On the Edge of Freedom by Smith David G.;

Author:Smith, David G.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The 1860 Election and the Fugitive Slave Issue

In 1858, Republicans had done well across the North. Their strong showing had revived the hopes of 1856—that by carrying all the Northern states, the Republican Party would control the electoral college and elect the next President. In Pennsylvania, the possibilities for success had been improved by the national party’s decision to support a strong tariff, winning support in vital manufacturing and coal mining districts. The party leadership also was determined to maintain unity among the varied parts of the statewide fusion coalition. In particular, if former Know Nothings could be persuaded to vote Republican instead of Democratic, success would be almost assured. Here is where the difficult Republican–Whig–Know Nothing fusion politics of the 1850s paid off. By 1860, most Know Nothings were already in the Republican fold, having voted for candidates supported by Republicans in fusion elections. The trick would be to keep them voting Republican, despite determined Democratic efforts to pry them away.28

Perceptive Democrats realized that defeat in 1860 was likely, with secession after that a possibility. During the 1850s, Northerners had been president, but many Southerners had felt protected by Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan, Northern Democratic “doughfaces” who relied on Southern support. Abraham Lincoln was a different kind of Northern politician, running on a platform opposed to slavery extension. The Democratic Party split at the Charleston convention. When the party reconvened in Baltimore, Deep South delegates nominated John C. Breckenridge, while most Northern Democrats supported Stephen Douglas at a second convention in Baltimore. A third candidate, John Bell, a Constitutional Unionist and former Whig, appealed to the Upper South. The platform adopted at Charleston had specifically endorsed the Fugitive Slave Law, arguing that because it was “designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, [it] cannot with fidelity therefore be repealed.” Most of the platform, however, was concerned with slavery, the territories, and states’ rights. These were the critical issues for 1860. Both Douglas’s and Breckenridge’s acceptance letters emphasized the territorial issue, and neither mentioned fugitive slaves.29

Douglas campaigned extensively, warning of war if the Republicans won. He attracted many Pennsylvania Democrats, and the Compiler prominently published his June 1859 speech in Philadelphia. Along the border, however, even John C. Breckenridge had support, particularly among Democrats who realized that as the candidate most acceptable to the South, he had the best chance to win. The split between the two Democrats was contentious, but a letter writer to the Compiler warned that either one must be preferred over the Republican: “Douglas or Breckenridge before Lincoln.”30

Regardless of which Democrat was preferred, the Republicans were attacked with the now common tactic of racist smears. The Compiler summed up the difference in the Pennsylvania governor’s race: “[Democrat] Gen. Foster is advocating the passage of the tariff bill and the interests of the white people of Pennsylvania; [Republican] Col. Curtin is stumping it in Pennsylvania in behalf of niggerism and the ‘Nigger.’”31

Enthusiasm for Lincoln and the Republicans, however, was palpable in some parts of Adams County.

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