"Bluff Ben"
Wade in Lawrence, Kansas:
The Issue of Class
Conflict
By WILLIAM FRANK ZORNOW*
Most historians know of Theodore
Roosevelt's famous speech
at Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31,
1910, in which he outlined
the policies later advocated during the
campaign of 1912, but few
have considered the equally important
Lawrence speech of Senator
Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio on June 10,
1867. The latter might have
had considerable effect upon the outcome
of the Johnson impeach-
ment trial and the choice of a
Republican nominee for president in
1868.
In March 1867 the Republican caucus
assembled to consider can-
didates for the position of president
pro tem of the senate. The
party was strife-torn over the
political, economic, and social prob-
lems confronting the nation after the
Civil War. The man chosen
for the position would have the
difficult job of reuniting his party,
but if he could bring that to pass, the
White House might be within
his grasp. Moderation, tact, and a
spirit of compromise seemed to
be prerequisites for the task, and the
conservatives felt that William
P. Fessenden of Maine was the man
possessing these traits. The
radicals, however, succeeded in choosing
Wade.
"Bluff Ben" was scarcely the
man to weld the divergent elements
of the party together; controversy was
the breath of his nostrils.
Nevertheless, there was much confidence
expressed, and as his biog-
rapher later noted concerning his
selection, "many regarded it an
election to the presidency of the
Republic."1
On May 30, 1867, Wade left Chicago en
route to Omaha ac-
companied by a large party, which
included Senators Timothy O.
* William Frank Zornow is assistant
professor of history at Kansas State College,
Manhattan, Kansas.
1 Albert G. Riddle, The Life of
Benjamin F. Wade (Cleveland, 1886), 277-278.
"BLUFF BEN" WADE IN
LAWRENCE, KANSAS 45
Howe, Lyman Trumbull, Richard Yates,
Alexander G. Cattell,
Zachariah Chandler, John A. J.
Creswell, and Representative John
Covode. They planned to inspect the
western forts and the trans-
continental railroad. The party spent
several days in Nebraska,
where Wade was well received because of
his efforts in helping that
state gain admission to the Union. The
excursion then moved south.
Late in the evening of June 8 Wade and
his party crossed the
Missouri from Weston and arrived at
Leavenworth, Kansas; the
local press complained that
insufficient time had been given to bid
them welcome, "but for the tried
men of the country--for such
Roman manhood as 'rare Old Ben,' there
is no need for prepara-
tion."2 The previous
day the same editor had seconded the Topeka
Record's estimate of him as "Ohio's noble and true
Senator."3
The travelers left Leavenworth early in
the morning of June 10
and about noon arrived at Lawrence. By
this time they had been
joined by Governor Samuel Crawford,
Senators Edmund G. Ross
and Samuel C. Pomeroy, as well as
former governor Thomas Carney,
all of Kansas. The party was at the
Eldridge House with a small
group of citizens and dignitaries when
a large concourse assembled
outside and some began shouting for the
"old warhorse of the
Western Reserve." At length,
George Francis Train, a member of
the excursion, appeared on the balcony,
but he refused to speak and
deferred in favor of the more notable
visitors. When the spectators
continued to cry Wade's name, the
senator finally came forward
and was introduced by former secretary
of the interior John P.
Usher, who was then a resident of
Lawrence.
Wade apparently was in a sullen mood;
to one spectator he ap-
peared quite reluctant to speak at all.
He asked the crowd what
subject it would like to have him
discuss and there were several
suggestions: Kansas, reconstruction,
Negroes, and railroads.
To the demand that he say something
about Kansas, Wade turned
a deaf ear and told his listeners that
they knew more about their
own state than he did. He further
insisted that he did not intend
to talk about politics and advised them
that he had given a political
2 Leavenworth Times, June 9, 1867; Leavenworth Daily Conservative, June 9,
1867.
3 Leavenworth Times, June 8, 1867.
46
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
speech a few days earlier and
"broke down in it." It was not the
time for politics, for he had been
welcomed by men of both parties.
He reminded his hearers that they knew
the national political situ-
ation as well as he did, as most of them
had previously lived in the
East. He was about to retire when cries
of "Wade, Wade!" brought
him back on the balcony. For some
unknown reason the senator
then launched into a forty-five minute
tirade which might have had
significant political consequences.4
Wade began by saying that his political
course was well known
to all and pledged that he would
continue to be on the side of
justice and freedom despite the Devil
and Andy Johnson. He
favored each person having the right to
govern himself, and this
also implied the right to vote. There
was some applause as the
senator added that this right should not
be denied either for color
or sex.
"If [I] had not thought [my] wife
to be as intelligent as
[I], or as capable of voting
understandingly, [I] would not have
married her," thundered Wade, and
he recommended that if any
man had a wife who lacked sufficient
sense to exercise this right, he
should immediately divorce her and marry
another.
Having exhausted this subject, Wade
turned to the question of
radicalism, which he defined as
"righteousness in the fullest sense
of the term." Conservativism, on
the other hand, was "cowardice
in the fairest sense of the term."
As for himself, he was proud to be
a member of the former group. None but
the conservatives sought
to oppose the spirit of progress which
was sweeping the whole
world; and they were being narrowed down
gradually to their
proper sphere.
He made a passing reference to the
southerners, who, he said,
had been offered the mildest terms of
reconstruction they could
rightfully expect. If they refused to
accept them, "the screw would
be driven another turn and they would be
compelled to yield."
At this point Wade proceeded to expound
some ominous theories
and make predictions which must have
sounded revolutionary in
4 The speech has been reconstructed on
the basis of summaries appearing in the
New York Times, June
11, 1867; the Leavenworth Daily Conservative, June 13, 1867;
and the Kansas Weekly Tribune (Lawrence),
June 13, 1867.
"BLUFF BEN" WADE IN
LAWRENCE, KANSAS 47
1867. Since three reporters were present
from eastern papers, his
words were wired to the East that night.5
The senator began by saying that the
country had recently passed
through a great struggle, but the shadow
of a greater one loomed
menacingly. Congress, which had done so
much for the Negro,
could hardly be expected to sit idly by
without doing something
about the terrible distinctions which
existed between labor and
capital. "If your dull heads can't
understand this, the women will,
and canvassers upon the eve of an
election will have to tell the
laborers what they will do for
them," exploded Wade, and then he
stated that no man should be expected to
exhaust himself working
until existence itself became a curse.
Pending such time as a more
equitable distribution could be
achieved, "every man . . . who [is]
subject to a capitalist ought to leave
him, and get two hours nearer
sundown forthwith."
"Kansas is the fairest country in
the world," he added, as if to
show that his warnings were not
applicable in the Jayhawk state;
"you have not here the same
inequality betwixt capital and labor
which exists in older communities."
Yet there was a menacing sug-
gestion that even the West would soon
have to face this issue
when Wade continued, "Mark my
words, the day is not far dis-
tant when your politicians will present
to you in canvassing your
State, this glaring inequality between
the purse-proud capitalist and
the laborer."
As if to relieve some of the
apprehension which must have been
generated by these remarks, Wade closed
his extemporaneous talk
by a peroration pledging to advocate
boldly and persistently the
natural rights of men, and predicting
that an era of commercial
prosperity would result from the
completion of the Pacific railroad.
His speech was received with
considerable applause.6
5 The reporters were Edward Seymour of
the New York Times, W. S. Smith of
the Cincinnati Times, and Thomas
Whitney of the Chicago Republican. John Speer
covered the speech for the Kansas
Weekly Tribune.
6 After
leaving Lawrence the party continued to Topeka, but were forced to return
to Lawrence because a flood made it
impossible to cross the Kansas River. On June 12
they resumed the journey and eventually
reached Fort Riley and Junction City before
being forced to abandon the trip because
of rising water. On June 14 they crossed into
Missouri and returned East. The trip may
be followed in the Junction City Union,
June 15, 1867; the Kansas Weekly
Tribune, June 13, 20, 1867; the Topeka Leader,
48
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
What was the import of Wade's remarks?
Actually the local
Kansas papers which reported the speech
did so, for the most part,
without comment, but in the East,
especially among the conservative
Republican papers, the reaction was
different.7 "So Senator Wade
visits Kansas and proclaims there the
new political gospel," re-
marked the New York Times. The
confiscation doctrines of Ben-
jamin Butler, Thaddeus Stevens, and
Wendell Phillips, designed
for southern application, were being
broadened and augmented into
a nation-wide scheme by Wade. Henry
Raymond could see in the
speech nothing more than an unconcealed
appeal for a program
based on agrarianism, confiscation,
spoliation, and the redistribution
of property, which was to be
accomplished by enfranchising the
ladies. Wade had told his audience in
Lawrence that women were
more virtuous than men, and would,
therefore, use their ballots
to correct existing social and political
evils. This was absurd, said
the Times, for women were not
egalitarians but born aristocrats.
Since it was highly unlikely that the
party would support such pro-
posals, Raymond predicted that it was
Wade's intention to form
a new party.8
Raymond had no reason to love the
radicals, since they had driven
him from the chairmanship of the
Republican national committee
in 1866, but there were others also who
were worried by Wade's
tactics who had no axes to grind. As one
writer later commented,
"Yet it was because of the very
traits which endeared him to the
revolutionist--his reckless boldness,
his predisposition to violent
methods, his tendency to dash headlong
to his object over every
impediment--that his accession to the
chief magistracy was dreaded
by the conservative statesmen and
politicians of the party."9 If Wade
June 6, 13, 1867; the Leavenworth
Daily Conservative, June 14, 15, 1867; the
Leavenworth Times, June 12, 13, 14, 1867; and the Kansas Radical (Manhattan),
June 15, 1867.
7 Of the various Kansas papers which
covered the tour, only the Kansas Radical
made any comment on Benjamin Wade as a
possible presidential candidate, and it
was adverse. The editor wrote: "He
is a short, strong, and coarse made man physically,
with a massive brow and ugly features.
To liberty and freedom he is true as steel;
but is too rough and sordid looking to
fill our bill for next President." June 15, 1867.
8 New York Times, June 12, 1867.
9 David DeWitt, The Impeachment and
Trial of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth Presi-
dent of the United States (New York, 1903), 175.
"BLUFF BEN" WADE IN
LAWRENCE, KANSAS 49
had any chance of achieving the
presidency, either as a replacement
for Johnson or in his own right, it was
undoubtedly diminished by
his outspoken advocacy of class warfare
while speaking in Kansas.
It is difficult to offer an explanation
for Wade's unusual be-
havior. He had never been noted for his
tact or civility, but his
impromptu address exceeded all bounds
of political good sense. He
might have been ill at the time he
spoke, since he had remarked
that he "broke down" while
speaking in Nebraska a few days
earlier. His conduct is most amazing in
view of the fact that there
were many prominent railroad magnates
present on the excursion
whose support he could have lost by
such remarks. A few days
earlier in Omaha he had lauded the
capitalists of America whose
daring and foresight had made possible
the construction of the
railroad.10
Early in 1867 Wade's political
prospects never seemed brighter.
There was by then talk of taking action
against Johnson, and since
Wade was president pro tem of the
senate he would have entered
the chief magistracy briefly had
Johnson been impeached. This
would most certainly have assured his
selection in 1868 at least as
vice president, or possibly even
brought him a term in his own right.
By September Wade's position had
changed greatly. He had
alienated some by his stand on
suffrage. Others found his pro-
tectionism unacceptable or his
reconstruction proposals too vin-
dictive. The culmination of a long
series of mounting estrangements
came from his wild assertions in
Lawrence that levelerism would
triumph in the United States.
The defeat of the Republican party in
several key elections in
1867 hastened Wade's decline. Negro
suffrage was beaten in his
own state, and the legislature was
captured by the Democrats.11
This meant that his senatorial career
would terminate March 3,
1869. The only way to recoup his
political fortunes was to enter the
10 Kansas Daily Tribune (Lawrence), June 8, 1867.
11 In appraising the Republican defeats in 1867 Henry
Cooke attributed one of the
causes to Wade, who had gone to Kansas "uttering
agrarian doctrines" for the purpose
of trying to "array labor against
capital." On the platform Cooke had this comment:
"Their policy was one of
bitterness, hate and wild agrarianism without a single
Christian principle to give it
consistency, except the sole idea of universal suffrage."
Henry Cooke to Jay Cooke, October 12, 1867,
in Ellis P. Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke,
Financier of the Civil War (Philadelphia, 1907), II, 27-28.
50
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
White House by an impeachment of
Johnson. Yet the defeats made
it evident to party leaders that only
the popularity of a man like
Grant could save them from catastrophe
in 1868.12
However, even the possibility that Wade
could replace Johnson
seemed increasingly remote. As the
movement for impeachment
gained momentum, reliable persons
expressed the opinion that it
would fail because although many
disliked Johnson they feared and
hated the man who would become his
successor even more. Just a
few weeks after the Kansas incident,
Thaddeus Stevens, in an in-
terview with a New York Herald reporter,
was asked if impeach-
ment would carry. Stevens replied in the
negative, and said "personal
motives and feelings will interfere to
prevent Wade from occupying
the Presidential chair."13 James
Blaine had been reputed to have
remarked, "There will be no
impeachment by this Congress, we
would rather have the President than the
shallywags of Ben
Wade."14 On the eve of
the trial Gideon Welles was told by John
Bigelow that it would fail because
several senators "look with re-
pugnance and horror to the accession of
Wade."15 On September 10,
1867, Georges Clemenceau reported that
although Wade was "a
radical of the purest water . . . he
recently cut himself off from his
party on economic questions by a very
strong speech against capi-
talism."16 This attests
to the importance of Wade's Kansas speech
in shaping his relations with the party.
One can only conjecture the effect of
Wade's Lawrence speech
on the outcome of the impeachment trial.
Even before the trial had
begun, Wade had selected a cabinet.
Grant later reported that the
senator offered to support him for the
presidency in 1868 if the
general would promise to retain Wade's
cabinet as his own.17 This
12 Wade may still have entertained some
hope of being nominated for the presi-
dency, since he attempted to belittle
Grant. Claude G. Bowers, The Tragic Era: The
Revolution after Lincoln (Cambridge, 1929), 168.
13 Ibid., 162-163.
14 James F. Rhodes, History of the
United States from the Compromise of 1850
(New York, 1895-1928), VI, 160.
15 Gideon Welles, Dairy of Gideon
Welles (Boston, 1911), III, 293. The entry is
dated February 25, 1868.
16 Georges Clemenceau, American
Reconstruction, 1865-1870, and the Impeachment
of President Johnson (New York, 1928), 106.
17 George F. Milton, The Age of Hate:
Andrew Johnson and the Radicals (New
York, 1930), 590, 603.
"BLUFF BEN" WADE IN
LAWRENCE, KANSAS 51
would have made Wade a powerful
influence behind Grant at
least until 1873. Despite this prospect,
Senators Pomeroy, Chandler,
Cattell, Howe, and Yates, all of whom
had been in Lawrence, voted
for conviction. It must be concluded
that they were not too fearful
of Wade's designs or influence.
Ross and Trumbull were in Lawrence that
day and voted for
acquittal. Was their vote influenced by
what they heard? Both Ross
and Trumbull later explained that their
verdict had been based pri-
marily upon the legal considerations of
the case. Nevertheless, it
is apparent that other considerations
were in Ross's mind. In com-
menting on the fact that he had been
offered a bribe, Ross re-
marked: "These are not pleasant
facts to contemplate. . . . They
boded the control of the government by
the worst element of
American politics. It is unnecessary to
say here what that control
would have involved." Again he
wrote concerning the dismissal of
the charges, "And with it went
glimmering the visions of office, and
spoils, and the riotous assaults on the
public treasury that had for
months been organizing for the day when
Mr. Johnson should be
put out and Mr. Wade put in, with the
political board clear for
a new deal."18 He
foresaw an era of dishonor, corruption, and
danger if impeachment carried, and the
seed of such fears could
have been sown by the Lawrence speech.
Unfortunately, there are
no papers in the Ross manuscripts in
Topeka which would cast ad-
ditional light on this matter.
Trumbull was also concerned at the
dangerous precedents which
would be established by a hasty,
ill-considered decision at the trial.
"In view of the consequences
likely to flow from this day's pro-
ceedings," he wrote, "should
they result in conviction on what my
judgment tells me are insufficient
charges and proofs, I tremble for
the future of my country."19 The
reasoning of both Ross and Trum-
bull went beyond the mere legal
technicalities of the case. Both
were worried about their country's
future, and well they might have
been had they been convinced that Wade
meant what he said in
Kansas.
18 Edmund Ross, History of the
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, by the House of
Representatives, and His Trial by the Senate, for High
Crimes and Misdemeanors in Office,
1868 (Santa Fe, 1896), 143, 153-154.
19 Horace White, The Life of Lyman Trumbull (Boston, 1913), 319.
52
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The acquittal of Johnson further
weakened Wade's hold on the
party, and at the convention in 1868 he
failed to secure the vice
presidential nomination. He had the support of powerful
radical
leaders, but despite the fact that he
led on the first four ballots, he
lost his lead on the fifth, and on the
final (sixth) vote Schuyler
Colfax coasted to victory.20 Wade's
political career drew to a close.
The radicalism of the Lawrence speech
could have gone a long way
toward precipitating his decline.
20 Charles H. Coleman, The Election of 1868: The Democratic Effort to
Regain
Control (New York, 1933), 93.