USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 35
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The real quality of their partisanship is rather clearly illus- trated in the Cilley episode. Jonathan Cilley was a Democrat representing this district in the Federal Congress. In the winter of 1838, he was killed by Representative Graves of Kentucky in a duel which he did not initiate and in which he participated with great reluctance. The reaction in Maine was one of horror to this murderous episode. In the Town Meeting of early March, this crime was condemned and justice was demanded. Some of the local dons on a committee of resolutions were able to speak their horror in early March and later in the month condemn Mr. Cilley forth- rightly in a partisan manifesto attacking the dead man as "a thor- ough going loco-foco Jacksonite ... " and calling on the district to elect a Whig, "who utterly condemns the barbarous practice of thus sacrificing human life, and who will not leave the business for which we elect him, and spend his time quarreling with any- body." Signed: George D. Smouse, Henry Kennedy, James Hovey, John Currier, Jr., George Sproul, Isaac Reed, Joseph Clark, B. B. Haskell, W. H. Barnard, and others.3 In the ensuing election of April 2nd the Waldoboro Whigs gave their congressional candi- date a vote of 446 to 203 for John D. McCrate, his Democratic opponent. The rest of the district went Democratic, as did Maine down to the Civil War, always faithful to Jackson. Despite the
3Reed papers in possession of Dr. Benj. Kinsell, Dallas, Texas, Dated Mar. 24, 1838.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
fact that sympathy for the murdered Cilley swelled the Demo- cratic vote, the Reed machine in Waldoboro gave its candidate better than a two to one majority.
The 1837 gubernatorial election in Maine was an interesting one. It was one of the few occasions when the conservatives of the state were able to put their man into office in a popular election. The Whig candidate was Edward Kent of Bangor, a man with a Federalist background, and his Democratic opponent was Colonel Gorham Parks, likewise of Bangor. Colonel Parks was a former citizen of Waldoboro who had come to the town in the second decade of the century and later moved to Bangor. He had been prominent in the town as a friend and close collaborator of Colonel Isaac G. Reed. The Lincoln Patriot (Waldoboro) engaged in a controversy with the Kennebec Journal over Colonel Park's po- litical affiliations of that period. The Journal sensed strong Fed- eralist activity and alleged a speech attacking Jefferson and Madi- son. When challenged by the Patriot to quote anything from the oration it replied: "How valiant when he [the correspondent] knows that the oration was not published and that its author kept it snugly locked up in the bottom of his desk."4 The Journal was correct, for an examination of the town records reveals Colonel Parks as a Federalist during his period in Waldoboro. His earlier local connections and his friendship with the Reed family, how- ever, netted him little. In fact, a man could not be in the opposite party and at the same time a friend of Isaac Reed. In the ensuing election the Reed machine really functioned, for in the town Kent, the Whig, polled 405 votes to 174 for Parks, the Democrat. Kent was elected in the state by a majority of 479 votes, a sub- stantial part of which was cast by the Waldoboro Whigs.
During the period from Jackson to the Civil War, state and national elections in the state were very close, so close in fact, that Reed's feudal phalanx of voters could swing a state election and come close to deciding the issue of the state's electoral vote in a national contest. This fact made young Isaac Reed a real political force, and his support was eagerly courted, since it could mean the crucial difference between defeat and victory. This fact is plainly revealed in the state and national elections of 1840, when the Whig candidate for governor carried the state by a majority of thirty-seven votes, and the Whig presidential candidate, Gen- eral William Henry Harrison, won by a margin of 411 votes. The Waldoboro vote was Edward Kent, 520, John Fairfield, 235 in the state election, and in the national election the town gave Harrison 504 votes to 247 for Van Buren. In these cases the local vote was rather decisive both on the state and national levels.
4Kennebec Journal, Aug. 16, 1837.
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The Climax of Partisanship
The consistently conservative character of the town through these decades, as from the beginning of its political life in the Republic, was entirely out of line with the other towns in the county and state. This fact could be illustrated from nearly any election. That of 1856 will serve the purpose. Here John C. Fre- mont was the Presidential candidate of the new Republican Party (liberal) and James Buchanan the candidate of the Democrats (conservative). The vote follows and is typical of almost any nineteenth century election in this area:5
Fremont
Buchanan
Bristol
301
190
Damariscotta
201
76
Edgecomb
133
69
Newcastle
305
59
Nobleboro
183
90
Wiscasset
206
190
Waldoboro
282
536
Especially in those elections where Isaac Reed was himself a candidate, did the fealty of "the Dutch" manifest itself in over- whelming fashion. In 1850, for example, when Reed was a candi- date for Congress, the Waldoboro vote stood 622 for Reed to 170 for his opponent, Charles Andrews. Even though Reed never got to Congress via a public election, he did possess strength in the fact that he could use his strong local majorities for bar- gaining purposes and thus secure preference for appointive posi- tions. Thus it was that in 1852 he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States House of Representatives, and on other occa- sions he reached desirable public office in the same manner.
Just about the time that Isaac Reed was reaching the peak of his political power locally, large issues were being born which were destined to thwart his ever playing a larger role in the affairs of state or nation. The slavery issue, simmering for years, became acute in the 1850's. It split the Democratic Party and annihilated the Whigs. Through their entire history as a political organization the latter had been a party of expediency, never possessing nor implementing a constructive program, and inter- ested only in capturing office. The last national election in which they figured was that of 1852, in which, as Woodrow Wilson points out, "the Whig delegates ... put aside the statesmen of their party, as so often before, and nominated General Winfield Scott."6 They met a crushing defeat, polling only 42 electoral votes. In the same year Waldoboro gave its Isaac Reed 595 votes for Congress to 89 for William K. Kimball, his opponent. In the
5Bath Daily Sentinel, Nov. 5, 1856.
"Division and Reunion, p. 178.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Presidential election in November the town gave Scott 535 votes to 295 for his Democrat opponent, Franklin Pierce, again illus- trating its die-hard conservatism in an election in which its candi- date carried only four states.
The Whig movement was dying a lingering death, and, as so often in the past, the Reeds politically were men without a coun- try, and Waldoboro with its feudal machine was a political anom- aly in the state. But just as his father before him had stayed with Federalism so did Isaac Reed remain and function as a Whig until there was no party left. Down to 1855 the Whig Party in Maine went through the motions. It met in convention in Port- land, June 29, 1854. Isaac Reed represented the conservative wing and Noah Smith of Calais, a strong anti-slavery man, represented that small portion of the party not yet dead. On the first ballot for governor each man received 210 votes. On the second ballot Reed was nominated, receiving 288 votes to 267 for Smith. In the campaign which followed Reed was described as a man of 'probity and property." In the election the town responded as usual to the Reed candidacy. He received 546 votes to 81 for Albion K. Parris, and 106 for Anson P. Morrill. Since no candi- date received a majority in the state the election went to the Legislature. When the House met in January it gave Reed 115 votes and Morrill 106. These two names were sent to the Senate and within ten minutes that body unanimously chose Morrill, the first Republican Governor of Maine.
The fortunes of the Whig Party continued to sink. In the state election of 1855, the remnant of the party, the Straight Whigs as they were known, held a convention and nominated Isaac Reed for governor. He polled 10,610 votes. Again there was no majority and the election went to the Legislature. The House sent up to the Senate the names of Samuel Wells of Portland, Democrat, and Isaac Reed, Whig. The Senate elected Wells with two Whig Senators voting for him. The Whigs, however, re- ceived their reward, and their candidate, Isaac Reed, was appointed State Treasurer. The town vote in this election was Isaac Reed 644, Samuel Wells 130, and Anson P. Morrill 106. Despite the near demise of this conservative party, Waldoboro, as ever, stood firm in its ancient feudal discipline.
The 1840's and 50's was a period of party break-up with a very general dissolution of old ties. National life was filled with new isms. The Whig Party died because it represented nothing, because it had constant recourse to expediency and straddled on every issue that contained dynamite. The Democratic Party split on the slavery issue, the Southern element taking a pro-slavery view, and the northern Democrats splitting into two sections: the anti-slavery faction or "Barnburners," and the laissez-faire faction
313
The Climax of Partisanship
or "Hunkers." The term "barnburners," bestowed on the radical wing of the party, originated among the New York Democrats and came from a figure much used on political platforms at that time, the story of a Dutchman who burned his barn to get rid of the rats.
The term "loco-foco" was also applied to this radical wing of the party. It also originated among the New York Democrats back in the 1830's, and was first applied to a radical wing of the New York Democrats who dissented strongly from the fiscal poli- cies of Andrew Jackson. These men, at a party caucus in New York City in 1835, had provided themselves with candles and the new "loco-foco" matches in order to thwart the conservatives who turned off their gas. Down to the Civil War the term was used to characterize the radical wing of the Democratic Party. It became a rather opprobrious label and one freely used by the Waldoboro conservatives. The term "hunker" was used with equal relish by the radicals to stigmatize the noncommittal wing of the party, or those who favored going along with the South on the slavery issue. Lastly, these years witnessed the birth of a new party, the Republican, anti-slavery in its aim, and formed largely from in- dependent elements in the Whig and Democratic parties.
This political break-up had marked repercussions in Waldo- boro, since it forced a realignment of the old village dons, even though it did not affect in any appreciable way Isaac Reed's well-disciplined horde, which had no political views or principles. It simply did what it was told to do in any given election, but for the first time in local history a deep fissure opened up in the solidly conservative class of village leaders. Joseph Clark became a Republican. General William Corcoran after long years of fealty to Isaac Reed likewise joined the "Black Legs." General Henry Kennedy, very sensitive to moral issues, became an anti-slavery Democrat or loco-foco.
Remaining faithful to Isaac Reed and willing to follow him whither he went was his half-brother, George D. Smouse, and John H. Kennedy, his first lieutenant, faithful to the end. But Isaac Reed politically was in an awkward position; his party was gone and he had nowhere to go. Under the circumstances he did exactly what anyone could predict, to wit, joined the most conservative political group in the field, the pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party, the Hunkers. Into this new group there came with him some of the Waldoboro shipbuilders, whose ves- sels were the cotton-carriers and whose economic interests, as construed by them, lay with the conservative Southern Democracy.
The line of cleavage among the Waldoboro Democrats had existed for some time. The "Custom House Party" had formed the nucleus of the regulars, and the anti-slavery Democrats known
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
as Loco-focos made up the dissidents. Among the latter, much to Isaac Reed's chagrin, was his own brother, William, politically the black sheep of the Reed family. A glimpse of this cleavage and the struggle it engendered is furnished in a brief comment from a letter of Isaac's to his brother, Charles, in Boston, under date of August 12, 1846. "William [the brother] has gone to a Loco Convention at Wiscasset today to nominate County officers and a candidate for Member of Congress. The Locos had quite a con- test for delegates; the anti-Custom House party prevailed. William, Alfred Storer and someone else were chosen."
The rise of the Republican Party in Maine was a rapid one. It was made up of anti-slavery Democrats, Whigs and Independent Democrats. Political ferment and straddling on the slavery issue had been going on in the old parties so long and had occasioned such disgust, that from the very beginning the new party in state and town secured powerful and experienced leadership from dis- sident Democrats and Whigs. By the time of its first presidential election the Republicans in the town were well organized and had both the vigor and boldness to decorate the town house on election day with a Fremont and Dayton flag, a symbol of oppo- sition that had not been seen in the Reed bailiwick since anyone could remember. The Republicans in the state were successful in the national election and carried the state for Fremont with a majority in excess of 27,000.
This election had represented a short period of indecision for Isaac Reed. He realized that his Whig Party was gone and as yet he had not firmly cemented his connection with any other group. Consequently the state election of September 1856 saw him exercising reserve with reference to the greater part of the field of party candidates. In the town the last Whig candidate for governor, George S. Patten, received 424 votes, the Democrat, Samuel Wells, 240 votes and the Republican, Hannibal Hamlin, 298 votes. For Congress there were but two candidates. The Democrat, Henry Ingalls, who received the full support of the Reed machine, polled 662 votes to 296 for his Republican opponent, Nehemiah Abbott. For the office of County Attorney, Reed brought out a vote of 673 for his old and trusted lieutenant, John H. Kennedy, while his Republican opponent, Elijah Vose, polled 290 votes. For representative to the Legislature, Edgar Day, now a lukewarm Whig, received 543 votes to 113 for S. S. Marble, Democrat, and 296 for William Storer, a recent Republican. At this time of loose allegiance to any party cause there was one thing that Reed would not do, and that was to allow a single vote from his machine to go to any Republican. It was in this election that the Republican Party scored its highest vote in the town any
315
The Climax of Partisanship
time prior to the 1860's. In the later elections preceding the Civil War the Reed machine really got going again and the Republican vote shrank appreciably.
This period was not only one of indecision for Isaac Reed, but one of bargaining in which he could use his power at the polls for favors to himself and friends. In the presidential election of November, 1856, it was the Democrat, Buchanan, against the Re- publican, Fremont, an election in which for the first time some of the village notables parted political company with Mr. Reed. Among these was General William S. Corcoran, a staunch Whig, and for years one of Reed's right bowers. The General now be- came a Republican and even campaigned against Buchanan, say- ing of him in a Bangor speech: "Long ago we Whig mechanics7 used to be pointed to James Buchanan as the most obnoxious man of the modern sham democracy in the eyes of the American working men, as the man who thought our wages should be re- duced to the European of ten cents a day."
Reed's support for Buchanan was apparently solicited, and in view of the defection of influential men in the village to the Republican Party, he was asked if he could carry Waldoboro for Buchanan. His sure and scornful answer was: "I own them." These are significant words, for they reveal the power of his influence over the great mass of the town's voters, who placed Isaac Reed's orders before any possible personal convictions of their own. Whether this answer be real, as alleged, or apocryphal, it conforms to the facts, for the town gave Buchanan a vote of 536 to 282 for the Republican, John C. Fremont. Was there a quid pro quo? There seems to have been, for on his election Buchanan made but one Whig appointment in the state and this was Reed's faithful ally, John H. Kennedy, appointed to the Col- lector of Customs in the Waldoboro district, at this time a large, important, and remunerative post.
This election and this appointment seems to have completed the allegiance of Isaac Reed to the Hunker wing of the Democratic Party. Thereafter there was no sign of a shadow of turning, and the Democratic vote in Waldoboro elections followed a sharp crescendo down through 1860, while the Republican vote shrank correspondingly.
The year 1858 brought a distinguished visitor to the town. In late August, Jefferson Davis, then Senator from Mississippi and later President of the Confederate States, arrived in town on a tour of the northeastern states. His visit is ascribed by some local historians to presidential aspirations, but this is highly improbable, although none of his reputable biographers seem clear as to the
"The General had a sail loft in Waldoboro.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
real motive of the northern trip. In reality, it was probably an effort on his part to assess the strength of the Abolition movement in strong anti-slavery territory, and to gauge the temper of the North with a view of calculating just how far it would go in backing the program of the Abolitionists. In Waldoboro he was certainly in friendly territory, for distinguished citizens, the later Copperheads, vied in doing him honor. Mr. Davis was dressed in the typical Southern style of that period and was voluble, per- suasive, and impressive. He was entertained by Mr. John H. Ken- nedy in his fine brick house on Friendship Road. Mr. Kennedy's new chaise was used in driving the visitor around the town - the same chaise that a few years later in the war years, was taken from the stable and burned by the enrollees of the Twenty-first Maine regiment.
The gala event of Mr. Davis' visit was a dinner given in his honor at the home of the Honorable Isaac Reed, Mr. Reed's home being on the site of the present Waldo Theater. Mr. Davis had known Mr. Reed in Congress. The latter was now a fellow demo- crat and the two men saw pretty much eye to eye on all national issues. After the dinner was served the ladies withdrew and the gentlemen were left with their cigars, their wine, and their talk. After a long evening in which the wine had its effects, Mr. Davis rose to leave, and it was at this point that the Confederacy nearly lost its future President. On the south wall of the dining room there were two doors side by side, the one leading to the front hall and the front door and the other into the cellar. As Mr. Davis was bowing himself out for the night, he opened the wrong door and backed into the cellar. Just as he was about to lose his balance his host noting the situation caught his arm in a firm grip and rescued the Southern statesman from near disaster.8
The visit of Mr. Davis seems to have quickened the Reed machine to a more vigorous support of the conservative Demo- crats, for in the remaining elections before the Civil War never did the organization display more power. In each succeeding elec- tion its vote became more and more overwhelming, and reached its peak in the election of September 1860. In this contest the dangerously acute slavery issue seems to have brought the Reed vote to the zenith of its power, for never before in its history had it functioned so sweepingly and so masterfully. The total vote polled was 969, and 729 of these were cast by the Reed machine. Allowing for the defection of some of the old village supporters this was truly a remarkable record, and it illustrates in the clearest possible way the degree of control which Isaac Reed exercised over the rank and file vote of the town - a ratio very close to 7
8Oral tradition from Mary Clark, grandmother of Maude Clark Gay.
317
The Climax of Partisanship
to 2. It is indeed doubtful if its counterpart has ever existed in any other town in the state.
The Presidential election of November 1860 in Waldoboro is something of a mystery. In a contest fraught with such terrific consequences a record vote would have been the order of things. It is surprising then that the vote in the town was the lightest in forty years, whereas the state vote was the largest in its history. There were four candidates in the field. A Constitutional Union Party, made up largely of old Whigs, nominated John Bell of Tennessee. At the Democratic Convention held in Charleston, April 23, 1860, there was a battle between Stephen A. Douglas, advocating popular sovereignty, and the extreme pro-slavery men supporting Dred-Scottism. The Convention adopted a minority report promising "to abide by any future decision of the Supreme Court as regards slavery in the territories," whereupon the dele- gates from seven states in the deep South left the Convention. Those remaining balloted fifty-seven times without nominating a candidate and then adjourned to Baltimore.
Here there was another bolting faction and those remaining nominated Stephen A. Douglas, while the bolting faction nomi- nated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, an action that was rati- fied by those originally bolting from the Charleston Convention. Which way would the cat jump in the election? This was a question which plainly bothered Isaac Reed. Hence he did not commit himself. In other words, his vote did not come out. The Republican vote in the town was also at a rather low ebb, Abra- ham Lincoln polling 227 votes. The Democrats, however, hit a lower ebb, with nearly four hundred of Mr. Reed's henchmen remaining at home. The anti-Lincoln vote was 347, divided as follows: Stephen A. Douglas, 171, Breckenridge, 95, and Bell, 81. It is highly significant indeed that in Waldoboro there were ninety- five men voting for the candidate of the seven states deepest south. This fact throws considerable light on the strength of the Copper- heads in Waldoboro during the war years, now not far off.
In our own day it is not too easy to understand the hatred, virulence, the meanness, and the petty persecution which charac- terized the political battles of the early and mid-nineteenth century in the town. Their like in our times cannot be found outside the environs of the Union League Clubs of New York and Philadel- phia. Isaac Reed was no exception to the general rule. Flattery, courtly suasion, economic pressure, and petty persecution with him were all means to one end, namely, the attainment of po- litical objectives. He patronized those who supported him and punished as he could those who did not. This practice can be illustrated by a specific case, that of William Ramsey, a sailmaker
318
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
who came to Waldoboro in 18559 from Rockland and lived in the house now occupied by Flores Wellman, and had a sail loft on the site of that which was operated in recent years by Stephen Jones. While working on a set of sails for one of Mr. Reed's ships, Ramsey was approached by Reed, and his vote solicited in a pending election. On Mr. Ramsey's refusal the work was promptly removed and the set of sails finished out of town.10 This does not seem to have been an unusual or isolated act, but merely a part of a technique generally practiced and generally understood in these turbulent decades. Further insight into Mr. Reed's methods is furnished by a partisan attack in the Thomaston Journal for Thursday, September 8, 1857. This was a Republican paper, and in consequence some of its strong language may be discounted, but withal it is a revealing statement of political conditions in the town a year or two before the outbreak of the Civil War. The article under the title of "Vandalism in Waldoboro" follows:
We ask our fellow citizens irrespective of party, as they pass through the flourishing village of Waldoboro, to notice the damage, injury and outrage perpetrated upon the premises of General Corcoran11 and his friend and neighbor, Mr. D. H. Levensaler, and a more honest and worthy man lives not than Mr. Levensaler. General Corcoran had been to no small expense in preparing and beautifying his lot on the side next to the county road; he prepared an ample water course, carted earth, formed an embankment and sodded it over in a neat and handsome man- ner, but last June the tool of the Plug Ugly clique, a man selected on purpose to do this foul wrong, proceeded to plough down the bank in front of General Corcoran's and Mr. Levensaler's dwellings, opening a deep and broad canal which remains open till the present hour, endan- gering the safety of persons and property on the road, especially at night, and leaving General Corcoran and his friend, Levensaler, no chance to pass to and from the road except as they have temporarily bridged over the broad ditch at their own expense. It is true there is an ample oppor- tunity to resort to the laws of the land, which will doubtless be done, but such a fiendish outrage committed on a warmhearted, generous man cannot be compensated by mere dollars and cents, there is a laceration of feelings that money cannot heal.
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