciated, and assigned

as the reason that the Free Soil Whigs whom Corwin

tempted back encouraged many of the Barnburners to

drop back to Cass.⁹¹ The failure in regard to the Demo-

 

87 Cincinnati Signal, quoted in Ohio State Journal, August 10, 1848.

88 Ohio State Journal, August 7, 1848.

89 Ibid., July 25, 1848.

90 Ibid., October 4, 1848.

91 Dodson, loc. cit.

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286      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

crats seems to have been the most surprising feature in

Chase's own mind.

As to the general situation in regard to the governor-

ship, it, like everything else, was highly speculative at

this time. Ford's reticence continued despite the efforts

of the Democratic press to force statements from him.

To the eager interrogatories of such papers as the Ohio

Statesman and the Cleveland Plain Dealer about how he

intended to vote he replied with sphinx like composure

that he "would vote by ballot."⁹² George Fries, a Demo-

cratic congressman, writing to Howell Cobb of condi-

tions in Ohio, thus treated the possibilities of Ford:

"Weller thinks, and all appearances now indicate, that

Ford's prospects are daily declining. He, thus far, has

not dared to define his position. Let him do that either

for Taylor or Van Buren and the game is up."⁹³ He

mentioned also having toured the Reserve with Weller

and having attended with him the largest mass meeting

he ever saw, at Youngstown. Here he says he was as-

sured by the best men of "our party" that while Van

Burenism was eating out the vitals of Whiggery, "it

would take it as long to fatten off what it gets from De-

mocracy as it would have required those asses to have

fattened, that are said in the Good Old Book to have

snuffed up the east wind."⁹⁴ Early in July, Chase had

written to Ford in order to draw from him a statement

as to "his present anomalous position in regard to Gen-

eral Taylor," a pose which was causing the Free Soilers

to resolve to withhold support from the Whig candidate.

He urged upon Ford the danger of his position and the

92 Ohio State Journal, August 11, 1848.

93 Phillips, op. cit., 124-125.

94 Phillips, loc. cit.

• 99
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      287

risk that he was running in losses from both sides on

the slavery issue.⁹⁵

Meantime the Whigs were busy demonstrating, as

has been already pointed out, the rapprochement which

they affected to see between the Democrats and Free

Soilers. An editor of a Whig paper mentioned having

met members of the Free Democracy who were candid

enough to admit that they had no hopes of electing Van

Buren, and who freely acknowledged that a vote for

him was a vote for Cass.⁹⁶ This statement was also

accredited to Hamlin, who of the two old party candi-

dates was reported to have said that he preferred Cass.⁹⁷

In support of this alleged conspiracy, the Whig press

of Columbus referred sarcastically to the manifestations

of friendship between Medary and John Van Buren on

the occasion of the latter's visit to that city. This seems

rather unlikely for there is no reason to believe that the

Van Burens would want to go out of their way to elect

Cass. It is more logical to believe that they would have

preferred to elect Taylor if they were at all influenced by

personal motives. Moreover, in Portage County,⁹⁸ to

use one example, and in other quarters of which men-

tion will be made later, there were many instances of

Whigs and Free Soilers uniting on the same candidates,

whereas few examples of the alignment of Democrats

and Free Soilers were mentioned in the press of any

of the parties. One other ambition of the Free Soilers

appeared in a letter to the Cincinnati Herald, and it in-

dicated that they were no more asleep on certain mat-

 

95 Dodson, op. cit. 125.

96 Ohio State Journal, September 7, 1848.

97 Ibid., August 8, 1848.

98 Ohio State Journal, August 28, 1848.

• 100
 

288      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ters than the proponents of the Apportionment Law.

It stated as follows: "Every member of the next legis-

lature from the Reserve, will be a Van Buren man.

Holding the balance of power as they will, I trust that

the place William Allen has occupied heretofore in the

United States Senate will be filled by a Free Soil man,

such a man as Giddings, Chase, Tappan, Campbell, or

Delano."⁹9

Early in October the state election was held, and it

revealed some conditions that put out the flame of

speculation on some of these matters. When the earlier

returns had come in on the fourteenth, it was seen that

the election had been a close one. The Ohio State Jour-

nal was claiming a plurality of 3,033 for Ford on the

basis of these incomplete returns, and that the Senate

would be equally balanced between Whigs and Loco-

focos, while in the House there would be a Whig major-

ity of four.100 It will be seen, however, that this state-

ment was made on the premises most favorable to Whig

pretensions. On the sixteenth, that paper was willing to

concede the possibility of Weller's election, but repeated

its former convictions regarding the Senate and the

House.¹⁰¹ By October 20th, the Anti-Slavery Bugle had

practically accepted the election of Weller, and hoped

"that if such be the case it will teach Ford that keeping

mum is a poor policy.^"102

The official return of the figures of the election was

published October 27, 1848, and showed a narrow plu-

rality for Ford, although the Democrats continued to

 

99 Cincinnati Herald, quoted in Ohio State Journal, September 13, 1848.

100 Ohio State Journal, October 14, 1848.

101 Ibid., October 16, 1848.

102 Anti-Slavery Bugle, October 20, 1848.

• 101
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio      289

claim the election for Weller on the basis of alleged

irregularities until the inauguration of the new gov-

ernor.¹⁰³ This report gave Ford 148,666 votes to Wel-

ler's 148,321, or a plurality of 345 votes. These figures

are used by Mr. Smith, and were taken by him from

the Cleveland True Democrat of December, 1848.104

Thus Ford carried thirty-nine counties and in some of

them his margin was very small indeed. His adversary

carried forty-four counties. Among them were Ham-

ilton, Wayne, Stark, Richland, all counties with fairly

heavy populations. In 1846, Bebb had likewise carried

thirty-nine counties but out of a smaller total number.

His plurality was 2,385, not at all large, but larger than

that of Ford.105 On the Reserve, Ford carried Ashta-

bula, Cuyahoga, Erie, Geauga, Huron, Lake, Lorain,

Medina, Portage, and Trumbull counties. Mahoning

and Summit, Ashland and Ottawa, he lost, but they

were counties large portions of which were outside the

Reserve. His plurality in the different Reserve coun-

ties did not much vary from that of Bebb and in Huron

county it was exactly the same.

The study of these figures shows one thing clearly

-- that Ford had not received the anticipated gains that

the Whigs had believed would come from the Free Soil-

ers, who between Weller and Ford, it would seem, ought

to choose the latter. He had not committed himself suf-

ficiently to justify Free Soil Democrats of the Free Soil

ranks in voting for him, according to their own judg-

ment. The voters had therefore remained largely in

 

103 Report of election returns over name of Sam'l Galloway, Secretary

of State, in Ohio State Journal, October 27, 1848.

104 Smith, op. cit., 153.

105 Smith, loc. cit.

Vol. XXXVI--19.

• 102
 

290      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

their old attachments. Such would seem to be the only

possible inference. As for Weller, his position was suf-

ficiently known to enable him to profit by the strength

of his national leader.

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

A CONSIDERATION OF THE ELECTION RETURNS

The effect of these state figures on the Whigs in

Ohio was the same as that of a bolt of lightning on

the senses of a torpid sleeper. It became clear to them

that the plain truth of the situation was that the Free

Soilers had not drawn so heavily from the Democrats

after all. They felt themselves betrayed, outraged, and

duped, having tickled their vanity with the false hope

of gains for Ford and the Whigs from the weakening

of the Locofocos by the Free Soil eddy.¹ Casting about

for reasons acceptable to their self respect, the Whigs

tried to make it appear that more Free Soilers had voted

for Weller than for Ford.² Since Weller's position on

slavery was well known, this is a manifest absurdity.

The facts seem to show that, aided by a large part of

the Free Soil votes, the Whig candidate was just able

to win and nothing more. It was thus conceivable that

many Free Soilers who had been formerly Whigs, and

had voted for Ford because he was considered to repre-

sent the lesser of the two evils, would now go for Van

Buren. The only possibility that could check that move

would be the survival of an early Whig antipathy to the

"Little Magician." The only conclusion that bears the

 

1 Ohio State Journal, October 21, 1848.

2 Ibid., November 2, 1848.

• 103
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     291

appearance of justification is that the dominance of the

Whigs in Ohio, a matter of record since 1836, was weak-

ening; that the history of the period was witnessing the

senility and approaching decay of a party. How else

may the drop from a plurality of three thousand odd

in BeLb's campaign to three hundred odd in Ford's case

be explained, especially when the presumption naturally

is that Ford's vote contained some Free Soil constitu-

ency? For how could anyone who was consistently a

Free Soiler, either Locofoco or Whig, vote for Weller?

This conclusion appears all the more accurate when

we take into account the blows that had already been

delivered against the party, blows the most dangerous

of which had come from within its own ranks. In his

biography of Joshua Giddings, George W. Julian de-

clared that the opposition of that Ohio Congressman

to the speakership of Robert Winthrop in the House was

the beginning of the crumbling of Whig integrity.³

Color is lent to that view by the rancid bitterness with

which the party organs rebuke Giddings. He had vis-

ited Massachusetts in company with Campbell, Profes-

sor Mahan, and other Free Soilers and opponents of

Taylor, and had gone into Mr. Winthrop's district

"where," so states the Ohio State Journal, "a little re-

flection might have convinced him that he was unwel-

come."⁴ The Free Soil papers, however, applauded his

action in causing the defeat of the Massachusetts man.5

The attitude of Root and Campbell has already been

the subject of comment. The latter will be observed to

have been a consistent adversary of the Philadelphia

 

3 Julian, Geo. W., "Life of Joshua Giddings," 255-257.

4 Ohio State Journal, July 24, 1848.

5 Anti-Slavery Bugle, January 21, 1848.

• 104
 

292      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

nominee from the important hour of the meeting in the

Museum lecture-room to the eve of the national election.

His career during 1848 bears a great resemblance to

that of Giddings. Both are marked by great integrity,

both are energetic and successful in politics, and both

base their ambitions firmly on the rock of their con-

stituents' affections. It is significant, also, that they

came out triumphant in their candidacy for the House

in the election of 1848. It has already been pointed out

that Campbell united in his following both old-line

Whigs and Free Soilers.⁶ Although the Whig papers

were malicious and vindictive in their criticism of Gid-

dings, yet they affected to congratulate him on receiv-

ing the Whig nomination for Congress, daring to hope

that he would find Taylor more acceptable than Van

Buren.⁷ Taken together with similar alignments on

candidates in Portage and other counties and the oft-

repeated counsels of the Free Soil press to its constitu-

ents not to waste their votes on men who couldn't be

elected, these circumstances prove another point.⁸ They

tend to show that the Whig plaints about betrayal by the

Free Soilers are mere sophistry.

As a result of the unexpected outcome in October,

Ohio became the cynosure of Whig eyes all over the

nation. All was anxiety and activity and the air was

full of cries beseeching help for the party in Ohio.

Horace Greeley had sulked in his tent after the defeat

of Clay -- had gone back "across New Jersey alone and

on foot," full of bitter memories of the Philadelphia

 

6 Free Soil Banner, August 21, 1848.

7 Ohio State Journal, August 25, 1848.

8 Free Soil Banner, August 21, 1848,

• 105
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     293

coup.⁹ His wounds grew better during the summer,

however, and his reply to the Ohio State election was

a long and eloquent letter calling on the Whigs of the

Buckeye commonwealth to gird their loins for action.

This letter was published broadcast in the papers and

the country was flooded with copies of the New York

Tribune. "Will one of you sleep sweeter or sounder,

in the blaze of the bonfires, amid the roar of the can-

non proclaiming that Ohio has cast her vote with South

Carolina and Texas, and that your Jacobins may now

proceed to overturn your laws and take possession of

your state government by violence and intimidation --

by nullification and the sword?"¹⁰ Orators were im-

ported from Kentucky to declare, as did Governor Met-

calfe at London, that they "understood the fact that

General Taylor would not veto a Wilmot Proviso and

were going to vote for him anyway."¹¹ If Congress

chose to limit slavery to its present location he was

willing to abide by that behest. Seward came from New

York to make a hasty tour of Ohio in the interests of

the party. Truman Smith, Chairman of the National

Executive Committee, sent a circular into Ohio sagely

ordering the Whigs to "enter into no controversy on

the subject of Free Soil, for controversy is what the agi-

tators desire."¹² In a public letter to D. Gregory, of

Delaware County, he bitterly attacked Giddings for hav-

ing charged, according to information which had come

to him, that he (Smith) and Crittenden of Kentucky

were the actual authors of the Allison Letter.13 He drew

9 Dyer, op. cit.

10 Ohio State Journal, November 13, 1848.

¹¹ Ibid., October 9, 1848.

12 Anti-Slavery Bugle, October 20, 1848.

13 Ohio State Journal, November 1, 1848.

• 106
 

294      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

a fearful bill of particulars against the Cuyahoga man's

record in the House and went on to advise him that he

was really standing for Cass in supporting Van Buren.

A public letter of Giddings had charged Smith with hav-

ing supported the Amistad decision. He replied to this

in a public letter which was bitter, malicious, and prac-

tically insulting, but did not come to the point on the

real issue of the correspondence. In a reply Giddings

simply repeated his charges.14 It is not easy to over-

estimate the importance of Giddings in this campaign.

One cannot fail to be impressed with his activity, and

with the exactness with which he spoke the voice of his

constituency, nor is it possible to forget his strong sense

of probity.

He threw himself heart and soul into the struggle,

going everywhere to make speeches, writing letters to

the press, and exerting himself in every conceivable way

to bring about the triumph of his principles. The men

whom he had to meet on the Whig side were Corwin,

Ewing, Delano, and other important figures. In a way

he seems to have been, after the October election, the

especial object of attack.  Even in his own district,

where history gives much evidence of the esteem in which

he was held, his old teacher, Elijah Whittlesey, charged

him with having received illegal mileage while in Con-

gress. This charge was printed on leaflets and dis-

tributed all over the Cuyahoga District. His biographer

points out that it was not until 1857 that he was able to

disprove the assertion. The reason for this concerted

attack on him by the Whigs is not far to seek. Giddings

in a certain way represented the past, present, and fu-

 

14 Julian, loc. cit.

• 107
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     295

ture of the Free Soil Party, the group which the venom-

ous Whig papers held to account for the near defeat of

Ford.

They sent out scores of orators to address meetings

in all parts of the state, every day and evening. These

men varied in calibre from the two penny stumpers to

great men like Ewing, Goddard, and Corwin. The pa-

pers published their itineraries weeks in advance of

their appearance. Their assaults together with those

of the party newspapers were directed with great vio-

lence against Van Buren. It was even published of

him, besides matters heretofore referred to regarding

his political record, that he was himself interested in a

Southern plantation and drew a handsome income from

the investment.¹⁵ The charge appeared also that he

was, as his Barnburner constituency was declared to

be, at heart with the Democrats.  He was even de-

scribed by the Whigs as conspiring to elect Cass -- a

purely local and illogical view. In support of it, the

Ohio State Journal pointed to the many grievous re-

sults of the Free Soil apostasy. Discussing the defeat

of Mr. Duncan, Whig candidate for Congress and op-

ponent of slavery extension, by Sweetser, the Locofoco

candidate, and the defeat of Edwards in Pickaway by

Edson B. Olds, the "Absquatulator," he said the Free

Soilers were to blame for both conditions. He added

that the defeated candidates were as good Free Soil

men as either Root or Giddings. The votes given for

Birney in 1844 effected this result for the Whig na-

tional ticket, and there was no reason to expect any-

thing different at this time, since the conditions were

 

15 Julian, loc. cit.; also in Smith, op. cit., 152.

• 108
 

296      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications the same.16 Of the Free Soil Party in general the editor continued: "It does not elect its own candidates but it interferes in such a manner as to prevent the election of all who support its doctrines. It borrows a

doctrine of the Whig Party, which that party has kept in operation for a half century and attempts to patent it. It seeks to elect a people's President by the votes of a minority of the people."17 16 Ohio State Journal, October 17, 1848. 17 Ibid.

• 109
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     297

By many of his adversaries, Thomas Corwin, Ohio's

favorite son, was considered the most effective of the

Whig campaigners. His biographer speaks of Cor-

win's eloquence as of the histrionic type which, with his

well-known humor, must have made him valuable to

his party on a stumping tour. He was thrown into the

fight with great force, and his energy on behalf of the

Whigs was like that of Giddings for the Free Soilers.

During the summer months of 1848, he was everywhere

in Ohio. He worked on the Reserve;18 he was at Leb-

anon and Cincinnati; he made speeches at Columbus,

Cleveland, Elyria, Mansfield, and a number of smaller

towns.19 His famous speech against the Mexican War

had added to his popularity and made him as welcome

in Massachusetts as in Ohio.²⁰ He defended Taylor

and Taylor's stand on the Wilmot Proviso. With views

approaching those of McLean, he went over the length

and breadth of the Western Reserve asserting over

and over again: "I know he will not veto the Proviso."21

Chase admitted that he made some gains on the Free

Soilers and that he was hard to meet. At Cleveland

hand-bills were circulated by the Locofocos charging

him with treason and his adversaries dubbed him "Tay-

lor's chief jackal in Ohio."²²

An address at a meeting in Ashland is typical of

his answers to the opponents of Taylor. It is likewise

as clear an argument as could be made to persuade a

northern man of either party to vote for "Old Zach."

He made the open statement that he knew General Tay-

18 Ohio State Journal, October 18, 1848.

19 Ibid., October 20, 1848.

20 Ibid., August 15, 1848.

21 Dodson, op. cit., 143-145.

22 Anti-Slavery Bugle, October 20, 1848.

• 110
 

298     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

lor was opposed to the extension of slavery. A certain

Austin, being present, asked if it were not true that

Southern men urged his election because he was said

to be in favor of the extension of slavery. Corwin ad-

mitted that. Then he went on to say that if General

Taylor should publish his opinions in favor of the Pro-

viso, he would not get a southern vote; if he published

opinions against it, he would not receive a northern

vote. He was then asked if "we were to be made the

dupes of the southern men." He replied that he could

not answer, but that as for himself, "he was not de-

ceived." To these thoughts he added the argument that

"since we are equally divided into slave and free states

and as the whole South would vote against the Wilmot

Proviso, no law embracing the principles of the Ordi-

nance of 1787 could be passed in the Senate, unless we

had a Northern vice-president to give the casting vote."

He further declared that to vote for Van Buren was to

vote for Cass by indirection. This presentation of the

situation seems not far from accurate. The alternatives

before the voter who opposed the extension of slavery

were to vote for Van Buren, who could not possibly be

elected unless an improbable fortune should throw the

election into the House, or to vote for Taylor, trusting

that he was right on the Proviso -- to take a chance.

The former proceeding added a second element of risk

dependent on the currents of sentiment in the House,

should the election go there. The rational man hesi-

tating between two roads, one of which is attended with

double the risk of the other, knows which to choose.

The Ashland Sentinel reported, however, that at the end

of the speech the efforts of the Taylor men to raise ap-

• 111
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio     299 plause for him fell flat and that Ashland County wit- nessed an unusual thing -- a crowd that had to be in- vited to cheer Tom Corwin.23 Recalling that Ashland County had gone for Weller, it is clear that a shady

sentiment lay behind this lack of demonstration, for there is no doubt that the Whig Senator was presenting the beau cote of his cause. So powerful was his pres- tige, despite the unpopularity of his arguments at Ash- 23 Free Soil Banner, October 10, 1848.

• 112
 

300      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

land, that the Locofocos charged him with receiving

twenty-five thousand dollars for stumping Ohio.

On November 9, the campaign came to an end.

154,775 votes were cast for Cass, 138,360 for Taylor,

and 35,354 for Van Buren.²⁴ Cass' plurality over Tay-

lor was 16,415; his plurality over Van Buren was 119,

421, while Taylor's plurality over the Free Soiler was

103,006. If half the Free Soil vote of the Little Magi-

cian, in Ohio, had gone to Taylor he would have de-

feated Cass by the slight plurality of 1,262 votes. It

may be presumed that much more than half of Van

Buren's vote came from the ranks of the Anti-Slavery

Whigs, for in 1844, when the vote of the Liberty Party

in Ohio was only 8,050, the Whig plurality over Polk

was yet 5,940. In 1840 the Whig plurality had been

23,000 odd over the Democrats with a tiny abolition

vote of 903. These figures show that the Whig vote

had suffered a steady decline, and the fact alone of

the increase of the third party vote from 1840 to 1848

is of some importance in explaining it, especially when

taken in connection with the growing respectability of

anti-slavery sentiments.

The consideration of the returns and a comparison

of them with those of earlier elections reveal many in-

teresting facts. In 1848, 41,502 more votes were cast

in the presidential election than were cast in the guber-

natorial election. In the state election of 1842 the Lib-

erty men had held the balance of power. That condi-

tion had appeared in every election for Governor down

to 1848 when there was no third party candidate. In

 

24 These figures are taken as given in Smith, op. cit., 155 f. They are

reported also as follows: Taylor, 138,356; Cass, 154,783, and Van Buren

35,374, in Ohio State Journal, November 24, 1848.

• 113
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio           301

1844, when the Whigs elected Thomas Bartley to the

Governorship by a plurality of 1,322, King, the Liberty

candidate, had polled 8,441 votes.²⁵ In the state elec-

tion of 1846 the plurality of Governor Bebb had been

2,368, while Sam Lewis, Liberty candidate, had polled

10,799.26 There is no doubt that Bebb would have been

beaten had it not been for his speeches on the Re-

serve in support of the repeal of the Black Laws.²⁷ Ford

made no such speeches in support of the Wilmot Pro-

viso. The large numerical difference between the presi-

dential and gubernatorial votes in the year 1848 raises

the suspicion that many men of anti-slavery or Free

Soil tendencies refused to vote at all.

The third party vote had increased from 8,050 in

1844 to more than four times that figure in 1848. To

understand that change it must be kept in mind that

the third party movement had become broader. The

Barnburner bolt had brought it an unexpected accre-

tion from the side of the Democrats. The activities of

James W. Taylor and the Ohio delegates to the Utica

Convention indicate that this defection was very per-

ceptible in the State. The attraction of certain policies

in the Free Soil platform such as the unrestricted grant

of public lands was capable of uniting wage-earners in

the East with the men of the Northwest even though

both might be indifferent to slavery as a moral issue.²⁸

 

25 Smith, op. cit. f. 76.

²⁶ Ibid., 93.

²⁷ Ibid., f. 80.

28 In the period of the later forties, Horace Greeley was the chief

champion of free lands for the workers from the Public Lands of the West.

The argument was based on the alleged "natural right to land" inherent in

the individual. Homestead limitations were contemplated as a method of

assuring his share to the individual. Many of the fathers of the Republican

Party in Wisconsin belonged to this movement -- among them Alvin Bovay.

"Only because slavery could not exist in one-hundred-sixty acre farms did

• 114
 

302      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

The Democratic revolt, however, did not assume pro-

portions in Ohio that were dangerous to the party. The

fact is clear that the rebellion was much more harmful

to the Whig Party, for the reason that its vote in 1848

fell below that of 1844.

Yet if the Democrats did not predominate in the

Free Soil movement they undoubtedly added something.

On the Reserve there was bitter aversion to Van Buren.

The Cleveland True Democrat declared that the vote

there would have been 10,000 higher for Hale, McLean

or any man other than Van Buren.²⁹ The diminution

in the total vote on the Reserve from 1844 to 1848 was

8,474 and must have been composed of disappointed

Whigs and Liberty men. Outside the Reserve, not a

single county went for Van Buren. The small groups

in the various counties may have contained some Demo-

crats but it is pretty safe to say that the Free Soilers

gained in New York because of the nature of their can-

didate and lost more in Ohio than they might have ex-

pected for the same reason. Chase thought the low

vote in the State at large to be due to the activities of

Corwin and the other Whig orators whose work in Oc-

tober has been referred to.³⁰ Such a conclusion, if just,

tends simply to show the tenacity of party associations.

Many strange results showed themselves in the

House contest in the State, for the reason that the Ap-

portionment Law dividing Hamilton County confused

the election. The Democrats voted for their usual num-

ber of representatives from Hamilton County and the

 

the Republican Party come into contact with slavery." -- Commons, J. R.,

"Horace Greeley and the Working Class Origins of the Republican Party"

in Political Science Quarterly. V. 24, 488-489.

29 Smith, op. cit., 155.

30 Also Dodson, op. cit. Letter of Chase to Sumner, November 27, 1848

• 115
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio       303

Whigs followed the provisions of the new law choosing

their men from the designated districts. The result was

that two Locofocos, Pugh and Pierce, presented them-

selves for the two seats which the Whigs claimed for

Spencer and Runyan. The clerk of Hamilton County

issued certificates of election to both couples so that

the settlement of the difficulty was left to the House of

Representatives in determining the qualifications of its

members. The difference persisted for an unduly long

time, both parties resorting to all sorts of subterfuge

in order to seat their claimants as representatives from

Hamilton County. After resolutions had been offered

and lost to seat each set of representatives,31 January

26, 1848, Pugh and Pierce, the Locofoco claimants,

were seated,³² probably on the ground that the Whig

Apportionment Law was unconstitutional. The com-

mittee rendered a minority report, however, prepared by

the Whigs.³³ There were several other contested elec-

tions of minor importance some of which had to be held

over again in order to be legal. The gubernatorial re-

sults were hotly contested by the Democrats on the basis

of irregularities and voting which was not sufficiently

clear in indicating the purpose of the voter. For in-

stance, the Senate Committee was called on to judge of

the efficacy of a poll sheet which indicated a certain

number of votes in Crawford County, for "Seabury."³⁴

On January 22, 1844, it was formally announced to

Mr. Ford that he was elected Governor of Ohio.35

31 Ohio. Journal of the House of Representatives, 1849. Forty-seventh

General Assembly, 12.

32 Ibid., January 26, 1849.

33 Ibid., App. 54.

34 Ohio. Senate Journal of the State of Ohio, 1849. Forty-seventh

General Assembly, 109.

35 Ibid., 164.

• 116
 

304     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

During the debating of these matters, the demonstra-

tions became almost lawless at times and the newspa-

pers regaled their readers with the depraved language

of the legislators.

The part of Ohio in the political molding of this

period cannot be gainsaid. For the Free Soil movement,

she furnished two guiding spirits -- Chase and Gid-

dings. For the principle which served as issue in na-

tional affairs it is rather clear that an Ohio Congress-

man was responsible. Mr. Persinger says, on the au-

thority of R. T. Stevenson, of Ohio Wesleyan Univer-

sity, that the original draft of the Wilmot Proviso is in

the possession of the Brinkerhoff family and in the

handwriting of Jacob Brinkerhoff, who first drafted it

to be introduced by David Wilmot.³⁶ The movement of

Ohio politics about this great principle was used as an

agent to assemble the variant forces of the East and

North that were ready for a third party of some kind

because they were tired of pro-slavery persiflage. The

point of departure for that movement was the Colum-

bus Free Territory Convention, which resulted largely

from the efforts of Chase. It was the link between

Philadelphia and Buffalo. Another result of this period

was the unexpected outcome of the election of an Ohio

Senator. Fate left the balance of power in the Ohio Sen-

ate in the hands of Morse and Townshend, two Free

Soilers elected by Free Soilers alone. They were induced

to join their force with certain Whigs and Democrats

to accomplish the election of Chase. Ewing and Gid-

dings were before that body as candidates, but Ewing

could not meet the approval of the Democrats and Gid-

 

36 Persinger, C. E., "The Bargain of 1844," Vol. 1, 171.

• 117
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio          305

dings was persuaded that his path of duty lay in the

House.³⁷ The election of Chase placed in the Senate

another anti-slavery senator and at the same time ele-

vated a man whose star was rising in politics. If the

immediate outcome of the struggles of 1848 in Ohio ran

counter to the general current in the nation, the men of

the state were morally progressive and helped in no small

degree to determine the direction of future currents.

 

 

RETURNS OF STATE ELECTION OF 1848 BY COUNTIES

Ford          Weller

Adams       ..................................                                                 1,295         1,553

Allen        ..................................                                                 685               954

Ashland        .................................                                              1,316         2,342

Ashtabula     ...............................                                                3,405            936

Athens ................................                                                        1,639         1,280

Auglaize        .................................                                              379               955

Belmont       .................................                                              3,169         2,798

Brown       ..................................                                                 1,871         2,330

Butler        ...................................                                                2,150         3,574

Carroll      ..................................                                                 1,596         1,385

Champaign  ...............................                                                  1,940         1,446

Clark  ...................................                                                      2,407   1,340

Clermont      ................................                                               2,142   2,640

Clinton     ..................................                                                 1,949   1,108

Columbiana        ..............................                                            2,288               2,739

Coshocton         ...............................                                           1,574         2,095

Crawford      ................................                                               835            1,558

Cuyahoga ................................                                                    3,329         2,290

Darke       ...................................                                                1,608         1,580

Defiance       .................................                                              308               468

Delaware ................................                                                     2,205                2,006

Erie  .....................................                                                       1,392         1,112

Fairfield .................................                                                    2,066         3,573

Fayette     ..................................  1,147                                                           904

Franklin       .................................  2,885                                   2,934

*Gallia

Geauga ..................................   2,005     897

³7 Smith, op. cit., 171.

* Figures for Gallia County not now available.

Vol. XXXVI.--20.

• 118
 

306       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

RETURNS OF STATE ELECTION OF 1848 BY COUNTIES

--Continued

Ford          Weller

Greene  ..................................                                                     2,192         1,264

Guernsey ................................                                                    2,525         2,569

Hamilton ................................                                                    8,307         9,930

Hancock .................................                                                        868         1,320

Hardin    ..................................                                                      557            544

Harrison ................................                                                     2,005    1,678

Henry  ...................................                                                        222            289

Highland  ................................                                                    2,212         2,121

Hocking .................................                                                        707         1,228

Holmes ..................................                                                        989         2,002

Huron ...................................                                                      2,135         1,682

Jackson ..................................                                                        824         1,069

Jefferson      .................................                                               2,374         2,358

Knox      ..................................                                                   2,288         3,224

Lake       ....................................                                                 1,606            715

Lawrence ................................                                                       948            676

Licking ..................................                                                      3,269    3,438

Logan     ...................................                                                  1,660         1,064

Lorain    ..................................                                                   2,155         1,521

Lucas     ...................................                                                  1,239         1,126

Madison .................................                                                    1,259            691

M ahoning  ................................                                                 1,269         2,069

Marion ..................................                                                     1,302         1,460

Medina ..................................                                                     1,926         1,835

Meigs ...................................                                                      1,202            908

Mercer  ..................................                                                       346            539

Miami ...................................                                                     2,435         1,616

Monroe ..................................                                                    1,119         2,218

Montgomery .............................                                                 3,679         3,436

Morgan ..................................                                                    2,441         2,492

Muskingum   ..............................                                                4,117         3,167

Ottawa ..................................                                                     173                     267

Paulding .................................                                                       59              162

Perry     ...................................                                                  1,287         2,076

Pickaway ................................                                                   1,994         2,076

Pike  ............................. .......                                                         770            831

Portage  ..................................                                                    2,249         2,234

Preble ...................................                                                      2,204         1,456

Putnam       ..................................                                                 323            613

Richland     .................................                                               2,054         3,484

Ross  ....................................                                                      2,896         2,204

Sandusky  ...............................                                                      874         1,074

• 119
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio           307

 

RETURNS OF STATE ELECTION OF 1848 BY COUNTIES

--Concluded

Ford          Weller

Scioto ...................................                                   1,509      1,067

Seneca      .................................                                1,403      2,071

Shelby      ...................................                           1,027                1,153

Starke      ...................................                              2,431      3,288

Summit    ..................................                               2,489      1,866

Trumbull ................................                                 3,069      2,028

Tuscarawas ..............................                               2,496      2,359

Union  ...................................                               1,070                785

Van Wert ................................                                 155                320

Warren  ..................................                                  2,801      1,864

Washington ..............................                               2,266      1,823

Wayne ..................................                                   2,091      3,256

Williams .................................                                                269                484

Wood  ...................................                                                 562                557

Wyandot .................................                                               833                939

This return is taken from the report as published in the Ohio State

Journal, October 27, 1848, under signature of Sam'l Galloway, Sec'y of State.

 

 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1848 -- FIGURES OF THE STATE

OF OHIO RETURNED BY COUNTIES

Taylor    Cass Van Buren

Adams      ........................                                      1,259         1,690       196

Allen        ..........................                                       728         1,070        2

Ashland .......................                                         1,341         2,519                                       2,467

Ashtabula  .....................                                       1,124            876            2,467

Athens     ........................                                      1,846         1,509                320

Auglaize      .......................                                      457         1,039                                       14

Belmont .......................                                        2,725         2,892                           543

Brown      .........................                                     1,771         2,557                403

Butler       .........................                                     1,959         3,536                381

Carroll     ........................                                      1,453         1,395                                                       345

Champaign ....................                                      1,878         1,508                330

Clark  ..........................                                         2,506         1,375                204

Clermont .......................                                       2,204         2,833                408

Clinton  ........................                                        1,233               1,122                           755

Columbiana ....................                                       1,850         2,732                865

Coshocton ......................                                      1,814         2,422                           137

Crawford ......................                                            952         1,678                90

Cuyahoga ......................                                        1,776         2,368             2,594

Darke .........................                                          1,508   1,554                                             81

• 120
 

308       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1348 -- FIGURES OF THE STATE

OF OHIO RETURNED BY COUNTIES--Continued

Taylor          Cass Van Buren

Defiance       .......................                                      384           567                   23

Delaware       ......................                                       ,866       1,574                 268

Erie  ...........................                                           1,409            999       681

Fairfield        .......................                                   2,438         3,515                   42

Fayette     ........................                                     1,157                                   946                128

Franklin       .......................                                   3,199            3,029              284

Gallia        .........................                                    1,630    1,081                                       95

Geauga      ........................                                         872           922                 1,373

Greene      ........................                                     2,035         1,256                 644

Guernsey      ......................                                    2,375         2,504                 489

Hamilton      ......................                                    9,018  10,834                        1,968

Hancock .......................                                        1,016         1,501       32

Hardin      ........................                                         596           605         51

Harrison       .......................                                   1,564         1,658                 543

Henry       .........................                                        217           297        17

Highland ......................                                         2,114         2,224       342

Hocking       .......................                                      856    1,319                       23

Holmes     ........................                                     1,118         2,224                   45

Huron       .........................                                    1,950              1,769                 876

Jackson    ........................                                         987        1,108                       50

Jefferson      .......................                                   2,147         2,231                 455

Knox        ..........................                                   1,910    2,890          538

Lake         ..........................                                       777        716           904

Lawrence ......................                                       1,164            745                   53

Licking    ........................                                     3,030         3,468                 534

Logan      .........................                                        ,652       1,147                   276

Lorain     ........................                                         647        1,473                 1,616

Lucas       .........................                                    1,298    1,197        327

Madison      .......................                                   1,329               712             80

Mahoning ......................                                          720        1,953                 1,042

Marion  ........................                                       1,001         1,193                 55

Medina ........................                                         1,140      1,836 1,098

Meigs      .........................                                    1,327         1,014       305

Mercer    ........................                                         360           641         16

Miami     .........................                                    2,542         1,822                 272

Monroe      .......................                                      999        2,574                 330

Montgomery ...................                                       3,561 3,331                     304

Morgan       ........................                                  2,320         2,448                 314

Morrow       .......................                                   1,166         1,884                 407

Muskingum   ....................                                    4,427    3,380                 428

Ottawa  ........................        90                                            231                                                            45

• 121
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio           309

 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1848 -- FIGURES OF THE STATE

OF OHIO RETURNED BY COUNTIES--Concluded

Taylor         Cass Van Buren

Paulding .......................                                            70          198

Perry ..........................                                          1,488         2,192       19

Pickaway ......................                                       2,115         1,960                   24

Pike  ...........................                                             842            909                   33

Portage .......................                                          1,270         2,149                 1,127

Preble  .........................                                         2,106         1,519                   314

Putnam ........................                                            402            634                   3

Richland .......................                                        2,087         3,177      188

Ross ..........................                                           3,394         2,306                 174

Sandusky ......................                                          928        1,148                 124

Scioto .........................                                          1,838         1,268                   13

Seneca ........................                                          1,536         2,326                 483

Shelby  .........................                                       1,021            1,129                49

Stark ..........................                                          2,382         3,495                 570

Summit ........................                                        1,892         1,81_{5     1,058}

Trumbull ......................                                       1,364         1,951                 2,075

Tuscarawas ....................                                       2,662         2,553                 184

Union .........................                                         1,030            797       173

Van Wert ......................                                          233            381

Warren ........................                                         2,526         1,861                   402

Washington ....................                                     2,079         1,930                 462

Wayne ........................                                         2,284         3,380      190

Williams .......................                                          328            515                154

Wood .........................                                             647            636                   29

Wyandot ........................ 951 1,059                                          46

This report shows 111 votes for Gerrit Smith electors -- official re-

turn for State, in Ohio State Journal, November 24, 1848.

• 122
 

310       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.  Publications of the United States Government.

Congressional Globe, 108 volumes. Washington 1834-

1873.

Journal of the House of Representatives, Washington,

1847.

Richardson, James D., A Compilation of the Messages

and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897. 10 volumes.

Washington, 1896-1899.

2.  Publications of the State of Ohio.

Acts of a Local Nature of the Session of 1834.

Journal of the House of Representatives of Ohio, 1849,

Forty-seventh General Assembly. Columbus, 1849.

Ohio Laws. Vol. 42.

Reports of the Auditor of State, 1845-1847.

Report, Board of Public Works, 1841-1850.

Senate Journal, State of Ohio, 1849. Columbus, 1849.

Ohio Constitution. Columbus, 1803.

 

NEWSPAPERS

Anti-Slavery Bugle. Salem and New Lisbon, Ohio.

Cincinnati Gazette.

Cleveland Daily Herald.

Free Soil Banner, Hamilton, Ohio.

Hamilton Intelligencer.

Ohio Press. Columbus.

Ohio State Journal. Columbus.

Ohio Statesman. Columbus.

Ohio Free Standard. Columbus.

Old Zach. Campaign paper published at infrequent intervals

and bound with Scott Battery and other Papers. Ohio State

Library.

PERIODICAL

Political Science Quarterly, v. 24.

 

BIOGRAPHIES

Dodson, S. H., "Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase"

in Annual Report of the American Historical Association

for 1903. 2 volumes. Washington, 1903.

Gideon, J. & S. G., A Brief Review of the Character, Career and

Campaigns of General Zachary Taylor. Washington, 1848.

• 123
 

The Election of 1848 in Ohio            311

Julian, George W., Life of Joshua Reed Giddings. A. C. Mc-

Clurg & Co., Chicago, 1897.

Lewis, William G. W., Biography of Samuel Lewis, first State

Superintendent of Schools. Methodist Book Concern, Cin-

cinnati, 1857.

McLaughlin, Andrew C., Life of Lewis Cass. Houghton, Mifflin

Co., Boston and New York, 1899.

Morrow, Josiah, Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin. W. H.

Anderson & Co., Cincinnati, 1896.

Phillips, Ulrich B. "Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence" in

Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1911.

2 volumes, Washington, 1913.

Schuckers, J. W., The Life and Public Services of Salmon Port-

land Chase. New York, 1874.

Shepard, E. M., Martin Van Buren. Boston & New York, 1899.

Warden, Robert B., An Account of the Private Life and Public

Services of Salmon Portland Chase. Cincinnati, 1874.

 

LOCAL HISTORIES

Bartlow, B. S., Todhunter, W. H., et al., A History of Butler

County, Ohio. B. F. Bowen & Co., Hamilton, 1905.

Riddle, Albert G., A History of Geauga County ,Ohio. Historical

Society of Geauga County, Painesville, 1880.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Commons, J. R. & Associates, History of Labor in the United

States. The Macmillan Co., 2 volumes, New York, 1918.

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