FIFTEEN

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Philadelphia crackled with anticipation and excitement as the first Republican National Convention opened at Musical Fund Hall on June 17, 1856.

As the more than six hundred delegates and one hundred newspaper reporters made their way into the convention hall, all were aware that the events of the previous weeks—the caning, the Pottawatomie murders, the harsh debates in Congress—had generated at once both a state of national crisis and golden opportunity for antislavery Republicans. A month earlier, Republicans had considered a presidential victory in November as a distant long shot. But these dramatic events, none more so than the caning, had altered the political landscape and their outlook.

Who would they nominate as their first-ever presidential candidate? Who would take on proslavery James Buchanan, whom the Democrats had recently nominated in Cincinnati? Buchanan was now the standard-bearer of a party that vowed to resist “in renewing in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question.” The Republican Party, of course, was founded and built on the agitation of the slavery question. It was clear that the positions of the two parties were at the extremes of the most important issue facing the nation; it was also clear that those positions were intractable. No wonder, then, that the Republican Convention's presiding officer, Col. Henry Lane of Indiana, asserted: “We have assembled at the most important crisis in our post-Revolutionary history.”

The Republicans were certainly a regional party—almost exclusively from the North and West, though a handful of men from border states and even the South did attend. The Evening Bulletin declared that it was “somewhat astonished” by the attendance of delegates from Kentucky, Delaware, Virginia, and North Carolina. “We had supposed in accordance with the popular impression that there would be no delegations from any southern or slave states,” the paper opined.

Delegates got down to business quickly on the first day. Edwin D. Morgan of New York, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the convention to order and addressed the delegates, reminding them of the high purpose for which they had gathered and the expectations the country had for the fledgling party. “You are here today to give direction to a movement which is to decide whether the people of the United States are to be hereafter and forever chained to the present national policy of the extension of human slavery,” Morgan said. The issue was bigger than sectionalism, he asserted, bigger than whether the North or South would rule the debate. The question the Republicans would help decide was “whether the broad, national policy our fathers established…is to be permitted to descend to her sons.” Regardless of the ultimate votes they would cast, delegates should “avoid all extremes,” Morgan urged. “Let us plant ourselves firmly on the Platform of the Constitution and the Union, and only adopt positions consistent with our consciences, our country, and our mankind.”

With the backdrop set, delegates adopted their platform on the first day; unsurprisingly, among its key planks were the party's firm opposition to the “barbaric” extension of slavery into the territories and the specific resolution that Kansas be admitted to the Union as a free state. But the highlight of the first day was not the platform adoption. Just prior to adjournment, Henry Wilson, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was invited to address the convention. As he ascended the platform, delegates erupted into a “perfect storm” of wild cheering and applause, “again and again renewed.”

Wilson, who had helped Sumner through his ordeal, who had defended Sumner's right to speak, who had vociferously condemned Brook's attack on his colleague, had much to say to Republican delegates. Weeks of pent-up emotion tumbled forth and Wilson held nothing back in his efforts to inspire the Republicans. Never known for his soaring oratory, Wilson delivered a speech punctuated with evocative imagery, powerful language, and clarity of purpose, remarks interrupted many times by thunderous applause and delegates leaping to their feet.

“Our object is to overthrow the Slave Power of the country, now organized in the Democratic Party,” Wilson said to tumultuous cheers. It was the slave power that had generated fear and divisiveness across America, whose members had placed lovers of freedom in peril. “Look now at our friends in Kansas,” Wilson said, “who lie down at night with the conviction that their little dwelling may be burned over them before morning, or they themselves may be murdered because they love liberty.” It is those men, Wilson said, whom the Republicans needed to fight for and represent with strength and conviction. Delegates roared when Wilson said: “I would sacrifice any man and any friend on earth to unite American Freemen for the rescue of the American Government of the United States from the power of slavery.”

Wilson saved his most pointed and scalding attacks for the current administration of President Franklin Pierce, who, he asserted, bore the most responsibility for the country's condition. Pierce, Wilson said, dared to show himself at the Democratic Convention “with the light of the burning dwellings of Kansas flashing upon his brazen brow…with the blood of the murdered freemen of Kansas dripping from his polluted hands.” Delegates again responded with loud and sustained applause.

But Wilson's most passionate language, and the delegates' largest roar, came during his references to the caning. “A Senator from a sovereign state…for denouncing the crime against Kansas, has been stricken senseless on the floor of the American Senate,” Wilson reminded the delegates. At this point, he was interrupted by a voice from the audience who shouted: “Three cheers for Sumner!” Delegates in the crowded hall responded with rousing cheers, over and over again. Then, another voice rang out: “Three groans for Brooks!” and delegates unleashed a storm of groans, hisses, and epithets. When Wilson resumed, he told delegates that Southerners had made threats against other antislavery men and the audience shouted in response: “Let them dare! Let them dare!”

As Wilson reached the end of his speech, enthusiasm in the hall swelled to a frenzy. “In God's name, gentlemen of the North, resolve to do your duty and to blot out the Slave Power of the country. We can do it… I believe in my soul we can do it.” Millions of people across the country were looking with “trembling anxiety” at Philadelphia, with the hope that Republicans would band together and nominate a formidable candidate for the presidency. “Disappoint them not, gentlemen, by any petty little interest,” he warned, an admonition to resist the urge to break into factions. “Nominate a man upon whom you can unite with the most votes, and who is true to your principles.” And whomever the Republicans nominated, Wilson reminded them that the party's mission was the “cause of liberty and the cause of patriotism…the party of the Constitution and of the Union.”

Amidst a tremendous ovation, a spent but satisfied Henry Wilson returned to his seat. Moments later, delegates adjourned the first day's proceedings and voted to resume work at ten o'clock the next morning.

On day two, they would get about the task that Wilson had charged them with and inspired them to do: nominate a man for President who shared their principles, and, by seizing on the electrifying excitement the caning had generated, one who could win in November. Only a month ago, the possibility had been almost unthinkable.

——

The convention's second day was filled with speeches and jockeying for position—the delegates had not fully abandoned their agendas or political favorites in exchange for party unity—but in the end, the Republicans nominated a national hero who embodied the boldness and grandness of the American spirit.

Forty-three-year-old John C. Frémont had painted an adventuresome, swashbuckling, risk-taking life story across the broad canvas of two of America's most cherished milieus: the frontier and the military.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of a refugee from the French Revolution, he gained his fame as “Pathfinder of the West” for his many successful surveying expeditions and explorations. As a young man, he helped map the region between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and later explored along the Des Moines River. He then solidified his position as a nationally famous explorer and frontiersman by undertaking three great expeditions that contributed significantly to knowledge of the American West—explorations of the Oregon Trail, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Sacramento valley, during which he crossed the formidable Rocky Mountains five times. Adding to his reputation as an intrepid adventurer was the fact that he was accompanied at times by legendary scout Kit Carson.

Frémont also served in the Mexican War, and although he was court-martialed and convicted in a command dispute between a Navy commodore and an Army general—again, contributing to his status as a rogue with an independent streak—his sentence was suspended by President James Polk. He resigned from the Army, settled in California, and, amazingly enough, promptly struck gold, again adding to the Frémont legend. After California was admitted to the Union, he served briefly (1850–1851) as one of the state's first two U.S. senators.

Now a retired Army officer, Frémont had two main characteristics that endeared him to Republican delegates: first, he was personally opposed to slavery and politically opposed to its extension into the territories (Frémont did not favor outright abolition in places where slavery existed, believing this to be a matter for states to decide); second, his name recognition and reputation would make him a favorite in both the North and the West.

Frémont received 359 votes for the Republican presidential nomination, followed by John McLean of Ohio with 100 votes. Charles Sumner received two votes for the nomination. Former New Jersey senator William Dayton was nominated as the Republican's vice presidential candidate, besting his nearest rival, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Though Sumner had delivered word to the convention that he did not wish to be considered for vice president, he still received thirty-five votes. When Massachusetts delegate Samuel A. Eliot announced, “Massachusetts could not afford to lose Charles Sumner from the floor of the Senate,” delegates again responded with resounding cheers.

When the votes were counted and the nomination complete, workers unfurled a large white banner that read: “John C. Frémont for President of the United States.” The convention erupted, as delegates flung their hats across the floor and cheered wildly. Workers quickly displayed Frémont banners in the windows to notify crowds in the streets outside, and spectators soon joined in the celebration.

Building on the momentum of Frémont's nomination and the convention's exhilaration, organizers again asked Henry Wilson to address the crowd just before adjournment, and the Massachusetts senator did not disappoint, leading the crowd in a full-throated exchange that left him flush and the delegates delirious:

Wilson began: “We have a glorious ticket. And now, all that is required is that we…place that ticket in power. Are you gentlemen for free speech?” There were cheers and shouts of “Aye! “Aye!” Wilson continued, “Then vote for John C. Frémont!” More cheers. “Are you for a free press—all over the North?” The crowd shouted: “Yes, Yes!” “In Kansas?” “Of course, Yes!” “Everywhere in the territory of the United States?” Wilson's words were again met with cheers and shouts of “Aye.” “Then vote that ticket! Are you for free Kansas?” “Yes!” “Do you want to bring that young sister of ours, now in a condition of civil war, into the galaxy of free confederacies?” Loud cries of “Yes! Yes!” Wilson concluded: “Aye, gentlemen, [then] let our motto be, Free Speech, Free Press, Free Men, Free Labor, Free Territory, and Frémont! For victory!”

As they had on day one, delegates responded to Wilson's remarks with overwhelming affection and cheers. He had identified the ticket's campaign slogan and they recognized its power. As the caning had been an affront and an attack on free speech and free expression by the slave power, the Republicans would use the nearly eponymous name of their nominee as a reminder of the freedom they cherished and the South disdained.

They would sound that theme repeatedly during the summer of 1856, contrasting the hope that they offered for America's future with the small-mindedness that had mired Southern slave-owners in the past—and left them with little to offer the country beyond the barbarism that led to the beating of Charles Sumner.