Ohio History Journal

OHIO

Archaeological and Historical

PUBLICATIONS

JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS

A CHAMPION OF POLITICAL FREEDOM.

BY BYRON R. LONG.

There never was a time perhaps when there was less need

for furnishing material for readers than just now. The world-

war has been productive of thot and action such as has enlisted

thousands of good writers who are keeping record of incidents

and are setting down impressions which are moving the souls

of men as profoundly as any that human life has experienced.

The excuse for this wrting differs little from that given for

any of similar nature. Namely, that men are apt to forget the

causes which lie beneath the structure of national life and the

circumstances that have led to the struggle waged in defence

of and in perpetuation of that life. Furthermore, there has been

no more fitting time to recall the incidents of seventy-five years

ago that led up to the conflict which resulted in the abolition of

slavery as the chief feature of the achievement of a nation in a

generation.

The recollection of events of that time bring before the

mind's-eye the actors on the stage in those wonderful, decisive

days. The question of human slavery was the burning question

with Americans and it received attention from many angles of

vision. Strong men withstood one another in the arena of debate

for and against this evil that struck at the vitals, both of the en-

slaved and the enslavers.

1.

2          Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Horace Greeley in the valuable contribution made by him to

this study under the title of "Slavery Before the Revolution"

says:

"The first man who ever imbibed or conceived the fatal delusion

that it was more advantageous to him or to any human being to

procure whatever his necessities or his appetites required by address

and scheming than by honest work-by the unrequited rather than the

fairly and faithfully recompensed toil of his fellow creature-was in

essence and in heart, a slave holder and only waited opportunity to

become one in deed and in practice. And this single truth operating

upon the infinite variety of human capacity and culture suffices to

account for the universality of slave-holding in the anti-Christian age,

for its tenacity of life, and for the extreme difficulty of even its partial

eradication. The ancients, while they apprehended perhaps adequately

the bitterness of bondage which many of them had experienced do not

seem to have perceived so vividly the corresponding evil of slave-hold-

ing. They saw the end of the chain which encircled the ankles of the

bond-man, they do not seem to have so clearly perceived that the other

lay heavily across the throat of his sleeping master. They do not seem

to have perceived that the slave-holding relation effected an equal dis-

count on the value of the master as the slave-held relation affected on

the slave."

This observation of Mr. Greeley so full of suggested wisdom

did not get its due measure of just and considerate credence even

at that late date in the history of the monstrous traffic.    So

meager, in fact, was the feeling about it that even when the eman-

cipation proclamation got utterance and later, when its substance

got woven as a constituent part into the foundation document of

our national government, slavery had not been driven from our

midst save in a nominal way.

Sixty years have gone by and we are troubled with it yet.

The seed of human slavery was a strong one. The terrible war

that wages on the borders of France and Belgium in this year

1918 is being waged because this weed still grows in human gar-

dens. Human bondage still lives-a mighty force in the world,

which tho no longer politically legalized as in a former age is

still a terrible ghost, begetting fear.

History repeats itself, but usually on a bigger scale. When

one analyzes the epic making events in the story of human prog-

ress it is discovered that lying back of these events are motives

Joshua Reed Giddings.                 3

and forces and struggles that are born of the desire in man to

be free. Freedom is the natural cry of the human wherever

he asserts himself. In course of human progress the individual

finds himself a part of the community motived by the same spirit,

and movement under the spell of this spirit brings the dawn of

a day when the larger conception of freedom and liberty pre-

vails. This desire for freedom is for others as well as for one-

self. It becomes an atmosphere which all breathe. In this sense

of freedom human relations come to occupy a large place and

beget larger but modified activities which the mere thot of one's

own interest fails to contemplate. When freedom is considered

in this light it appears different from what it does when one

thinks of himself as a solitary actor on the stage of endeavor

and a solitary beneficiary of the world's goods.

The struggle for American independence and the struggle

for the enlargement and perpetuation of that independence are

instances of the expanding comprehensive character of the thot

and reach of freedom which the new world had come to enter-

tain. Not only must this new land be a home for one race with

freedom's right; but for all races residing within its borders.

Political and religious liberty must be a birthright of all. The

soil of America allows no other. The sacrifice of blood and toil

and property could be made for this and nothing short of this.

Freedom is a very big term, it is in fact that last term of the

moral and spiritual ascending series. In spiritual phrasing the

greatest of all teachers taught that freedom comes only with the

knowledge of the truth. "Ye shall know the truth and the truth

will make you free." Such truth has to do with relations of

life rather than with axioms.

Our country has gone to war again and the big thot in the

mind of the nation on entering the war is that of freedom for

all men. Millions of men have been in training in the con-

flict across the ocean and the whole purpose of this training

has been that these men should be equipped to do the utmost

that liberty may prevail everywhere, until the smallest nation

without army or navy or battlements or any of the long estab-

lished methods of warfare may be perfectly safe to carry on the

arts of peace. Our fathers of the Revolution and of the Rebellion

4         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

were not able to see the outcome of the struggles in which they

took part, but the same principle was operating then as is operat-

ing now. One of our failures is that we do not live and act

with sufficient prophetic faith and insight. Most of us work for

immediate results and feel that when these are reached that we

have done our bit, but no one has done his best till he has wrought

with prophetic outlook on his deed and the fruit of it. We

all remember Browning's words:

"Grow old along with me,

The best is yet to be-

The last of life-for which the first was made.

Our times are in his hand

Who said the whole I planned.

Trust God, see all nor be afraid."

This should be one's faith even unto death. By this route

alone can big results come either here or there. By this way

alone we shall know the truth and by it be made free and dele-

gated with freeing power. Our nation today seems to be hunger-

ing not only for larger freedom for itself but for power and

grace to help others secure freedom for themselves that in the

end the whole world may be free.

It is fitting that at a time like this, we revive a little Ohio

history that was made by a few men and women stirred with a

passion to do all they could to bring about the emancipation of

a race hitherto the victim of political bondage.

Into the American family quarrel of the first half of the

nineteenth century stepped a number of men who proved

big men for their day and who in the performance of their duties

created a fund of indebtedness which the generations since have

not been able to pay, and only as the generation now active plays

its part well, will it honor the heroic men of these tragic years

of struggle in halls of congress and on the battle-fields of the

Southland.

It is not the purpose of this paper to give all the details

of a life story, altho such a story would be a most impressive one

and has never been told in the pages of this periodical.

A brief reveiw of this life is all that will be attempted, the

Joshua Reed Giddings.                 5

main purpose being to present some of his cooperation and

correspondence with the noted men of his time.

To say of the period mentioned that it witnessed the growth

of men who were giants is not exaggerating. There were giant

tasks to be performed and it took giant men to perform them.

Joshua R. Giddings was one of the sterling, rough-hewn char-

acters who came to America in the period of her greatest crisis

when the staunchness of her foundation was tested to the utter-

most. A writer in the Cincinnati Enquirer some time in 1905

said of Joshua R. Giddings that "No man had as much to do

with the precipitation of the Civil War as had he. Due to the

fact that no other man so big and capable felt that the only means

of wiping out the curse of slavery depended upon the strong arm

of government enlisted in war. He was opposed to the Mexican

War because he felt that it was waged in the interest of slavery.

He was in favor of the Civil War because he saw in it the only

means for abolishing slavery, and when once he had set his hand

to the plow there was no turning back until the mighty task was

completed."

Two hundred years before J. R. Giddings reached the zenith

of his fame his ancestors emigrated from England, settling in

the state of Massachusetts. Seventy-five years later his great-

grandfather removed to Connecticut; near the close of the eigh-

teenth century his father left Connecticut, expecting to settle in

Wyoming Valley, but not being pleased with the surroundings,

he took his family to a more congenial spot in the state of Penn-

sylvania. At Athens in this state Joshua was born. In the same

year the family removed to Canandaigua County. Here they

remained till the son was eleven years of age, when they moved

further westward and took up residence in Ashtabula County,

Ohio.

At that time the country was in a wilderness state. Hard

and continuous labor was necessary to put it in habitable shape,

such as made possible any comforts of civilized life. Indians

were close neighbors, and wild beasts were on every hand. Very

few white people had as yet found their way so far westward.

It was an experience calculated to toughen the fiber of body

and mind. It was to the culture that came in this form that

Joshua Reed Giddings.                       7

could be credited the courage and vigor of Mr. Giddings in the

trying times when he was compelled to take a stalwart stand

against the foes of righteousness and truth.

The father had made rather large purchases of land, but de-

fective titles resulted in his losing much of it and thus he was

made to suffer the burdens and inconveniences of poverty.

When the boy was seventeen years of age he had part in the

defensive military program against the British and Indians brot

about by the inauguration of the War of 1812. The father had

fought in the battles of the Revolution and therefore placed no

hindrance in the way of his son taking part in the later conflict.

He was under age but he had enlisted and had been accepted,

and continued in the line until relieved by the coming of the regu-

lar troops. He had part in the first battle of the war fought on

the 29th of September, 1812. The following clipping from the

Cleveland Press makes reference to this incident in a way that

begets considerable interest. This clipping has been pasted in

the back part of the volume of biography on the shelf in the Ohio

State Library:

"During the war of 1812, General Hull sent a volunteer company

to protect the inhabitants and property on the Marblehead peninsula,

a dozen miles east of Port Clinton. Indians who were concealed and who

were in league with the British, attacked the party, which sought safety

in a log house. Here the patriots defended themselves for nearly three

days, when unexpected relief came.

"Of the entire company only thirty-seven escaped, and the bodies

of the slain, it is said, remained for over two years in the hut before

they were given burial.

"The few survivors pledged themselves, if alive, on the fiftieth

anniversary of this terrible slaughter, to meet on that occasion at the

exact spot where the conflict took place. Giddings was nineteen years

of age at that time. Subsequently he became a distinguished citizen

and was loved by that entire portion of the state which sent him to

Congress. He electrified Washington and was eminent in the public eye.

Still, as a soldier he did not forget his promise to his comrades. On

the twenty-ninth day of September, 1862, just a half century after, the

grey-haired veteran, true to his promise, returned to the place where so

many of his comrades had fallen by his side in battle.

"But he discovered that in the passing of time, one by one, the

thirty-seven survivors had died. And so he stood alone of them all

on the hallowed spot.

8          Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

"Feeling it a sacred duty, in memory of these men, the eminent

soldier-statesman erected a stone, inscribing thereon the names of those

who fought and those who afterward died. This stone with its records

still stands near Fox's Dock, but a mile or a little more from historic

Johnson's Island, made famous later. The spot is now named 'Meadow-

brook'. On the stone, the names appearing in prominence, are Daniel

Mingus, Alexander Mason, and M. Simmons. These men were officers.

The stone facings are covered with the names of the men who fought in

the battle.

"Two years later Mr. Giddings himself died, and in turn his fel-

low-citizens of Ashtabula County erected to his memory the beautiful

monument at Jefferson.

"The conflict on Marblehead peninsula is said to have been the

first trial at arms in the war of 1812 on Ohio soil."

Joshua R. Giddings came to a time that needed the prophetic

insight and outlook. If any man had the prophetic vision, Gid-

dings had it. His contemporaries came to recognize this fact

and to honor and respect him as a discerner of men's thots and

of the outcome of national policies persisted in.

No one can read the history of those times in the light of

present-day knowledge and not be convinced that this man was

sent on a mission of special significance to his and all future

times.

Thirteen years before Abraham Lincoln proclaimed emanci-

pation of the slaves of the South, Joshua R. Giddings uttered the

following words in the House of Representatives:

"When the contest shall come; when the thunders roll and the

lightnings flash; when the slaves of the South shall rise in the spirit

of Freedom, actuated by the soul-stirring emotion that they are men,

destined to immortality, entitled to the rights which God bestowed

upon them; when the masters shall turn pale and tremble; when their

dwellings shall smoke and dismay sit on each countenance; Sir, I do not

say, we will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh, but

I do say that the lovers of our race will then stand forth and exert the

legitimate powers of this Government of freedom. We shall then have

constitutional power to act for the good of our country, and to do

justice to the slave. We will then strike off the shackles from his

limbs. The Government will then have power to act between slavery

and freedom; and it can best make peace by giving liberty to the slave.

And let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that time hastens; the President*

is exerting a power that will hurry it on; and I shall hail it as the

*Millard Fillmore.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                    9

approaching dawn of that Millennium which I know must come upon

the earth."

A recent writer in the Sociological Journal recalls a bit of

history relating to that time and the forces that had to be met

before progress could be made in the direction of universal free-

dom. He goes on to declare that "In the Virginia constitutional

convention of 1829, the North Carolina convention of 1835, and

the South Carolina discussion of nullification during the same

period, the abler men of the South definitely abandoned the doc-

trine of democracy." "John Marshall, John Randolph, Judge

Gaston of North Carolina, and Calhoun and McDuffie of South

Carolina, were perhaps the best spokesmen of the political group

which led this reaction. Webster and Chancellor Kent reflected a

similar faith in New England and New York."

The philosophy of this group of anti-democratic politicians

gets the following interpretation by this same writer, and since

it is so brief and yet so comprehensive I take the liberty to quote

further:

"The problem of the South was so to state the common belief that

people would settle down to a quiet acceptation of slavery and a stratified

social and economic organization, that poor men, even when they were

in the majority, would be contented, and that insurrection on the part

of slaves would be easily suppressed. To do this slavery must be shown

to be a good thing of itself and the results of the slave traffic highly

beneficial to society. Heavy work must be done. Who could better do

it than the negro? Someone must guide and manage public affairs.

Who could do that so well as the master of the great plantations?

If the slave did the rough work and the master managed the state,

common men with farms and shops would probably vote and fight in the

event of war. In return for the privilege of running the state the

master might be induced to meet the main burden of taxation."

It was necessary that this doctrine get an establishment and

to do it the best brains of the South must be employed. If one

cares to acquaint himself with the arguments setting forth the

civilizing (?) influence of slavery he can find the substance of

it in a book still extant, entitled "Pro-Slavery Argument". This

volume contains Harper's Memoirs of Slavery, Hammond's Let-

ter on Slavery, Simm's Morals of Slavery and President Dew's

Argument in Defense of Slavery.

10        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

To read these arguments today sets one to wondering how

it was possible for sane minds to operate so insanely. As the

writer already quoted says, "The teachings of the great Jefferson

were dismissed with the contemptuous remark: 'Glittering fal-

lacies' ".

President Dew at the head of William and Mary College,

one of the most learned men of the Southland, was during the

years from 1825 to 1836, the period of his professorship in the

college, and just preceding his elevation to the presidency, lec-

turing to large classes of students on the subject of political and

social science. By this means so generously afforded him he was

planting the seeds of what we would now call Prussianism, for

he had spent many years in Germany imbibing the teachings

which now, after nearly a hundred years, have fruited in the

tragedy of the European continent. It seems that we are still

fighting the battles that supplement the ones fought in our own

Civil War that genuine democracy may have its way in the world.

The writer of this article very early in life was permitted

to read and make notation on President Dew's "Digest of the

Laws, Customs, Manners and Institutions of Ancient and Mod-

ern Nations," but little did he suspect that the man who prepared

that Digest was afflicted with the disease of Prussianism. Only

in later years did he come to know the truth about the bias of

his mind, that could see slavery as an authorized Christian insti-

tution.

The writer in the journal already quoted, says, "Few greater

blows have ever struck at democracy in the United States than

this argument of an able and trusted teacher and scientist."

In Harper's Memoirs on Slavery are found these words:

"The exclusive owners of property ever have been, ever will, and

perhaps ever ought to be the virtual owners of mankind. * * * It

is the order of nature and of God that the being of superior faculties

and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and

dispose of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature

that men should enslave each other as that animals should prey upon

each other."

It was this school of political philosophy composed of the

great majority of the ablest men of the South that had gained

Joshua Reed Giddings.                11

control not only in the southern portion of our country but who

had driven a mighty wedge in the Northern area that Mr. Gid-

dings had to meet when the people of the Western Reserve called

him to represent them in the halls of Congress. Long before he

came to his place in Congress a resolution which had been origin-

ally suggested by Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina and later in-

troduced by Charles G. Atherton of New Hampshire establish-

ing a rule known as the "Twenty-first" or the "Atherton Gag",

whereby all petitions relating to the subject of slavery were denied

any hearing or consideration beyond the privilege of being laid

on the table.

John Quincy Adams had never failed to denounce these pro-

ceedings-he spoke of them as an outrage upon Northern free-

men and Northern rights.

When Mr. Giddings came to represent Ohio and the West-

ern Reserve Section he took the same stand but with greater

vehemence and thus there was established a life-long friendship

with the "Old-Man Eloquent" of Massachusetts and they became

a battle-team of great power. Because of Mr. Giddings' force-

ful attitude in opposition to this phase of procedure he became

the almost sole medium thru whom petitions from the North

found their introduction into Congress. Especially was this true

with regard to the question of the abolition of slavery in the Dis-

trict of Columbia. From the beginning he was marked as an

Abolitionist but the history of those days shows that he was so

only in the sense in which Jefferson was. Thru all the contro-

versy he refused to be charged with any responsibility for agitat-

ing interference with slavery in the states where it already ex-

isted. When the war came he was a loyal supporter of the cause

of the army of the North in its struggle for the perpetuity of the

national government with the feeling of assurance that when it

was all over, slavery would no longer have an abiding place in the

United States.

Giddings came as a re-inforcement to the cause of Freedom

as the North had defined it and had struggled for it. He believed

in the Jeffersonian doctrine that all men are born free and equal.

His first attempts were scorned by the Southern men and lightly

esteemed by many in the North, but in a very short time his pow-

12       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

erful personality began to burn its way into the consciousness of

the legislators with whom he was brot in touch and that of the

country at large both North and South. His attitude was the

same as that of Garrison who said in substance: "I will take no

backward step, I will not equivocate, I will be heard," and it was

because of this heroic stand, not only on account of his physical

courage but because of intellectual clearness and moral integrity

that he was heard, and was able to pass easily to the foremost

place among the spokesmen of his time in behalf of the doctrine

that "right makes might" and that truth spoken and striven for

will come to prevail. He felt that thru-out history there has been

evidence that men have been chosen to give forth prophetic utter-

ance and to stand in the front of the fray when occasion demands.

He made no proud claim of prophecy but he was a prophet never-

theless. As soon as he began his Congressional career he began

to center his mind in the work of developing arguments that would

convince his contemporaries that slavery is wrong and cannot con-

tinue.^l That the warfare against it might as well begin immedi-

ately and be carried to the final issue and that there was no doubt

as to the character of that issue. With this in mind he favored

anything that would bring that result and opposed everything

that amounted to an attempt to perpetuate it.

The Nineteenth congressional district of Ohio has had very

many distinguished men as representative but none greater than

Joshua R. Giddings. Elizha Whittlesey represented the district

for many years prior to Giddings. Hutchins, who succeeded Gid-

dings, was representative for four years. James A. Garfield fol-

lowed Hutchins and served for eighteen years until he was elected

United States Senator and President of the United States. Gid-

dings himself was several times mentioned for this highest office

in the gift of the people. He was distinguished for his patriot-

ism but it was not of the sort that could be defined in the way

another member of Congress defined it: "A patriot is a gentleman

with whom we agree, a traitor is one with whom we do not agree."

His patriotism was love of country and sacrificial service.

1The Exiles of Florida; Speeches in Congress; Pacificus-Essays,

etc.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                      13

Mr. Henry G. Wheeler in his biographical history of the

Congress of the United States published in 1848 while Mr. Gid-

dings was in the midst of his congressional activity said of him:

"We believe Mr. Giddings to be a sincere man; we know him to

be an able and eloquent man. The odium which attaches itself to the

peculiar opinion he entertains has kept him down from that position in

the House which, under other circumstances, he would have undoubtedly

have occupied. He is called a demagogue; with what truth, the country

will judge.

"Thruout his whole term of service, the personal bearing of Mr.

Giddings has been unexceptionable, and in accordance with the strictest

requirements of parliamentary decorum. We have seen him taunted,

rebuked, insulted--all but struck; yet we never saw him forget his

knowledge of the presence he was in, much less engage in anything

like one of those pugilistic encounters of which the records of the

House, in recent years, afford so many humiliating evidences.

"On one occasion, when an insult was regarded by him as very

direct and gross, he manifested his appreciation of it by this reply-

a type of his conduct in all such instances: 'It is related of a veteran

marshal, who had grown old in the service of his country, and who had

fought a hundred battles, that he happened to offend a young and fiery

officer, who spat in his face for the purpose of insulting him. The

general, taking his handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his face,

remarked, If I could wash your blood from my soul as easily as I can

this spittle from my face, young man, you should not live another day.

"'I will say to the member that I claim no station superior to

the most humble, nor inferior to the most exalted. In representing

what I believe to be the views of my people, and what I deem their

interests and the interests of the North, I made the remarks I did. I

say to him, that at the North we have a different mode of punishing

insults from that which exists at the South. With us, the man who

wantonly assails another is punished by public sentiment. To that senti-

ment I appeal. It will do justice both to the member and to myself.'

"It may truly be said that there is no member of the House more

constantly attentive to the duties of his station or the interests of his

constituents than Mr. Giddings."

The one thing more than any other that commanded the

thot of Mr. Giddings was the question of human rights. He

never distinguished in this respect between classes or races of

men. To him the being who was looked upon by a vast number

of the American people, in his time, as chattel, was a human

being with all the rights of any other human being. It was this

14       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

that he contended for thru all his official life and it was due to

him as much as to any other one man that forces were put in

motion that finally took the shackles off four million slaves. For

doing this kind of agitating he was persecuted and hissed and

maltreated. Congress at one time rebuked him and he resigned

from membership, only to be returned by an indignant yet loyal

constituency. No hero on the battle-field ever exhibited greater

valor united with better wisdom than did this hero of a hundred

battles in America's legislative halls that Freedom might be the

birthright of all men, white and black, who should come after

him.

Remember if you will that this man had to stand alone thru

many weary days. John Adams was with him in the House, to be

sure, but John Adams was an old man. He had been President of

the United States and was honored and respected by all. There

were a few others who believed as did Giddings. But they be-

longed to the group of timid ones who feared the oligarchy of the

South.

Giddings was the first to defy the power that had threatened

men of the North and a few of the South who had whispered

their distrust in the pro-slavery autocracy. His defiance cut to

the core. As soon as it was uttered the Southern members knew

that a Daniel had come to judgment, and that no matter how

many lions might roar in legislative halls the man from the West-

ern Reserve in Ohio could not be cowed nor swerved from the

one single purpose that all men under the stars and stripes should

be free. Slowly but surely the Northern men began to feel that

they would like to have part in the holy conflict. Slowly the

people of the North grew in their determination that representa-

tives should be chosen who would stand by the Declaration of

Independence. Abraham Lincoln sat thru one term of Congress

while Giddings was at the height of his forcefulness as an oppo-

nent of slavery. Who knows what influence Giddings had over

this thirty-five-year-old member from Illinois, who was finally

to draw the instrument that would carry to fruition the Ohio

Statesman's cherished desire and hopes.

Lincoln and Giddings were made of the same human stuff,

and were trained in the same school of hard knocks. The latter

Joshua Reed Giddings.                    15

made a careful and studious research into the question of slavery

studying its history from the beginnings.

The fruits of this labor he brot before Congress in finely

digested arguments and doubtless Lincoln profited from the array

of material gathered by his great compeer.

His "Exiles of Florida" and his "Pacificus" essays, together

with his volume of speeches published in 1853, reveal the tre-

mendous labor he was to in getting ready for his part in the

conflict. No man ever spoke with greater authority on the sub-

ject of human rights and human duties. He based his conten-

tions on the documents that have been basic thruout history. The

Bible had been studied, and the results of his study in the Hebrew

and Greek testaments, together with a clear brain and an honest

purpose, to know the truth and abide by it, made of him a foe

to be feared and a friend to be relied on.

The following quotation from a speech in the House reveals

his attitude; he was being interrupted by the friends of the in-

stitution of slavery and coming back to his own discussion he

said:

"I was stating my views on the rights of humanity and I said to

the gentleman from Tennessee that I hold precisely with the fathers

of 1776. I hold to the principle for which the gentleman's father and my

own contended at Bunker Hill and Yorktown; I hold to the principle

on which this government is based, that men are free and equal and

that he who attempts to interfere with God-given rights does it at his

peril. I hold that every human being who breathes the air of God

comes in with all the rights of any other man and whoever interferes

with it does so at his peril. There never was a more glorious cause

to fight for nor would I ask for a more glorious cause to die for than

this cause which deals with the right of man to be free; and I contend

that when anyone's divine right of human liberty is interfered with that

he has a right to defend himself."

Quoting Mr. Jefferson he proceeds,

"'Can the liberties of a nation be thot secure when we have

removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people

that these liberties are the gift of God; that they are not to be violated

but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect

that God is just; that his justice can not sleep forever; that, consider-

ing numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel

16        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

of Fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it

may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has

no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.'

Concluded Mr. Giddings,

No, the Almighty has no attributes which will permit him to take sides

with oppression, outrage, and crime. When the day of retribution shall

arrive, a holy and just God can take no part with slaveholders."

These quotations are taken to illustrate the attitude of his

mind toward this question for which he gave his thot and energy

during all these exciting and somewhat bewildering days. The

years following 1848, when Mr. Wheeler made the notes men-

tioned above, were the most thrilling perhaps in American history

and the same sort of battles had to be fought as have been fought

since then and which have in large measure led up to the present

situation. The result of the legislative battles at that time led

to the Civil War. The result of kindred struggles amidst diplo-

matic relations have led up to the present war.

These years of experience brot Mr. Giddings into contact

with the great men of his time. It was because of these inti-

mate relations among men of this type that there sprang up

friendships and alliances that resulted in extensive correspond-

ence having to do with the issue of the time and the political

aspirations of the leaders of the day.

Some one has said, "If one would have friends he must

be one." This saying is familiar to all of us and has its coun-

terpart in the saying if one would have correspondents he must

write letters. The closest and most vital touch we can have with

the past is found in those documents that next to the human

voice or the glance of the eye or the gesture of the human hand

reveal thot and personality.

For some years the writer has been aware that the grand-

children of Joshua R. Giddings were in possession of letters re-

ceived by him from noted men of his time during the days of

his activity as a member of the Congress of the United States.

Many of these letters in whole, or in part, have been used in

the biography prepared by his son-in-law, George W. Julian.

This biography was published in 1892. The biography, however,

Joshua Reed Giddings.                17

contains only a comparatively small number of these letters. If

all were to be printed they would fill a large volume and would

serve as a basis for a lively narrative of the political life of the

United States from 1825 to 1864, the year of Mr. Giddings sud-

den and rather unexpected demise.

The writer's life began near the closing of this man's career

and his childhood and youth were stirred by the accounts of the

patriotic service of this man and his distinguished contem-

poraries. These accounts remained vivid in memory and when

in mature years his lot was cast close to the statesman's home

and in the midst of members of his immediate family, children

and grandchildren, it was natural that new and fresh interest

should be awakened in the whole of his career. In the course

of intimate association with the family of a grand-daughter

the fact of these letters, still preserved, came to his attention

and he was given the liberty to read them.

If any man ever deserved a large company of correspon-

dents it was Joshua R. Giddings. How he found time to do so

much in epistolary effort is a mystery. He never passed a day

while away from home that he did not write to some member of

his family and it frequently occurred that two or three members

of his family would receive letters of news, counsel and admoni-

tion or of inquiry of various kinds. This was kept up thru all the

years of his Congressional and Consular service. The family

letters-hundreds of them-are carefully and systematically pre-

served in the family archives and there is ground for hope that

many of them together with the great number received from his

compeers may be placed among other valuable papers in the care

of our State Historical Society on the University Grounds.

As said, it is not the purpose of this document to deal with

the details of the life of this illustrious Ohio statesman, altho

this has never been done in the special interest of the Historical

Society. These letters, however, may throw side lights on this

wonderful man's public career.

The period of his greatest activity was a period in the

nation's life in which the state of Ohio had a notable part and

the little town of Jefferson in Ashtabula County figured large

in it all, for Jefferson was not only the home of Giddings-the

Vol. XXVIII-2.

18       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

House member of the United States Congress-but also the home

of Benjamin F. Wade, a member of the United States Senate.

Here lived the father of William Dean Howells, a contemporary

with these famous statesmen and an important factor in the stir-

ring history of the time in which the Western Reserve came to

hold a distinctive place as a cradle of liberty for the black man,

and as a center of intellectual activity.

Wade and Giddings for many years were associated as law

partners in the village which is the county seat and many very

interesting stories are related of them. The offices they occupied

individually are still standing, on ground owned by the children

of the respective families. The Wade office is now used as the

conservatory of the trophies won and relics gathered in the service

and travels of the son, Major General Wade, who has retired

and resides in the old Wade homestead. The Giddings office was

occupied by his son as a law office till his death a very few years

ago. This son had left the office just as it was when his father

died in 1864. When the son died the grandchildren made in-

ventory of the papers, and his letters which had not already been

arranged were placed with the others in systematic order and are

in the hands of the children.

Wade and Giddings differed greatly in their methods. Gid-

dings filed all the letters he received from his contemporaries,

while Wade left nothing of that sort for future generations to

profit by, neither did he write anything except what may be seen

in the laws of the State or Nation, while Giddings wrote volumes

that rank as literature, and the innumerable letters written to

his family and to those whose responses are now on file with the

grandchildren.

The letters from the great men of the time form a com-

posite pen picture of the political status of the period that is

tremendously interesting to one who places value on what has

been done by his predecessors. These letters, read alongside

the history of the period and biographies of the men who made

the history, give a thrill which nothing can give in the way of

records of the past. There is the handwriting of these great

men and someone has said that nothing that a man produces so

reveals character as does his chirography. And it is wonder-

20        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

fully true, to say the least, that the specimens of handwritings

shown by these letters vary from the smooth and graceful and

orderly arranged to the rough, almost illegible, and a study of

the characters of the men shows the same variety. An analysis,

if one had time and space to make it, would be mighty interest-

ing and would disclose as clearly as actions the temperament

and culture of these men, from the refined and classic and un-

swervable in Charles Francis Adams and Charles Sumner to the

rugged, tho no less sterling forcefulness of Horace Greeley and

Henry Wilson.

A few of these letters follow with brief comments. For

a full understanding of all they mean it would be necessary to

have the letters written by Mr. Giddings either as drawing them

out or in response to them. But now after almost three quarters

of a century since these letters were written we can reach facts

and conclusions that would have been impossible at the time and

so can make an estimate of the wisdom and discernment of these

contemporary minds working in a common cause. The letters

are printed not only to satisfy the interest, we all have, in the

history of times that are gone but also to gratify the human

interest in the product of the hands of the great characters who

have made American history. The men who wrote these letters

are but few of the many correspondents whose letters have been

preserved. The letters photographed for this article were writ-

ten by men most familiar to the average reader of history.

Henry Clay evidently wrote the letter here presented in the

days just preceding his last nomination for the presidency when

he had been requested to express himself again on some issue

or other important at the time. It was due to impolitic utter-

ance previously that lost him the highest office in the gift of

his country. He was the idol of his friends and they were

deeply mortified at his defeat after a half century almost, of

valuable national service.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                     21

ASHLAND, 10th Nov., 1848.

MY DEAR SIR:

I received your friendly letter and thank you for the kind motives

that prompted it.

I have been so often before the public, frequently involuntarily and

unexpectedly of late, that I should regret the necessity of again pre-

senting myself. I hardly think that it can be deemed necessary by any

fair and reasonable Abolitionist. My opinion has been long deliberately

formed and has been extensively published. I should have to refer to

these evidences for them. I have now before me a letter from Georgia

requesting a letter on that subject for publication. I shall decline fur-

nishing one.

After having seen you, Mr. Adams and Mr. Gates denounced by

the ultra Abolitionists I am quite sure that nothing I could say would

satisfy them.

You will have seen that a letter to you from Cassius M. Clay,

which was read at some public meeting, has been attributed to me. I saw

your explanation card which will make that alright.

I congratulate you on your election and upon the bright prospects

of the Whigs.

Your friend,

The HON. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS.                           H. CLAY.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                      23

The letters that passed between Wendell Phillips and Mr.

Giddings were numerous. This one discusses no issue, but shows

that Phillips leaned on Giddings as a Congressional support dur-

ing perilous days. The place occupied by Phillips is among the

immortals.

HON. J. R. GIDDINGS.

DEAR SIR:

I am directed by the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts

Anti-Slavery Society to ask your presence at the annual meeting of the

society which will take place in this city on the 27, 28, and 29 of this

month.

We know and feel as deeply as any men can the importance of

your being in Washington at the present crisis, but we know still better

and deeper than any men can, what an impulse your presence and voice

would give to the Anti-Slavery feelings of New-England, how much

enthusiasm they will call forth, and how far they will go to waken, if

aught can waken, the feelings proper to the occasion and the circum-

stances in which the whole country is placed.

If therefore you could find or make it possible to be with us, we

should esteem it a great favor and can assure you that the cause of

liberty would receive great aid.

It gave us great pleasure to have your daughter with us at the

Fair. I saw her in good health at Mr. Francis Jackson's last Sunday,

and she is expected there, I understand tomorrow.

Mr. Jackson wishes me to add his earnest request, that in case you

accept our invitation, you would make his house, No. 7 Hollis St., your

home during your stay in the city.

I was deeply interested and learned a great deal from your speech

for a copy of which I thank you. It was received just before I went

to Worcester to lecture, and I did my share to spread the facts and

arguments it contained before the mass of the people.

Very respectfully and sincerely

Yours,

Sat., Jan. 16, 1847.                           WENDELL PHILLIPS.

26         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

The Farmer-Shoemaker friend of Freedom, Henry Wilson,

Vice President with General Grant, was a wide-awake colaborer.

The Davis referred to in the letter along with Webster is

John Davis, a Whig Congressman from Mass., who "spilled

the beans" in the Wilmot Proviso case by talking against time

till the adjournment hour and thus defeating the measure intended

to preclude the adoption of slavery in any territory secured from

Mexico.

Henry Wilson was a friend to Giddings to the end.

NATICK, Feb. 6th, 1847.

HON. J. R. GIDDINGS.

DEAR SIR:

I feel rather discouraged in view of the condition of affairs at

Washington-if I understand how things are turning, the friends of

slavery are gaining ground. I have indulged the hope that the Northern

Democrats would be true and resist the extension of slave territory;

but the vote the other day looks like treason on their part.

It makes me sick at heart to see the course the Government is

pursuing. Perhaps we can expect nothing better from the Democracy, but

the conduct of the majority, or at least a majority of the leading men

of the Whig Party is disgusting in the extreme. Must we always sub-

mit to it? I hope not. I am ashamed of Webster and Davis, and I

believe if I was in the Legislature I would denounce them both and

defeat the election of the last. He has been censured in caucus and

will have a hard run. I think he could be defeated and Hudson elected

in his place if we had some good managers in the Legislature.

I think I see a movement for Taylor for President. I hope you

Anti-Slavery Whigs will resist it if it breaks the party to pieces. We

must not submit to it. If we go into the convention and he or any other

slave-holder is nominated, I think we should call a convention of the

friends of freedom in the free states and run a good and true man.

The people are opening their eyes to the conduct of the Southern

Whigs. The free-state Whigs must dictate the policy of the party or

the party better be defeated and broken up. If you get time do write

me about affairs.

Shall we be able to prevent the extension of slave territory?

When will the National Convention be held and where? What are the

prospects of candidates? Can we get an Anti-Slavery Whig, and if so

who will it be?

I saw Horace Greeley who is now in Washington some days ago

and he was for Corwin and Gov. Leonard. Would it do to discuss the

subject in the Anti-Slavery Whig papers?

Joshua Reed Giddings.                    29

I hope you will be firm as a rock for our hope is upon you. I saw

your daughter in Boston at the Fair, and also at the Anti-Slavery con-

vention. Give my respects to her.

Yours,

HENRY WILSON.

John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States,

and his son, Charles Francis Adams, were devoted friends.

Giddings lived to see the older man fall in his place in the

House where he was serving when the end came.            Charles

Francis Adams was a man of fine culture and splendid character

and much interested in the movements of the times. He kept

Giddings in touch with signs in the Eastern states and required

much of Giddings in keeping in touch with events in the middle

West. The gentleman referred to in the letter might have been

Thomas Corwin of Lebanon, Ohio.

HON. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, WASHINGTON, D. C.

BOSTON 8 December, 1847.

MY DEAR SIR: Your note is perfectly correct. The Whigs ought

to be made to understand that there are some men, however few, who

look at principle steadily, to the exclusion of everything else. I am so

sick and tired of compromise that I should be glad to have it under-

stood that we make none.

What you say of the gentleman you name is very interesting to

me. I have for some time watched with great satisfaction the course

of the Cincinnati Gazette, understood to sympathise with him, but he

must come out in black and white on your platform. Will he do it?

If he does, I think something like a general combination may be formed

in which the Democracy will not be unwilling to take a part.

No doubt you will be much abused, but you are used to it and it

may do you as much good as harm.

In haste,

Yours,

C. F. A.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                      31

The letter which follows was written by a man who per-

haps, felt more keenly the pulse beat of American politics in his

time than any other living journalist. His feelings were sensi-

tive to the limit. He had the journalistic instinct and had great

part in moulding the thot of his time. Giddings could tell him

things that he needed for his work so he drew upon him gen-

erously. His statement about Mr. Clay was right at the time,

but Clay was a man of many attitudes. The letter shows the

intense interest of Mr. Greeley in the principles for which Gid-

dings stood.

NEW YORK, April 14, 1848.

HON. J. R. GIDDINGS,

DEAR SIR: What is doing on the subject of the Wilmot Proviso in

connection with the Presidency? It is high time that something decisive

was done with regard to it. I have written to Mr. Root on the subject

but have not heard from him. It does seem to me that three or four

properly worded interrogatives signed by all the members of Congress

of both parties who will sign, and seasonably addressed to all the probable

or possible candidates for president, so that they cannot decently refuse

to answer before the meetings of the two national conventions.

I know it is supposed that Mr. Clay is against us on the Free Soil

question, but I do not guess when I say he is not. But whoever shall

be our candidate, it is essential that he shall be, not only right, but

known to be so, openly, avowedly, unequivocally so.

Seasonable and decisive action will put us all right and enable the

Western Reserve of our two states to poll their full Whig votes for our

candidate.

Please act at all events. Write me frankly and fully on the sub-

ject and on the general subject.

Yours,

HORACE GREELEY.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                    33

The mood that weighs down ambition much of the time

is written into this brief letter of Thomas Corwin.     His am-

bition like Mr. Clay's failed of its desired goal, altho lesser

honors crowded upon him,-Governor of Ohio, United States

Senator, Secretary of the Treasury, and Minister to Mexico,

came to reward him for his seeking and in recognition of much

valuable service for his native state.

LEBANON, 15th May, 1848.

DEAR GIDDINGS: I send the enclosed today. You will see what is

wanted. I pray you send such documents to this young missionary as

he wants.

Everything in relation to the presidency here is in doubt; painful,

and I fear, hopeless uncertainty. God help us, for the help of man, I

fear, is not to be relied on.

Truly your friend,

Hon. J. R. Giddings, Washington, D. C.       THOMAS CORWIN.

The "Sage of White Hall" in this letter is in one of his

mildest moods. He fought the enemies of what he deemed the

truth with weapons of wrath and indignation. His print shop

had to be barricaded against the violence of mobs.       But he

stood for righteousness and gave his life in the defense of human

freedom.

This is doubtless a typical response to the frequent call

for his assistance:

WHITE HALL P. O.,

MADISON Co., KENTUCKY.

MY DEAR SIR: Your favor of the 25th ultimo is received. Am

glad always to hear from you. I rejoice that the friends of freedom

are encouraged by any means to persevere.

I shall be with you on the 25th if nothing unforeseen prevents.

I differ with your friends in many subordinate matters, but I am

willing to merge them in the great question.

I cannot support Fillmore's administration, and Smith is too ultra.

I trust we may be able to do some good for the cause by our convention.

My vote is about 3,500, 20,000 persons had not voted-dissatisfied

with the old parties.

My respects to the family.

Your obedient servant,

Sept. 3rd, 1851.                             C. M. CLAY,

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings,

Vol. XXVIII--3.

36         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

This letter was written by a man of the type of Horace Greeley.

While Greeley was editor of the New York Tribune, Thurlow

Weed was editor of the Albany Evening Journal. Up to 1856

this paper was managed in the interest of the Whig party, after-

wards in the interest of the Republican. W. H. Seward, Greeley

and Weed were known as the Republican Triumvirate of New

York for many years.

This letter presents a modern idea of war:

ASTOR HOUSE, COLEMAN AND STETSON,

NEW YORK, Dec. 24, 1855.

DEAR SIR: If the president in his message plays the game of war,

why not out-trump him? Wars are sometimes national blessings, tho

generally the reverse.

But are there not worse things than war? The Mexican War, tho

causeless and ugly, yet it contained jewels.

If a war with England would give us a tariff, Canada and Free-

dom, shall we refuse it? But it has another aspect. The duplicity of

the administration-were you to take this ground in one of your

strong, vigorous fifteen minute speeches, it would blow the war and

the Administration sky-high.

Very truly yours,

Hon J. Giddings.                              THURLOW WEED.

38         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

The period and circumstances of this letter are of the most

interesting in the history of our state or nation.       Salmon P.

Chase passed thru a similar experience to that of Corwin-Gov-

ernor of Ohio, U. S. Senator, member of Lincoln's Cabinet and

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

This letter with Corwin's shows that the most prominent

of Ohio's statesmen kept in close touch with Giddings:

COLUMBUS, Feb. 8, 1861.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Overlooking your direction to address you at

Danbury, I answered your note to Jefferson. Of course I assured you

of my very best services; but I preferred the Judgeship to the Mission.

Will the early friends of freedom be recognized at all?

There is no prospect that I shall go into the Cabinet. It is against

my wish and for once, our over-the-left friends agree with me.

Gov. D,-   * has appointed an ultra conservative set of Commis-

sioners to Washington, it is said-I hope not truly-that I am the

only man on it not prepared to go for the Border State compromise.

Your friend,

S. P. CHASE.

I go to Wash'n. tomorrow.

Gov. Dennison.

* Gov. Dennison. Chase became Secretary of the Treasury in Lin-

coln's Cabinet.

40         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

The following is a gem of a letter and from the pen of a man

whose character and purpose were as clean cut as the script

showing on the letter pages. Garrison was a journalist also, but

of a different type from Greeley and Weed. In this letter, he

knows he is addressing a kindred soul. Thru the years of the

Anti-Slavery struggle they worked together in planting the seed

and together witnessed the developed fruit of their labor.

Garrison was a man of great faith and of prophetic vision.

His influence in the cause was the greatest of any one man.

BOSTON, April 4th, 1858.

DEAR SIR: At a meeting of the executive committee of the Amer-

ican Anti-Slavery Society, held a few days since, I was unanimously

requested, as a token of their appreciation of your protracted and un-

wearied labors in the cause of impartial freedom, to invite you to

attend the anniversary of the society, to be held in the city of New

York, on the 11th of May next, and to be one of the speakers on that

occasion-- uttering your own thought freely, and speaking upon any

point of the great question that may be the most agreeable to you,

without endorsing any of the special views of the society itself.

Of course, should you be able and disposed to comply with this

invitation, your necessary expenses will be paid by the society with great

pleasure. Should circumstances render it impracticable for you to be

present, it would be very gratifying to the Committee to receive a letter

from you, to be read at the meeting, covering as much ground as you

choose.

In that case, by addressing the letter to me any time before the

meeting, you will not only confer a special favor, but unquestionably by

your testimony help to drive an additional nail into the coffin of the

Slave-Power.

It gave me much pleasure to publish your recent speech in the

House of Representatives, without abridgement in the Liberator. I was

highly gratified with its high moral and religious tone, and its anti-

slavery fidelity; especially with its clear and bold discrimination between

primitive Christianity and American "Infidelity", alias the pro-slavery

religion of our land which dares to assume the Christian name, while

consenting to the horrible immolation of four million of our fellow-

creatures on the bloody altar of slavery.

For almost thirty years, I have been earnestly laboring to vindi-

cate Christianity, as taught by its revered founder, from the foul impu-

tation of sanctioning slavery-the Bible from the perverse and mon-

strous interpretations of it, by the pro-slavery divines of our land-

Joshua Reed Giddings.                      41

and the dear God from the blasphemous charge that he has made one

portion of his children to be the chattels of another.

Yet, what has been my religious reputation all that time? I am an

"infidel" forsooth, and my assailants, whose hands and garments are

dripping with innocent blood are the godly of the age! In this respect,

however, I am in no worse plight than was the lowly Nazarene. In

the stormy conflict thru which I have been called to pass-from  the

beginning to the end-I have been strengthened and sustained by the

cheering words of Jesus-"If they have called the master of the house,

Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall

say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be

exceeding glad; for so persecuted they the prophets who were before

you."

Popularly speaking, while Christianity is in this land the synonym

for oppression and the traffic in human flesh, and is made to uphold

the most abominable system beneath the stars, I wish so to live and act

as to be regarded and branded as an "infidel" by all its time-serving

and corrupt supporters. "The Lord knoweth them that are his."

You have just witnessed a great triumph in the House in the vir-

tual rejection of the atrocious Lecompton Constitution, by the adoption

of the Crittenden amendment, etc. I see the Senate has since promptly

and defiantly refused to accept the amendment; and now the anxious

inquiry everywhere is, will the House recede? I have no doubt it will

by a bare majority, in consequence of the tremendous pressure that will

be brot to bear upon the Democratic portion of it by the Administration.

But it may prove better than I fear.

I take, however, comparatively little interest in mere side issues.

It is true, they have their relative importance for the hour, and must

be vigorously met as they arise; but the real work to be done is the

extinction of slavery in all the South, the extrication of the  North

from all responsibility for it, and the complete severance of free insti-

tutions from  slave institutions. Our error, our weakness, our defeat,

our demoralization are the natural and inevitable result of the attempt

to protect and unite liberty and slavery in the same government, and

under the same flag. You know my motto:-"No union with slave

holders."

My health since January has been much impaired, but I am now

on the recovery. Yours, I trust, is good, tho you doubtless need to

guard yourself in every particular to prevent a serious attack of the

illness to which you are so liable. Be prudent; avoid mental excite-

ment as much as possible; remember "He serves who only stands and

waits," and try to live to see the jubilee with your mortal eyes.

Yours to break every yoke,

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings.                   WM. LLOYD GARRISON.

Joshua Reed Giddings.                   45

Charles Sumner wrote the following letter in a moment when

he felt that Mr. Giddings was in a precarious condition physi-

cally. It was but a few months after this was written that Mr.

Giddings died. Sumner was one of the noblest friends and ser-

vants of humanity. He was one of the closest friends and ad-

visers of Abraham Lincoln.

BOSTON, 26th July, 1863.

MY DEAR GIDDINGS: I am anxious about your health. Boy, how

are you? Let me hear by a word from yourself, that you are well.

You must live to see slavery die, as die it must very soon. God

bless you, who have done so much good work to prepare and guide our

country.

I am pained by much that comes from England. The Press there

is diabolical. The Govt. there has been sowing the wind.

Good bye! Ever sincerely yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

The writers of these letters with Mr. Giddings and many

others who might be named, were the founders of the Repub-

lican party; and the men who came to occupy distinguished places

in that party owe the fact of their priority to the herculean

struggle and sacrifice of men like Garrison, Sumner, and Gid-

dings who split the rock, and cut the way into the regions be-

yond.

The last political stroke of the master hand was in the con-

vention at Chicago when Abraham Lincoln, the Rail Splitter from

Illinois, was chosen in preference to any of the men, upon

whom it was supposed, the pillars of the government rested. Gid-

dings was only a short period away from the end of his career.

The short mission at Montreal was still ahead.

In the convention Giddings, though not a member of the

resolutions committee, was successful in getting the following

resolution entered upon the record and proclaimed as the feel-

ing of the party as it went before the people.

"Resolved, That we deeply sympathise with those men who have

been driven, some from their native states and others from the states

of their adoption, and are now exiled from their homes on account of

their opinions; and we hold the Democratic party responsible for the

gross violations of that clause of the Constitution which declares that