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SECOND-GUESSING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR:
A Reassessment of Revisionism and Repressibility

CHAPTER THREE
Avery Craven: The Conjured Dilemma

Copyright © 1995 Dee Sparling

Never prone to mincing words, Avery Craven outlined his position succinctly in 1935, declaring that the sectional conflict was "the work of politicians and pious cranks." 1 While placing a major portion of the blame on Northern agitators, he maintained that citizens both North and South were led astray by their leaders, creating a surreal atmosphere in which the sections "knew little of each other as realities" and were "fighting mythical devils." Many years later Stampp claimed this line of thinking was itself dangerously provocative in its "transparent one-sidedness," arguing that "to question the necessity of certain specific incidents in antebellum sectional relations is one thing; to object wholly to the temper of an age is quite another." 2

The exchange pinpoints a divergence in emphasis difficult to resolve, but of relevance to this study. Stampp's criticism is essential to any full discussion of causation, though it barely conceals two classic oversights. First, that agitators existed on both sides has never been denied by Craven or other Revisionists, despite their alleged "one-sidedness." Second, Stampp commits the classic slavery-culturalist faux pas, forgetting that people often create the "temper of an age," some over-zealously and irresponsibly. Moreover, he assumes the emergent antebellum spirit is somehow better understood through contemporary rhetoric than reason.

Following a brief summary of Craven's position, this chapter will defend it in two ways, beginning with illustrations of how religious, philanthropic, and political agitators stretched the right to freedom of speech, grossly distorting reality in a manner approaching the "mythical." Next it will highlight the dramatic Lincoln-Douglas exchange as proof that even "Honest Abe" must answer to the charge, for his repeated references to "popular sovereignty's" amorality must be measured against his own racism, his political ambitions, and the moral ambiguity of "ultimate extinction." Finally, the chapter will draw from the "new political history" to explain why Republican ascendancy might be understood as a complex political victory misinterpreted by contemporary extremists, and many subsequent historians, as a sweeping antislavery mandate for action. Two questions will be addressed: If this was the "temper" of the age, why did it become so? But is this the only way to interpret the antebellum Northern mind?

Before starting, it should be noted that the segment presenting antebellum propaganda is meant only as a sampler, a medium for illustrating the extremity of views postulated even by highly public figures. The reader should not anticipate a detailed comparative analysis of Northern versus Southern rhetoric, media tactics, and motives. Not only is there insufficient room for such, but the subject of demonstration here is the way speakers threw caution to the wind in defining their positions and lobbying support. When distinguishing agitation from a simple allegiance to one principle over another, a useful point of demarcation could be where the depth of commitment to one moral imperative begins to override an adherence to others, such as truth, clarity of thought, consistency of conviction, and the avoidance of hypocrisy.

In charting the "triumph of emotionalism over reason," Craven traces a multi-step process whereby a Northern search for moral and social stability amid the tumult of industrialization ended with the discovery of a convenient scapegoat--the South and its slave institution. 3 Citing various symptoms of social malaise, such as the growing disparity between rich and poor, farmer and industrialist, as well as the rise of socialistic worker movements, he suggests that evangelical fervour created an outlet and a cause for believing in the ultimate perfectibility of the great American experiment. 4 The obvious barrier to this goal was the immoral institution of slavery, which by this point in American history was exclusively Southern.

However, Craven blames politicians (predominantly Northern) for borrowing what for years had been considered abolitionist rhetoric and bringing it into mainstream political discussion. He maintains that strictly human rights factions, like the Liberty party of the late 1840s, lacked popular appeal because they failed to incorporate politically practical concepts like "free soil."5 But the Republicans, on the other hand, were successful only because such pragmatic issues, reflecting the deeper concerns of society, were placed alongside slavery in the party's agenda. 6 Thus while Americans, particularly Northerners, may have felt some vague disapproval for slavery, their primary focus was the fear of diminished prospects for socioeconomic improvement should the "Slave Power" control the availability and accessibility of cheap western lands. Illusion and reality easily became blurred, with antislavery sentiment involving submerged fears and motives that varied considerably between individuals, often having little to do with private moral judgements of slavery per se.

The final step in the process involved politicians linking various crises of the era--Texas, Mexico, Kansas, Dred Scott--with these more basic, pressing concerns. 7 This completed the cycle. What initially had been on the minds of extremists was now a widely-publicized issue, but one based on sensationalism, which indicated the heavy toll political ambition had taken on sober reflection and an honest search for solutions. Craven contends that "the antislavery groups darkened the picture, and Whig and Republican partisans completed it," including such notables as William Seward and Abraham Lincoln, who manipulated opinions "as deliberately as did the recognized demagogues."8

In introducing his own study of religious agitation, David B. Chesebrough remarks that

it seems altogether probable that if the clergy and the churches had not stirred up the fervor and the emotions that they did, the North and South could have found a different way to resolve their differences. However, when each side is convinced that its cause is God's cause, there is little room and not much desire for compromise and amicable solutions. 9

Who fought the Revolution? Why the North, furnishing the money and the men, Massachusetts alone sending fourteen thousand soldiers more than all the present slave states. Who pays the national taxes? The North, for the slaves pay but a trifle. Who owns the greater part of the property, the mills, the shops, the ships? The North. Who writes the books--the histories, poems, philosophies, works of science, even the sermons and commentaries on the Bible? Still the North. Who sends their children to school and colleges? The North. Who builds the churches, who founds the Bible societies, missionary societies, the thousand-and-one institutions for making men better and better off? Why the North. In a word, who is it in seventy years has made the nation great, rich, and famous for her ideas and their success all over the world. The answer is still the North, the North.

Well, says the calculator, but who has the offices of the nation? The South. Who has filled the presidential chair forty-eight years out of sixty? Nobody but slaveholders. Who has held the chief posts of honor? The South. Who occupy the chief offices in the army and navy? The South. Who increases the cost of the post-office and pays so little of its expense. The South. Who is most blustering and disposed to quarrel. The South. Who made the Mexican War? The South. Who sets at naught the Constitution? The South. Who would bring the greatest peril in the case of war with a strong enemy? Why the South, the South. But what is the South most noted for abroad? For her three million slaves; and the North for her wealth, freedom, education, religion! 10

On November 29th, 1860, Henry Ward Beecher (of "Beecher's Bibles" fame) warned with dark foreboding of the "Slave Power's" sinister plans:

The secret intentions of those men who are the chief fomenters of troubles in the South cannot in anywise be met by compromise. They dread as much as we hate it. What do those men that are really at the bottom of this conspiracy mean? Nothing more or less than this: Southern empire for slavery, and the reopening of the slave-trade as a means by which it shall be fed. Free commerce and enslaved work is their motto. They will not yet say it aloud. But that is the whispered secret of men in Carolina, and men outside of Carolina. Their secret purpose is to sweep westward like night, and involve in the cloud of their darkness all Central America, and then make Africa empty into Central America, thus changing the moral geography of the globe. And do you suppose any compromise will settle that design, or turn it aside, when they have made you go down on your knees, and they stand laughing while you cry with fear because you have been cozened and juggled into a blind helping of their monstrous wickedness? 11

We have gone to the end. There is no need of compromise in this matter, then. It is a plain, simple matter. It is never mystified except when bad men have bad ends to accomplish, and bring up a mist over it. 12

Southern sermons were equally abrasive, though most tended to reflect the more defensive posture of Southern society. Still, James H. Thornwell felt it within his prerogative to adopt an aggressive, proslavery stance from the pulpit in 1850, declaring that

the parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders--they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on the one side, and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. 13

The property of man in man--a fiction to which even the imagination cannot give consistency--is the miserable cant of those who would storm by prejudice what they cannot demolish by argument. We do not even pretend that the organs of the body can be said strictly to belong to another. The limbs and members of my servant are not mine, but his--they are not tools and instruments which I can sport with a pleasure, but the sacred possession of a human being, which cannot be invaded without the authority of law, and for the use of which he can never be divested of his responsibility to God. . . . The Providence of God marks out for the slave the precise services, in the lawful commands of the master, which it is the Divine will that he should render; the painful necessities of his case are often as stringent upon the free labourer, and determine, with as stern a mandate, what contracts he shall make. Neither can he be said to select his employments. God allots to each his position--places one immediately under command--and leaves the other not unfrequently a petitioner for a master. 14

Perhaps most fascinating is the way in which Thornwell eventually concedes slavery's base nature, but attempts to justify its perpetuation with allusions to the Biblical "fall" and God's unfolding plan. He assures that

if Adam had never sinned and brought death into the world, with all our woe, the bondage of man to man would never have been instituted; and when the effects of transgression shall have been purged from the earth, and the new heaven and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, given to the saints, all bondage shall be abolished. In this sense, slavery is inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, that it contemplates a state of things--an existing economy, which it is the design of the Gospel to remove.

When we consider the diversities in moral position, which sin has been the means of entailing upon the race, we may be justified in affirming, that, relatively to some persons and to some times, slavery may be a good, or to speak more accurately, a condition, though founded in a curse, from which the Providence of God extracts a blessing. We are not to judge of the institutions of the present, by the standard of the future life--we are not to confound the absolute and the relative. 15

Ambiguity and contradiction also marred George D. Armstrong's objection in 1857 to Northern abolitionist sermons. His book, The Christian Doctrine Of Slavery, was a religious defense of the institution that hypocritically criticized Northern preachers for confusing affairs of State with the "proper" concerns of the Church. 16 But though written with decidedly proslavery intent, this call for a secular versus spiritual delineation is undermined by contradiction and barely conceals his own doubts about slavery's alleged morality. He clearly states that "the law of God, and not the law of the State, is the law in his Church."17 Then, in his attempt to absolve the Church from concern for slaves, he suggests that

the Church of God is not--as seems to be taken for granted by many--an institution intended to do all the good which needs to be done in the world, and wage war upon every form of human ill. There are other institutions intended to do good and to alleviate the ills of life to enable men to "live in all godliness and honesty," that are as truly institutions of God as the Church itself. . . . Civil government is one of these. 18

The Church may no more rightfully intrude itself into the province of the State, than the State may intrude itself into the province of the Church. The fact, if fact it be, that the State may not be accomplishing all the good it ought, that civil or political evils are suffered under its administration, that it needs reforming--does not authorize the Church to step in and supply these deficiencies, or reform these abuses, any more than a similar state of things in the Church would authorize the State to interfere. All human institutions--human, in that they are administered by man, though ordained of God--are imperfect in their operation. 19

One is tempted to identify Armstrong's fatalism merely as Southern conservative reaction to Northern perfectionism, simply one more example of an "irrepressible" cultural cleavage resulting from slavery. But this may be overly-simplistic. Daniel Walker Howe finds perfectionism's origin in the postmillennialist evangelism of the Second Great Awaken ing. 20 Premillennialism provided the conservative foil with its pessimistic view of humanity's potential for creating God's Kingdom on earth. Clearly the sentiments of Thornwell and Armstrong are premillennialist. However, opposition between old and new schools of theology was part of the wider American experience, not a sectional issue strictly speak ing. 21 It was influenced by such factors as class, occupation, immigrant Catholicism, and the fundamentally conservative nature of American Puritanism. Postmillennialism was neither universally accepted in the North nor universally rejected in the South.

Thus there is good reason for interpreting these sermons as heated expressions of private views rather than symptomatic of widespread cultural alienation. For Craven such perspectives were not microcosmic, at least not initially. Rather, they came to be accepted eventually, but were still based on exaggeration and distortion. Insofar as perfection ist traditions had a role to play in Civil War causation, the key aspect may have had more to do with Howe's haunting observation that "revivals did not spring forth from the populace spontaneously; they were "worked up."22

Many philanthropists and sociologists were equally guilty of mischief in the guise of beneficence. Perhaps the quintessential abolitionist agitator was William Lloyd Garrison, whom Russel B. Nye has described as "a deadly serious man."23 According to Nye, Garrison's "final court of appeal was conscience, not mind," and moral judgement "his first and last line of defense." Nowhere were these qualities more apparent than in a speech given the evening of John Brown's execution, in which he managed to turn a call for Southern tolerance of abolition ists into a demand for Northern repression of proslavery elements. The following excerpt summarizes the message:

See the consistency, the vigilance, the determination of the South in support of her slave system! . . . Every man on her soil who is suspected of cherishing the principles of liberty is tabooed, persecuted, and brutally outraged, especially if he be from the North. She makes clean work of it, and is consistent. On the other hand, how is it at the North? Presses which are venomously pro-slavery in spirit, and wholly Southern in their design, are everywhere allowed; presses which insult the good name and fame of the old Commonwealth, dishonor her illustrious dead, and contemn her glorious memories, for the purpose of "crushing out" the spirit of freedom, and making absolute the sway of a ferocious slave oligarchy. . . . Now I say that if the North should, in defense of her free institutions, imitate the example of the South in support of slavery, there would be a speedy and thorough cleaning out of our cities and towns, of those who are desecrating the ground upon which they stand. 24

I thank God when men who believe in the right and duty of wielding carnal weapons are so far advanced that they will take those weapons out of the scale of despotism, and throw them into the scale of freedom. It is an indication of progress, and a positive moral growth; it is one way to get up to the sublime platform of non-resistance; and it is God's method of dealing retribution upon the head of the tyrant. 25

Garrison's self-serving inconsistencies of conviction were matched in their political pragmatism by the social commentary of Southern proslavery advocate, George Fitzhugh. In his famous (or infamous) treatise, "Cannibals All!", he claims the Southern slave system is a more honest version of similar exploitation found throughout the industrial izing, "free" societies of the world, including the Northern States. 27 He maintains that

we are all, North and South, engaged in the White Slave Trade, and he who succeeds best, is esteemed most respect able. It is far more cruel than the Black Slave Trade, because it exacts more of its slaves, and neither protects nor governs them. 28

"property in man" is what all are struggling to obtain. Why should they not be obliged to take care of man, their property, as they do of their horses and their hounds, their cattle and their sheep? Now, under the delusive name of liberty, you work him, "from morn to dewy eve"--from infancy to old age--then turn him out to starve. You treat your horses and hounds better. Capital is a cruel master. The free slave trade, the commonest, yet the cruellest of trades. 29

While Fitzhugh's critique of industrial, free labour systems would have made Karl Marx proud,31 clearly he failed to understand, or perhaps ignored, a profound distinction between "property in man" and labour as a commodity. Despite employing a subtler "logic" than Garrison, his arguments were no less elusive and rhetorical in addressing the more pressing issue of morality. In the end, one suspects both men were fully conscious of the wider complexities involved in the sectional crisis but preferred rationalization to rationality.

The newspaper media offers further examples of dangerous general izations. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill prompted The New York Daily Tribune to print a public notice for several days running in late May and early June of 1854. It informed of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, listed names of Congressmen from free states who voted for it, and ended with the warning that

by the votes of these men, representing Free Labor constituencies, One Million square miles of Territory, heretofore shielded FOREVER from Slavery by a bargain, forced by the South upon a reluctant North--(and whereof all that part enuring to the advantage of Slavery has been fully secured and enjoyed)--has been opened to slave-holding immigration and settlement, and so exposed to be brought into the Union as Slave States. Shall not Free People mark their betrayers? 32

No attention is paid here to the pressing need for territorial organization before anyone, slaveholder or otherwise, would be able to settle the region prosperously. Without the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, the building of an adequate infrastructure would have been stunted for the foreseeable future, at the expense of "Free People" wishing to migrate westward to build a life for themselves and their families.

On May 29th, The Charleston Mercury published its own reaction to the bill's passage. With the debate now academic, and settled in favour of Southern access to the territories, one might have expected a call for massive Southern emigration to secure slavery's foothold in Kansas. But while applauding removal of "the odious Missouri Restriction," and admiring Southern unity throughout the affair, the writer doubted that

. . . the South was likely to derive any increase of power by these Territories thus organized. If such a result should follow, so much the better, but it is not to be expected. These Territories are of vast extent, and present here and there districts well suited to tillage, but by far the greater portion of them are high and bleak table lands, scarcely deserving a better name than deserts. . . . It is not to such an unhopeful scene that the Southern planters are likely to be lured, while the fertile fields of Florida and Texas invite their settlement. 33

Countless other examples of news-media sensationalism might be offered. But of novel interest is a comparison of views regarding New York City's role in national commerce. In this case Southern posturing was answered with calm reflection in the North. An item appearing in the Vicksburg Daily Whig (Mississipi) in January, 1860, observed:

It is no wonder that their villages have grown into magnificent cities. It is not strange that they have "merchant princes," dwelling in gorgeous palaces and revelling in luxuries transcending the luxurious appliances of the East! How could it be otherwise? New York City, like a mighty queen of commerce, sits proudly upon her island throne, sparkling in jewels and waving an undisputed commercial scepter over the South. By means of her railways and navigable streams, she sends out her long arms to the extreme South; and, with an avidity rarely equaled, grasps our gains and transfers them to herself--taxing us at every step--and depleting us as extensively as possible without actually destroying us. 34

The Southern States are exclusively devoted to production, from the soil, of two or three staples, relying upon the North for ships with which to distribute them, and for the greater portion of whatever enters into their domestic economy. In other words, they make New-York their principal factor for the distribution and sale of their products, and for the purchase of such articles as they may stand in need of. New-York was selected to this office, not, primarily, from her own choice, but because, from her position, skill, industry and wealth, she could fulfill its duties better than any other agent. 35

A look at the political arena affords the clearest view of agitation, particularly in regard to the issue of slavery's expansion. In his "Crime Against Kansas" speech of 1856, Republican Senator Charles Sumner employed grotesque imagery to warn of Southern efforts to promote emigration to that territory. Disgusted by tales of violence between proslavery and antislavery settlers in the region, he placed the onus of responsibility on the "Slave Power," which he likened to a "great Terrestrial Serpent which in its innumerable folds encircled the whole globe."36 He advised the entire Senate that

. . . the creature whose paws are now fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be, constitutes in reality part of the Slave Power, which, with loathsome folds, is now coiled about the whole land. Thus do I exhibit the extent of the present contest, where we encounter not merely local resistance, but also the unconquered sustaining arm behind . . .

But nowhere are illusions of Northern consensus and Republican moral integrity dealt a greater blow than in the highly-publicized and heavily-documented political rivalry of Douglas and Lincoln. Their confrontation has spawned a historiographical debate of epic proportions, most notably between Jaffa, a champion of Lincoln, and Johannsen, the foremost defender of Douglas. Jaffa objects to Revisionist postulations that there was no significant difference in the moral character of these two antebellum politicians, arguing that Douglas was racist and therefore could not appreciate the importance of limiting, and eventually abolishing, slavery. 39 Johannsen maintains Douglas' racial views quite reasonably reflected his times, and that Lincoln's political ambitions have been understated in the traditional historiography. 40

This study sides with Johannsen for three reasons. First, there was no real difference in racial attitudes. Douglas was, without question, racist, exhibiting very little concern for the plight of coloured Americans. 41 But whatever sympathy Lincoln felt for the suffering of slaves, it apparently did not extend to the plight of free-coloureds. As late as September 18th, 1858, his racism was bared for all to see (and apparently applauded, according to the transcript) with respect to the issue of black citizenship. The forum was the fourth session of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. He defined his position clearly:

Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro-citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me that question before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro-citizenship. . . . If the State of Illinois had that power I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I have to say about it. 42

A second reason for supporting Johannsen's defense of Douglas over Lincoln involves the greater consistency of conviction displayed by the former. While Lincoln waffled in regard to the value of "popular sovereignty"--one moment denying its practicality, the next crediting Republicans with its invention 43 --Douglas consistently supported his proposed solution to the territorial question, appending it with the Freeport Doctrine in response to the Dred Scott decision, disassociating it from the Lecomptom Constitution fiasco,44 and continually defending its democratic utility despite mounting criticism not only from Lincoln, but certain Southern circles as well. 45 Indeed, Southern criticism arguably cost Douglas the Presidency in 1860 by encouraging a North-South breach in the Democratic Party. This principled resolve hardly reflects the motives of a man who, according to Jaffa, "would have consented to the expansion of slavery as a means to other ends . . . ."46

The final reason for supporting Johannsen's assessment is related to Lincoln's "ultimate extinction" position, which became the offical Republican stance with respect to slavery's future. As noted earlier, it implied an acceptance of the institution's perpetuity where it already existed, something tolerable for perhaps as long as one hundred years, according to Lincoln. Even accounting for his possible exaggeration, the message clearly was that no definitive time-line for abolition or "extinction" had been established (which admittedly lends credence to suggestions that Southern secession in 1860 was over- reactive). 47 Yet the true importance of this uneasy tolerance for Southern slavery is that it shifted Republican antislavery emotionalism and momentum toward the territories, where it became entangled with "free soil" ambition. In an ironic twist, the moral ambiguity of "ultimate extinction," never mind "popular sovereignty," meant Republican success demanded a slavery issue in the territories because slave states were no longer politically suitable targets for the party's antislavery wing. Even abolitionists noted this double-standard, with one remarking,

. . . how absurd it is to attempt to ignore the issue! And how inconsistent the endeavour to oppose the further spread of slavery, while refusing to assume the position of hostility to its continuance in a certain locality. 48

The effect this had on Lincoln's private convictions and predispositions is difficult to gauge. There can be little doubt, however, that if "popular sovereignty" was permitted time to solve the territorial dilemma, or was even perceived to be a possible solution, one central issue in the Republican party platform would have become moot, with potentially disappointing effect on the upcoming election of 1860. Thus the potential for distorting, even cloaking, the realities of the territories is evident, even a politically astute maneuver. Lincoln not only had a motive for denying the applicability of "popular sovereignty" and the Freeport Doctrine altogether, but even more certainly had self-interested reason for viewing the Kansas quandary with a calculated pessimism, both privately and publicly.

One of Lincoln's early distortions of territorial realities involved the relative worth of the undeveloped West to Northern and Southern interests. In July of 1856, he wrote:

The slaves of the South, at a moderate estimate are worth a thousand millions of dollars. Let it be permanently settled that this property may extend to new territory, without restraint, and it greatly enhances, perhaps quite doubles, its value at once. This immense, palpable pecuniary interest, on the question of extending slavery, unites the Southern people, as one man. But it can not be demonstrated that the North will gain a dollar by restricting it . . . . Moral principle is all, or nearly all, that unites us of the North . . . . 49

A calculated preference for pessimism was evident much later also, in his reaction to Douglas' opposition to Lecompton, and its impending defeat. Instead of acknowledging the triumph (albeit bloody) of "popular sovereignty" with its appended Freeport Doctrine, he elevated the stakes, increasingly criticizing Douglas' amoral attitude toward slavery, which, one assumes, should have been irrelevant in the face of a "free soil" victory in Kansas. In a preliminary draft of what would become his "House Divided" speech, ironically his most inflammatory oration to date, he bitterly reflected:

Did Judge Douglas help any to get a free-State majority into Kansas? Not a bit of it--the exact contrary. Does he now express any wish that Kansas, or any other place, shall be free? . . . His whole effort is devoted to clearing the ring, and giving slavery and freedom a fair fight. With one who considers slavery just as good as freedom, this is perfectly natural and consistent. 50

By contrast, Douglas was understandably more optimistic in assessing unfolding events. (And again, one must remember his loyalty to conviction demonstrated later, in the face of declining political for tunes.) His explanation revealed clarity of understanding regarding "popular sovereignty's" practical utility, and foreshadowed the position Revisionists would take over seventy years later, notably Ramsdell. In July of 1858, at Bloomington, Illinois, he inquired rhetorically,

Why has not slavery obtained a foothold in Kansas? Simply because there was a majority of her people opposed to slavery, and every slaveholder knew that if he took his slaves there, the moment that majority got possession of the ballot-boxes, and a fair election was held, that moment slavery would be abolished and he would lose them. For that reason, such owners as took their slaves there brought them back to Missouri, fearing that if they remained they would be emancipated. Thus you see that under the principle of popular sovereignty, slavery has been kept out of Kansas, notwithstanding the fact that for the first three years they had a Legislature in that Territory favourable to it. I tell you, my friends, it is impossible under our institutions to force slavery on an unwillingly people. 53

The Lincoln-Douglas dynamic reveals that even the Lincoln legend is subject to the charge of irresponsible agitation. He should have known better, given the information available to him, and in fact probably did. William L. Barney makes the added point that "the last five states added to the antebellum Union--Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, the Oregon--were all free."54 It was abundantly clear that free-soil forces were winning the race west. Douglas knew it; he was forced to highlight the fact, causing immense damage to his own political career. Lincoln likely understood the territorial circumstances, but could ill-afford politically to acknowledge them and in fact stood to gain from harassing the Senator. While this says much for Lincoln's political acumen, it says more for the personal courage and moral character of Douglas.

In explaining Republican ascendancy in the 1850s, slavery-culturalists tend to forget that a diversity of interests influences political developments within democratic societies. Even though some pay homage to the increasingly fashionable phrase, "the Republican synthesis," slavery remains the focal point of inquiry. Today it is recognized that sweeping electoral victories or dramatic transformations of political landscape are seldom explained sufficiently by referring simply to party rhetoric and slogans. Often different people support the same party for very different reasons. Thus Lincoln's Republicans might be viewed in two ways: as an antislavery party, or as a party representing myriad interests, including a highly-vocal antislavery lobby. One's chosen perspective on this influences one's conclusions concerning the sectionalization of late antebellum politics and the meaning of Lincoln's electoral triumph. Should the victory of 1860 be viewed as a Northern mandate for a carte blanche, moral confrontation over slavery? Or should we disappoint the romantic by suggesting it was an altogether mundane affair involving subtle complexities and the realignment of allegiances over rather tired issues? This might be answered by identifying these other issues that secured Republican votes, emphasizing the continuity of American political culture over the freqently alleged radicalization of mainstream thinking.

Joel H. Silbey speaks for most ethnoculturalist historians when he states that

we have noted that an underlying influence on political behaviour is the group identification of individual voters and their positive or negative reactions toward other social groups. In this country, the most pervasive group identification and rejection pattern involves ethnic and religious associations. . . . Inexorably, from the begin ning of the Republic onward these tensions have spilled over into politics, often to play a most significant role in shaping mass voting behaviour. Before the 1850's, how ever, despite clear manifestations of cultural group hostilities in politics, they were never sufficiently salient to influence politics on a national scale. 55

It was naturalization that raised the stakes. These new citizens tended to support the Democratic Party, the traditional defender of the common man versus the monied interests, prompting some native-born workers to desert a party they felt had deserted them. 59 Abolitionists, on the other hand, saw Democrats as an extension of the Slave Power, and advocated nativist solutions for reducing their electoral base. 60 So for radically different reasons, a worker and an abolitionist might share antipathy for immigrants and Democrats, targeting them as sources of national malaise. Thus it is easy to understand why an Irish-Catholic immigrant strolling in downtown Boston might arouse the indignation of native Bostonians from all walks of life for varied reasons. For disgruntled citizens one thing was clear: It was time to change party allegiances for the upcoming election of 1856, or perhaps 1860.

In explaining the initial successes of the American ("Know Nothing") Party, William L. Barney brings this ethnocultural theory of "negative reference group behaviour" from the abstract level of Gienapp's "complex interaction" down to the everyday concerns of many Protestant citizens. He observes that

by opposing temperance, legal restrictions on Sunday behaviour, and Protestant socialization in the public schools, the immigrants resisted homogenization. Then, in the early 1850s, the archenemy of Protestant America, the Catholic Church, launched an aggressive campaign that seemingly elevated cultural pluralism to a desirable social good. The Church entered politics in an effort to eliminate Protestant Bible readings in public schools and to convince state authorities to set aside school taxes on Catholics for a separate, parochial school system. In response, membership in Know-Nothing lodges swelled. 61

Any truly objective assessment of Republican ascendancy must wait until these questions have been answered, assuming they ever can. The ethnoculturalist effort to achieve this has been undermined by a linger ing tendency to describe party allegiances of the 1850s as though they were political fads. Witness Bruce Levine's recent assessment of the American Party's demise (circa 1856):

The destruction of the national Know-Nothing party did not expunge anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic attitudes (in their various incarnations and meanings) from national politics. It did relegate them to a secondary, rather than a primary, role. The main line of partisan cleavage would now follow the division over the slavery issue. 62

The conveyed impression is that Americans simply moved along to more pressing matters--but defined by whom? Ethnoculturalists would prefer interpretations placing antislavery and nativism alongside each other in the new Republican Party, rather than replacing one with the other. They would point out that a nativist riot in Philadelphia killed twenty-four people in 1844,63 that slavery was an important issue in 1850, that Know-Nothing membership mushroomed in the early fifties, and that slavery resurfaced again in 1854. Where Levine sees a supersession of issues, they see a kind of parallel continuum that realigns in reaction to historical circumstances but continues nonetheless.

Thus Silbey assesses the Know-Nothings' demise rather differently, explaining how

they did not offer enough within a complex society to attract a permanent following. Their best ideas were therefore appropriated by others as part of a larger complex of issues. People might hate and fear the immigrant yet be concerned about tariff rates and slavery too. . . . Therefore, many Northern Know-Nothings walked out of the party as the newly formed Republican Party not only adopted a nativist tinge but also talked about other things of moment. By that time, however, the Know-Nothings had contributed a great deal to the developing political transformation. They had shaken loose from their moorings many traditional political groups, not only Whigs but Democrats as well. Most of these had no place to go now, except to the Republicans. The Republican leaders did not hesitate to woo the nativist-oriented groups either. 64

in the 1850s, the Democrats were undeniably the party of the Catholics. Hence, once the Republicans became the major anti-Democratic party, it is likely that anti-Catholics, especially those who refused to join the Know Nothing order, voted for them as much to defeat the pro-Catholic party as to defeat the Slave Power. 65

It is interesting that Stampp's criticism of Craven for allegedly misreading "the temper of an age" is matched by his further dismissal of the "new political historians" for stressing "local ethnocultural issues at the expense of national issues." Though obviously consistent, Stampp may have misconstrued the problem: Current historiography highlights the national while obscuring the local.

Combining these victimized perspectives in an effort to support Craven may strike the reader as peculiar, even self-contradictory. After all, Revisionists essentially argue that Northerners did cast antislavery votes because they were misled by alarmists. On the other hand, "new political historians" maintain voting patterns may well have reflected something entirely different. However, these two perspectives offer an effective "one-two punch" for revealing slavery-culturalist assumptions. Together they suggest that fewer people were responding specifically to antislavery than tradition ally believed, and that many who did were propaganda victims reacting to an exaggerated threat. Rhetorical assaults continued throughout the 1850s, punctuated by Dred Scott and Harper's Ferry, with Southern secessionists and Northern radicals finally exaggerating the antislavery "mandate" of Lincoln's electoral triumph. That many citizens were swayed by these views cannot be denied. That many subsequent historians were recruited is also apparent. But lost in this romantic search for consensus and American moral destiny were the millions of antebellum citizens who resented the trumped-up paranoia, and who, like Douglas, understood that patience may have proven not only a virtue, but practical to undermining the issue of slavery's alleged expansion without resorting to war. The upcoming chapter on James G. Randall's contribution will include a search for these voices.

This chapter has demonstrated the sensationalist nature of sectional agitation, providing samples of oratory and literature that distorted reality into the "mythical" by endorsing half-truths, exaggeration, and poorly-concealed double standards. It has shown that Lincoln himself was prone to such tactics. But most importantly, it has suggested alternative approaches to assessing the meaning of Lincoln's election. Perhaps historians have attributed greater significance to antislavery rhetoric than is warranted by the individual motives of his contemporaries, even a large percentage of his supporters. In fact this may apply to Craven as much as Stampp. But one thing is certain: To accept antislavery agitation at face value, declaring its surviving manuscripts and remnants as proof of "the temper of an age," may only be proof of wishful thinking.

Notes

1. Avery Craven, "The Coming Of The War," p. 304.

2. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p. 223.

3. Craven, "The Coming Of The War," pp. 305-311.

4 Ibid., pp. 308-309.

5. Ibid., p.311.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 316.

8. Ibid.

9. David B. Chesebrough, "God Ordained This War": Sermons On The Sectional Crisis, 1830-1865 (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), p. 2.

10. Theodore Parker, quoted in Chesebrough, pp. 56-57.

11. Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon entitled "Against A Compromise Of Principle," given November 29th, 1860. See Chesebrough, pp. 75-76.

12. Ibid., p. 75.

13. James H. Thornwell, in a sermon entitled "The Rights And Duties Of Masters," given May 26th, 1850. See Chesebrough, p. 177.

14. Ibid., pp. 181-182.

15. Ibid., p. 185.

16. George D. Armstrong, D.D., The Christian Doctrine Of Slavery (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969). Originally published in 1857.

17. Ibid., p. 119.

18. Ibid., p. 124.

19. Ibid., p. 126.

20. Daniel Walker Howe, "The Evangelical Movement And Political Culture In The North During The Second Party System," J.A.H., 77 (March 1991, #4): 1216-1239. See pp. 1224-1227 for discussion of postmillennialism and ecumenicism as compared with premillennialism and confessionalism.

21. Barney, pp. 99-100 and 115.

22. Howe, p. 1218.

23. Russel B. Nye, William Lloyd Garrison And The Humanitarian Reformers (Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown, and Company, 1955), pp. 198 and 202.

24. From a speech given December 16th, 1859. See George M. Fredrickson (Ed.), Great Lives Observed: William Lloyd Garrison (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), p. 61.

25. Ibid., p. 62.

26. From a letter to Dr. Samuel G. Howe, declining an invitation to lecture at a meeting to be attended by several prominent proslavery activists from the South. See Louis Ruchames, The Letters Of Wil liam Lloyd Garrison, 6 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press, 1975), p.359.

27. George Fitzhugh, "Cannibals All!," or Slaves Without Masters (Richmond, Va.: A. Morris Publishers, 1857). Compiled in Harvey Wish (Ed.), Antebellum: Writings Of George Fitzhugh And Hinton Rowan Helper On Slavery (New York: Capricorn Books, 1960).

28. Ibid., p. 111.

29. Ibid., p. 115.

30. Ibid., pp. 114-115.

31. Richard Hofstadter has noted John C. Calhoun's critique of free-labour societies. Anticipating Marx, the Southern statesman predicted social revolution as the logical outcome of labour-capital tension in the North. For Calhoun, Southern slave society offered a conservative balance within the political framework of the Republic. Slavery represented a stable means of getting on with the business of creating civilization while facing the reality that to accomplish this one must exploit labour. Hofstadter points out that while Calhoun felt African slavery was the answer, George Fitzhugh went as far as advocating slavery for all labouring classes, regardless of race, as the best means of generating human wealth and culture with out jeopardizing social order. Clearly the moral philosophies of Calhoun and Fitzhugh were diametrically opposed to that of Marx, but the ideas of all three rested on a premise that the exploitation of labouring classes has been a fundamental ingredient in human histor ical development. See Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition: And The Men Who Made It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), pp. 67-91.

32. The New York Daily Tribune, May 30th, 1854.

33. The Charleston Mercury, "Out Of The Woods At Last," May 29th, 1854, p. 2.

34. This appeared in The Vicksburg Daily Whig in Mississippi on January 18th, 1860. See Stampp, The Cause Of The Civil War, pp. 70-71.

35. The New York Times, "The Commercial Relations Between The North And South," December 7th, 1860. See Howard Cecil Perkins (Ed.), Northern Editorials On Secession, 2 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1964), pp. 567-568.

36. Charles Sumner: His Complete Works, 5 (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), pp. 142-143.

37. Kenneth S. Davis provides a rather sordid description of the atrocity in Kansas: A Bicentennial History (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1976), p. 58.

38. Charles Sumner: His Complete Works, 6 (New York: Negro Universities Press). Here appear several letters Sumner wrote to "Messrs. Greeley and McElrath" (Sept. 23rd, 1856), the Hon. M.F. Conway (November 17th, 1856), and James Redpath, Esq. (Jan. 10th, 1857) in search of monetary contributions to the cause. See pp. 10, 40 and 44-45 respectively.

39. Jaffa, Crisis Of The House Divided. For his concern for Lincoln's historiographical fate, see pp. 22-27. For his suspicion of Douglas' subordination of the slavery issue to political ambi tions, see pp. 393-409.

40. For Douglas' racism, see Johannsen, The Frontier, pp. 191-192, For Lincoln's political ambitions, see Johannsen's Lincoln, The South, p. 7.

41. On August 21, 1858, during the first Lincoln-Douglas debate, held at Ottawa, Illinois, Douglas stated clearly his racist views, but also the limit to his racism, by asserting that blacks belong "to an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior position." He went on to deny that "because the negro is our inferior that therefore he ought to be a slave." It should be noted that these speeches were highly, and nationally, publicized. See Don E. Fehrenbacher (Editor), Abraham Lincoln: Speeches And Writings, 1832-1858--Speeches, Letters, And Miscellaneous Writings, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1989), p. 505.

42. This was part of Lincoln's rejoinder to Douglas. See Fehrenbacher, p. 675.

43. In a speech given July 10, 1858, in Chicago, Lincoln proved himself a master philologist, clearly objecting to what he felt was the impracticality of depriving owners of slaves in a territorial setting, but then nevertheless affirming that "popular sovereignty" had indeed always been the legitimate process by which the inhabi tants of a territory formulated a Constitution for the purpose of obtaining statehood. He not only maintained that this had always been so, but proceeded to inquire as to "when ever a Republican said anything against it?" He went on to accuse Douglas of claiming credit for being "the inventor of the idea that people should govern themselves," alluding to the very principles of self-government enshrined in the Declaration Of Independence. This reader received the impression that Lincoln had no substan tial quarrel with the principle of "popular sovereignty" per se, that at best his objection had more to do with the concept's partic ularly violent expression in Kansas. At worst, perhaps his objec tion to the principle rested more with the threat it posed to the perpetuation of a slavery issue in the territories, something which was very dear to the Republican free-soil platform. See Fehrenbacher, pp. 441-444.

44. See Douglas' Senate speech of March 22nd, 1858, in John C. Rives, Appendix To The Congressional Globe, pp. 195-198. Letters to John W. Forney (Feb. 6, 1858), and to the editors of the San Francisco National (August 16, 1859), reveal his consistent opposi tion to the Lecompton Constitution. The former, in particular, makes plain his position: "We are . . . forced irresistibly to the conclusion that the Lecompton Constitution, whether viewed in a legal and technical sense or as a memorial professing to embody the popular will of Kansas, should be repudiated by every Democrat who cherishes the time-honored principle of his party, and is determined . . . to carry out the doctrine of self-government and popular sove reignty . . . ." See Johannsen, The Letters, pp. 408 and 454 respec tively.

45. Levine, p. 213, and Smith, p. 151.

46. Jaffa, pp. 405-406.

47. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, pp. 238-239.

48. This complaint was expressed in an essay by abolitionist William J. Watkins entitled "The Issue Plainly Stated," appearing in the September 5th edition of The Weekly Anglo-African in 1859. See C. Peter Ripley (Ed.), The Black Abolitionist Papers: Volume V, The United States, 1859-1865 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992), p. 33.

49. Fehrenbacher, p. 372.

50. Ibid., pp. 412-414. The quoted passage is on pp. 413-414.

51. Ibid., p. 413.

52. William E. Lass, Minnesota: A Bicentennial History (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1977), pp. 98-103. Lass makes it clear that slavery did have its supporters in Minnesota Territory, though they were heavily outnumbered, which actually serves to strengthen the relevance of popular sovereignty to the outcome. Had there been no proslavery political resistance whatsoever, Lincoln might have argued that the bloody situation in Kansas was doomed to repetition in all contested cases. Minnesota's experience denied him this generalization.

53. Quoted by David Donald in An Excess Of Democracy: The American Civil War And The Social Process, excerpts of which appear in Stampp, The Causes Of The Civil War. See p. 101 of Stampp for the cited passage.

54. Barney, pp. 201-202.

55. Silbey, p. 8.

56. Gienapp, "Nativism And The Creation Of A Republican Majority In The North Before The Civil War," J.A.H., 72 (Dec. 1985, #3): 529- 559. See p. 531.

57. All statistics from Silbey, p. 9.

58. Gienapp, "Nativism And The Creation," pp. 542-544; Silbey, pp. 9-11; Holt, pp. 301-302; Howe, "The Evangelical Movement," p. 1225.

59. Howe, "The Evangelical Movement," pp. 1224-1225; Barney, p, 179.

60. Levine, p. 201.

61. Barney, p. 178.

62. Levine, p. 204.

63. Barney, p. 177.

64. Silbey, pp. 13-14.

65. Holt, pp. 301-302.

66. Gienapp, "Nativism And The Creation," p. 549.

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