Ohio History Journal

Ben Wade and the Negro

 

By HANS L. TREFOUSSE*

 

 

 

IT HAS LONG BEEN A MATTER OF DISPUTE whether the rad-

ical Republicans of one hundred years ago were really sincere

in their professions of friendship for the Negro. Were they

merely interested in economic gains for their followers and

political preferment for themselves, making use of the Negro

question simply to hide their true objectives, or were they

genuinely concerned with uplifting the downtrodden race?

This question of motivation is brought into especially sharp

focus when it is discovered that radical leaders actually had

private prejudices against the very people whom they pub-

licly professed to befriend. Could a man be sincere in his

advocacy of Negro rights while he was privately subject

to the same preconceived notions against which he struggled

publicly? Perhaps some light may be shed upon this prob-

lem by an examination of the relationship between Benjamin

F. Wade and the Negro.

For many years it has been the fashion to sneer at Ben

Wade as a vulgar extremist whose accession to the presi-

dency was fortunately averted by the one vote which acquitted

Andrew Johnson in the impeachment trial.¹ And while other

radicals have found defenders, Ben Wade has been more

or less forgotten.

This neglect is wholly unjustifiable. The bluff, outspoken

judge from the Western Reserve, who defied doughfaces, Cop-

* Hans L. Trefousse is assistant professor of history at Brooklyn ,College.

1 For example, Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era: The Revolution After Lincoln

(Cambridge, Mass., 1929), 88; George Fort Milton, Abraham Lincoln and the

Fifth Column (New York, 1942), 43; Burton J. Hendrick, Lincoln's War Cabinet

(Boston, 1946), 268.

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162    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

perheads, and conservative Republicans during a career

spanning the entire middle period of our history, deserves to

be remembered as one of the outstanding champions of racial

equality in America. His forthright denunciation of slavery,

slaveholders, and foes of human equality made him one of

the leaders of the Republican party, and he played an im-

portant part in the final triumph of emancipation.

Wade first entered public life in the 1830's. While serv-

ing in his first two sessions as a state senator, 1837-39, he

denounced slavery and the proposed annexation of Texas on

the grounds, among others, that it would be "madness to

tempt destruction by extending this rotten and wicked system

[slavery] over what are now unpeopled solitudes."² He took

a strong stand against the gag rule in congress,³ and re-

peatedly offended his pro-slavery colleagues with the intro-

duction of petitions for the repeal of the state's discriminatory

Black Codes.⁴ On one occasion, he had the temerity to pre-

sent a petition from a group of Negroes seeking to incorpo-

rate for school purposes.⁵ Although the opposition held

that Negroes had no civil rights in Ohio and therefore could

not petition the general assembly, after a heated debate the

memorial was received by a vote of 19 to 14. The petition

failed to receive further consideration, but Wade had given

additional evidence of his devotion to the cause of human

rights.⁶

These actions constituted merely a foretaste of things to

come. When the legislature of neighboring Kentucky sent

two commissioners to Columbus to lobby for a stringent

fugitive slave law, the Ohio lawmakers accommodated them.

2 Ohio Senate, Report of the Select Committee Relating to the Annexation of

Texas to the Union, January 12, 1838, a pamphlet in the library of the Western

Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.

3 Ashtabula Sentinel, March 10, 1838.

4 See, for example, petitions presented by Wade, listed in the Ohio Statesman

(Columbus), January 7-February 13, 1839, as well as Ashtabula Sentinel, January

13, 27, 1838.

5 Ohio State Journal and Register (Columbus), January 22, 1839. For the

petition, presented January 19, see ibid., January 25, 1839.

6 Ibid., January 22, 1839.

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BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO 163

The advocates of the bill were in an overwhelming majority,

and passage of the measure was certain. Wade and a handful

of determined opponents of the law, nevertheless, continued

to resist the bill, vigorously fighting its final passage through-

out the night and early morning of February 21-22, 1839.

"Though I stand here at two o'clock in the night," he shouted,

"and though I speak to ears that are deaf, and to hearts,

impervious to a sense of right, justice, and liberty, still, sir,

I will be heard." Denouncing slavery for its inconsistency

with American professions of liberty, he berated his associates

for their moral obtuseness, and vainly tried to postpone the

final vote.⁷ Partly as a result of his stubborn opposition,

he failed of reelection in an election generally unfavorable

to Whigs suspected of abolitionism.⁸

After an enforced absence of two years, Wade returned

to the legislature in 1841. In spite of his earlier defeat on

the Negro question, he resumed the struggle against slavery

in America. This time he rushed to the defense of John

Quincy Adams, whom Ohio Democrats, like their colleagues

in Washington, wanted to censure for his presentation in the

house of representatives of an abolitionist petition for the

dissolution of the Union. Wade was not able to thwart the

majority, but his telling replies to his opponents constituted

at least a partial vindication of the "Old Man Eloquent" in

Ohio.⁹ And while Wade could not procure the repeal of the

Black Codes in 1842,10 he did succeed, with others, in defeat-

ing attempts to repeal the charter of abolitionist Oberlin

College.11 Even if many of his efforts failed, he had im-

pressed his constituents with his firm antislavery views.

7 Wade's speech may be found in the Ohio State Journal (Columbus), April 3,

1839, and in the Ashtabula Sentinel, June 15, 1839.

8 Francis P. Weisenburger, The Passing of the Frontier, 1825-1850 (Carl

Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio, IV, Columbus, 1942), 383-384.

9 B. F. Wade to Mrs. Wade, February 4, 1842. Benjamin F. Wade Papers,

Library of Congress.

10 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, December 10, 1842, March 6, 1868; Ashtabula

Sentinel, December 31, 1842.

11 L. P. Brockett, Men of Our Day (Philadelphia, 1868), 239-240.

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164   THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

National prominence came to Ben Wade as the result of

his election to the United States Senate in 1851. While serv-

ing as the president judge of Ohio's third judicial district,

he had bitterly denounced the Compromise of 1850 and the

federal fugitive slave law, a fact that probably contributed

to his election. Actually, it was a combination of Whigs and

Free Soilers that sent him to Washington to fill the senatorial

vacancy.12 At the time he entered congress only five senators

dared speak out consistently against the South's cherished

institution: John P. Hale of New Hampshire, Charles Sum-

ner of Massachusetts, William H. Seward of New York,

Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and the new senator from the

Buckeye state. Almost immediately his forthright character

made an impression in Washington.

Castigating slavery and everything connected with it as a

relic of barbarism and a flagrant denial of the principles of

the Declaration of Independence, Wade could always be relied

upon to oppose all pro-slavery measures with the utmost vigor.

The Kansas-Nebraska act, the Lecompton constitution, the

proposed annexation of Cuba, the secessionist tendencies of

his southern colleagues--all became targets for his sarcastic

attacks, and he soon became known throughout the land as a

fearless fighter for northern rights. When Senator George

E. Badger of North Carolina delivered a pathetic speech

about his dear old "black mammy" whom northerners would

not allow him to take with him to Kansas, Wade quickly

retorted that no one minded his taking the old woman to the

territory, provided that she be given her freedom when she

got there and provided also that she could not be sold there

by the senator.13 The free states appreciated such poignant

rejoinders. Moreover, Wade came to be known as a person

without fear. The southern code of dueling did not faze him,

and he let it be known that although officially opposed to

duels, personally he would not shirk a fight. No one chal-

12 Ohio State Journal, March 15, 17, 24, 1851; A. G. Riddle, The Life of

Benjamin F. Wade (Cleveland, 1886), 114, 167.

13 Congressional Globe, 33 cong., 1 sess., Appendix, 313.

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BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO 165

lenged him, but when he condemned Preston Brooks's attack

on Charles Sumner in no uncertain terms, it looked as if he

would be called upon to make good his declaration. Once

again, however, his southern opponents failed to call him to

account, and his reputation was greatly enhanced.14

During the Civil War, Wade was again in the forefront

of those who demanded justice for the Negro. As chairman

of the joint congressional committee on the conduct of the

war, he bitterly opposed McClellan and other Democratic

generals.¹⁵ He applied incessant pressure upon the adminis-

tration to wage the war with greater vigor, to bring about

immediate emancipation, and to raise regiments of colored

troops. These demands became the cornerstone of his policies,

and when his opinions finally prevailed, he saw to it that his

sons were transferred to the new colored regiments, an as-

signment not then generally sought by people with influence.16

Moreover, he pushed through congress legislation abolishing

slavery in the territories,17 and when the problem of recon-

struction became acute, he publicly took issue with Lincoln

over the president's mild policies toward the South.18

What Wade had begun before the war, he pursued to its

logical conclusion   afterwards.    Consistently  pressing  for

radical policies to protect the Negro in the South in his newly

gained rights, the senator from Ohio set an example to south-

ern whites by introducing in congress a bill to enfranchise

the colored people of the District of Columbia.¹⁹ The failure

of the South to give Negroes the vote was one of the factors

which brought about radical reconstruction and enforced

Negro suffrage for the former Confederate states, measures

14 New York Tribune, May 28, 1856; Ashtabula Sentinel, May 29, June 5, 1856.

15 T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals (Madison, Wis., 1941), 65,

83, 105, passim.

16 Edwin M. Stanton to Wade, June 24, 1864. Edwin M. Stanton Papers,

Library of Congress.

17 Congressional Globe, 37 cong., 2 sess., 2618.

18 He did so in the famous Wade-Davis Manifesto, which appeared in August

1864. For an interesting account of the episode from the point of view of one of

Wade's associates, see Riddle, Life of Benjamin F. Wade, 258-259.

19 Congressional Globe, 39 cong., 1 sess., 1.

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166 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

so ably defended by Wade that he was elected president of the

senate by his radical colleagues. And while others did not

hesitate to advocate universal suffrage for the South while

their own states still discriminated against Negroes, Wade

took a bold stand in favor of universal suffrage in his home

state of Ohio in 1867--a stand so unpopular it probably cost

him reelection for a fourth term.²⁰ He had to retire from the

senate, but he did not forsake radical principles even after

his return to his home in Jefferson. He supported Grant

through two terms, and vigorously denounced President Hayes

for abandoning the radical regimes in the South and thereby

sacrificing the freedmen to the tender mercies of their former

masters.²1 As Frederick Douglass wrote:

Without Adams, Giddings, Hale, Chase, Wade, Seward, Wilson and

Sumner to plead our cause in the councils of the nation, the taskmasters

would have remained the contented and undisturbed rulers of the Union,

and no condition of things would have been brought about authorizing

the Federal Government to abolish slavery in the country's defense.²²

The verdict is correct; only Wade's motivation must be in-

vestigated more closely.

At first sight it would appear that the record speaks for

itself. But surprising as it may seem, Ben Wade, the cour-

ageous defender of Negro rights, actually held the most

vulgar private prejudices against the very people he bene-

fited so much. His correspondence with his wife leaves

absolutely no room for doubt on this score. When he first

arrived in Washington in 1851, he gave free vent to his

opinions in his letters to Mrs. Wade. What impressed him

in the capital was the great number of Negroes. Because

of his contempt for southern whites, he found the Negroes

to be the most intelligent part of the population. But he

wrote that he could not abide their odor "in and about

20 Mary Bright George Land, "Old Backbone: 'Bluff' Ben Wade" (unpublished

doctoral dissertation, Western Reserve University, 1957), 621.

21 New York Times, November 2, 1877.

22 Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (New York,

1941), 536.

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BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO          167

everything," and bemoaned the fact that the food was "all

cooked by niggers until I can smell and taste the nigger."²³

Nor did eighteen years of residence in Washington cure him

of his notions. While discussing the servant problem with

his wife in 1873, he complained bitterly about the terms

demanded by a prospective colored employee. "For mere

nigger power it will cost over $500 a year," he wrote, ex-

pressing the wish that he could get "a white woman of the

English or Northern European breed," because he was "sick

and tired of niggers."24 Nor did he confine his strictures to

unlettered freedmen; he felt wronged by an attorney to whom

he referred as a "nigger lawyer,"25 and, while serving on

Grant's commission to San Domingo, he made unfriendly

remarks about Frederick Douglass, who had accompanied

the group as a secretary.²⁶ Not a very pretty record for a

friend of human rights!

In view of these prejudices, two explanations are possible

in order to explain Wade's career. It may be argued that

he was merely a self-seeking politician, an utterly cynical

opportunist, wholly devoid of principle. Supporters of this

hypothesis might maintain that he embraced antislavery

notions only because the Western Reserve was antislavery,

and because antislavery seemed to be the coming thing. Then,

once he had established a reputation as a radical, he had to

embrace racial equality as well as the abolition of slavery.

This stand, it might be argued, made it possible for him

to stay in office, so that whatever he did, he acted for purely

selfish reasons. It would follow that he was more interested

in his personal well-being and the advocacy of protective

tariffs and subsidies to industry than in the struggle for

human freedom in which, in spite of his personal prejudices,

he professed to be engaged. Such a view would be simple,

acceptable to those who have long damned him for other

23 Wade to Mrs. Wade, December 29, 1851. Wade Papers.

24 Wade to Mrs. Wade, March 9, 1873. Wade Papers.

25 Ibid.

26 Wade to Mrs. Wade, February 1, 1871. Wade Papers.

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168   THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

reasons, and wholly damaging to Wade's reputation. Little

would remain but the incidental good he achieved in spite

of bad intentions, and he would stand revealed as a hypocrite,

ruffian, and cheat.

However, this is not the only explanation. There is another,

more subtle and more complicated, more honorable and yet

humanly understandable. It seems altogether possible and

probable that Wade's prejudices influenced him in one direc-

tion, but that, as a rational human being, he recognized them

for what they were and refused to be guided by them. Thus

he acted in accordance not with what his baser emotions

influenced him to do, but with what his intelligence taught

him to be true. Therefore, throughout his life, he remained

loyal to his considered belief in the equality of man, not-

withstanding private outbursts which remained without

significance.

That Wade was subject to racial prejudice is not hard to

understand. Born in poverty in New England, he had had

little formal education when he settled in the Western Re-

serve in northeastern Ohio in 1821. Belief in the inferiority

of the Negro people was a general prejudice throughout the

country. The state of Ohio, which became Wade's adult

home, had a vicious Black Code, which was not modified

until 1849. Under it, Negroes were virtually forbidden to

enter the state; they could not attend public schools; their

testimony was not acceptable in court cases against whites;

they were excluded from juries; and they could not work

unless they carried certificates of freedom. Free Negroes

who wanted to move into Ohio were required to furnish a

bond of $500, a requirement which eliminated most of them

from settling legally in the state. And those who did were

not safe from persecution and race riots.²⁷ When John

Malvin, who became a respected colored citizen of Cleveland,

arrived in the state during the age of Jackson, he "found

27 Frank U. Quillin, The Color Line in Ohio: A History of Race Prejudice in

a Typical Northern State (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1913), 23-32.

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BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO                169

every door closed against the colored man . . . excepting only

the jails and penitentiaries, the doors of which were thrown

wide open to receive him."28

Even though the Western Reserve was far more liberal

in its attitude toward the Negro than other portions of the

state, it was by no means free from race prejudice. In

Cleveland in the 1830's there were separate pews for Negroes

in many churches, and Negro carpenters found it impossible

to find work.²⁹ As late as the turn of the century, social

intercourse between the races was considered impossible, a

lynching was narrowly prevented, and Negroes had to sue

in order to go bowling in the public parks. This condition

of things made it possible for saloonkeepers in nearby Akron

to charge twice as much to Negroes as to whites, a practice

which the courts refused to upset.³⁰

So strong was the feeling against the Negro race through-

out the state that even Republican governors refused offers

of Negro troops and were unable to protect Cincinnati

Negroes from cruel mistreatment during a forced labor draft

in 1862.31 Ohio offered few advantages to fugitives from

the slave states, and it was with considerable justification

that contemporaries could say:

Ohio's not the place for me;

For I was much surprised

So many of her sons to see

In garments of disguise.

Her name has gone out through the world,

Free labor--soil and man--

But slaves had better far be hurled

Into the lion's den.

Farewell, Ohio!

I cannot stop in thee;

I'll travel on to Canada,

Where colored men are free.³²

28 John Malvin, Autobiography of John Malvin (Cleveland, 1879), 12.

29 Ibid., 18, 23. The separate pews were gradually abolished.

30 Quillin, Color Line in Ohio, 157-158, 116, 119.

31 William Wells Brown, The Negro in the American Rebellion (Boston,

880), 100; Malvin, Autobiography, 40.

32 Charles Thomas Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, 1802-1870 (Cleveland, 1896), 47.

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170        THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

What was true of Ohio was also true of the neighboring

states. The Black Codes of Illinois not only tried to exclude

Negroes from the state but also virtually sanctioned slavery.³³

Indiana treated her colored people as perpetual aliens, de-

prived them of most civil rights, and made their settlement

as difficult as possible.³⁴ It is obvious that these legal dis-

abilities reflected such deep-seated, widespread prejudices that

it was extremely difficult for any of the inhabitants to free

themselves entirely of the prevailing notions of the com-

munity.

That the racist atmosphere of the Old Northwest left its

mark upon the opponents of slavery as well as upon the

defenders of the peculiar institution is well known. Abraham

Lincoln avowed his opposition to the establishment of social

and political equality for the Negroes in his Peoria speech

in 1858, and he continued to advocate colonization until the

end of his life; yet his zeal in the cause of free soil cannot

be doubted. Not even his kindly nature was able to overcome

his environment, so similar to Wade's; nevertheless, it is

certainly an error to accuse him of hypocrisy. Oliver Morton,

the radical war-time governor of Indiana, was a mainstay

of Republicanism in the Hoosier state, but, although, like

Wade, he was identified with the extremist wing of the party,

he fought against Negro suffrage in Indiana as late as 1865.35

Even in the New England citadel of Republicanism, where

conditions were somewhat different from those prevailing

in the Old Northwest, James Pike, Washington correspon-

dent of the New York Tribune, gave vent to prejudices much

33 Arthur C. Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict, 1850-1865 (New York, 1934),

263-264; George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America

From 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens (New York,

1883), II, 122-123.

34 Williams, History of the Negro Race, '119-122; Emma Lou Thornbrough,

The Negro in Indiana Before 1860: A Study of a Minority (Indianapolis, 1957),

119 ff.

35 Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana, 239; William Dudley Foulke, Life of

Oliver P. Morton (Indianapolis, 1899), I, 449, 487.

• 10
 

BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO 171

stronger than Wade's.³⁶ It should be hardly surprising that

the senator from Ohio was not entirely free from the bigotry

which was so common.

It is in Wade's own career that proof must be found of the

sincerity of his position on the Negro and human rights. If

it can be established beyond doubt that he was animated by

expediency, if his political actions afford clear evidence of

self-seeking, then it is obvious that his prejudices were part

and parcel of a career of hypocrisy. If, on the other hand,

it can be shown that he often acted in defiance of the normally

accepted rules of "clever" political behavior, if it can be

demonstrated that he risked his career and his position for

the sake of principle, and if his own statements can be cited

in support of his honest struggle with himself, then it be-

comes likely that he really was sincere in his acts. The facts,

it would seem, must speak for themselves.

What are the facts concerning the Ohioan's career? Time

and time again he risked chances of political advancement

because of his outspokenness. His violent denunciations of

slaveholders in the Ohio legislature did not make him popular,

and the Negroes whose petitions he presented were unable to

vote for him. Yet he persisted. Had he really been interested

only in currying favor with the voters of the Western Re-

serve, he could not have acted more unwisely, since he did not

succeed in his bid for a second term. When he finally did

return to the state senate, he resumed his attacks on slavery

where he had left off two years earlier, totally unchastened

by the intervening electoral setback.

What was true of his stand in Columbus was equally true

of his position in Washington after his election to the United

States Senate in 1851. To take as advanced a position on

slavery as he did was wholly unusual. His declarations that

Negroes were human beings and that slaveholders were

barbarians were not calculated to appeal to the voters in

36 Robert Franklin Durden, James Shepherd Pike: Republicanism and the

American Negro, 1850-1882 (Durham, N. C., 1957), 31-33.

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172   THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

southern Ohio, whose support he had to have to win re-

election in 1856. Had popularity with the voters been his

chief motive, he might either have compromised on the

matter of slavery or he might have courted the momentarily

powerful Know-Nothings, who held the balance of power.

He did neither. Defying the slaveholders as before, he not

only refused to give support to the nativist order but de-

nounced it on the floor of the senate. To the intense anger of

the Know-Nothings, he went so far as to offer an amendment

to the homestead bill to permit foreigners not yet in the

United States to share in its benefits.³⁷ For a Republican

senator up for reelection in a state where naturalized citizens

were mostly Democrats, this was a forthright stand. He was

reelected in 1856, not because of his opportunistic trimming,

but in spite of his uncompromising position on slavery, the

Negro, and nativism.

Wade's wartime career lends further support to the theory

that he really believed in the policies he advocated, notwith-

standing private emotional lapses. His incessant demands

for emancipation, his tireless warfare upon Democratic gen-

erals from McClellan down, and his bold advocacy of the

use of Negro troops were not wise for a senator from Ohio

whose second term was about to expire. The Buckeye state

was then afflicted with the most virulent type of Copper-

headism, especially in the southern counties, where Clement

L. Vallandigham headed the peace movement. To combat

this danger the Republicans had united with the War Demo-

crats in the Union party, an alliance which depended strongly

on conservative support. It was a foregone conclusion that

a moderate candidate would have the best chance to become

senator when Wade's term was completed in 1863. Dependent

as he was on the support of the Union party, some sort of

trimming would have been the most advantageous policy

for any would-be candidate. Wade, however, refused to

compromise. Defying the conservative factions in both

37 Congressional Globe, 33 cong., 1 sess., 1661, 1725.

• 12
 

BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO 173

parties, he stood out as the leader of the radical wing in

congress. The result was that he was almost defeated, but

his friends rallied at the last moment, and he finally succeeded

in winning a third term.³⁸ Certainly these were not the

actions of a cheap, self-seeking politician.

The history of Reconstruction offers additional proof of

Wade's apparent sincerity. The Wade-Davis Manifesto,

which castigated the president for not pursuing a more

vigorous policy toward the conquered states, was not an

act of political wisdom when it was published in 1864.

Nevertheless, it was the precursor of the stand Wade was to

take throughout the period which followed, when he persisted

in his relentless, uncompromising pro-Negro policies regard-

less of political consequences. To say that he merely used the

Negro to perpetuate Republican rule during this period is

to miss the most remarkable point about his behavior.

It so happened that the Reconstruction period offered him

opportunities of tremendous scope. His party was in power,

his faction seemed to sweep everything before it, and had he

conducted himself with a little more circumspection, he might

easily have obtained the highest office in the land. But he

did nothing of the kind. Instead of accommodating himself

to the prevailing sentiments and merely paying lip service to

the idea of racial equality and Negro rights, he remained in

the forefront of the most radical segments of the party.

It meant his political ruin. Popular as it was to prattle

about emancipation and even Negro suffrage for the South,

it was not popular to take these assertions so seriously as to

apply them to Ohio as well. Unlike some of his radical

colleagues, who, faced with a similar problem, ignored the

question of Negro suffrage at home but advocated it in the

South, Wade seemed wholly impervious to political expedi-

ency. What he had demanded for the South and pushed

38 Joshua R. Giddings to J. A. Giddings, February 1, 1863, Giddings Papers,

Ohio Historical Society; Eugene H. Roseboom, The Civil War Era, 1850-1873

(Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio, IV, Columbus, 1942),

394-395.

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174   THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

through for the District of Columbia he now urged upon

his reluctant home state. He believed the Negro was entitled

to the vote, whether in an ex-rebel state or in a loyal common-

wealth. So, in 1867, he boldly campaigned for the enfran-

chisement of the Negro in Ohio, thereby consciously risking

his entire political future. Because his own reelection for a

fourth term depended upon the legislature to be chosen in

the same election, his own fate was very much at stake. In

view of the widespread prejudice against the Negro, especially

in southern Ohio, it would have been prudent to play down

the race issue, but Wade did nothing of the kind. Instead,

he led his party, which was divided on the Negro suffage

question although the platform called for "impartial man-

hood suffrage," into what appeared to many voters to be an

extreme position. Stumping the state with his accustomed

vigor, he denounced the Democrats as traitors and demanded

the suffrage for Negroes in Ohio as well as in the South.³⁹

The result was that the Republicans managed to elect the

governor by a small majority but lost the legislature. The

suffrage amendment was defeated, and Ben Wade was retired

from the senate.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been extraordi-

nary for a politician to take such a chance. But what is really

surprising is that circumstances were not normal. Johnson

was then about to be impeached, and Wade, as president pro

tem of the senate, was next in line for the presidency. The

balance of power in the senate, no less than that in the state

of Ohio, was held by the conservative Republicans, who would

have to vote to convict Johnson if impeachment were to

succeed. Instead of appeasing this vital group, Wade con-

stantly irritated it. To men of conservative temper, his

position on the Negro was disturbing enough; yet he man-

aged to alienate them irrevocably by taking a strong stand

in favor of labor as well. In a speech at Lawrence, Kansas,

39 Roseboom, The Civil War Era, 461-462; George H. Porter, Ohio Politics

in the Civil War Period (New York, 1911), 246-248.

• 14
 

BEN WADE AND THE NEGRO             175

he criticized severely the prevailing inequality of wealth,

and strongly endorsed fairer treatment of the workingman

by the employer.    Since he also advocated the vote for

women,40 he appeared to be a dangerous radical agitator who

had to be stopped. Conservatives were horrified. Senator

Charles Sumner, who was a radical himself, was warned by

his wealthy constituents that Wade would be worse than

Johnson.⁴1 When the house finally impeached the president,

he was acquitted by just one vote--a result toward which the

Ohio senator's refusal to compromise had contributed mate-

rially. He had missed the highest office in the land, a failure

which was made more galling by the fact that it probably

also ruined his chances for a vice presidential nomination on

Grant's ticket^42--an opportunity he had greatly desired. His

political life was over; he never held prominent elective office

again. Certainly these circumstances do not point to the type

of man who would let political expediency rule him.

In the last analysis, however, Wade's own words must

absolve him from any charges of hypocrisy. During the

crucial campaign for Negro suffrage in Ohio in 1867, the

old senator addressed a mass meeting in Marietta. What

he said on this occasion showed that he knew his constituents'

problems, including their prejudices, better than has gen-

erally been assumed. His mistake was to believe that they

would be able to overcome their bigoted notions as he himself

had done, and so he said to them:

 

The right of the colored man to suffrage is but the legitimate and

logical deduction from what you had done before. . . . There are no doubt

men here who have strong prejudice against the colored men, the result

of education. Men are not to blame for that, but they are to blame if they

 

40 William F. Zornow, "'Bluff Ben' Wade in Lawrence, Kansas: The Issue

of Class Conflict," Ohio Historical Quarterly, LXV (1956), 44-52.

41 Edward Atkinson to Charles Sumner, February 25, March 4, 1868. Sumner

Papers, Harvard University.

42 Roseboom, The Civil War Era, 468.

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176    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

suffer what they know to be prejudice to prevail on them to do injustice

to anybody.⁴3

He had bared his innermost thoughts, but his audience was

unable to rise to his level.

In retrospect, therefore, it would appear that although

Benjamin F. Wade was as prone to prejudice as most of his

contemporaries, he nevertheless practiced what he preached--

to disregard his personal prejudices lest harm be done to the

innocent. As a human being, he had weaknesses, but he was

man enough to recognize them for what they were. Conse-

quently, the discovery of letters baring his private prejudices,

far from detracting from his service to the country in gen-

eral and the Negro in particular, reveals him to have been

a man of greater stature than has been supposed. Not only

did he prevail against his unreasonable enemies in and out

of congress, but he managed to overcome his own equally

unreasonable weaknesses as well. He kept his vow never to

forget the Negro,⁴⁴ and when he died in 1878, he had earned

the undying gratitude of the leaders of the colored race.45

With considerable justice, the New York Times reported that

his death marked the passing of the "last of the Congressional

champions of freedom."⁴6

43 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, August 21, 1867.

44 On January 18, 1866, he said on the senate floor, speaking of the Negroes:

"I shall never desert them. My honor, my sense of justice, is aroused upon this

subject. I have invoked their aid in the Army; I have agreed to protect them in

their freedom, and so far as my exertions go they shall be, whatever else may

come." Congressional Globe, 39 cong., 1 sess., 294.

45 Douglass, Life and Times, 578.

46 New York Times, March 3, 1878.

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