Ohio History Journal

VICTOR B. HOWARD

 

 

The 1856 Election in Ohio:

Moral Issues in Politics

 

 

 

In recent years a growing number of social scientists have taken the position that

ethnic and cultural diversity of American society, and not ideologies of platforms

of the major parties, have been the chief factors in determining American political

alignments.¹ Samuel P. Hays insists that party ideologies never reflect the major

concern of the local electorate, and on that level ethno-cultural issues are much

more important in mobilizing the voters than national questions.² This interest in

the effects of social and cultural factors on contemporary politics has led to re-

examinations of the importance of ethno-cultural influences on political alignments

in antebellum America.³ Most recently, historical debate on this question has cen-

tered around the relative importance of the slavery issues in contrast to the ethno-

cultural issues as determining forces in the origin and support for the Republican

party, especially the Radical wing.

Three main schools of interpretation can be identified as participants in the

debate. Historians James Ford Rhodes and Allan Nevins represent a group that

view slavery as the cause for the rise of the Republican party and for the Civil

War. Rhodes writes without reservation that "slavery was the cause of the War."

The South "went to war to extend slavery"; but it was the cruelty "as evidenced by

the rigor with which the lash was used" that aroused much of the indignation in

the North. In speaking about the incitement of public opinion against the Kansas-

Nebraska bill by the clergy, Rhodes says "the ministers would have been recreant

to their calling had they not proclaimed from their pulpits what the spirit of their

religion prompted them to speak."⁴ Thus, Rhodes sees the events of the 1850's

and the Civil War as a clash between good and evil; and Nevins, writing later,

retains Rhodes' stress on the moral issues of slavery as the ultimate cause of the

war.5

 

1. Walter Dean Burnham, "Party Systems and the Political Process," in William N. Chambers

and Walter Dean Burnham, eds., The American Party System (New York, 1967), 285; Samuel P. Hays,

"Political Parties and the Community-Society Continuum," in ibid., 158, 161-162.

2. Hays, "Political Parties," 158, 161-162.

3. Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton, 1961),

165; Joel H. Silbey, ed., The Transformation of American Politics, 1850-1860 (Englewood Cliffs, New

Jersey, 1967), 3-4.

4. James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the

Roosevelt Administration (London, 1928), I, 27, 53, 325, 480.

5. Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln (New York, 1950), I, 12, 27.

 

Mr. Howard is professor of history at Morehead State University.

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The 1856 Election                                                                25

 

Michael Fitzgibbon Holt, on the other hand, challenges the importance of sla-

very in the rise of the Republican party and instead emphasizes the significance

of ethno-cultural factors. In a recent study on the formation of the Republican

party in Pittsburgh, he questions the role of the Kansas-Nebraska act as a signi-

ficant factor in the development of the party. Even though the basic appeal to the

voters in 1856 was one of hostility to the South, says Holt, local tensions and the

old party loyalties had as much to do with determining the outcome of the elec-

tion as the national debate over slavery extension. Therefore his analysis of the

local issues and the resulting voting behavior in Pittsburgh leads him to doubt

the importance of the moral issues of slavery in shaping political patterns in the

North in the 1850's.6

A third and more general position is seen in studies by Eric Foner and Thomas

A. Flinn. Their analysis of voting behavior in the 1850's takes into consideration

political, moral, ethno-cultural, and socioeconomic appeals. Foner sees the funda-

mental achievement of the Republican party as:

The creation and articulation of an ideology which blended personal and sectional interest

with morality so perfectly that it became the most potent political force in the nation. The

free labor assault upon slavery and southern society, coupled with the idea that an aggres-

sive Slave Power was threatening the most fundamental values and interests of the free

states, hammered the slavery issue home to the northern public more emphatically than

an appeal to morality alone could ever have done.7

The purpose of this paper is to further investigate the slavery and slavery exten-

sion issues studied by Rhodes and Allen, specifically in the election of 1856 for

three important areas of the state of Ohio, as a case study to determine the ex-

tent to which these issues were successfully used as moral appeals by politicians

and friends of the Republican party in an effort to influence the vote.

On January 4, 1854, the political calm of the previous three years was broken

with a storm of religious protests. The emotional outburst was triggered by Senator

Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois when he introduced a bill for the organization of

the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Douglas' bill incorporated the principle

of "popular sovereignty," that is, the local residents were to be given the responsi-

bility of choosing for or against slavery. In its final form, as submitted on January

23, the bill permitted the admission of the territories, with or without slavery, and

repealed the Missouri Compromise which had barred slavery from the Kansas

and Nebraska Territory.

Immediately an alarm went out in the form of an "Appeal of the Independent

Democrats [Radical Republicans] in Congress to the People of the United States."

This "Appeal" called on the moral forces of the nation to repudiate the action

taken by Douglas: "We implore Christians and Christian ministers to interpose.

 

6. Michael Fitzgibbon Holt, Forging A Majority. The Formation of the Republican Party in Pitts-

burgh, 1848-1860 (New Haven, 1969), 173, 218, 312.

7. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the

Civil War (New York, 1970), 309; Thomas A. Flinn, "Continuity and Change in Ohio Politics," Jour-

nal of Politics, XX (August 1962), 542. Several writers have effectively demonstrated that other issues

were prevalent in secular opinion. Randolph C. Downes, Lake Port (Toledo, 1951), 107-108, shows

reactions in Lucas County to the sectional political problems. Frederick J. Blue, "The Ohio Free

Soilers and the Problems of Factionalism," Ohio History, LXXVI (Winter 1967), 17-32, shows the

importance of the Liberty-Free Soil groups in the anti-Nebraska coalition. George H. Porter, Ohio

Politics During the Civil War Period (New York, 1911), emphasizes the significance of national legis-

lative and sectional issues in Ohio.

• 2
 

Their devine religion required them to behold in every man a brother, and to labor for the advancement and regeneration of the human race."8 Dated January 19, 1854, the "Appeal" was signed by Joshua R. Giddings, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Wade of Ohio; Gerrit Smith of New York; and Charles Sumner and Alex- ander DeWitt of Massachusetts. It found a highly receptive audience among the religious forces of the nation. The Journal of Commerce reported that 3,263 anti- Nebraska sermons were preached in New England and New York during the six weeks following introduction of the bill in Congress. The New England clergy organized a joint petition that solicited 3,050 names of clergymen on a roll that extended two hundred feet in length. The petition expressed objections to the Ne- braska bill on moral grounds.9 The clergy of New York followed New England's example, and petition movements got under way in every large population center north of the Ohio River. The New York petition was presented to the clergy of the Western Reserve through the columns of the Ohio Observer, the organ of the New School Presbyterians in northern Ohio. The editor published it in regular petition form, ready for signature, and urged other religious journals follow its example.10 In the Western Reserve, as well as in that portion of the state that was settled by the Ohio Company and in the general area of the Virginia and United States Military Districts, propaganda concerning the evils and threats of slavery fell on fertile soil. Since 1832 these areas had been strongholds of the Whig party and were inclined toward reform. The Western Reserve and the Ohio Company grant were settled primarily by people of New England extraction, and the Yankee West 8. New York Daily Tribune, January 25, 1854. See also Congressional Globe, 33 cong., 1 sess., January 30, 1854, pp. 281-282. 9. Joshua R. Giddings, History of the Rebellion: Its Authors and Causes (New York, 1864), 366; Cincinnati Enquirer, April 6, 1854, citing Journal of Commerce; Presbyterian of the West, March 30, 1854, citing New York Evangelist. The Douglas bill passed the Senate, 37-4, in March 1854, and the House, 113-100, in May. 10. New York Tribune, March 16, 1854; Ohio Observer (Cleveland), March 15, 1854.

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The 1856 Election                                                               27

 

had always been fertile soil for antislavery sentiment.11 The teachings of Charles

Finney and Theodore Weld during the 1830's did much to convert the Western

Reserve to the concept of the church's responsibility for a Christian society. The

church should be a social force in shaping a Christian nation and an instrument

for political and social change.12

The Virginia Military District had been largely settled by southerners. Although

many retained close sentimental and family ties with the South, others had been

motivated in seeking a new home because of their antislavery views. Many south-

ern Quakers had settled here because of their opposition to slavery. With the ex-

ception of the counties bordering the Ohio River this region had been a strong

Whig area since 1832. In 1833 the Abolition Society of Paint Valley was established

under the leadership of a group of Presbyterian clergymen.13

In these sections of Ohio religious institutions were more deeply involved in the

political contest of 1856 than the more recently settled areas. The Trumbull Dem-

ocrat was convinced that the clergymen of Western Reserve were more active in

politics than their colleagues in any other part of the country. "In no equal extent

of population and territory with the Western Reserve, are there so many fanatics

and bigots; so many divines who preach from Giddings' speeches, instead of Christ's

gospel," charged the editor. In the United States Military District an editor de-

clared that there were about twenty clergymen in the vicinity of Mount Vernon,

Ohio, everyone of whom was unfriendly to Buchanan and favored Fremont as

president. The clergymen in the Ohio Company purchase were also "more" fre-

quently accused of introducing partisan politics into civic affairs than their col-

leagues in any other area.14

Working for similar goals as the clergy in 1856 were some Republican politi-

cians who promoted the moral crusade against slavery. Thery were members of

the Radical antislavery wing of the party. It would be inaccurate, however, to as-

sume that their positions were motivated entirely by either politics, economics, or

morality; but the moral issue was the most discussed. When Theodore D. Weld

toured the Western Reserve in the 1830's, he converted Ohio's politicians, Joshua

Giddings and Benjamin Wade, and James G. Birney to abolitionism as a religious

conviction and Salmon P. Chase in turn was influenced by the religious arguments

of Birney, who testified that he championed antislavery because he felt it a religious

duty and because he believed slavery to be a dreadful moral wrong. During the

election campaign of 1856 Chase used all of his skill to make slavery the dividing

issue between Democrats and Republicans. He was, however, disappointed with

the extent to which slavery was denounced on moral grounds by the Republicans.

Soon after the election he explained to Giddings the course he felt Radicals should

 

11. Flinn, "Continuity and Change in Ohio Politics," 524-527; A. G. Riddle, "The Rise of Anti-

slavery Sentiment on the Western Reserve," Magazine of Western History, VI (June 1887), 145, 154.

12. Theodore Weld was a Calvinist clergyman and agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Charles Finney was a Calvinist clergyman who influenced the Western Reserve by his revival tech-

niques. See W. G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism (New York, 1959), 26; Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, The

Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York, 1933), 3-16, 39-40.

13. Robert E. Chaddock, Ohio Before 1850: A Study of the Early Influence of Pennsylvania and

Southern Populations in Ohio (New York, 1908), 35-37, 89; Stephen B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and

Slavery: A Study in Institutional History (Baltimore, 1896), 212; Thomas E. Thomas, Correspondence

of Thomas Ebenezer Thomas; Mainly Relating to the Anti-Slavery Conflict in Ohio. Especialty in the

Presbyterian Church (Dayton, 1909), 22.

14. Mahoning County Register (Youngstown), February 21, 1856, citing Trumbull Democrat (War-

ren); Mount Vernon Republican, July 29, 1856; Marietta Republican, July 11, August 15, 1856.

• 4
 

follow: "Let us condemn it as it deserves to be condemned every where . . . and put our action upon the moral ground."15 Throughout his two decades in Congress, Giddings insisted on the primacy of the moral issue in the antislavery movement. In 1846 as commissioner from the Grand River Presbytery to the general assembly of the New School Presbyterian Church, he had carried his attack on slavery to the church's highest judicatory. When the conservatives of the Republican party emphasized economic issues in 1856, he accused the old Whigs of "a cold atheism" for their lack of "recognition of right, of enduring principle, of God, his attributes or laws."16 The uncompromis- ing political stance of many Radicals stemmed in a large part from their convic- tion that slavery should be viewed primarily as a sin. In Congress in 1854, Edward Wade, while telling his colleagues that the Bible was the supreme authority in every moral question, proceeded to outline how slavery violated the Scripture.17 This attitude, moreover, was not limited to only a handful of Radical leaders. A correspondent to the Ohio State Journal who signed himself as an "Old Whig" declared that the real issue of the 1856 election campaign was the extension of slavery. The northern people, he insisted, were "conscientiously opposed to Slavery," believing it to be a moral wrong, "a violation of the law of nature and the laws of God. To establish Slavery is, therefore, in their estimation a sin, a crime, a moral wrong as much as lying, or slander, or larceny, or murder."18 15. George W. Julian, The Life of Joshua R. Giddings (Chicago, 1892), 45; H. L. Trefousse, Ben- jamin Franklin Wade: Radical Republican from Ohio (New York, 1963), 30; Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, 80, 82; Albert Bushnell Hart, Salmon Portland Chase (New York, 1899), 51, 53; Salmon P. Chase to Joshua R. Giddings, May 1, 1857, Joshua R. Giddings Papers, Ohio Historical Society. 16. Julian, Giddings, 351-352, 383; Minutes of the Presbyterian Church (New School) (Philadelphia, 1846), 7; Byron Long, "Joshua Reed Giddings," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, XXVIII (1919), 40-41. 17. Congressional Globe, 33 cong., 1 sess., Appendix, 665-666. 18. Ohio State Journal (Columbus), July 14, 1856.

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The 1856 Election                                                           29

 

If the true motivations of Radical Republicans and many of their following are

difficult to ascertain, the same cannot be said of the clergy who became involved

with political issues in 1856 to a degree surpassing any previous time since the

American Revolution. The clergymen did not generally express themselves in con-

ventional political meetings but instead raised their voices on political matters

from their pulpits or adopted resolutions or drew up memorials in their church

conventions or associations. Baptists of Ohio, for example, were almost entirely

on the side of the Republican party. Jeremiah Hall, president of Baptist Denison

University, dissolved his connection with the Democratic party and came out

"boldly" for John C. Fremont and William Lewis Dayton. He had been "an old

and substantial member of the Democratic party."¹⁹ When the 1856 Ohio Baptist

convention met in October, it recorded a solemn protest against the "flagrant out-

rages" in Kansas, and urged a special prayer for deliverance from "farther en-

croachment of the slave power." The faithful were implored to labor without

ceasing by all proper means for the removal of slavery.²⁰

Free Will Baptists in Ohio spoke in stronger language than the Ohio Baptist

convention. The Free Will Baptists of Medina County met in their quarterly con-

ference in June 1856 and expressed vigorous opposition to the Democrats. "We

utterly abhor the course persued by the Government in its treatment of Kansas,"

resolved the association. They denounced the attack on Charles Sumner, and con-

cluded with a warning to their Democratic members: "We view the position taken

by some of our members in sustaining men pledged to oppression for important

offices in our Government as pro-slavery, and inconsistent with Bible doctrine."21

The Free Will Baptists of Huron County met in their quarterly meeting later in

the month and unanimously resolved that President Franklin Pierce should be im-

peached because of the Kansas transgressions and that congressmen who sustained

the administration should be silenced at the ballot box. The association concluded

its resolutions with the charge that "all ministers who were silent upon, or apolo-

gized for the system of slavery were justly to be classed with those watchmen spoken

of by the Prophet Isaiah who declared them to be dumb and greedy dogs--watchmen

who were blind."²²

Congregationalists were equally active in the Republican cause. A. M. Richardson

delivered a discourse before the Grand River Congregational Association in April

entitled, "Freedom's Crisis and the Christian's Duty," in which he attacked slavery

in both church and state. At Lennox, Ohio, in June, he openly declared:

If any crisis can justify a revolution this surely is one ... Civil War is forced upon us....

The Church should lead the van in this struggle for Liberty and Right!

He predicted that political action would be sufficient if the people would break

their old political ties and join in the movement to prevent the extension of slavery.²³

Church associations and assemblies passed resolutions against the legislation

and entered formal protests in Congress. The Methodist conferences in Ohio were

united in their opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska act. When the North Ohio

conference had met in 1854, the delegates expressed the "strongest disapprobation"

 

19. Ohio Repository (Canton), July 23, 1856, citing the Ohio State Journal.

20. Ohio State Journal, October 25, 1856; Western Reserve Chronicle (Warren), November 5, 1856.

21. Carroll Free Press (Carrollton), June 26, 1856, citing Cleveland Leader.

22. Norwalk Reflector, July 15, 1856.

23. Oberlin Evangelist, XIII (June 4, 1856), 90; ibid., (August 27, 1856), 139.

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30                                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, considering it "a gross violation of a sacred

pledge." The Cincinnati conference took an even more determined stand. The

delegates not only had expressed anti-Nebraska sentiment but also had revealed

antislavery feelings by opposing the institution of slavery itself. The members of

the conference were urged to send petitions to Congress demanding that the Fu-

gitive Slave law be excluded from the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In 1855

both groups had asked the general conference to strike at the institution itself

by strengthening the church's General Rule of Discipline on Slavery.²⁴

A group of activists met in Oberlin on August 21, 1854, and organized the

Kansas Emigration Aid Association of Northern Ohio for the purpose of aiding

Free Soilers to settle Kansas. The meeting was dominated by James H. Fairchild,

James A. Thome, Timothy B. Hudson, and Henry E. Peck, who were Congrega-

tional ministers and professors of Oberlin College.25 Earlier in the year Congre-

gational associations had met and taken action on the Nebraska bill. The Medina

conference of Congregationalists expressed determined opposition to the Nebraska

bill, and the general Ohio Congregational conference called it "a crime . . . against

liberty . . . and humanity." Since it was thought that the paramount moral interest

of the nation had been wantonly violated by abrogation of the Missouri Com-

promise, the general conference called on all who loved liberty to rally in the strug-

gle for freedom and to seek to reverse the injustice by all lawful means.²⁶

Also in opposition to the Nebraska bill in 1854 were the Ohio New School

Presbyterian presbyteries of Portage, Pataskala, Trumbull, and Franklin, and the

Free Presbyterian Church. Among the Old School Presbyterian judicatories only

the strongly antislavery presbytery of Chillicothe adopted measures opposing the

bill as well as the extension of slavery.²⁷ The responses of the New School clergy-

men,²⁸ in general, were typified by the contrasting approaches taken by Joseph

Bittinger, a New School man of the Presbytery of Cleveland, and Nathaniel West,

Jr., of the Old School Presbytery of Cincinnati. Bittinger took his stand as an ab-

solute moralist. "Right and wrong admit no compromise. ... Every compromise

in the domain of ethics is treason or dereliction," he warned. In opposition, West,

criticizing the entry of the clergy in politics, "repudiated, with all his power, the

rampant radicalism of the age" which had fastened itself upon slavery and the

territorial question. He denounced the movement as being infidel in its tendencies.29

These views represented the extremes of opinion on slavery and the territorial

 

 

24. Minutes of the North Ohio Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1854 (Cin-

cinnati, 1854), 35; ibid., 1855, p. 24; Minutes of the Cincinnati Annual Conference of the Methodist

Episcopal Church, 1854 (Cincinnati, 1854), 35; ibid., 1855, p. 8.

25. Eli Thayer. A History of the Kansas Crusade: Its Friends and Its Foes (New York, 1899), 177,

citing New York Tribune, August 31, 1854. See also Robert Samuel Fletcher, A History of Oberlin

College: From Its Foundation Through the Civil War (Oberlin, 1943), I, 391-392.

26. Congregational Herald (Chicago), June 23, 1854; Minutes of the Second Annual Meeting of the

Ohio Congregational Conference, Marietta, Ohio, June 20-22, 1854 (Cleveland, 1854), 5-6.

27. Records of the following: Presbytery of Portage, 1854-1863, IV, 228, Office of the Presbytery

of Cleveland; Presbytery of Pataskala, 1848-1870, II, 120, Library of the Synod of Ohio, Wooster Col-

lege; Presbytery of Franklin, 1846-1860, I, 215, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia; Presby-

tery of Trumbull, Ohio Observer, May 3, 1854; Presbytery of Chillicothe, 1846-1870, pp. 186-188,

Library of the Synod of Ohio, Wooster College; Free Presbyterian (Yellow Springs), November 1, 1854.

28. In 1837 the Presbyterian Church in the United States divided into the Old and New School

branches. The branches differed in doctrinal principles and on the value of the union with Congrega-

tionalists in benevolent and missionary enterprises.

29. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 10, 1854; Cincinnati Gazette, December 4, 1854.

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The 1856 Election                                                         31

 

question in the two main branches of this denomination, but both branches housed

opinions shading toward moderation.

The Presbyterian journals, in contrast to the division within the church, were

united in their opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska act. The New School Central

Christian Herald spoke against the bill, and the Ohio Observer advised that firm

resistance would kill the proposal.³⁰ The Old School Presbyterian of the West warned:

"Set aside and trample on the Compromise of 1820, and that of 1850 will not

be worth a straw." Two weeks later the editor returned to the subject: "Shall a

minority . . . with desperate determination over-ride the solemn compact of the

nation for the purpose of giving despotism a wider kingdom? Never!" Much of

the religious opinion that opposed the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854 centered around

the idea of national sovereignty that was proposed in the Presbyterian of the West.

The old concept had been that popular sovereignty, or democratic electoral ref-

erenda, was to decide local issues within the limits of a state. Thus to many who

accepted Douglas' proposal and enactment, a referendum to decide the question

of slavery within a territory was historically in harmony with democratic princi-

ples. Since the free states had grown into a national majority, however, a new con-

cept had come to the front in the North, especially among moralists. This required

that questions of broad national policy, such as slavery, be decided only by the

will of the popular majority in the nation at large, without regard to the equality

of the states. A referendum in Kansas which would go against the will of the na-

tional majority was viewed as despotism and tyranny.31

The Christian Press, organ of the independent antislavery Congregationalists,

in 1854 saw evidence of a plot in Washington to jeopardize the economy of the

North:

With the coldness of a villian who neither fears God nor regards man, with an utter and

scornful disregard of every principle of faith or honor, it is proposed to sacrifice all that

should be dearest to the nation as a whole, and the future prosperity of all the North . . .

with the ultimate design of making slavery supreme in all our land.

The paper's Cincinnati editor, Charles B. Boynton, was not willing to give in with-

out a fight. "Let Nebraska for the moment be sacrificed," he said, but the terri-

tory would be rescued again though it cost "revolution and blood."³²

Far more significant than the issue of despotism versus democracy was the ten-

dency of the religious as well as some secular opponents of the act in 1854 to charge

that a sacred pledge had been broken. The Compromise of 1820 was elevated

almost to the level of a constitutional provision. Its nullification was considered

to be not only a betrayal but almost an act of treason. This highly emotional in-

terpretation, however, was not shared by other segments of the population. The

majority of northern congressmen in 1820 had never accepted the compromise,

a fact Douglas had pointed out when he traveled through Illinois on a speaking

tour in 1854. Also, southern congressmen and editors, even though they supported

the principle of sectional equality that was implied in the repeal of the Missouri

Compromise, entertained little hope for the addition of new slave states. As the

 

 

30. Central Christian Herald (Cincinnati), April 13, 1854; Ohio Observer, February 15, 1854.

31. Presbyterian of the West (Cincinnati), March 2, 23, 1854; Roy Franklin Nichols, The Disruption

of American Democracy (New York, 1948), 52.

32. Free West (Chicago), March 2, 1854, citing the Christian Press (Cincinnati).

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32                                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

Richmond Enquirer said: "The Nebraska bill contemplates only the recognition of

a principle. All agree that slavery cannot exist in the territories of Kansas and

Nebraska. . . . The single aim of the Nebraska bill is to establish the principle of

federal non-intervention in regard to slavery. . . ."33

The division of opinion on the bill was firmly set by the end of 1854, with

the clergy largely committed to opposing the Kansas-Nebraska act. While there was

a minority of Protestant clergy who did not favor open agitation on the question

of slavery as a political issue, all the Protestant journals in Ohio were invariably

opposed to the act.³⁴ There are indications, however, that the moral issue in politics

would have died out if it had not been for the contest that developed in Kansas

for control of the territory. As has been mentioned, many clergymen were deeply

involved in the emigrant aid movement which had as its objective making Kansas

a free territory. In 1855 southerners took control of Kansas as a result of a highly

questionable election, and slavery secured protective legislation. In May 1856 the

Free Soil town of Lawrence, Kansas, was sacked, and Charles Sumner, Senator

from Massachusetts, was assaulted in the Senate after delivering his bitter speech,

"The Crime Against Kansas." The excitement was kept at a boiling point by de-

partures of missionaries and settlers from Ohio to the Kansas battlefield and by

lecture tours that Kansas settlers and visiting clergy made in Ohio and other states

to gain sympathy and funds. It was under the influence of these events that the

campaign and election of 1856 took shape in Ohio.³⁵

Charles B. Boynton, the Cincinnati pastor and editor of the independent Con-

gregational Christian Press, in contrast to his 1854 article which had economic

overtones, delivered a sermon in February 1856 in which he not only denounced

the extension of slavery for religious reasons but also expressed the desire to see

every man in Ohio rise up against the Fugitive Slave law. Near the end of the

year he had a short tenure as pastor at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and began to

teach the people of that section to accept "Kansas and Slavery" as "fit topics

for the Sabbath and the pulpit." Boynton was of the opinion that a political vic-

tory would be only a superficial gain. "The real question before the country lies

much deeper than all our political movements; and there is a . . . religious sen-

timent to shape and sustain political opinion and action," he prophesied. Boynton

took an active interest in seeing that his opinions were put before the public in

Ohio.³⁶

 

 

33. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821 (Lexington, 1966), 148-149; Richmond

Enquirer, March 9, 1854. Almost every religious association that considered the Kansas-Nebraska act

resolved that a sacred pledge of 1820 had been broken by the South. For examples, see Minutes of the

North Ohio Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1854, p. 35; Minutes of the Second

Annual Meeting of the Ohio Congregational Conference, 1854, pp. 5-6.

34. Nathaniel West was the most outspoken example of a clergyman in Ohio who opposed political

sermons. See Cincinnati Gazette, December 4, 1854. No Protestant journal favored the Kansas-

Nebraska act. For expressions of opposition, see Free West, March 2, 1854, citing Christian Press;

Presbyterian of the West, March 2, 1854; Ohio Observer, February 15, 1854.

35. Cincinnati Enquirer, June 3, 1854, citing Presbyterian (Philadelphia); S. L. Adair to S. S. Jocelyn,

June 24, 1854, No. 106346, John H. Byrd to George Whipple, June 3, 1854, No. 106312, American

Missionary Association Archives, Dillard University; Henry Smith, The Truly Christian Pulpit: Our

Strongest National Defense (New York, 1854), 31; R. S. Egleston to Milton Badger, February 5, 1857,

American Home Missionary Society, Fisk University.

36. Western Christian Advocate (Cincinnati), February 13, 1856; M. M. Langley to S. S. Jocelyn,

February 9, 1856, No. 53485; Charles B. Boynton to S. S. Jocelyn, No. 53335, American Missionary

Association Archives.

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The 1856 Election                                                           33

 

Many Congregational clergymen did not limit expression of their views on pol-

itics to sermons and lectures within the confines of the church. In June the Rev-

erend C. G. Finney, president of Oberlin College, announced from the pulpit that

the professors and clergymen of Oberlin College would hold a prayer meeting in

the morning for one week before the Philadelphia Republican national convention.

The subject of the meetings was to be Kansas and the success of the Republican

party.³⁷ Patriotic gatherings were another outlet used by the clergy and laymen

to spread Republican ideas. At Marietta, Professor Addison Ballard delivered a

Fourth of July address which a Democratic newspaper characterized as being

"malignant with innuendo . . . aimed at the Democratic party. . . ." Levi L. Fay,

of the Congregational church at Lawrence (Ohio) who regularly preached about

contemporary political questions and was accused of delivering a partisan Fourth

of July address, received a Republican nomination for local office.³⁸ Undisguised

political meetings in which Congregational clergymen participated were not limited

to the local Ohio clergy. In February the Congregationalist and Illinois abolitionist,

Owen Lovejoy, spoke in Salem on the Christian duty in the present political crisis.

The abolitionist Liberty party lecturer and staunch Congregationalist, Alanson St.

Clair, came from Kansas to Columbus in early August to speak. Under the spon-

sorship of the Ohio Republican committee, he lectured on the wrongs of Kansas.³⁹

A Congregational missionary who had been sent into Ohio by the American Mis-

sionary Association reported to Lewis Tappan, an association officer, that he had

labored industriously "to resist the encroachments of the Slave Power" by purchas-

ing campaign literature from the Republican committee and distributing it to pro-

mote the cause.⁴⁰ John A. Seymour, a Congregational clergyman who had served

in Kansas lectured in central Ohio on the "outrages" taking place in Kansas. He

held the Democratic administration responsible for all of the atrocities committed

in Kansas and informed the people that he had gone to Kansas as a Democrat

but had returned a Republican.⁴¹

The New School Presbyterians throughout 1856 continued the opposition to the

Democrats they had initiated in 1854. O. H. Newton, a pastor of the Delaware

Second Presbyterian Church, called upon all Christians to act in accordance with

the great principle of right. "I believe God calls upon us to throw beneath our

feet that slave power which has so long controlled our nation. . . . Let the noble

sons of the North present an undivided front against the slavery of the South,"

he urged. Carlos Smith of Tallmadge spoke in a similar vein. He lectured for twice

the length of his usual Sunday sermon on the guilty involvement of the Demo-

crats with slavery in Kansas.⁴² In Warren in June William G. Clark preached on

slavery as a political institution and informed his congregation that it was his duty

to spread before his hearers the truth on all great moral questions and reprove

sin wherever found. On another Sunday at the end of August he dealt more specif-

ically with the "outrages" being committed by the Democrats in Kansas.⁴³ Anson

 

 

37. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1856; Trumbull Democrat, June 26, 1856.

38. Marietta Republican, July 11, August 15, 1856.

39. Cleveland Leader, March 4, 1856; Ohio State Journal, August 4, 5, 6, 1856.

40. Horace Nye to Lewis Tappan, September 25, 1856, No. 107569, American Missionary Associa-

tion Archives.

41. Columbiana County Republican (Salem), July 30, 1856.

42. Delaware Gazette, August 8, 1856; Summit Beacon (Akron), July 30, 1856.

43. Western Reserve Chronicle, June 18, 1856; Trumbull Democrat, September 18, 1856.

• 10
 

34                                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Smith of Columbus went so far as to campaign for the Republican party and accept

the nomination as a candidate for school commissioner, and D. Howe Allen, pres-

ident of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, made a series of speeches for

the Fremont party.⁴⁴

The Presbyterian missionaries in the service of domestic missionary societies

in Ohio were among the most outspoken of Presbyterian Republicans. One mis-

sionary from the American Home Missionary Society in Morrow County preached

regularly to his congregation against the "aggressions of slavery" and urged the

people to vote as the Lord would approve. Another missionary preached a strong

election sermon which was published. It only offended one family in the congre-

gation "which was of the Democratic faith," he reported to the officers of the Mis-

sionary Society.⁴⁵ W. G. Kephart, a Free Presbyterian missionary of the American

Missionary Association in Gallia County, was one of the most active clergy in the

state in the Republican cause. He preached regularly in support of the Republi-

can party. Was Kansas to be another Ohio, or be like Kentucky and Missouri in

relation to the vitality and strength of religion? Fear was expressed, in missionary

conventions and in sermons delivered when collections for missions were made,

that free institutions and, indeed, freedom of religion were threatened by slavery

in Kansas. Thus, to Kephart,Kansas became both the symbol for hope of Chris-

tian America as well as the decisive battleground that would determine the fate

of Christianity's mission to the entire world. Nathaniel P. Bailey, a New School

clergyman in Ohio, warned the friends of missions that slavery was a plague and

a giant parasite to be dreaded. Unless met and totally exterminated, he predicted,

it would "soon prove the Angel of Death to this first-born of Christian Republics."⁴⁶

When the New School Presbyterian judicatories met in 1856, an even stronger

stand was taken against slavery. The emphasis was placed on the relation of the

church to slavery rather than on the political controversy concerning Kansas. The

Presbytery of Portage asked the general assembly to separate the church from

slavery. The Western Reserve Synod expressed regret that the last general assem-

bly had taken no action against slavery. This was viewed as more unfortunate

because of the violence in Kansas and the "suppression of free speech" in the

Congress of the United States.⁴⁷

When the district conferences of the Methodist church met in 1856, it became

clear that the clergy and the editor of the Western Christian Advocate, who spoke

out on the moral issues in the political campaign of that year, were expressing

the opinion of the majority of the congregation in Ohio. The North Ohio annual

conference condemned the South for its "opposition to the churches based on

principles of freedom of conscience" and expressed deep sympathy for those who

had died in the conflict in Kansas as martyrs to religious freedom.⁴⁸ The Cincin-

nati annual conference resolved that the Methodist clergy could not be deterred

 

 

44. Clermont Sun, July 10, 1856.

45. Henry Shedd to "Secretaries," October 3, 1856, Samuel D. Smith to Milton Badger, November

17, 1856, American Home Missionary Society.

46. Gallia Republican (Vinton), August 14, 1856; Nathaniel P. Bailey, Our Duty As Taught by the

Aggressive Nature of Slavery (Akron, 1856), 4.

47. Minutes of the Presbytery of Portage, 1843-1863, p. 268, 276, Office of the Presbytery of Cleve-

land; Records of the Synod of Western Reserve, 1856-1867, p. 227. Archives of the Synod of Ohio,

Wooster College.

48. Minutes of the North Ohio Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church Held in Mans-

field, Ohio, September 17-23, 1856 (Cincinnati, 1856), 25.

• 11
 

The 1856 Election                                                                35

 

from declaring the whole counsel of God because political parties that were in

league with slavery made an effort "to silence the voice of the pulpit by the out-

cry of political preaching."⁴9

Before the election of 1856, the antislavery editor of the Methodist Northwestern

Christian Advocate believed the general conference would not "evince before the

world that doughfaced truculency" which he saw Congress displaying. The anti-

slavery efforts to strengthen the rule against slavery failed in the 1856 general con-

ference; nevertheless, resolutions were adopted requesting the book agents and

tract secretary to publish tracts on slavery, including Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery,

and an associate of William Lloyd Garrison was chosen editor of the Sunday School

publications. Early in 1857 the Delaware and Erie conferences also endorsed the

publication of antislavery tracts and pledged to have them circulated as widely

as possible.⁵⁰

The campaign and election of 1856 also elicited various reactions from other

church bodies. The Congregational associations in the Western Reserve and the

Ohio New School presbyteries were among those taking the lead in 1856 in de-

manding that the American Home Missionary Society cease giving aid to slave-

holding churches. Under pressure from the Northwest, in December the executive

committee of the society cut off aid from slaveholding churches, and in May 1857

the Western Reserve Synod, led by antislavery forces at its general assembly in

Cleveland, secured adoption of measures that provoked the secession of the south-

ern synods from the New School Presbyterian Church.⁵¹ When the Ohio Congre-

gational general conference met in June 1856, opinion was adamant. The conference

expressed hope that the spreading revulsion in the public mind would lead to a

speedy political revolution through the ballot box which would divorce the Federal

Government from its "ruinous alliance" with the institution of slavery. The con-

ference called on all Christians to unite with them in prayer for deliverance of the

country from "impending perils."⁵²

In contrast, the clergy of the Episcopal church were largely silent on the ques-

tions involved in the election of 1856. Of those who made public statements the

majority censured the pulpit for involving itself in politics. Nevertheless, in Akron,

Edward Meyer, pastor of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, denounced the assault on

Charles Sumner and added that the "arrogance and ruffianism of the slave power"

ought, if it would not desist, to be withstood by force. It was his view that in the

midst of such violence by the slave power, the pulpit ought not remain silent.53

The Reverend Joseph E. Ryan of Christ Church in Warren likewise felt the clergy

should not remain silent, but he was opposed to political sermons. In response to

an advertisement in the Trumbull Democrat enquiring where pious persons might

attend churches and hear the gospel preached without being abused for their po-

 

49. Minutes of the Cincinnati Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the Year

1856 (Cincinnati, 1856), 36.

50. Northwestern Christian Advocate, December 19, 1855; Gilbert Haven to William Lloyd Garrison

in Liberator, March 29, 1861; Journal of the Central Conference (Methodist) (New York, 1856), 150;

Minutes of the Delaware [Ohio] Conference (Methodist) (Cincinnati, 1857), 27-28; J. N. Fradenburgh,

History of Erie Conference (Oil City, Penn., 1907), II, 519.

51. Victor B. Howard, "The Anti-Slavery Movement in the Presbyterian Church, 1833-1861" (un-

published Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1961), 217-219, 236-237.

52. Minutes of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Ohio Congregational Conference, Dayton, Ohio,

June 17-19, 1856 (Ohio Congregational Conference, 1856), 9.

53. Summit Beacon, June 4, 1856.

• 12
 

36                                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

litical opinions, he declared that those who denounced slavery and the violation

of sacred compacts were political hucksters. Ryan, however, was in agreement with

James H. Bolles, rector of Trinity Church in Cleveland. In June, Bolles had preached

a sermon on "The Free and Independent Church" in which he urged that since

the church was not human but divine, political alliance and intermeddlings with

the motley anti-church organizations of the day should not overshadow the single-

ness of faith or the implicit obedience to Christ.⁵⁴

The Presbyterian newspapers as well as the clergy also actively engaged in the

political questions of the day. J. G. Monfort, the editor of the Old School Presby-

terian of the West, changed the publication from a thoroughly conservative journal,

as it had been under N. L. Rice, to a decidedly antislavery religious organ. The

Presbyterian of the West confirmed its opposition to the extension of slavery and

advised all parties not to complain of the newspaper's opinion lest the voters in-

terpret dissent to be a confession of sentiment favorable to "slavery propagandism."

Monfort informed the voters that their freedom and the protection of their rights

depended on the type of legislature and executive officers they elected and the

policy of the party in power. Since these decisions were made at the ballot box,

the Christian voter's religion required him to take a "deep and solemn interest

in politics."⁵⁵ The New School Central Christian Herald echoed the sentiments of

Monfort with a warning to the Christian voter that he would be held to a solemn

account for the manner in which he employed the franchise vested in him. "There

has been no time in the past history of this nation when Christians were so loudly

called upon to realize their duties as at the present." Since slavery tended to result

in the suppression of freedom of speech wherever it existed, it should not be per-

mitted to spread to the territories, admonished the editor. The Central Christian

Herald returned to the subject at a later date and proclaimed slavery to be in-

compatible with freedom of speech. Either the institution must destroy freedom of

speech or slavery would not survive free speech for a year.⁵⁶

The journals of the smaller Presbyterian bodies also entered into the arena of

political controversy. The Free Presbyterian, organ of the Free Presbyterian Synod,

saw the election as a national crisis. "Revolutions never go back, and if the Slave

power is met and defeated on its own ground, as it will be by the election of

Fremont, other triumphs of freedom must inevitably follow. If the Slave power

now triumphs in the election of Buchanan, either the entire continent will be cov-

ered with slavery or 'blood even to the horses' bridles' will flow to wash out its

stains," prophesied the editor. The Presbyterian Witness, a publication of the Asso-

ciate Reformed Presbyterian Church, insisted that morals should be a part of

politics and that politics should be "the handmaid of religion," then the interests

of one would become intimately connected with the interests of the other. For this

to be accomplished "men of corrupt principles and base practices" must be removed

from the arena of politics.⁵⁷

The emotional tensions that were aroused by the election campaign of 1856

seem to have been a continuation of the conflicts present in the upper South and

 

 

54. Western Reserve Chronicle, September 17, 1856; Church Review (New Haven, Connecticut), IX

(October 1856), 457.

55. Central Christian Herald, July 31, 1856, citing the Presbyterian of the West; ibid., July 3, 1856.

56. Central Christian Herald, July 31, September 4, 1856.

57. Independent Republican (Montrose, Penn.), October 2, 1856, citing the Free Presbyterian; Cen-

tral Christian Herald, July 31, 1856, citing the Presbyterian Witness (Cincinnati).

• 13
 

The 1856 Election                                                             37

 

Southwest between the local population and clergymen of the northern branch of

the Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1844 the Methodists had already separated

into the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

The northern branch had a few churches scattered throughout Missouri and Texas,

while both churches were active in Kansas. In 1856 northern ministers were mobbed,

tarred and feathered, or murdered in Missouri, Texas, and Kansas. These and

numerous other acts of violence were brought to the attention of the people of

Ohio by the Western Christian Advocate, an organ of the Ohio Methodist confer-

ence, and by the secular press of Ohio. As reverberations echoed across Ohio, the

Methodist press and clergy responded with stronger language directed against the

Democratic party. John Lamb, pastor of the Methodist Church of Mount Vernon

was accused by the Democrats of saying that, "any man who would stand upon

the Cincinnati Platform [the Democratic Platform] his face and heart are as black

as hell and damnation." The venerable Reverend James B. Findley offended the

opposition so much by his uncompromising speeches that he was even beaten by

a gang as he left a Republican meeting in Lewisburg.⁵⁸

The Western Christian Advocate gradually took a more determined stand against

the administration and the Democratic party as the election campaign progressed.

During the first week of August the editor warned readers that they could not lay

aside their Christian character during the election, and in the next month he ex-

pressed the belief that Kansas must be free in order to preserve liberty and justice.

"Must the humbug of squatter sovereignty, and the hue and cry of meddling with

politics, be the strong towers to defend a nation of adulterers?" queried the editor

as he shifted his attack to the slaveholder himself a few weeks before the election.

He answered his own question: "Slavery and slavery extension, the highest crimes

against God and man, are now political subjects," and it was the duty of all Chris-

tians to vote as their consciences directed. The strong language used by the Western

Christian Advocate brought a rebuke from the Cincinnati Enquirer. The paper as-

sailed the Methodist journal for turning itself into a political sheet.⁵⁹

The Congregational journals were just as firm in their commitments to the

Republican party and opposition to the extension of slavery as the clergy of this

denomination. The editor of the Oberlin Evangelist, Henry Cowles, informed his

fellow Congregationalists: "We can and ought to carry our cause to the throne of

grace and plead with our convenant God for success." He could not see how "any

Christian man, and friend of his country, any lover of freedom" could vote for

the Democratic party. The Oberlin Evangelist argued that it was the duty of every

Christian to work for a Republican victory. "If there are votes within his influence

that can be gained for freedom and righteousness by an honest presentation of

truth, let him deem the end too precious to be lost. . . . By all that is fearful in

the pending crisis--by all that is sacred in freedom and right," implored Cowles,

 

 

58. Western Christian Advocate, July 9, 30, 1856; Ohio Statesman (Columbus), October 2, 1856,

citing Dayton Gazette, September 22, 1856, October 24, 1856; Mount Vernon Republican, September 9,

1856; Delaware Gazette, September 26, 1856; New York Tribune, October 16, 1856; Circleville Herald,

September 26, 1856; Madison Chronicle, October 18, 1856; Daily Capital City Fact (Columbus), Sep-

tember 20, 1856.

59. Western Christian Advocate, January 30, September 10, October 8, 1856; Christian Advocate

and Journal, September 11, 1856, citing Western Christian Advocate, August 6, 1856; Cincinnati Enquirer,

October 4, 1856; Mount Vernon Republican, July 29, 1856; Mount Vernon Democratic Banner, July 15,

1856.

• 14
 

38                                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

"we urge our fellow citizens to ensure the election of the men whose banner flings

to the breeze the freeman's emphatic sign 'Free Press, Free Speech, Free Soil, Free

Men, Fremont and Victory.'" The Christian Press claimed that it was "the Duty

of Every Christian to vote against debasing the Government . . . ordained for free-

dom, into an Instrument of Oppression against devoting the vast Territories of the

United States . . . to the Blight and Curse of Slavery."60

John A. Gurley, editor of the Universalist Star of the West, matched the most

outspoken radical clergymen in the state in his condemnation of the Democractic

administration. He had a reputation of never shunning either political or religious

controversy. Early in July he was chairman of a great Republican rally in Cincin-

nati in which he urged the audience to vote for Fremont. The Democratic Cincin-

nati Enquirer denounced him as a clerical imposter. Gurley replied to the Enquirer's

stinging rebuke that he dared to denounce the Democratic administration's attempt

to subjugate the industrious and free people of Kansas because he loved liberty

and hated oppression. Gurley was nominated for Congress by the Republicans

and took to the field in an active campaign.⁶¹

The presidential campaign in Ohio in 1856 was even more complicated by the

fact that it was a three-cornered contest between John Fremont for the Republicans,

James Buchanan for the Democrats, and Millard Fillmore for the Americans. The

American party had its origin in the secret Know-Nothing lodges that were created

as anti-foreign and anti-Catholic fraternities dedicated to restricting immigration

as well as increasing residence requirements for foreign-born voters, and it had

been a significant part of the anti-Nebraska coalition in 1854.62

As the Ohio gubernatorial contest took form in 1855, the antislavery advocates,

however, made a determined effort to free themselves from any tinge of nativism.

Giddings insisted that the slavery question be "the issue and the sole issue" of

1855. A friend holding a similar opinion wrote Giddings in June: "Next to the

iniquity of slavery comes that of K [now] -N [othing] ism--with it we can consis-

tantly have no bargaining, no trading."⁶³ The Republican press in the Western

Reserve regularly printed the clerical pronouncements on slavery and also opposed

the Know-Nothings. The Ashtabula Sentinel and the Cleveland Leader bitterly

denounced Know-Nothingism. The Leader felt the Republicans were determined

that the Know-Nothings should not dominate the state convention, and the Sen-

tinel wanted a "free and separate" convention.64 Chase, the antislavery candidate

for governor, however, did not want to lose the support of the Know-Nothings

 

 

 

60. Mount Vernon Republican, September 23, 1856, citing Oberlin Evangelist; Oberlin Evangelist,

XIII (October 22, 1856), 22; Independent Republican, October 2, 1856, citing Oberlin Evangelist and

Christian Press.

61. Cincinnati Commercial, July 4, 1856; Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1854; Cleveland Plain

Dealer, September 6, 1856; Clermont Sun, July 10, 1854. Late in 1856 Gurley's views were re-enforced

by Moncure Conway who came to Cincinnati from Washington, D. C., where he had been dismissed

from a Unitarian church for delivering a political sermon early in 1856.

62. William E. Van Home, "Lewis D. Campbell and the Know-Nothing Party in Ohio," Ohio His-

tory, LXXVI (Autumn 1967), 202-221.

63. Joshua Giddings to S. P. Chase, May 1, 1855, Chase Papers, Pennsylvania Historical Society;

David H. Bradford, "The Background and Formation of the Republican Party in Ohio, 1844-1861"

(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947), 143-146; Richard Mott to Giddings,

June 2, 1855, Giddings Papers; James Brewer Steward, Joshua R. Giddings and the Tactics of Radical

Politics (Cleveland, 1970), 232-233; Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 244.

64. Ashtabula Sentinel, January 8, May 10, 1855; Cleveland Leader, March 15, May 11, 1855.

• 15
 

The 1856 Election                                                            39

 

and therefore urged his longtime friend and editor of the Columbian, Edward S.

Hamlin, to cease his criticism of the Know-Nothings, but Chase held to his com-

mitment not to "proscribe men on account of their birth" or "make religious faith

a political test."⁶⁵

At the 1855 state convention in Columbus, the Know-Nothings led by Lewis

D. Campbell and the anti-Nebraska advocates maneuvered to get control of a

coalition made up of both groups. Since most of those who were interested in

forming a new party put the problem of slavery above nativism, the Republican

movement fused with the Know-Nothing party in the contest of 1855. The Repub-

lican state convention or People's movement nominated Chase as a candidate for

governor, but all other candidates were Know-Nothings. The platform, however,

did not contain a single plank that was nativist.⁶⁶ After Chase was elected over

the opposition of the Democrats and the independent Know-Nothing candidate,

he used his influence as governor to erase the vestiges of nativism from the Ohio

Republican party. In October 1855, in a letter to a friend, Chase outlined a pro-

gram for a Republican victory in 1856. "It seems to me," he wrote, "that we can

only carry the next Presidential election by making the simple issue of Slavery

or Freedom. We shall need the liberal Americans [Know-Nothings] and we shall

also need the anti-slavery adopted citizens." As a result, by 1856, the Republican

platform of Ohio could invite "all citizens, whether of native or of foreign birth"

to join the party, and both the state and national platforms were silent on the

immigration issue. The resolution in the national platform expressing a commit-

ment to constitutional guarantees for liberty of conscience could be interpreted

as an indorsement of protection for both the foreign-born as well as the antislavery

clergymen in Kansas.⁶⁷ Thus, seeing the Republicans trying to appeal to the

foreign-born voter in Ohio in 1856, the American party nominated its own candi-

date, Millard Fillmore, and followed a line of attack similar to the Democrats.

Professor Roseboom explains their strategy as one "to draw off the southern Ohio

conservatives and hold the balance of power in the State."⁶⁸

While the antislavery Republicans and the religious communities that mobilized

themselves on the fringe of the Republican party were absorbed with the rhetoric

on the morality of slavery and slavery extension, the more conservative Republi-

cans were concerned with other issues. Although the Republican platform dealt

largely with the issues of slavery extension, it also included two provisions favoring

Federal support for a transcontinental railroad and improvements of rivers and

harbors. Even though the conservatives tended to emphasize these provisions, in

Ohio the one absorbing topic was the question of the extension of slavery. When

the Republicans met in Columbus in May 1856 to draw up the Ohio state Repub-

lican platform, every resolution in the platform dealt with questions concerning

 

 

 

 

65. Chase to E. S. Hamlin, February 9, 1855, S..H. Dodson, ed., "Diary and Correspondence of

Salmon P. Chase," American Historical Association Annual Report, 1902, II, 270; Chase to John Paul,

December 28, 1856, in J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Service of Salmon Portland Chase (New

York, 1874), 158.

66. Van Home, "Lewis D. Campbell and the Know-Nothing Party in Ohio," 209-210.

67. Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 245; Chase to K. S. Bingham, October 19, 1855, Salmon

P. Chase Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Porter and Johnson, National Party Platforms,

27-28; Joseph Smith, History of the Republican Party in Ohio (Chicago, 1898), 61-62.

68. Eugene H. Roseboom, The Civil War Era, 1850-1873 (Columbus, Ohio, 1944), 320-321.

• 16
 

40                                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

Kansas, slavery extension, or liberty; the resolutions were unanimously adopted.⁶⁹

For some Ohio politicians and secular newspapers the slavery extension issue

had economic as well as moral implications. The antislavery Cleveland Leader

stated in October the question to be decided at the forthcoming election was

whether the unsettled territory would be devoted to the use of free workingmen

or whether it would be taken from them and be cursed by the establishment of

slavery throughout its entire extent. The more conservative Ohio State Journal,

on the other hand, assured the people that the emigrants to Kansas would not be

needy adventurers "fleeing from the pinchings of penury," but substantial farmers.⁷⁰

The ethnic questions did not absorb much of the attention of the secular press in

1856. Since the extension-of-slavery issue was dominant, a considerable portion

of attention was directed toward the part played by the clergy with reference to

this question. Almost every Democratic paper in the state at some time during

the campaign condemned the political activities of the clergy. Their loudest criti-

cism centered around the question of whether or not the clergy was qualified to

speak with authority on political subjects. It was pointed out that the ministers

were attempting to speak in an area where they lacked training. Also, the ministers

were accused of departing from the traditional role religious leaders had assumed

in the previous decades since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The Dem-

ocratic press insisted that the clergymen should concern themselves with individual

salvation and preaching the gospel and Christ crucified, and not to degrade the

pulpit by involving themselves in worldly affairs.⁷¹

The Republican press, on the other hand, encouraged political participation of

the clergy as a moral and civic duty. These papers insisted that spiritual leaders

had the same rights as every other citizen, and these rights included the right to

speak their minds. Any attempt to muzzle the clergy was said to be a threat to

both freedom of the press and freedom of religion. The Republican press argued

that the ministers were speaking in the field of their calling since moral issues had

become political issues. In fact, the clergy were encouraged to become involved so

that the election campaign could be made solely a moral contest. In contrast, the

Democratic press would have preferred the clergy remain silent so that the contest

could be one of clear-cut issues: union versus abolitionism.⁷²

The Cincinnati Enquirer launched the most vigorous attack of any major Dem-

ocratic journal in the state against the political activities of the clergy. The editor

claimed that the Democratic party was "strong enough to pity and despise these

clerical hypocrites and scoundrels," but it was on behalf of the good name of the

Church that the paper raised its voice. Discredit would be attached to all pulpits

which were thus "prostituted and desecrated." The editor complained that political

preaching was becoming a "great nuisance," and suggested that the congregation

get rid of the "presumptuous and insolent" intruders.⁷³

 

 

 

69. Porter and Johnson, National Party Platforms, 27-28; Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men,

16-17, 133-134; Smith, History of the Republican Party in Ohio, 61-62.

70. Annals of Cleveland, citing Cleveland Leader, October 28, 1856, XXXIX, 324; Ohio State Journal,

April 6, 1854.

71. Cincinnati Enquirer, June 14, 1856; Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 23, September 18, 1856; Dela-

ware Democratic Standard, July 10, 1856; Clermont Sun, August 7, 1856.

72. Cincinnati Gazette, June 16, 20, 1856; Canton Register, July 17, 1856; Western Reserve Chronicle,

June 18, 1856; Western Gazette (Lima), August 21, 1856.

73. Cincinnati Enquirer, June 14, 1856.

• 17
 

The 1856 Election                                                            41

 

The Cincinnati Gazette, however, came to the defence of the clergy. The editor

informed the Enquirer that "nine-tenths of all ministers in the North, and an equal

proportion of all the church members are opposed to the Democratic party," and

it was the duty of the pastor of a church to preach against the evils of slavery and

wickedness of the Kansas affair just as it was his "duty to make no compromises

with sin." The Enquirer countered by denying the Gazette was correct in its claim

that nine-tenths of the clergy were opposed to the Democratic party. The editor

then dryly concluded that a nuisance such as that posed by the political clergy

would have been remedied by the ducking-stool fifty years before. The Gazette

ended its defense by maintaining that many clergymen were firm and conscientious

in the belief that a man could not "serve God in the Church and the devil at the

polls."⁷⁴

In central Ohio the Delaware Democratic Standard charged the clergy with be-

ing disunionists who were "praying and preaching to hasten on" the division of the

nation. The Delaware Gazette replied that the clergy were forced to take a stand

because of the outrages of the administration party in Kansas. The Holmes County

Republican spoke in a similar vein, and concluded that it was now or never for a

free pulpit to speak out against "the strides of tyranny."⁷⁵

The controversy raged around the clergy in southern Ohio in language that

was as bitter and inflamed as that in other sections. The Democratic Citizen of War-

ren County minced no words in denouncing the clergy for preaching "disunion

and fanaticism," and for endeavoring by "lies to incite to action the worst passions

of men." In rebuttal, the Courier of Clermont County carried an article by a local

clerical correspondent who characterized the administration press and its support-

ers in terms that were bitter and severe, and closed with the remark, "Language

is inadequate to express our eternal and unmitigated contempt for such miscreant

heel-biting puppies." In return, the Democratic Clermont Sun denounced the polit-

ical activities of the clergy and claimed "Such ministers are a cheat, and stalking

hypocricy, and we shall not be timid in their exposition."⁷⁶ The Gallia Republican

took the side of the pulpit and did some preaching of its own:

If you vote for a sheep thief, you endorse sheep-stealing. . . . If you vote for a slaveholder,

you sustain the awful and matchless devilism of chattel slavery. . . . If you vote for a man

who is in favor of or in sympathy with these wrongs, you do virtually and essentially sus-

tain them.77

Although the Greenfield Republican did not believe in preaching politics, it agreed

with a clergyman whom the editor had heard recently. "My brethren," the minister

had said, "I wish you to vote just as you pray. If you pray for slavery and intem-

perance, vote for them." And, in the Western Reserve, the Democratic Cleveland

Plain Dealer took the lead in denouncing political preaching. The editor complained

that a Democrat could not go into a Protestant church, except perhaps the Episco-

 

 

 

74. Cincinnati Gazette, June 16, 20, 1856; Cincinnati Enquirer, June 18, 23, 1856, citing Cincinnati

Gazette.

75. Democratic Standard, July 10, 1856; Delaware Gazette, July 18, 1856; Holmes County Republican

(Millersburg), September 4, 1856.

76. Democratic Citizen (Warren County), June 12, 1856; Clermont County Courier, cited by Cler-

mont Sun, August 7, 1856.

77. Gallia Republican, September 25, 1856.

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42                                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

pal church, without having "his feelings wounded and his self-respect debased by

paltry flings at his political faith."⁷⁸

In retrospect, it can be argued that the clergy and religious journals were not

as hypocritical or fanatical as many Democratic newspapers described them, but

were sincere in their pronouncements on the slavery issues. It does not follow,

however, that the Republican papers were correct in their unquestioned acceptance

of the clergymen's predictions of the demise of liberty if the Democrats were vic-

torious in 1856. Theodore Weld wrote more accurately about the controversy a few

years after the election: "In this mighty Northern uprising, notwithstanding its

mixture of motives and base alloys and half truths and whole lies, . . . the elements

of a vast moral revolution are all aglow in the surging mass. . . . Simple right is

getting such a hearing as never before on this continent. . . ."⁷⁹ Even so, the various

religious denominations differed in their commitment to the "moral revolution."

The church denominations that had few adherents in the South tended to make

more pronounced declarations on the side of the Republicans. Thus, the Free Will

Baptist and New School Presbyterians were more outspoken than the Episcopalians

and the Old School Presbyterians.

Also, differences in religious philosophy contributed to a difference in political

involvement. Many in the religious communities were heirs of the stewardship tra-

dition of the Calvinistic past. These considered themselves the overseerers of their

brethren's conduct as the earthly vice-regents of God. They believed that God chose

not to intervene directly to lead the sinner along the paths of righteousness, but

that He had appointed some men to be the guardians of their fellow citizens and

the conscience of the nation. For a generation these stewards of righteousness had

been concerned with the national sin of slavery, and, in 1856 since slavery was a

political issue, they threw themselves into the political contest. Another factor which

brought many Calvinists, especially Congregationalists and New School Presbyte-

rians, into opposition to the expansion of slavery was the tendency of many of this

group to communalize the sin of slaveholding--to feel a national denominational

guilt because of the existence of the southern institution in their nation and church.

This sense of collective sin inspired Calvinists with a driving urge to oppose the

expansion of the institution and to push back the boundary of its domain as well

as to free the national assemblies and national benevolent societies of any relation

with slavery.⁸⁰

From an analysis of the voting statistics it would seem that the activities and

pronouncements of the church, the religious journals, and the clergymen were sig-

nificant factors in the Republican success in Ohio in 1856, even though the Demo-

crats won the presidency. The three areas in this study roughly included the Western

Reserve, the Virginia and United States Military Districts, and the Ohio Company

region. These had been strong Whig sections of the state from 1832 to 1853, but

voted predominately Republican in 1856. All Ohio Company counties that were

Whig strongholds before the Kansas-Nebraska act became Republican counties in

 

 

78. Mahoning County Register, May 8, 1856, citing Greenfield Republican; Cleveland Plain Dealer,

July 23, 1856.

79. Theodore Weld to Mrs. Wright (copied by Mrs. Wright), March 23, 1862, William Lloyd Garri-

son Collection, Smith College.

80. Clifford S. Griffin, Their Brothers' Keeper: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800-1865

(New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1960), x-xi; Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes

Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill, 1969), 299-300.

• 19
 

The 1856 Election                                                                    43

 

1856. In the Military Districts, however, three counties, Ross, Pickaway, and Scioto,

that had been carried by the Whigs in 1852, shifted over to the Democrats in 1856.

These counties, no doubt, were influenced by the preoccupation of the Republican

party with the slavery issue and the Democratic charges of disunion and abolition-

ism.81 On the other hand, five Western Reserve counties shifted from a Democratic

plurality in 1853 to a Republican majority in 1856. Since this was the region in

which the moral issues of slavery were given most prominence and the clergy the

most active, clerical activity undoubtedly accounts for a considerable part of the

large support Fremont received in this region. When Republicans carried Ohio in

the November election, the Ohio State Journal gave much of the credit to the West-

ern Reserve and called it "the most enlightened and enterprizing portion of Ohio,"

but the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer had no kind words for Republican

supporters in the Western Reserve. "Those old blue law, blue bellied Presbyterians

that hung the witches and banished the Quakers, are determined," he charged,"to

convert the people of this region into a race of psalm singers, using the degenerate

dregs of the old puritans remaining here to drive the Democracy out."⁸²

The relative unimportance of ethnic issues in 1856 is verified by the insignificant

vote of the American party, which did not carry a single Ohio county. Even though

the American party vote was relatively unimportant in the Western Reserve, in the

Military Districts this vote was large enough so that it probably contributed to

Democratic victories in some former Whig counties. The contrast between the

Democratic victory in Ohio in 1852 with 169,193 votes against 152,577 for the Whigs,

and the Republican triumph in Ohio in 1856 with 187,497 votes to 170,874 for the

Democrats in part can be explained by the change in the religious community from

 

 

 

 

81. Flinn, "Continuity and Change in Ohio Politics"; W. D. Burnham, Presidential Ballots, 1832-

1892 (Baltimore, 1955), 208-210; Population of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Returns of

the Eighth Census (Washington, 1864), 396-397. For the breakdown of county votes in the presidential

elections of 1852 and 1856, see the Ohio State Journal, November 23, 1852, and November 24, 1856.

82. Ibid.; these counties were Cuyahoga, Trumbull, Portage, Medina, and Mahoning; Ohio State

Journal, November 10, 1856; Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 28, 1856.

In his recent study, The Cross of Culture; A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850-1900 (New

York, 1970), Paul Kleppner has developed a pietistic-ritualistic continuum theory to explain the dif-

ference between the passive attitude toward reform taken by Catholics and other ritualistic religious

groups in the last half of the nineteenth century, and the active reform orientation of the evangelical

religious groups. The ritualistic perspective emphasized right belief and accepted the sinful world as

beyond man's ability to mold it into God's kingdom on earth. The pietistic perspective emphasized

right behavior and concerned itself with converting the world by purging it of sin. Each group tried

to preserve and promote its value system and sought recourse to political action which involved con-

flict on issues such as prohibition and sabbatarianism (pp. 73-77). Kleppner sees these issues as vital

forces that determined the electors' political affiliations and caused the pietists to identify themselves

with the Republicans as the party of "great moral ideas," and the ritualists to associate with the

Democrats as the party of "liberty." Although the theory has considerable merit, there is little evi-

dence that the pietistic-ritualistic continuum was a significant force in shaping political alignment in

Ohio in 1856. Indeed, Kleppner makes no claim for the theory in this election, and concedes that

the determining factor in causing southern Baptist, Presbyterian, and Disciples to vote the Democratic

ticket in the 1870's and 1880's in Ohio was their sectional heritage (pp. 64-65, 122-123). In 1856 the

ethnic issues were largely dormant in Ohio and evangelical religious groups became concerned with

slavery, a distant evil. The Catholic voter's identity with the Democratic party in 1856 can be best

explained by his adherence to traditional political ties, his economic competition with the free Negro

in the labor market, and his preoccupation with self-interest which resulted from his postition as a

minority member and laborer. See Madeleine Hooke Rice, American Catholic Opinion in the Slavery

Controversy (New York, 1944), 84, 103-105; Bernard Mandel, Labor: Free and Slave (New York,

1955), 69.

• 20
 

44                                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

being passive voters, if not observers, to being active molders of public opinion in

the political arena.⁸³

Thus the unique feature of the election of 1856 in Ohio was the successful po-

litical uprising of the evangelical churches, motivated primarily by the moral issues

of slavery and the extension of slavery into the territories. The political involve-

ment of the religious community in the sectional controversy, however, did not

come to an end with the election of 1856. The slavery issue remained a major pre-

occupation of the church and the clergy until the end of Reconstruction,⁸⁴ and the

Democrats continued to charge the clergy with misusing their high office. When

the editor of the Dayton Empire was killed in 1862 by a neighbor as a result of

private and political affairs, Clement Vallandigham, while speaking to an audience

in Newark, characterized the murder as one of the sad results of the gospel of hate

that had been preached by many clergymen for years. During the next year a Dem-

ocratic convention in Butler County declared that the clergymen were "the devil's

select and inspired representatives, preaching hate, envy, malice, vengeance, blood

and murder, instead of love, charity and the doctrine of Christ." The Methodist

preachers in Cincinnati answered this charge by calling on their congregations to

vote for the unconditional Union ticket and accused the Democrats of being hostile

to the war and to the Church of God.⁸⁵

 

83. Burnham, Presidential Ballots, 676.

84. For evidence of the continuation of the support of the Republican administration on moral

grounds by the pulpit and the religious press in Ohio during the Civil War, see Chester F. Dunham,

The Attitude of the Northern Clergy Toward the South, 1861-1865 (Toledo, Ohio, 1942), 114, 116. In

1866 Salmon P. Chase told a group of Methodists: "I have thanked God that the Methodist Church

... knew only one sentiment--that of devotion to ... our country.... How we have leaned upon your

bishops, . . . your ministers . . . and your great people." Christian Advocate, April 19, 1866.

85. Porter, Ohio Politics, 145; Dayton Empire, March 16, 1863; Gospel Herald (Dayton), XIX

(1863), 2, called the convention a "public indignation" meeting.

• 21