NORMAN A. GRAEBNER
Thomas Corwin and the
Sectional Crisis
Thomas Corwin viewed the sectional
crisis of 1860 with
consternation but scarcely with
surprise. For a dozen years this
conservative Ohio politician had warned
Americans that the sectional
struggle over slavery in the territories
would one day propel the
nation into a bloody civil war. In his
dramatic speech to the Senate of
February 11, 1847, he had predicted that
the annexation of Mexican
territory would unleash sectional forces
that would tear the Union
apart. It was Corwin's fear of disunion
that wedded him to the
declining Whig party. With the demise of
that party-the victim of
sectional politics-he refused to join
its Northern successor, the
Republican party. Corwin had little in
common with such Republican
founders as Joshua Giddings, Charles
Sumner, and Horace Greeley.
For him the Republicans, riding the
crest of free-soil sentiment,
endangered the Union in direct
proportion to their success. In 1856 he
favored Millard Fillmore and the Know
Nothings because of their
censure of the Kansas agitation.
However, as a partisan who had
fought Jacksonians and Jacksonian
principles throughout his political
career, Corwin canvassed for the
Republican John C. Fremont in
order to contribute more effectively to
the defeat of James Buchanan
and the Democrats in Ohio.1
Thereafter, Corwin's Republicanism remained unorthodox. He
accepted the Fugitive Slave Act as a
national necessity. On the
prohibition of slavery in the
territories he agreed with the Republican
free-soil platform; but in the Union,
Corwin declared repeatedly, a
new state had the right to decide the
question of slavery for itself.2 As
Norman Graebner is Stettinius Professor
of History at the University of Virginia.
1. Columbus Ohio State Journal, October
31, 1856; Thomas Corwin served in the
Ohio General Assembly in the 1820s. His
twelve-year term in the House of
Representatives (1829-1841) ended when
he was elected governor of Ohio. From 1845
to 1851 he served in the Senate until he
was chosen Secretary of the Treasury by
President Millard Fillmore. Corwin
returned briefly to the House (1859-1861) until his
appointment as minister to Mexico, a
post he retained until 1864. Dictionary of
American Biography, vol. IV (New York, 1930), 457-58.
2. Josiah Morrow, ed., Life and
Speeches of Thomas Corwin (Cincinnati, 1896),
61-62.
230 OHIO HISTORY
late as 1858 Corwin denied privately
that he was a Republican. To
Thomas B. Stevenson of Cincinnati he
confided that he was not a
"Know Nothing, or a Know any thing."
"Never dream," he said
"that I am of any sect in religion,
or party in politics."3 Still, he
assured a Morrow, Ohio, audience in
August 1858, that he would vote
the Republican ticket. He liked, he
admitted, "the anti-slavery prin
ciples which is all there is in their
creed." Such indifference to Re
publican dogma disturbed Ohio's
Republican editors and led the Co-
lumbus Ohio Statesman to observe:
"Tom Corwin tried to do the im-
possible thing.... [T]o reconcile the
mildest and most diluted form of
National and Constitutional principles
with the sectional fundamen-
talism of the Black Republicans is a
hopeless task."4
If Corwin lacked orthodoxy, he was still
valuable political property.
During August 1858, his friends at a
Republican convention in
Morrow failed to modify the party's
platform but managed
nevertheless to secure Corwin's
nomination for Congress. The
Democratic Ohio Statesman rejoiced
"to see the Black Republican
party solemnly condemn itself by the
nomination of a man who
publicly reviles it as a traitorous
faction..."5 Having devoted years
to his private law practice, Corwin
would again delight the House of
Representatives and Republican audiences
everywhere with his great
good humor. Some hoped that he might
help to allay the growing
sectional controversy.
During the weeks of intense acrimony
which followed John
Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in October
1859, Corwin struggled to
defend the Republican party against the
charge of radicalism. At a
Republican meeting in New York on
October 31 he condemned
Brown as a "spector of insanity and
treason," accusing him of
causing more trouble than a 400,000-man
Italian army landing at
Norfolk. But Brown, he insisted, was not
the responsibility of the
Republican party. What drove Brown
"insane" was the Democratic
repeal of the Missouri Compromise line
in 1854. In subsequent New
York addresses Corwin appealed for
obedience to the Fugitive Slave
Act. For those who insisted that they
could not obey an unrighteous
law Corwin suggested two
alternatives-exile or the grave.6 The New
3. Thomas Corwin to Thomas B. Stevenson,
undated (1858), The Papers of Thomas
B. Stevenson, Cincinnati Historical
Society (hereafter cited Stevenson Papers).
4. Columbus Ohio State Journal, August
7, September 1, 1858; Columbus, Ohio
Statesman, August 13, 1858. Joshua Giddings headed the list of
those Republicans
disturbed by Corwin's refusal to accept
Republican principles. See Joshua Giddings,
History of the Rebellion: Its Authors
and Causes (New York, 1864), 430-31.
5. Columbus Ohio Statesman, August
18, 1858.
6. Cincinnati Daily Gazette, November 3, 1859; Cincinnati Daily Commercial,
November 4, 1859; Morrow, Life and
Speeches of Corwin, 87-88.
Thomas Corwin 231
York Post wondered why the popular Ohioan dwelt on doctrines so
foreign to the Republican party.7
The House of Representatives that Corwin
reentered in December
1859, beset by party and sectional
feuds, remained unorganized for
two months. Emotions ran deep; applause
and hisses echoed from the
galleries. Corwin admitted that he
scarcely recognized it as the
Congress of the United States. One
senator wrote that "every man in
both houses is armed with a
revolver-some with two-and a bowie
knife." Members argued over slavery
and John Brown, with
occasional ballots for speaker.
Southerners villified John Sherman,
the Republican candidate, as an
abolitionist because he had joined
other Congressional Republicans in
endorsing Hinton Rowan
Helper's anti-slavery tract, Impending
Crisis of the South (1857).
Disunion and civil war, so long a
terrible apprehension, had suddenly
become a horrible possibility.
What troubled Corwin were Southern
charges that the Republican
party endangered the South's security
and institutions, that
Republican doctrines were those of John
Brown. Corwin, in a witty
and reassuring speech, retorted that if
the Republican party held the
views attributed to it, the citizens of
Ohio would leave it in a body.
The party's objectives, he said, were
identical to those of all
conservative parties in the nation's
history. "When gentleman can
satisfy me that they are not," he
asserted, "I will abandon the
party."8 If the Democratic party
could make something better out of
the Republicans with whom he disagreed,
he hoped the Democrats
would take them. Why anyone would
demonstrate for John Brown
(except members of his own family) he
could not understand. "It
must be attributed to an intellectual
cholera," he suggested, "for
there are intellectual as well as
physical epidemics." Helper's book,
he assured the South, would not change
the mind of a single resident
of the North in regard to slavery.
Samuel S. Cox, the Ohio Democrat,
challenged Corwin's patent effort to
transform the Republican party
into another Clay-Webster coalition. If
Corwin favored the Fugitive
Slave Act, other Ohio Republicans
opposed it. "Mr. Clerk," admitted
Cox, "I do not understand where the
head or the tail of the
Republican party is. Is the gentleman
(Mr. Corwin) the head or the
tail? I think of it, as the Irishman
thought of the elephant-'there is
sure a tail at both ends of the animal.'
"9
7. New York Post quoted in the Cincinnati
Daily Commercial, November 7, 1859.
8. U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional
Globe, 36th Congress, 1st session
December 8, 1859, 72, 73, 74-76.
9. Ibid., 78. See also Daryl Pendergraft, "Thomas Corwin and
the Conservative
Republican Reaction, 1858-1861," The
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical
232 OHIO HISTORY
Corwin understood the dangers to the
Union inherent in a
Republican triumph over a divided
Democratic party in 1860. To
counter those dangers he would sustain
his claims of conservatism for
the Republican party. During October
1860, the Southern demands on
that strategy became intense, for the
South's fears of the Republican
party mounted with Abraham Lincoln's
prospects for victory. That
much of the Southern and border state
quest for guarantees on
slavery focused on Corwin reflected his
known conservatism, his
friendship with Lincoln, and his claims
to leadership in the party.
Waddy Thompson, a one-time Southern
Whig, acknowledged on
October 16, in a note to Corwin, that
Lincoln's election was then
certain. "Do you know the man and
will he be conservative?" asked
Thompson. "There is a general
feeling of . . . insubordination
amongst our servants and apprehension
with their masters. If he is
conservative as I hope & believe,
will he so announce immediately
after his election. I hope so-it will
do much good, and perhaps
prevent seceding movements." Two
days later William L. Hodge,
another Southern conservative, warned
Corwin that the Union had
entered a crisis created by the
disunion sentiment in the South,
particularly in South Carolina and
Georgia where extremists were in
control. Still, said Hodge, Lincoln
might effectively counter the trend
toward secession by issuing an address
to his "Southern
fellow-citizens, stating his intended
course . . . & putting his
conservative views in the strongest
light ..." Corwin himself could
not "render a more valuable service
. . . than by taking this matter in
hand, promptly and jealously, &
going at once to Mr. L. & urging
it...."10
Corwin forwarded the two letters to
Lincoln, reminding him that
both writers were old Union men who
hoped to deprive the Southern
extremists of any excuse for secession.
Any public statement
following the election, Corwin
admitted, would acknowledge the
South's right to apprehend evil as the
result of the Republican
victory. Still, Lincoln had no choice
but to reassure the South. "The
dead point in your administration which
must be passed in some
way," Corwin warned, "is this
tendency in the Southern states (some
of them at least) to take some mad
step, which once adopted, leads to
dangers which those who take it had not
the discretion to fore-
Quarterly, LVII (January 1948), 1-23. This article deals largely
with Corwin's
conservative stand in the election of
1858 and his actions in the House during the
sectional debates of 1859-1860.
10. Waddy Thompson to Corwin, October
16, 1860, William L. Hodge to Corwin,
October 18, 1860, The Papers of Robert
Todd Lincoln, Library of Congress (hereafter
cited Lincoln Papers).
Thomas Corwin 233
see. . . ."11 Corwin suggested
that Lincoln's continued silence en-
couraged the circulation of rumors
throughout the South that Corwin
and other conservatives, in their
defense of the Fugitive Slave Act as
well as slavery in the District of
Columbia, were speaking the views
of the President-elect. If such rumors
were false, then Lincoln alone
could define the course his
administration would take in some future
emergency. 12
Lincoln's continued refusal to speak
increased the conservative
Southern pressure on Corwin. One
Maryland Unionist admitted to
Corwin late in October that he had more
faith in Lincoln than did his
friends, for Lincoln claimed earlier to
be a Clay Whig. "But to the
point," he continued. "Mr
Lincoln's election will create a profound
sensation in all the Southern States.
The wolf is really upon us now,
and even in this old conservative state
a feeling of uneasiness and
distrust is gradually growing up. ...
[S]o soon as Mr. Lincoln's
election is a 'fixed fact,' the people
of the border states will be greatly
agitated, and the secessionists further
South will be in a perfect
frenzy. I care not, however, for the
madness of the Yancyites-it is
the conservative men of the South that
I am looking to, for justice &
patriotism." Lincoln, by exposing
his principles on the slavery
question, might still quiet the South.
Hodge pleaded with Corwin
again on October 30, "Do pray use
your influence for the
purpose-they are downright crazy at the
South." In South Carolina
especially, wrote Hodge, power was in
the hands "of the rashest and
most crazy of the disunionists . . .
resolved to make the plunge and
take all the chances."13
Such border state appeals clarified the
issues facing the Republican
leadership. Still Corwin hesitated to
offer Lincoln further advice.
Perhaps the state of the emergency
might render a public statement
proper, but under no circumstances,
Corwin wrote, dared Lincoln
permit Southerners to believe that the
Republicans were timid.
Throughout November Lincoln at
Springfield called for national
unity, but in none of his public
statements did he take a stand on the
issues dividing the country. The Cincinnati
Daily Gazette assured its
readers that Lincoln's views were
identical to those of Daniel
Webster and Thomas Corwin-free soil for
the territories but
admission of new slave states should
the majority favor that
institution.14
11. Corwin to Abraham Lincoln, October
28, 1860, Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. S. W. Spencer to Corwin, October 29,
1860; William L. Hodge to Corwin,
October 30, 1860; Corwin to Lincoln,
November 4, 1860, Ibid.
14. See the Cincinnati Daily Gazette,
November 23, December 5, 1860.
234 OHIO HISTORY
On the second day of the new
session-December 4, 1860-the
House of Representatives adopted a
resolution which provided for a
committee consisting of one member from
each state to consider that
portion of the President's message which
related "to the present
perilous condition of the country.
..." The vote to establish this
Committee of Thirty-three presaged
trouble, for all thirty-eight who
voted against the committee were
Republicans.15 Corwin was the
logical choice for the chairmanship, but
the memory of his Mexican
War speech still caused doubts in some
Southern minds. Further, his
Republican colleagues from Ohio revealed
their distrust by voting
solidly against the proposal. What
prejudiced the work of the
Committee of Thirty-three even further
was the Republican speaker's
decision to select sixteen Republicans
from the Northern states,
including four who had opposed the
committee's creation. Northern
Democrats who had voted unanimously for
the committee failed to
receive one appointment. When Corwin
received the chairmanship,
Northern Democrats looked to him for
support. Clement L. Vallan-
digham, speaking for the Democrats of
Ohio, warned Corwin on De-
cember 10, "If the gentleman from
Ohio, the chairman of this com-
mittee, would do anything effectively to
court public sentiment in our
common state, it is to the two hundred
and ten thousand men, not of
his own party, together with such others
of that party as he may be
able to carry over with him, that he is
to trust for the vindication of
such measures, if any, of conciliation
and adjustment which his com-
mittee may propose...."16
Republicans opposed to compromise could
still take comfort in the
assumption that Southern demands would
always exceed what even
the most conciliatory Republicans would
accept. Abolitionist Joshua
Giddings wrote on December 10 that the
South "will do more for us
than we can do for ourselves."17
Giddings' analysis was fun-
damentally accurate. Those determining
the course of Southern
politics had little interest in
compromise. Probably no state
government of the Deep South was willing
to remain in the Union
whatever compromise the North might
offer. Even in Congress
Southern representatives denied that
adjustment was possible.
George S. Hawkins of Florida warned that
he would oppose all
compromise. "The day of compromise
has passed," he said. James
L. Pugh of Alabama added, "I pay no
attention to any action taken in
15. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2nd session, December 4, 1860, 6.
16. Ibid., 38.
17. Joshua Giddings to George W. Julian,
December 14, 1860, The Papers of Joshua
Giddings and George Julian, Library of
Congress.
Thomas Corwin 235
this body."18 Sixteen of
the twenty-two House members from the six
states of the Deep South refused to vote
on the formation of the
Committee of Thirty-three. Some
Southerners viewed the committee
as a Northern attempt to create
dissension in the South; others
doubted that it would ever succeed in
framing measures of
conciliation. John Bell supporters
received two committee positions;
the rest, wherever possible, went to
Stephen Douglas Democrats
who, no more than the Bell men,
represented the dominant leadership
of the Southern states. Hawkins and
William W. Boyce of South
Carolina asked to be excused from
membership on the Corwin
committee. When the House refused to
excuse them, they still
absented themselves, giving the
Republicans a clear working
majority. Reuben Davis of Mississippi
remained on the committee to
prevent, he said, any congressional
interference with the secession
movement in the South.19
From the outset Corwin's committee
appeared powerless to stay
the forces of disruption. That the
nation had entered a dangerous
crisis was clear enough. "All is
darkness, gloom & dismay," reported
one border state congressman on December
6. "Instead of united &
enlarged patriotism to steer the Barque
from the jagged & terrific
breakers that surround us, extreme
Southern men are for boring fresh
holes to scuttle her while the
extremists of the north . . . seem
indifferent to the horrors of the depth
of that abyss on which we
stand." For him the Committee of
Thirty-three offered poor auspices
for success even though, he believed,
Northern conservatives and the
united South could still command the
necessary constitutional
guarantees.20 Such pessimism
seemed universal even among the
moderates. The Cincinnati Daily
Gazette regarded the committee as a
temporizing expedient, nothing more.
Vallandigham declared the
crisis before Congress the gravest in
the nation's history, but the
committee, he charged, was too weak, too
diffused, and too dilated to
arrive at any helpful decision.21
Corwin called his committee into session
on December 11, 1860, to
establish procedures. On the following
afternoon the exchanges were
marked by a spirit of cordiality that
created a momentary hope of
success.22 Thomas A. R.
Nelson of Tennessee offered a series of
18. Congressional Globe, 36th
Congress, 2nd session, December 4, 1860, 6-7.
19. Ibid., 22-23, 36, 59-62.
20. John W. Stevenson to Thomas B. Stevenson,
December 6, 1860, Stevenson
Papers.
21. Cincinnati Daily Gazette, December
8, 1860; New York Tribune, December 11,
1860.
22. Washington National
Intelligencer, December 15, 1860.
236 OHIO HISTORY
amendments to the Constitution. The
first would extend the Missouri
Compromise line across the lands of the
Louisiana Purchase and the
Mexican Cession not already included
within states, slavery to be
forbidden north of the line but
permitted and protected to the south.
A second amendment would bar the Federal
government from
interfering with slavery in the
slaveholding states or the District of
Columbia. Another proposal would
strengthen the enforcement of the
Fugitive Slave Act. Nelson's final
amendment would prevent the
election of a president and vice
president from the same side of the
line of 36° 30' extended from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Miles Taylor
of Louisiana countered with an amendment
to open the common
territories to the people of all the
states, permitting them to take their
property with them and to enjoy the
necessary protection of all their
rights and property. Should a state
constitution abolish slavery,
slave-owning citizens could move their
slaves to a slave state without
interference. Only Caucasians of unmixed
blood would be permitted
to vote in territorial and state
elections.23
On December 13 the committee discussed
the need to offer
guarantees to the South. Albert Rust of
Arkansas presented a
resolution declaring that the discontent
of the Southern people was
not without cause, and that the Federal
government, in the interest of
perpetuating the Union, must therefore
provide further guarantees of
Southern rights. W. McKee Dunn of
Indiana proposed an amended
version which offered guarantees-whether
Southern discontent and
hostility were without just cause or
not. Orris S. Ferry of Connecticut
and Justin S. Morrill of Vermont offered
substitutions, with minor
variations in language, which expressed
regret at the growing
Southern hostility toward the Federal
government and favored any
reasonable, proper, and constitutional
remedy to preserve the peace
of the country. The committee rejected
the Ferry and Morrill
resolutions but adopted the Dunn
substitution by a vote of
twenty-two to eight. Corwin voted with
the majority. The committee
had gone on record favoring compromise,
for even the defeated
measures called for some legal or
constitutional adjustment.24 On
December 13 and 14 Corwin and William
Kellogg of Illinois made
conciliatory speeches before the
committee in an attempt to convince
its Southern members of Lincoln's
conservatism.The committee voted
to make its initial proceedings public.
23. Journal of the Committee of
Thirty-three in Report of Committees, House of
Representatives, 36th Congress, 2nd session, No. 31, 3-4; Washington National
Intelligencer, December 15, 1860.
24. Journal of the Committee of
Thirty-three, 5-8; Washington National
Intelligencer, December 14, 1860.
Thomas Corwin 237 |
|
Few Republican spokesmen shared Corwin's growing concern for compromise. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, in a letter to Lincoln,expressed surprise that the House voted to raise a committee on the State of the Union. "It seems to me," he wrote, "that for Republicans to take steps towards getting up committees on proposing new compromises . . . would be wrong .. .25 One Cincinnati Republican complained to Salmon P. Chase on December 7, "I am sorry to see Mr. Corwin's mischievous influence at work in Washington. We can offer it seems to me no terms of compromise, honorable & possible at the North, which the South are likely to adopt. The future looks blue to me. I confess, if the Union & not righteousness is to be only looked after and if the Republican party is to take up the Union saving trade, it may as well go to the wall." The New York Tribune argued against compromise, especially one gained with Republican votes.26 Corwin in all probability did not understand the gulf that separated
25. See Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 9 vols. (New Brunswick, 1953-1955), IV, 150. 26. George Hoadly to Salmon P. Chase, December 7, 1860, The Papers of Salmon P. Chase, Library of Congress (hereafter cited Chase Papers). |
238 OHIO HISTORY
him from Lincoln on matters of party
strategy. For Lincoln, and most
other Republican leaders, compromise on
the territorial issue would
destroy the Republican party. To
Trumbull the President-elect wrote
on December 10, "Let there be no
compromise on the question of
extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere
long, must
be done again. . . . Stand firm. The tug
has to come, & better now,
than any time hereafter." When
Kellogg, on December 6, asked
Lincoln's advice on matters before the
Committee of Thirty-three, the
President-elect responded,
"Entertain no proposition for a
compromise in regard to the extension
of slavery. The instant you do,
they will have us under again. . . .
Douglas is sure to be again trying
to bring in his 'Pop. Sov.' Have none of
it."27
For Corwin the times demanded nothing
less than an official
Republican acceptance of old Whig
doctrines on matters of slavery,
including some compromise arrangement
for the territories. The
challenge to Republican leadership
seemed sharper than ever.
Southern extremists in Congress still
rationalized their secessionist
doctrines with charges that the
Republican party had elected Lincoln
precisely because he was an enemy of
Southern institutions. On
December 10 John A. Gilmer, a North
Carolina Unionist, delivered to
Corwin a letter addressed to Lincoln.
Gilmer requested that Lincoln
answer certain questions then before the
country and thereby offer
reassurance to the vast body of Southern
conservatives. "I am
satisfied," wrote Gilmer,
"that our Northern population are not well
informed as to the excitement prevailing
in the South. It seems to me
to border on madness & so it may
appear to others, who believe with
me, that no adequate cause for it
exists." For Gilmer the danger lay
in the constant misrepresentation of the
Republican party in the
South. "Your answer," he
informed Lincoln, "would at least put an
end to these misunderstandings."
Again Corwin hesitated to impose
his views on Lincoln, but his high
esteem for Gilmer, whom he knew
well, compelled him to write: "I
have never, in my life, seen my
country in such a dangerous position. I
look upon it with alarm, but
I am resolved not to be paralyzed by
dismay. Our safety can only be
assured by looking for the danger full
in the face & acting with calm
dignity... ."28
On December 11 Corwin addressed Lincoln
again, agreeing to keep
any response to Gilmer's letter private
until Lincoln issued his
consent to make it public. He urged
Lincoln to come to Washington.
27. Basler, Collected Works of
Abraham Lincoln, IV, 149-50.
28. Corwin to Lincoln, December 10,
1860, Lincoln Papers; for pressure on Corwin
see also open letter in the Cincinnati
Daily Gazette, December 11, 1860.
Thomas Corwin 239
"Many Southern men have expressed a
great desire that you should
come here soon that Southern men,
who are sincere Union men might
see & converse with you," ran
Corwin's admonition. "Think of this
& judge for yourself.... Our
Committee met this morning. The sky
is overcast. No one can foresee clearly
what is in the future."29
Lincoln informed Gilmer that only his
fear that silence might be
misconstrued prompted him to answer the
letter at all. He could not,
Lincoln asserted, shift the ground upon
which he was elected. That
ground was well known, embodied in the
Chicago Platform and
innumerable speeches, all reported in
the South. He would not repent
or apologize for the crime of being
elected. Lincoln assured Gilmer
that he would not interfere with the
slave trade among the slave states
or with slavery in the District of
Columbia. "On the territorial
question," Lincoln concluded,
"I am inflexible ... On that there is a
difference between you and us. ... You
think slavery is right and
ought to be extended; we think it is
wrong and ought to be restricted.
For this, neither has any just occasion
to be angry with the other."30
Lincoln sent the letter to Corwin, to be
delivered or not as he thought
prudent.
After mid-December the Committee of
Thirty-three made little
progress. Despite the secrecy of its
proceedings, the knowledge that
Corwin favored compromise even in the
territories destroyed
whatever acceptance his views still
commanded in Republican circles.
Republicans agreed overwhelmingly to the
principle of constitutional
guarantees for slavery in the states,
but they condemned Corwin for
submitting territorial compromises to
his committee. "If ever Corwin
was a Republican," complained one
Illinois Republican, "the sooner
he is classed against us, the better
.... To fight as few parties ever
did and give our enemies every advantage
from our victory is
shameful in the highest degree."
Corwin's compromise plans, wrote
another, would ruin the Republican party
by giving up the ground the
party had fought for and won. One writer
informed Ohio's Senator
Benjamin F. Wade that he was perhaps not
aware "of the anxiety and
fears . . . lest the great principles
contended for and now almost
secure are to be frittered away on some
contemptable [sic]
compromise. We want no Tom Corwin
overtures...."31
29. Corwin to Lincoln, December 11,
1860, Lincoln Papers.
30. Lincoln to John A. Gilmer, December
15, 1860; Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull,
December 17, 1860, in Basler, Collected
Works of Abraham Lincoln, IV, 151-53.
31. George T. Brown to Trumbull,
December 15, 1860; A. B. McChesney to
Trumbull, December 18, 1860; G. O. Pond
to Trumbull, December 23, 1860, The
Papers of Lyman Trumbull, Library of
Congress (hereafter cited Trumbull Papers); H.
G. Blake to S. P. Chase, December 18, 1860, Chase
Papers; M. Jewett to Benjamin F.
Wade, December 25, 1860, The Papers of
Benjamin F. Wade, Library of Congress.
240 OHIO HISTORY
For many Republicans the rumors that
Corwin and his Republican
associates on the committee would favor
compromise in the
territories were unbelievable. None
appeared more distraught at the
prospect than Carl Schurz, then
lecturing in Boston. "Is it possible,"
he asked on December 17, "that they
can trample under foot
everything that is dear to their
constituents? I cannot, cannot believe
it. One thing is sure. As soon as their
resolutions, or anything like
them, are adopted, the Republican party
has ceased to exist." Schurz
reported that outside the large cities
of the Northeast he had found no
Republicans who did not scorn the idea
of retreating from the Chigago
platform. Even the conservatives
demanded increasingly prompt and
vigorous execution of the laws against
secession. "I cannot help
flattering myself," Schurz
continued, "with the idea that even Mr.
Corwin cannot be in earnest with these
resolutions, that they are in-
troduced merely for the purpose of
gaining time. But even in that
case, their very introduction is an act
of degredation, a slur upon the
moral sense of the people."32
Schurz condemned the Corwin committee in
even stronger terms a
week later. "We are looking with
intense anxiety," he wrote, "for
the report of the Committee of
Thirty-three. As soon as it is made,
then we shall have arrived at the
decisive crisis, which will put the
mettle and generalship of the
Republicans in Congress to the test.
Now, I think, has the time come when
they can abandon their
awkward, miserable, demoralizing,
defensive position." If the House
Republicans faced no danger of
compromise, Schurz advised, they
might act with promptness; if such a
danger existed, then they should
open new fields for debate and argue
everything at length to prevent a
vote in the House before March 4. It was
essential, in short, that the
Lincoln Administration not be
compromised before it assumed office.
As Schurz wrote to his wife, there was
danger that "the party
standards [would] be lowered, and
Lincoln . . . compelled to
submit."33
For conservatives in Washington the last
days of December were
discouraging. Outwardly the city
appeared peaceful enough-the
machinery of government moving smoothly,
the Supreme Court in
session, the Executive at his work.
"But the moment you
encountered individuals," wrote one
observer, ". .. your hopes sank
and you saw danger all around."
Former Ohio Congressman Samuel
F. Vinton's report from Washington on
December 21 was equally
32. Carl Schurz to J. F. Potter,
December 17, 1860, Frederic Bancroft, ed.,
Speeches, Correspondence, and
Political Papers of Carl Schurz (New
York, 1913), I,
169-70.
33. Schurz to J. F. Potter, December 24,
1860; Schurz to Mrs. Schurz, December 17,
1860, Ibid., 168, 173.
Thomas Corwin
241
pessimistic: "The controversy about
slavery has been carried on until
the people of the North and the South
have come to hate each other
worse than the hatred between any two
nations in the world .... Our
probable future is too horrible for
calm contemplation."34 To
conservatives both in Washington and
out, the South's challenge to
Republican leadership remained clear.
Nothing less than Northern
guarantees on slavery would undermine
the secessionist movement in
the Deep South and hold the border
states in the Union. Any
compromise would do for the border
states, one St. Louis Republican
assured Corwin. "If they can get
such a trophy to hold up," he
wrote, "they will cling to the
union and sustain the North in any
collision with the Gulf states."35
Corwin, trapped between the
demands of uncompromising politicians
and editors, North and
South, and the universal cry of
conservatives for conciliation,
reported his discouragement to Lincoln.
He suggested again that
Lincoln's presence in Washington would
allay more fears than all that
he had said in Springfield. Corwin
continued:
There is an epidemic insanity raging all
over this country & I am not sure we
can prevent the lunatics from destroying
each other. You have seen all I
could say, in the papers of each day. I
am quite sure Florida & Mississippi
will follow very soon the mad steps of S
Carolina. Whether any more of the
cotton states will follow . . . I think doubtful. Our
Committee of 33 is still
incubating. When or what
it will hatch, no one can now predict. One thing we
cannot do. We can't make slavery the
normal condition of all territory to be
conquered. I can myself yield much if the application of the
principle is
confined to territory we already
possess. My present purpose to bring the
entire territory into the Union by
enabling acts & thus end the controversy,
making states of it all, leaving
them as the pact of 1850 declares they may, to
come in, with or without slavery as they
may ordain.... I see a long series of
troubles ahead if 3 or 5 states or 15
should secede. Wounded pride, personal
ambition, party strife & an almost
total want of old fashioned patriotism, are
all that work with a fury unknown to any
former crisis which has occurred in
my life time. I still hope, but am
compelled to believe there is great danger,
which nothing but firm & prudent
measures can overt.36
Under such circumstances the Committee
of Thirty-three had no
chance of bridging the chasm between
Republican inflexibility and the
demands of the Southern disunionists.
The committee accepted a
resolution introduced by Henry Winter
Davis of Maryland, requiring
the states to revise any laws which
hindered the execution of the
34. William B. Reed to Thomas B.
Stevenson, December 24, 1860, Stevenson
Papers; Samuel F. Vinton to William Greene, December
21, 1860, The Papers of
William Greene, Cincinnati Historical
Society (hereafter cited Greene Papers).
35. Samuel T. Glover to Corwin, December
26, 1860, Lincoln Papers. For a similar
view see the letter from R. L. Hurt to
Corwin, January 9, 1861, Ibid.
36. Corwin to Lincoln, December 24,
1860, Ibid.
242 OHIO HISTORY
Fugitive Slave Act. But the committee
was hopelessly split over the
territorial issue. As early as December
17 it had rejected Nelson's
resolution favoring the Missouri
Compromise line. Southerners,
represented by George S. Houston of
Alabama, again proposed the
Missouri Compromise line with slavery
protected to the south of it.
The Cincinnati Daily Gazette predicted
on December 21 that the
Republicans would reject compromise and
the Southerners would
leave the committee. The vote on
Houston's resolution failed on
December 27. Thereupon Nelson offered in
place of his amendments
of December 12 those which John J.
Crittenden of Kentucky had
presented to the Senate a week earlier.37
The Crittenden plan called
for the extension of the Missouri line,
the protection of slavery south
of that line, the permanent denial of
congressional power over slavery
in the states, and compensation for
slaves not recoverable because of
Northern opposition to the Fugitive
Slave Act. The differences
between the Crittenden and Nelson
proposals were slight indeed.
Clearly the Republicans on the committee
were in a dilemma, for they
dared not accept even the conservative
Southern position. This
placed them in the unfortunate role of
appearing as the enemies of the
South.
To set the committee Republicans right
before the country, Charles
Francis Adams of Massachusetts agreed to
support Henry Winter
Davis's proposal of December 21 for the
admission of New Mexico
and Kansas as states, as well as for the
two-thirds consent of both
houses of Congress for the acquisition
of new territory. The status of
slavery in the added territory would remain
as it had been at the time
of the acquisition. Davis, a former Know
Nothing, had cooperated
with the Republicans on the committee
and had voted against
Nelson's proposal of December 17. If
Davis's formula did not satisfy
all Southerners, it seemed capable of
saving the committee. By
December 26 the Republicans had
perfected their proposal on New
Mexico. Thereupon Corwin charged Adams,
a known antislavery
Republican, to present the resolution as
his own. Adams
compromised his New England conscience
and consented. The final
Republican offer included a provision
which William L. Seward of
New York had sponsored in the
Senate-that slavery in the states be
guaranteed against Federal interference.38
Adams introduced his resolutions on
December 28. The vote on the
37. Journal of the Committee of
Thirty-three, 11-13, 16-19.
38. On Adams' role see David M. Potter, Lincoln
and His Party in the Secession
Crisis (New Haven, 1942), 291-93; also Journal of the
Committee of Thirty-three,
19-21, 33-34.
Thomas Corwin
243
protection of slavery in the states
passed quickly, twenty-one to
three. That on New Mexico came more
slowly, thirteen to eleven,
with two border state members, Davis of
Maryland and Francis
Bristow of Kentucky, in favor. No other
Southerner present
supported the measure. Following the
vote Miles Taylor of Louisiana
announced that inasmuch as the committee
would never agree to any
proposal that would effectively settle
issues growing out of the
slavery question, he would no longer
participate fully in the
deliberations of the committee.
What destroyed the remaining Southern
adherence to the work of
the committee was Adam's thoroughly
Republican resolution of
January 11, 1861, which declared that
the "peaceful acquiescence in
the election of a Chief Magistrate,
accomplished in accordance with
every legal and constitutional
requirement, is the paramount duty of
every good citizen of the United
States." After the committee
substituted the words "high and
imperative" for "paramount," it
approved the resolution, twenty-two to
zero. Prior to the vote Taylor
submitted a statement, signed by six
additional members of the
committee, that Adam's proposal in no
way tended toward the
adjustment of the difficulties before
the American people. Thereafter
the seven signers withheld their votes.39
Corwin managed, on January 14, to report
a scheme of conciliation
to the House. The committee's five
proposals included a call for the
repeal of Northern personal liberty
laws; a constitutional amendment
forbidding any interference with slavery
in the slave states; the
admission of New Mexico, presumably as a
slave state; trials for
fugitive slaves in the states from which
they had escaped; and new
Federal procedures designed to ease the
problem of extraditing
fugitive slaves. Corwin, in presenting
the report, accused the
Northern radicals of fomenting domestic
insurrection and obstructing
the recovery of fugitive slaves-both of
which caused disquiet in the
South. But again he absolved the
Republican party of responsibility.
"The great mistake which is now
urging on the public mind to the
wildest excesses," he said,
"consists in confounding the . . .
abolitionists with the great mass of the
Republican party of the North
and West."40
39. Washington National
Intelligencer, December 31, 1860; Cincinnati Daily
Gazette, January 2, 1861.
40. Corwin's report published in Report
of Committees, House of Representatives,
36th Congress, 2nd session, No. 31, 1-8.
For commentary of Corwin's report see
Washington National Intelligencer, January
17, 1861; Cincinnati Daily Gazette,
January 17, 1861; New York Tribune, January
17, 18, 1861. What disturbed the Tribune
was Corwin's willingness to accept the
charge that Northern publications were inciting
rebellion in the South.
244 OHIO HISTORY
Whether the Corwin proposals comprised a
genuine majority report
was doubtful. Horace Greeley's New
York Tribune denied it. Nor did
Corwin's formula for a settlement
discourage members of his
committee from submitting at least five
strongly-worded minority
reports which variably denied the need
of any Federal action in the
crisis except the enforcement of Federal
laws, called for a convention
of the states to frame amendments to the
Constitution which might
protect the growing and conflicting
interests of the American people,
or demanded consideration of the
Crittenden proposals. That of
Adams objected simply to the offer of
reasonable measures which the
South would never accept.41 Corwin's
experience on the Committee
of Thirty-three merely completed his
descent to a mood of
hopelessness and resignation. On January
16, two days after he
submitted his report, he committed his
disillusionment to paper in a
letter to Lincoln:
If the states are no more harmonious in
their feelings & opinions than these
33 representative men then, appaling [sic]
as the idea is, we must dissolve & a
long & bloody civil war must
follow. I cannot comprehend the madness of the
time. Southern men are theoretically
crazy. Extreme Northern men are
practical fools. The latter are really
quite as mad as the former. Treason is in
the air around us every where. It
goes by the name of Patriotism. Men in
Congress boldly avow it, & the
public offices are full of acknowledged
secessionists. God alone I fear can help
us. Four or five states are gone,
others are driving before the gale. I
have looked on this horrid picture till I
have been able to gaze on it with
perfect calmness. I think if you live, you
may take the oath.42
On January 21 Corwin addressed the House
in his final defense of
the Union. "My mission today,"
he began, "is one of conciliation, of
peace." Again he assured the South
that the Republican party had
neither the power nor the intention of
carrying out the foolish and
unconstitutional designs which
Southerners attributed to it. He
reminded those who feared the Republican
party that the South was
strong enough to prevent the passage of
any amendment it opposed.
The North, he said, had no desire to
interfere with slavery in the
Southern states. If the South wanted New
Mexico, she could have it;
he proposed to bring New Mexico into the
Union immediately.43 Why
the South required new slave territory
he failed to understand, for the
price of slaves indicated that they were
already in short supply. If the
41. For minority reports see Report
of Committees, House ofRepresentatives, 36th
Congress, 2nd session, No. 31.
42. Corwin to Lincoln, January 16, 1861,
Lincoln Papers.
43. Morrow, Life and Speeches of
Corwin, 459, 467-69.
Thomas Corwin 245
slave economy already had access to
sufficient land, then why the
quarrel? "I will not, I can
not," ran Corwin's final plea, "anticipate
the future, and walk forth among the
broken arches, the ruined
towers, and prostrate columns of this
glorious temple of freedom....
That temple still stands in all its
grand proportions; but it stands
alone. Wander over all the earth, and
you will find no other like it. I
will not believe that the blows aimed at
it ... shall cause it to rock or
reel. I will hope, as they who built it
prayed and hoped, that it shall
stand forever, as it now stands, on its
own solid and deep
foundations. "44
Whig Republicans and moderate Democrats,
in Congress and out,
still anticipated some compromise that
would keep Virginia and other
Southern states in the Union. "Do
not the Republican gentlemen
learn enough of the Philosophy of
History to know that delay is fatal
in such a crisis as this,"
complained a Richmond Unionist in
February. Republican reluctance to
compromise, he warned, would
merely harden sectional feeling. Even
such well-known Southern
conservatives as William C. Rives of
Virginia accepted without
question the need for new and permanent
guarantees to protect the
rights of the slaveholding states.45
In Congress Corwin battled to
accommodate the moderate
Southern and border state demands. In
managing the debates on his
committee's proposals he remained fair
and conciliatory, but by the
end of February the House was in a state
of bedlam. Corwin
complained on one occasion, "I have
never yielded the floor at all.
Gentlemen take it from me without asking
leave; and they do not care
whether I yield or not, or whether they
are recognized by the Chair or
not."46 Calls of order
rang across the chamber; it had become almost
impossible to carry on the business of
the House. Even more
intolerable than the evident apathy of
many Americans toward events
in Congress was the helplessness of
those who favored compromise.
Eventually the House adopted Corwin's
resolution for a stronger
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act,
but it rejected statehood for
New Mexico.47 The committee's
proposed amendment to bar any
future congressional interference with
slavery in the states passed the
44. Ibid., 477.
45. Vinton to Greene, January 19, 1861,
Greene papers; J. D. Davidson to W. C.
Rives, February 1, 1861; James Barbour
to Rives, February 18, 1861; G. Kemble to
Rives, February 20, 1861; Rives to T. J.
Wertenbaker et al., January 23, 1861, The
Papers of William C. Rives, Library of
Congress.
46. Truman Smith to Trumbull, January
24, 1861, Trumbull Papers.
47. Washington National
Intelligencer, March 2, 1861.
246 OHIO HISTORY
House on February 28, in amended form,
by a vote of 133 to 65. On
March 2 the Senate adopted the amendment
by the same narrow
constitutional majority, twenty-four to
twelve.48 Too late the measure
went before the states.
Republican strategy had begun to tell.
Republicans argued
throughout February that compromise with
treason would strip the
party of its superior moral position and
force its dissolution. As the
crisis deepend many insisted that
Northern firmness, not
compromise, would terminate the
sectional conflict. Thus Senator
Truman Smith of Connecticut could praise
Trumbull for his "manly &
truly patriotic efforts . . . in
exposing the treasonable purposes of
those who would break up our glorious
Union & bring on the Country
unspeakable calamities and all the
horrors of civil war."49 One
Chicagoan warned Trumbull that the
country would enjoy quiet and
repose in direct proportion to
Republican resolve. "So long as Mr.
Adams of Massachusetts will concede a
little or bid for peace, . . .
and Mr. Corwin will favor this or that
change," ran his warning, ". .
just so long the rebels are by that
very thing prompted to ask more,
demand more."50 Such
Republicans condemned Corwin and Kellogg
for surrendering the principles of the
Chicago platform. "I hope Mr.
Kellogg & such republicans will go
over to the slave-holders or get a
sticking plaster to strengthen their
backbones," wrote one Delaware
Republican. "They do much mischief to
their friends."51
Whether any compromise on the
territories would have satisfied
those in control of Deep South politics
or altered the course of
subsequent events is doubtful. But for
Corwin the Republican party,
as a powerful sectional creation, was
the immediate source of
contention in national life. To
Republican realists any retreat from the
Chicago platform would not only divide
and weaken their coalition
but also play directly into the hands of
the Douglas Democrats.
"Beware of Compromise,"
admonished one Republican. "It killed
Clay and Webster. It killed the old Whig
Party, and if you are not
careful it will slaughter the present
generation of politicians."
48. Herman V. Ames, The Proposed
Amendments to the Constitution, Annual
Report of the American Historical
Association (Washington, 1896), II,
195-96. For a
history of the Corwin Amendment see R.
Alton Lee, "The Corwin Amendment in the
Secession Crisis," The Ohio
Historical Quarterly, LXX (January 1961), 1-26. This article
does not focus on Corwin's relationship
to the Republican party but on the evolution and
final disposal of the amendment itself.
49. H. G. McPike to Trumbull, January
24, 1861, Trumbull Papers.
50. Thomas Richmond to Trumbull, January
29, 1861, Ibid.
51. A. P. Bartlett to Trumbull, February
9, 1861; W. McCaulley to Trumbull,
February 24, 1861, Ibid.
Thomas Corwin 247
Corwin, the reluctant Republican,
rejected that view of history. For
him Clay and Webster had not failed;
those who killed the Whig party
had committed the error. Now in victory
they endangered the Union
as well. But the South had once
accepted the Whig party as its own.
On the basis of that knowledge Corwin
set out in the early stages of
the crisis to convince Southerners that
the Whig tradition lived on in
the Republican party. His role in the
sectional struggle was unique,
perhaps even heroic. It was nonetheless
futile, for Thomas Corwin's
voice was never that of the Republican
party.
NORMAN A. GRAEBNER
Thomas Corwin and the
Sectional Crisis
Thomas Corwin viewed the sectional
crisis of 1860 with
consternation but scarcely with
surprise. For a dozen years this
conservative Ohio politician had warned
Americans that the sectional
struggle over slavery in the territories
would one day propel the
nation into a bloody civil war. In his
dramatic speech to the Senate of
February 11, 1847, he had predicted that
the annexation of Mexican
territory would unleash sectional forces
that would tear the Union
apart. It was Corwin's fear of disunion
that wedded him to the
declining Whig party. With the demise of
that party-the victim of
sectional politics-he refused to join
its Northern successor, the
Republican party. Corwin had little in
common with such Republican
founders as Joshua Giddings, Charles
Sumner, and Horace Greeley.
For him the Republicans, riding the
crest of free-soil sentiment,
endangered the Union in direct
proportion to their success. In 1856 he
favored Millard Fillmore and the Know
Nothings because of their
censure of the Kansas agitation.
However, as a partisan who had
fought Jacksonians and Jacksonian
principles throughout his political
career, Corwin canvassed for the
Republican John C. Fremont in
order to contribute more effectively to
the defeat of James Buchanan
and the Democrats in Ohio.1
Thereafter, Corwin's Republicanism remained unorthodox. He
accepted the Fugitive Slave Act as a
national necessity. On the
prohibition of slavery in the
territories he agreed with the Republican
free-soil platform; but in the Union,
Corwin declared repeatedly, a
new state had the right to decide the
question of slavery for itself.2 As
Norman Graebner is Stettinius Professor
of History at the University of Virginia.
1. Columbus Ohio State Journal, October
31, 1856; Thomas Corwin served in the
Ohio General Assembly in the 1820s. His
twelve-year term in the House of
Representatives (1829-1841) ended when
he was elected governor of Ohio. From 1845
to 1851 he served in the Senate until he
was chosen Secretary of the Treasury by
President Millard Fillmore. Corwin
returned briefly to the House (1859-1861) until his
appointment as minister to Mexico, a
post he retained until 1864. Dictionary of
American Biography, vol. IV (New York, 1930), 457-58.
2. Josiah Morrow, ed., Life and
Speeches of Thomas Corwin (Cincinnati, 1896),
61-62.