THE MOTIVATION OF A RADICAL REPUBLICAN: BENJAMIN F. WADE by HANS L. TREFOUSSE As David Donald, the biographer of Charles Sumner, has so clearly pointed out, in the historiography of the Civil War and Reconstruction there is no group which has been traduced more consistently than the radical Republicans.1 Called Jacobins and Vindictives, cold-blooded demagogs and irresponsible self-seekers, they have been accused of sins ranging from rabble rousing to incitement to murder; from near treason to instigation of civil war. Their aims have been disparaged, their motives questioned, their work belittled, so that they have entered history as pitiful carica- tures of their real selves. Edwin M. Stanton and Salmon P. Chase in the cabinet, Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens in congress -- all have been singled out for abuse, but among the group as a whole, few have fared worse than Benjamin F. Wade, long-time senator from Ohio. NOTES ARE ON PAGES 126-127 |
64 OHIO HISTORY
It is no mere accident that no modern
full-scale life of Ben Wade ap-
peared until 1963. Civil War figures
great and small -- generals, admirals,
statesmen -- all had become subjects of
minute inquiry long before Wade
found a biographer other than his friend
Albert G. Riddle, who wrote an
adulatory Life shortly after the
senator's death.2 Not that the Ohioan
was forgotten -- far from it -- but he
has generally been portrayed as a
sneering bully, an uncouth hater of
southern gentlemen who mercilessly
attacked men far better than himself in
order to advance his political
career. The picture that has come down
to us is not edifying. It is time
that it be reexamined.
What are the charges usually brought
against the Ohio senator? In
the first place, he has been accused of
rabble rousing. "His methods were
distinctly those of the demagogue,"
one eminent historian has told us.3
Another has concluded that Wade
"mildly suggested a Marat or a Robes-
pierre,"4 and still
another, who considered the senator thoroughly un-
scrupulous,5 has characterized him as
"a rough, domineering man of evi-
dent vulgarity."6
Second, the old radical's proclivity to
sway the masses is usually
believed to have been the result of an
overweening desire for personal
advancement. Quoting Ben: Perley Poore,
a famous Lincoln scholar has
written that Wade's "honesty was
strongly tinged by ambition,"7 while
Gideon Welles believed that the
co-author of the Wade-Davis Manifesto
had been "bitten with the
Presidential fever."8 Likewise, writer upon
writer, emphasizing the senator's
position as acting vice president after
1867, has pointed to his connection with
Johnson's impeachment for sub-
stantiation.9 That he attempted to bring
Nebraska and Colorado into the
Union before the trial,10 and that he
himself voted for Johnson's convic-
tion seemed proof positive of his
selfishness.11
Ambition and demagoguery are not the
only accusations against the
Ohioan. It has been pointed out that
"the anti-slavery leaders distrusted
him for a long time because of his
opportunism and his willingness to
sacrifice principle to party,"12
that he had lost his innocence "far back
in the unrecorded past,"13 and that
he was animated by excessive partisan-
ship.14 "The truth is that the
radicals of Johnson's day were really think-
ing of votes and were only talking of
Negroes," one observer has main-
tained.15 To another, Wade was a
"political scavenger."16
One of the most persistent charges
against the senator has been his
alleged vindictiveness. "He Hated
Southern Gentlemen," is the title of
an article about him written in 1929.17
A great many students of recon-
struction have stressed his desire for
revenge,18 and one of them has not
hesitated to label him (along with other
radicals) a "bloodhound," a
characterization which seemed to be
borne out physically by the Ohioan's
mastiff-like face.19
Finally, repeated assertions have been
made that Wade, like other
radicals, was working for the enrichment
of northern capitalists happy
to see their erstwhile agrarian foes
kept in subjection. According to this
BENJAMIN F. WADE
65
point of view, "Northern
capitalism, led by New England, joined hands
with the 'ultra infidelic rascals like
Wade, Sumner, Stevens et id omne
genus,' and gave them the backing of its influence and
money."20 In ap-
parent agreement with this general
thesis, it has been emphasized that
Wade was one of the sponsors of a bill
granting valuable mineral lands in
Montana to a mining company.21 All
in all, viewed in this light, the sena-
tor's record could hardly have been
worse.
But are these accusations really
justified? Although motivation is
always difficult to establish, in Wade's
case we possess a number of facts
which permit us to approximate, at
least, what kind of forces apparently
controlled his behavior. In the first
place, we must examine the charge
of demagoguery. Basic to this assumption
of insincerity on Wade's part
is the fact that he came from the
Western Reserve in Ohio, a region which
sympathized with abolitionism and
consistently returned antislavery lead-
ers to congress. If Wade had merely
sought local preferment, antislavery
pronouncements might indeed have served
his purpose well. But after
serving two intermittent terms in the
statehouse at Columbus, he did not
run for office for several years,
reappearing as a lawmaker only in 1851,
when he was elected to the national
legislature. As United States Senator
from Ohio, he could derive few benefits
from his espousal of antislavery
doctrines. The state was closely
balanced between Whigs and Democrats,
and especially in the southern part of
the commonwealth, abolitionist no-
tions were very unpopular with both
groups. Had Wade been a mere
demagog, he would have been compelled to
take this situation into account
and find some issue of general appeal,
but this he did not do. Even in
the mid-fifties, when Know-Nothingism
was in the ascendant, he refused
to compromise, although as a descendant
of illustrious Puritans, he might
easily have embraced the proscriptive
order. Its nativist principles con-
stituted an excellent vehicle for
demagoguery in all parts of the state,
north and south; immigrants tended to
vote for the opposition party any-
way, and at a time when Wade was up for
reelection in Columbus, he
might have garnered many doubtful votes.
Instead of espousing nativism,
however, he vigorously condemned it for
the bigoted aberration that it
was, and nearly came to physical blows
with Senator John M. Clayton of
Delaware, one of its chief advocates on
the floor of the senate.22 These
are not the actions of a demagog, and if
he was reelected in 1857, it was
not because of kowtowing to the
nativists, but in spite of his denuncia-
tions of their xenophobia.
The second charge is that Wade was
inordinately ambitious, ready to
use any expedient to advance himself.
That he was not unwilling to
further his own career is very true; he
would never have been able to
achieve leadership in his party if he
had not done so. But that his ambi-
tion was unusual, somehow or other more
nefarious than that of others,
does not seem to be borne out by the
facts. He himself, and his friends
for him, always emphasized his own
public disclaimer of political ambition,
and to his dying day he maintained that
he had never actively sought
66 OHIO HISTORY
public office.23 His protestations were
probably exaggerated; yet there is
no doubt that his actions hardly justify
the reproaches heaped upon him.
The principal difficulty with the theory
that Wade was unduly ambitious
is the stubbornness with which he held
on to his ideas. Believing firmly in
the necessity of curbing slaveholders,
holding tenaciously to Whig princi-
ples of legislative supremacy while
advocating the uplifting of powerless
portions of the population, he showed
himself totally unyielding whenever
these issues were involved, regardless
of political necessities. Personal
ambition could hardly have been served
by maintaining without fail an
extreme antislavery position in a
doubtful state; nor could it have been
gratified by opposing the president,
whether the executive was a Re-
publican or a Democrat. Moreover, it was
hardly the act of a self-seeker
to press for ever more radical measures
in 1862, at the very time when
serious opposition had developed at home
to the senator's reelection be-
cause of the influence of the
conservatives within the Union party. If
Wade was nevertheless sent back to the
senate, his success was not due
to any compromise with the opposition.
Indeed, so disdainful was he of
his own political chances that, in 1867,
when he was up for reelection once
again, he coupled his fate with the
success of a proposition to enfranchise
Negroes in Ohio. The suffrage amendment
was voted down; he was re-
tired to private life.24 And when, at
the summit of his career, the presi-
dency itself seemed in sight, it was
again not the act of an overly ambitious
man to alienate those whose votes he
desperately needed by advocating
such unpopular reforms as suffrage for
women and a better deal for
labor.25 Examples of similar actions
could be multiplied, but enough has
been said to show that the senator's
behavior pattern simply does not
fit into the picture of a man goaded on
principally by political ambition.
But, it may be objected, what about
Wade's actions in connection with
the impeachment? Was he not shamelessly
active in attempting to pack
the court which might vote Johnson out
and himself into the White House?
And did he not vote for conviction
himself, heedless of the elementary
rule of decency which prohibits a man
from casting a ballot in his own
behalf? At first sight, these seem
devastating accusations.
Closer investigation of the
circumstances, however, will show that
Wade's behavior during and before the
trial was not dictated by selfish
motives. To be sure, he favored the
admission of Nebraska and Colorado,
two commonwealths which might have
turned the tide in his favor had
both been in a position to send senators
in time to cast their votes against
the president. But he had been
advocating the admission of these terri-
tories long before he had been elected
president pro tem of the senate,
and therefore before he could have
benefited personally by their votes.26
Moreover, when he cast his own ballot
for conviction, he knew that
the cause of impeachment was lost. Since
balloting was conducted in alpha-
betical order, the nineteen votes necessary
for the president's acquittal had
already been cast, and nothing Wade
could do would alter the situation.
While he might have refrained from
voting altogether -- an alternative
BENJAMIN F. WADE
67
he refused to consider because of his
conviction that Ohio was entitled to
two ballots27 -- he was certainly not
able to vote himself into office and he
knew it. In addition, he himself had
contributed substantially to the
failure of impeachment, since at least
three of the seven Republican "re-
cusants" were men whom he had
consistently antagonized by his radical
pronouncements.28 Had he been so anxious
to be president in 1868 as to
do anything to achieve this goal, he
certainly would have attempted to
win over as many of these senators as
possible. But this he absolutely
refused to do.
Nor does the accusation of excessive
partisanship stand up under close
scrutiny. If anything, Wade was
amazingly independent from the very
beginning of his career. Refusing to go
along with the majority of his
Whig colleagues who were loath to offend
conservative elements in the
Ohio state legislature, in 1838 and 1839
he not only persistently introduced
inflammatory antislavery petitions, but
he was also one of the four lone
members who kept the state senate in
session all night on February 22,
1839, for the purpose of holding up
passage of a state fugitive slave law.29
In the same spirit of independence, he
crossed party lines to vote with the
Democrats for bills abolishing
imprisonment for debt and measures inter-
fering with powerful corporations.30
Wade's independence was evident again
when he became a United States
Senator twelve years later. One of the
small band of consistent opponents
of slavery in the upper house after
1851, he categorically refused to be
bound by party pronouncements about the
finality of the compromise of
1850. Nor, as is well known, did he, one
of the authors of the Wade-
Davis Manifesto, consider himself
restricted by party discipline after the
Republicans' accession to power. If he
favored the strengthening of his
party in the South after the war, it was
again not merely because he
wished to perpetuate his own friends'
political supremacy, but because
he believed that without Republican
success, the thoroughgoing reforms
which he desired to see carried out in
Dixie would never come about. To
him, there was no contradiction between
party supremacy and the wel-
fare of the freedmen. The two were
indissolubly linked.31
The stubborn way in which he clung to
his political beliefs equally con-
tradicts charges that he was an
opportunist. Originally accused of this
shortcoming because of his support of
Zachary Taylor when other anti-
slavery leaders on the Western Reserve
supported Martin Van Buren,
Wade was no more opportunistic than most
other successful politicians.
He supported Taylor in the belief --
perfectly justified as it turned out--
that the general would not use the
powers of his office to favor proslavery
elements, and that a vote for Van Buren
was merely a vote for Lewis
Cass, whom he considered wholly beholden
to the South.32 In the same
way, after the Civil War, he was willing
to accept for admission to state-
hood western territories which barred
their infinitesimally small Negro
populations from the suffrage because he
believed that this procedure, by
strengthening the radical elements in
congress, would further Negro
68 OHIO HISTORY
rights in the South.33 And it was in the
South that the overwhelming
majority of freedmen lived. All that
these actions show is that he knew
how to compromise when no substantial
issue was involved. While they
may prove that he was a good politician,
they hardly substantiate the
charge that he was an unprincipled
opportunist.
The allegation of vindictiveness must be
considered next. Contrasted
with Johnson's and Lincoln's
"forgive and forget" attitude, Wade and
the other radicals seemed to be
unforgiving demons bent on revenge.
Did not the Ohio senator write to Sumner
that "there is no doubt that if
by an insurrection [the colored people]
could contrive to slay one half
of their oppressors, the other half
would hold them in the highest respect
and no doubt treat them with
justice?"34 And did not the extremists foist
radical reconstruction with military
rule upon the South two years after
the end of the war? These facts in
themselves would seem to be sufficient
to support the accusation.
The true story is again quite different.
That the senator was not ani-
mated by personal spite was obvious long
before the war. In a debate
with Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana in
1855, Wade made his position
clear. "I will call him [Benjamin]
a friend," he said, "I have no reason to
call him anything else, for I have
received nothing but kindness and re-
spect at his hands." Then he
proceeded: "He being a southern man, I
am the last one to assail him for
defending his institutions. I have no
doubt that if my habits and education
had been like his, our positions
would have been reversed to-day. I can
understand that very well, and
make allowances for it."35 Of
Robert Toombs, too, Wade spoke in a kindly
fashion, and commended the "bold
and direct manner in which the Senator
from Georgia always attacks his
opponents."36
An incident which occurred in February
1857 illustrates the Ohioan's
lack of personal rancor and
vindictiveness. He had reported a bill in favor
of refunding money spent sixty years
earlier by the states of Virginia
and Maryland for the erection of certain
public buildings. When Henry
Wilson of Massachusetts objected to paying
federal funds to slave states,
Wade stood his ground. He handled claims
impartially, he said, and it
made no difference to him who the
applicants were.37
Many of Wade's opponents themselves
admitted that he was free from
personal rancor. First and foremost
among these was Senator Toombs,
frequently Wade's antagonist on the
senate floor. Not only was the Geor-
gian always ready to concede Wade's
honesty, but on one occasion, he
said frankly, "He and I can agree
about everything on earth until we
get to our sable population."38
Senator Asa Biggs of North Carolina cor-
roborated Toombs's opinion and readily
conceded Wade's frankness.39 And
Judah P. Benjamin said he believed him
"sincere, though most misguided
in his opinions."40 Other senators,
among them James Bayard of Dela-
ware, agreed: Wade was an honorable
antagonist.41
It would have been strange if a man with
such a background had
been animated by mere hatred after the
war. True, when Wade first saw
BENJAMIN F. WADE
69
President Johnson after the
assassination at Ford's Theater, he was in
high glee because he believed the new
executive to be more radical than
the old.42 But this attitude did not
mean that the senator was in favor
of wholesale proscriptions. When Johnson
asked him what the fate of
the insurgent leaders ought to be, he
answered promptly: "I think I should
either force into exile or hang about
ten or twelve of the worst of those
fellows: perhaps by way of full measure,
I should make it thirteen --
just a baker's dozen." The
president then wanted to know how anyone
could decide on so small a number and
find them more guilty than the
rest, but Wade was not to be swayed.
"It won't do to hang a very large
number," he said, "and I think
if you give me time, I could name thirteen
that stand at the head in the work of
rebellion. I think we would all
agree on Jeff Davis, Toombs, Benjamin,
Slidell, Mason, and Howell Cobb.
If we did no more than drive these
half-dozen out of the country, we
should accomplish a good deal."
Johnson expressed surprise that Wade
was willing to let "the traitors
escape so easily."43
It was in connection with the fourteenth
amendment that Wade showed
most clearly how little he was
influenced by a desire for vengeance.
Whether the amendment constituted a
final offer to the South or not
had long been a matter of dispute;
Charles Sumner, for one, was not
willing to readmit the southern states
merely because they might accept
the constitutional change. Wade,
however, sharply differed with him, and
did so in public. "Let me say that
I should consider myself bound by the
constitutional amendment if the southern
States complied with it within
a reasonable time," he replied to
the Massachusetts senator during a de-
bate on the issue in December 1866.
"If they adopt the constitutional
amendment, and comply with the terms
prescribed by the reconstruction
committee and adopted by Congress, I
should feel bound to vote for their
admission. I voted for the
constitutional amendment on that hypothesis."
Sumner demurred, declaring that the
fourteenth amendment was not
enough, but Wade stood firm. "I
cannot see how the Senator could have
misled the southern States with that.
When they complied with all we
asked of them in the constitutional
amendment I supposed we could not
refuse to let them in on those
terms," he said. "If the Senator did not
intend that they should have the benefit
of what we had done by com-
pliance with the terms on their part it
seems to me there was something
wrong. I intended to let them in on the
terms we prescribed. I did not
ask more, and I would not be satisfied
with less; and if now they should
comply with them it would be bad faith
in me to refuse to admit them.
. . . When I make such an agreement as
that I stand by it always." But
he threatened that more radical
legislation would have to follow if the
southern states did not accept the
measure, as some of them had already
refused to do.44 The
sincerity of his arguments impressed even his
opponents.45
Wade's candor regarding his attitude
toward the defeated section was
brought home to southerners themselves
when, in 1866, he traveled to
70 OHIO HISTORY
Dixie during the Christmas recess. After
complimenting his former ene-
mies on their hospitality in the course
of an after-dinner speech at
Memphis, he promised that he would speak
as openly in Tennessee as in
Ohio. First and foremost, he reiterated
his conviction that congress, and
congress alone, had the power to direct
the destinies of the nation. And
while there could be no escape from this,
to him, evident truth, he felt
free to assure his audience: "I do
know that the great body of which I
am a humble member have no resentments
toward the people of any portion
of this country--none at all. They will
indulge in no vindictive legislation.
They will be guided by their sense of
security and justice and nothing
else."46 He repeated similar
sentiments in other southern cities.47
But, it may again be objected, what
about Wade's letter to Sumner in
which he speculated about the likelihood
of race war? Upon closer exam-
ination, not even this passage can be
cited properly to convict the senator
of excessive vindictiveness. To be sure,
he wrote that possibly Negroes
could achieve respect only if they contrived
to slay one half of their op-
pressors, but he also added, "This
is a disagreeable way of viewing the
subject."48 Only this part of the
letter is usually not quoted, and it is
conveniently forgotten that he was
merely considering hypothetical de-
velopments, not advocating definite
policies. Obviously, he was not a
proponent of racial war.
Wade's advocacy of congressional
reconstruction remains to be ex-
plained. While it is true that he was
one of the principal proponents of
the legislation remanding the South to
military rule in 1867, it must
not be forgotten that he had come out in
favor of this policy only after
every other measure had failed, and
especially after the South, at Presi-
dent Johnson's insistence, had rejected
the fourteenth amendment. Having
given fair warning, he was perfectly
justified in carrying out his threats,
especially since the overwhelming
majority of the party agreed that the
South merited sterner treatment.
The final charge against Wade was that
he was a mere catspaw for
powerful capitalists. While it is true
that he always supported tariff pro-
tection, and while it is equally true
that he pushed through the senate
a bill to give a group of capitalists
control of mining properties in the
Far West, he was by no means beholden to
industrial interests. Henry
Cooke, the banker, thoroughly distrusted
Wade's radicalism,49 and al-
though his brother Jay later gave the
ex-senator a retainer to represent
the Northern Pacific Railroad,50
conservative spokesmen for business had
grave misgivings about the Ohioan's
financial orthodoxy.51 And they had
good reasons for their doubts. Ever
since the senator had first entered the
state legislature, he had annoyed
industrial and commercial circles by his
concern for the downtrodden, so much so
that after he had voted for
bills considered unfavorable to
corporations, he failed of reelection to the
Ohio senate in 1839.52
In the United States Senate he resumed
his advocacy of protection for
the lower classes. It was to him that
the workers and clerks of the Wash-
BENJAMIN F. WADE
71
ington Navy Yard sent a petition for
higher wages in 1858, and although
he was not then a member of the
committee on the District of Columbia,
he presented the memorial at once.53
After the war, he went further. "I
do not agree with gentlemen who are so
desirous of sinking down to
nothing the wages of labor," he
said in 1867, in an impassioned senate
speech advocating a higher protective
tariff. "Labor commands no higher
reward than I am glad to see it. I hope
to God it never will be any lower
than it is; for now the real manual
laborer gets but a scanty portion of
that which he earns. I hope the time
will never be when he will be less
rewarded than he is now." And as he
put it to his adversary, William
P. Fessenden of Maine, "Sir, on the
prosperity of the laborer here de-
pends the prosperity of your
country."54
It may be argued that these pro-labor
sentiments were merely incidental
to Wade's efforts to raise tariffs--a
policy wholly endorsed by many
corporations. But he went much further.
In the debates on a bill to in-
crease the wages of workers in the navy
yard in 1867, he advocated
raises for the employees with the least
pay, those earning less than $3,500
a year. "I know it is late and I
know how impatient some gentlemen are
when I stand forth here as the advocate
of those not very well calculated
to advocate their own claims," he
said. "When Senators were advocating
the claims of those who receive four or
five thousand dollars a year, that
was all very well . . . but the moment a
man gets up here and demands
justice for those who receive but very
little consideration at all events,
we are called to a halt at once."55
During the following summer he put
the capstone upon his unorthodox
activities when he delivered a speech
at Lawrence, Kansas, in which he called
for an amelioration of the mal-
distribution of wealth. A congress which
had done so much for the slave,
he said to the crowd, could not
"quietly regard the terrible distinction
which exists between the man that labors
and him that doesn't."56 The
result was that many conservatives, even
those who disliked Johnson,
came to fear Wade more than the
president.57 Such a man could hardly
be called a mere catspaw for special
interests.
If, then, Wade was motivated neither by
mere ambition, nor by vin-
dictiveness, nor by a desire to help
capitalist interests alone, why did
he advocate so vehemently the radical
measures for which he became
famous? The answer to this question, as
to similar problems of motiva-
tion, is complex, and no single reason
for his actions is ever likely to be
discovered. Nevertheless, it seems
apparent that one of the mainsprings
of his behavior was his conviction that
the policies to which he was com-
mitted were justified. He really
believed in the need for high tariffs and
subsidies for industry, just as he was
convinced that modern society could
tolerate neither slavery nor publicly
sanctioned racial injustice. Both
seemed equally out of keeping with the
age. That he also considered the
triumph of his own Republican party
essential for the accomplishment of
his objectives is true; but this fact
does not detract from his evident
sincerity.
72 OHIO HISTORY
That Wade was blunt and outspoken is not
surprising. Born as the tenth
child of an impoverished New England
family, he was inured to poverty
and discouraged by lack of success until
he was twenty-five years old.58
With the help of his youngest brother,
who at first overshadowed him,
he finally entered upon the study of
law.59 But because of his diffidence --
he had great difficulty in delivering
public speeches -- he had to work
extremely hard to make something of
himself in his chosen profession.60
When he eventually succeeded, he had
overcome his handicaps by over-
compensating. Having surmounted all
obstacles by sheer will power and
an outward aggressiveness that concealed
his weaknesses, Wade believed
ever after that a generally
uncompromising approach was the only feasible
one.
Equally natural was his devotion to a
Hamiltonian concept of the
relations between government and
industry, his belief in opportunities for
the underprivileged, and his insistence
on succor for the Negroes. His
background had taught him the advantages
of democracy -- had he been
born in any other country, he wrote to
his son, "he and all his posterity
would have been doomed to poverty and
obscurity forever."61 His law
practice had grown with the development
of northeastern Ohio after the
construction of the Erie Canal, and his
antislavery principles were natural
to a transplanted Yankee living on the
Western Reserve who had faith
in the progressive spirit of the age.62
The senator's correspondence with his
wife, from whom he seems to
have had few secrets, shows how strongly
he felt about matters of
ideology and the need for keeping up
with the times. "I cannot and will
not swallow that accursed slave
bill," he wrote after the passage of the
fugitive slave law in 1850. "It is
a disgrace to the nation and to the age
in which we live. And if the Whig
Executive do not know better than
to burn their fingers with such a
measure they are past praying for."63
Equally outspoken about the
"infamous Kansas Nebraska Act," he ex-
pressed his satisfaction with the good
reception of his speeches attacking
the legislation.64 Again, in 1856, he
wrote, "The people are all right, but
their leaders are generally fools or
cowards."65 And when, in 1859, he
was being considered for the
presidential nomination, he confided to his
wife that he had no desire for higher
office,;66 a lack of ambition which
became evident again fifteen years later
when he wrote to her that he
had absolutely no wish to emerge from
retirement to run for governor
of Ohio.67
The senator's sincerity during the
secession crisis may also be docu-
mented by his correspondence with his
wife. "The President is doubtless
guilty of Treason," he wrote on
December 26, 1860, "and all here is con-
fusion." Showing clearly how
strongly he felt about slavery, he continued:
"Many believe that the South
intends to seize the Capital before the 4th
of March. . . . And all the Southern
States go out of the Union. . ..
But if this is the means found by
Providence to get rid of slavery then
let it come."68 In February 1861,
far from worrying about political ad-
BENJAMIN F. WADE
73
vantage, he was concerned about keeping
his party from compromising
with its principles, although he
recognized full well that his adamant stand
against concessions had given him a bad
name. "I think I shall be able
to keep the Republicans from
dishonor," he wrote.69 And by "dishonor"
he meant compromise.
When war had broken out, he showed again
that he was in earnest.
"I have no time to write," he
informed his wife after the battle of Bull
Run. "I must impart some of my
courage to the despairing groups around
me."70 That this was more than mere
talk he had already proven on the
battlefield earlier in the day, when,
rifle in hand, he had attempted to
halt the flight of federal soldiers.71
Wade's determination to remake the South
after the conflict also cor-
responded to his deep-seated conviction
that without a social revolution
the war would have been fought in vain.
As early as March 31, 1862,
Rudolf Schleiden, the representative of
Bremen in Washington, wrote
to his government:
The determined abolitionists do not at
all believe in the restoration
of the Union without previous universal
emancipation. They expect,
as Senators Wade and Sumner told me,
that the South could not be
subjugated, at least could not be kept
in subjection, even after the
complete destruction of its military
forces, unless slavery were
abolished.72
It was partially because of this
judgment that the senator consistently
demanded more forceful policies during
the war, and after emancipation
had been achieved, it was for similar
reasons that he continued to insist
upon the destruction of the southern
aristocracy. "To admit the States
on Mr. Johnson's plan," he wrote to
Charles Sumner in July 1865, "is
voluntarily, with our eyes open, to
surrender our political rights into
the hands and keeping of these traitors
we have just conquered in the
field. It is nothing less than political
suicide." And he regretted that
a golden opportunity to break up the
Bourbons' power had been missed.73
Finally, it was largely because of his
evident sincerity that Wade, with
all his faults, was able to make a
marked impression on many contempo-
raries. "He was frank, bluff, even
harsh in speech and manner, but kind
at heart," wrote William Dean
Howells, who had studied law in the sena-
tor's office, "and it is told of
him that once when he discovered a wretched
neighbor robbing his corn crib, he moved
out of sight that the man might
not know he had been caught in the
misdeed to which want had driven
him."74 Later, Howells stated that
the "commonly accepted Wade legend
scarcely does justice to a man not only
of great native power, but of
wider cultivation than it
recognizes."75 "It is rare that we meet a char-
acter that embodied so much rough
grandeur as Benjamin Franklin
Wade's," commented Henry B.
Stanton, the abolitionist,76 and Carl Schurz
referred to the senator as "one of
the oldest, most courageous, and most
74 OHIO HISTORY
highly respected of the antislavery
champions."77 Noah Brooks, who
knew Wade's faults well, called him
"in person the embodiment of the
high qualities that he
possessed--manliness, courage, vehemence, and a
certain bulldog obduracy truly
masterful."78 Foreign envoys were im-
pressed with his energy and ability,79
and even Gideon Welles, though
completely alienated by the Wade-Davis
Manifesto, was still able to give
its co-author credit for "a good
deal of patriotic feeling."80 Senate pages
were struck by his kindness to
employees;81 political opponents paid
tribute to his frankness,82 and his
associates admired his stamina.83
Finally, after the senator had died,
Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's friend,
felt constrained to write:
My mind tonight is irresistibly drawn to
the contemplation of the
recently dead patriot and statesman,
Hon. Benj. F. Wade. In life, he
was not my friend. . . . The
uncontrollable behests of fate during the
late war of the rebellion unavoidably or
at least inevitably placed
him in antagonism to me. . . . All the
heroic courage of his nature
and high sense of justice, equality and
right superadded to his some-
what dictatorial, dogmatic and imperious
character caused him to
make few if any exceptions in his likes
and his dislikes, his friends
and his enemies. He was a plain blunt
man -- rude of speech some-
times, but his position was never
doubtful. If his country ever had
a more bold and fearless defender in
time of danger I never knew
him. If the . . . power . . . to inspire
men to patriotism and hero-
ism in the time of dark hours and a
doubtful future that he put
forth when the nation was in the throes
of dissolution has ever been
by any other man in behalf of his
country excelled I do not know
it. ... Mr. Wade was a great man and his
noblest motive was the
public good in time of danger.84
In conclusion, it would appear that Wade
was not the reprobate de-
scribed by his enemies. Animated by a
conviction that American society
must move forward, he sincerely believed
in the reforms he advocated.
Like many others, he made mistakes; but
the time has clearly come to
assess him for what he was: an intrepid
fighter for human freedom.
THE AUTHOR: Hans L. Trefousse is
an associate professor of history at
Brook-
lyn College. His latest book is Benjamin
Franklin Wade: Radical Republican
from
Ohio.
THE MOTIVATION OF A RADICAL REPUBLICAN: BENJAMIN F. WADE by HANS L. TREFOUSSE As David Donald, the biographer of Charles Sumner, has so clearly pointed out, in the historiography of the Civil War and Reconstruction there is no group which has been traduced more consistently than the radical Republicans.1 Called Jacobins and Vindictives, cold-blooded demagogs and irresponsible self-seekers, they have been accused of sins ranging from rabble rousing to incitement to murder; from near treason to instigation of civil war. Their aims have been disparaged, their motives questioned, their work belittled, so that they have entered history as pitiful carica- tures of their real selves. Edwin M. Stanton and Salmon P. Chase in the cabinet, Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens in congress -- all have been singled out for abuse, but among the group as a whole, few have fared worse than Benjamin F. Wade, long-time senator from Ohio. NOTES ARE ON PAGES 126-127 |