Ohio History Journal

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NOTES

NOTES

FREDERICK GRIMKE AND AMERICAN CIVILIZATION: A

JACKSONIAN JURIST'S APPRAISAL

 

1. Frederick Grimke to William Greene, February 28, 1828. Greene Papers, The

Cincinnati Historical Society. William Greene (1797-1883) came from a Rhode Island

family which had been prominent in state politics for three generations. Following his

graduation from Brown University in 1817, he studied law at Judge Tapping Reeve's

famous Litchfield Law School, Litchfield, Connecticut. From the early 1820's, when

he moved to Ohio to pursue his legal career, until his return to Rhode Island in 1862,

he played an active role in the civic and cultural life of Cincinnati. His Whig- Republican

political orientation, while inimical to the Democratic views of Grimke, did not

lessen their friendship. John Howard Brown, ed., Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of

the United States (Boston, 1900-1903), III, 399.

2. Grimke to Greene, August 16, 1827, Greene Papers.

3. Frederick Grimke, An Essay on the Ancients and Moderns (privately printed,

n.d.), [205].

4. Grimke to Greene, September 12, 1844, Greene Papers.

5. Grimke to Greene, May 8, 1848, Greene Papers.

6. Frederick Grimke, Considerations upon the Nature and Tendency of Free In-

stitutions (Cincinnati, 1848), 312.

7. Ibid., 268.

8. Ibid., 168.

9. Ibid., 115.

10. Frederick Grimke, Considerations upon the Nature and Tendency of Free In-

stitutions (2d printing, New York and Cincinnati, 1856), 79; 81-82. This "corrected

and enlarged" edition incorporated much new material, including an entire chapter

on the right of secession and another on the "ultimate destiny" of free institutions.

11. Grimke, Considerations (1st printing), 277.

12. Grimke to Greene, January 12, 1846, Greene Papers.

13. Grimke, Considerations (2d printing), 667.

14. Grimke, Considerations (1st printing), 327.

15. Grimke to Greene, December 10, 1850, Greene Papers.

16. Grimke to Greene, February 19, 1856, Greene Papers. Grimke was mistaken,

of course, in suggesting that "Republican" and "abolitionist" were synonymous terms.

In fact the radical abolitionists, such as Garrison and Phillips, opposed political action at

this time and took no part in the organization of the Republican party.

17. Grimke, Considerations (2d printing), 485.

18. Grimke, Considerations (1st printing), 263.

19. Grimke to Greene, November 30, 1849, Greene Papers.

20. Grimke to Greene, May 1, 1854, Greene Papers.

21. Grimke to Greene, September 27, 1856, Greene Papers.

22. Grimke to Greene, March 30, 1862, Greene Papers.

23. Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Columbus, 1891), III, 189.

 

THE OHIO FREE SOILERS AND PROBLEMS OF FACTIONALISM

 

1. The most complete accounts of the Ohio Free Soil party are included in Theodore

Clarke Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest, Harvard Historical

Studies, VI (New York, 1897), and Edgar A. Holt, "Party Politics in Ohio, 1840-1850,"

Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXXVIII (1929), 47-182, 260-402.

See also Francis P. Weisenburger, The Passing of the Frontier (Carl Wittke, ed.,

The History of Ohio, III, Columbus, 1941), 470-479; and Eugene H. Roseboom, The

Civil War Era, 1850-1873,(ibid., IV, 1944), 256-276.

2. For Chase's role in the events of 1847 and 1848 see Joseph G. Rayback, "The

Liberty Party Leaders of Ohio: Exponents of Antislavery Coalition," Ohio Archae-