The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction

XII THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN

THE announcement of Lincoln’s reconstruction policy in December 1863, crystallized radical opposition to the president. The resulting Republican intraparty struggle over the 1864 presidential nomination produced a schism in abolitionist ranks. Ever since the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Wendell Phillips had been growing impatient with Lincoln’s apparent failure to recognize that the revolutionary character of the war required more than mere freedom for the Negro. Garrison, on the other hand, while critical of many presidential policies, was inclined to approve the growth of Lincoln’s antislavery sentiments since 1861 and to trust to the future for further advances. During 1864 Phillips became the leader of an anti-Lincoln faction of abolitionists while Garrison championed the president’s renomination and reelection.

An epic debate between Phillips and Garrison at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in January 1864, brought their disagreements into sharp focus. Phillips offered a resolution affirming that “the Government, in its haste, is ready to sacrifice the interest and honor of the North to secure a sham peace … leaving the freedmen and the Southern States under the control of the late slaveholders.” In a speech supporting his resolution Phillips conceded that Lincoln had done a great work in freeing the slaves. “All honor to Abraham Lincoln for so much!” But mere negative freedom would leave the Negro in a condition little better than slavery. “There stands the black man naked, homeless; he does not own a handful of dust; he has no education; he has no roof to shelter him.” President Lincoln had “no desire, no purpose, no thought, to lift the freed negro to a higher status, social or political, than that of a mere labourer, superintended by others.” This was not the man, said Phillips, to undertake the difficult job of reconstruction.

Garrison moved to amend Phillips’ resolution by striking out the words “is ready to sacrifice” and inserting “is in danger of sacrificing.” Phillips’ wording, argued Garrison, implied an impeachment of the president’s motives. Garrison was prepared to criticize certain aspects of Lincoln’s policy, but he believed in the president’s honesty and good will. “There was a time when I had little confidence in Abraham Lincoln, and very little respect for him,” confessed Garrison. His revocation of Frémont’s and Hunter’s emancipation edicts had drawn Garrison’s sharp censure. But then came the Emancipation Proclamation and the enrollment of Negro soldiers. “I have changed my opinion of Abraham Lincoln,” said Garrison. “True, he is open to criticism for his slowness, and needs spurring on to yet more decisive action; but I am not willing to believe that he is ‘ready to sacrifice the interest and honor of the North to secure a sham peace.’ ” Lincoln was pledged never to revoke his emancipation policy. He had shown great capacity for moral growth while in office. “In my judgment,” concluded Garrison, “the re-election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States would be the safest and wisest course.”

Phillips replied that he could not accept Garrison’s amendment, for he believed that “the Government was knowingly preparing for a peace in disregard of the negro.” The unequal treatment of Negro soldiers “is proof that the Government is ready for terms which ignore the rights of the negro.” The Emancipation Proclamation, moreover, did not “bestow those rights which this [Anti-Slavery] Society was established to secure. The technical liberty which the black man gets is no better than apprenticeship. Equality is our claim, but it is not within the intention of the Government to grant it to the freedmen. I cannot trust the Government, therefore.” Garrison replied briefly, arguing that the president had moved ahead as fast as public opinion would allow. When the vote was taken, Garrison’s amendment lost by a narrow margin and Phillips’ original resolution was adopted. The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society had by implication committed itself against Lincoln’s renomination.1

The outcome of the Massachusetts meeting caused widespread speculation about an impending schism between Garrison and Phillips. The Associated Press telegraphed an account of their debate to newspapers all over the North. The conservative press chortled gleefully over the prospect of a division in radical ranks, but abolitionists hastened to deny that any such division existed. The disagreement between Phillips and Garrison was a mere difference of opinion about men and measures, they said, and did not represent a fundamental break between the two men. Garrison published an editorial defending Phillips’ right to express any opinion he wished from the antislavery platform. The Anti-Slavery Standard stated flatly that “no schism exists in, or impends over, the Anti-Slavery body.”2 But the clash between Garrison and Phillips was more serious than abolitionists were ready to admit publicly. One young abolitionist who was present at the meeting thought “there was something terrible in … Phillips’ and Garrison’s quarrel.”³ Garrison received several letters from abolitionists supporting his position and criticizing Phillips sharply. Oliver Johnson warned privately that nothing but grief could come of abolitionists injecting themselves into partisan politics.⁴

But his warning went unheeded. It was inevitable that abolitionists should become politically involved in 1864. In 1860 the politicians had shied away from them, but by 1864 the situation was reversed, and some abolitionists had become respected spokesmen of the radical wing of the Republican party. Their advice and support was sought by politicians. Two presidential aspirants had been making use of covert abolitionist support for more than a year in their bids to wrest the Republican nomination from Lincoln in 1864.

Secretary of the Treasury Chase was the abolitionists’ strongest ally in the cabinet. Chase was a man of inordinate ambition. He wanted very much to become president. Since early 1862 he had been building an organization of loyal supporters in the patronage-rich Treasury Department. Several abolitionists participated in this activity. B. Rush Plumly, special agent of the Treasury Department in Missouri and New Orleans, was quietly preparing for the 1864 nomination as early as April 1862. “I am for you,” Plumly told Chase. “I do not avow it, but I prepare for it thro’ a thousand channels. While I scrupulously discharge every duty of my Office, I do use it, here and all over the country—quietly but effectively, for the future!”5 With the knowledge of Governor Andrew and other members of the Bird Club in Massachusetts, a strong Chase organization was formed in the Boston Custom House. Tilton and Joshua Leavitt of the Independent were sympathetic to the Chase movement, and stood ready to give it their support. James Redpath offered to publish a book of Chase’s writings and speeches to publicize the secretary’s fitness for the presidency.⁶

Many radical Republican leaders, dissatisfied with Lincoln’s moderate war and reconstruction policies and resentful of the influence of William H. Seward and Montgomery Blair in the cabinet, supported the Chase movement. Greeley and Gay were sympathetic and were prepared to swing the Tribune to Chase’s support at the proper time.⁷ On the day after Lincoln announced his reconstruction policy in December 1863, Chase’s supporters held a strategy conference in Washington. Activity continued behind the scenes until February 18, when Tilton published an editorial in the Independent calling for the nomination of a man committed to equalitarianism and justice in the solution of the reconstruction problem. Without mentioning any names, Tilton made it clear that Chase fulfilled these requirements and Lincoln did not. Two days later came publication of the famous Pomeroy Circular, a statement issued by the manager of the Chase forces, Senator S. C. Pomeroy, declaring that the interests of the country required a change of administration and that Chase was the man to crush the rebellion and reconstruct the nation in accordance with the principles of justice. Taking the Circular as a cue, the New York Tribune came out cautiously for Chase.⁸

The Pomeroy Circular backfired and destroyed Chase’s candidacy. Angry protests arose from local Republican leaders all over the North. The Republican National Committee endorsed Lincoln for renomination by a margin of four to one. State legislatures voted approval of Lincoln. The legislature of Ohio, Chase’s home state, came out for “old Abe.” In the light of this overwhelming popular support for Lincoln, the Chase boom collapsed. Chase’s friend, James Freeman Clarke, advised him to issue a statement declining to be a presidential candidate. Such a statement, said Clarke, would increase the respect of the country for Chase and preserve his influence in the cabinet. Chase received similar advice from Greeley and James Garfield, and on March 5 he announced that he was not a candidate for the presidency. His statement did not preclude a possible draft if Lincoln’s support should suddenly falter, and some of Chase’s friends continued to hope for a miracle to catapult the secretary back into the presidential race.9

Like Chase, John C. Frémont had a strong desire to be president. Frémont had been a special hero of the abolitionists since his issuance of an emancipation edict in Missouri in 1861. A year later, in August 1862, Moncure Conway attacked Lincoln’s conservatism on the slavery issue and nominated Frémont as the next president. Later in the month Frémont spoke to a huge crowd in the Boston Music Hall, flanked on the platform by several abolitionist leaders who were beginning to speak more openly of him as a possible presidential candidate in 1864.¹⁰ In 1863 Frémont bought a summer home in Nahant, Massachusetts, and began to consult frequently with abolitionist leaders in the Old Bay State. His wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, exercised her well-known charm on abolitionists in an effort to secure their support for her husband’s candidacy. Frémont himself gained the ear and the friendship of Wendell Phillips, who encouraged his presidential aspirations.¹¹

The Frémont movement began to gather momentum. Radical German-Americans in Missouri and Illinois endorsed the “Pathfinder” in March 1864. Frémont and his friends began to woo abolitionist support openly. A few young radicals in New York City formed a “Freedom and Frémont Club” in the office of the Women’s Loyal National League. On March 18 a Frémont Club was formally organized in the city. Several abolitionists, including Parker Pillsbury, David Plumb, and George Cheever, took part in the meeting; resolutions were passed denouncing Lincoln’s reconstruction policy and calling for the equality of all men before the law. A week later the Principia placed the Frémont banner at the head of its editorial columns. All over the North radical Germans and the Phillips wing of the abolitionists organized Frémont clubs.¹³

While remaining hostile toward Lincoln, however, many abolitionists refused to follow Phillips into the Frémont movement. Some of Chase’s supporters had not given up hope of overturning the Lincoln bandwagon. Tilton, Greeley, and other Chase men urged postponement of the Republican convention (scheduled for June 7) until the beginning of September, hoping that the tide of war or politics would turn in their favor in the interval. The Boston Commonwealth endorsed this suggestion and continued to hammer away at the president in strong language. But Lincoln’s popularity with rank and file Republicans was too great for the postponement ruse to succeed. The pro-Lincoln Republican National Committee ignored the pressure for postponement. Chase’s abolitionist supporters were left temporarily dangling in mid-air.14

While Phillips, Cheever, and Goodell threw themselves into the Frémont movement, and while Tilton, Anna Dickinson, and the Boston Commonwealth refused to support either Lincoln or Frémont, several other abolitionists publicly committed themselves to Lincoln’s renomination. On February 27 Garrison wrote privately to McKim that Lincoln’s renomination was in the best interests of the antislavery cause. “I am not his partisan, nor a member of the Republican party, nor a politician,” said Garrison, “but I believe it will be the game of the rebels on the one hand, and of the Copperheads on the other, to urge rival Republican candidates to take the field, and thus to ‘divide and conquer.’ ” McKim sent a copy of this letter to the powerful Philadelphia Press, which published it to counteract the widespread belief that Phillips spoke for most abolitionists in opposing Lincoln. “Whatever William Lloyd Garrison says has weight,” commented the Press editorially. “He is still, as he has been for more than thirty years, the leader of the American Abolitionists…. Mr. Garrison, in sustaining Mr. Lincoln, proves conclusively that the President is not the candidate of the weak, semi-pro-slavery conservative faction.” The managing editor of the Press told McKim privately that “the publication of Mr. Garrison’s opinion must do great good. Everything that identifies the Government with Abolitionism is a benefit…. If the anti-slavery radicals cease to give the government support it must of necessity fall into the hands of the conservatives.”15

Garrison repeated his warning against Republican factionalism in an important editorial in the March 18th Liberator. Lincoln was not perfect, said Garrison, but there was nevertheless “much to rejoice over and to be thankful for; and a thousand incidental errors and blunders are easily to be borne with on the part of him who, at one blow, severed the chains of three millions three hundred thousand slaves.” Pro-Frémont abolitionists sharply criticized Garrison’s editorial, which was widely reprinted or cited in the Republican press. Noting the influence of the editorial among wavering antislavery men, Phillips remarked sadly that “a million dollars would have been a cheap purchase for the Administration of the Liberator’s article on the Presidency.”¹⁶ But Garrison received many approving letters from fellow abolitionists and Republicans.¹⁷ Some of the veteran crusaders who remembered the days when they had received nothing but abuse from politicians were amused by the Republican lionization of Garrison. “It is vastly entertaining to see how Forney’s ‘Press’ … quotes from the Liberator, & extols Mr. Garrison as a man of the soundest judgment, … and repeats again & again, that he is in favor of Lincoln,” wrote Mary Grew. “Verily, the abolitionists have wakened up to find themselves famous.”¹⁸

Meanwhile the preparations for Frémont’s nomination went forward. On May 6 a group of German-American radicals and several abolitionists, including Stephen S. Foster, Karl Heinzen, and James Redpath issued a call for a nominating convention to be held in Cleveland on May 31. A few days later the Central Frémont Club of New York City issued a similar call, urging as a platform the principles of Negro suffrage and southern land redistribution. Several abolitionists, including Phillips, Goodell, George and Henry Cheever, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Frederick Douglass signed this call or endorsed the convention.19

The atmosphere was electric with tension as abolitionists gathered in New York on May 10 and 11 for the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Everyone expected a sharp debate between the partisans of Lincoln and Frémont. They were not disappointed. At the beginning of the meeting Phillips offered a resolution affirming that abolitionists saw “no evidence of [an administration] purpose to put the freedom of the negro on such a basis as will secure it against every peril.” Phillips charged that Lincoln’s whole philosophy during the war had been to touch slavery as lightly as possible, and then only to save the Union. His philosophy of reconstruction was similar. “What McClellan was on the battle-field—‘Do as little hurt as possible!’—Lincoln is in civil affairs—‘Make as little change as possible!’ ” Phillips would consider Lincoln’s election “the end of Union in my day, or its reconstruction on terms worse than Disunion.” Phillips was booed and hissed by the nonabolitionist spectators in the galleries at Cooper Union. Garrison’s pro-Lincoln speeches were applauded by the same spectators. But the hard-core abolitionists were with Phillips by a small majority and the Society adopted his resolution by a margin of three votes.²⁰

With an impressive show of unanimity the Church Anti-Slavery Society on May 25 denounced Lincoln’s reconstruction policy and came out against his reelection.²¹ But the real fireworks were reserved for the meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society at the end of May. The prospect of a lively debate drew the largest crowd in the Society’s history. They were treated to a pyrotechnic display of oratory. The best speakers were on the anti-Lincoln side and included Phillips, Pillsbury, and Foster. Garrison, Samuel May, Jr., and Henry Wright led the array of speakers supporting Lincoln. Both sides repeated the same arguments they had been using for several months. Pillsbury introduced resolutions condemning the Lincoln administration for its reconstruction policy, its refusal to support Negro suffrage, and its slowness to grant equal treatment to Negro soldiers. Garrison offered a series of counterresolutions praising the administration for its antislavery achievements and “respectfully but earnestly” urging Lincoln “to use his utmost constitutional power to secure equal rights for all under the national flag.” As the debate became acrimonious Andrew T. Foss, veteran abolitionist lecturer, appealed for compromise and good will between the two sides. “I accept Wendell Phillips’ criticism” of the administration, said Foss. “On the other hand, I accept the favorable view taken by Mr. Garrison of the reelection of Abraham Lincoln. I will rather accept him for four years more than run the risk of McClellan, or any Copperhead of that sort.” When the vote finally came, Garrison’s resolutions lost by a slim margin and Pillsbury’s were adopted. Then in a gesture of belated magnanimity, Garrison’s resolutions, with slight modifications, were also passed.22 This effort to smooth over differences went for naught. Witnesses reported privately that the discussion had been even more bitter than appeared from the published accounts. The Anti-Slavery Standard admitted editorially that the debates had been “marked … by the passionate partisanship of the caucus.”²³

Numerous abolitionists were among the 400 delegates who gathered in Cleveland on May 31 to nominate General Frémont as the presidential candidate of the “Radical Democratic Party.” The other two groups represented at the convention were radical German-Americans and dissatisfied War Democrats. Wendell Phillips was unable to attend the convention, but his personality nevertheless dominated the proceedings. A letter from Phillips was read to the cheering delegates. “Mr. Lincoln’s model of reconstruction is the experiment in Louisiana, which puts all power into the hands of the unchanged white race,” proclaimed the letter. “Such reconstruction makes the freedom of the negro a sham, and perpetuates Slavery under a softer name.” Phillips urged the convention to “demand a reconstruction of States as speedily as possible, on the basis of every loyal man, white or black, sharing the land and the ballot.”

Several abolitionists served on the convention’s resolutions committee, which presented a radical platform to the meeting. This platform called for a constitutional amendment to prohibit slavery and “secure to all men absolute equality before the law”; for control of reconstruction by Congress; and for the distribution of confiscated rebel lands “among the soldiers and settlers.” Parker Pillsbury had tried to write into the platform a specific endorsement of Negro suffrage and land for freedmen, but the phrases about equality before the law and land for settlers were the best he could do. Both points were left deliberately vague because of the presence of War Democrats at the convention. This disturbed some of the abolitionists, and the adoption of another plank denouncing Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus disturbed them even more, for this was the main objection of “Copperheads” to the Lincoln administration. Coupled with the nomination of Colonel John Cochrane (who had voted for Pierce, Buchanan, and Breckinridge before the war) for vice president, the habeas corpus plank created suspicion that the War Democratic wing of the Frémont movement was bidding for an alliance with the Copperhead Democracy.24

Pro-Frémont abolitionists were not entirely satisfied with the outcome of the convention, but publicly they praised its work and stepped up their attacks on Lincoln.²⁵ Phillips at this time believed that Frémont had a good chance to win the election. If the regular Republican convention in Baltimore nominated Lincoln he thought the radicals should stay with Frémont until the end. Phillips had some illusory hopes that the Republicans would drop Lincoln at the last moment and nominate a more radical candidate—Chase, Butler, Frémont, or Grant—in which case the Frémont party could dissolve itself and endorse the Republican candidate. In any event Phillips was sure the Frémont movement would scare the Baltimore convention into adopting a more radical platform than they would otherwise have done. Phillips got himself elected as a delegate to the Massachusetts Republican convention and tried there to secure an unpledged delegation to Baltimore. He also used his influence in an effort to elect an anti-Lincoln or unpledged delegation from Vermont. Both efforts failed. Phillips’ views of politics at this time were curiously unrealistic. His hopes of defeating Lincoln’s renomination had no basis in fact. The Baltimore convention unanimously renominated the president on June 7.26

Garrison attended the Baltimore convention in company with Theodore Tilton. Strong emotions overcame the veteran crusader as he sat in the galleries and watched the convention adopt a resolution pledging the Republican party to the extinction of slavery by constitutional amendment. He reported to his Liberator readers that when this resolution was read “the whole body of delegates sprang to their feet as by one impulse, giving vent to their feelings in prolonged cheering…. Was not a spectacle like that rich compensation for more than thirty years of universal personal opprobrium?” Garrison wrote privately that “even my friend Phillips would have been highly gratified with the tone and spirit of the Convention. In the speeches made, every allusion made to slavery as a curse to be extirpated … has been most enthusiastically responded to.”²⁷

From Baltimore Garrison and Tilton proceeded to Washington for Garrison’s first visit to the capital. He was cordially welcomed everywhere. He visited the Senate Chamber and sent in his card to Wilson and Sumner, who immediately came out and escorted him to one of the Senate desks on the floor. There he sat for a time while several Republican senators came over to shake his hand and talk with him. He also visited Secretary of War Stanton. The brusque secretary, who usually dispatched callers with haste, took time for a long private interview with Garrison. The next day Garrison and Tilton visited Lincoln and talked with him for more than an hour. The president thanked Garrison for his support, and confided that the antislavery plank in the Republican platform had been inserted at presidential request. Garrison found his interview with Lincoln “very satisfactory.” “There is no mistake about it in regard to Mr. Lincoln’s desire to do all that he can … to uproot slavery, and give fair-play to the emancipated. I was much pleased with his spirit.”28

Many Republican papers printed Garrison’s praises of Lincoln after the nomination. “Our papers are publishing all of Garrison’s eulogies on Lincoln and calling the attention of all abolitionists and radical republicans to them,” noted Susan B. Anthony, a Frémont supporter, with disgust. “In their eyes, Mr. Garrison is now a sound philosopher and wise statesman.”²⁹ Several abolitionists who had previously opposed Lincoln’s renomination now came out in his favor, arguing that anything which split the Republican party created a danger of Democratic victory.³⁰

The Liberator and the Republican press began to excoriate the Frémont movement. Frémont’s supporters struck back hard. General G. P. Cluseret, French-born radical and former officer on Frémont’s staff, had established a Frémont organ in New York City called the New Nation. After Lincoln’s nomination Cluseret published a bitter criticism of Garrison, calling him “a lost leader … drunk with the wine of political expediency.” Garrison the reformer had descended to the level of a conservative politician. “Mr. Garrison is in his dotage,” charged the New Nation. “The old man is no longer the prophet whom we revered…. Either Garrison has been wrong for a quarter of a century; or he is wrong now.”³¹ Several pro-Frémont abolitionists canceled their subscriptions to the Liberator. The Hovey trust fund committee, dominated by anti-Lincoln abolitionists, cut off its subsidy to the Liberator. For a time it appeared that Garrison might have to suspend publication of the paper. But abolitionist friends who agreed with his political views came to the rescue. Gerrit Smith sent a check for $200. E. D. Draper and Samuel Sewall raised enough money to replace the Hovey fund subsidy. Scores of abolitionists all over the North sent small contributions, and the Liberator was saved.32

In June, Oliver Johnson published in the Anti-Slavery Standard a sharp editorial attack on the Frémont movement. This editorial set the tone for pro-Lincoln abolitionists during the rest of the campaign. Johnson asserted that the habeas corpus plank in the Cleveland platform and the acceptance letters of Frémont and Cochrane, both of which passed lightly over the slavery question and dwelt on points calculated to appeal to Democrats, proved that Frémont’s political managers were bidding for an alliance with the Copperhead Democracy. Johnson called Cochrane an “unscrupulous and slippery politician” who had been proslavery before the war and now posed as an antislavery radical. “And this man, without a drop of anti-slavery blood in his veins, and whose life has been one long chapter of intrigue, is led in triumph to the chair of a Political Anti-Slavery Convention by a non-voting Abolitionist [Pillsbury] who can find no ground for confidence in President Lincoln, the emancipator of 3,000,000 slaves!” Johnson believed that there was Copperhead money behind the New Nation. The Frémont party was “an ally of Jeff Davis,” he told George Cheever. “Frémont I believe is a scoundrel, in alliance with the corrupt leaders of the Copperhead Democracy to divide the loyal voters of the country in the Presidential election. The Anti-Slavery of the Cleveland platform is Homeopathic, its Copperheadism conspicuous and emphatic; and so … [are] the letters of its candidates.”³³

And indeed there appeared to be much truth in Johnson’s statements. The editorial policy of the New Nation seemed to be “anything to beat Lincoln.” Cluseret actively sought an alliance with the Democrats. “There is so little difference between this party and the Democratic party,” said the New Nation, “that it would be easy to adopt a common ticket, which would sweep every thing before it.” The New York World and other Democratic papers praised the Frémont movement and publicly chortled over the prospect of facing a divided Republican party at the polls.34 In the light of these facts many abolitionists who opposed Lincoln were forced to repudiate Frémont also. “Applying the same rule of judgment to that political movement that we habitually apply to all others,” wrote Aaron M. Powell, “I cannot see how Mr. Phillips, or any other truly conscientious Abolitionist can give it support.” Yet Powell could not bring himself to support Lincoln either, and thought that abolitionists should remain completely independent of politics in this campaign as they had done in the past. Lydia Maria Child had disliked the Frémont movement from the beginning, and after the developments of June 1864, she liked it even less. “I am exceedingly sorry for the course Wendell Phillips is pursuing,” she wrote. “Since Frémont has written a letter so obviously courting the Copperheads, I don’t see how he can stand by him.”³⁵

Even Frank Sanborn, who had little use for Lincoln, turned against the Frémont movement. If there was a prospect of the success of any other Republican, said Sanborn, “we would denounce Lincoln tomorrow. But bad as Lincoln is, he is better than Wood and Vallandigham…. Of all evils we wish to avoid throwing power into the hands of the peace Democrats.” Frémont had destroyed himself by his behavior since his nomination. “His New Nation has been wretchedly edited and his strength since the Cleveland letter has fallen off two thirds. So much for dallying with Copperheads…. Except Phillips, who is not very confidently for Frémont, there is not a leading man in N[ew] E[ngland] who favors him…. It is a great pity—for Frémont had good stuff in him.”³⁶

But Frémont’s abolitionist backers were not yet ready to give up on the general. On July 11 George Cheever delivered a powerful attack on Lincoln which was later published in pamphlet form. He reviewed Lincoln’s slowness to act against slavery, his revocation of emancipation edicts issued by his generals, his efforts to delay emancipation thirty-seven years and colonize the Negroes abroad, his unequal treatment of Negro troops, and his reconstruction policy which would restore the slaveholding element to power and leave the freedman little more than a serf on the soil of his former master. Contrast this man, said Cheever, with John C. Frémont, who throughout the war had been in the forefront of the revolution of freedom and equality. How could any abolitionist hesitate to choose between these two men?37 William Goodell, Parker Pillsbury, Phillips, and several other abolitionists continued their active support of Frémont.

In June, however, Theodore Tilton came out flatly against the Frémont movement. The Republican platform, he said, was better than the platform of the “Radical Democratic Party” despite the radicalism of the latter, because the real purpose of the Frémont movement was an alliance with the Democratic forces. “Our chief regret in view of the Cleveland Convention is, that it has unhappily led a number of excellent friends of the Good Cause into a snare,” wrote Tilton. “Those well-known Abolitionists identified with the Cleveland movement—and whose sincerity and uprightness we do not for a moment question—have unwittingly placed themselves in a false position, where their influence is working against the best interests of the country, and is bringing a lamentable discredit upon themselves.” Tilton admired Phillips and agreed with most of his criticisms of Lincoln, but he could see no reason to support a party which, in the end, would turn out far worse than the Lincoln party.³⁸

Phillips replied in the next issue of the Independent. He denounced the conservatism of the Republican party and stated that he preferred the whole loaf of the Cleveland platform to the half-loaf of Baltimore. The Cleveland platform called for a constitutional amendment not only to abolish slavery, but to guarantee to all men equality before the law. “To me this is the chief gem of its crown,” said Phillips. “There can be no possible salvation for the Union, and no safety for the negro in his freedom, except on the basis of every man of every race equal in privilege, right, and franchise before the law. This idea, again, owes its birth to the Cleveland Movement, and is, as yet, the high-water mark of American politics.” Phillips would welcome an alliance between Frémont and the Democrats if it came on the basis of the Cleveland platform. Even if unsuccessful at the ballot box, the Frémont movement would have served its purpose if it forced the Republican party to adopt a more radical policy.

Tilton answered Phillips’ arguments in the same issue of the Independent. Preserving a tone of respect and admiration for the great orator, Tilton nevertheless accused him of political naiveté for believing that any alliance could be forged between the Frémont party and the Peace Democracy on terms favorable to the former. Tilton recounted his experience at the Frémont ratification meeting in New York on June 27. Nearly all the speakers were Peace Democrats! The loudest cheers were for McClellan! The chief speaker, Colonel Cochrane, alluded to Frémont and McClellan as “twin cherries on one stalk!” It should have been obvious, said Tilton, that the Democrats were using the Frémont movement as a weapon to wound the Republican party. The “equality before the law” plank of the Cleveland platform, he declared, was a sham. “Now, we would be glad if a great political party could go before the country on the high issue of giving every black man a vote,” wrote Tilton. “But the country is not ready for such an issue…. If the next election were to turn upon the question of giving every black man a vote, the Copperheads would achieve the next administration. If the country were ready for such an issue, the Baltimore Convention would have made it…. Any man who knows the meaning of the Cleveland movement laughs at the idea that Frémont and Cochrane are fighting a battle for the sake of the negro’s right to vote. Neither of these men, in their letters of acceptance, said a word about the rights of the negro.” Tilton was not happy with the Republican nomination either. “If the great Union party represented at Baltimore had chosen some other candidate, we would have had no regrets. If, before November, some strange change in events should put another name at the head of this great party, we would cheerfully acquiesce. But we shall not join the Copperheads in a coalition to make bad worse.”39

Phillips restated his position in the next issue of the Independent, chiding Tilton for his declaration that the country was not ready for Negro suffrage. That may be true, said Phillips, but since when did radicals wait until the country was ready for a reform before advocating it? Phillips avowed himself an agitator, not a politician. He had taken an advanced position in the Frémont movement not for political reasons, but for purposes of reform. He criticized Tilton for rejecting his abolitionist training and supporting Lincoln on grounds of expediency. In a brief reply, Tilton repeated his earlier arguments and asserted that he was as much in favor of Negro equality as Phillips. But before that measure became acceptable to public opinion there would have to be a great deal more discussion and agitation of the issue than there had been. “We are in for the agitation, heart and soul—as zealously as Mr. Phillips. But it is simply unwise to push a great question to an untimely defeat at the ballot-box.” Phillips was foolish if he really believed that the Cleveland movement was genuinely in favor of Negro suffrage. “Let Mr. Phillips go to a Frémont ratification meeting, and speak on the ‘absolute equality’ of negroes and Irishmen, and he will be rioted out of the house,” wrote Tilton. “We are willing to join Mr. Phillips in any new and needful labors to make the country ready for the negroes’ fullest rights; but the Frémont meetings are just the places where such ideas are not welcome.”⁴⁰

This exchange between two of the foremost radicals in the country was widely reprinted and commented on by the northern press. Tilton conceded privately that his set-to with Phillips had been the most unpleasant experience of his editorial career. He was worried that his friend Phillips would take it personally. That worry was erased when Phillips sent him a cordial note declaring that their difference of opinion in no way impaired their friendship.41

But if the exchange between Phillips and Tilton was conducted in a spirit of cordiality, the same could not be said of the dispute within the American Anti-Slavery Society itself. Phillips was incensed by the Anti-Slavery Standard’s criticisms of the Frémont movement. He accused Oliver Johnson of making the Standard a partisan Lincoln sheet. Phillips maintained that the anti-Lincoln resolutions adopted in 1864 by the Massachusetts, American, and New England Anti-Slavery Societies bound the Standard, as official organ of the American Society, to pursue an anti-Lincoln course. He called a meeting of the Society’s executive committee and demanded suspension of the Standard unless it changed its policy.⁴² Oliver Johnson was just as adamant. “If I am required either to set the Standard in opposition to Lincoln’s election,” he told the executive committee, “or to suppress my honest convictions in regard to the Frémont movement, its candidates and platform, I shall resign the editorial chair.”⁴³ Despite Phillips’ fulminations, a majority of the executive committee, led by Garrison, supported Johnson and passed a vote of confidence in his editorial policy. The committee told Johnson only to avoid “undue partiality” toward Lincoln. The Standard subsequently followed a course of “non-partisan” support of the president. Its position was the same as in 1860, explained Johnson, when the Standard was not a partisan proponent of Lincoln but nevertheless hoped for his victory.⁴⁴ This did not satisfy Phillips and his adherents, who denounced the Standard as “a disgrace to the Society & a fraud upon it,” and withdrew their financial support from the paper. The schism in the Society grew so bitter that the executive committee canceled the usual Fourth of July and August First (anniversary of West Indian emancipation) celebrations in order to prevent additional public quarrels.45

The Standard, Liberator, and Independent continued to hammer away at the theme that pro-Frémont abolitionists were playing into the hands of Copperheads. Some radical Republicans who disliked Lincoln warned the Frémont abolitionists that their activities endangered the Republican party.⁴⁶ Late in July, Phillips and Karl Heinzen, sensitive to Republican criticism of their course and of Frémont’s alleged dalliance with Copperheads, had a long talk with the “Pathfinder” and published the results. Frémont reaffirmed his support of the radical planks in the Cleveland platform. “The negroes ought to have all the rights of whites,” he said. “The word white must disappear from the laws and Constitutions.” Frémont indignantly denied the rumors that he would throw over the radical planks in the Cleveland platform in return for the regular Democratic nomination. He would like to make an alliance with the War Democrats to beat Lincoln, Frémont said, but he would accept such an alliance on none but his own terms. Phillips, Heinzen, and other abolitionist backers of Frémont were satisfied with the interview. If the Democratic convention in Chicago at the end of August nominated McClellan and repudiated the antislavery portion of the Cleveland platform, said Goodell, the Frémont ticket would go its own way and have nothing to do with the Democrats. If, on the other hand, the Democratic party split apart at Chicago, the Frémont party would be glad to absorb the War Democrats on the basis of the Cleveland platform.⁴⁷

The Boston Emancipation League and its organ, the Commonwealth, represented those abolitionists who were opposed to Lincoln but who were suspicious of the Frémont movement. George Stearns, chief backer of the Commonwealth, invited a group of abolitionists to meet with Frémont at Stearns’ home on August 9 to discuss the political situation. Present at the meeting besides Stearns and Frémont were Phillips, Frank Bird, Elizur Wright, Bronson Alcott, and two lesser-known officials of the Emancipation League. They questioned Frémont closely. The general stated that he expected a contest between the War Democrats and the Copperheads at the Chicago convention. The former would prevail, he believed, and nominate him on a radical platform. Frémont thought that with the support of the War Democrats and radical Republicans he had a good chance of beating Lincoln. Stearns and some of the others were skeptical, but Phillips came away from the meeting with renewed enthusiasm for the Frémont cause. He wanted to call an immediate convention of New England radical Republicans to endorse Frémont.48

But two weeks later Phillips’ optimism had vanished and he told Elizabeth Cady Stanton that McClellan would be nominated at Chicago on a peace platform.⁴⁹ What had happened to dull Phillips’ hopefulness? Northern morale dropped to its lowest point in August 1864. Grant was stalemated in Virginia and casualty lists were mounting. Sherman was stymied before Atlanta. Frustration, despair, and defeatism overcame the northern people in July and August. Early in August Sydney Gay reported that things were “never so gloomy.” “The people would vote today for any compromise that would bring peace without sacrifice of the Union,” and there was “a growing party for peace at any price, even disunion.” Lincoln’s “chances of reelection grow daily less & less, & the chances of any Copperhead traitor better and better.” Many other abolitionists echoed Gay’s somber ob servations. Henry Raymond, chairman of the Republican National Committee, received letters from dozens of Republican politicians reporting defeatism and an alarming growth of anti-Lincoln sentiment around the country. On August 23 Lincoln wrote his famous memorandum stating that he would probably not be reelected and that it would be his duty to cooperate with the president-elect to save the Union before the next inauguration.⁵⁰

The North’s defeatism, plus the growing exasperation of radical Republicans with the president after his pocket veto of the Wade-Davis bill, combined to produce a movement to replace Lincoln on the Republican ticket with someone more likely to unite the party and win the election—such as Chase, Butler, or Grant. Several abolitionists were active in this movement. On July 21 Henry Winter Davis, one of the radical congressional leaders, got in touch with George Cheever and suggested the possibility of persuading both Lincoln and Frémont to withdraw in favor of a new candidate. Cheever wrote to several abolitionist friends to ask them what they thought of this idea. He received favorable replies from Tilton and from the leaders of the Emancipation League. At the end of July Cheever drew up a list of men to consult about the project. Davis approved the list and on August 14 and 18 a group of abolitionists and radicals, including Cheever, Tilton, Greeley, and Parke Godwin (managing editor of the New York Evening Post) met at the homes of David Dudley Field and George Opdyke in New York to formulate plans. Senators Chandler, Wade, and Sumner, ex-Secretary Chase, and Governor Andrew gave cautious and qualified support to the project.51

The radicals tentatively scheduled a new Republican convention for September 28 in Cincinnati.⁵² Meanwhile on August 21 a group of Boston abolitionists headed by Stearns apprised Frémont in a public letter of the movement for a new convention and “emphatically advise [d]” both Frémont and Lincoln to withdraw their candidacies. They asked Frémont to state definitely whether he would withdraw if Lincoln agreed to do so. Frémont replied four days later that he would pull out of the race if Lincoln did the same and if the new convention nominated a candidate pledged to total victory over the Confederacy and a complete abolition of slavery.⁵³

The radical leaders of this movement met again in New York at the end of August and decided to sound out northern Republican governors on the plan to replace Lincoln. On September 2, letters written by Tilton and signed by Tilton, Greeley, and Godwin went out to all Republican governors asking them three questions: Can Lincoln be elected? Can he carry your state? Should another candidate be substituted for him? Before these letters were sent, the Democrats had nominated McClellan for president on a virtual peace-at-any-price platform. This was expected, but somehow its actual accomplishment tended to unite Republicans behind Lincoln as the only alternative to McClellan and disaster. Suddenly on September 3 the news flashed across the country that Sherman had taken Atlanta. The North went wild with joy. The long summer of discontent was over. The long-awaited victory was here at last. In this new mood of exhilaration and enthusiasm northern war-weariness and defeatism dissolved like a fog at sunrise. Republican governors received Tilton’s inquiry at just the time when this mood was manifesting itself. Consequently the replies were overwhelmingly opposed to the replacement of Lincoln by another candidate. Before the capture of Atlanta a majority of Republican governors might have favored a new convention. But military victory transformed the situation overnight. Lincoln was no longer the discredited leader of a lost cause; he was the mighty captain of a victorious nation, confident of vindication at the polls in November. The plans for a Cincinnati convention were quietly abandoned.54

Even before he received the replies of northern governors, Tilton had concluded that unqualified support of Lincoln’s candidacy was the only sensible course. “I was opposed to Mr. Lincoln’s nomination; but now it becomes the duty of all Unionists to present a united front,” he wrote to Anna Dickinson on September 3. “The Baltimore platform is the best in American history—we can pardon something to a second-rate candidate.” In an Independent editorial Tilton wholeheartedly endorsed the Republican party and repeated his lukewarm endorsement of Lincoln. He privately advised Miss Dickinson to come out in favor of Lincoln. She did so in a letter to the Independent which attracted wide attention. “This is no personal contest,” she declared; “I shall not work for Abraham Lincoln; I shall work for the salvation of my country’s life, … for the defeat of this disloyal peace party, that will bring ruin and death if it comes into power.” In the weeks after the capture of Atlanta many other abolitionists who had previously withheld support from Lincoln followed Tilton’s and Dickinson’s lead.55

On September 6 the New York Tribune unequivocally endorsed Lincoln’s reelection in an editorial universally attributed to Greeley, but actually written by Sydney Gay.⁵⁶ Despite its faults the Lincoln administration, said Gay, was ten thousand times better than the Copperhead Democracy. “Henceforth we fly the banner of ABRAHAM LINCOLN for the next Presidency, choosing that far rather than the Disunion and a quarter of century of wars, or the Union and political servitude which our opponents would give us.” Gay agreed with much of the radicals’ criticism of Lincoln, but the president “has done seven-eighths of the work after his fashion; there must be vigor and virtue enough left in him to do the other fraction…. We MUST re-elect him, and, God helping us, we WILL.”

McClellan partly repudiated the Democratic peace platform, but his letter of acceptance stated that peace should be concluded solely on the basis of Union and the southern states readmitted with all their rights unimpaired. This seemed to mean that if elected, McClellan would seek to preserve slavery in a restored Union. Since all abolitionists and most Republicans by this time linked Union with emancipation as inseparable war aims, McClellan’s position was as abhorrent to them as Vallandigham’s.⁵⁷

Several abolitionists took the stump for Lincoln. Anna Dickinson made numerous well-publicized speeches. Tilton threw himself into the campaign with such abandon that he fainted from exhaustion on the speaker’s platform at a rally three days before the election. Henry Wright stumped for Lincoln in Illinois and Michigan. William Burleigh spoke frequently in and around New York City. Andrew T. Foss gave forty speeches for Lincoln during the campaign. Gerrit Smith spoke nearly every day for five weeks in upstate New York. Worthy of note is the fact that many of these speeches, especially those by Anna Dickinson, consisted mainly of attacks on McClellan and contained little praise of Lincoln or his administration.58

After the capture of Atlanta, Republicans generally were confident of victory. But Frémont was still in the race, and there was a danger that he would take away enough votes from Lincoln to put McClellan in the White House. Republican Senator Zachariah Chandler journeyed to New York in an effort to persuade Frémont to withdraw from the race. Chandler may have been authorized by Lincoln to promise that in return for Frémont’s withdrawal, Montgomery Blair, the bête noire of the radicals, would be dropped from the cabinet.⁵⁹ Meanwhile a number of Boston abolitionists, headed by George Stearns, put pressure on Frémont to pull out of the race. Frémont consulted several abolitionist friends. Whittier advised him to withdraw for the good of the country. Wendell Phillips, implacable to the end, urged Frémont to stay in the race as a symbol of radical ideas. But Phillips was the only prominent figure to give Frémont this advice, and on September 17 the “Pathfinder” decided to withdraw. In a letter on that day to Stearns and his associates, Frémont grudgingly urged his backers to support Lincoln for reelection. The letter was published on September 22, and the next day Lincoln accepted Montgomery Blair’s resignation. Frémont’s withdrawal united the Republican party once more. Republicans now looked forward confidently to victory in November.60

Some of Frémont’s supporters were angered by his withdrawal. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and George Cheever refused to follow the general into the Lincoln camp.⁶¹ There were rumors that Phillips would take the stump for Lincoln, but Phillips himself squelched these with the statement that he would “cut off both hands before doing anything to aid Abraham Lincoln’s election.”⁶² Phillips tried to make his position clear in speeches to hostile Boston and New York audiences in October. He avowed himself a reformer, not a politician. He judged Lincoln by the reform standards of equality and justice for the freedmen. The president had fallen short of these standards, said Phillips, and hence he could not support him for reelection. Most of Phillips’ fellow abolitionists regretted these speeches, for by giving them Phillips had sacrificed some of the influence and prestige he had gained since the outbreak of the war.⁶³ Phillips’ stand in 1864 revealed a lack of political realism. If all antislavery sympathizers had followed his advice and refused to support Lincoln, the abolitionist cause would have suffered a disastrous defeat. Fortunately for the cause and for the nation, all but a handful of antislavery men followed Garrison rather than Phillips in 1864.

All abolitionists, even Phillips, hailed the Republican triumph in November as a great victory for freedom. “The people pronounced for the prosecution of the war in the first place, and in the next for the abolition of slavery,” said the Commonwealth. “With a logic which never fails them, they linked together these two things and made them one and inseparable.” Phillips urged all abolitionists to forget past differences and work together for the common cause. “Now our common duty is to throw all personal matters behind us and rally together to claim of the Republican party the performance of their pledge [the Thirteenth Amendment],” he told Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “On that issue the canvass was conducted, and now we have a right to demand the ‘bond,’ and they a right to demand that we shall help them attain the capability of granting it.” Universal freedom for the Negro was assured by Lincoln’s reelection; abolitionists must work to persuade the people and their government to take the next step forward—universal equality.64

1 Liberator, Feb. 5, 1864.

2 Liberator, Feb. 26, 1864; N.A.S. Standard, Feb. 13, 1864. See also Independent, Feb. 4, 1864; Commonwealth, Feb. 12, 1864; and Principia, Feb. 18, 1864.

3 Lillie B. Chace to Lucy Lovell, Feb. 7, 1864, in Lillie B. C. Wyman and Arthur C. Wyman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace (2 vols., Boston, 1914), I, 258-59.

4 Henry C. Badger to Garrison, Feb. 3, 1864, J. M. McKim to Garrison, Feb. 9, 1864, Samuel J. May to Garrison, Feb. 10, 1864, Oliver Johnson to Garrison, Feb. 18, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

5 Plumly to Chase, Apr. 21, 1862, Chase Papers, LC. See also Plumly to Chase, Jan. 2, June 20, Aug. 20, Oct. 3, Dec. 1, 1863, Feb. 26, 1864, ibid.

6 James W. Stone to Chase, Jan. 15, May 5, July 2, 1862, May 29, 1863, Joshua Leavitt to Chase, Sept. 30, Nov. 12, 1863, Feb. 12, 1864, James Redpath to Chase, Jan. 15, 1864, Chase Papers, LC; Joshua Leavitt to Charles Sumner, Nov. 18, 1863, Sumner Papers, HU. See also John Jay to Chase, Sept. 25, 1862, Chase Papers, LC.

7 Whitelaw Reid to Horace Greeley, Jan. 19, 1864, Gay Papers, CU.

8 William F. Zornow, Lincoln and the Party Divided (Norman, Okla., 1954), 32-36, 41-49; Charles R. Wilson, “The Original Chase Organization Meeting and The Next Presidential Election,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXIII (June 1936), 61-63; Independent, Feb. 18, 1864; New York Tribune, Feb. 23, 24, 1864. The Boston Commonwealth also endorsed the Chase movement. Commonwealth, Mar. 4, 1864.

9 Zornow, Lincoln and the Party Divided, 49-57; James Freeman Clarke to Chase, Feb. 26, 1864, Chase Papers, LC; New York Tribune, Mar. 11, 1864; Independent, Mar. 17, 1864.

10 Liberator, Aug. 8, Sept. 5, 12, 1862; W. L. Garrison, Jr., to Fanny Garrison, Aug. 30, 1862, Garrison Papers, SC; B. Rush Plumly to S. H. Gay, Nov. 28, 1862, Gay Papers, CU.

11 M. W. Chapman to “Lizzy and Anne,” May 15, 1863, Weston Papers, BPL; Phillips to Charles Sumner, Nov. 27, 1863, Sumner Papers, HU.

12 Carl Wittke, Against the Current, The Life of Karl Heinzen (Chicago, 1945), 189-91; Ruhl Jacob Bartlett, John C. Frémont and the Republican Party (Columbus, Ohio, 1930), 88-97.

13 Ibid., 96-100; George Thompson to Garrison, Feb. 29, Mar. 2, 1864, Oliver Johnson to Garrison, Mar. 1, 2, 1864, Frémont to Garrison, Mar. 5, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Susan B. Anthony to Charles Sumner, Mar. 6, 1864, John Jay to Sumner, Mar. 7, 8, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU; Principia, Mar. 3, 17, 24, Apr. 14, 21, 1864; Liberator, Mar. 25, 1864.

14 Zornow, Lincoln and the Party Divided, 57-62; Frank Sanborn to Moncure Conway, Mar. 31, 1864, Conway Papers, CU; Ralph Ray Fahrney, Horace Greeley and the Tribune in the Civil War (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1936), 175, 184-85; Independent, Apr. 7, 1864; Commonwealth, Apr. 22, 1864.

15 Garrison to McKim, Feb. 27, 1864, published with editorial comment in Philadelphia Press, Mar. 17, 1864; John S. Stockton to McKim, Mar. 16, 1864, enclosed with letter from McKim to Garrison, Mar. 18, 1864, in Garrison Papers, BPL.

16 Philadelphia Press, Mar. 28, 1864; N.A.S. Standard, Mar. 26, 1864; E. M. Davis to Garrison, Mar. 17, 1864, E. C. Stanton to Garrison, Apr. 22, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Phillips’ statement quoted in Liberator, May 20, 1864.

17 Alfred Love to Garrison, Mar. 10, 1864, J. S. Griffing to Garrison, Mar. 24, 1864, Isaac W. Arnold to Garrison, Apr. 2, 1864, George W. Curtis to Garrison, May 7, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

18 Mary Grew to Samuel May, Jr., Mar. 31, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

19 Principia, May 12, 26, June 2, 1864; New York Tribune, May 18, 1864; Commonwealth, May 13, 1864.

20 Liberator, May 20, 27, 1864. See also Garrison to Helen Garrison, May 13, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; and Parker Pillsbury to Sumner, May 8, 24, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU.

21 Resolutions of the Church Anti-Slavery Society adopted in annual meeting, May 25, 1864, copy in Cheever Papers, AAS.

22 Liberator, June 3, 10, 1864.

23 S. B. Anthony to E. C. Stanton, May 30, 1864, Gerrit Smith Papers, SU; Pillsbury to Sumner, May 29, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU; Lillie B. C. Wyman, “Reminiscences of Wendell Phillips,” New England Magazine, XXVII (Feb. 1903), 725-26; N.A.S. Standard, June 4, 1864.

24 The proceedings of the convention were reported in the New York Tribune, June 1, 1864; Liberator, June 3, 1864; N.A.S. Standard, June 4, 1864, and many other newspapers. See also Commonwealth, June 10, July 8, 1864; S. B. Anthony to E. C. Stanton, June 12, 1864, Stanton Papers, LC; and William F. Zornow, “The Cleveland Convention, 1864, and the Radical Democrats,” Mid-America, XXXVI; (Jan. 1954), 39-53.

25 Principia, June 9, 1864; Henry Cheever to George Cheever, June 8, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS; Parker Pillsbury to Sumner, June 18, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU.

26 Phillips to Moncure Conway, Mar. 16, 1864, Conway Papers, CU; Liberator, May 27, 1864; Commonwealth, May 27, 1864; Wendell P. Garrison and Francis J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison (4 vols., Boston, 1885-89), IV, 110.

27 Liberator, June 24, 1864; Garrison to Helen Garrison, June 8, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

28 Garrison to Helen Garrison, June 9, 11, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

29 S. B. Anthony to E. C. Stanton, June 12, 1864, Stanton Papers, LC.

30 C. A. Stackpole to Garrison, June 6, 1864, M. W. Chapman to Elizabeth Pease Nichols, July 18, 1864, Francis George Shaw to Garrison, Aug. 12, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Wm. Channing to W. L. Garrison, Jr., Aug. 20, 1864, Garrison Papers, SC.

31 Reprinted in Liberator, June 24, 1864.

32 Gerrit Smith to Garrison, Aug. 1, 1864, Tilton to Garrison, Sept. 6, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Liberator, July 8, 15, 22, 29, Aug. 19, 26, Sept. 2, 16, Oct. 7, 14, Dec. 30, 1864.

33 N.A.S. Standard, June 18, 1864; Oliver Johnson to George Cheever, June 16, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS.

34 Statements by the New Nation and Democratic papers quoted in N.A.S. Standard, June 18, July 2, 1864; and Liberator, June 24, July 1, 1864.

35 Powell to Samuel May, Jr., June 25, 1864, Samuel May, Jr., Papers, BPL; L. M. Child to Whittier, June 19, 1864, in John Albree, ed., Whittier Correspondence from Oakknoll (Salem, Mass., 1911), 147-48. See also Sarah Shaw to Elizabeth Gay, June 25, 1864, Gay Papers, CU; and H. C. Neall to Whittier, June 20, 1864, Whittier Papers, Essex Institute.

36 Sanborn to Moncure Conway, July 10, 1864, Conway Papers, CU. See also Commonwealth, July 8, 22, 1864. Fernando Wood and Clement Vallandigham were prominent Copperheads.

37 George B. Cheever, A Change of Administration, for the Security of the Government, a Christian Duty and a National Necessity (New York, 1864).

38 Independent, June 23, 1864.

39 ibid., June 30, 1864. Tilton informed a friend privately that “the Frémont meeting at Cooper Institute was the most complete and disastrous Copperhead display that could possibly have happened. The genuine antislavery men who have joined this company are in great sorrow and confusion.” Tilton to Hugh Bond, June 30, 1864, Tilton Papers, NYHS.

40 Independent, July 7, 1864.

41 Tilton to Garrison, June 30, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Tilton to Anna Dickinson, July 13, 1864, Dickinson Papers, LC.

42 Garrison to Samuel May, Jr., June 17, 1864, Garrison to Oliver Johnson, June 17, 20, 1864, George Thompson to Garrison, June 18, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

43 Johnson to Garrison, June 20, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL.

44 Samuel May, Jr., to S. J. May, June 22, 1864, S. J. May Papers, BPL; Oliver Johnson to Samuel May, Jr., June 23, 30, 1864, Samuel May, Jr., Papers, BPL; Johnson to Garrison, June 23, 1864, Johnson to Phillips, June 22, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; N.A.S. Standard, Aug. 6, 1864.

45 Oliver Johnson to Samuel May, Jr., Oct. 15, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Johnson to Samuel May, Jr., Sept. 22, 1864, Samuel May, Jr., Papers, BPL; W. L. Garrison, Jr., to Martha Wright, Oct. 6, 1864, Garrison Papers, SC; Liberator, June 24, July 22, 1864.

46 N.A.S. Standard, July 16, 1864; Liberator, July 29, 1864; Principia, July 21, 1864; Henry Wilson to George Cheever, July 27, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS.

47 Principia, Aug. 4, 1864; Commonwealth, Aug. 5, 1864.

48 George Stearns to Bronson Alcott, Aug. 8, 1864, Alcott Papers, Concord Public Library; Alcott, Diary, entries of August 9 and 10, ibid.

49 Phillips to E. C. Stanton, Aug. 22, 1864, in Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2 vols., New York, 1922), II, 98.

50 Gay to Elizabeth Gay, Aug. 6, 1864, Gay Papers, CU; Francis Brown, Raymond of the Times (New York, 1951), 259-60; Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (9 vols., New Brunswick, 1955), VII, 514.

51 Zornow, Lincoln and the Party Divided, 108-16; Henry Winter Davis to George Cheever, July 21, 31, 1864, Smith Regnas to George Cheever, July 25, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS; George Cheever to Tilton, July ?, 1864, Amasa Walker to Tilton, July 22, 1864, Tilton Papers, NYHS; Elizur Wright to Gerrit Smith, Aug. 13, 19, 1864, Smith Papers, SU; Sumner to Whittier, Sept. 1, 1864, Whittier Papers, Essex Institute; Henry G. Pearson, The Life of John Andrew (2 vols., Boston, 1904), II, 156-63; Fahrney, Greeley and the Tribune in the Civil War, 198-200.

52 John A. Stevens to Henry Cheever, Aug. 25, 1864, Amasa Walker to Henry Cheever, Aug. 26, 31, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS.

53 Commonwealth, Aug. 26, 1864; Liberator, Sept. 9, 16, 1864.

54 The replies of the governors to Tilton’s letters are in the Tilton Papers, NYHS. See also Sydney Gay to Elizabeth Gay, Sept. 3, 1864, Gay Papers, CU; New York Tribune, Sept. 3, 1864; Liberator, Sept. 9, 1864; Fahrney, Greeley and the Tribune in the Civil War, 202; John Nicolay to Tilton, Sept. 6, 1864, and Tilton to Nicolay, Sept. 6, 1864, Lincoln Papers, LC; George Cheever to Elizabeth Washburn, Sept. 10, 1864, and John Austin Stevens to Henry Cheever, Sept. 14, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS.

55 Tilton to Anna Dickinson, Sept. 3, 5, 1864, Dickinson Papers, LC; Tilton’s and Miss Dickinson’s public endorsements of the Republican party published in Independent, Sept. 8, 1864. In a letter to the Liberator of Sept. 23, 1864, Frederick Douglass retracted his earlier opposition to Lincoln and declared that every friend of the slave should now rally to the president’s support.

56 S. H. Gay to Elizabeth Gay, Sept. 9, 1864, Gay Papers, CU.

57 Liberator, Sept. 16, 1864.

58 Tilton to Anna Dickinson, Sept. 14, Oct. 4, 1864, Dickinson Papers, LC; Tilton to John Nicolay, Nov. 12, 1864, Lincoln Papers, LC; Liberator, Sept. 16, Oct. 7, 28, Nov. 4, 1864, Feb. 3, 17, 1865; William H. Burleigh, Poems by W. H. Burleigh, With a Sketch of His Life by Celia Burleigh (New York, 1871), xxv-xxvi; Gerrit Smith to Garrison, Oct. 10, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Commonwealth, Sept. 16, 1864; N.A.S. Standard, Sept. 24, 1864.

59 For a discussion of the Chandler mission, see Winfred A. Harbison, “Zachariah Chandler’s Part in the Re-election of Abraham Lincoln,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXII (Sept. 1936), 267-76; and Charles R. Wilson, “New Light on the Lincoln-Blair-Frémont ‘Bargain’ of 1864,” American Historical Review, XLII (Oct. 1936), 71-78.

60 George Stearns to Bronson Alcott, Sept. 11, 1864, Alcott Papers, Concord Public Library; George Stearns, S. R. Urbino, James Stone, Frank Bird, Samuel G. Howe, and Elizur Wright to Frémont, Sept. 9, 1864, and Frémont to Stearns et al., Sept. 17, 1864, published in the Boston papers, Sept. 22, 1864, and the rest of the northern press, Sept. 23, 1864. Jessie Benton Frémont later recalled that Whittier’s advice had been decisive in her husband’s decision to withdraw. Allan Nevins, Frémont: Pathmarker of the West (2nd ed., New York, 1955), 582. See also ibid., 579-82; and Commonwealth, Oct. 8, 1864.

61 Stanton and Blatch, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, II, 100-01; George Cheever to Elizabeth Washburn, Nov. 1, 1864, Cheever Papers, AAS; Oliver Johnson to Gerrit Smith, Nov. 23, 1864, Smith Papers, SU.

62 Stanton and Blatch, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, II, 100-01n.

63 Liberator, Oct. 28, 1864; Commonwealth, Oct. 29, 1864; W. L. Garrison, Jr., to Martha Wright, Oct. 23, Nov. 13, 1864, Samuel J. May to W. L. Garrison, Jr., Oct. 26, 1864, Garrison Papers, SC; W. P. Garrison to W. L. Garrison, Oct. 27, 1864, W. P. Garrison Papers, HU.

64 Commonwealth, Nov. 19, 1864; Wendell Phillips to E. C. Stanton, Nov. 20, 1864, Stanton Papers, LC. See also Liberator, Nov. 18, 1864; and a speech by Phillips published in the Philadelphia Press, Dec. 19, 1864.