2
ALTHOUGH CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM and Stephen A. Douglas held similar views on most issues, they were slow to become allies. Both had supported Lewis Cass, the Democratic candidate for president in the election of 1848, and both seemed disposed to accept the “Cass doctrine”—that residents in a territory have the right to choose their own “domestic institutions”—as a means to lessen debate over slavery in Congress. Both opposed the Wilmot Proviso and both favored the Compromise of 1850—Douglas had been chief architect of the latter while Vallandigham tried to rally grass-roots support for the controversial measure. For both, law was destined to become only the handmaiden of political ambitions. And both possessed a self-confidence bordering on audacity.
Yet on the question of slavery they did not see eye to eye. Douglas refused to see it as a moral issue. To the “Little Giant,” slavery was but an institution, tried and true. Douglas’s first wife had inherited a Mississippi plantation and 150 slaves, and he seemed to feel no guilt in helping to keep human beings in bondage. Perhaps in time slavery would disappear; in the United States, geography and economics would stay its spread. Douglas simply refused to wrestle with the question of natural rights and the morality of slavery. Vallandigham, on the other hand, had put his views regarding slavery into print as early as 1850. He defined the institution as “a moral, social & political evil” and “deplored” its existence. At the same time, however, he considered slavery “a local institution” which could be erased within a state’s borders only if the state so willed. The federal government dared not touch slavery in the states where it existed, for the Constitution gave the institution tacit approval. Although C.L.V. subscribed to the “Cass doctrine,” he hoped 22 the electorate of each new state would follow the example of California and write into its constitution an “emphatic edict” against the institution. Not only had he not put “one solitary proslavery sentiment” on paper, he wrote in 1850, but he had never “entertained one in his heart.”1
Although Vallandigham opposed slavery, his respect for law and order made him detest abolitionists, who, he claimed, attempted to inflame the public mind and drive a wedge between the North and the South. C.L.V. occasionally brooded over the popularity of radicalism and egocentric sectionalism, and he predicted that the country would fall upon evil days unless moderation could push back the abolitionist tide.
The defeat of William Medill, incumbent Democratic governor of Ohio, by Salmon P. Chase in October 1855, spurred Vallandigham to make a public plea for law, order, and moderation. He spent long hours in his library, preparing a speech he intended to publish as a pamphlet. In it he surveyed the slavery question, historically and philosophically. It was “a peculiar institution,” yet “sustained by the Constitution.” Abolitionists were “Jacobins” and troublemakers, destroying the comity of sections and widening “the gulf of alienation.” They assumed “a pretended responsibility” for “the sinfulness of slavery,” and taught disrespect for laws and the Constitution. Clergymen should stay out of politics, he argued, and politicians should not interpret Christian doctrine. Politics and morals both had their “legitimate spheres.” The public ought to accept Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty regarding the territories, adhere rigidly to the laws of the land, and recognize that abolitionism was dangerous doctrine. Congress must not meddle with slavery either in the states where it exists or in the territories!2
Although Vallandigham readily accepted Douglas’s principle of popular sovereignty, he was not ready to hitch his wagon to the young senator’s rising star in 1855. He helped persuade some of his colleagues at the Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati to ignore Douglas’s claims and he voted for Buchanan on each of the seventeen ballots.
When Douglas broke with President Buchanan in 1857 because the administration sought to foist a slave constitution upon Kansas, C.L.V. had to choose which path he would follow. Douglas’s widespread popularity in the upper Middle West made the choice easy, and Vallandigham tactfully grabbed hold of the Little Giant’s coattails when campaigning for reelection to Congress from the Third District in 1858. In fact, the Democratic incumbent even begged Douglas to visit Dayton when he returned to Chicago from Washington. “Don’t fail,” Vallandigham pleaded. “I have thrown out the hint [that you are coming] & you are expected.”3
Douglas could not accommodate Vallandigham, but his reply was useful as a campaign document. C.L.V. usually read the letter at political rallies and public meetings to give the impression that the two were close friends and allies. Vallandigham, however, was cautious in his statements about Buchanan. As a member of the Democratic National Committee he had to walk a tightrope. His use of Douglas’s letter, nevertheless, was proof of the direction in which he was heading. Perhaps the letter helped him win reelection, for it was another close race, with the incumbent netting 9,903 votes to Campbell’s 9,715.
It mattered not that Vallandigham won by only 188 votes in that October 1858 election. The returns, he claimed, fully vindicated his right to Campbell’s seat in Congress. Vallandigham’s friends now held that Campbell’s charge that he had been “cheated” out of a seat in the House of Representatives was “pure buncombe.”4 The Dayton Democrat could hold his head high when he returned to Washington, D.C., early in December to attend the second session of the Thirty-fifth Congress.
Vallandigham saw Douglas occasionally that winter in Washington. The second Mrs. Douglas was a great-niece of Dolly Madison and loved playing the gracious hostess. The Douglas residence in Washington dispensed a lavish hospitality, and congressmen flocked there in great numbers.
The winter of 1858-1859 witnessed a widening schism in the Democratic party. Buchanan had no use for Douglas and seldom missed an opportunity to refer to him in derogatory terms. The President’s followers removed Douglas from the chairmanship of the Committee on the Territories. Douglas’s support of a bill to purchase Cuba did not stop Southern Democrats from viewing him as a renegade bent upon breaking up the party. They fumed even more when Douglas, in a debate on the Senate floor with Jefferson Davis, stated adamantly his opposition to any active intervention by the federal government to protect slavery in the territories. He also denounced any attempt to reopen the African slave trade or to force the Northern wing of the Democratic party to be the servant of slavocracy.
Vallandigham, for his part, had decisions to make about thorny issues. He felt obligated to vote for Southern measures in return for being given Campbell’s seat in Congress the previous spring. He therefore endorsed the annexation of Cuba. He also pleased his Southern friends when he voted against a proposal to enforce the laws against the African slave trade more vigorously.5 Several times Vallandigham glibly stated that he regarded Negroes as inferior beings. Moreover, he repeatedly expressed his devotion to the principles of Jacksonian Democracy, fully aware that Jacksonian egalitarianism meant equality for the white man—not for the black man or the Indian.
Some Ohio Democrats urged Douglas to visit their state in 1859 to help them elect their gubernatorial candidate. Eyeing the Democratic presidential nomination, the ambitious senator readily assented and came into Ohio as the swashbuckling hero. He appeared in Columbus on September 7 and Vallandigham hustled over from Dayton to be seen at Douglas’s side. Everywhere “the Little Giant” was greeted by “enthusiastic demonstrations of applause.”6 Vallandigham heard him denounce abolitionists as disunionists, defend popular sovereignty, and praise the Democratic party as the historic purveyor of law and order.
Vallandigham assured Douglas that Dayton Democrats were ready and eager to receive him and the next morning accompanied Douglas on the train to Dayton, where a “large assemblage of people” greeted Douglas at the depot. Efficient marshals transformed the huge crowd into a procession which followed Douglas’s carriage to the Phillips House. There Vallandigham had the honor of introducing the noted guest to an appreciative audience, which responded with “deafening cheers.” But Douglas was not physically able to do much more than acknowledge the cheers and applause. He was suffering from a bad cold and a sore throat, and his voice plainly corroborated this fact. Nevertheless, the people sent up “a tremendous shout as ‘Little Doug’ retired.”7 Although Dayton Democrats had no chance to hear their hero speak, they at least had a chance to see him and be inspired by his presence.
Douglas decided to stay over in Vallandigham’s home town an extra day, trying to recover his voice and regain his health. Vallandigham called upon the bed-ridden patient several times, and the next day accompanied his party to Cincinnati. There he witnessed the warm welcome given the senator; a cannon boomed and the people shouted as Douglas stepped off the train and climbed into a waiting carriage. Vallandigham tagged along, accompanying the lion of the occasion to the Burnet House. That night he heard Douglas repeat much of what he had said several days before in Columbus. He discussed “the territorial question” and drew constant applause for his jibes at Republican “disunionists” and Buchanan’s “Blacklegs.”8
The next day C.L.V. returned to Dayton to go on a speaking tour for Rufus P. Ranney, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. Arranged by the Democratic State Central Committee, the tour took the Dayton congressman from one end of the state to the other. He gave a major address in New Lisbon, returning to his birthplace as a local boy who had made good. On every platform he portrayed Republicans as “disunionists,” using their own statements to convict them. Because it was difficult to defend President Buchanan’s veto of the Homestead Bill, Vallandigham, like other Midwestern Democrats, tried to lessen the sting by pointing out that prominent New England Republicans had voted against the bill. Even Vallandigham could not explain away the defalcation of John C. Breslin, the Democratic state treasurer, or allay the unrest and discontent caused by the Panic of 1857, which had stigmatized the party in power. In fact, he found it quite impossible to check Republicanism, spreading over the upper Midwest like a prairie fire.
The election returns of 1859 disappointed the Democrats. In Ohio the Republicans elected William Dennison, their gubernatorial candidate, won control over both houses of the state legislature, and carried forty-eight counties—five more than in 1857. Truly, it seemed that radicalism was in fashion. Dayton Republicans sponsored a noisy and spirited celebration, rubbing salt in Democratic wounds. “They [the Republicans] were very jubilant over their victory,” one of Vallandigham’s supporters wrote “and celebrated it . . . by the firing of cannons, very numerous and large bonfires, martial music, and marching around town in procession, with great enthusiasm, shouting and yelling most horribly—at least it sounds that way to us Democrats.”9
Six weeks later Vallandigham again headed for Washington, this time to attend the first session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, scheduled to convene on December 5, 1859. The air was charged with tension, heightened by the hanging of John Brown three days earlier. Abolitionists spoke of his heroic death and his noble speech from the scaffold shortly before the trap was sprung. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that Brown’s “martyrdom” would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” Ohio abolitionists followed suit. The editor of the Lebanon Western Star predicted that history would “canonize” the “bearded patriarch” while the editor of the Cleveland Leader stated, “His death will illuminate history.”10
These same Ohio abolitionists had earlier excoriated Vallandigham for interrogating Brown in the Harpers Ferry arsenal. One Republican editor had called the congressman “a dirty dog” who was guilty of asking “leading and tricky questions” to elicit answers he could “twist” for political gain. Another had referred to him as “a smelling committee of one,” and his Cleveland colleague derided him as “a pettifogging inquisitor.” The editor of the Cincinnati Commercial had contrasted “the steady manfulness of Brown” with the “demogogue” who had “probed among Brown’s wounds for material with which to manufacture political capital.”11
Vallandigham bitterly resented the abolitionists’ efforts to canonize Brown. He rebuked Emerson for his “blasphemous” statements, and scorned abolitionists who predicted Brown’s martyrdom as false prophets. He believed that Brown deserved the noose. A stable society, he maintained, could not be built in a state where people could invoke the “Higher Law” as a defense for murder, arson, and violence. “He perishes,” Vallandigham had stated of Brown, “justly and miserably—an insurgent and a felon.”12
While men on street corners, in pubs and parlors, and in the halls of Congress debated the question of Brown’s sanctity and sanity, the clerk of the House of Representatives rapped his gavel for order, intent upon urging the members to elect their speaker. The Senate, of course, had no trouble effecting its organization, for Vice-President John C. Breckinridge had the prestige to secure the cooperation of most members, North and South. Stephen A. Douglas was also expected to add his voice to the cause of moderation, and the two hoped to keep the radicals in check.
In the House, on the other hand, the situation was much more explosive. The Harpers Ferry incident seemed to make Southern radicals more adamant and more quarrelsome, and the honors accorded Brown turned their indignation to anger. Those Southern ultras who had previously spoken of secession half apologetically now seemed more convinced that the slave states should have a confederacy of their own.
The situation in the House was complicated by the fact that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had a clear majority; a handful of members of the American party held the balance of power. In the first ballot for Speaker, the Democrats voted down the line for Thomas Bocock of Virginia, Republicans split their votes between Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania and John Sherman of Ohio, and the Americans supported Alexander B. Boteler, another Virginian. The first tally read: Bocock, 86; Sherman, 66; Grow, 43; and Boteler, 14.13
Grow then withdrew his name from the list and the Republicans gave their full support to Sherman’s candidacy. Southern Democrats attacked Sherman for previously endorsing Hinton R. Helper’s book The Impending Crisis and How To Meet It (1857), quoting incendiary passages from the text which violently denounced slavery as well as Southern leaders. Other ballots followed, but no candidate could secure a majority. Democratic strategists dropped Bocock’s name after the eleventh ballot and offered the names of other party leaders, but none of the various nominees could get the votes of the Americans and so walk off with the prize. Meanwhile, the Republicans stubbornly insisted that Sherman deserved the Speakership. The clerk continued to preside while the House remained unorganized, the members not yet sworn in.
Between ballots congressmen occasionally gave speeches intended for home consumption, or took time out to throw oil or water upon the smoldering fire, debating the merits of Helper’s book, the question of slavery, abolitionism, and “all things on the earth and under the earth.”14
Vallandigham sandwiched one of his best-known speeches between the fourth and fifth ballots for Speaker. In that reasoned address he warned extremists of the North and the South that there was a West and that its interests must be served. He condemned Republicans for organizing a political party along sectional lines and raising issues which widened the gap between North and South. The Northern radicals he excoriated for their contempt for the Constitution and their promulgation of a doctrine that abolitionist views were superior to law. Lawlessness, he stressed, only bred more lawlessness. It had evolved from a rivulet into a rushing stream. “Thirty years ago,” he told his colleagues, “John Brown, hung like a felon, would have been buried like a dog.”
Vallandigham asked the North not to be too greedy. New England industry, he suggested, asked for too much protection and imposed its views upon the Republican party. In its grasping for economic control, the Northeast had brought about the economic ills suffered by the West. Now that section must not only cease its exploitation of South and West, but it must also respect the constitutional rights of those two sections.
For a while he talked like a Western sectionalist and brazenly called himself one, averring he would remain dedicated to Western interests until his dying day. “I am as good a Western fire-eater,” he crowed, “as the hottest salamander in this House.”
He soon returned, however, to the subject of “national interest.” Like Daniel Webster on an earlier occasion, he spoke out for one Constitution, one Union, one flag, and one destiny. That destiny, he warned, could not be fulfilled unless Westerners, Northerners, and Southerners subordinated sectional interests to the national welfare. This meant, he added, the immediate, total, and unconditional destruction of sectional Republicanism.15
It was a partisan speech. Perhaps he was but repaying Southern congressmen the debt he owed because they had given him Campbell’s seat in Congress the previous year. There is no doubt, however, that he sincerely believed that both abolition and Republican sectionalism were evils, undermining constitutionalism and national unity. It was also the speech of a Westerner and a conservative. As a Western sectionalist he opposed the progress of the Industrial Revolution and he objected to New England industry making the upper Midwest both slave and servant. As a conservative, he regretted the ever-growing popularity of radicalism and the Natural Law doctrine used by abolitionists to justify their views. Vallandigham proved himself a disciple of Edmund Burke rather than John Locke in that he favored social order, toleration, and evolutionary change. Like Burke, Vallandigham blamed the radicals and revolutionaries for the nation’s ills. Like Burke, he defined order in terms of individual freedom—free competition, free trade, and rewards for work and self-discipline. And like Burke, the Dayton congressman seemed to view political authority as an accountable trust to pursue the common good—to heal the schism rather than destroy the comity of sections.
Vallandigham should have expected a partisan reaction to his speech. The abolition-minded editor of the Cleveland Leader accused him of “crawling on his belly” to “grovel at the feet of Southern slaveholders.” Other Republican editors accused him of being a Southern stooge and a Northern traitor.16 Democratic editors, on the other hand, rose to defend both the speaker and his speech. “There is a heartlessness evinced in the Abolition press in the abuse which must be very flattering,” wrote one defender, “for it shows he is both hated and feared.” “As to the speech itself,” wrote another admirer, “it is quite unnecessary to speak. It is folly to paint the lily, or gild refined gold. It has all the essentials of a great speech; the conception and language are faultless; the sentiments, above all, are national and manly.”17
While Ohio Democrats and Republicans continued to debate the merits of Vallandigham’s speech, members of the House of Representatives continued to ballot for a Speaker. The stalemate lasted into January. The numerous roll-calls and the general despair frayed members’ nerves; minor disagreements became major incidents. Once Vallandigham, failing to practice the moderation he had preached, disagreed over some parliamentary tactic with John Hickman of Pennsylvania. The Dayton Democrat taunted Hickman with lacking both brains and courage.18 Southern ultras became more defiant as the weeks passed and still the Republicans stayed with Sherman. The Southerners bluntly declared Sherman’s candidacy an “insult” to their section and there was even talk that his election might be the “initiatory step” toward secession.19
On some of the ballots, C.L.V. received complimentary votes. On the twenty-sixth ballot he emerged as a serious candidate, getting 69 votes, though soon after, his name slipped out of contention.20 Once (on the thirty-ninth ballot) it looked as if the House had named its Speaker, when William N. H. Smith of North Carolina received 116 votes, 1 more than necessary for election. Before the tally was officially announced, however, four Republicans changed their vote and announced they really favored John Sherman.21
Finally, on January 30, House Republicans realized that Sherman would never get the required majority and allowed him to withdraw his name. Two days later, after a backroom agreement, the Republicans joined forces with American party members to put William Pennington of New Jersey in the Speaker’s chair.22 A Know-Nothing who had voted for Sherman on every ballot, Pennington was, in fact, on the way to deserting his American party membership and becoming a Republican party regular. Although the Democrats were not overjoyed at his election, they could gain some satisfaction from the fact that they had defeated Sherman and also, in a sense, had repudiated Helper’s Impending Crisis.
The first session of the Thirty-sixth Congress did nothing to promote the comity of sections, while it helped widen the breach in the Democratic party. In mid-March both the House and the Senate passed a bill providing virtually free farms for homesteaders. Vallandigham, Douglas, and all other Western Democrats voted for the measure,23 but “Old Buck” vetoed the measure and made the party more vulnerable in the Western states. The controversy over the admission of Kansas under the proslavery Lecompton Constitution also widened the rift between Douglas and Buchanan. Vallandigham, like most Western Democrats, followed the Douglas line. The Dayton congressman said he would welcome Kansas into the Union with “open arms,” but the would-be state had to present a constitution which had been framed by “a convention assembled and acting under a valid law of the territorial legislature” and ratified by an honest vote of the people. The Lecompton Constitution did not meet these conditions or qualifications. Neither did the Topeka Constitution, devised by the antislavery forces. Vallandigham, like Douglas, wanted the principle of popular sovereignty applied fairly and squarely in Kansas.24
The Utah question was another controversial issue. Utah Territory, which allowed the practice of polygamy, sought entrance into the Union. Some congressmen, encouraged by the clergy, introduced an antipolygamy bill. Vallandigham had no wish to defend polygamy, but he believed the bill contrary to the principle of popular sovereignty. It took considerable courage to contend that the bill, like the Lecompton Constitution, did not permit the people of the territory to control their destiny and their “domestic affairs.”25 Vallandigham’s colleagues, however, had no intention of letting Utah enter the Union until she eradicated polygamy and served a lengthy apprenticeship as a territory.
The concerned Ohio congressman also put votes and voice into the record on several other issues, none of them partisan. He opposed limiting debate, when some members sought to speed up legislation by adopting a one-hour rule on “forensic eloquence.” He also opposed abolishing the franking privilege for congressmen. He introduced a resolution declaring that Jews were entitled to the same rights given other United States citizens when traveling abroad, especially in Switzerland, and another instructing the Committee on Commerce to investigate and suppress cruelties practiced aboard American sailing ships.26 Vallandigham, it seemed, was the congenital champion of the underdog—except where rights of black men were concerned.
Late in April 1860, the legislative machinery of Congress came to a halt when most Democrats headed for Charleston, South Carolina, site of the party’s national convention. As secretary of the party’s National Committee, Vallandigham left for Charleston several days before the convention was to be called to order on April 23. He arrived in the city so proud of its colonial mansions, its shaded streets, and its azalea and magnolia gardens, to help set up committee headquarters at a convenient hotel, arrange for meeting rooms, and inspect the convention hall. While he was handing out lists of delegates to the press and conferring with the chairmen of rival delegations, visitors and accredited delegates streamed into committee headquarters, some to visit, some to complain, and some to make their gloomy predictions.
Vallandigham took time out from his duties to visit the headquarters of some of the leading candidates. Douglas had remained in Washington, but his “reception rooms” in the Mills House, one of the city’s finer hotels, were always crowded with his supporters. The Hon. William A. Richardson, Douglas’s campaign manager, greeted every caller in his gruff voice, and the place was “as lively as a molasses barrel with flies.”27 Visitors found the rooms filled with tobacco smoke, the odor of whiskey, an assortment of rumors, and stacks of Sheahan’s Life of Stephen A. Douglas.28
Vallandigham also visited the Charleston Hotel, where William L. Yancey, Alabama secessionist and prince of radicalism, had taken up residence. Earlier that year Yancey had bluntly told delegates attending a state convention that he saw no hope for the South to obtain justice “in the Union.” “The events of the last quarter of a century,” he added pessimistically, “are enough to blast hopes of every well-wisher of his country.”29 Yancey, who knew how to mix words and emotion convincingly, greeted callers, denounced Douglas, and dreamed of a Southern confederacy. Fire-eaters such as Yancey and John Slidell of Louisiana were not the only delegates who distrusted Douglas. Jesse Bright of Indiana and William Bigler of Pennsylvania had naught but scorn for the ambitious senator from Illinois. Bright and Bigler, called “Doughfaces” by Douglas’s supporters, expressed their contempt for Douglas wherever they went. It was reported that Bright had promised to stump Indiana, county by county and township by township, against Douglas if he was nominated.30
Early developments seemed to favor Douglas, nevertheless, for his detractors could not agree upon a candidate. Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia and James Guthrie of Kentucky had thrown their hats in the ring, but neither could corral much support. Both had established luxurious quarters and offered free drinks and free lunch to all comers. Hunter’s friends dispensed free wine and free advice; Guthrie’s used bonded whiskey and bland arguments. The failure of Douglas’s enemies to rally behind any one candidate led some of his spokesmen to make extravagant claims, even calling his nomination “a sure thing.” Douglas certainly was the pivotal individual at the convention. Every delegate was either for him or against him.31 Vallandigham, of course, had known for several months that every one of the forty-six Ohio delegates was pledged to Stephen A. Douglas.32
Shortly before noon on April 23, the convention delegates began to gather in Institute Hall. It was a sultry day and the delegates, newspapermen, and visitors suffered in the ninety-five degree heat. An eleven o’clock shower failed to cool the city and only increased the humidity. Perspiration gathered on the foreheads of the many reporters who took places at tables, stacked high with pads of paper and dozens of sharpened pencils. Delegates strode into the large hall, stopping to chat with friends as they sought out their allotted seats.
Vallandigham had a place on the stage. He faced a sea of delegates, alternates, influence peddlers, and convention guests—perhaps more than 3,000 in all. Some of the delegates seemed more interested in exchanging greetings or arguing with other delegates than in taking the chairs provided for them. Judge David A. Smalley of Vermont, with gavel in hand, waited impatiently at the lectern to call the meeting to order so that the convention could be organized. Vallandigham knew that many plays and operas had been staged in Institute Hall in previous years. He could hardly have guessed that no drama would effect the course of American history more than the one unfolding.
In time the Vermonter pounded his gavel menacingly, snarled for quiet, and then called the session to order. Vallandigham had helped to write the script, and events proceeded as prearranged. George W. McCook, a boyhood friend of the Dayton congressman, rose to nominate Francis B. Flourney as president pro tem. Flourney won the honor without contest, and several delegates escorted the impressive six-foot-two, 230-pound Arkansan to the platform. Then a local preacher, described as “a white-headed, red-faced, and gold-spectacled fellow,” mumbled a prayer. Next a Virginia delegate, hand-picked by the National Committee, nominated a temporary secretary. Again the nominee had no competition and won by a voice vote. It was evident that Vallandigham’s committee had planned the initial steps well.
The remainder of the first day’s session was less orderly and tested the skills of the presiding officer and his parliamentarian. Members introduced resolutions, appealed to the chair, and raised points of order as Douglas’s friends and foes matched tactics and maneuvers. Most of the afternoon’s controversy concerned the seating of the New York State delegates; two rival slates claimed the right to the state’s seats. Chairman Flourney repeatedly shouted for order, banged his gavel, and threaded his way through the parliamentary labyrinth. He closed the afternoon’s session by reading the names of delegates selected for the usual convention committees.
The pro-Douglas men lost one skirmish and won another on the second day. The Committee on Organization selected and seated Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts as the permanent chairman of the convention. The “Doughfaces” considered Cushing’s selection a tactical victory for their side. Douglas’s men, however, scored a genuine victory when the Committee on Credentials recommended that “the regular delegation” from New York be given that state’s seats.
The worst was yet to come. An impasse developed over the platform resolutions. Yancey’s Southern ultras and Douglas’s Northern supporters drew their cutlasses for a deadly struggle. The Southerners demanded a plank which would guarantee slavery in the territories. Such a plank could prevent Douglas from carrying a single Northern state in the presidential election in November. Even Vallandigham, feigning impartiality, knew that such a plank could drag him down to defeat in the congressional election. Douglas’s supporters refused to budge. Yancey, whose voice had been compared to “silvery music,” then presented the Southern ultimatum: the South must have equal rights in the territories! George E. Pugh, a close friend of Vallandigham and a United States Senator from Ohio, replied for Douglas. What Pugh lacked in polish and grace he made up in shrewdness, bluntness, and sincerity. Northern Democrats, he told Yancey and company, had worn themselves out defending Southern interests. Neither he nor his fellow Democrats of the North would give in to the ultimatum. “Gentlemen of the South,” he thundered, “you mistake us—you mistake us—we will never do it!”33
Two dozen delegates sought the floor when Pugh, flushed with indignation and wet with perspiration, resumed his seat with the Ohio delegation. Some wanted to reply to Pugh or endorse his arguments. Others wanted to make a motion to adjourn so tempers might cool and a compromise might be contrived. Some “screamed like panthers,” others “gesticulated like monkeys.” Finally a Missouri delegate who had jumped on a table and outscreamed the others gained the chairman’s attention and offered a resolution to adjourn. Cushing put the question to the noisy assemblage, ruled that the “ayes” carried the motion, pounded his gavel to signify that the day’s session had come to an end, and walked off the platform.34
Gloom and despair hung over the meeting-rooms and cloakrooms that evening. Vallandigham and a group of his friends gathered for dinner. Wine flowed freely and the diners offered toasts to party harmony. John A. Logan, a strong Douglas man from Illinois, still held hopes for a compromise, while Vallandigham, a realist this time, expressed only pessimism. With an air of gravity the Daytonian arose at the dinner table and posed as a prophet. “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed in serious mien, “if the Democratic party is dissevered in this Charleston Convention, the result will be the disruption of the Union, and one of the bloodiest civil wars on record, the magnitude of which no man can estimate. In the unity of the Democratic party, and in the Union, lies the hopes of the South and republican government.” Most of the others at the table seemed to disagree, evidently thinking that the Ohio congressman had given way to despair. Logan, less imaginative and still optimistic, dissented audibly. “Sit down, Vallandigham,” Logan advised, “and drink your wine. You are always prophesying.” Before surrendering the floor, C.L.V. retorted, “I speak earnestly because I feel deeply impressed with the truth of what I have uttered.”35
When the convention reconvened next morning, the debate over the platform continued with threats, pleas, and arguments. Dissension over parliamentary law, party and sectional aims, and national welfare continued. The presiding officer, Caleb Cushing, threatened to vacate the chair. Finally, late Saturday evening, the delegates agreed to put the platform (the minority report of the Committee on Resolutions) to a roll-call vote of the membership when the meeting reconvened on Monday.36 To the uninitiated, it looked as if the Douglas delegates had walked off with a tactical victory.
Sunday was no day of rest for the politicians assembled in Charleston. Most of the delegates went to church, undoubtedly asking God to enlighten their enemies and sanction their own convictions. South Carolina and Alabama delegates agreed to walk out of the convention if the next day’s roll-call vote approved the pro-Douglas platform.
Word of the agreement reached the hotel room where the Ohio delegation had its headquarters, casting disillusionment over these supporters of Douglas. Vallandigham, visiting the Ohio headquarters, must have thought that his prophesy, made several days earlier, would soon be fulfilled. Visitors who called found that the Ohio supply of whiskey had run out and no miracle refilled the empty barrel. Both the barrel and the apparent victory over the party platform must have sounded hollow to Douglas’s Ohio supporters.
Tension reigned as the convention delegates gathered on Monday morning, April 30. The proceedings began with the roll-call vote on the Douglas platform. The chairman announced the results of the poll: Douglas’s delegates had won, 165 to 138 votes. Soon after, Southern delegations announced their withdrawal from the convention, and Vallandigham watched as Alabama and Mississippi led the way and the delegates of five other Southern states joined the exodus. The crowd quivered “as under a heavy blow” and tears of “heartfelt sorrow” flowed down many a cheek. Some, dry-eyed, let their faces express their “grim determination.” But there were others who exhibited no sadness. William L. Yancey, who wanted the slave states to chart their own destiny, was “smiling like a bridegroom,” having seen his hopes come to pass. He had helped to break up the Democratic party. Next he would help to break up the Union.37
Vallandigham and other Douglas supporters spent a sleepless night weighing the rumors and reports which made the rounds of the hotels. The “seceders” insisted that Douglas was a hollow shell and that his supporters were unprincipled, devoted unto death to a man and the spoils of office. The seceders also announced that they intended to hold their own convention next day in the Charleston Theatre.
The rump convention, mostly Douglas men, reconvened in Institute Hall next morning. They transacted little business and waited futilely for the return of the seceders. Unable to get the necessary two-thirds vote of the 303 delegates certified for the convention, the Douglas leaders agreed to adjourn and reconvene on June 18 in Baltimore.
Vallandigham hurried back to his hotel, packed his carpetbag, and caught the next train for Washington. It was difficult for Congress to get the wheels of legislation rolling again. Vallandigham spoke a few times during the remainder of the session, but no major measures dominated the docket. As a brigadier general in the Ohio militia, he made a determined effort to have Congress appropriate more money to state militia organizations. The effort ended in failure, but he was successful in securing some tariff protection for flaxseed producers in his district.38
The wheels of legislation again ground to a halt as Republican members journeyed to Chicago to adopt a sectional platform for their party and nominate Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate. Vallandigham took a hurried trip home to appear as counsel in the celebrated Cooper Will case, to remind owners of flaxseed mills that he had served them well, to give the new editor of the Dayton Empire a pat on the back, and to express publicly his contempt for candidate Lincoln and all that the Republican party stood for. The Dayton congressman found little respect for Lincoln among his Democratic friends. Those who examined the latter’s speeches, given in his debates with Douglas two years earlier, thought he had trimmed his sails too much, depending upon the sympathies or prejudices of his audiences. One of Vallandigham’s supporters, who had read Lincoln’s speeches with care, wrote, “Lincoln is a Janus-faced old chap. Honest Old Abe is! and make no mistake.”39
C.L.V. returned to Washington for the closing weeks of the congressional session. He took time out, however, to go to Baltimore to supervise the reconvening of the Democratic National Convention. In the end, there were two separate and rival Democratic conventions in Baltimore. Douglas delegates nominated their man at one convention and Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge at the other. The party was irrevocably divided, and the schism practically assured the defeat of both Democratic nominees.
The final count showed four contestants for the presidential prize in 1860. Two—Douglas and Breckinridge—represented sectional wings of the Democratic party, while Lincoln represented the Republican party, a conglomeration of ex-Whigs, Free Soil Democrats, Know-Nothingers, and Abolitionists. The fourth candidate was John Bell of Tennessee, who had been nominated by a convention called by some conservatives and some border state leaders. These men called their loosely-knit organization the Constitutional Union party, adopted the Constitution as their platform, and bid for the votes of men willing to close their eyes to the realities of the day.
When Congress finally adjourned on June 28, Vallandigham had to stay over in Washington for several days. Congressmen sympathetic to Douglas’s candidacy had drafted the Dayton Democrat to head the National Democratic Campaign Committee. As chairman, he had to help compose an address to the people, recommend speeches of his colleagues as campaign documents, and coordinate some phases of Douglas’s campaign. His acceptance of the chairmanship was proof that his alliance with Douglas had been consummated. Early in the 1850s Vallandigham had been reluctant to accept Douglas’s leadership; in 1860 the two walked the same road, putting up signs which read “caution” and “conservatism.”
1 C.L.V. to Stanley Matthews (transcribed copy), 31 January 1850, Stanley Matthews Papers, University of North Carolina Library.
2 Dayton Daily Empire, 30 October, 21 November 1855. Vallandigham’s speech of 29 October 1855 in Dayton was later published as a pamphlet.
3 C.L.V. to Douglas, 13 June 1858, Stephen A. Douglas Papers, University of Chicago Library.
4 Dayton Daily Journal, 26 August 1858; Dayton Daily Empire, 14 October 1858.
5 Congressional Globe, 35 Cong., 2 sess., pp. 84-85, 234-36, 700-701; Dayton Daily Journal, 26 January, 7 February 1859.
6 New York Times, 8 September 1859; Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus), 8 September 1859.
7 Entry of 8 September 1859, Daniel L. Medlar, “Journal, September 1, 1859-April 30, 1862,” Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library (hereafter cited as Medlar, “Journal”); New York Times, 8, 9 September 1859.
8 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 10 September 1859; Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 8, 9 September 1859.
9 Entry of 12 October 1859, Medlar, “Journal.”
10 Emerson, quoted in Ralph R. Rusk, The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, 1949), p. 402; Lebanon Western Star, 5 December 1859; Cleveland Leader, 3 December 1859.
11 Ohio State Journal (Columbus), 22 October 1859; Cleveland Herald, 24 October 1859; Cleveland Leader, 24 October 1859; Cincinnati Daily Commercial, 22 October 1859.
12 C.L.V. to editor of the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 22 October 1859, published 29 October; entry of 3 December 1859, Medlar, “Journal.”
13 Congressional Globe, 35 Cong., 1 sess., p. 2.
14 Ibid., p. 444.
15 Ibid., Appendix, pp. 42-47. Vallandigham gave his speech on 15 December 1859.
16 Cleveland Leader, 13, 29 December 1859; Dayton Daily Journal, 16 December 1859, 18 January 1860; Dayton Daily Empire, 4 January 1860.
17 Cleveland National Democrat (n.d.), quoted in Dayton Daily Empire, 13 December 1859; anonymous letter, published in Dayton Daily Empire, 16 January 1860.
18 Congressional Globe., 36 Cong., 1 sess., p. 281.
19 Ibid., pp. 226-33, 492-93, 546. Ollinger Crenshaw, “The Speakership Contest of 1859-1860,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 29 (December 1942): 323-38, contends that Sherman’s candidacy stirred up the South and that his election might have resulted in a breakup of the Union.
20 Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 338, 348.
21 Ibid., p. 618; J. Henly Smith to Alexander H. Stephens, 30 January 1860, Alexander H. Stephens Papers, Library of Congress.
22 Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 643, 650. The selection took place on the forty-fourth ballot, nearly two months after the session convened.
23 Ibid., p. 1115; Dayton Daily Empire, 15 March 1859.
24 Dayton Daily Empire, 2 April 1860; Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 1434, 1672.
25 Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 1518, 1559.
26 Ibid., p. 1359.
27 Murat Halstead, Caucuses of 1860 (Columbus, 1860), p. 15.
28 Ibid. James W. Sheahan, editor of the Douglas-subsidized Chicago Post, wrote the campaign biography and had it published in his printing plant.
29 William L. Yancey, Speech . . . Delivered in the Democratic State Convention . . . 1860 (Charleston, 1860), p. 14.
30 Halstead, Caucuses of 1860, pp. 15-61.
31 Ibid.
32 Dayton Daily Journal, 6 January 1860.
33 Halstead, Caucuses of 1860, pp. 39-40.
34 Ibid.
35 Reported in the Dayton Daily Herald, 28 June 1871, shortly after Vallandigham’s death.
36 Halstead, Caucuses of 1860, pp. 52-61.
37 Ibid., pp. 68-87; Richmond Dispatch, 5 May 1860; entry of 2 May 1860, Medlar, “Journal.”
38 Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 1957-58, 1983.
39 Entry of 14 June 1860, Medlar, “Journal.”