Political Abolitionism in Wisconsin, 1840-1861 by Michael J. McManus

Author:Michael J. McManus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

Finally, in an appeal to the prejudices of Wisconsin’s large foreign-born population, Democrats asserted that their Republican opponents cared more for blacks than for them and would subordinate their needs to those of the state’s black inhabitants.20

The Republican candidates for state office, probably by mutual agreement, chose political expediency over principle by responding to these race-baiting tactics with complete silence. Democrats, in turn, reminded voters that Alexander Randall had introduced and supported the proposition on black suffrage finally adopted by the 1846 constitutional convention. Likewise, Samuel Hastings, the Republican choice for secretary of the treasury, was a well-known abolitionist agitator and “friend of the Negro,” while James McMynn, the party nominee for superintendent of public instruction, also was accused of harboring prosuffrage sentiments.21

Unlike the candidates, most Republican editors publicly stood foursquare in favor of black voting. At least twenty-nine party journals supported the measure and twelve mounted FOR EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE on their bannerhead; only three opposed it, and two failed to take a position. The party’s broad editorial approval led one Democrat to insist, with only slight exaggeration, “Every organ of Shanghaiism [Republicanism] in the state of Wisconsin without a single exception, has taken strong ground in favor of Negro suffrage.” As a result of this support, another crassly declared, “All real Republicans … must toe the mark and go the whole figure. No grimaces, no wretchings, no distortion; but go the whole figure and swallow the whole nigger.”22

A number of Republicans responded to the Democratic charge that black enfranchisement was a party issue by insisting instead that it was a simple matter of principle and justice.

It is of little use to blind ourselves by party feeling or prejudice against color.… We have no right to deny to any the natural rights we claim for ourselves or to follow our prejudices at the expense of our principles.… We ask every good citizen … to divest himself of prejudices and act from principle, and in casting his vote consider its effects upon the country, and especially upon that unfortunate class who are now oppressed and deprived of all the rights of manhood.23

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