Stanton"s responsibilities to his family eventually brought him back to his law practice, but he could not let go of his sorrow. Fearful that his son, then only two years old, would have no memories of the mother he had lost, he spent his nights writing a letter of over a hundred pages to the boy. He described his romance with Mary from its earliest days and included extracts from all the letters they had exchanged over the years. His words were penned with an unsteady hand, he confessed, with "tears obscuring his vision" and an "anguish of heart" driving him periodically from his chair. He would have preferred to wait until the boy was older and better able to understand; "but time, care, sickness, and the vicissitudes of life, wear out and efface the impression of the mind. Besides life is uncertain. I may be called from you.... You might live and die without knowing of the affection your father and mother bore for you, and for each other."
Stanton"s miseries multiplied when his younger brother, Darwin, who completed his studies at Harvard Medical School, developed a high fever that impaired his brain. Unhinged by his acute illness, the young doctor, who was married with three small children, took a sharp lance-head and punctured his throat. "He bled to death in a few moments," a family friend recalled. His mother watched helplessly as "the blood spouted up to the ceiling." Neighbors were sent to fetch Edwin, who lived nearby. When he witnessed the aftermath of the gruesome spectacle, he reportedly "lost self-control and wandered off into the woods without his hat or coat." Fearful that he, too, might commit suicide, neighbors pursued, restrained, and escorted him home, where they took turns watching over him.
This horrific train of events transformed Stanton"s spirit. His natural ebullience faded. "Where formerly he met everybody with hearty and cheerful greeting," said a friend, "he now moved about in silence and gloom, with head bowed and hands clasped behind." Though he remained a tender father to his son and a loving brother to his younger sisters, he became increasingly aggressive in court, intimidating witnesses unnecessarily, antagonizing fellow lawyers, exhibiting rude and irascible behavior.
He derived his only satisfaction from his growing reputation and his increasing wealth, which allowed him to care for his son, his widowed mother, his sisters, and his dead brother"s wife and children. The Reaper case was the biggest case of his career, "the most important Patent cause that has ever been tried," he told a friend, "and more time, labor, money and brains have been expended in getting it ready for argument, than any other Patent case ever has had bestowed upon it." If all went well, it would open doors for Stanton at the highest level of his profession.
When he arrived at the Burnet House, he discovered that Harding "had been unwell for several days" and might not be in a position to go to court. Terrified that in addition to the legal argument he had fully prepared, he might now have to present the "scientific part of the case to which [he] had given no attention," Stanton stayed up all night in preparation. He was greatly relieved when Harding recovered, but anxiety and lack of sleep compounded the irascibility that had marked his demeanor since the multiple deaths in his family.
Beyond the breaking pressures of the case, Stanton had become involved in a turbulent courtship. The young woman, Ellen Hutchison, the daughter of a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman, was the first woman who had attracted his interest since the death of his wife more than a decade earlier. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, Ellen was, by Stanton"s description, "radiant with beauty and intellect." While Stanton was smitten with Ellen immediately, she was slow to respond to his affections. She still suffered from a romantic disappointment that had left her heart in "agony" and convinced her that she could not love again.
Stanton understood, he told her, that "the trouble of early love fell like a killing frost upon the tree of your life," but he was confident that "enough life still remains to put forth fresh blossoms." Despite his encouragement, Ellen was vexed by some of the qualities others noted in Stanton: his obsessive concentration on work, his impatience and lack of humor, and, most worrisome, "his careless[ness] and indifferen[ce] to the feelings of all." Addressing these concerns, Stanton admitted that "there is so much of the hard and repulsive in my-(I will not say nature, for that I think is soft and tender) but in the temper and habit of life generated by adverse circ.u.mstances, that great love only can bear with and overlook." If the last decade of his life had been different, he a.s.sured her, if he had been "blessed with the companionship of a woman whose love would have pointed out and kindly corrected my errors, I would have escaped the fault you condemn."
After the successful conclusion of the Reaper trial, Ellen was finally persuaded to marry Edwin on June 25, 1856. Happier years followed for Stanton. The Manny patent was sustained not only by the Cincinnati court but by the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal. With this huge victory behind him, Stanton moved his practice to Washington, D.C., where he argued important cases before the Supreme Court, achieved substantial financial security, and built a brick mansion for his new wife.
AS LINCOLN"S OWN HOPES were repeatedly frustrated, he wistfully watched the progress of others, in particular, Stephen Douglas, his great rival with whom he had often debated around the fire of Speed"s general store. "Twenty-two years ago Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted," he confided in a private fragment later discovered in his papers. "We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me the race of ambition has been a failure-a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation; and is not unknown, even, in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached. So reached, that the oppressed of my species, might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence, than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch"s brow."
At this juncture, some have suggested, Lincoln was sustained by his wife"s unflagging belief that a glorious destiny awaited him. "She had the fire, will and ambition," his law partner John Stuart observed. When Mary was young and still being courted by many beaux, she had told a friend who had taken an old, wealthy husband, "I would rather marry a good man-a man of mind-with a hope and bright prospects ahead for position-fame and power than to marry all the houses-gold and bones in the world." Stephen Douglas, who had been among her suitors, she considered "a very little, little giant, by the side of my tall Kentuckian, and intellectually my husband towers above Douglas just as he does physically." Quite simply, in Mary"s mind, her husband had "no equal in the United States."
In an era when, as Mary herself admitted, it was "unladylike" to be so interested in politics, she avidly supported her husband"s political ambitions at every stage. Although she undoubtedly fortified his will at difficult moments, however, Lincoln"s quest for public recognition and influence was so consuming, it is unlikely he would have abandoned his dreams, whatever the circ.u.mstances.
ONCE AGAIN, at a moment when Lincoln"s career appeared to have come to a halt, Seward and Chase were moving forward. Chase"s leadership during the political uprising in the North that followed the pa.s.sage of the Nebraska Act had proved, in the words of Carl Schurz, to be "the first bugle call for the formation of a new party." Under the pressure of mounting sectional division, both national parties-the Whigs and the Democrats-had begun to fray. The Whig Party-the party of Clay and Webster, Lincoln, Seward, and Bates-had been the first to decline as "conscience Whigs," opposed to slavery, split from "cotton Whigs," who desired an accommodation with slavery. In the 1852 election, the divided Whig Party had been buried in a Democratic landslide. But the pa.s.sage of the Nebraska Act brought serious defections in the Democratic Party as well, as Northerners unwilling to sanction the extension of slavery looked for a new home, leaving the party in control of the Southern Democrats.
The political upheaval was enormously complicated by the emergence of the Know Nothing Party, which had formed in reaction to an unprecedented flood of immigration in the 1840s and 1850s. In 1845, about 20 million people inhabited the United States. During the next decade, nearly 3 million immigrants arrived, mainly from Ireland and Germany. This largely Catholic influx descended on a country that was mostly native-born Protestant, anti-Catholic in sympathy. The Know Nothings fought to delay citizenship for the new immigrants and bar them from voting. In the early 1850s, they won elections in several cities, swept to statewide victory in Ma.s.sachusetts, and gained surprising ground in New York. Newspapers and preachers a.s.saulted "popery"; there were b.l.o.o.d.y anti-Catholic riots in several Northern cities.
Lincoln had nothing but disdain for the discriminatory beliefs of the Know Nothings. "How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading cla.s.ses of white people?" he queried his friend Joshua Speed. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance."
But this party, too, was soon to founder on the issue of slavery. Many Northern Know Nothings were also antislavery, and finally the anti-Nebraska cause proved more compelling, of more import, than resistance to foreign immigration. The split between the party"s Northern and Southern factions would diminish its strength, though the nativist feelings that had fueled its birth would continue to influence the political climate even after the party itself collapsed and died.
With the Whigs disappearing and the Democrats under Southern domination, all those opposed to the extension of slavery found their new home in what eventually became the Republican Party, comprised of "conscience Whigs," "independent Democrats," and antislavery Know Nothings. In state after state, new coalitions with different names came into being-the Fusion Party, the People"s Party, the Anti-Nebraska Party. In Ripon, Wisconsin, an 1854 gathering of antislavery men proposed the name "Republican Party," and other state conventions soon followed suit.
In Illinois, Lincoln held back, still hoping that the Whig Party could become the antislavery party. In New York, Seward hesitated as well, finding it difficult to sever friendships and relationships built over three decades. Salmon Chase, however, was unhindered by past loyalties. He was ready to commit himself wholeheartedly to the task of forging a new party under the Republican banner. He had always been willing to move on when new political arrangements offered richer prospects for himself and the cause. Beginning as a Whig, he had joined the Liberty Party. He had abandoned that party for the Free-Soilers and then had gone to the Senate as an independent Democrat. Now, with his Senate term coming to an end, and with little chance of being nominated by the Democrats for a second term, he was happy to become a Republican.
In Ohio, as in New York and Illinois, the new movement was complicated by the strength of nativist sentiment. A delicate balance would be required to court the old Know Nothings without forfeiting support in the immigrant German-American community, which was pa.s.sionate in its hatred of slavery. Chase accomplished this feat by running for governor on a Republican platform endorsing no specific Know Nothing proposals, but including eight Know Nothing candidates for all the important offices on the statewide ticket.
It was a hard-fought canva.s.s, and the indefatigable Chase left nothing to chance. Traveling by railroad, horseback, hand car, canoe, and open wagon, he spoke at fifty-seven different places in forty-nine counties. Campaigning in the spa.r.s.ely settled sections of Ohio proved to be an adventure. To reach the town of Delphos, he wrote Kate, he was driven along the railroad tracks "on a hand car" operated by two men who "placed themselves at the cranks." Though the stars provided light, "it was rather dangerous for who could tell but we might meet a train or perhaps another hand car."
Chase"s strenuous work paid off, making him the first Republican governor of a major state. "The anxiety of the last few days is over," Sumner wrote from Boston. "At last I breathe freely!" Reading the news under the telegraphic band at breakfast, the Ma.s.sachusetts senator could barely contain his excitement, predicting that his friend"s victory would do more than anything else for the antislavery cause.
In New York, Seward faced a more difficult challenge than Chase in trying to placate the Know Nothings, who had never forgiven his proposal to extend state funds to Catholic schools. Indeed, they were determined to defeat Seward for reelection to the Senate in 1855. Facing the enmity of both the Know Nothings and the proslavery "cotton Whigs," he concluded that he could not risk moving to a new, untested party.
Seward"s only hope for reelection lay in Weed"s ability to cobble together an antislavery majority from among the various discordant elements in the state legislature. In the weeks before the legislature was set to convene, Weed entertained the members in alphabetical groups, angling for every possible vote, including a few Know Nothings who might put their antislavery principles above their anti-Catholic sentiments. At one of these lavish dinners, the story is told, three or four Know Nothings on a special tour of Weed"s house confronted a portrait of Weed"s good friend New York"s bishop John Hughes. The stratagem would be doomed if the ident.i.ty of the man in the portrait was known, so they were told that it was George Washington in his Continental robes, presented to Weed"s father by Washington himself!
Working without rest, Weed somehow st.i.tched together enough votes to reelect Seward to a second term in the Senate. "I s.n.a.t.c.h a minute from the pressure of solicitations of lobby men, and congratulations of newly-made friends, to express, not so much my deep, and deepened grat.i.tude to you," Seward wrote Weed, "as my amazement at the magnitude and complexity of the dangers through which you have conducted our shattered bark." In Auburn, a great celebration followed the news of Seward"s reelection. "I have never known such a season of rejoicing," Frances happily reported to her son Augustus. "They are firing 700 cannons here-a salute of 300 was given in Albany as soon as the vote was made known."
Once Seward was securely positioned for six additional years in the Senate, he and Weed were liberated to join the Republican Party. Two state conventions, one Whig, one Republican, were convened in Syracuse in late September 1855. When Seward was asked by a friend which to attend, he replied that it didn"t matter. Delegates would enter through two doors, but exit through one. The Whig delegates a.s.sembled first and adopted a strong antislavery platform. Then, led by Weed, they marched into the adjoining hall, where the Republicans greeted them with thunderous applause. From the remnants of dissolving parties, a new Republican Party had been born in the state of New York.
"I am so happy that you and I are at last on the same platform and in the same political pew," Sumner told Seward. That October, Seward announced his allegiance to the Republican Party in a rousing speech that traced the history of the growth of the slave power, ill.u.s.trating the constant march to acquire new slave states and thereby ensure for slaveholders the balance of power in the Congress. "What, then, is wanted?" he asked. "Nothing but organization." The task before the new Republican Party was to consolidate its strength until it gained control of the Congress and secured the power to forbid the extension of slavery in the territories.
IN EARLY 1856, Lincoln decided that Illinois should follow New York and Ohio in organizing the various anti-Nebraska elements into the new Republican Party. Through his efforts, the call went out for an anti-Nebraska state convention to be held on May 29, 1856. Lincoln proceeded carefully in the weeks leading to the convention, recognizing the complexities of reconciling the disparate opponents of the Nebraska bill into a unified party. Despite the success of Weed and Chase in their respective states, Lincoln worried that the convention call would attract only the more radical elements of the coalition, providing too narrow a base for a viable new party.
Dramatic events in Kansas helped rally support for Lincoln"s cause. A guerrilla war had broken out between Northern emigrants desiring to make Kansas a free state under the "popular sovereignty" provision of the Nebraska Act, and so-called "border ruffians," who crossed the river from Missouri and cast illicit votes to make Kansas a slave state. During the debate over the Nebraska Act, Seward had told the slave states that the North would "engage in compet.i.tion for the virgin soil of Kansas, and G.o.d give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers as it is in right." In the South, the Charleston Mercury responded: "When the North presents a sectional issue, and tenders battle upon it, she must meet it, or abide all the consequences of a victory easily won, by a remorseless and eager foe." As the violence spiraled, "Bleeding Kansas" became a new rallying cry for the antislavery forces. Kansas was not merely a contest between settlers but a war between North and South.
Moderate antislavery sentiment was further aroused when shocking news from Washington reached Illinois the week before the convention. On the Senate floor, South Carolina"s Preston Brooks had savagely bludgeoned Charles Sumner in return for Sumner"s incendiary antislavery speech. Sumner had begun unremarkably enough, presenting familiar arguments, laced with literary and historical references, against admitting Kansas as a slave state. The mood of the Senate chamber instantly shifted, however, when Sumner launched into a vituperative attack directed particularly against two of his fellow senators, Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. He likened Butler to the aging, feeble Don Quixote, who imagined himself "a chivalrous knight," sentimentally devoted to his beloved "harlot, Slavery...who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him." Riding forth by Butler"s side, Douglas was "the squire of Slavery, its very Sancho Panza, ready to do all its humiliating offices."
In the days before delivering the speech, Sumner had read a draft to Frances Seward. She strongly advised him to remove the personal attacks, including a reference to Butler"s slight paralysis that slurred his speech. In this instance Sumner did not heed her advice; when he finished speaking, Senator Lewis Ca.s.s of Michigan characterized the speech as "the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of this high body-as I hope never to hear again here or elsewhere."
Two days later, Butler"s young cousin Congressman Preston Brooks entered the Senate chamber armed with a heavy cane. Walking up to Sumner, who was writing at his desk, Brooks reportedly said, "You have libelled South Carolina and my relative, and I have come to punish you." Before Sumner could speak, Brooks brought the cane down upon his head, cudgeling him repeatedly as Sumner futilely tried to rise from his desk. Covered with blood, Sumner fell unconscious and was carried from the floor.
News of the brutal a.s.sault, which left Sumner with severe injuries to his brain and spinal cord and kept him out of the Senate for three years, galvanized antislavery sentiment in the North. "Knots of men" on street corners p.r.o.nounced it "a gross outrage on an American Senator and on freedom of speech," reported the Boston Daily Evening Transcript. Even the moderate supporters of the Nebraska bill "expressed themselves as never so much aroused before by the slave power." Ma.s.s public meetings, so crowded that thousands were unable to gain entrance, convened in cities and towns to protest the caning. Truly to "see the slave aggression," one of Sumner"s supporters wrote, the North had first to see "one of its best men Butchered in Congress." Other antislavery men had been a.s.saulted, the New York Tribune observed, "but the knocking-down and beating to b.l.o.o.d.y blindness and unconsciousness of an American Senator while writing at his desk in the Senate Chamber is a novel ill.u.s.tration of the ferocious Southern spirit." The beating reached into the people"s hearts and minds, which political events rarely touch, the historian William Gienapp has argued. It "proved a powerful stimulus in driving moderates and conservatives into the Republican party."
If Sumner became a hero in the North, Brooks was equally lionized in the South, where the press almost universally applauded the a.s.sault. The Richmond Enquirer spoke for many when it p.r.o.nounced the act "good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequence." Celebratory gatherings were held everywhere, and in Columbia, South Carolina, the governor presented Brooks with a silver goblet and walking stick in honor of his good work.
More ominous still was the reaction of the distinguished Richmond Whig, a professed opponent of extremism on sectional issues. "We are rejoiced at this," the Whig proclaimed. "The only regret we feel is, that Mr. Brooks did not employ a horsewhip or a cowhide upon his slanderous back, instead of a cane. We trust the ball may be kept in motion. Seward and others should catch it next." The Petersburg [Virginia] Intelligencer sounded a similar theme. "If thrashing is the only remedy by which the foul conduct of the Abolitionists can be controlled...it will be very well to give Seward a double dose at least every other day until it operates freely on his political bowels...his adroit demagoguism and d.a.m.nable doctrines are infinitely more dangerous to the country than the coa.r.s.e blackguardism of the perjured wretch, Sumner." The antipodal reactions of North and South, David Donald notes, made it "apparent that something dangerous was happening to the American Union when the two sections no longer spoke the same language, but employed rival sets of cliches to describe the Brooks-Sumner affair."
With emotions running high in Illinois, "all shades of antislavery opinion" flocked to the Bloomington convention-"old-line Whigs, bolting Democrats, Free-Soilers, Know Nothings, and abolitionists." Lincoln"s fears were put to rest. Every faction seemed willing to concede something to create a party that all could stand behind.
The adopted platform united disparate factions on the issue of slavery extension without giving in to the bigoted views of the Know Nothings. Lincoln then delivered a powerful speech, full of "fire and energy and force," that further fortified the jarring factions into a united front. "That is the greatest speech ever made in Illinois," state auditor Jesse Dubois said, "and puts Lincoln on the track for the presidency." So enthralled were those in the audience that reporters cast aside their pens so as to concentrate on what Lincoln said, and the unrecorded speech has become known to history as the famous "Lost Speech." Lincoln was now the acknowledged leader of the new Republican Party in Illinois.
BY THE LATE SPRING of 1856, branches of the Republican Party had already been organized in at least twenty-two states and the District of Columbia, a remarkable beginning for a new party, giving hope to the leaders that this time, with the Whig Party all but dissolved and the Democratic Party split in two, they stood a solid chance in the presidential election. On June 17, when energized Republicans a.s.sembled in Philadelphia for their first national convention, both Seward and Chase had their hearts set on the nomination.
In Republican circles, Chase"s gubernatorial election had earned him such tremendous prestige that he was convinced he was destined for the presidency. Writing to a friend just ten days after his Ohio victory, Chase suggested that his success in uniting liberal nativists with antislavery German-Americans demonstrated the key to Republican victory in the future. Where Republicans challenged the Know Nothing Party, as they did in Ma.s.sachusetts, they found defeat. Chase seemed to feel that he was now ent.i.tled to the Republican presidential nomination in 1856.
Chase had journeyed to Francis Blair"s country home in Maryland the previous December for the legendary Christmas conclave called to organize the Republican Party on a national basis. Francis Blair, the patriarch of the Blair family, wielded great power in party politics because of his old ties to the Democratic Party and his newfound antislavery views. Chase arrived to find Sumner in attendance, along with his old friend Gamaliel Bailey, the abolitionist editor of The National Era; New York congressman Preston King; and Ma.s.sachusetts politician Nathaniel Banks. Seward had been invited, but, uncertain of how he would proceed on a national scale, he had sent Blair a note "approving of his activity, but declining his invitation." After an elegant dinner, served, ironically, by Blair"s household slaves, the group sat down to discuss the future of the Republican Party.
At Chase"s suggestion, the gathering agreed to hold an organizational meeting the following month in Pittsburgh. Inevitably, the conversation turned to potential candidates for the upcoming presidential election. Blair"s suggestion of John Charles Fremont, the celebrated explorer who had played a central role in the conquest of California during the Mexican War, met with general approval. The discussion undoubtedly disappointed Chase, who believed up to the moment of Fremont"s nomination at the Philadelphia convention on June 19 that "if the unvarnished wishes of the people" prevailed, he would be chosen.
Chase"s certainty was insufficient to mobilize the wrangling elements at the convention in support of his candidacy. Not only had he neglected to appoint a manager, but he failed to unite his own state behind him on the first ballot. The questionable deals he had made to secure his Senate seat eight years earlier had created permanent enemies within his home state. "I know that if Ohio had united on you instead of dividing her votes between [ John] McLean & Fremont & you," Chase"s friend Hiram Barney wrote, "your nomination would have been a matter of necessity; or if a t.i.the of the pains which were taken to urge Fremont had been employed for your nomination, it would have been accomplished."
Before the convention met, Seward had greater reason for hope than Chase, for clearly, he was the first choice of Republican voters and politicians. Weed kept him from running, however, insisting that the party was not yet sufficiently organized to win a national election. Better to wait four years than to be tarred with failure.
While the Republican Convention was in progress, Lincoln was staying at the American House in Urbana, Illinois, attending court. He was in high spirits, recalled Henry Whitney, having engaged in one of the practical jokes of which he was so fond. He had hidden the loud and annoying gong that summoned his fellow boarders to dinner. When the loss was discovered, Whitney entered the dining room and saw Lincoln sitting "awkwardly in a chair tilted up after his fashion, looking amused, silly and guilty." When Judge Davis told him he must put it back, Lincoln took the gong from its hiding place and returned it, "after which he bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time."
Within a day or two, the merry prankster received word that in the balloting for vice president, he had received 110 votes, second only to the eventual nominee, William Dayton of New Jersey. "Davis and I were greatly excited," Whitney recalled. Lincoln did not take it seriously at first, remarking only that "there"s another great man in Ma.s.sachusetts named Lincoln, and I reckon it"s him." His casual response aside, it is probable that this unexpected event stimulated Lincoln"s aspiration for higher office.
Unlike Seward, Chase, and Lincoln in 1856, Edward Bates refused to desert the divided and much-diminished Whig Party. While he joined with Republicans in vigorous opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the repeal of the sacred Missouri Compromise, he feared that the Republican focus on slavery would lead to an irreparable divide between North and South. After some indecision, he agreed to preside over the shrunken Whig National Convention of July 1856. The Whigs gathered in Baltimore and ultimately decided to support Millard Fillmore for president. Fillmore ran as a member of the American Party (a more palatable t.i.tle for the old Know Nothing Party) on a platform that denounced both Republicans and Democrats for agitating the slavery issue at the risk of the nation"s peace.
Though not a fanatical nativist, Bates considered the American Party, with its emphasis on issues other than slavery and a support base drawn from all sections of the country, the best hope for preserving the Union. "I am neither North nor South," he said in a final plea before the convention, "I repudiate political geography.... I am a man believing in making laws and then whether the law is exactly to my liking or not, enforcing it-whether it be to catch a runaway slave and bring him back to his master or to quell a riot in a disordered territory."
The general election resulted in a three-way race between the Republican Fremont, the Southern-leaning Democrat James Buchanan, and American Party candidate Millard Fillmore. When the votes were counted, Weed"s advice to Seward proved correct. Though the Republican Party showed considerable strength throughout the North in its first national effort, winning eleven states, the South threw its strength behind Democrat James Buchanan, who emerged the victor. In addition to his overwhelming strength in the South, Buchanan captured four Northern states-Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey-the states destined to be the battleground in the 1860 election. Fillmore and the American Party captured only tiny Maryland.
AS THE DAY of Buchanan"s inauguration approached, the Supreme Court was drafting a decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, which had originated in Missouri eleven years earlier. Scott, a slave, was suing for his freedom on the grounds that his master, an army doctor, had removed him for several years to military bases in both the free state of Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory before returning to the slave state of Missouri. The case wound its way through state and federal courts until it finally reached the Supreme Court for argument in 1856, with Francis Blair"s son, Montgomery, representing Dred Scott and the celebrated Reverdy Johnson from the slave state of Maryland representing Scott"s owners. The court was headed by Chief Justice Roger Taney of Maryland, "an uncompromising supporter of the South and slavery and an implacable foe of racial equality, the Republican Party, and the antislavery movement."
Seward was among the thousands of spectators gathered at the Capitol on March 4, 1857, to witness James Buchanan"s inauguration. "Bright skies and a deliciously bland atmosphere" relieved the bl.u.s.tery weather of the previous two days. In his inaugural address, Buchanan conceded that a "difference of opinion" had arisen over the question of extending slavery into the territories. However, this vital question, which had figured in the formation of the Republican Party, was not a political issue, he claimed, but "a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States." A decision in the Dred Scott case bearing on this very issue was pending before that august body. To that decision, Buchanan pledged: "I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be." All evidence suggests that Buchanan was already aware of the substance of the decision.
Two days later, on March 6, the historic decision was read by the seventy-nine-year-old Taney in the old Supreme Court chamber, one flight below the Senate. The 72 decision was breathtaking in its scope and consequences. The Court ruled that blacks "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Const.i.tution." Therefore, Scott had no standing in federal court. This should have decided the case, but Taney went further. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Const.i.tution had been intended to apply to blacks, he said. Blacks were "so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." But the Chief Justice did not stop even there; he went on to say that Congress had exceeded its authority when it forbade slavery in the territories by such legislation as the Missouri Compromise, for slaves were private property protected by the Const.i.tution. In other words, the Missouri Compromise was unconst.i.tutional. The act itself, of course, had already been repealed by the Nebraska Act, meaning that the Court was p.r.o.nouncing on an issue that was not before it.
One of the justices later a.s.serted that Taney had "become convinced that it was practicable for the Court to quiet all agitation on the question of slavery in the territories by affirming that Congress had no const.i.tutional power to prohibit its introduction." But the fierce sectional conflict of the age, the question that had given birth to the Republican Party, could not be quieted by a divided judicial fiat. The Dred Scott case, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter later said, was "one of the Court"s great self-inflicted wounds."