USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 44
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409
RADICALS AND CONSERVATIVES.
statesman, worthy of the first office in the Republic, and reaching the second.1
During the years 1842, '43, and '44 the Democratic party was divided into "Radicals " and "Conservatives " upon questions per- taining to railroads and other corporations. The Radicals held that a railroad, being a private corporation, could not be authorized to take land for its track without the consent of the owner, and that the personal liability of stockholders in any corporation should be commensurate with that of ordinary partnership. The Conserva- tives denied these positions, and declared that a railroad was public, like a turnpike, and that the Radical view was fatally hostile to the new and important railroad enterprises, and to the investment of capital in other business enterprises essential to the progress and prosperity of the state. These questions had been much discussed for two or three years in the legislature and elsewhere. But, on the 8th of January, 1842, at Concord, the attempt was made in a local Democratic convention to make assent to the Radical view a test of party faith. The attempt was opposed by Governor Hill, who found a considerable following. He had, in 1840, commenced the publica- tion of a newspaper styled Hill's New Hampshire Patriot, which, in charge of himself and two sons, William Pickering and John McClary, now espoused the Conservative side of the pending contro- versy. On the Radical side stood the New Hampshire Patriot and . State Gazette, which, after having been for eleven years in charge of Cyrus Barton, was now in that of Henry H. Carroll and Nathaniel B. Baker.
At a tumultuous Democratic meeting held at the town hall on the 19th of February, the threatened split became an accomplished fact -the Radicals retiring from the hall, and the Conservatives remain- ing to complete their organization. Resolutions offered by Governor Hill were adopted ; by one of which it was agreed to support John H. White for governor, instead of Henry Hubbard, nominated seven months before. In the next issue of Hill's Patriot, White's name appeared for Hubbard's at the head of the Democratic ticket-and a bitter fight was on.
The influence of the veteran leader was felt more or less in the state outside the capital. At the ensuing March election in Con- cord the Conservative vote for governor was three hundred and twenty-three to three hundred and one Radical; and, with four parties in the field, balloting for members of the general court re- sulted in no choice. Similar results befell in other places ; and more towns that year were without representation than in any for-
1 See minute account of the convention in a special chapter.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
mer year since the adoption of the constitution. In the state the Conservative vote for governor was about six thousand; the Radi- cal, nearly twenty-seven thousand. The struggle went on for two years more. In 1843 the first two days of the Concord town-meet- ing were spent in balloting for moderator; with the final result that Joseph Low, Whig, was elected over Franklin Pierce, Radical-Dem- ocrat. The Conservatives cast about two hundred sixty votes in Concord ; the Radicals, upwards of three hundred fifty. In 1844 there were four tickets, as in the previous two years ; and three ineffectual ballotings for moderator constituted the first day's work. On the first of these William Walker, Jr., Conservative, received one hundred forty-six votes ; Charles H. Peaslee, Radical, three hundred fifty-eight ; Joseph Low, Whig, two hundred ninety-six ; Cyrus Robinson, Anti-Slavery, seventy-four. No opportunity hav- ing been given to vote for state and county officers, that vote was lost. The second day was taken up with three or more fruitless attempts to choose a moderator, each trial consuming more than two hours and a half. When, on the morning of the third day, Ezra Carter, a Democrat opposed to "radical tests," and receiving Whig support, was elected, it was too late to ballot for members of the general court; and so Concord, for the third successive year, had none. In consequence, Franklin Pierce, Richard Bradley, and Wil- liam Low were appointed "to apply for leave to be heard in behalf of the town before the Legislature," at the November session on the subject of a new proportion of the public taxes.1
But new questions of national importance-including that of Slavery-arose, overshadowing those upon which the New Hamp- shire Democracy had been divided. Erelong now the feud was sufficiently healed to allow united action at the polls; and in 1847 the essential party union of the two Patriots resulted in their consolidation into one newspaper bearing the name of the older, and conducted by William Butterfield and John M. Hill. Of the re- spective views held so stiffly for years by Radicals and Conserva- tives, those of the latter substantially became early established in statute law.
Near the beginning of the fourth decade Northern anti-slavery agitation had begun in earnest. On the first day of January, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison issued the first number of his Liberator, a sheet fourteen inches by nine in size. Following the establish- ment of the American Anti-Slavery society, in 1833, such an organ- ization was formed for New Hampshire with auxiliaries in counties and in towns, including Concord. By 1835 anti-slavery agitation
1 Bouton's Concord, 331-2.
411
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION.
had become so widely prevalent that Henry Hubbard of New Hamp- shire-himself strongly anti-abolition-declared in the United States senate that slavery was becoming " the all-absorbing subject." Even in so conservative a community as that of Concord, many had been stirred to ponder the new doctrines of reform in their hearts, and a few openly to confess their faith as abolitionists-both men and women; for the Concord Female Anti-Slavery society existed. Early in that year The Abolitionist was added by D. D. Fisk and E. G. Eastman to the list of newspapers published in town, and four num- bers were issued under that name. The publication of the paper was then taken up by Albe Cady, George Storrs, George Kent, and Amos Wood, with the name changed to Herald of Freedom, and with Joseph H. Kimball as editor.1 That year, too, Nathaniel Pea- body Rogers, of highly endowed and cultured intellect and of philan- thropic, heroic heart, " made acquaintance with Garrison, and "-as Parker Pillsbury,2 also a Concord abolitionist, has written-" soon placed himself at his side as the hated, hunted, persecuted champion of the American slave, as by this time Garrison was known to be. And from this time, too, Rogers was ever found the firm, unshaken, uncompromising friend and advocate of not only the anti-slavery enterprise, but of the causes of temperance, peace, rights of woman, abolition of the gallows, and other social and moral reforms." He relinquished the successful practice of the law, and in 1838, at the age of forty-four, removed from his native Plymouth to Concord. Here was his home for the remaining eight years of life, intensely devoted to his mission of reform, including brilliant service in the editorial chair of the Herald of Freedom-a service in which he easily approved himself the accomplished master of controversial journalism.
Intense opposition to anti-slavery effort and free speech was at length engendered, which manifested itself in various places with more or less of angry popular remonstrance, and sometimes with mob violence. Even in the quiet capital of New Hampshire occurred a scene of unusual excitement. In August a powerful anti-slavery ad- dress had been delivered in the Baptist church by George Thompson, lately a member of the English parliament, and a strong champion of emancipation in the British West Indies, whom Lord Brougham had pronounced to be the most eloquent man he ever heard. The oppo- nents of abolition were aroused, and on the evening of the 3d of September held a large meeting at the court house, at which speeches were made and resolutions passed, the latter expressing "indignation and disgust at the introduction of foreign emissaries trav- ersing the country and assailing our institutions." "All riotous as-
1 See Abolition Zeal, In note at close of chapter.
2 In " Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles," 30-1.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
semblies " and "violent proceedings " were, however, deprecated.1 But Thompson, though really a friend of America and of American institutions, slavery excepted, had already been the object of so much baseless and bitter obloquy, not infrequently rounded by significant allusion to the coat of tar and feathers, that the thrust dealt him by the resolutions had a mischievous tendency. The next morning the abolitionists notified by handbill, a meeting to be held at the court house in the evening, at which George Thompson and John G. Whit- tier would be present, and " where the principles, views, and opera- tions of the abolitionists would be explained and any questions answered."1 Thereupon such excitement arose, threatening a popu- lar tumult, that General Robert Davis, chairman of the board of selectmen, advised George Kent, a friend of Mr. Thompson, against holding the meeting, and ordered Constable Abraham Bean to lock the town hall. The sheriff of the county also saw to it that the court room, in the same building, was likewise secured.2 Not ap- prised of these precautionary measures a crowd came, at evening, to the appointed place of meeting-to find the doors shut. Soon three approached-two of whom were John G. Whittier, the Quaker poet, and Joseph H. Kimball, editor of the Herald of Freedom, but the third was not George Thompson, as was supposed. They were received by such of the crowd as were on mischief bent, with insult- ing shouts, emphasized by handfuls of dirt and gravel.2 The three, making haste to escape further violence, were hotly pursued up Washington street, down State, and to the house of William A. Kent, on Pleasant, when the pursuers found out that they had been upon the wrong scent-that, after all, Thompson was not one of the pursued. Off went the crowd westward, making for the home of George Kent, where the lecturer had been entertained, but before the unwelcome visitants could arrive the host had withdrawn with his hunted guest, leaving the house in charge of the invalid, but reso- lute, wife and hostess. General Davis had come upon the scene in tine to meet the excited searchers with the information that he whom they sought could not be found. He assured them that Mr. Thomp- son would not attempt to lecture in town on anti-slavery, and, warn- ing them that their assembling under such circumstances might be deemed riotous, he requested them to desist at once. They com- plied, and withdrew to parade an effigy of the " foreign emissary " through the streets, and afterwards to burn it in the state house yard, with display of fireworks and discharge of cannon.3 Little thought they who were engaged in the disorderly scenes of that night,
1 Bouton's Concord, 434.
2 Ibid, 435.
3 See further details of the affair in a special chapter.
413
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION.
or those who sympathized with them, that George Thompson would one day revisit the country out of which he had been ruthlessly per- secuted, to be received everywhere with acclaim; and that the Con- cord of 1864 would avenge itself honorably-as it did-upon the Concord of 1835 by earnestly soliciting the presence of the gifted Englishman, and hearing gladly his voice of triumphant congratula- tion over Slavery dead, the Union saved, and America indeed the land of liberty.1
About 1840 the friends of anti-slavery became divided upon the course of future procedure-some preferring to continue the work of reform by exclusively moral agitation ; others, to promote the cause by both moral and political means. The latter soon began to organ- ize as a third political party. So sprung up the Liberty, or, by later designation, the Freesoil, party,-the nucleus of that greater one named the Republican, and destined to no third place in American politics.
One January day in 1841 a small anti-slavery convention was held in the ante-room of the court house in Concord. Scanty dele- gations were in attendance from Milford and some other towns. Concord was represented by Sylvester Dana and one or two others. At this meeting it was determined to support Daniel Hoit, of Sand- wich, as candidate for governor, at the ensuing March election. Later, the first anti-slavery caucus in Concord met at the Merrimack House, and a ticket for town officers was nominated. The caucus was so small that there was truth as well as humor in the suggestion made on the occasion that each one present would be obliged to take a nomination, if there was to be a ticket. At the election, the gov- ernor vote in town showed twenty-eight scattering. This number included the first distinctively anti-slavery, or abolition, vote ever cast in Concord at a state election ; and it contributed to the twelve hundred seventy-three votes cast in the state for Daniel Hoit. This third party gradually grew in numbers, casting, on the governor vote in 1842, in Concord, thirty-four votes; in 1843, thirty-seven; in 1845, one hundred twenty-four. In 1844 the vote for state and county officers was lost-two days having been spent in ineffectual attempts to choose a moderator; but, in November, at the fifteenthi presidential election, the vote stood : for Polk, Democrat, 441 ; Clay, Whig, 296; Birney, Liberty, 114.
The March meeting of 1844 is especially noted for the success of the anti-slavery men in getting the subject uppermost in their thoughts before a Concord town-meeting for discussion, despite the opposition of both Whig and Democratic leaders. An article had
1 See note, George Thompson in Concord in 1864, at close of chapter.
414
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
been inserted in the warrant, to the following purport: To see if the town will take measures disapproving of the course pursued by John R. Reding, Edmund Burke, and Moses Norris, in denying to the people the free enjoyment of the inalienable right of petition. The persons named were three New Hampshire members of congress who had supported the "gag," so-called, whereby all petitions, remon- strances, or memorials touching the topic of slavery were laid upon the table of the nation's house of representatives, without discussion, reference, or even reading. To this measure their colleague, John P. Hale, had refused his support.
When, in its order, the article was reached and read, comparatively few of the voters present were not in favor of ignoring the matter altogether; anti-slavery agitation being deemed by the average Whig or Democrat as out of place anywhere, town-meeting not excepted. To test the sense of the voters, John Whipple moved the dismissal of the article. But action thereon was not to be taken without dis- cussion, which Cyrus Robinson, of East Concord, promptly opened on the anti-slavery side, and in which several warmly participated pro and con, until the motion was withdrawn by the mover. Franklin Pierce, recently a senator of the United States, renewed the motion, which, after discussion, was rejected by a hand vote of more than two thirds. It being manifest that a large majority of the more than seven hun- dred persons crowding the town hall would not have the article ignored, Sylvester Dana, a young lawyer of earnest anti-slavery con- victions, offered three resolutions : 1st, in favor of the right of peti- tion ; 2d, expressing decided disapprobation of the conduct of Messrs. Reding, Burke, and Norris, as to the gag rule of the national house of representatives ; 3d, enjoining upon them to co-operate with their colleague, John P. Hale, in supporting the right of petition. There- upon arose the great discussion of the day, in which the resolutions were supported by the mover, and by Joseph Low and Nathan- iel P. Rogers, and opposed by Franklin Pierce. Rogers, the moral- suasion abolitionist, the non-resistant and non-voting " come-outer," as nicknamed, having been sent for to champion the cause sacred to him, had come into town-meeting. He replied to Pierce's char- acteristically able and strenuous speech, with a logic so clear and merciless, with home thrusts so skilfully dealt, and with wit and sar- casin so keen, as to win the hearty sympathy and enthusiastic apprecia- .tion of his crowded listeners. Cool and smiling, he met the interruptions of his excited antagonist with effective retorts that repeatedly brought down the house. Once he and his sympathizers were accused of bringing a firebrand into the meeting, and thereby producing tumult and disorder, the accuser somewhat impatiently adding in gratuitous
415
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION.
excuse, " I feel no responsibility for this state of disorder ; but I was led into it." Promptly came the cahn, crisp reply of Rogers, " I am sorry that friend Pierce should consent to be led by anybody ; he is capable of going alone," a reply fully appreciated by the wide-awake audience, and whereat the old town hall shook and resounded, as never before or afterwards, with demonstrations of applause. The main debate over, the first two resolutions were adopted by heavy majorities ; but the third, trigged by proposed amendments and other dilatory motions with accompanying talk, was lost in the final adjourn- ment of the tedious four days' town-meeting.
This incident of slavery agitation occurred in the last year of Pres- ident Tyler's administration, a pet measure of which was the imme- diate annexation of Texas. This scheme, involving the extension of slavery, had, until recently, been opposed by both of the great par- ties in New Hampshire and throughout the North. But at length the Democratic party of the North so far committed itself to the measure as to help elect Polk to the presidency, doing so, however, with the prevalent idea that as many free states as slave states might be carved out of Texas-an idea by no means held by the Democracy of the South. With this idea, John P. Hale, who had resisted sla- very dictation as to the right of petition, advocated Polk's election. But the project of annexation not having been allowed to await the inauguration of the president-elect, and having been presented to congress, in December, 1844, to be hurried through by joint resolu- tion, Mr. Hale ineffectually tried to procure an amendatory declara- tion whereby Texas should be divided into two parts, in one of which slavery should be forever prohibited.1 When, moreover, he witnessed the defeat of every movement looking to a division of that domain between freedom and slavery, he determined, now that the animus of the whole scheme was manifest, to oppose, to the uttermost, the an- nexation by congress of a foreign nation for the avowed purpose of extending and perpetuating slavery.1 But the New Hampshire leg- islature, later in that December, instructed, by resolutions, the sen- ators and representatives in congress to vote for the annexation of Texas. Within ten days Mr. Hale from his seat in congress, boldly met the legislative instruction with a letter to his constituents, in which he flatly refused compliance, exposing the true nature of the Texas scheme, and denouncing the reasons urged therefor as " emi- nently calculated to provoke the scorn of earth and the judgment of heaven." He had already been nominated for re-election to congress in March ensuing, but the Democratic leaders at home, being now in favor of Texas annexation on any terms, reassembled in haste the
1 Address of Daniel Hall at the unveiling of the Hale Statue, Aug. 3, 1892.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
state convention, which substituted another candidate upon the gen- eral ticket. An independent Democratic cleavage ensued. At the election in March, 1845, while the three other candidates on the Dem- ocratic congressional ticket were chosen, Mr. Hale's substitute was not. At three other trials made in the course of the year,-the last in March, 1846,-no choice of the fourth member was effected, leav- ing the New Hampshire delegation in the thirtieth congress perma- nently incomplete. In the state, Mr. Hale's vote constantly increased from seven thousand seven hundred eighty-eight to eleven thousand four hundred seventy-five ; in Concord it averaged about two hun- dred fifty.
Though in March, 1846, anti-slavery strength was insufficient to elect its new champion to a seat in the lower house of congress, yet it prevented the choice of a Democratic governor, and of a Demo- cratic quorum of the council and senate, while a house of representa- tives was elected, which could and did take, by coalition, the state government from Democratic hands. Of the official incumbents, under the new order of things, were George G. Fogg, secretary of state, James Peverly, state treasurer, both Independent Democrats, and Asa McFarland, Whig, state printer. Moreover, John P. Hale, the Independent Democratic member of the house from Dover, and promptly made its speaker, was six days later elected by the legisla- ture to the senate of the United States, for six years from the 4th of March, 1847. Forthwith a cannon peal announced from Sand hill the fact that New Hampshire had been the first to elect a distinc- tively anti-slavery member of the national senate-an event most interesting and significant in that historic series of events which was to culminate in a Union cleansed of slavery.
Pending the result, Hale's canvasses had covered the state from the Cocheco to the Connecticut, and from Coos to Strawberry Bank. His most memorable effort in the long sharp conflict was made at Concord on the 5th of June, 1845; when and where, upon invita- tion of a few anti-slavery men, he addressed a great assemblage that filled to overflowing the Old North meeting-house. Members of the legislature just convened, and other persons from all parts of the state visiting the Capital for various purposes at that season, helped swell the throng, His audience comprised men of all parties, including not a few embittered against him for his independent action. Franklin Pierce was there-his recent friend, personal and political, but who had been active in thrusting him from the ticket, and was now bent upon his political annihilation. Though it was Hale's meeting, yet there was to be debate between the two rivals -foemen, each worthy of the other's steel. Without ceremony Hale
417
A MEMORABLE DEBATE.
took the platform, erected for a recent Whig convention, and held it and his audience as well for two hours, while vindicating upon high moral grounds, logically and triumphantly, the course of action for which he was called in question. Interrupted by interrogatories not kindly propounded, he responded with imperturbable good humor and a ready effectiveness that won the gratified plaudits of his hearers. Doubtless, the eccentric John Virgin expressed-albeit in quaint phrase-the enthusiastic sympathy of many besides himself when, at the speaker's happy reply to one of those questions, he rose in a glee of excitement, and, leaning over from the gallery, exclaimed at the top of his shrill voice-"Give it to 'em, Jack ; drive the poor vipers into their dens, and make 'em pull the hole in after them." 1
Pierce followed, summoned to the platform by loud calls from the assemblage, while Hale, with " calm and beaming face "-as de- scribed by an eye-witness-took his seat in a near pew, directly in front, to listen to the reply of his brilliant antagonist. And to that reply, eloquent, adroit, personally severe and aggressive, he did listen throughout its hour of delivery, attentively, coolly, without a wince, and without a lisp of interruption. At the conclusion of Pierce's effort, eminently satisfactory to his friends-as Hale's had been to his-loud cries arose for Hale to rejoin. Standing upon the pew seat, and facing his eagerly listening audience, he briefly com- plied in words more impressively eloquent than any others heard that day-words that were the very cap-sheaf of effectual vindica- tion for having refused to " bow down and worship Slavery." He had won the palm of enthusiastic admiration.2
Twenty-seven years later, Mr. Hale himself, while recalling in con- versation some of the circumstances of the memorable occasion, and having mentioned among other facts that of being accompanied to the place of meeting by three friends, George G. Fogg, James Peverly, and Jefferson Noyes, said : "We walked along in silence ; the gentle- men with me said nothing, and I said little to them. I was gloomy and despondent, but kept my thoughts to myself. As we turned around the corner of the old Fiske store, and I looked up and saw the crowd at the doors of the old church surging to get in, the people above and below hanging out of the windows, first a great weight of responsibility oppressed me, and in a moment more an inspiration came upon me as mysterious as the emotions of the new birth. I walked into the densely crowded house as calm and collected and self-assured as it was possible for a man to be. I felt that the only thing I then wanted-an opportunity-had come; and I soon gath-
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