ANTHONY GENE CAREY
The Second Party System Collapses:
The 1853
Maine Law Campaign in
Ohio
As he sat at his desk in Cincinnati in
late September, 1852,
Rutherford B. Hayes recorded his
thoughts on the apparent disintegra-
tion of a party system that had held the
loyalties of Americans for a
generation. "Government no longer
has its ancient importance," he
wrote, "Its duties and its powers
no longer reach to the happiness of
the people. The people's progress,
progress of every sort, no longer
depends on government." Even in the
midst of a Presidential cam-
paign, the people were not rallying to
the Whig and Democratic ban-
ners with customary enthusiasm. A
blurring of traditional distinctions
between the parties had left voters
confused and apathetic, and this
public malaise forced Hayes to conclude,
"Politics is no longer the
topic of this country."1
Hayes was witnessing the earliest stages
of a political realignment
that would eventually lead to the
formation of the Republican party in
Ohio and across the North. The
lackluster Presidential contest between
Franklin Pierce and Winfield Scott
convinced many Ohioans that the
major issues of the Jacksonian parties
were obsolete. A national bank,
the tariff, and federal internal
improvements, subjects of heated
controversy during the 1830s and 1840s,
seemed stale by 1852. The
most divisive national political issue
in the last six years had been
slavery, particularly the possible
extension of slavery into the western
territories acquired as a result of the
Mexican War. The question of
slavery extension had threatened to
sunder the national parties along
sectional lines and had created
divisions within both state parties in
Ohio. Large numbers of Northern Whigs
and Democrats had supported
Anthony Gene Carey is a Ph.D. candidate
in history at Emory University.
1. Entry for 24 September 1852,
Rutherford B. Hayes, Diary and Letters of
Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth
President of the United States, ed.
Charles R.
Williams (Columbus, 1922), 1: 422.
130 OHIO HISTORY
the Wilmot Proviso, a proposal to bar
slavery from the territories by
Congressional legislation. Southerners
of both parties had condemned
the Proviso bitterly, even threatening
secession from the Union should
slavery be excluded from the Mexican
cession. Sectional strains had
weakened the Whig party especially, as
part of its Northern constitu-
ency had deserted to the Free Soilers
and as the Whig organization had
all but collapsed in several states of
the lower South. The Free Soil
party, which had formed in 1848 upon a
platform dedicated to opposing
slavery extension, was an important
force in Ohio, and the loss of
antislavery Whigs to the Free Soilers
had depleted the Whigs' state
electoral strength.
The Compromise of 1850 had temporarily
settled the territorial
question by admitting the free state of
California and erecting a
territorial government in New Mexico
without restrictions on slavery,
but it had done little to revitalize the
Jacksonian party system in Ohio
or elsewhere. After both major parties
endorsed the Compromise
during the 1852 campaign, Ohio partisans
were left without any
pressing national or state issues to
invigorate party competition. The
Ohio constitutional convention of 1851
had settled most questions of
state economic policy, and repeated
defeats had sapped the Whig
party's spirit. Scott's embarrassing
showing caused some Whig leaders
to contemplate a reorganization of
parties, and even Whig Congress-
man Lewis D. Campbell decided that his
party was "dead-dead-
dead !
"2
The loosening of old party ties and the
apparent irrelevance of past
issues opened opportunities for
reformers, and in 1853, the prohibition
issue dominated Ohio politics. Concern
over Americans' liberal con-
sumption of alcohol was hardly novel, of
course; temperance reformers
of the 1850s could trace their lineage
back into the colonial era. But the
fervent prohibitionism of the early
1850s was a new phenomenon. The
movement was particularly strong in New
England, where it was
fostered by religious and moral
opposition to strong drink, and
prohibitionism also attracted support
from native citizens dismayed by
the cultural influence of the tens of
thousands of supposedly hard-
drinking Irish and German immigrants who
had entered the country
since 1845, and from employers seeking
to cultivate abstemious habits
among their workers. For a combination
of reasons, the temperance
2. Lewis D. Campbell to Isaac Strohm, 4
November 1852, Isaac Strohm Papers,
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus;
Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s
(New York, 1978), 101- 38; Stephen E.
Maizlish, The Triumph of Sectionalism: The
Transformation of Ohio Politics,
1844-1856 (Kent, Ohio, 1983), 149-86;
William E.
Gienapp, The Origins of the
Republican Party 1852-1856 (New York, 1987), 13-35.
Second Party System Collapses 131
reformers adopted as their favorite
measure the "Maine Law," a
stringent prohibition statute enacted in
Maine in 1851. The Maine Law
banned the manufacture and sale of
alcohol except for very limited
purposes, and provided for distribution
only through bonded agents.
Its provisions allowed authorities to
search for and to seize illegal
liquor, and its severe penalties made it
much harsher than previous
temperance legislation. Ohio temperance
advocates had flooded the
1852 legislature with petitions calling
for the enactment of a Maine
Law. The legislature had rebuffed their
pleas, and the anti-liquor forces
responded with plans to make the Maine
Law the test issue in the 1853
state elections. Ohio Free Soilers
joined the prohibitionists in the
Maine Law crusade, and together they
introduced a potent new issue
that finally destroyed the state's
tottering party system.3
The Ohio State Temperance Convention
assembled on January 5 in
Columbus. John A. Foote, a native New
Englander who had left the
Whig party to join the Free Soilers,
presided over the gathering that
unanimously endorsed the Maine Law, and
declared that prohibition-
ists would "be satisfied with no
measure which does not provide for
the utter extermination of the
distilleries and dram-shops of the
State."4 That evening,
the delegates heard an address by Samuel Cary,
the undisputed leader of Ohio temperance
reform. A burly man with
wild, wavy black hair, Cary had
abandoned a lucrative Cincinnati law
practice for a career as a temperance
lecturer. As a national leader of
3. For background on the temperance
movement in Ohio and elsewhere, see Ian R.
Tyrrell, Sobering Up: From Temperance
to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800-
1860 (Westport, Conneticut, 1979); Jed Dannenbaum, Drink
and Disorder: Temperance
Reform in Cincinnati from the
Washingtonian Revival to the WCTU (Urbana,
Illinois,
1984); W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic
Republic: An American Tradition (New York,
1979); Frank L. Byrne, Prophet of
Prohibition: Neal Dow and His Crusade (Madison,
Wisconsin, 1961); Leslie J. Stegh,
"Wet and Dry Battles in the Cradle State of
Prohibition: Robert J. Bulkey and the
Repeal of Prohibition in Ohio" (Ph. D. disserta-
tion, Kent State University, 1975),
1-30. Both Maizlish, Triumph of Sectionalism, 181-
86, and Gienapp, Origins of the
Republican Party, 56-60, have offered recent interpre-
tations of the 1853 campaign in Ohio.
Maizlish minimizes the importance of the Maine
Law question and argues that the
disintegration of the party system began as early as
1849, when sectional issues disrupted
the parties. Gienapp maintains that the
ethnocultural issues were crucial and
that 1853 was a critical year in the collapse of the
second party system. I find Gienapp's
argument more persuasive, but in this paper I
attempt to chart a middle ground between
the two positions. The Maine Law campaign
destroyed the old party system in Ohio
in 1853, but slavery-related questions were most
important in separating Whigs from Free
Soilers, and it was their differences on slavery
issues that had to be surmounted in
order to form a new organization, that is, to form the
Ohio Republican party.
4. Ashtabula Sentinel, 15 January 1853.
132 OHIO HISTORY
the Sons of Temperance, Cary had long
believed that temperance
advocates "must have a nobler,
higher, holier ambition than to reform
one generation of drunkards after
another. We must seal up the
fountain whence flows the desolating
stream of moral death."5 The
convention's crucial statement on
political action, adopted the follow-
ing morning, insisted that
prohibitionists had no "intention of framing
a political party, or interfering with
those already formed," but that
they were determined to "vote for
no man, for any legislative office,
who is not fully committed" to the
Maine Law.6 By arousing public
sentiment for prohibition, temperance
forces hoped to make the po-
litical parties bid for their support.7
The two major parties initially showed
little interest in the Maine
Law or any other issue. With the
Democrats confidently in control of
the state, factional infighting and
squabbling over patronage dominated
their January 8 meeting. The party had
split into two wings, one led by
Ohio Statesman editor Samuel Medary, the other by former United
States Senator William Allen. William
Medill, the son of Irish immi-
grants and a career officeholder, won
the gubernatorial nomination,
and the platform merely reiterated past
Democratic dogma.8 The
dispirited Whigs met on February 22 and
chose the colorless Nelson
Barrere, an old national Whig with upper
South roots and conservative
sympathies. The liquor question had
already exposed divisions in the
party ranks: the two principal party
organs, the Ohio State Journal and
the Cincinnati Gazette, had lined
up against the Maine Law, but other
papers had expressed support for
prohibition or had remained neutral.
The convention declined to express an
opinion; the platform flayed the
Democrats, praised the Constitution, and
mentioned no positive mea-
sures. The word "Whig" was
absent from the document, and the
self-styled "National Conservative
Party" entered the 1853 race
limping badly, with few hopes and even
fewer issues.9
5. Cary's address to the national
convention of the Sons of Temperance (1849),
quoted in Donald W. Beattie, "Sons of Temperance:
Pioneers in Total Abstinence and
'Constitutional' Prohibition" (Ph.
D. dissertation, Boston University, 1966), 202-03; Jed
Dannenbaum, "The Crusader: Samuel
Cary and Cincinnati Temperance," Cincinnati
Historical Society Bulletin, 33 (Summer, 1975), 138-43.
6. Ashtabula Sentinel, 15 January 1853.
7. Cincinnati Gazette, 8 January 1853; Ohio State Journal, 6, 7 January
1853; Daily
True Democrat, 7 January 1853 .
8. Cincinnati Gazette, 8, 10
January 1853; Daily Plain Dealer, 10, 11 January 1853;
Ohio Statesman, 9, 13 January 1853; Ohio State Journal, 10
January 1853; Maizlish,
Triumph of Sectionalism, 183; Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder, 110-13.
Medary's
maneuverings for an appointment in
Pierce's Cabinet preoccupied the Democrats. In the
end, their interparty feuding prevented
any Ohio Democrat from being chosen.
9. Ohio State Journal, 5, 14 January; 7, 15, 23, 24 February; 21 March 1853;
Cincinnati Gazette, 1, 2, 25 February 1853; Toledo Blade, 15, 21
January; 24, 25
Second Party System Collapses 133 |
|
The Free Soilers, convinced that the "old parties" and their "old issues" were obsolete, enthusiastically entered the 1853 campaign ex- pecting new accessions from both major parties.10 Their January 12 convention nominated Samuel Lewis for governor by acclamation; it was Lewis' third campaign at the head of the Free Soil party. Born in Massachusetts, Lewis was a former Methodist minister, had been active in the temperance crusade since the mid-1820s, and had been a founder of Ohio's Liberty party. He ran on a platform condemning slavery as "a sin against God and a crime against man" that would "eventually destroy any people or Government which upholds or perpetuates it." Pledging to "fight now and ever against the admission of any more slave States or slave territory," the Free Soilers also advocated full and impartial black suffrage.11 Their opposition to any further extension of slavery was the core of Free Soil ideology and the
February 1853; Sandusky Register, 5 February 1853, Benjamin Wade to Milton Sutliff, 13 February 1853, Milton Sutliff Letters, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland. 10. Daily True Democrat, 4 January 1853. 11. Anti-Slavery Bugle, 22 January 1853. For Lewis' life, see William G. W. Lewis, Biography of Samuel Lewis: First Superintendent of Common Schools for the State of Ohio (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1857). |
134 OHIO HISTORY
cardinal principle that held together
the heterogeneous coalition of men
that comprised the party.
The Free Soilers eagerly incorporated
the Maine Law into their party
creed, but at this point they had no
idea of making it the paramount
issue in the upcoming canvass.
Prohibitionism fit comfortably among
the party's arsenal of reforms, and men
like John A. Foote and Samuel
Lewis were deeply committed to the
temperance cause. The strong-
hold of the Free Soilers was the Western
Reserve, a tract in the
northeast corner of Ohio primarily
settled by New England emigrants,
where the Maine Law would surely receive
a cordial reception. The
Free Soilers were, however, prone to factionalism
on matters other
than antislavery, because party members
retained their past "party
predilections" on economic issues
and other questions.12 The party
divided over leaders largely along lines
of previous party allegiances:
Free Soil Congressman Joshua Giddings of
Ashtabula County was the
leading old Whig in the party; and
Salmon P. Chase, who had been
elected to the United States Senate in
1849 through a bargain with the
Democrats, headed the party's other
wing. Since supporting the Maine
Law ultimately meant cooperating with
prohibitionists from the major
parties, the temperance issue created
problems for the Free Soilers and
tested the strength of their party
cohesion.13
The momentum of the Maine Law crusade
built slowly in the late
winter and early spring. The temperance
campaign was a grassroots
effort that pitted neighbor against
neighbor in dozens of communities
across Ohio. When local citizens
witnessed the evils of intemperance
or experienced frustration in battles
against the rum traffic, the Maine
Law gained new adherents. In the town of
New Lisbon in Columbiana
County, for example, residents of
different political parties cooperated
to elect mayor Fisher A. Blocksome, a
devoted Maine Law man. The
town council passed several stringent
laws to end the sale of liquor by
12. Sandusky Register, 22 January
1853.
13. Daily True Democrat, 18
January 1853; Ohio Columbian, 10 February 1853; Ohio
State Journal, 14
January 1853; Albert Gallatin Riddle, "The Rise of Anti-Slavery
Sentiment on the Western Reserve," Magazine
of Western History, 6 (June,
1887), 145;
Richard H. Sewell, Ballots for
Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States
1837-1860 (New York, 1976), 180-81, 206-11; Maizlish, Triumph
of Sectionalism, 121-
46. At this point, Giddings' allies
disapproved of possible fusion efforts with the major
parties, while Salmon P. Chase was
contemplating further cooperation with the
Democrats. See, for example: Ohio
Columbian, 10 February 1853; Ashtabula Sentinel,
22 January 1853; Salmon P. Chase to E.
S. Hamlin, 4 February 1853, in Edward G.
Bourne, et. al., eds., "Diary and
Letters of Salmon P. Chase," Annual Report of the
American Historical Association,
1902, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.,
1903), 1I: 248-51. On
the careers of Giddings and Chase see:
James B. Stewart, Joshua Giddings and the
Tactics of Radical Politics (Cleveland, Ohio, 1970), and Frederick J. Blue, Salmon
P.
Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, Ohio, 1987).
Second Party System Collapses 135
the drink, but the trade continued
illicitly, particularly in a notorious
Market Street grocery. Wives had noted
the staggering gait of their
husbands after several trips to the
market, and the women became
vigilantes when appeals to the sheriff
failed. They burst into the back
room of the grocery, startled a circle
of tipplers, and apprehended the
shopkeeper. The wives brought him into
court, where he was acquitted
despite obvious evidence of guilt. Such
incidents were common enough
to convince anti-liquor forces that
nothing short of the Maine Law
could accomplish their purposes.14
Ohioans held city and town elections in
April, and in some places
these contests offered tests of
temperance sentiment. In Akron,
attempts to enforce liquor laws prompted
attacks on the houses of the
mayor and a local judge, and the marshal
braved gunfire while arresting
rum vendors. Voters condemned vandalism
and lawlessness by choos-
ing candidates pledged to continue the
struggle against dram sellers.15
Elections in Columbus were more
tranquil, but the temperance alliance
there formed an independent
"Citizen's Ticket," and their nominee
finished a close second in the mayor's
race. John J. Janney, a
Virginia-born, antislavery Quaker who
was a member of the State
Temperance Central Committee, triumphed
in his race for School
Director.16 Unless temperance
forces were in the field, however, the
April elections generally aroused little
voter interest.
The most exciting political events of
the spring occurred in Cincin-
nati, where Archbishop John Purcell had
sponsored a petition asking
that a portion of the public money spent
on education be allotted to
parochial schools, because the regular
public schools used the King
James Bible and encouraged Catholic
children to dissent from the
Roman Church. Protestants, including
some non-Catholic Irish and
Germans, reacted with fury, and the
controversy became the sole issue
in the city election. The regular party
organizations dodged the
question, and this brought two
independent, Protestant-backed, Free
School tickets into the contest.
Although the Democrats won the
mayoral race with 40 percent of the
vote, the two Free School tickets
14. Ohio Patriot, 8 April 1853; Aurora,
6, 28 April; 11 May; 8 June 1853; Buckeye
State, 28 April; 2 June 1853. Although women could not vote
and seldom overtly
participated in politics, they played an
important part in the temperance crusade. The
Women's State Temperance Convention
strongly backed the Maine Law, and women
worked at the local level to arouse
prohibition sentiment. See Anti-Slavery Bugle, 29
January 1853; Cincinnati Gazette, 2
September 1853 ; lan R. Tyrrell, "Women and
Temperance in Antebellum America,
1830-1860," 28 Civil War History, (June, 1982),
131-44.
15. Akron Democratic Standard, 10
March: 7 April 1853.
16. Ohio Columbian, 7 April 1853.
136 OHIO HISTORY
combined 42 polled percent, and the
Whigs finished a distant third. The
school issue wrecked the old party
system in Cincinnati, and the
anti-Catholic furor created new Maine
Law supporters, as many
native-born Protestants almost
automatically associated Catholicism
with intemperance.17 The Catholic
Telegraph certainly drew no dis-
tinction between anti-Catholicism and
prohibitionism when it alleged
that "Maine Liquor Laws, State
Education Systems, Infidelity, Pan-
theism, are not isolated measures,
plans, doctrines, but parts of a great
whole, at war with God."18
As the spring elections closed, the
executive committee of the state
temperance organization met to plot
strategy for the fall campaign.
John Foote chaired the April 6 meeting
in which the committee laid
plans for a special convention in June
and initiated a fund-raising plan
to support travelling temperance
lecturers. Donations from local
temperance alliances eventually exceeded
$20,000, and the committee
at one point supervised seventeen
speakers scattered throughout the
state. Meanwhile, interest in the Maine
Law caused subscriptions to
Samuel Cary's Ohio Organ of
Temperance Reform to jump from 5,000
to 20,000 in the course of the year.19
Whig and Democratic newspapers had
avoided prominently discuss-
ing the temperance question, but growing
prohibitionist sentiment
forced a reconsideration. From late spring
through the fall election the
partisan press debated the Maine Law.
The Democrats quickly aligned
against prohibition, although reactions
among the party faithful at the
county level varied considerably. The
Whigs vacillated; party leaders
first gravitated toward an anti-Maine
Law position, and then retreated
from their opinions as prohibition
attracted support from the party
rank-and-file. Free Soilers solidly
backed the Maine Law from the
beginning, but they focused less on the
merits of the Maine Law and
more on convincing temperance voters to
abandon the old parties.
Maine Law proponents focused on the
republican theme that intem-
perance enslaved the individual and
eroded public virtue. Distilleries
and breweries spewed "forth a
constant stream of disease, and vice,
17. Cincinnati Gazette, 5
February; 16, 22 March 1853; Cincinnati Enquirer, 27
March 1853; Carl Wittke, "Ohio's
Germans, 1840-1875," Ohio Historical Quarterly, 66
(October, 1957), 339; John B. Weaver,
"Nativism and the Birth of the Republican Party
in Ohio, 1854-1860" (Ph. D.
dissertation, Ohio State University, 1982), 119; Dannenbaum,
Drink and Disorder, 117-124. About 40 percent of Cincinnati's population in
1853 was
foreign-born.
18. Catholic Telegraph, 19 March
1853.
19. Anti-Slavery Bugle, 23 April
1853; Ohio State Journal, 11 April 1853; Ohio
Columbian, 14 April 1853; Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder, 128-29.
Second Party System Collapses 137 |
|
and misery, and pauperism, and crime, and death."20 Liquor sellers were an "overwhelming army of leaches [sic], feeding upon the substance of the country."21 Samuel Cary predicted that "if all the liquor of this city [Cincinnati] could be annihilated at once ... we should have but little business for our police court, or use for the rookery or jail." 22 Prohibitionists believed that all previous legislation had been too lenient, unenforceable, and mistakenly aimed at restrict- ing, instead of abolishing, the sale of alcohol. Only the Maine Law could finally eradicate the liquor business and end "the long exercised right of a minority to grow fat by sucking the life-blood of the body politic."23 Like many antebellum Americans, temperance reformers dreaded conspiracies, and they often blamed the evil of intemperance on the "Rum Power." Sinister liquor interests supposedly conspired "to bring all parties to bear against" the prohibitionists and spent their
20. Newspaper clipping, 7 February 1853, James A. Briggs Scrapbooks, 2 vols., Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland: 1: 82. 21. "A Listener" in Toledo Blade, 3 September 1853. 22. Ohio Organ of Temperance Reform, 7 July 1853, quoted in Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder, 79. 23. Dudley A. Tyng in Cincinnati Gazette, 22 September 1853. |
138 OHIO HISTORY
"untold wealth" with
"lavish prodigality to defeat" reform efforts.24
Samuel Cary urged citizens to
"enroll your name, join the army of
temperance, and be prepared for a mighty
struggle with a mighty
foe."25 The fear of
plots to undermine liberty and the need for constant
vigilance in order to safeguard freedom
had been prominent themes in
American political discourse since the
Revolution, and their belief
in the "Rum Power" convinced
prohibitionists that the fate of the
Republic hinged on the battle for the
Maine Law.26
Critics of the Maine Law ridiculed the
idea of a "Rum Power" and
instead attributed intemperance to human
weakness and a bad envi-
ronment. A "brutish routine of
labor and sleep" made some working
men into inebriates, and these
unfortunates needed "places for spend-
ing the evening" that were
"free from all temptations," not the
misguided laws spawned by "the
fanaticism of reformers."27 The
moral failings of individuals were the
root of the problem; society could
remove some of the causes of
intemperance, but morality could not be
legislated. The Catholic Telegraph stressed
that the "Maine Liquor
Law, as enacted by an authority not
competent in its sphere, even
where it is passed, is never binding on
the consciences of the people.
It is a law purely penal, without any
moral sanction."28 The Demo-
cratic party had consistently opposed
the mixing of morality and
politics, and the Ohio Statesman proclaimed,
"Never has a merely
moral question been nailed to the Democratic platform."29
Democrats particularly argued that the
search and seizure provisions
of the Maine Law violated civil
liberties. The Maine Law encouraged
citizens to spy on their neighbors and
gave authorities license to invade
private property in search of illegal
liquor. The Maine Law was
fundamentally "at war with all just
notions of liberty," claimed the
Cincinnati Enquirer; and if enacted, it "would make our government
the most tyrannical one that ever
existed-Russia and Austria would
24. "Ohio," Journal of the
American Temperance Union, 17 (September, 1853),
quoted in Paul R. Meyer, "The
Transformation of American Temperance: The Popular-
ization and Radicalization of Reform
Movement, 1813-1860" (Ph.D. dissertation, Uni-
versity of Iowa, 1976), 168.
25. Ohio Organ of Temperance Reform, 25 February 1853, quoted in Dannenbaum,
Drink and Disorder, 131.
26. Jill Siegel Dodd, "The Working
Classes and the Temperance Movement in
Ante-Bellum Boston," Labor
History, 10 (Fall, 1978), 515. On the prevalence of
conspiracy theory in the United States,
see David B. Davis, The Slave Power Conspiracy
and the Paranoid Style (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1969), and Richard Hofstadter,
The
Paranoid Style in American Politics
and Other Essays (New York, 1965).
27. Cincinnati Gazette, 16 April
1853.
28. Catholic Telegraph, 16 July
1853.
29. Ohio Statesman, 26 August
1853.
Second Party System Collapses 139
be mild and liberal in comparison."
When reformers made temperance
a "compulsory matter" and a
"political issue," the Enquirer warned
them to "expect the hostility of
everyone who is opposed to a most
odious despotism being exercised by
government."30 This civil liber-
ties argument was almost exclusively a
Democratic one, and it coin-
cided with the party's traditional
opposition to active government.
Even when Whigs opposed the Maine Law,
they acknowledged the
right to legislate for prohibition,
insisting only that the crusade would
be "injurious to the Temperance
cause" because it would drive away
less ardent supporters.31
Distinguishing between liberty and
license, Maine Law men con-
tended that a concern for social welfare
required that those "who had
not the strength to stand alone . ..
must be upheld, and restrained if
need be, by the strong arm of the
law." No one could "do wrong at his
own cost"; intemperance threatened
the lives and property of all.32
The "whole existence" of
government was "an infringement on the
natural rights of man," and
citizens relinquished "a portion of those
rights to secure peace and protection."
And reformers asked, "what
endangers our peace and safety more than
these drinking establish-
ments?"33 These
arguments had practical utilitarian overtones, but
they also appealed to transplanted New
Englanders whose Puritan
forebears had policed the morals of
their communities, and to the Whig
inclination to use positive government
to promote the general welfare.
The most prevalent argument against the
Maine Law was that it was
unenforceable. Whigs occasionally
sounded this theme, but the Dem-
ocrats were far more vocal. They thought
that it was futile "to pass acts
that public opinion will not
sustain" and that the failure of prohibition
would breed disrespect for the law in
general.34 Making liquor illegal
might assuage a few troubled
consciences, but it would not stop
drinking. With some justice, Democrats
claimed that so-called temper-
ance reformers really aimed at shutting
down taverns and groceries
frequented by immigrants and the
working-class. The Catholic Tele-
graph predicted that under
the Maine Law the rich would continue "to
buy admittance to the room in the hotels
where liquor is not sold, but
set on the table," while in poor households the "abused wife will
still
have her drunken husband, the ragged
children their tippling mother."35
30. Cincinnati Enquirer, 9 August
1853.
31. Toledo Blade, 25 April 1853.
32. Guernsey Times, 29 September
1853.
33. "Publicus" in Cincinnati
Gazette, 29 August 1853.
34. Cincinnati Enquirer, 3 August
1853 .
35. Catholic Telegraph, 24 August
1853.
140 OHIO HISTORY
Maine Law supporters had difficulty
answering questions about en-
forcement, especially because existing
township liquor laws were ob-
viously ineffectual. They simply relied
on the assertion that a vigilant
citizenry and officials would have
"little difficulty in enforcing"
prohibition.36
Economic concerns entered the Maine Law
debate, because Ohio
led the nation in the production of distilled
spirits. Unlike Maine, Ohio
was a "corn producing State,"
where "millions of dollars are invested
in distilleries." Liquor
manufacturing had "a direct influence upon the
price of corn and the price of pork, and
indirectly enters into the price
of almost everything we sell."37
Maine Law opponents even claimed
that "without whiskey, farmers, as
a matter of profit, could not afford
to produce corn at all."38 Prohibitionists
replied that feeding corn to
livestock was more profitable than
distilling it, and that farm lands
were "depreciated a full
twenty-five percent, in value, by the distill-
eries and grog shops in the
neighborhood." Maine Law sobriety would
also improve the productivity of farm
workers, reformers observed,
since the "great majority of
foreign laborers are more or less addicted
to the use of strong drinks."39
European traditions did include the
regular consumption of alcoholic
beverages, and it was among the
foreign-born that the Maine Law met
its strongest opposition. Immigrants,
mainly Germans and Irish, com-
prised more than 11 percent of Ohio's
population. Although most
ethnic groups heartily endorsed
temperance, which they defined as the
moderate use of beer and liquor, they
considered prohibition fanatical.
In Cleveland and Cincinnati, Germans and
Irish worked in the distilling
and brewing industries, and many
operated coffee houses, groceries,
and saloons that sold liquor by the
drink. These immigrant-owned
businesses were gathering places for
ethnic communities, and along
with church and home were the hubs of
social life. Religious differenc-
es separated Catholic immigrants from
the largely Protestant Maine
Law reformers, and the Catholic church
hierarchy was unremittingly
hostile to prohibition. Even Protestant
immigrants, who would join in
an anti-Catholic movement like the
Cincinnati school controversy,
were alienated by the Maine Law.
Catholics also tended to align with
the Democracy and therefore were
inclined to follow their party's
36. Cincinnati Gazette, 9 August
1853. See also Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder,
133; Sandusky Register, 25 June
1853.
37. Ohio State Journal, 7
February 1853.
38. Cincinnati Gazette, 1
September 1853.
39. Reprint from the Ohio Cultivator in
Toledo Blade, 5 October 1853. See also Tyrell,
Sobering Up, 243-44.
Second Party System Collapses 141 |
|
anti-Maine Law stance.40 Opposing politicians had often accused "Irish and Germans" of being "hewers of wood, and drawers of water" for Democratic party leaders, and this contempt further en- sured that the Maine Law would make little headway among foreign- born voters.41 By mid-summer, the prospect of forming Maine Law fusion tickets combining Whigs and Free Soilers had become the leading practical concern of state politicians. The gubernatorial contest attracted con- siderable attention, but the real work of the campaign had to be done at the county level, since the results of the races for the state legislature would determine the Maine Law's chances. Was Maine Law sentiment strong enough to narrow the gulf that separated Whigs and Free Soilers? Temperance reformers hoped so, but the past history of the parties made cooperation problematic. As the Ashtabula Sentinel phrased the problem, Whigs and Free Soilers "all desire to conquer their successful opponents, the Locos [i.e., Democrats]; but they have something else to conquer first-THEIR PREJUDICES AGAINST EACH OTHER."42 Joshua Giddings added that the "real obstacles"
40. Sandusky Register, 3 September 1853; Toledo Blade, 10 September 1853; Tyrrell, Sobering Up, 297-302; Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder, 124-26. 41. Daily Forest City Whig, 19 September 1853 . 42. Ashtabula Sentinel, 11 August 1853. |
142 OHIO HISTORY
to fusion were an attachment "to
party names and party pride and
party prejudices," and that
"feeling of personal hostility which has
been engendered between individuals who
have heretofore politically
opposed each other."43 In
the end, the fate of the Maine Law rested
not in the hands of non-partisan
temperance men, but in the hands of
partisan politicians.44
The Free Soilers campaigned strongly on
the Maine Law issue, but
their main goal was a more powerful
antislavery party. They thought
that it was time "to put Ohio right
on the great themes of Freedom and
Temperance, to break up thereby in the
State and in the Nation the old
organizations, and form, in their stead,
AN INDEPENDENT PARTY
OF PROGRESSION."45 Samuel
Lewis toured the state for over four
months, often joined by Joshua Giddings
and Salmon Chase, and
unless requested to speak on the
temperance question, they focused
almost exclusively on antislavery
appeals. Chase, although favoring
temperance, cared little for the Maine
Law compared to antislavery,
and his ambition for Free Soilers was
"to cast such a vote as will-if
not elect our candidate,-at least put an
end to [the] triangular
contest."46 "I am a
temperance man," Giddings had declared, "but
wholly opposed to throwing the burthen
of that reform upon the
movement for liberty."47
When Free Soilers spoke of fusion, they
normally meant the
abandonment of the Whig party and the
formation of a new antislavery
organization. If the Whig party
disbanded, the Free Soilers would have
"a clear field and a fair
fight" against the Democracy. "No intelligent
man hopes, or expects to see the Whigs
rally again as an organized
national party," they argued; let
"the Whigs withdraw their nomina-
tions" and "nine-tenths of the
Whig party will vote for liberty, justice
and humanity."48 Salmon
Chase warned Giddings not to allow "any
compromise of principles"; he
wanted no temporary arrangements and
thought Free Soilers should seek
"the union of all the Progressives
43. Letter
from Giddings in Toledo Blade, 25 August 1853.
44. Painesville Telegraph in Daily
True Democrat, 12 July 1853; Holmes County Whig
in Daily True Democrat, 2 July
1853; Daily Forest City Whig, 30 August 1853.
45. Daily True Democrat, 12 September 1853.
46. Salmon P. Chase to Charles Sumner, 3
September 1853, in Bourne, ed., "Diary
and Letters," American
Historical Association, II: 252.
47. Letter from Giddings in Ashtabula
Sentinel, 10 February 1853. See also,
Ashtabula Sentinel, 8 September 1853; Ohio Columbian, 14 April; 12
May 1853;
Hillsborough Gazette, 16 May 1853; Marietta Republican, 19 May 1853; Anti-Slavery
Bugle, 21 May 1853; Clinton Republican, 10 June 1853; Sandusky
Register, 25 June 1853;
Aurora, 7 September 1853. Reports of scores of other Free Soil
meetings can be found
in the issues of the Ohio Columbian for
1853.
48. Ashtabula Sentinel, 2 June
1853.
Second Party System Collapses 143
against all the Hunkers, rather than an
alliance with the Whigs."49 In
their quest to form a Northern
antislavery party strong enough to force
a showdown on the question of slavery
extension, the Free Soilers
repudiated the formula of intersectional
party coalitions that was the
basis of the Jacksonian party system.
The Free Soilers wanted no union with
men who were not thorough-
ly antislavery. A correspondent of the Ohio
Columbian clearly stated
the relative importance of
prohibitionism and anti-slavery in party
calculations:
We want the Maine Law; but we will not
support the Baltimore platform [that
endorsed the Compromise of 1850] even to
secure that law, and let the blame
fall where it is due. Our great cause has more than once been well nigh
ruined,
because our party has joined with one or
[the] other of [the] hunker parties for
a particular crisis. Let us be done with
it.50
The Free Soilers had never accepted the
Compromise of 1850 or the
new Fugitive Slave Law included in it,
so in fusion negotiations the
Free Soilers often demanded that Whigs
repudiate their past views on
the slavery question. The Ashtabula
Sentinel set down the basic
requirements for fusion in its county,
and the list amounted to terms for
Whig surrender. If they desired
cooperation, Ashtabula Whigs would
have to oppose the Fugitive Slave Law,
call for the separation of the
federal government from slavery, pledge
themselves to prevent the
admission of any slave states or slave
territory, and support the Maine
Law.51 The Free Soilers were
eager to unite with all men who put the
Maine Law "cause above party,"
but only if they could do so "without
sacrificing one Anti-Slavery
principle."52
The Western Reserve was of paramount
interest to the party, and
there was no conflict between the Maine
Law and anti-slavery in that
Free Soil bastion. Free Soilers could
espouse the Maine Law and
dictate antislavery platforms to the
Whigs without worrying about
alienating past party supporters.
Outside of the Western Reserve,
where the party was weak, Free Soilers
were not so doctrinaire. They
recognized that "various views will
be entertained, if not various
action demanded, according to the
circumstances in different locali-
49. Salmon P. Chase to Joshua Giddings,
1 June 1853, Salmon P. Chase Papers,
Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia.
50. "G" in Ohio Columbian, 4
August 1853.
51. Ashtabula Sentinel, 11 August
1853.
52. Daily True Democrat, 12
September 1853.
144 OHIO HISTORY
ties." The "same course"
was "neither necessary or expedient" for
Free Soilers "in every
county." The Free Soilers showed that they
were men of principle and astute
politicians by driving hard bargains on
the Western Reserve while assuming a
pragmatic stance in the rest of
the state.53
The Whigs had no such strategy and they
mounted almost no
campaign. Congressmen Lewis Campbell
complained that Barrere had
never ventured "out of the
corporate limits" of his home town, and
other speakers were equally inactive.54
The Whig press dropped its
earlier principled objections to the
Maine Law and belatedly endorsed
prohibition, but the party had already
forfeited any claim to temper-
ance leadership. Lewis Campbell revealed
the political motivation
behind this change when he confessed
that he was "not exactly a
Maine Law man," but added the
prayer: "Heaven send us anything
that will help, break down
Locofocoism."55 The desperation of Whig
leaders was justified, for their party
had virtually ceased to exist as a
statewide organization. It had
degenerated into a heterogeneous coa-
lition of men whose opinions on the
Maine Law ranged from total
opposition to rabid support-the only
thing they claimed in common
was the Whig name. Some men at both
extremes abandoned the party
because of its noncommittal stance, and
those in the middle became
hopelessly apathetic, as evidenced by a Whig
who considered the
Maine Law "one of the most
contemptible humbugs of the age" but
remained "entirely
indifferent" to "its passage."56 The inertia of party
loyalty was no longer enough to sustain
the Whigs, and perplexed
editors noted that never before had
"party bonds and shackles set so
loosely upon men of all parties as
they do at this present moment."57
The step out of an old party was a long
one, but the step into a new
one was even longer. Disaffected Whigs
were hardly eager to join the
Free Soilers. Benjamin Wade, who had
gained a seat in the United
States Senate in 1851 with aid from Free
Soilers, admitted that the
"Whig cause" looked
"rather blue," but was satisfied that "the same
apathy reigns in the ranks" of the
Democrats. "I care as little for
names as any one," he declared,
"but I am not to be driven from the
53. Ohio Columbian, 4 August
1853.
54. Lewis D. Campbell to Isaac Strohm,
28 June 1853, Strohm Papers, Ohio
Historical Society.
55. Lewis D. Campbell to Benjamin Wade,
16 August 1853, quoted in Maizlish,
Triumph of Sectionalism, 183.
56. Alexander Boys to [?], 3 October
1853, Alexander Boys Papers, Ohio Historical
Society, Columbus.
57. Ohio State Journal, 5 August
1853. See also Ohio State Journal, 1 July 1853;
Cincinnati Gazette, 6 August; 30 September 1853; Toledo Blade, 1
September 1853.
Second Party System Collapses 145
support of Whig principles, or from
acting with the glorious old party,
sink or swim."58 Conservative
Whigs loathed the Free Soilers on
principle as "agitators and
one-idea fanatics" obsessed with opposing
slavery.59 One such Whig was
Elisha Whittlesey, a distinguished
lawyer from the Western Reserve who had
served several terms in
Congress during the 1830s. He deplored
the breed of "fanatical
Yankee" politicians who hoped
"by taunts, hypocritical phylanthropy
[sic], & interfering with the
institution of slavery, to make the South to
take measures" to dissolve the
Union. Whittlesey and his kindred were
unlikely to support any measure that smacked
of Free Soil ultraism,
including the Maine Law.60
Most Whigs viewed a national party
system as essential, as one of
the strongest bonds that cemented the
Union, and they could foresee
that any party incorporating Free Soil
ideals would inevitably be a
sectional one. As early as 1849, Whig
United States Senator Thomas
Corwin had sensed the dangers stemming
from the Free Soilers'
single-minded devotion to opposing
slavery and slavery extension. "I
cannot comprehend the view of a party
that proposes just one thing &
cares for nothing else," he
confessed; "When I look at such a party, I
fear their motives or distrust their
judgement. I do not see any good but
much evil from its predominance."
Conservative Whigs who had
fought for years to maintain their
party's "nationality" would think
carefully before enlisting in an
antislavery party that had scant hope of
attracting support in any slaveholding
state.61
State Democratic leaders, with no
measures of their own to propose,
concentrated on attacking prospective
Whig and Free Soil fusionists.
Throughout the campaign, Democrats
denounced the Maine Law
movement as a "Whig ruse" to
snare credulous voters. The Cleveland
Plain Dealer alleged that "the prominent actors on the
temperance
stage, are manifestly aiming at
political preferment rather than social
reform."62 The Democrats
harked back to the "Log Cabin and Hard
58. Benjamin Wade to Lewis D. Campbell,
27 June 1853, Lewis D. Campbell Papers,
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.
59. Ohio State Journal, 27 May
1853.
60. Elisha Whittlesey to Reverend James
Gallagher, 28 August 1853, Elisha Whittlesey
Papers, Western Reserve Historical
Society, Cleveland.
61. Thomas Corwin to Oran Follett, 31
August 1849, in Belle L. Hamlin, ed.,
"Selections from the Follett
Papers, 11," 9 Quarterly Publication of the Historical and
Philosophical Society of Ohio (July 1914), 96. Corwin was also worried about the Free
Soilers eroding Whig electoral strength
and depriving Whigs like him of federal and state
offices.
62. Daily Plain Dealer, 12
January 1853.
146 OHIO HISTORY
Cider" campaign of 1840 to prove
that the Whigs were utter hypocrites
on the temperance question.
"Whiggery in Ohio this fall seems to be
disposed to reverse the tactics of
1840," noted the Cincinnati Enquirer,
"... hoping that temperance will do
for it now what drunkenness did
then, giving it a triumph over the
Democracy.63
Although Democrats scarcely considered
the possibility of losing the
state in 1853, the prospect of eventual
Whig-Free Soil fusion was
worrisome. The Democrats had won the
last several elections with only
a plurality of the vote, and if their
opponents ever united, the anti-
Democratic forces could control Ohio.
Democratic politicians, there-
fore, viewed the apparent collapse of
the Whig party with ambivalent
feelings, because it threatened the
comfortable status quo of the party
system. The editor of the Enquirer admitted
that he preferred to
compete against the old Whig party
rather than a "conglomeration of
disaffected factionists, pretended
independents and neutrals, destitute
of political honesty."64 Victory
and spoils offered rewards for Demo-
cratic party leaders, but the appeals to
party loyalty which they relied
upon in 1853 did not generate mass
enthusiasm. As William Medill
remarked, virtually the sole goal of the
Democratic campaign was "to
keep up our organization, upon
which the attack is particularly made
at this time."65
The Maine Law fusion campaign varied widely
throughout the state.
The coalition efforts that occurred in
perhaps half of Ohio's counties
differed according to political
conditions and temperance sentiment in
each area. The Maine Law crusade
generally fared best in the northern
half of Ohio, where New England
influences were the strongest. The
southern part of the state was
comparatively untouched by the Maine
Law campaign, although temperance forces
made inroads in some
counties and waged an impressive
campaign in Cincinnati. Much of
southern Ohio had been settled
originally by emigrants from Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, and other Southern
states, and many residents
there shared a contempt for Yankee
reform notions and a sympathy for
the national Democratic party with its
Southern ties.66 The Free Soilers
63. Cincinnati Enquirer, 24
September 1853. See also Ohio Statesman, 17 May; 27
July; 9, 26 September 1853; Hamilton
Telegraph, 16 June 1853; Stark County Democrat,
5 October 1853; Ohio Patriot, 2
September 1853.
64. Cincinnati Enquirer, 8
October 1853 .
65. William Medill to Ralph Leete, 12
July 1853, Ralph Leete Papers, Western
Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.
See also Ralph Leete to William Medill, 20 July
1853, and, John E. Hanna to William
Medill, 10 August 1853, both in William Medill
Papers, Ohio Historical Society,
Columbus; Ohio Statesman, 27 July; 12 August 1853.
66. The Ohio State Journal, 14
October 1853, commented on this geographical
division after the election when it
noted that the "north has gone almost unanimously
Maine law. The south anti-Maine
law."
Second Party System Collapses 147 |
|
controlled proceedings on the Western Reserve, which was the center of fusion activity, while Whigs and Free Soilers formed uneasy partnerships in localities where Whigs predominated. The Whigs sometimes took the initiative on the Maine Law issue, then challenged Free Soilers and temperance Democrats to join them. The Democrats occasionally nominated their own Maine Law candidates, and Demo- cratic dominance in a score of counties discouraged any opposition fusion efforts. All of these varieties of fusion were unstable; fusion tickets were formed, abandoned, and then taken up again, often within a matter of days. Confusion kept politics in a state of flux, and for disillusioned Whigs the most prevalent form of "fusion" was the haphazard desertion of their old party. In the Western Reserve counties of Huron and Ashtabula, Free Soilers nominated straight tickets and urged others to support them, but elsewhere the antislavery party negotiated fusion arrangements with the Whigs.67 Anti-Democratic temperance forces in Summit County had cooperated in the Akron city elections in April, and they
67. Ashtabula Sentinel, 11 August; 8, 22 September 1853; Ashtabula Weekly Tele- graph, 17 September 1853; Ohio Columbian, 7 September 1853. |
148 OHIO HISTORY
extended their alliance with a fall
slate of Maine Law fusion candi-
dates. Lyman Hall, the editor of the
Free Soil newspaper in Portage
County, forged a tenuous Maine Law bond
between his party and local
Whigs, despite continued Whig antipathy
to the Free Soilers' anti-
slavery dogmas. This rapprochement was a
step toward healing the
split that had thrown most county
elections since 1848 to the minority
Democrats.68 Erie County Free
Soilers spurned Whig fusion offers,
proclaiming that they could not
"support one enormity to aid in the
suppression of another," and that
they would not coalesce with
"proslavery parties in order to
secure the election of a Maine Law
man." The Whig Sandusky Register
censured Erie Free Soilers for
professing "an abhorrence for
'party ties' and 'party subserviency,' "
and yet letting their own party
prejudices divide the Maine Law vote.
This charge rang true; Western Reserve
Free Soilers seldom sacrificed
antislavery principles to pursue Maine
Law fusion.69
The spirited fusion debate in Cuyahoga
County divided Free Soilers
along lines of past party allegiance. An
early September fusion meeting
in Cleveland nominated a mixed ticket of
Whigs and Free Soilers that
included John A. Foote. Such close
cooperation with the Whigs
alienated a group of Democratic Free
Soilers led by the volatile Rufus
Spaulding, and he launched a tirade
against the Whigs and fusion
before he and his allies stalked out of
the hall. Three weeks later,
Spaulding organized a convention that
made "regular" Free Soil
nominations, despite the protests of
Whig Free Soilers against
Spaulding's fratricidal course.
Meanwhile, Cuyahoga Democrats had
also split into two factions with
separate tickets, partly as a result of
personal feuds, but also because of
differing opinions on how to
balance the need for German Democratic
votes against the desire to
attract Maine Law supporters. Four
tickets, none of them bearing the
Whig name, thus competed for the favors
of Cuyahoga voters.70
Fusion efforts were yet more complicated
outside the Western
Reserve, as each group of county party
leaders maneuvered for
advantage. Free Soil strength in Morrow
County nearly equaled that of
the Whigs, and the two parties together
outnumbered the Democrats.
Morrow temperance men made independent
nominations, which were
68. Akron Democratic Standard, 25
August; 1, 22 September; 6 October 1853; Eric J.
Cardinal, "The Development of an
Anti-Slavery Political Majority: Portage County,
Ohio, 1830-1856 (M.A. thesis, Kent State
University, 1973), 80-92.
69. Sandusky Register, 3
September (quotations); 8 October 1853.
70. Daily True Democrat, 20
August; 5, 19, 26, 27 September; 7, 11 October 1853;
Daily Plain Dealer, 12, 13, 20 August; 3, 30 September 1853; Cleveland
Weekly Herald,
28 September 1853; Daily Forest City
Whig, 29 September 1853.
Second Party System Collapses 149
subsequently endorsed by the Free
Soilers, but a joint convention of
Whigs, Free Soilers, and temperance
advocates then formed a com-
promise Maine Law ticket. In Columbiana
County, New Lisbon
residents continued their temperance
battle. County Democrats re-
mained silent on the Maine Law at their
June convention, and the Free
Soilers met shortly afterwards and chose
prohibition candidates. The
Whigs responded by pushing for fusion,
and in a hastily organized
"People's" convention, they
selected Maine Law nominees of their
own. Neither Democrats nor Free Soilers
accepted this Whig-backed
ticket, and the Columbiana temperance
vote remained divided. Assess-
ing the situation, Free Soil editor
Marius Robinson aptly concluded,
"Politics are a little mixed up in
this county, this Fall."71
All sorts of political combinations and
shades of temperance senti-
ment entered into county races. In strongly
Democratic Crawford
County, temperance forces nominated a
Maine Law Democrat for state
representative. The Whig and Democratic
papers endorsed him and he
ran unopposed. Both Whigs and Democrats
in Guernsey County
formed Maine Law tickets, and this
unanimity on prohibition spawned
a reverse fusion effort when disaffected
men from both parties joined in
backing an anti-Maine Law slate. The
campaign around Toledo in
Lucas County centered on the activities
of James M. Ashley. He would
later win notoriety as an impeacher of
President Andrew Johnson, but
in 1853, he was a Democrat who was
dissatisfied with his party's
position on both slavery and temperance.
Ashley participated in a
Maine Law convention that nominated Sanford
L. Collins, an anti-
slavery Whig, for the legislature. When
local Democrats pressured
Ashley to renounce his Maine Law
sympathies, he and several friends
broke away from the party and actively
campaigned for Samuel Lewis.
Although Ashley was already discontented
with the Pierce administra-
tion, his case was an example of the
Maine Law's tendency to break
down party lines.72
71. Anti-Slavery Bugle, 9 July;
20 August (quotation) 1853; Ohio Columbian, 15
September 1853; Ohio Patriot, 1
July; 12 August 1853; Buckeye State, 11 August 1853.
72. Hillsborough Gazette, 22
August 1853; Guernsey Times, 8, 15, 29 September
1853; Toledo Blade, 1, 4 August;
24 September 1853; Robert F. Horowitz, The Great
Impeacher: A Political Biography of
James M. Ashley (New York, 1979),
15-16. The
variety of political combinations in
1853 almost defy general description. Free Soilers in
overwhelmingly Democratic counties often
stood alone and backed the Maine Law. See
Ohio Columbian, 25 August; 15 September 1853; if no fusion occurred in
a county, the
Whigs either supported the Maine Law or
lapsed into apathy. See Marietta Republican,
25 August; 10 October 1853; Clinton
Republican, 19 August 1853; and in several counties
the Democrats campaigned on the temperance
issue without endorsing the Maine Law.
See Hillsborough Gazette, 27
June; 6 September 1853; Ohio Democrat, 9 June; 21, 27
July; 11 August; 8 September 1853.
150 OHIO HISTORY
The party system in Cincinnati never
recovered from the free school
controversy, and the Cincinnati Times
believed that "there never was
such political confusion in Hamilton
County as there is at the present
time." "Old party ties have in
great measure been rent asunder," the
editor reported, "and the only
organizations that now exist, are
founded upon an entire new issue-that of
a prohibitory liquor law."73
Cincinnati prohibitionists carefully
balanced their Maine Law ticket,
selecting five Whigs, five Democrats,
and a Free Soiler. Three of the
Whigs were already on that party's
regular ticket, and the Free Soilers
subsequently ratified the Maine Law
nominations. The coalition move-
ment among their opponents unexpectedly
unified the Democrats,
most of whom supported the party
convention candidates pledged to
oppose the Maine Law.74
The final fusion effort was an impromptu
arrangement at the state
level between Whigs and Free Soilers.
The Free Soilers' candidate for
lieutenant governor, Benjamin Bissell,
announced his withdrawal in
early August. The party initially
selected a replacement, but then
changed course and adopted Isaac J.
Allen, the Whig nominee. Allen
was a political novice from heavily
Democratic Richland County who
had appealed for Free Soil support by
declaring his opposition to
slavery extension and to the Compromise
of 1850, and by firmly
endorsing the Maine Law. This
last-minute cooperation on a Maine
Law Whig with Free Soil principles was a
fitting climax to the
confusing 1853 campaign.75
The election results were a disaster for
both the Whigs and the Maine
Law reformers. Nelson Barrere polled the
lowest vote of any Whig
gubernatorial candidate in Ohio history
in an election that featured the
lowest turnout of any contest in the
1850s. Medill won easily with
147,663 votes, followed by Barrere with
85,843, and Samuel Lewis
trailed at 49,846. Barrere fell over
60,000 votes short of his party's total
in 1848-the last time the Whigs had
captured the governorship-while
Samuel Lewis improved on his 1851
showing by some 33,000 votes.
Non-voting affected all the parties, but
the most important product of
the campaign was the desertion of
thousands of Whigs to the Free
Soilers. These defections were enough to
destroy the already weak
Whig party. The Democrats elected a
large anti-Maine Law majority to
73. Cincinnati Times, 7 October
1853, quoted in Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder,
140.
74. Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder, 141-44;
Cincinnati Gazette, 5, 15 September
1853.
75. Ohio Columbian, 18 August; 8,
28 September 1853; Cincinnati Gazette, 20
September 1853; Ashtabula Sentinel, 29
September 1853; Ohio Statesman, 26, 29
September; 5 October 1853.
Second Party System Collapses 151
the Legislature, and thus crushed the
hopes of temperance men. A few
scattered fusion victories confined
mainly to the Western Reserve,
such as the triumph of John A. Foote and
the People's ticket in
Cuyahoga County, offered Maine Law
advocates little consolation.
The Free Soilers were enthusiastic about
their gains, but fifty-thousand
votes in one state hardly approached
their goal of a powerful antislavery
party. As the Whig Cleveland Herald concluded,
the election showed
that there was only one party in Ohio
that remained as a viable
statewide organization, the Democracy.76
The primary effects of the Maine Law
agitation were destructive;
prohibitionists generated enough
enthusiasm to draw new adherents to
the Free Soil cause and to wreck the
Whig party, but they could not
overcome widespread voter apathy.
Instead of polarizing sentiment
along party lines, and perhaps
revitalizing the Whig party, the Maine
Law crusade scattered voters and left
the remnants of an old party
system with only a few indications of
how a new one might be
constructed. The liabilities of the
Maine Law as a reform issue in 1853
proved to be overwhelming, but its
liabilities as a potential future
partisan issue were even more serious.
The Maine Law alienated all but
the most zealous temperance
supporters-few could lukewarmly ad-
vocate total prohibition. A statewide party
could hardly be built upon
a measure that created more enemies than
friends, and furthermore, an
Ohio Maine Law party could have only the
remotest relation to politics
in the rest of the Union. If a party
realignment were to take place in
Ohio, it would have to be on issues
other than the Maine Law.77
A realignment began, of course, in 1854,
and the previous year's
Maine Law campaign contributed to the
success of the anti-Nebraska
fusion movement. The collapse of their
organization made Whigs less
inclined to cling to their party simply
for party's sake, and life-long
Whigs like editor Oran Follett of the Ohio
State Journal readily
admitted that "there is not much to
choose from between this or that
party or fragment of a party in the Free
States.78 After the 1853 contest,
Whigs and Free Soilers had a better
understanding of how fusion
worked, and how it could fail. They
still disagreed over how far the
anti-Nebraska coalition should go in
opposing slavery, but outrage at
76. Cleveland Herald, 26 October
1853; Ohio State Journal, 14 October 1853; Daily
Forest City Whig, 15 October 1853; Thomas W. Kremm, "The Rise of the
Republican
Party in Cleveland, 1848-1860" (Ph.
D. dissertation, Kent State University, 1974), 105-
07; Maizlish, Triumph of Sectionalism,
185, 242; Gienapp, Origins of the Republican
Party, 56-60, 494-95.
77. Gienapp, Origins of the
Republican Party, 38, distinguishes between the "party
decomposition" phase and the
realignment phase of party reorganization.
78. Ohio State Journal, 25 April
1853.
152 OHIO HISTORY
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
overcame many of the suspi-
cions that had blocked fusion in 1853.
There were many individual links
between the 1853 and 1854 campaigns:
John A. Foote and Lafayette G.
Van Slyke, for example, served on both
the State Temperance Central
Committee and the Anti-Nebraska State
Central Committee. Also,
many of the Free Soilers who opposed
fusion in 1853, such as Rufus
Spaulding of Cleveland and Joseph Root
of Erie County, played
important roles in founding the
anti-Nebraska party.79
But the differences between the 1853 and
1854 campaigns were more
important than their similarities. A
battle against the "Slave Power"
was, for many reasons, a more potent
issue in Ohio than opposition to
the "Rum Power." Maine Law
crusaders attacked other Ohioans,
while the anti-Nebraska movement
concentrated its fire on Southern
slaveholders and on their supposed
instrument, the national Democrat-
ic party, thus uniting anti-Democratic
forces. The antislavery cause
was made more palatable for some by
dropping Ohio Free Soil ideas
such as black suffrage and relying on
appeals to Northern racism in
claiming the territories for free white
labor. The anti-Nebraska move-
ment attracted antislavery Democrats who
had been wholly unmoved
by the Maine Law, and anti-Catholic
elements in the anti-Nebraska
coalition included Protestant immigrants
who had spurned
prohibitionism. Conservative Whigs,
persuaded by recent events that
Free Soil concerns about slavery were
justified, or simply intent upon
the restoration of the Missouri
Compromise, joined in the anti-
Nebraska movement. Finally, the anti-Nebraska
agitation extended
beyond the borders of Ohio and offered
politicians potential state and
national power-power that meant offices
and patronage.
Diverse concerns motivated Ohioans who
joined the heterogeneous
anti-Nebraska party that rolled to
victory in the 1854 fall elections.
Rutherford B. Hayes captured the spirit
of the party when he pro-
claimed that "Anti-Nebraska,
Know-Nothings, and general disgust
79. Ohio State Journal, 14
February 1853; Benjamin F. Wade to Milton Sutliff, 21
April 1854, Sutliff Letters, Western
Reserve Historical Society; Cincinnati Gazette, 5
April 1854; Salmon P. Chase to N. S.
Townshend, 10 February 1854, Chase Papers,
Historical Society of Pennsylvania;
Thomas Ewing to Oran Follett, 28 April 1854, Oran
Follett to Thomas Ewing, 1 May 1854,
and, Thomas Ewing to Oran Follett, 2 May 1854,
all in Belle L. Hamlin, ed.,
"Selections from the Follett Papers, V," Quarterly
Publication of the Historical and
Philosophical Society of Ohio, 13
(April 1918), 50-55;
Cleveland Morning Leader, 6 July 1854; Joseph Smith, ed., History of the
Republican
Party in Ohio and Memoirs of its
Representative Supporters, 2 vols.
(Chicago, 1898), I:
19-25.
Second Party System Collapses 153
with the powers that be" had
conquered the Democrats, and he was
"pleased to see old organizations
blotted out." In a span of two years,
Hayes had seen the Maine Law and
anti-Nebraska fusion movements
transform the Ohio party system. A
difficult course lay ahead, but as
the Ohio Republican party took shape
over the next two years, a
bedrock commitment to opposing slavery
extension and the "Slave
Power" held the coalition together.80
80. Rutherford B. Hayes to Uncle S.
Birchard, 13 October 1854, in Hayes, Diary and
Letters, I: 470 (quotation); Cincinnati Gazette, 16, 25
March 1854; Cleveland Morning
Leader, 7 April 1854; Daily Forest City Democrat, 23
February 1854; Salmon P. Chase
to E. L. Pierce, 12 March 1854, in
Bourne, ed., "Diary and Letters," American
Historical Association, II: 258- 60; Larry Gara, "Slavery and the Slave
Power: A Crucial
Distinction," Civil War History,
15 (March 1969), 5-18; Gienapp, Origins of the
Republican Party, 113-19; Maizlish, Triumph of Sectionalism, 187-206.