A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Senator Jesse Bright, as I mentioned, was a slave owner himself, and the other U.S. Senate seat, vacant from 1855-1857, was filled by Graham Fitch, a physician from Logansport. Bright and Fitch were supporters of the southern Democrats and the Buchanan administration.  Bright engineered Fitch’s election to the Senate by the Indiana General Assembly through some heavy-handed and creative political maneuvering. The Republicans had a slight majority in the Senate while the Democrats had a majority in the House. Bright pushed for a joint session of the House and Senate. Having secured the joint session, when the Senate Republicans bolted in an effort to prevent election of a Democratic Senator, Bright pushed for a rules interpretation that said a quorum determination would be made based on the number of members of both chambers. He had enough extra Democrats in the House to overcome the lack of Republicans from the Senate. Based on that interpretation, the joint session elected Fitch — said by one contemporary to have no principles “He would be an abolitionist if it was profitable.”

In 1857, Bright thought things were going well for him. He had engineered his own re-election and the election of Fitch to the U.S. Senate. He had derailed an appointment by President James Buchanan of former governor James Wright to the cabinet — and instead managed to get Wright appointed as ambassador to Prussia. However, he had developed a reputation as untrustworthy, grasping for power, and a tool of the Slave Power of the South. Furthermore, in 1857, the Buchanan administration made a choice to support the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas — seen as fraudulent, pro-slavery, and contrary to the notion of popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty was  supported by northern Democrats, and Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas split with the President over the issue. Douglas fought hard and had the support of most of the Northern Democrats in the Senate. Bright was pro-slavery and had a personal dislike for Douglas (who he regarded as a rival for power). Bright was politically savvy and must have known that Lecompton and opposition to popular sovereignty wouldn’t be popular in Indiana. But, he was stubborn, apparently quite devoted to slavery, sympathetic to the South, and strongly disliked Douglas:

Bright, who rarely gave extended remarks on the floor of the Senate and who was especially loath to speak out on controversial issues, cast off his reticence to defend Buchanan. And in defending Buchanan, Bright now finally exposed the depths of his commitment to the white South. In his speech, he repudiated the principle of popular sovereignty and claimed that he had previously supported it only out of expediency. The Senator had “never entertained a doubt” about the power of Congress to legislate for the territories. Bright suggested that with all of the agitation over Lecompton, it was “better” not to refer such a question “to the vote of the people.”

Senator Fitch, Bright’s lackey, backed him up on this issue. The real action on whether to support admission of Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution seems to have been in the House of Representatives where another Hoosier played a major role. After the House rejected the Senate’s version, Indiana Representative William English, who was an ally of Bright but whose district was strongly opposed to Lecompton, offered a compromise that involved sending the proposed state constitution back to Kansas where the choice would either be to accept the pro-slavery state constitution or remain a territory.

Throughout the 1850s, Bright had advanced Southern causes at the expense of the strength of the Indiana Democrats. The party had survived, but Lecompton had been a step too far. Hoosiers — especially Hoosier Democrats — did not care greatly about whether Kansas was slave or free, but really embraced the notion of popular sovereignty. And, given the massive voter fraud that brought forth the Kansas Lecompton Constitution, most Hoosier Democrats could not bring themselves to support it. They felt that it reflected a triumph of a minority slave interest over the majority of Kansans who opposed slavery. Bright’s heavy handed use of patronage in his efforts to maintain party discipline hurt more than it helped.

At the 1858 state Democratic convention, there was a platform dispute concerning Lecompton. Lew Wallace, leading the anti-Lecompton forces negotiated agreed language with Bright’s faction which involved the phrase “now and hereafter” that implied Kansas’ admission to the Union was not supported. However, when the platform was printed up by a publisher connected with Bright, the “now and” was left off, implying that the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas was acceptable. This appears to have been Bright’s work and deepened Democratic rifts. The anger prompted a second convention where anti-Bright Democrats endorsed Stephen Douglas and popular sovereignty. The Congressional elections were disastrous for Bright. Only three of Indiana’s eleven Congressional Districts went to his candidates. The Republicans picked up seven, and one was won by an “anti-Lecompton” Democrat. By 1860, Bright had lost control of the Indiana Democrats to an extent that he was unable to stop an endorsement of Stephen Douglas for President.

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Returning to Gov. Willard for a moment – in addition to being the youngest Governor, Willard also had the dubious honor of being the first governor to die in office. Having suffered from tuberculosis for years, Willard would seek out different climates by way of treatment. In 1860, after experiencing hemorrhaging of the lungs following a speech at a state Democratic meeting, he went to  St. Paul, Minnesota with the hope of regaining his health.  After a month in Minnesota, Willard relapsed and died on October 4, 1860.

Ashbel Willard (1857-1860)

Ashbel Willard was a lawyer and a teacher who had made his way to New Albany. He seems to have been an accomplished speaker and active political campaigner (but something of a drunk) who rose rapidly in the state Democratic Party. In 1852, he was elected as Lieutenant Governor and was nominated by the Democrats as their candidate for Governor in 1856. His opponent in 1856, Oliver Morton was a leader in the People’s/nascent Republican Party and who had been an anti-Nebraska Democrat. A major focus in the election of 1856 were the events in Kansas, where partisans had taken up arms against one another to see whether pro-slave or anti-slave could gain the upper hand in the “popular sovereignty” battle to see whether Kansas would be slave or free when it organized. The dispatches from Kansas — such as those from former Congressman, James Lane — were followed closely in the papers. James Lane left the Congress in 1855 and went to Kansas where he led the Jayhawkers, a group of Free Soilers. (Lane would later become a U.S. Senator from Kansas and a general in the Civil War.)

During the election of 1856,  Morton carried the Whitewater valley and the northern districts, but the People’s Party lost ground from the election of 1854 and, at the age of 36, Willard was elected as Governor. The political scene seems to have been tense but gridlocked with the extension of slavery continuing to dominate the public attention. The General Assembly failed to pass an appropriations bill and Willard called the Indiana General Assembly into its first special session. In the meantime, Willard went ahead and paid interest on the State’s debt despite no appropriation for the payment having been made. He reached what was likely a sensible but legally questionable conclusion that there had been a “perpetual appropriation” of the two cents per hundred dollar tax levy dedicated to public debt payments. Even more questionable, however (though probably still sensible) was his decision to go out and borrow money when it turned out there wasn’t enough in the Treasury to make the debt payments. He drew the line at making payments (despite there being money in the Treasury for the purpose) toward benevolent institutions without an appropriation — in this context, I believe the “benevolent institutions” were places like the Indiana School for the Deaf and the Institute for the Blind, and asylums. Those were forced to shut down until the General Assembly was called into special session and the matter sorted out. (Knowing how these things work out, I wouldn’t be too surprised if his decision to let the benevolent institutions close was calculated to put political pressure on the General Assembly to get its act together — with Willard fearing the wrath of bond holders more than the wrath of the beneficiaries of the benevolent institutions.)

Willard was a supporter of Southern slavery and the Fugitive Slave Act. However, he found himself directly involved on the abolitionist side of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Brown had been an abolitionist fighter in “Bleeding Kansas,” among other things leading the defense of Osawatomie, Kansas when slavers were attacking. The problem with the Kansas-Nebraska idea that self-determination should govern whether a state was free or slave was that the methods of persuasion often got violent. In Osawatomie, the slavers murdered John Brown’s son among others and looted the town. Brown and his forces, for their part, engaged in guerrilla attacks on pro-slavery forces. In October of 1859, Brown took his show on the road and attacked the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry in hopes that the attack would provoke a slave rising that would bring down the slave system.

Brown was something of a messianic figure, and one of his followers was John Cook (described as reckless, impulsive, indiscreet, but genial, generous and brave) who, as luck would have it, was married to Gov. Willard’s sister. The raid on Harper’s Ferry was put down fairly quickly.  “Cook escaped to the mountains of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where he was hidden by the Underground Railroad. But, after a few days, on October 25, 1859, Cook came to the Hughes Furnace looking for food. Unfortunately, that place was managed by a southerner, Dan Logan, who supplemented his income by capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their Southern masters. Logan immediately recognized Cook who was “under medium size, skin as soft as a woman’s, and his deep blue eyes and wealth of blond hair made it easy to identify him.”” Despite Willard’s support of slavery, he also apparently felt strongly about family and, so, he enlisted Daniel Voorhees to assist Cook. Voorhees was the U.S. Attorney for Indiana and “one of the finest trial lawyers in the Midwest.” It seems that, when they got to Virginia, there wasn’t much of a defense to be had, and Voorhees got Cook to write a confession in hopes of at least saving him from the gallows. Despite implicating some prominent northern financiers and supporters of Brown’s effort, the Virginia Governor deemed the confession insufficient and backed out of the deal he had struck with Voorhees. Voorhees did what he could at the trial, making impassioned pleas on behalf of Cook as a guileless boy under the thumb of the despotic Brown. Voorhees was unsuccessful and Cook was convicted, regarded as a Judas figure by some of Brown’s supporters. Cook died at the gallows on December 16, 1859.

The raid on Harper’s Ferry did not generate the slave rebellion that John Brown hoped for, but it’s often regarded as the real beginning of the Civil War, the spark in the powder keg. It certainly raised tensions in the Democratic Party. Most of Indiana supported the northern Democrats and Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois. But, Indiana’s two U.S. Senators did not.

Governor Wright continued

Returning to Governor Wright’s term: Wright was the first governor elected under the new 1851 Constitution. It expanded the term of office for a Governor from three years to four but provided that the Governor could not serve consecutive terms. There was a brief discussion about whether Wright was eligible, but because his first term was served under the old Constitution, he was permitted to run for a second. In the election of 1852, he beat a Whig and a Free Soiler and won a term from 1853-1857. Wright was a fierce, but ultimately unsuccessful, opponent of the General Assembly’s move to allow the Bank of Indiana to incorporate as a private institution. He raised allegations of fraud in the Bank’s methods for gaining the General Assembly’s support and, while some infractions were found and the process cast in some doubt, no action was ever taken to revoke the charter.

Election of 1854

The Indiana Democrats continued to struggle with the slavery question. By the election of 1854, the state Democratic leader, now Senator Jesse Bright — who owned slaves in Gallatin Kentucky — was steering Indiana’s Democrats to more of an alignment with the Southern Democrats (for example, supporting James Buchanan rather than Stephen Douglas). Bright was using support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which would allow further expansion of slavery into the territories) as a litmus test for his supporters and making an effort to drive opponents out of the party. For example, in the convention of 1854, Oliver Morton was expelled when he attempted to use his influence to convince delegates to take a position against Kansas-Nebraska.

There was, during this time, a fractured opposition to the Democrats. The Whigs were in disarray, but still around. The Know-Nothings opposed the papacy and foreigners. (The Democrats were generally supportive of the often Catholic immigrants). The Free Soil Party was in opposition to expansion of slavery. The abolitionists weren’t exactly a party, but they were a political force. And there were many Democrats who opposed expansion of slavery and were disaffected with Bright’s control of the party. These opponents had an opportunity inasmuch as Democratic support of Kansas-Nebraska couldn’t be harmonized with the party’s position from previous years. Part of this mix was initially organized as the People’s Party of Indiana. Shortly thereafter, it would become the Republican Party. In 1854, the Fusion of anti-Democratic forces would win the House of Representatives and hold a substantial minority in the Senate. (The case of John Freeman, the free black man from Georgia accused of being a slave, was noted in one source as being an item of popular concern which helped the Fusion cause). The result was mostly gridlock for the next General Assembly.

As I wrote in an earlier post opposing modern efforts to repeal the 17th Amendment providing for direct election of U.S. Senators, following the election of 1854, the first order of business for the new General Assembly was selecting a United States Senator. However, rather than permitting the choice of a Fusionist, the Democrats refused to caucus. As a consequence, from 1855-1857, Jesse Bright was Indiana’s lone Senator.

Joseph Wright (1849-1857)

Wright was the son of a bricklayer who moved his family from Pennsylvania to Bloomington and helped build the first halls of Indiana University. Wright himself worked his way through IU and eventually became a lawyer and found his way into politics. In 1849, with the support of Governor Whitcomb, Wright was the Democratic nominee. Slavery was the dominant question of the election, and Wright had a record of opposing slavery when he was in Congress, and that seemed to have helped his cause; defeating Whig John Matson.

During Wright’s term, the State adopted a new constitution, the State Board of Education was created, and the Department of Agriculture was founded. (One of its first initiatives was the Indiana State Fair which first took place in 1852.) Throughout his term, he wrestled with Jesse Bright — largely without success — for control of the Democratic Party. (Bright was an unlikable bully who was skilled at working committees, rewarding friends, and punishing enemies. More on him later.)

Constitution of 1851

Through the 1840s, there had been a push for a new Constitution. In part, this was a sign of the times — a commitment to progress and reform. A number of other states in the Old Northwest went through constitutional re-writes at this time. In part, it was a reaction to the failed Mammoth Improvement Act. There was a concern that the General Assembly did not operate efficiently — wasting money by meeting every year and considering a great deal of specific, local legislation. In 1850, the General Assembly adopted legislation facilitating the Constitutional convention. Ultimately, the districting for electing the 150 delegates was very similar to the districts in place for electing the 150 senators and representatives. A couple of tweaks were made: Boone and Tipton counties were in a senatorial district with Hamilton County. But, for the constitutional convention, only Hamilton County voters got to vote for that particular convention delegate. Also, Daviess and Martin counties jointly elected a representative and a senator. Instead of jointly electing those two convention delegates, each county got to elect its own convention delegate. The delegates were to meet in the Capitol Building in Indianapolis (efforts to retain the Masonic Hall apparently having failed), and the General Assembly appropriated $40,000 for the convention.

Most of the delegates were farmers, lawyers, and physicians. Very few of the delegates were native Hoosiers. About half were born in the South. Democrats were dominant at the time and made up 2/3 of the delegates. The rest were Whigs.

Much of the underlying structure of the Constitution of 1816 was retained, however there were some major new features. Under the Constitution of 1851, the General Assembly would meet only once every two years for sessions lasting 61 days. The new constitution was also somewhat more forceful on the subject of education than the 1816 version had been. As you might recall, the 1816 version had some good language about education but gave the government a loophole by saying it should be implemented “as soon as circumstances will permit.” Thanks to the agitation of Caleb Mills and the education reformers, the Framers of the 1851 deemed that the circumstances were ripe, stating that the General Assembly was “to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” This led promptly to the School Law of 1852 (which was blocked by the Supreme Court a couple of times before it was allowed to take effect in the 1860s).

Immigrants (male and white) were allowed to  vote if they had been in the country a year, in the state for 6 months, and expressed an intent to become citizens. (Irish and German immigrants were regarded as more likely to vote for Democrats). This expansive attitude toward the vote did not, of course, extend to women and blacks. Black people were singled out for particular abuse by this new constitution. A new Article XIII was added:

Section 1. No negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.

Section 2. All contracts made with any Negro or Mulatto coming into the State, contrary to the provisions of the foregoing section, shall be void; and any person who shall employ such Negro or Mulatto, or otherwise encourage him to remain in the State, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.

Section 3. All fines which may be collected for a violation of the provisions of this article, or of any law which ay hereafter be passed for the purpose of carrying the same into execution, shall be set apart and appropriated for the colonization of such Negroes and Mulattoes, and their descendants, as may be in the State at the adoption of this Constitution, and may be willing to emigrate.

Adding insult to injury, this Article was the subject of an independent vote and was more popular with Hoosiers (passing 113,828 to 21,873) than the rest of the constitution. Fortunately, this article was declared invalid by the Supreme Court in 1863.

Next time: The Fugitive Slave Act & the School Law of 1852

This is installment 4.2 of my bicentennial series, covering Governor Paris Dunning and the rise of sectional conflict in the State.

Paris Dunning (1848-1849)

Dunning was a journeyman in Indiana government. After being a teacher, a doctor, and a lawyer, he was elected to be a state representative for Monroe County then a state senator for Monroe and Brown counties. He had voted for the Mammoth Internal Improvement Act and, when that went south, he did not get re-elected.  Dunning returned to private practice in Bloomington for awhile. However, Governor Whitcomb chose Dunning as a running mate in the 1846 election. The previous lieutenant governor, Jesse Bright (about whom I’ve written before), had been elected to the Senate by the legislature in 1844. When Whitcomb arranged to have himself elected by the legislature to the other U.S. Senate seat in 1848, the office of governor was vacant, and Dunning took Whitcomb’s place as Governor. As governor, Dunning spoke out against slavery. He asked for and received a resolution from the General Assembly urging Congress to oppose expansion of slavery in the territories.

Gov. Dunning also followed Governor Whitcomb’s work in advocating for a ballot initiative to replace Indiana’s 1816 Constitution. Under the 1816 state constitution, every twelfth year at the general election for governor, a poll was to be taken to determine if electors favored calling a constitutional convention. “Although there was much debate, this provision was interpreted to mean that the General Assembly could call for a convention at any time.” The 1846 election had included a referendum where a small majority favored amendment. However, there was some question about the vote. In particular, while the votes for amending the constitution exceeded those against such an amendment, the votes in favor made up less than 50% of those casting votes. However, responding to Governor Whitcomb’s recommendation in 1848, the Indiana General Assembly adopted legislation providing for another referendum in 1849. Governor Dunning signed that legislation, and a new referendum was conducted in 1849 with 81,500 in favor and 57,418 voting against.

Governor Dunning recommended that the legislature adopt legislation to provide for the districting of the state for delegates and adopt a tax to pay for the constitutional convention. He also noted the need to curb special legislation in the general assembly which, by his estimation, took up three-fourths of the General Assembly’s time.

Sectional conflict and state party politics

During this period, the sectional conflict was making itself felt within State politics. When the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, his status as a slave owner caused some consternation among antislavery Whigs and defections among Democrats. The Free Soilers attracted some bleed off from disaffected members of both parties. The Lafayette Journal was apparently one of the few publications willing to give voice to Free Soil sentiment. Schuyler Colfax considered buying the Journal to rid it of editor John Semans  who wrote in 1848:

“The nomination of Gen. Taylor is a disgrace to the Convention and an insult to the intelligence and virtue of the American people. The Whig party is basely betrayed—aye, sold to the Southern slaveholder. For ourselves we are against the nomination might and main, heart and soul.”

Meanwhile, there was further anti-Taylor animosity in Indiana that had little to do with the question of slavery but more with his treatment of Indiana’s soldiers during the Mexican-American War. In particular, there was a feeling that Indiana’s Second Regiment had been unfairly smeared as cowardly and, consequently, Indiana “suffered the stigma of military ineptness for many years after.” In the election of 1848, the Free Soilers were  an irritant to dyspeptic Democratic party boss and Senator, Jesse Bright:

The Free Soilers, however, proved to be thorns in the side of the Democrats and managed to put Jesse Bright in a bad humor all day. He had left Washington to supervise personally the Jefferson County election in his native town of Madison. As he watched the polls, he roared at the Free Soilers: “G-d damn you—I wish you and they were in Hell…. If I had the power I’d send you there.”

While the Democrats were still ascendant in the General Assembly, the process of selecting Gov. Whitcomb as Indiana’s U.S. Senator, among other things, highlighted that antislavery sentiment was politically useful. The Whigs and abolitionists were able to make some hay out of the Democrats’ ties to the South. For their part, in 1849, Indiana Democrats were shifting gears and coming out in opposition to slavery in the territories and Southern intransigence on the subject. Their opponents were not inclined to let them off the hook so easily:

Said the State Journal of its Democratic rival: “The Sentinel now begins to talk of ‘freedom’ and ‘southern dictation’ as glibly as though to such language it had long been accustomed. It does not sound beautifully from the lips of those who bowed so submissively to ‘Southern dictation’ and supported Mr. Polk for the Presidency—and who bowed still lower to the same dictation when they supported General Cass, who sold himself to the South! Then how harmoniously it sounds from those who aided in annexing Texas to the Union, with territory out of which to make four more Slave States! They talk of ‘Southern dictation’ who have been its most abject worshippers, and now ask to be thought sincere.”

The appeals of the major parties to attract Free Soil sentiment seems to have done its job, and the Free Soilers made no nominations in 1849. However, national sectional tensions were pulling the parties apart. As the state Democrats tried to distance themselves from the South, the state Whigs were being pulled under by their association with the slave owning Taylor. In general, the Free Soilers fused with the Democrats, and the sound defeat of the Whigs in 1849 took most of the life out of the party. Democrats took the lead on the common school law and the question of the new Indiana constitution which, in addition to the question of slavery, seem to have captured most of the state’s political attention for the next few years.

This Fourth Installment of my Indiana Bicentennial Series will start where the third installment left off at the end of Gov. Whitcomb’s term in 1848, discuss Indiana’s 1851 Constitution, and then head through the Civil War and Governor Oliver Morton’s terms of office.

The U.S. Presidents through this period were Zachary Taylor (1849-1850), Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), Franklin Pierce (1853 – 1857), James Buchanan (1857 – 1861), and Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865).

The Indiana Governors were Paris Dunning (1848-1849), Joseph Wright (1849-1857), Ashbel Willard (1857-1860), Abram Hammond (1860-1861), Henry Lane (for two days in 1861), and Oliver P. Morton (1861-1867).

The National Scene

These first few Presidents are, as the Simpsons put it, “the adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable caretaker Presidents of the U.S.A.!”

Zachary Taylor

The people of the U.S. love a general and, after a good war, can typically be trusted to elect one. (See, e.g., Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, Eisenhower). Zachary Taylor (“Old Rough & Ready”) was elected on the strength of his victories in the Mexican-American War. Taylor did not actually have well-defined political positions. He was a slave owner but was not pushing for its expansion. Acquisition of the Mexican territory helped to exacerbate sectional tensions. Southerners were deeply concerned about their ability to own other people and perfectly willing to destroy the U.S. in order to preserve that prerogative. By and large, Taylor supported the Northern position and was apparently willing to sign a provision that would have barred slaves in the new territory if it ever reached the President’s desk. He supported the notion of California skipping the territory phase altogether and proceeding directly to statehood — this would leave the slavery question out of Congress’ hands. With the gold rush on, California’s population was exploding, so the timing worked. In 1846, after Joseph Smith had been murdered by non-Mormon neighbors in Illinois (Smith seems to have had this effect on his neighbors), Brigham Young led the Mormons to Utah. After initially applying for recognition as a state, Utah was organized as a territory in 1850. The slavery issue in Utah was muted somewhat by the territory’s general inhospitability for raising crops. The Compromise of 1850 was underway but not completed by the time of Taylor’s death on July 9, 1850 of a stomach ailment.

Millard Fillmore

Vice-President Millard Fillmore, who we have come to know as a not very funny comic strip duck stepped into the Presidency upon Taylor’s death. He was an early member of the Whig Party and, before the Vice-Presidency, had held various political offices in New York state. As an anti-slavery moderate from New York, he was put on the ticket with the slave holding Taylor who was at least nominally from Virginia. Fillmore helped finish the work on the Compromise of 1850. Ultimately, that Compromise resulted in five pieces of legislation: California was admitted as a free state. The Texas boundary was settled in a way that compromised some of its claims on New Mexico, but the U.S. paid the state’s debts. A New Mexico territory was created which was open to slavery. The slave trade (but not slavery) was abolished in the District of Columbia. And, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The Fugitive Slave Act was a federal law that required Northern States and their officials to arrest black people on as little as an affidavit from Southern slave owners who claimed the person was a runaway. (The failure of northern states to comply with this piece of federal law appears in Southern declarations of secession and, as such, severely undermines the revisionist history claiming that Southern secession was a principled matter of states’ rights and tariffs as opposed to a strong desire to own other people and extract their labor for free.)

The Compromise of 1850 put a thin scab over the sectional division and delayed the Civil War by another few years. Fillmore was also active in the Pacific. He dispatched Commodore Perry to “open Japan” to trade — the opening was accomplished with cannons. Fillmore also rattled some sabers when France came sniffing around the Hawaiian islands. He was very much opposed to European powers acquiring a foothold in Hawaii. Fillmore attempted to run for the Presidency in his own right, but he had alienated northern Whigs with the Fugitive Slave Act. The Whigs appointed General Winfield Scott (another war hero), but he was defeated by the Democrats’ candidate, Franklin Pierce.

Franklin Pierce

Pierce took office in 1853 and helped exacerbate sectional conflict during his term by enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and by signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He was a New Hampshire Democrat who took advice from his Southern advisers. Transportation and communication infrastructure played a role in the challenges he faced in his administration. Jefferson Davis, who would later lead Southerners in their rebellion against the United States, was Secretary of War during the Pierce administration. In 1853, Congress appropriated money to find a railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Telegraphy had been on the rise since Morse came up with a commercial system that began linking the major urban centers in the east during the 1840s. The need for a cross-country telegraph system was recognized along with the need for a cross-country railroad system. Secretary of War Davis was tasked with the job of organizing the search for a route and he initiated the Pacific Railroad Surveys. One potential route was in the south, through land still owned by Mexico. This led to the Gadsden Purchase.

Southerners were lukewarm on internal improvements generally, finding that they received more immediate profit from more slaves and more cotton production, sold internationally. Davis, however, was a railroad enthusiast and a supporter of the Southern route. Pierce was amenable to the idea of expanding in the South and authorized the purchase of land from Mexico which would expand the United States’ southwestern holdings. Santa Anna, who had been returned to power in Mexico, needed money and was willing to deal. To him, this territory was more or less just a stretch of desert and, to him, $15 million (more than $400 million today) was a worthwhile trade. The treaty was eventually ratified, but it exacerbated sectional conflict in the context of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that was being debated. Northern Senators wanted their own railroad and opposed what might be the organization of more slave territory.

Senator Stephen Douglas (“the Little Giant”) from Illinois wanted a railroad from Chicago to the west. Organizing the Nebraska territory was a first step in the process. Under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, slavery would not be permitted in Nebraska; but southerners wouldn’t permit organization of Nebraska unless slaveholders were permitted there. Repeal of the prohibition of slavery in the northern territories sparked a vitriolic debate in Congress, and bloody conflict in the territories. The notion of “popular sovereignty” where the residents of the territory got to determine whether the territory would be a slave state or slave free prompted “a rush into Kansas, as southerners and northerners vied for control of the territory. Shooting broke out, and “bleeding Kansas” became a prelude to the Civil War.” The midterm elections of 1854-1855 were bad for Northern Democrats and Whigs. There was considerable agitation over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act for the benefit of Southern slave owners. A loose coalition of various political parties — Know-Nothing, Independent, Anti-know-nothing, Fusion, Anti-Nebraska, Anti-Administration, Whig, Free Soil, People’s Party of Indiana, and Unionist — would take control of the House. These anti-Democrats would soon form into the basis of the Republican Party. Pierce, the sitting President, was so unpopular by the time of the 1856 election that he could not even get the nomination to run for re-election. James Buchanan got the nod.

James Buchanan

Buchanan had the advantage of having been minister to the United Kingdom during the Pierce administration and was able to avoid getting caught up in the growing sectional unpleasantness prior to the election of 1856. The relatively new Republicans fielded John C. Fremont as a candidate, running with the slogan “Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont and victory!” However, the anti-Democratic forces had not consolidated and Fremont’s campaign was undermined by the Know-Nothings (officially the “American” Party) — so named because of their secretive origins. The Know-Nothings nominated former President Millard (not Mallard) Fillmore and attempted to ignore the slavery question; instead focusing on an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic platform (sounds vaguely familiar). They preferred “native” Americans, by which they did not mean American Indians. They meant the white Protestants who had been here for at least a few decades.

With the anti-Democratic vote split, Buchanan won the election. His administration was dominated by the tension leading up to the Civil War about which countless books and novels can and have been written. I can’t do them justice. So, I’ll just mention that the Dred Scott case was decided, John Brown gained notoriety as Kansas continued to bleed, Stephen Douglas debated Abraham Lincoln, rampant land speculation, currency policy, and a decline in international trade caused the Panic of 1857, and there was conflict between Mormons and the federal government in Utah. In 1858, the Republicans gained a plurality in the House of Representatives and began investigating the Buchanan administration for corruption. This was an interesting time in American politics. The Republicans were still in the midst of becoming the country’s second party, the Whigs had collapsed, the Democrats were deeply divided between North and South, and the Know-Nothings’ brief moment in the sun was fading as anti-immigrant fervor abated somewhat and they were hurt by their vague stance on slavery.

In 1860, all hell was breaking loose. The Democratic convention was a disaster with the Democrats ultimately producing three nominees: Southern Democrats nominating vice-president John Breckenridge; Northern Democrats nominating Stephen Douglas; and some took up with the Constitutional Union candidacy of John Bell, a Tennessee candidate who wanted to preserve the union without taking a position on slavery. The Republicans, of course, nominated Abraham Lincoln and, when he won, the Southerners were determined to take their ball and go home. As the white Southerners began agitating for secession, Buchanan essentially sat on his hands while the Southerners stole federal property. On January 9, 1861, South Carolinians opened fire on the American soldiers at Fort Sumter.

Abraham Lincoln

Anyone likely to have made it this far through a post on Indiana history already likely knows far more about Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War than I can even begin to cover here. So, for Lincoln’s Presidency, I’ll just borrow a line from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural: “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.”