USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume II > Part 3
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Earlier, however, in 1848, it was the emergence of the Free Soil Party which threatened the position of both the Whigs and the Demo- crats. The latter divided on the issue of slavery in February, 1849. One faction held to the view that ". .. Congress has no power . .. to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states. ."4 The other contended that the party should attempt to win back . Free Soilers by incorporating the provisions of the Wilmot Proviso in the Democratic platform. Democratic embarrassment was complete in
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THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
1849 when John Niles, one of the founders of the party in Connecticut, announced his willingness to run on the Free Soil ticket.4ª With the passing of Andrew Jackson, the Whigs had lost some of the political cohesiveness supplied by that popular hero, and, when the party re-
(Courtesy Mills Coll., Conn. State Lib.)
NORTH CANTON-POST OFFICE, BUILT IN 1800
nounced the Wilmot Proviso in 1848, some of its number, too, fell from the ranks of the party and joined the Free Soilers. Although the Free Soil party was not successful in naming a Governor, it frequently held the balance of power in political contests.
On local issues the Free Soilers were apparently motivated by political expediency, but they were steadfast in their opposition to the extension of slavery. The 3,000 votes John Niles polled in 1849 forced the selection of a Governor into the General Assembly. That year the
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
Whig candidate, Joseph Trumbull, was named Governor. The next year, when once again the choice was up to the Assembly, a Free Soiler- Democratic coalition resulted in the selection of the Democrat, Thomas H. Seymour. The parties could not agree, however, on a successor to Senator Roger S. Baldwin, whose term was to expire. Baldwin, a Whig, in the opinion of the Free Soilers was not sufficiently strong in his op- position to slavery. The Democrats, on the other hand, who would have accepted Baldwin, would not consider sending a Free Soiler to the national Congress. The schism resulted in a postponement of the election for a year and meant that Baldwin would remain in office until 1850. More significantly, Democratic willingness to accept Baldwin in- dicated that a degree of Free Soil sentiment prevailed among those not formally aligned with the party.5
Webster's Seventh of March speech in support of the Compromise of 1850 raised consternation in the minds of the Connecticut Whigs. It is not clear, however, whether the concern was because of the principle or because of the possible effect. Mrs. Baldwin, in writing to her hus- band, deplored the fact that reaction to Webster's speech might cause numbers to turn to the Free Soilers and the Democrats of the state. The opposition was quick to attempt to take advantage of this apparent de- fection from opposition to slavery in the ranks of northern Whigs.6
The resolution adopted by the General Assembly in March, 1850, supported the Compromise provision for the elimination of slave trade in the District of Columbia and supported the abolition of slavery there. Instead of accepting the principle of squatter sovereignty, the resolution opposed the extension of slavery into the territories and the admission of new slave states. Whereas the Compromise called for a stricter fugitive slave law, the Connecticut Assembly had proposed that Congress pass legislation to prevent the illegal seizure of any person as a fugitive slave. The question of consistency here hung on the word "illegal." Senator Baldwin interpreted the resolution as support for the Compromise. When speaking to friends the following December, he stated that although he had stated that he, himself, could not support the Compromise, he felt authorized "by the nearly unanimous resolu- tion of the General Assembly to declare in behalf of the people of Con- necticut that they were prepared to adhere to and abide by all the
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THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
compromises of the constitution to the letter and in the spirit of the same."7 Implicit in the Connecticut resolution, however, was a con- viction that any seizure of a person as a slave was illegal. It would fol- low that any enabling legislation would be unconstitutional, and this would permit the obstruction of the law without the sacrifice of legal- ist convictions.
The Churchmen based their position on the existence of a higher law, an absolute law. The Congregational organ, The Independent, was utilized to advise disobedience to an evil law and to contend that this would be true to the teachings of Puritans and nonconformists as well as to the teaching of the apostles. Fugitives were advised to avoid violence, but to prepare for defense. In the event of capture, it was sug- gested that fugitives join some secret society of fugitives before leaving the north and render themselves of less than no value to their masters on their return. Disobedience was presented as obedience to God rather than to man in conformity with a "higher law." When those who supported the fugitive slave law replied that they knew "of no higher law, as a rule of political action, than the Constitution of the United States," Leonard Bacon held steadfastly to the position that "the con- science rules supreme." "We may yield obedience to the Constitution though it deprive us of our rights," he said, "but not when it violates our duty." Bacon's position was given greater weight because he had opposed William Lloyd Garrison, which gave an illusion of modera- tion to his position. The clergy, however, had, in fact, assumed a more radical position.8
Apparently, the ministers spoke only for a minority of Connecti- cut's citizenry in 1850. There were economic interests in the state, in- surance companies and carriage manufacturers, who were loath to per- mit social issues or political action to interfere with their lucrative southern markets. The Democrats, in their state convention in Feb- ruary, 1851, resolved that they had no sympathy "with those who to evade the constitution appealed to a higher law" and reaffirmed their support of the fugitive slave law.8ª The Whigs, who desired to prevent discord within their own ranks, went no farther than to request a modification of the fugitive slave law, while recognizing the provisions of the constitution as obligatory and binding. The day had not yet come
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
when Connecticut citizens would forsake their separate political al- legiances and join in force against the "peculiar institution."8b
Temperance assumed a greater importance in Connecticut life in the period before 1854 than did slavery. The defense of regulation by the temperance leaders of the thirties had developed into an advocacy of prohibition. Senator Baldwin was warned in 1850 that, because he served wine, it would be impossible for him to be elected to any office in Connecticut.º The prohibitionists eschewed direct party action and sought, instead, to commit the established parties to their principles. When, in June 1851, Maine passed its law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages for other than medicinal purposes, the temperance question reached new heights.10 A state wide temper- ance convention, which met in March 1852 and was attended by from four to five hundred persons, endorsed the Whig candidates, when the head of their ticket pledged himself to sign a law similar to the Maine Law if it were passed by the Assembly. No temperance man, the conven- tion held, could support the Democratic candidate, Thomas H. Sey- mour, who refused to respond to a request to identify his position on the liquor issue.11 The election returns indicated that the Democrats had judged the wishes of the constituency correctly. For the first time in three years, the Democrats elected their candidate for Governor by popular vote and gained control of both houses of the General Assem- bly by large majorities. The Democrats held to the principle that pro- hibition violated the principles of individual liberty. The response of the electorate again in 1853 indicated that this principle would not be renounced until other issues obscured it. Connecticut began its ten year experiment with prohibition in 1854, although several dissenting persons laid in a long term supply and the Hartford Times lamented the banishment of everything "stronger than molasses and water."12
Concurrently with the temporary solution of the temperance is- sue, another equally divisive matter of social concern was being de- bated. The increased number of Irish immigrants gave point to the anti-Catholic, anti-foreign sentiment within the state. The attempt to organize a nativist party had subsided in 1848, but anti-foreign senti- ment persisted.13 Some regarded Catholicism a threat to Yankee Puri- tanism. Leonard Bacon, in a sermon to the American Home Missionary
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THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Society, in 1850, viewed the Catholics as hostile to "all that we value for ourselves, or hope to have in behalf of our children." Others under- stood that the main challenge was the assimilation of the new stock into Connecticut's culture.14 The poverty of the immigrant was the chief point of attack. Although the census of 1850 shows that only 281 of the 1,464 paupers supported in Connecticut by the state were of for- eign birth, the Courant maintained that they were sapping the re- sources of the state. The foreign-born were concentrated in the larger towns, and, it is true, many of them were forced to seek relief when there was wide unemployment during the winter months of 1854. The Courant reported that $2,000 of a $3,800 charitable fund raised in Hartford was given to Irish families. On the other hand, the Times pointed out that the Irish would make good citizens and were a valuable addition to the labor force. "Our railroads and canals are due not less to the bone and sinew of Irishmen, than to the capital and enterprise of Americans."15 The increasing number of immigrants projected them into the state's politics.
Opposition to anti-foreign sentiment developed to parallel the articulation of antagonism. During the state campaign in 1852, the Courant, previously nativist, attacked the Democrats of New Hampshire for endorsing a religious test for office holding.15a Each party attempted to hang a nativist tag on the principal opposing candidate, Winfield Scott or Franklin Pierce. The Irish, in particular, were wooed, and attention, for the first time, was paid to the German vote in the state. The success of the Democrats in both the state and national elections was attributed, in contemporary opinion, to the foreign vote. Shortly after the election of Pierce, the Courant noted that one of the causes of the Whigs' defeat was "the steady increase in the Democratic vote for the last ten years, principally from the accession of naturalized citi- zens."16 Three years after the election, a nativist wrote that previous political successes had depended upon the foreign vote which held the balance of political power.17
In any case, the Whigs suffered in the campaign of 1852. In Con- necticut, Pierce polled only a plurality of 3,000 votes out of the total of 63,000 cast in the state; the Whigs were routed on a national level. Webster's Seventh of March speech had embarrassed the party, and the
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
serious defections which had developed because of the fugitive slave law were revealed in the elections of 1850 and 1851.18 The clergy had to a great extent forsaken the Whigs for the Free Soil Party which stood for prohibition and clearly opposed the Fugitive Slave Law.19 In 1852, the Whigs, still to be reckoned with on the state level, had sought to im- prove their position by purging the party of all previous nominees who were committed to the support of legislation to parallel the Maine pro- hibition law. Henry Dutton of New Haven was chosen to head the ticket and was instructed to give no pledges on temperance. The re- election of the Democrat, Thomas H. Seymour, did not come as a surprise, but the loss of about 8,000 votes by the Whigs revealed the serious condition of the party.20 The Whigs were never again to be an effective political force, but they found common ground upon which to unite with other parties against the Democrats when Stephen A. Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in January, 1854.
Congregational ministers, under the leadership of Leonard Bacon, sparked a great moral crusade. "In the name of millions .. . as he would answer to his fellow men and to his God," Bacon implored Isaac Toucey, a Democratic Senator from Connecticut who supported the bill, "to consider the enormity of the political crime he was committing in furthering this bill."21 Bacon held an enthusiastic audience for two hours in New Haven and then stumped the nearby towns. In Hartford, Horace Bushnell "advocated resistance even to the point of revolu- tion."22 The Independent carried repeated editorials, and a memorial from 3,000 New England ministers was forwarded to Washington in protest to the measure.23
The slavery question, which had shared importance with other issues, if, indeed, it had not been obscured by them, in the period 1850 to 1854, surged to the fore as the most important political issue of the period. The political effects of the issue, as pin-pointed by the Kansas- Nebraska bill, were far reaching. It provided the final blow to the Whig Party, contributed to the split within the Democratic Party, provided a base for the rise of the Republican Party.24
The immediate effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was the division which it forced in the Democratic Party. While avoiding a resolution which forthrightly expressed opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
I
(Courtesy Conn. Devel. Comm.)
NEW HAVEN
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
the Democratic Party, at its meeting in Hartford, expressed its confi- dence that the existing legislation was best suited to maintain and per- petuate the union. When the campaign opened, anti-Nebraska meetings were held throughout the state. Because of his support of the Bill, Isaac Toucey was hung in effigy in the state's cities, as Democrats joined with Whigs and Free Soilers in the demonstrations. The Free Soilers were quick to convert the moral question to political advantage. With ap- parent deliberateness, one campaigner wrote that he would "hold a meeting in Hartford in the evening on the moral aspects of slavery" and on a subsequent evening "would make a strong Anti-Nebraska, Anti-Administration Free Democrat talk ... [sic]."25 The Kansas- Nebraska Bill provided to the Whigs, Free Soilers, and Prohibitionists a common cause. The Democrats were aware that the coalition might throw the election into the Assembly and encouraged loyalty to the party in voting for members of the legislature. Samuel Ingham, the Democratic candidate, scored sizable victories over each of the other candidates. However, he failed to receive a majority of the total vote. The coalition parties had gained a preponderant majority in both houses, and the General Assembly named Henry Dutton, the Whig, to office.26
The far-reaching social and political implications involved were realized only gradually as the issue continued to agitate the coun- try and to be coupled persistently to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.27 In its May session, the General Assembly responded to the Governor's request and condemned the legislation, censured Isaac Toucey, and indicated that Connecticut did not mean to submit to the Kansas- Nebraska Act. The Assembly proceeded to pass legislation intended to render the Fugitive Slave Law inoperative. This "Act for the Defense of Liberty in this State" provided that "any person, who shall falsely and maliciously pretend that any free person is a slave, intending to remove him from Connecticut, shall pay a fine of $5,000 and be im- prisoned five years in the State Prison."28 The burden of proof of slavery was placed upon the claimant, who was required, in addition to any other evidence, to produce two witnesses in court to identify the person as a slave. The Assembly, knowing that free negroes had been captured and sold into slavery and that false claims had been made to secure
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THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
rewards, had enacted legislation which established a presumption in favor of the freedom of every colored person in Connecticut.
This same political body which championed human freedom passed a law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors. The fervour of moral crusaders was then channelled into a new party, the Know Nothings, as attention turned to nativism, which was anti- foreign and anti-Catholic. The party was non-committal on the slavery question and even suspect to charges of being pro-slavery in effect, yet in spite of the anti-slavery spirit of Connecticut the party grew rapidly.29 This party, which was devoted to excluding all but native born Protes- tants from public office, was begun in Connecticut in 1853. It exerted no apparent influence in the state election of 1854, but attracted atten- tion in the Summer of that year when Chauncey Jerome, the clock- maker, polled 70 per cent of the vote in the race for Mayor of New Haven and led a Know Nothing ticket to achieve domination of the city council. In short order, the Know Nothings captured the local governments in 20 towns and, by an artful arrangement with the Whigs, exercised effective control in 28 others.30 Political ears turned toward Hartford as time approached for its city election. There was such a profusion of political sympathies, such shading of political in- terests, such cutting of party tickets, that the political principles en- dorsed by the success of the elected candidates were not easily discern- ible. It was clear, however, that the Democratic control of Hartford had been superseded by that of a coalition dominated by the Know Noth- ings. These local successes inevitably suggested the possibility of success in a state election.31
Politicians who measured a political party by its ability to attract votes, saw in this anti-foreign, but otherwise loosely committed, organi- zation an opportunity for political success. The party principles were general enough to attract elements of the Temperance, Free Soil, and Whig groups. Leaders, practised in Connecticut politics, such as Wil- liam Minor, Charles Dutton, and James Dixon, eagerly made their knowledge available to the new party in order to ride on its crest of enthusiasm. State meetings in November 1854 and February 1855 solidified the organization and explored the possible nominees for the gubernatoral campaign in 1855. The strength of the party was indicated
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
by the report that there were 20,000 members in its 169 lodges in the state. As the Courant remarked on the eve of the election, the party was "making sweeping headway."32
The only success of the Know Nothing Party in Connecticut was in the election of 1855. The five parties, the Democrats, Whigs, Free Soilers, Know Nothings, and Temperance, nominated or endorsed three candidates. Samuel Ingham reversed his decision not to run and led the Democrats against mounting opposition. The Know Nothings chose an established Whig, William T. Minor, who was, also, endorsed by the Temperance Party. The remnants of the Whig Party split on the desira- bility of joining with the Know Nothings, but the diehards insisted that the independence of the Party should be maintained and proposed the nomination of Henry Dutton. Dutton, himself, symbolized the close- ness of the two parties. Previous to the selection of Minor, Dutton had been reported as the choice of the Know Nothings. In fact, he had to resign from their secret order to campaign for the Whigs. The Whigs and Know Nothings supported the same Congressional candidates and for the most part the same candidates for the state legislature. The Democratic candidates for Congress were defeated and Ingham did not secure a clear majority. He received 27,000 votes, of which it was esti- mated that 7,000 were cast by Whigs who disapproved of their party's stand on prohibition. Minor, the Know Nothing candidate, was elected Governor by the coalition forces in the General Assembly.33
All other issues in the 1855 session of the Assembly were sub- ordinated to the single all-important question of nativism. The As- sembly maintained a timorous attitude toward the slavery issue. Action was confined to a reiteration of opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and to a request for repeal or modification of the Fugitive Slave Law. Efforts to secure a more forceful resolution failed. In response to the Governor's request "to restore our government to its primitive purity,"34 the legislators required that each church property be held by an individual congregation. This voided the practice of the Catholic church's holding land in its own right or through its canonical system of land holding by the Bishops. Laws forbidding state courts to naturalize aliens and a proposed amendment to the constitution to limit suffrage to those able to read and write completed anti-alien legislation. After
1450879
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THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
the Assembly adjourned and despite the protest of the Adjutant Gen- eral, the Governor extended the anti-foreign action by disbanding six foreign regiments in the state militia. The literacy test was accepted by the people by a vote of 17,657 to 12,816 and was formally proclaimed as a part of the state's constitution in November of the same year.35
The equivocal position of the Know Nothings on the slavery issue was the beginning of the end of the national party. In an effort to buttress the party against anti-slavery commitments, there had been approved at a national convention in Cincinnati, in November, 1854, a so-called Union Decree, which called for its candidates to pledge an unswerving loyalty to the Union. It was a "bid for the conservative element of the nation," but was interpreted by the anti-slavery forces as evidence of southern domination.36 When the national delegates met in Philadelphia the following June, the slavery issue could not be re- pressed, and when, after days of wrangling, the convention accepted the pro-slavery plank of the platform committee, the anti-slavery forces of the North, including the Connecticut delegation, seceded from the convention. Their action, applauded by the Courant and supported by the State Council of the party, forced a redefinition of the party's posi- tion.37
The tenets of the national party were modified in the light of Con- necticut opinion prior to the 1856 campaign. The new articulation of an anti-slavery stand gained, no doubt, some new adherents. At the same time, it would seem, the position cost some of the support of those Whigs who were intent on maintaining their economic ties with the South. The unpopularity of the intolerant anti-foreign legislation of 1855 was indicated when the Know Nothings were turned out of office in city elections in Norwich and New Haven. The party now expressed itself in favor of states' rights, and opposed the extension of slavery in the territories, taking the stand that "slavery is sectional, but freedom is national." The party continued to express its opposition to Catholicism, but abandoned its anti-foreign position and called for new laws concerning immigration and naturalization.38 In his analysis of the party, Noonan contended that it had always been essentially anti- Catholic rather than anti-foreign, it being the Catholicism of the foreigners to which the party objected.39 On this premise it would be in-
(Courtesy Conn. Devel. Comm.)
BRIDGEPORT
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THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
correct to conclude that the party had abandoned its basic and original principles.
As the returns from the Fall elections came in, it was clear that the trend against the Know Nothings had not been checked. Only 32 towns were reported by the Times as having returned Know Nothing candi- dates to office, while 41 had placed Democrats in charge of local affairs. Another 29 towns chose town officials of varying political sympathies. It was asserted in the papers that "the party would fuse with anyone to snatch votes."40 This evident disillusionment on the part of some with the Know Nothings and the bitter opposition of others to the national administration provided a vacuum giving room for the emergence of a new party.
The establishment of the Republican Party in Connecticut had been delayed by the success of the Know Nothing Party. Almost two years elapsed between the founding of the national party in 1854 and the public meeting in Hartford in February, 1856 called "to take into consideration the present exigencies in political affairs, and preliminary to the formation of a Republican Party in the State of Connecticut, to cooperate with the Republican movement in other states."41 The Republican Party was born out of the opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories which was possible under the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The Party did not coalesce as a political unit until the Free Soilers, Whigs, and Know Nothings became shipwrecked upon the shoals of their own political expediency and the Democratic Party disrupted by the slavery issue.42 Even then the dissolution of the power of these parties was slow, and Republican success was not immediate.
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