POLITICO-ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS IN THE
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY
By EDWARD C. REILLEY
With the advent of the Panic of 1837 the
people of that
northeastern section of Ohio known as
the Western Reserve
seemed for the first time to have
suspected that the southern labor
system was in some degree responsible
for producing their eco-
nomic woes. This viewpoint was but
slowly accepted and was not
emphasized by its proponents until after
the depression had worn
into the 1840's.
One of the earliest expressions of
dissatisfaction with southern
economic influences appears to have been
that voiced by the
farmers in the vicinity of Akron.
Holding a convention in De-
cember, 1840, to discuss ways and means
of overcoming their
financial difficulties, they soon found
themselves under the spell
of such aggressive antislavery agitators
as General James H.
Paine of Lake County and C. R. Hamlin of
Summit County.
Prompted by these ardent orators they
resolved to remind their
political representatives that they must
no longer overlook the
interests of free labor. The
agriculturists of the leading grain
producing states, they observed, were in
a predicament where
vigorous and concerted efforts must be
made to obtain for their
produce equitable prices in all quarters
of the world. This they
felt could be effected only by sending
men to Washington who
would not submit to the selfish
influence of the cotton plutocracy.
They were convinced that slavery was
costing the laborers and
capitalists of the North several million
dollars every year without
providing any compensating advantages,
and they resolved to
arouse the attention of all freemen to
the fact that they must look
to their own interests and force slavery
to support itself.1
1 Cincinnati Philanthropist, January 13, 1841.
(141)
142
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
When, less than two months later, Joshua
Giddings thun-
dered against the Florida war in one of
his most famous speeches
before the House of Representatives, he
reflected much the same
viewpoint as that taken by the
Akronites. He bemoaned the fact
that northern funds had been squandered
on the South for the
past five years while the propriety of
this vast expenditure had
not been demonstrated to the public.2
A certain $5,000 disburse-
ment for the army's purchase of
bloodhounds, he charged, was not
for the purpose of tracking down
Indians, as had been represented;
it was rather for the purpose of
capturing runaway slaves. He
expressed a hope that his constituents
would understand distinctly
that they were being taxed to preserve
and strengthen slavery.
Their treasure, he asserted, was being
appropriated directly for
that object. Soldiers who had been born
in the free states and
reared in the tradition of freedom were
being employed by their
superiors, he stated, to pursue and
capture fugitive slaves.
Northern freemen were now having their
purses filched for the
acquisition of bloodhounds to cooperate
with the army in this dis-
graceful and disgusting method of waging
the war.3
According to documents the Ohio
congressman discovered in
the course of his research work, the
laboring men of Ohio and the
other free states had been obliged to
give of their hard-earned
money that the government might pay a
bounty of twenty dollars
for every Negro seized and handed over
to the whites as a slave.
What angered him most particularly was
his moral certainty that
many of the Negroes thus taken had been
born free. In this way,
he pointed out, his people had been
compelled to part with their
money that freemen might be enslaved.4
Likewise when Leicester King of Trumbull
County was run-
ning for governor in 1841, his strategy
was to emphasize the
adverse influence wrought by the southern
system upon the for-
tunes of the Ohio worker. His platform
declared that the national
government had been constantly exerting
its power to strengthen
the influence and to safeguard the
interests of slave labor while
2 Congressional Globe Appendix, 26 Cong., 2 Sess., 346.
3
Ibid., 350.
4 Joshua Giddings, Speeches in
Congress (Boston, 1853),
18-19.
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY 143
the welfare of free labor had been
increasingly disregarded and
forgotten. The rights of the northern
workers, it charged, were
being regularly menaced and even
violated by the manipulators at
Washington. It observed that the
products of slave labor were
being admitted to practically all
foreign markets on advantageous
terms while manufactures of the North
were excluded or permitted
to enter on conditions that amounted to
exclusion. All this, it
asserted, was the result of partiality
characteristic of American
diplomats under southern influence. The
slave system, it went on,
created a larger non-laboring class than
those in thraldom could
support; the masters therefore were
obtaining loans and merchan-
dise from the North out of all
proportion to their resources, and
this was bound to prove deleterious to
the prosperity of the free
states.5
When the Liberty party of Cuyahoga
County held a conven-
tion in March, 1842, its members gave
voice to the conviction that
the "Home League" and other
agencies for the protection of
northern industry would be ineffectual
as long as the slaveholders
and their minions controlled the
national legislature. Still suffer-
ing from the effects of the Panic of
1837, they looked for a scape-
goat, and found it in the South. The
principal cause of their
financial distress they discerned in the
alleged fact that the slave
states not only consumed all the profits
of the free states but ran
:hem into debt at the rate of
$22,000,000 a year.6
Soon Giddings was taking up the same
strain in Congress.
Maintaining that the human race
constituted a single organism, he
asserted that one element in it could
not meet with adversity with-
out producing unfortunate effects for
all. Thus the trials and
afflictions imposed upon the nation's
slaves had to some extent
weakened the physical energy of the
white population, and this,
in turn, was retarding America's
progress in the development of
is physical resources. "Feebleness,
vice, and pauperism," the
Ashtabula representative dogmatized,
must be the inevitable con-
comitants of slavery.7
5 Cincinnati Philanthropist, January
5, 1842.
6 Ibid., April 6, 1842.
7 Giddings, Speeches, 25.
144 OHIO
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
When Leicester King made a second
attempt to capture the
Ohio gubernatorial chair he again
stressed the labor issue and the
Philanthropist took up the cry. Hoping to appeal to those who
possessed the Homeric instinct, Editor
Gamaliel Bailey printed a
poem which probably was well adjusted to
the artistic sense of
his readers:
The industrious workman's constant
friend
He would exalt their low condition,
Protect their labor and defend
Them, 'gainst the oppressor's imposition
--
Leicester King, of young Ohio,
Leicester King, of young Ohio,
There's not a man in all the land
Like Leicester King, of young Ohio.8
The appalling economic depression of
1837 and the years
immediately ensuing were not an unmixed
evil as far as the anti-
slavery agitators were concerned. It is
true that during this period
the collection of funds for the
advancement of the cause was
difficult. T. B. Hudson, an agent of the
Ohio Antislavery Society
laboring in the Western Reserve,
reported as late as June, 1843,
that men of property and even of wealth
were telling him that
their taxes were unpaid and that they
had not had a dollar in their
possession for months. One-half of the
friends on whom he had
called had revealed that they were
deeply in debt and had no idea
where they were going to obtain the
means necessary to satisfy
the more insistent of their creditors.
Under these conditions, he
indicated, the collection of money or of
pledges seemed almost
beyond reasonable expectation.9 The
anxiety and discontent en-
gendered by such circumstances, on the
other hand, provided the
enemies of the South with a situation
well calculated to occasion
the success of their denunciatory
harangues.
When a bill for the relief of the owners
of Negroes lost from
the slave ships Comet and Enconium was presented for discussion
in the national House of
Representatives, Joshua Giddings saw
8 Cincinnati Philanthropist, August
27, 1842.
9 Ibid., July 19, 1843.
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY 145
his opportunity. If he were asked to
suggest a subject fit for the
painter's brush, he said, he would
choose a northern Democrat
forcing a gag into the mouth of one of
his constituents with one
hand, while using the other to pick his
pockets for the benefit of
the slave power, at the same time saying
in the most solemn tones,
"You have nothing to do with the
slave trade; you have no right
to interfere with the matter."10
Other considerations, constitutional,
moral, and humane, like-
wise provided bases for objection to the
bill, but the economic
reasons for its rejection could not be
kept in the background.
Giddings reminded his colleagues that
they were spending a vast
amount of their constituents' money
every year for the suppression
of the African slave trade; yet,
strangely enough, they were now
being requested to pass a bill to
support and stimulate the com-
mission of the same crime here at home.
Would they approve of
this traffic one day, he asked, and turn
around the next and appro-
priate millions to stop it? Such
"tergiversation," he prophesied,
would ruin the reputation of Congress.11
When Giddings traveled to Cleveland a
few months later he
delivered two addresses in which he
stressed economic considera-
tions. He "exposed" huge
grants of money which had been made
to southerners from the national
treasury. Thousands of dollars,
he declared, had been taken from the
North and employed for
purposes that were "wholly and
entirely unconstitutional." These
revelations came to his audiences as a
decided shock, for they had
been perfectly unaware of the allegedly
corrupt manipulations of
southern schemers and their doughface
allies. Especially when
the Ashtabula County politician
presented his view of the origin
and causes of the Florida war did the
people prick up their ears
and shake their heads in astonishment.
Afterwards many of those
in attendance were heard to say that the
lavish expenditures in
promoting "that most unjust and
unholy and barbarous war,"
were "wholly and unqualifiedly
unconstitutional," and that the
pockets of the free citizens of the free
states had been picked to
pay southern "nabobs" for
their human property.12
10 Cong. Globe Appendix, 27 Cong., 3 Sess., 196.
11 Ibid., 197.
12 Ashtabula Sentinel, August
5, 1843.
146
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Quite perceptibly, the minds of the
Clevelanders had been
stirred to thought, and profound
conclusions were forthcoming.
When they would probe the matter to its
depths the probability
was that their souls would be so
overcome with righteous anger
that nothing less than a bloody crusade
would suffice to balance
their account with the South.
After having lectured on the financial
liabilities created by
slavery, Giddings returned to Washington
where he proceeded to
inform his fellow congressmen, and the
readers of the Congres-
sional Globe, concerning the rights of the states in respect to the
peculiar institution of the South. The
free states, he asserted, had
the same right to complete exemption
from the support of slavery
that they had before the adoption of the
Constitution. Congress,
he maintained, had no more authority to
impose upon them the
expense of that institution than did the
parliament of Great
Britain.13
For many years, treaties with the
southern Indians had con-
tained provisions for the surrender of
all fugitive slaves who
should take refuge with them. Giddings
pointed out that for these
and other stipulations the nation's
money, much of which was
from the North, had been paid. This led
logically to a considera-
tion of the Florida war about which the
Whig congressman never
tired of speaking. Although it may have
been somewhat boring
to hear the same old assertion repeated,
Giddings, oblivious to the
frayed nerves of his audience, again
affirmed that the United States
had waged an expensive war in Florida
simply to return fugitive
Negroes to their masters.14
At the previous session of Congress, he
charged, the people's
representatives had sat there at a daily
expense of thousands of
dollars, passing laws to aid the slave
traders. They had spent their
time, and the money of their
constituents, he complained, to assist
slave mongers to speculate in human
beings, thus contravening
the Constitution and the rights it
guaranteed. Nobody in the hall,
he ventured, would risk his reputation
by saying that congressmen
had the authority to appropriate the
government's funds to these
13 Cong. Globe Appendix, 28
Cong., 1 Sess., 653.
14 Ibid.
WESTERN RESERVE'S
EARLY SLAVERY CONTROVERSY 147
"base
purposes."15 Replying
to those who criticized him for
agitating the slavery
question, he urged that his people be released
from their
unconstitutional obligation to sustain the southern insti-
tution and then, he
indicated, there would be no reason for such
discussions.
But [said he] while
you take from us our money to support slavery,
while you dishonor us
by making us the supporters of the coastwise slave
trade, while we are
involved in the crime of slavery in this District, we
shall not be
frightened into a silent submission to these violations of
the
constitution.16 . . .
The Cleveland Herald
became thoroughly disgusted with
Giddings and his ilk
for their histrionics in behalf of liberty, equal-
ity and economy. Under
the caption, "Great Waste of Time," the
paper declared that
the days and weeks thus far consumed in
debating abstractions
seemed insufficient to satisfy the "insatiate
maws" of certain
members. If there was anything of importance
for Congress to
consider, why not attend to that, the Herald asked.
"Abstractions and
other luxuries," it suggested, might be con-
sidered after the real
work was accomplished; or better yet, it
added, the congressmen
might go home. The cost of legislative
activity at Washington
it estimated at not much less than $5,000
a day. Enough time was
necessarily wasted over matters that
possessed some
practical significance, it asserted, without spend-
ing it, for instance,
in bemoaning the connection of the North with
slavery in the
nation's capital.17
Joshua Giddings,
virtuous man that he was, possessed too
much devotion to
principle to be driven from his course by the
allegation that he was
largely responsible for the futile expendi-
ture of the people's
money. In a few days he was back at his
guns, blazing away at
those whose point of view differed from
his own. The immediate
occasion of his latest fulminations was
a report of the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs in favor of
paying $70,000 to the
firm of Montez and Ruiz. This company
owned the slave ship Amistad
which had been taken over by its
human cargo and
brought into a northern port where a court had
15 Ibid., 653-4.
16
Ibid., 655-6.
17 Cleveland Herald,
quoted in Warren Liberty Hearld, March 28, 1844.
148
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
declared the Negroes free men. Now, in
April, 1844, four years
after the affair had taken place, the
committee was urging that
the court had erred and that the owners
of the blacks should be
compensated for their loss.
Giddings maintained that the court had
been under the advice
of able counsel and had given its
decision only after the most
mature deliberation; but the aspect of
the bill which seemed to
cause him the greatest concern was the fact
that most of the
appropriation would have to come from
the people of the North.
He stated that the proposition under
consideration went one
degree further than any other he had
seen. The House had been
asked to support the coastwise slave
trade, he said, but never
had it been requested to sustain the
African slave trade until the
present. It had been urged to give aid
to American slave dealers,
he recalled, but never had it been
expected to contribute to the
prosperity of the Cuban slave traders. A
new era in the history
of national legislation had begun, he
declared, and the people
of the free states ought to be given a
clear understanding of the
financial burdens that were to be
imposed upon them.18
Referring to the Tripolitan war,
Giddings remarked that
Americans had slain the Barbary pirates,
and yet, he went on,
the committee desired to give the
"more guilty slave merchants
money instead of a halter." If the
barbarians of Tripoli deserved
death, he declared, these Spaniards were
even more entitled to
it. If Stephen Decatur and Lieutenant
Somers had performed
great and noble feats in butchering the
corsairs, he asserted, the
Negroes aboard the Amistad, who
had slain their oppressors, had
performed even more praiseworthy deeds.
He concluded, there-
fore, that if $70,000 had to be spent,
he would prefer that the
money be used in erecting a monument in
eternal remembrance
of the uncultured Africans, rather than
in adding to the wealth
of "those hucksters in human
flesh."19
The economic implications of the
annexation of Texas did
not escape the antislavery enthusiasts
of the Western Reserve.
When in 1844 the public was taking a
deep interest in the ques-
18 Cong. Globe Appendix, 28 Cong., 1 Sess., 501.
19 Ibid., 502.
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY 149
tion, the people of Warren held a
meeting at which they gave
voice to their sentiments. In the
acquisition of the Lone Star
Republic they declared they saw a
multiplicity of economic
liabilities unbalanced by any
perceptible assets. The new terri-
tory would vastly increase the points of
attack in the event of a
foreign war without substantially
augmenting the means of de-
fense. On the other hand, southern
economic interests would be
expanded without any corresponding
addition to sectional har-
mony. Finally, they asserted that
annexation would involve a
marked rise in public expenditures
without bringing any adequate
return. Obviously from their point of
view Texas would be a
decidedly bad bargain.20
Joshua Giddings, ever sensitive to the
shifting currents of
public opinion, took up the anti-Texas
cry at Washington. Speak-
ing in the House of Representatives, he
reminded his colleagues
that they would soon be obliged to
return to their constituents
and would have to explain their position
on the question of an-
nexation. Would they stand up boldly, he
asked, and say, "You
must work hard, and live cheap, and be
economical, for we have
agreed to pay the debts of Texas, and
every laboring man in the
nation must contribute a portion of his
earnings." After this the
voter, in customary Yankee fashion,
would probably inquire as
to the benefits which would accrue to
the nation from this ex-
penditure. In reply to this
interrogation, Giddings asked whether
his fellow congressmen would have the
courage to say that the
money was to be employed in establishing
slavery and an excel-
lent slave market there. The defender of
the Western Reserve's
pocketbook insisted that the American
people must be informed
that they were being forced to pay for
the suppression of the
African slave trade at the same time
that they were obliged to
subsidize American commerce in the same
commodity.21
Turning to another aspect of his
problem, Giddings referred
to a bill which had recently been passed
for the protection of lake
and river commerce. He warned that if
Texas were to be ad-
mitted the balance of power would be
held by the people of that
20 Warren Liberty Herald, May 2,
1844.
21 Cong. Globe Appendix, 28 Cong.,
1 Sess., 705.
150 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
state. They, in conjunction with the
people of the other southern
states, would control the economic
course and destiny of the
country, and, horribile dictu, northern
commerce and the tariff
would be under the control of Texan
proponents of free trade!
Was the North ready and willing to hand
over the protection
of its industries, its iron, and its
coal to such enemies as these,
he asked? Was it ready to do so, that a
slave market might be
bought for its neighbor who bred
"men for the market like oxen
for the shambles?"22 If Texas should enter the Union, he
prophesied that not only would the
mechanics and manufacturers
be obliged to abandon their work, not
only would river and harbor
improvements be suspended in the free
states, but the farmers
of the West, of Ohio, Indiana and
Illinois would also suffer, for
they would have to give up the sale of
their beef, pork and flour
in order to increase the profits of
those "who raise children to
sell and who barter away the bodies of
women."23
Cleveland's Democratic organ, the Plain
Dealer, likewise re-
vealed its solicitude for the welfare of
northern workers, but its
point of view was decidedly different.
Criticizing the antislavery
zealots for battling against slavery
only in the South, it declared
that it was opposed to the institution
in the North as well as in
the South. Although it commended the
friends of the Negro
for their efforts in his behalf, it
expressed astonishment that they
had failed to observe the implications
of a high tariff and a United
States Bank, both of which, it asserted,
had an obvious tendency
"to oppress and enslave the freemen
of the North."24
Preferring to ignore this sly thrust at
the social injustices
practiced above the Mason-Dixon line,
the Cincinnati Herald and
Philanthropist attacked the Plain Dealer for lending its
support
to the candidacy of James K. Polk. Who
was this man, it asked?
Why, it replied, he was a slaveholder, a
sturdy upholder of the
gag rule through two proslavery
congresses, and a member of
that group which would acquire Texas
that slavery might be
rendered perpetual. While the Plain
Dealer might talk in behalf
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Quoted in Cincinnati Weekly
Herald and Philanthropist, September 11, 1844.
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY 151
of liberty, the Cincinnati paper
charged, it gave every indication
of an unwillingness to do anything other
than act for slavery.25
Finding agitation against Texas a
popular enterprise, Joshua
Giddings decided to launch into another
oratorical splurge in
which he would emphasize once more the
losses which the freemen
of the North would sustain in the event
of annexation. Address-
ing the lower branch of Congress in
January, 1845, he said that
if Texas were brought into the Union it
would be necessary to
erect around her a circle of
fortifications to protect her from in-
vasion. Several million dollars a year
would be needed for this
purpose, he estimated. The labor would
have to be performed
by slaves, because, as he reasoned, free
labor would not be al-
lowed to compete with slave labor in
that area. From informa-
tion he had obtained he understood that
the government was
wont to pay about the same for slave
labor as freemen received in
the North, although it was generally
conceded that one freeman
would do as much work as two slaves.
Thus, he indicated, the
erection of forts would constitute a
significant contribution to the
support of the peculiar institution,
for, as all could see, while the
government paid one dollar for actual
construction, it paid an-
other to strengthen slavery. No wonder,
he exclaimed, that slave
owners believed that their labor system
was economical, for it
enabled them to pick the pockets of the
northern men to advance
their own prosperity.26
Giddings had still more economic
ammunition to fire at Texan
annexation. He urged his audience to
examine the Postoffice and
discover the detrimental effects of
slavery in that quarter. Slaves
neither purchased newspapers, nor wrote
letters, nor paid postage.
They were an obstacle to the growth of a
dense population and,
as a result, southern roads were
indifferent, and the transporta-
tion of the mail was expensive. During
the past several years,
he related, the government had spent
annually $500,000 more in
the distribution of the mail in the
South than it had obtained from
that section in postage; the North, on
the other hand, had been
paying about that much more than the
cost of carrying the mail
25 Ibid.
26 Cong. Globe Appendix, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., 345.
152
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
within its bounds. Thus, he said,
official statistics proved that the
people of the free states had been taxed
at least $500,000 annually
to provide the South with a postal
system. Of course, this was
just another illustration "of the
pecuniary bearings of slavery,"
he declared. At any rate, he objected to
the extension of mail
service to Texas, for he estimated it
would involve an additional
expense to the North of some $300,000 a
year.27
Now the representative from Ashtabula
County trained his
guns upon still another economic salient
of the Texan problem.
In the documents on file at the General
Land Office he found
material that indicated that the public
lands in the slave states
had cost the nation $40,000,000 more
than it had ever been able
to obtain from them. The public lands in
the free states, how-
ever, had yielded a profit of
$38,000,000, and all of this, he re-
counted, had been taken from the people
of the North and spent
among the people of the South. This, he shouted, was the
"economy of slavery so vauntingly
put forth by our Secretary
of State [John C. Calhoun]."
"Sir," he exclaimed, "from the
public lands of Texas may we be
delivered !"28
Apparently the antislavery men of
Trumbull County were
following Gidding's speeches closely,
for shortly afterward they
held a convention at Vienna in which
they exercised themselves at
length over the economic servitude
imposed upon them by the
southern lords of creation. Typical was
their resolution regard-
ing postage rates. Maintaining that the
South was opposed to
lower charges, they declared that this
proved that the slave
power was interested in preserving a
system of extravagance
within the nation in order to force the
industry of the North to
support the ignorance begotten of
slavery.29
In April, 1845, Joshua Giddings and two
other prominent
Whigs named Hitchcock and Perkins held
an anti-Texas meeting
at Jefferson. In the course of the
evening they delivered wildly
emotional harangues to stir the
assembled multitude to a deep sense
of the wrongs which allegedly had been
and were being committed
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Warren and AsHtabula Liberty
Herald, March 27, 1845.
WESTERN RESERVE'S
EARLY SLAVERY CONTROVERSY 153
against them by the
"masters of the lash." Perceiving that the
politicians had
discovered a very responsive chord and were playing
it for all it was
worth, the Cleveland Plain Dealer remarked that
sympathy for the
unfortunate slaves, which had once been the only
stimulus to public
excitement in abolition speeches, was being aban-
doned for that
"still more effectual touch of the human heartstring,
the
pocket-nerve!"30
Since it was becoming
ever more obvious that the new ap-
proach to reform along
the path of economy was decidedly popu-
lar, the editor of the
Ashtabula Sentinel determined to experiment
with it. When he had
worked himself into the state of mind
requisite for the
task, he set pen to paper and indited a piece
reminiscent of Samuel
Adams, or possibly of Thomas Paine.
Our fathers, he wrote,
were obliged to pay a trifling tax on
tea, in contravention
of their rights; but now the people of the
North were being taxed
millions to sustain slavery and to protect
the slave trade, in
palpable violation of the fundamental law. Our
fathers, he went on,
defended their rights amidst the thunder of
cannon; their sons
were bowing their heads in humble submission.
The tax which
northerners were paying into southern coffers was
a hundred times
greater than that which had aroused Americans to
precipitate a
revolution against Great Britain, he estimated. The
money that the
patriots had been asked to contribute, moreover,
was for the support of
a government which had performed services
for them, he pointed
out; the taxes in the present instance were
being imposed to help
the slave monger to grow rich and to give
the Texan slaveholder
the power "to flog his women in safety,
free from Mexican
molestation."31
While the various
newspapers in the Western Reserve were
doing what they could
to keep the fires of economic discontent
glowing, Joshua
Giddings was providing more fuel in Washington.
Wherever he perceived
the slightest opportunity to publicize and
denounce the
southerners' alleged hostility to northern pecuniary
interests, he seized
it with avidity. In his speech on the joint occu-
pation of Oregon,
delivered in January, 1846, he declared that he
30 Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 11, 1845.
31 Ashtabula Sentinel,
August 7, 1845.
154
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and his people had had abundant
demonstrations of the southern
attitude toward the material well-being
of the North. He expressed
his conviction of the futility of any
effort to sustain the manufac-
turers as long as the political power of
the nation was wielded by
men inflexibly opposed to them. No one
with any degree of intel-
ligence, he maintained, could believe
that southern politicians, who
had for decades been striving to abolish
all protection for free
labor, would reverse themselves, now
that they had attained a
dominant position, and suddenly attempt
to promote northern in-
dustry.32
Northern laborers, he verily believed,
would experience less
hardship, from a financial point of
view, in a war with England
than they would by quietly submitting to
the will of the southern
slave power. The more he considered a
war with Britannia the
more enthusiastic he became, for it
would contribute to the pros-
perity of both the manufacturers of New
England and Pennsyl-
vania and the agricultural workers of
the West. "Indeed," he
exclaimed with glee, "a war with
England would create a market
for our provisions, and increase the
price of our products gener-
ally."33
His ecstatic vision soon faded, though,
when it occurred to
him that such a war would oblige the
free states to spend twice
as much money in protecting "the
miserable slaveholders of Texas"
as they would in defending themselves.
Millions, and even tens
of millions, would have to be expended
and thousands of lives
sacrificed to protect the
"heaven-provoking" institution of slavery
and its Texan supporters, he moaned.
These losses, he said, would
furnish a remarkable elucidation of the
contention of certain con-
gressmen that Texas had to be acquired
in order to protect the
nation's southwestern frontier.34
A month later a bill was presented in
the House of Represen-
tatives to appropriate money for the
execution of certain treaties
with the southern Indians who had agreed
to deliver up fugitive
slaves. Now, said Giddings, a momentous
question was being
32 Cong. Globe Appendix, 29 Cong., 1 Sess., 72.
33 Ibid., 73.
34 Ibid.
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY 155
placed distinctly before the
legislators. Would congressmen thrust
their hands into the purses of their
constituents, pilfer their money,
and bestow it upon a slave-driving
president, to be employed in
buying the bodies of "husbands,
wives and children?"35 To pass
this bill, Giddings asserted, would be
as clearly a violation of the
Constitution as would an attempt by
Congress to abolish slavery
in the state of Georgia, or to establish
it in Massachusetts. If
the federal government had the power to
participate in the slave
trade, it might set up a business in
Boston, New York, or any
other place it chose. If it could tax
the citizens of the free states
$200,000 to be used in paying for
slaves, as Giddings alleged the
treaty stipulations required, then, he
reasoned, it could tax them
$200,000,000 for the same purpose. The
question, he argued, was
one of principle rather than of amount.36
Long before the middle of the year,
1846, the nation found
itself involved in a war with Mexico,
and the antislavery zealots
found themselves supplied with the
richest opportunities for
spreading propaganda that their hearts
could desire. The occa-
sions for becoming rhetorical about the
vast sums expended to
enable the slave power to spread
westward were almost without
limit, and Joshua Giddings was not the
man to overlook the pos-
sibilities which chance afforded. As
early as May 12, he was
charging that the acquisition of Texas
had already cost the nation
some $10,000,000, although he admitted
that he had no official
documents to indicate the exact amount.
Another $10,000,000 had
been appropriated for the army and the
navy the day before; this,
he estimated, would hardly be more than
sufficient to place the
army and navy in a state of
preparedness. By January, 1847,
another $10,000,000 would be necessary,
according to his calcula-
tions. No one had any idea how long the
war would continue,
but if it were to go on for five years
Giddings was certain that
hundreds of millions would be lost.
These tremendous sums
would, of course, be drawn largely from
the northern people who,
he opined, had a right to know what
compensation they could
expect for their sacrifices. The
antislavery representative cheer-
35 Ibid.,
432.
36 Ibid.
156
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
fully volunteered the information:
"The parasites of the Execu-
tive,"--the slave drivers of the
South would gain dazzling for-
tunes.37
Speaking again on the Mexican War a few
days before Robert
Walker's low tariff was to go into
effect, Giddings pointed out that
the new rates had been approved by a
Senate majority of one, be-
cause both senators from Texas had voted
for it. Thus was his
prediction of some two years previous
triumphantly fulfilled; the
year 1844 had been the time for the
friends of free labor to act
for the salvation of northern interests,
but now it was too late,
he lamented. Texas had been admitted,
her representatives had
come to Congress, and their first
significant move was to attack
the most essential interests of the
North, he declared. To destroy
the economic welfare of the freemen, he
indicated, the slave power
had to increase its numerical force, and
to accomplish this end, it
had been obliged to plunge the nation
into a war for westward ex-
pansion. Thus, he reasoned, the war
against Mexico was, in the
final analysis, a war against northern
civilization.38
Shrewdly mingling monetary
considerations with romantic
idealism, he remarked that Americans had
taught the world that
all men were created equal, and that to
secure their natural rights
governments were instituted among men,
"deriving their just
powers from the consent of the
governed"; now, he said, the
American people were squandering
stupendous sums to prove their
lack of sincerity in the professions
they had made. A matter which
was especially irritating to him was
seeing army officers in every
quarter of Washington drawing their
salaries without doing any
work, while the taxpayers were earning
their bread by the sweat
of their brows. This, he commented, was
not in harmony with
the nation's republican institutions; he
was anxious, therefore, to
call back the 50,000 soldiers from
Mexico, and discharge them
from the army. He desired them to return
to civil pursuits; each
man, he contended, should earn his own
livelihood, and by his own
effort make some contribution to the
wealth of his country. The
37 Ibid., 643.
38
Ibid., 827.
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY 157
army, in Giddings' opinion, was simply
"a cancer upon the body
politic."39
Thus the raving and ranting of
politicians, newspaper editors
and ill-poised members of the commonalty
went on almost inces-
santly throughout the 1840's until even
the more tranquil spirits
in the Western Reserve began to
experience a sympathetic re-
action. Curiously enough, the proponents
of human reform found
one of their most effective instruments
in an appeal to man's ac-
quisitive instinct. When people could
promote their economic in-
terests by engaging in a romantic
crusade for the freedom of their
black brethren, they had impelling
motives for joining the crowd
in their mad cries for that seldom
defined but highly prized boon
called liberty. It would hardly be an
occasion for wonderment,
then, if the 1850's should witness the
transformation of the Re-
serve into a veritable mad-house,
filling the air with sound and fury
whose only intelligible element related
to demands for blood and
iron.
39 Ibid., 30 Cong., 1 Sess., 381.
POLITICO-ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS IN THE
WESTERN RESERVE'S EARLY SLAVERY
CONTROVERSY
By EDWARD C. REILLEY
With the advent of the Panic of 1837 the
people of that
northeastern section of Ohio known as
the Western Reserve
seemed for the first time to have
suspected that the southern labor
system was in some degree responsible
for producing their eco-
nomic woes. This viewpoint was but
slowly accepted and was not
emphasized by its proponents until after
the depression had worn
into the 1840's.
One of the earliest expressions of
dissatisfaction with southern
economic influences appears to have been
that voiced by the
farmers in the vicinity of Akron.
Holding a convention in De-
cember, 1840, to discuss ways and means
of overcoming their
financial difficulties, they soon found
themselves under the spell
of such aggressive antislavery agitators
as General James H.
Paine of Lake County and C. R. Hamlin of
Summit County.
Prompted by these ardent orators they
resolved to remind their
political representatives that they must
no longer overlook the
interests of free labor. The
agriculturists of the leading grain
producing states, they observed, were in
a predicament where
vigorous and concerted efforts must be
made to obtain for their
produce equitable prices in all quarters
of the world. This they
felt could be effected only by sending
men to Washington who
would not submit to the selfish
influence of the cotton plutocracy.
They were convinced that slavery was
costing the laborers and
capitalists of the North several million
dollars every year without
providing any compensating advantages,
and they resolved to
arouse the attention of all freemen to
the fact that they must look
to their own interests and force slavery
to support itself.1
1 Cincinnati Philanthropist, January 13, 1841.
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