THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

AND THE END OF
AMERICAN SLAVERY
2015, January 24 – April 20. The Huntington
Library, West Hall
Olga A. Tsapina
12/2/2014

This is a full layout of the exhibit.

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FOYER

TITLE WALL

The U.S. Constitution and the End of American Slavery

TITLE WALL 42406 ARHD011 / Rarebooks 321

[EXTENDED LABEL, PLEASE PLACE IT NEXT TO THE TITLE IMAGE]

Scene in the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. Leslie’s Illustrated

Newspaper. February 8 1865.

Scene in the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper, February 8, 1865.
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On January 31, 1865, Schuyler Colfax, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,
called for a vote on a joint resolution that would amend the Constitution.

The resolution read: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States,
or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.”

After the roll call was finished, Colfax asked the clerk to add his name to the roll. The
speaker was not required to vote, but he, too, wanted to have his say on “that great
measure, which hereafter will illuminate the highest place in our History.”

The clerk then read the tally: 119 ayes to 56 nays, with 8 abstaining. Slavery in America
was dead.

After a moment of stunned silence, the chamber erupted in what the congressional
reporter described as “great enthusiasm.” As legislators, “regardless of parliamentary
rules,” exploded in cheers, they were joined by spectators in the galleries, which were
“crowded to excess.”
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CUBE CASE 13.

CUBE CASE 13. CENTER OF THE FOYER]

[INTRODUCTORY LABEL. PLEASE PLACE IT IN THE FRONT OF THE CASE, I.E. FACING THE
MAIN HALL ENTRANCE]

“IT CANNOT BE REMEDIED”

The fateful House vote on January 31, 1865 accomplished what had been deemed a double
mission impossible – abolished slavery and amended the United States Constitution.

There were many hurdles to the abolition of slavery in the United States – racism, political
partisanship, fear, economic interests, or lack of political will, to name the few. In 1805,
Thomas Jefferson conceded that the problem of slavery “cannot be remedied.”

The United States Constitution presented the most formidable obstacle. The very same
national charter that had created a republic dedicated to liberty also guaranteed the rights
of American citizens who happened to own human property.

Amending the Constitution proved to be an impossible task. Out of more than 400
constitutional amendments proposed between 1803 and 1860 none managed to garner the
necessary two thirds of both Houses of Congress.

13.1 _HM 619__ Orderly book of Anthony Wayne’s command. __ AS TABBED, 1781,
October 25.

Orderly book of Anthony Wayne. 1781.

Black slaves, unlike white apprentices or indentured servants, were always treated as
property.

Here the adjutant to General Anthony Wayne (1745-1796) records the order by George
Washington given shortly after the British surrender at Yorktown.

All “Negroes and Mulattoes the property of Citizens of these States” who “have concealed
themselves on board the Ships in the harbor” were immediately to turned over “to the
Guards which will be establish'd for their reception,” to be returned to their masters.

The Treaty of Paris that ended the War for Independence forbade the British to “carry away
any Negroes or other property” of the Americans.

13.2__ SL 314__ George Washington. Letter to Joseph Whipple. 1796, Nov. 28 __ TOP
PAGE.

George Washington. Letter to Joseph Whipple. November 28 1796.

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In May 1796, Ona Maria (Oney) Judge, a slave belonging to Martha Washington, escaped to
New Hampshire, where slavery had been outlawed. George Washington asked Joseph
Whipple, Portsmouth’s collector of customs, to deliver the slave to his home, Mount
Vernon, in Virginia. Whipple met with Judge, who offered to return if the Washingtons
promised to free her and her children in their wills.

Here Washington angrily rejects Judge’s offer: “Such a compromise, as she has suggested to
you, is totally inadmissible.” He continues: “However well disposed I might be to a gradual
abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was
in itself practicable at this Moment) it would neither be politic or just, to reward
unfaithfulness with a premature preference.”

13.3__ HM 5752__ Thomas Jefferson. Letter to William A. Burwell. January 28 1805__

TOP PAGE

Thomas Jefferson, letter to William A. Burwell, January 28, 1805.

Thomas Jefferson writes to his secretary and friend: “I have long since given up the
expectation of any early provision for the extinguishment of slavery among us. There are
many virtuous men who would make any sacrifice to affect it, many equally virtuous who
persuade themselves either that the thing is not wrong, or that it cannot be remedied.”

Jefferson fears that slavery will die only “after dreadful scenes and sufferings,” destroyed
by the forces of economic necessity, “goaded from time to time by the insurrectionary spirit
of the slaves.”

13.4__ HM 5743. Thomas Jefferson. Notes of the 12th Amendment __ TOP PAGE WITH
PASTED INSETS.

Thomas Jefferson, notes on the 12th Amendment, ca. 1803.

The 12th Amendment, which reformed the Electoral College, was ratified in 1804. No other
proposed amendments won the constitutionally mandated approval of two-thirds of both
houses of Congress and three-fourths of the states of the Union until January 31, 1865.

This is a draft of the congressional resolution, in Jefferson’s hand.

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WALL 1 [THE WALL TO THE LEFT OF THE MAIN HALL ENTRANCE]

W1.1R __182899 __ The Constitution of the United States of America; as proposed by the
convention, held at Philadelphia, September 17, 1787, and since ratified by the several
states. (With the several amendments thereto.) (Published by order of the House of
Representatives.) (Philadelphia, 1799) –

[NO TOMBSTONE; TITLE PAGE[

The Constitution was not just a revered relic of the Founding Era. It was a living document,
implemented in the routine practice of adversarial justice and increasingly partisan
parliamentary procedure and debated in the court of public opinion.

W1.2R__ [TEXT PANEL]

[COPY OF THE PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION AS APPEARS ON P. 3 OF 182899]

SLAVERY’S CONSTITUTION?

The framers of the Constitution created a national government designed to guarantee the
rights of all citizens of the Union, including those who happened to own human property.

Aware of the absurdity of protecting human bondage in a republic dedicated to liberty, they
studiously avoided the words “slaves” and “slavery. “ There are no explicit constitutional
guarantees to property in men: slaves are referred to as “persons,” not chattels.

The federal government had no constitutional mandate to maintain or abolish slavery. This
power was reserved by the states, a principle known as the federal consensus.

Yet under the Constitution, the slaveholding states were afforded disproportional leverage
in Congress and in the Electoral College. Slaveholders’ rights were guaranteed throughout
the Union, even in the states that had abolished slavery.

W1.3.R__ 296437 __ The Constitution of the United States, with the acts of Congress,
relating to slavery, embracing, the Constitution, the Fugitive slave act of 1793, the
Missouri compromise act of 1820, the Fugitive slave law of 1850, and the Nebraska
and Kansas bill, carefully compiled (Rochester, N.Y., 1854)

All debates on American slavery inevitably came down to the Constitution. This edition of
the Constitution surveys the landmark legislation on slavery.
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 implemented the constitutional clause (Article 4, Section 2,
Clause 3) mandating that fugitive slaves be “delivered up” to their masters across state
lines.

The Missouri Compromise was an act of Congress that “hereby and forever” prohibited
slavery north of the 36° 30´ north latitude line in the Louisiana Territory. Another act of
Congress, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, had already prohibited slavery in the Ohio
Territory.

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 expanded federal authority to track down fugitive slaves,
denied jury trials to suspected runaways, and punished anyone assisting a fugitive.

The Kansas and Nebraska Act of 1854 invalidated federal legislative efforts to limit slavery
and left it up to the voters to decide whether to allow slavery in Kansas.
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WALL 2 (THE WALL TO THE RIGHT OF THE MAIN HALL ENTRANCE) .

W2.1R__ INTRODUCTORY SIDE PANEL. [NO TITLE]

The Peculiar Institution

Revolutionary America saw slavery as a remnant of the age of tyranny, slated for extinction.
In 1774, Thomas Jefferson declared that “the abolition of domestic slavery is the great
object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily produced in their infant state.”
Nineteen years later, Samuel Miller, a young preacher, exulted in his Independence Day
sermon that the “monster” of American slavery “has received a fatal blow and will soon, we
hope, fall expiring to the ground.”

Yet far from dying out, the “peculiar institution” thrived and expanded, and slavery became
more deeply ingrained in every aspect of national life.

For over seventy-five years, every effort to speed up slavery’s demise failed or backfired.

Abolishing slavery involved much more than emancipating slaves. It meant altering the
very fabric of the American society that made property in man possible.

W.2.2O __ BR Box 12 __ Thomas Pleasants. Manumission of his slaves. 1781.

Thomas Pleasants, manumission of his slaves, 1781.

Here Thomas Pleasants, a Virginia Quaker, frees his slaves, “being fully persuaded that
freedom is the natural right of all mankind and that no Law moral or divine has given me a
right to a property in the persons of any of my fellow creatures.”

In 1781, when Pleasants wrote this document, it was unlawful to free one’s slaves by a
private act of manumission; slaves could be freed only by a special act of legislation. In
1782, the Virginia general assembly allowed slaveholders to free their slaves, but in 1806 it
severely restricted the practice. Every African American freed after May 1 of that year was
required to leave the state or risk re-enslavement.

W2.3O __ BR Box 2 (21) __ Mathews, John. To Benjamin Harrison.

John Matthews, letter to Benjamin Harrison, March 15, 1782.

The governor of South Carolina informs the governor of Virginia of his plans to sell “one
hundred and fifty Negroes” that the state legislature had put into his “hands to be disposed
 9

of for Cash.” The proceeds from this “disposal” of human property were to be used to cover
expenses incurred by the state during the Revolutionary War.

W2. 4O __ HM 36772 __ Clergé, Catherine. Declaration of departure. 1817, Apr. 24.

Catherine Clergé, declaration of departure, April 25, 1817.

Catherine Clergé, a “free woman of color” departing New Orleans for “Porto Rico,” declares
the “following slaves, her property: Phillippe, Charles, Jean Louis, Azor, Adelaide with her
two children, and Bourne.”

Because Congress had prohibited the importation of foreign slaves into the Orleans
Territory in 1804, Clergé had to make “the above declaration in order that on her return to
this place she may be permitted to introduce the slaves above mentioned.”

W2.5O __ HM 69812 __ Manumission of "a certain male slave named Frank," 1824,
Dec. 1.

Manumission of “a certain male slave named Frank,” December 1, 1824.

Between 1788 and 1804, Northern states gradually abolished slavery. New York adopted
an emancipation statute in 1799, followed by laws implementing it.

The Act concerning Slaves and Servants, passed by the New York legislature on April 8,
1801, mandated that all slaves under 50 years of age who were capable of providing for
themselves be freed by 1825. Adrian Martens, the owner of the 49-year-old slave Frank,
waited until the very last moment to comply with the law.

W2.6O __ BR Box 924 (2) __ Ryland, A. H. 1834, Oct. 30. Mobile, Ala.

A. H. Ryland, letter to “Dear Sir,” October 30, 1834, Mobile, Ala.

The transatlantic slave trade was abolished in 1808, but the interstate trade in humans
evolved into a lucrative business. Here, a slave speculator writes: “I sold about half of my
negroes and have sold for good prices women from 550 to 600 and was offered 650 for one
yesterday. I have sold but one man I got 800 for him and was offered a 825 for another
one.” He expects that the price of slaves will rise as long as “Cotton keeps up to what it is
selling at now.”

W2.7O __ BR Box 90 (13) __ 1838, Nov. 30.

George Shackelford, letter to Lewis Webb & Co., November 30, 1838.
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A slave owner sends “my negro man Frederick” to a slave speculator. The 26-year-old
Frederick “has been my overseer as well as foreman for 2 years, one of the most valuable
senseable polite colored men to be found any where, and I have often said in Conversations
about him that I would not take two thousand Dollars for him, but I am set moving to the
neighborhood of Lynchburg and this man was amongst the first of my negroes to revolt
against my will in going up the Country with me, and have therefore determined to sell him
and send him to you for sale for the best price that can be had for him in cash.”

W2.8O __ HM 48564 __ Notes to the master of the Charleston Workhouse. 1854-1856.

Notes to the master of the Charleston workhouse, 1854–56.

The Charleston workhouse was a notorious jail for runaway slaves and for slaves whose
owners wished to punish them. In these notes, masters request various punishments for
their slaves (who often were the bearers of these notes): whipping with “paddles,”
administering “a strong dose of salt,” and making them run on a “Tread Mill,” a paddle
wheel–like device designed to make an inmate climb for hours on end.

These notes were picked up and preserved by Union soldier Duncan McKercher, a prisoner
of war who was briefly confined at the workhouse on his way to Libby Prison in 1863.

W2.9O __ HM 23227 __ Lee, Robert E. Letter to A. L. L. Keese

Robert E. Lee, letter to Augustus E. L. Keese, 1858, Arlington, Va.

Robert E. Lee, the future commander of the Confederate army, instructs a claims agent in
Washington, D.C., to seize runaway slaves who have escaped to the nation’s capital: “There
are two women belonging to the Estate of G. W. P. Custis, now in Washington, where they
have been since 1 Jany last. One, black, about 35 years old, named Caroline Bingham with a
child about 6 mos. old, has been seen frequently in the centre market, going & returning by
N. 7th st. The other, mulatto, about 23 years old, named Catherine Burke, with a nearly
white child about 2½ years old, has also been seen in the centre market.”

W2.10.O __ CL 693 __ Charlotte Clark. To Lincoln Clark. 1857, Aug. 20.

Charlotte Clark, letter to Lincoln Clark, August 20, 1857.

In July 1857, an Alabama couple, Frederick and Charlotte Clark, boarded a ship that would
take them to Liberia. The Clarks had once been slaves, the property of Lincoln Clark, a
Tuscaloosa lawyer. Clark had freed his slaves and put the couple in touch with the
American Colonization Society, a benevolent organization that “repatriated” free American
blacks to Africa. The Clarks settled in Clay-Ashland on the St. Paul River, joining some
12,000 men and women who left the United States between 1822 and 1861.
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Charlotte sends “much love” to “Master Samuel,” the little white boy she had brought up,
“who I often think & dream about sometimes; I am walking out with Samuel as I used to do
when there but when I awake it is all a dream.”
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WALL 3.

W3.1R __ 75549 __ Goodrich, Charles A. (Charles Augustus),|d1790-1862 A history of

the United States of America / Hartford : Huntington & Hopkins, 1822, p. 248..
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Charles Augustus Goodrich, A History of the United States of America. Hartford, Conn., 1824.

In the early nineteenth century, the men who had met in Philadelphia in the summer of
1787 were revered for having created an enduring Union that reconciled many ways of life
and respected various traditions, including those based on slavery.

W3.2R __ 218591 __ The American Antislavery Almanac for 1843. Back cover page.
Image. Please include the entire page.

By the 1840s, faith in the constitutional compromise had faltered. Abolitionists rejected the
compromise as institutionalized hypocrisy and a mockery of the promises of the
Declaration of Independence. The covers of this issue of The American Anti-Slavery Almanac
represent the fundamental conflict of a republic that rested on human bondage.
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On July 4, 1854, William Lloyd Garrison, a founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society,
publicly burned a copy of the Constitution and denounced it as “a covenant with death and
an agreement with hell.”

W3.3R __ Abraham Lincoln. Cooper Union Address IMAGE ON FILE (UDID 6781;
ARHD012 / Manuscripts 94)

[NO TOMBSTONE. COVER PAGE]

In the 1850s, the opposition to slavery, once the domain of benevolent efforts and social
activism, became embedded in party politics.

In his first address as a candidate for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln, a rising star of the
antislavery Republican Party, asserted that the framers of the Constitution had marked
slavery for extinction by giving Congress the power to prevent its spread to new territories.

W3.4O __ 370964 __ Brown, Albert G. Protection to slave property : speech of Hon. A.

G. Brown, of Mississippi, in defence of his proposition for immediate congressional
protection to slave property in the territories, with the reply of Senator Fitch
(Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 6, 1860) –

NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE

Albert Gallatin Brown, a senator from Mississippi, declared that slavery was legal
everywhere the American flag flew and that it must be recognized and protected nationally.
The only way to end dissension over “the slavery question,” he argued, was to adopt a
federal law establishing slavery throughout the United States.
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WALL FOUR.

W4R _ TEXT PANEL.

“The Slavery Question”

From the first days of the Republic, “the slavery question” was the American problem, the
key exhibit in the political trials of the young nation. It fed quintessentially American
debates over the dangers posed to the nation’s freedom and security by a too-powerful
federal government, entrenched special interests, political partisanship, judicial activism,
and racial conflict.

The constitutional compromise with slavery, increasingly seen as unsustainable, finally

began to crumble in the 1850s, splitting apart along the very faultlines that the framers had
tried to shore up.
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CASE 1. A More Perfect Union

CASE 1: TEXT PANEL

A More Perfect Union

The Constitution created a federal government with limited, strictly enumerated powers,
which did not include the power to regulate slavery.

The right to abolish or maintain slavery belonged exclusively to the states. This principle,
known as the federal consensus, was meant to secure “a more perfect Union.” Free and
slave states were expected to achieve unity through mutual compromise, not through
coercion by the federal government.

The pressures of the ever-expanding Union, increasingly bitter sectional rivalries, and toxic
party politics, however, severely tested the federal consensus.

Antislavery lawmakers and activists demanded that the United States government act to
restrict slavery, while their opponents clamored for federal guarantees of slaveholders’
rights.

By the end of the 1850s, the strains brought the Union to the breaking point.

Case 1 IMAGE LIST.

W1.1R __ American satirical prints. N.d. (ca. 1845). Consecration of the “Lone Star.”
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LABEL:

C. C. Green, Consecration of the “Lone Star,” line engraving, ca. 1845.

Following the crisis over the admission of the slaveholding state of Missouri in 1821, slave
and free states were admitted in pairs to maintain a balance of power.

Texas’s annexation upended this balance. Secretary of state John C. Calhoun announced
that the annexation was vital for the expansion of slavery and “essential to the peace,
safety, and prosperity” of the South. In December 1845, Texas was admitted as a slave
state.

This rare print condemns the admission of Texas as the triumph of the slaveholding South,
pictured here as a tyrant imperiously leaning on the Constitution; the stars on the
American flag are rearranged around the Lone Star.

W1.2R. REPRO. Prints 1852. Position of the Democratic Party in 1852. 31.3 x 42.4 cm.
Use our original or a repro.
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[NO TOMBSTONE. THE CAPTION IS ON THE IMAGE]

Position of the Democratic Party in 1852: “Freemen of America, how long will you be ledd by
such Leaders!,” lithograph, Boston, 1852.

When California adopted an antislavery constitution in 1849, the South threatened

secession. The crisis was defused by a series of bargains known as the Compromise of
1850, engineered by the Democratic senator from Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas. The
Compromise allowed the admission of California as a free state but instituted a new,
draconian Fugitive Slave Law.

Here, an anonymous artist mocks the “slaveocratic miscalled the Democratic party” for its
obedience to “the crack of the slaveholder’s whip!” The Democratic presidential candidate,
Franklin Pierce, prostrates himself before a “Slave holder & Peace Maker,” his face in the
dirt.
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W1.3R. 499751 Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. Vol. 5, No. 116 (1858, Feb.
20). The midnight brawl in the House of Representatives.

“Congressional Row, in the U.S. House of Representatives, Midnight of Friday, February 5th,
1858.” From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, February 20, 1858.

In 1854, Senator Douglas pushed through Congress the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which left it
up to the voters to decide whether slavery would be allowed in the territory. The result
was a bloody civil war in Kansas and a major political crisis in Washington.

After midnight on February 5, 1858, the debate over Kansas erupted into a massive brawl
in the House of Representatives, with Northern Republicans squaring off against Southern
Democrats. The fight ended when a Wisconsin Republican seized a Mississippi Democrat by
the hair, only to discover that his adversary was wearing a hairpiece.

CASE 1. CASE CONTENT. .

1.1__ 293491 A Defense of the legislature of Massachusetts, or, The rights of New-
England vindicated. (Boston, 1804) __ AS TABBED, ON THE PROPOSAL TO AMEND
THE CONSTITUTION.

A Defense of the Legislature of Massachusetts, or, The rights of New-England Vindicated.

Boston, 1804.

The “three-fifths” clause (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3) of the Constitution added the non-
voting and non-taxpaying slave population to the “whole Number of free Persons” for the
purpose of apportionment of representatives. This gave the slaveholding South
disproportionate power in Congress and in the Electoral College.

In 1803, William Ely, a representative from western Massachusetts, drafted an amendment

to abolish the clause, in order to get rid of the “Southern Dominance.”
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1. 2 __ 16869__ Rufus King, Substance of two speeches (1819) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE; TITLE PAGE]

Amid furious debates over whether to admit Missouri as a state, Senator Rufus King, one of
the original framers of the Constitution, declares that the Constitution does not recognize
property in man and that Congress must make abolition of slavery a condition for
admission into the Union.

King’s speech was excised from the congressional records. Missouri was admitted as a
slave state.

1.3__ HM 8979 __ Thomas Cooper. Letter to William Campbell Preston. 1837, Dec. 31
__ TOP PAGE.

Thomas Cooper, letter to William Campbell Preston, December 31, 1837.

Here Thomas Cooper, former president of South Carolina College and an outspoken
defender of slavery, calls for the secession of slave states: “We are ready & willing to go all
lengths, & cut the knot if needful; and quickly too. We think we can depend on being
followed by Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, & Louisiana. If so, I would cut cables & steer
away.” Secession is especially urgent because “the doctrine of neutrality under
International law will prevent our annexing Texas.”

1_4 __ LI 1044 __ Francis Lieber. Letters to John Calhoun, 1849 __ AS TABBED.

Francis Lieber, letters to John C. Calhoun, 1849.

Francis Lieber, a German-born political scientist and professor at South Carolina College,
responds to his fellow South Carolinian John C. Calhoun’s demand for federal guarantees
for slavery in California.

Lieber defines slavery as a Southern “peculiar domestic or municipal institution” that

cannot be expanded to territories where it never existed. “The Constitution of the U. States
gives you as much right to introduce slavery in California as to establish it in
Massachusetts, that is to say, no right whatever,” he writes. The Constitution does not even
mention slavery as a “name repulsive to freedom.” Lieber never sent or published these
letters.

1_5. 1852 -- 49838 (or 22720) – Sumner, Charles. Freedom national : slavery
sectional /speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, on his motion to repeal
the Fugitive slave bill, in the Senate of the United States, August 26, 1852
(Washington, D.C. 1852) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

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In his first major speech, Charles Sumner, an antislavery senator from Massachusetts,
declares that, because slavery is “a local institution, peculiar to the States and under the
guardianship of State Rights,” the federal government is not required to observe the slavery
laws.

Sumner argues that it is the duty of Congress to abolish slavery where it has full
authority—in the District of Columbia and the federal territories. It also must block the
admission of slave states into the Union.

1.6. HM 845 __ John Brown. Memorandum Book.

John Brown, memorandum book, 1856.

The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 left it to the voters to decide whether Kansas could join
the Union as a free or slave state. The result was a bloody civil war in Kansas and the
neighboring state of Missouri.

On June 2, 1856, the antislavery militia led by the militant abolitionist John Brown defeated
the proslavery forces under the command of Henry C. Pate in a pitched battle near the town
of Black Jack. Two months later, proslavery forces looted and burned the town of
Osawatomie.

Here John Brown lists the casualties of Black Jack and Osawatomie

1.7__ 22703 __ Hammond, James H. Speech of Hon. James H. Hammond, of South

Carolina, on the admission of Kansas, under the Lecompton constitution / Delivered
in the Senate, of the United States, March 4, 1858__ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE NECESSARY, TITLE PAGE]

In the wake of the financial panic of 1857, the defenders of slavery reveled in the fact that
the crisis that had devastated the free states of the North had spared the cotton-producing,
slaveholding South.

In this speech, delivered March 4, 1858, South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond
challenges the North: “No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to
make war upon it. Cotton is king.”

1_8__ HM 19802 __ 1860, June 3. Carroll, William. Letter to wife and children. Salmon
Falls, Calif. __ HORIZONALLY; the letter is cross-hatched. Turn to emphasize the
secondary lines (horizontal).

William Carroll, letter to wife and children, June 3, 1860, Salmon Falls, Calif.
 22

Here William Carroll, a New Yorker who was teaching school in California, derides the
Golden State’s “Southern Chivalry”: “They expelled a Mullatto boy from school last week
because they would [not] have their children go to school with niggers.”

He continues: “California is died in the wool her legislator is proslavery and a majority of
her officials. I keep very cool there is noe one who knows my politics.” Carroll, a
Republican, notes with dismay that Republicans “are very unpopular,” and so is “every
thing that savors of freedom.”
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CASE 2.

CASE 2 _ TEXT PANEL

Full Faith and Credit

Article 4 of the Constitution mandates that each state must respect other states’ laws and
give “Full Faith and Credit” to their “public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings.”

This provision could not be sustained, however, since Southern slave codes directly
contradicted the laws of free states.

The most contentious aspect of the mandate was the “fugitive slave clause.” This provision
of Article 4 required that Southern fugitive slaves be “delivered up” to their masters across
state lines. Free states resisted having to act as slave-catchers; slave states blasted their
defiance as a breach of their constitutional obligations.

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, which charged federal agents with
enforcing the fugitive slave clause. “All good citizens” were “commanded to aid and assist”
the slave-catchers, and anyone helping a runaway risked heavy fines and imprisonment.

The long-smoldering conflict exploded into a judicial war.

CASE 2_IMAGE LIST

2W.1R REPRO 91984 – Torrey, Jesse. A portraiture of domestic slavery, in the United
States: with reflections on the practicability of restoring the moral rights of the slave,
without impairing the legal privileges of the possessor; and a project of a colonial
asylum for free persons of colour: including memoirs of facts on the interior traffic
in slaves, and on kidnapping. Illustrated with engravings. (Philadelphia, 1817).
 24

“Kidnapping.” From Jesse Torrey, A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery, in the United States.
Philadelphia, 1817.

Kidnapping free blacks from Northern states and selling them into slavery using forged
documents became a profitable underground industry. The practice caused much outrage
in the North. In 1817, Philadelphia physician Jesse Torrey included interviews and
firsthand narratives of such kidnappings in his book A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery, in
the United States.

2W.2R REPRO 251977 Anthony Burns : a history / by Charles Emery Stevens (Boston,
1856) .CROP OUT THE BLACK MARGINS.
 25

The rendition of Anthony Burns. From Charles Emery Stevens, Anthony Burns: A History.
Boston, 1856.

Anthony Burns, a Virginia slave who had escaped to Boston, was seized in May 1854 by a
federal marshal acting under the Fugitive Slave Law. On June 2, federal troops marched the
manacled Burns through the streets of Boston to the dirge of church bells, past buildings
draped in funeral crepe and some 50,000 Bostonians lining the streets. He was then put on
a U.S. ship that would take him back to slavery.

In the wake of this opposition, New England adopted personal liberty laws that defied the
Fugitive Slave Law.

2WR. 3. REPRO 499752 Modern Medea. Margaret Garner. “The Modern Medea,”
Harper's Weekly, May 18, 1867.
 26

“Modern Medea,” after the painting by Thomas Noble. From Harper’s Weekly, May 18, 1867.

In January 1856, Margaret Garner and her children escaped from Kentucky across the
frozen Ohio River to Cincinnati. The family was soon apprehended by U.S. marshals. When
she saw that arrest was inevitable, Mrs. Garner tried to kill her children and herself rather
than return to slavery. Before she was seized, she killed her young daughter.

In response to the tragedy, the Ohio legislature passed a law that punished anyone who
arrested a suspected runaway without an explicit warrant issued by a federal official. The
law also prohibited the use of state jails to hold alleged fugitives.

The law was repealed by a new legislature in 1858.

CASE 2_CASE CONTENT

2.1 __ SL 315 __ Joseph Whipple. Letter to George Washington. 1796, December 22 __

TOP PAGE.

Joseph Whipple, letter to George Washington, December 22, 1796.

Three years after Congress implemented the fugitive slave clause, Ona Maria (Oney) Judge,
a slave belonging to Martha Washington, escaped to freedom. She made it to Portsmouth,
N.H., where a friend of Mrs. Washington recognized her on the street. Here Joseph Whipple,
 27

collector of customs at Portsmouth, reports to George Washington that he has been unable
to return Judge to Mount Vernon without “creating a riot or a mob—or creating uneasy
sensations in the minds of well disposed Citizens.”

2.2 __ 334761 – Roper, Moses. A narrative of the adventures and escape of Moses
Roper, from American slavery; : with a preface, by the Rev. T. Price (Philadelphia,
1838) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE; TITLE PAGE]

The advent of steam-powered presses and a new era of cheap, widely available books
added a voice to the debate over slavery. Testimonies of runaway slaves became one of the
most popular forms of autobiography.

The memoir of Moses Roper, published in ten editions between 1837 and 1856, was one of
the earliest fugitive slave narratives, and it paved the way for famous books by William
Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass.

2. 3 __ 426224__ Report of the case of Edward Prigg against the Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania : Argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States, at
January term, 1842. In which it was decided that all the laws of the several states
relative to fugitive slaves are unconstitutional and void ; and that Congress have the
exclusive power of legislation on the subject of fugitive slaves escaping into other
states / Richard Peters, reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States
(Philadelphia, 1842) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE; TITLE PAGE]

In 1837, Edward Prigg, an agent of a Maryland slaveholder, seized Margaret Morgan and
her children and carried them from Pennsylvania to Maryland. Pennsylvania indicted Prigg
for kidnapping.

In this controversial ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down both the indictment and
the state statutes that had allowed it. Free states responded by passing personal liberty
laws that banned state authorities from participating in enforcing the fugitive slave clause.

2.4 __ HM 27162 __ 1842, June 28. Albany, N.Y. Brown, Abel. To Edwin W. Clarke __ TOP
PAGE.

Abel Brown. Letter to Edwin W. Clarke. June 28 1842.

A lose organization of abolitionists known as the Underground Railroad defied the law by
assisting the runaway slaves to escape to Canada.

In this urgent message, Abel Brown (1810-1844), instructs his partner to assist a runaway
slave: “Please ship per first Boat direct to Queen Victoria the Bearer & her Baggage as she
 28

was forwarded by express to this city do not fail.” The pencil note on the reverse side reads:
“Miss Elizabeth Speakes alias Jasher (?) Gordon from Baltimore left on the 18th Inst.”

2_5. 1852 -- 192406 Report of Attorney general Brent, to His Excellency, Gov. Lowe,
in relation to the Christiana treason trials, in the Circuit court of the United States,
held at Philadelphia (Annapolis, Md., 1852) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE, TITLE PAGE]

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law provoked violent clashes, as Northern abolitionists, black and
white, resisted. On September 11, 1851, a Maryland slaveholder was killed in a scuffle with
a group of residents of Christiana (Pa) who tried to defend a fugitive slave.

President Millard Fillmore sent a large force of federal marines and marshals to Christiana.
Some fifty suspects were indicted of treason in the largest treason trial in American history.
All defendants were acquitted.

2.6 __ 116276 .. Twelve years a slave : narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-
York, kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton
plantation near the Red River, in Louisiana (Auburn, 1853) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE; TITLE PAGE]

In 1841, Solomon Northrop, a New Yorker from Hebron, was kidnapped and sold to slavery
to Louisiana. His family knew nothing about his fate until 1852.

The state of New York provided for aid to its citizens kidnapped to slavery, and with the
help of the Governor of New York Washington Hunt, Northrop regained his freedom in
January 1853. Northrop’s kidnappers received no punishment. Northrop’s famous book
appeared shortly he rejoined his family.

2.7. __ HM 62597 __ Legal book of George S. Taft __ AS TABBED, AS TABBED, F. 10

George S. Taft. Depositions regarding Charles B. Scott. Uxbridge, Mass. 1854.

In November 1854, John Aldrich, the town’s sheriff and Capt. Scott Seagram, a federal
marshal, detained a black man who, they claimed, was a Charles B. Scott wanted for an
assault in Providence, R.I. The town "public feeling," however, regarded the man a fugitive
slave named Aaron and demanded that he be released. George S. Taft acted as an attorney
for John Aldrich.

2.8 __ 300013__ Invasion of states : speech of Hon. Robert Toombs, of Ga., delivered in
the Senate of the U.S., January 24, 1860 __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

 29

In this speech, Georgia Senator Robert Toombs (1810-1885), attacks the legislatures of free
sates for passing new laws preventing slave-hunting. The North openly mocks
“constitutional obligations, jeer at oaths;” its hands “smeared with the blood of a violated
Constitution.” He calls to the Southern states: “Defend yourselves, the enemy is at your
door; wait not to meet him at the hearthstone – meet him at the doorsill, and drive him
from the temple of liberty, or pull down the pillars and involve him in a common ruin.”
 30

CASE 3

CASE 3_ TEXT PANEL

Offences against the Law of Nations

Article 1 of Constitution gave Congress power to “define and punish” all “Offences against the
Law of Nations.” One such transgression was the transatlantic slave trade, long condemned as
“infernal traffic in human flesh.”

Yet the Constitution also prohibited Congress from limiting the transatlantic slave trade until
1808, and it took a sustained campaign to end it then.

Although after 1808 slaves could no longer be imported, buying and selling slaves within the
United States remained legal, unregulated, and highly profitable. The transatlantic trade also
continued illegally well into the 1860s.

CASE 3_IMAGE LIST

3W_1R__ 48887 -- Branagan, Thomas. The Penitential Tyrant. (1807) THE IMAGE OF
THE IMPLEMENTS OF TORTURE ONLY. [CAN BE OMITTED IF DOESN’T FIT]
 31

Slave irons. Reproduced from: Thomas Branagan, The Penitential Tyrant (1807)

Anti-slavery activists condemned “the infernal traffic in human flesh” as a crime against
humanity. In 1805, Alexander Anderson published a broadside illustrating implements of
torture, including an iron mask and gag that pulled off the victim’s skin. Thomas Branagan
(1774-1843), a slave trader, turned an anti-slavery preacher, included these gruesome
pictures in his book. The penitential tyrant; or, Slave trader reformed (New York, 1807)

3W.2R_ 6376 –Barber, John W. A history of the Amistad captives (New Haven, Conn.) –
Death of Capt. Ferrer, the Captain of the Amistad (a foldout)

The Rising of the Amistad Rebels. Reproduced from : John W. Barber A history of the
Amistad captives (New Haven, Conn., 1841)

In 1839, La Amistad, a Spanish slaver that had been taken over by rebelling African slaves
onboard, was captured by an American ship.

The Van Buren administration promised Spanish authorities that the slaves would be
returned to the traders. The Africans’ counsel denounced the administration for the breach
of the constitutional mandate to punish “Offenses against the law of Nations.”

In 1841, the case went to the Supreme Court. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) acting for
the Africans, argued that the “law of nature” and the “law of nations” was on the side of
“self-emancipated slaves.” The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Africans.
 32

W3.3R __ 499752 -- The Africans of the slave bark "Wildfire"-- Harper’s Weekly 1860,
April (UDID 42440) ARHD011 / Rarebooks 327 Harper's weekly, 1860 June 2, p. 344.

The slave deck of the bark "Wildfire," brought into Key West on April 30, 1860. Harper’s
Weekly. June 2, 1860.
 33

In 1819, the transatlantic trade in slaves was qualified as piracy, a federal crime punishable
by death. The law, however, was barely enforced and captured slavers usually escaped
punishment.

The bark Wildfire left the African coast early in 1860 with a cargo of 650 slaves. When it
was captured more than a hundred had died. The Wildfire’s owner, Pierre Pearce, was
indicted in Boston but was released on a $10,000 bail and promptly left town never to be
seen again.

3W.4R photCL 300 vol1 pg7 Office of the slave trader of Franklin & Pierce. Richmond,
Va. 1860. UDID 49254 ARHD007 / Taylor 002

William R. Pywell. Slave Pen, Alexandria, Va. (Office of Price Birch & Co. Dealers in Slaves.
1315 Duke Street, Alexandria, Va.) Aug. 1862.

After 1808, shipping slaves from Virginia to the cotton fields of the Deep South became an
extremely profitable business. Alexandria became the second-largest slave center in the
 34

country, after New Orleans. In 1828, this property belonged to the slave trading firm of
Franklin & Armfield. In 1858 it was sold to another company Price, Birch & Co. Dealers in
Slaves. This building was used to contain and ship off hundreds of slaves at one time.

This photograph was taken shortly after Union troops occupied Alexandria. The soldiers
found the building hastily abandoned, with a single slave still chained to the floor.

CASE 3_CASE CONTENT

3.1__ HM 5734__ Thomas Jefferson. Letter to Thomas Mann Randolph. 1802, Nov. 25__
TOP PAGE.

Thomas Jefferson. Letter to Thomas Mann Randolph. Letterpress copy. November 25 1802.

During the Revolutionary War most American states banned or restricted importation of
slaves. When Jefferson wrote this letter to his son-in-law, the restrictions were still in place.

“There is no prospect of getting your negroes through the state of S.C. in the present state
of their laws; and as to the alterations to be made in these, they are too precarious to affect
your plans in the least.”

South Carolina re-opened slave trade in 1803.

3.2__ 48887__ Branagan, Thomas. The Penitential Tyrant – AS TABBED__ Open on the
picture of the separation of families.

Thomas Branagan. The penitential tyrant; or, Slave trader reformed (New York, 1807)

Thomas Branagan (1774-1843), was a former slave trader and plantation overseer turned
an anti-slavery preacher and writer who campaigned for the abolition of transatlantic slave
trade.

3.3__ 514 __ An oration on the abolition of the slave trade : delivered in the African
church, in the city of New-York, January 1, 1808 ... / by Peter Williams, jun., a descendant
of Africa (New York, 1808) – TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

On March 2, 1807, Congress enacted the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves; the law
took effect on January 1, 1808. African American communities celebrated January 1, 1808
as a day of liberation, an alternative to Fourth of July.

3.4 __ HM 30199 __ 1830, June 19. Snow Hill, Md. Townes, Alfred. To William Townes.
-- Open on the bi-folio. – TOP PAGE. Emphasize the 13th (?) line from the bottom:
 35

“Men from 375 to 400, women 250 to 300, Girls 175 to 250, Women & children lower
in proportion to the above prices.

Alfred Townes. Letter to William Townes. June 19 1830. Snow Hill, Md.

By the 1830s, the interstate slave trade became a lucrative business. Here a slave
speculator surveys the slave markets in Maryland for his Virginia partner: “Men from 375
to 400, women 250 to 300, Girls 175 to 250, Women & children lower in proportion to the
above prices.” Alfred Townes of Hopkins County, Ky. and William Townes of Mecklenburg
County, Va. established a slave dealing company a year later.

3.5 __304305__ Walker, Robert J., Jr. Argument of Robert J. Walker, Esq. before the
Supreme court of the United States, on the Mississippi slave question, at January term,
1841 : Involving the power of Congress and of the states to prohibit the inter-state slave trade
(Philadelphia, 1841)__ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

In the landmark case of Groves v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no
power to regulate interstate slave trade.

In an explosive concurring opinion, Justice John McLean argued that the commerce clause
concerned property only. Because slaves were persons rather than property, the powers
granted under the commerce did not apply to traffic in slaves. Robert J. Walker (1801-
1869), a senator from Mississippi, acted on behalf of the plaintiff in error.

3.6__ LI 194 __ Francis Lieber. Notes on the Creole case. 1842 __ TOP PAGE.

Francis Lieber. Notes on the Creole case. February 1842.

In 1841, American slaves onboard of the Creole bound from Virginia to Louisiana, seized
control of the ship as it was approaching the Bahamas.

Because slavery had been abolished in all British colonies, the slaves were freed by the
British authorities. Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State protested what he saw as illegal
seizure of American “property.”

Here Francis Lieber, the professor at South Carolina College, argues against Webster.
Slavery, a “local” Southern arrangement, was not entitled to the federal protection in
international waters.

3.7 __ LI 2136 __ Lieber, Francis. Letter to George Stillman Hillard. Washington, D.C.
1850, Aug. 4. – LAST PAGE, AS TABBED.

Francis Lieber. Letter to George Stillman Hillard. August 4 1850. Washington, D.C.
 36

A distraught Lieber writes to his friend: on his way to the White House, he came across a
group of “well dressed Negroes” gathered around “one man screaming, crying, and beating
himself.”

It transpired that “the crying man had just returned from work and found his home empty
– wife, children all gone and sold by their master to a slave dealer in Georgetown to be
taken South. Not a world had been said to him. I felt horror-struck, my heart bled; I felt
ashamed of my name as an American.”

3.8 __ 334478 __ Theodore Canot. Captain Canot or, Twenty years of an African slaver
: being an account of his career and adventures on the coast, in the interior, on
shipboard, and in the West Indies / written out and edited from the Captain's
journals, memoranda and conversations by Brantz Mayer (New York, Appleton,
1854). – AS TABBED, on the illustration.

Theodore Canot. Captain Canot or, Twenty years of an African slaver (New York, Appleton,
1854).

Theodore Canot (1804-1860) was arrested in 1847 while in command of the slaver
Chancellor and prosecuted in New York on charges of illegal slave trade, punishable by
death. The charges against him were dismissed due to a technical defect in the indictment.
In 1854, Canot published his memoirs ghostwritten by a prominent journalist Brantz
Mayer (1809-1879)

3.9__ 314530 __ The foreign slave trade, The source of political power, of material
progress, of social integrity, and of social emancipation to the South. By L. W. Spratt __
TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

In the 1850s, a campaign to repeal the ban on transatlantic slave trade became a popular
cause in the South that found sympathizers in Congress.

Leonidas W. Spratt, the publisher of the Charleston Standard, was among the most
outspoken advocates of the plan. Not only the renewal of transatlantic slave trade would
boost Southern economy, if South were to import 50,000 Africans, it would gain 30,000
federal votes, according to the "3/5 clause."
 37

CASE 4

TEXT PANEL.

4_ “Other Persons”

The Constitution does not explain who constitutes “the people of the United States.” It does
mention a category of “other persons” who were patently excluded from the American
body politic. These “other persons” were black slaves.

The conventional wisdom held that, even if emancipated, “Africans” could never become
part of the American people. Some dismissed people of color as inferior to whites. Others
feared the descendants of African slaves would perpetually seek vengeance.

Even many abolitionists feared that “Negrophobia” was insurmountable. In 1822, an

antislavery preacher ruefully concluded that American blacks had no future in the United
States: “This is not their country, nor their home.”

A popular solution was offered by the colonization movement, which promoted

“repatriation” of freed slaves to Africa.

IMAGE LISTS

4W1R __ 189327 __ Carey, Matthew. Letters on the colonization society.

Section of a Slave Ship. Reproduced from: Matthew Carey. Letters on the colonization
society; and on its probable results (Philadelphia, 1817)

In 1816, a group of evangelical reformers established the American Colonization Society

(ACS), a benevolent society that promoted “repatriation” of free blacks to their “homeland”
in Africa.

Mathew Carey (1760-1839), a Philadelphia printer and colonization activist, argued that
only emigration could rescue American blacks from “the disqualifications the degradation,
and the proscription.” To emphasize that colonization was meant to literally reverse the
evils of transatlantic slave trade, Carey reproduced an engraving of slaves crammed into a
ship’s narrow hold.
 38

4W.2 R__ 218591 – The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1839. Colored Schools
Broken Up In Three States.

Colored Schools Broken Up, In the Free States. Reproduced from : The American Anti-
Slavery Almanac for 1839 (Cincinnati, 1840)

Some abolitionists believed that even if slavery could be abolished, the anti-black prejudice
could not. The incidents of violence against black citizens of free states seemed to support
this conviction.

In 1833, Prudence Crandall (1803-1890) opened a school for African American girls in
Canterbury Conn., to harassment, law suits, and violence. In September 1834, the
townspeople set the school on fire, forcing the school to close. In 1835, local whites
demolished the interracial Noyes Academy in Canaan, Ohio and replaced it with an all-
white Union Academy.

4W.3_R 117785 Helen Cross Knight. The New Republic (Boston, 1850). Frontispiece

Monrovia, Liberia. Reproduced from: Helen Cross Knight. The New Republic (Boston, 1850).

In 1822, the American Colonization Society established a settlement of Liberia. In 1847, it

became an independent nation, the first republic to be established on the continent, with
the Constitution modeled on that of the United States. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a freeborn
Virginian, was elected the nation’s first president. The United States governments,
unwilling to accredit a black diplomat did not recognize the new republic until 1862.
 39

CASE LIST.

4. 1__ 441567 __ Memoir of Captain Paul Cuffee : a man of colour : to which is

subjoined The epistle of the Society of Sierra Leone in Africa, &c. .. (York, 1812) –
TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

Paul Cuffee (1759-1817), an African American Quaker businessman and civil rights activist,
believed that free blacks would be better off in a country of their own. In 1811 and 1812, he
promoted a plan of emigration of free African Americans to Sierra Leone, a British colony
established for free English blacks. He published this book in 1812 when he was touring
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York to promote his plan.

4_2 __ 481961 Saunders, Prince. Haytian papers : a collection of the very interesting
proclamations and other official documents, together with some account of the rise,
progress, and present state of the kingdom of Hayti (Boston, 1818)__ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE] .

Most Americans saw Haiti as a terrifying site of bloody servile insurrections and civil wars
that broke out in 1791 and raged on until Haiti declared its independence in 1804. Prince
Saunders (1775–1839), an African American educator and diplomat who moved to Haiti in
1816, held up the first black nation that won its independence in a war against mightiest
powers of Europe as the perfect destination for American blacks.

4.3__ BR Box 266 (18) __ 1820, Feb. 12. Henry Meigs. To Joseph D. Hay.– AS TABBED.
Open on the bi-folio. Emphasize the second paragraph from the top on p. 2. “

Henry Meigs. Letter to Joseph D. Hay. February 12 1820.

Henry Meigs (1782-1861), a U.S. Representative from New York, writes in the heat of the
Missouri controversy: “it concerns us all, as soon as possible to agree in some grand
National effort to eradicate the whole cause of dissentions, Slavery.”

Meigs proposed to direct the proceeds from the sale of public land to “the redemption of
slaves & colonizing them comfortably in Africa” Meigs’s plan was rejected as were similar
schemes proposed by John Adams and Henry Clay. Southern lawmakers blasted them as
illegal federal meddling with slavery.

4. 4__ 73848 __ Thoughts on African colonization, or an impartial exhibition of the

doctrines, principles and purposes of the American colonization society. Together
 40

with the resolutions, addresses and remonstrances of the free people of color ... /by
Wm. Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1832). TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) rejects the notion that racism cannot be eradicated:
“There is power enough in the religion of Jesus Christ to melt down the most stubborn
prejudices.” The colonization schemes only fan the existing bigotry and distract the nation
from its sacred duty to abolish slavery and to “recognize the people of color as brethren
and countrymen.”

4.5. 73844 Examination of Mr. Thomas C. Brown, a free colored citizen of S. Carolina, as
to the actual state of things in Liberia in the years 1833 and 1834 : at the Chatham street
chapel, May 9th & 10th, 1834 (New York, 1834) __ AS TABBED, P. 3. “I think I am an
American.”

Examination of Mr. Thomas C. Brown, a free colored citizen of S. Carolina, as to the actual
state of things in Liberia in the years 1833 and 1834 : at the Chatham street chapel, May 9th
& 10th, 1834 (New York, 1834

At this public debate on African colonization, organized by committee of arrangements of

the American Anti-Slavery Society, a black South Carolinian who had gone to Liberia shares
his experiences. When asked whether he was “an African or an American,” Brown
tentatively replies: “I think I am an American.”

4.6 __ BF Box 3 (18)__ Fox, John Laurence. Letter to Elizabeth Amory Fox. 1849, Mar. 2.
Describing a session of the Liberian Senate __ TOP PAGE.

John Laurence Fox. Letter to Elizabeth Amory Fox. March 2 1849. Monrovia, Liberia.

For many opponents of slavery, Liberia offered proof that American blacks were not
inferior to whites.

Here John Laurence Fox (1811-1861), a surgeon with the U.S. Navy, describes his visit to
Liberian Congress: “Some of the members were black as midnights, but they had the
bearing of honest, intelligent men, and I have no doubt will legislate for the Commonweal
to a much better purpose than the cumbrous body, who are occupying the halls of our own
Capitol.”

4.7 __ 98309 __ Report of the Naval committee to the House of representatives, August,
1850, in favor of the establishment of a line of mail steamships to the western coast of
Africa, and thence via the Mediterranean to London ; designed to promote the
emigration of free persons of color from the United States to Liberia : also to increase
the steam navy, and to extend the commerce of the United States. With an appendix
added by the American colonization society (1850) __ TITLE PAGE.
 41

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

After Liberia was established as an independent country, the colonization came to be seen
as a means of expanding American commercial interests. In 1850, a congressional
committee argued that colonization to Liberia was good for international commerce and
deserved government support.

4.8 __ CL 695 __ Frederick Clark. To Lincoln Clark. 1861, Jan. 14.

In July 1857, an Alabama couple, Frederick and Charlotte Clark, boarded a ship that took
them to Liberia. The Clarks, former slaves, were among some 12,000 men and women who
chose to leave the United States between 1822 and 1861.

In this letter to his former master, (whom he addresses as simply “Judge Clark”), Frederick
Clark proudly describes his new life as a farmer and a church elder. Answering the question
“how we like our Government” he pointedly remarks: that “we never knew any thing about
Government until we came here,” but now “we not only like ours but love it.”
 42

CASE 5.

5__ Privileges and Immunities of Citizens

The Constitution does not define what constitutes American citizenship. Article 4 merely
directs the states of the Union to honor “all Privileges and Immunities” of each other’s
citizens.

As it became obvious that this mandate was untenable in a Union divided into free and
slave states, an effort got underway to define national citizenship that would transcend
these divisions.

Antislavery activists insisted that United States citizenship, born of the self-evident truths
of the Declaration of Independence, was incompatible with slavery.

In 1857, this principle was contested from the bench of the Supreme Court. Ruling in the
case Dred Scott v. Sandford, .Chief Justice Roger B. Taney pronounced that the Declaration
of Independence did not cover American blacks. A “Negro” did not possess any rights
“which the white man was bound to respect” and could “lawfully be reduced to slavery.”
The United States was pronounced a slaveholding nation.

IMAGE LIST.

5W1R __ Edward Williams Clay. Johnny Q. introducing the Haytien Ambassador to the
Ladies of Lynn (1836) --
 43

Edward Williams Clay. Johnny Q. introducing the Haytien Ambassador to the Ladies of
Lynn (1836)

In 1834, the American Anti-Slavery Society initiated a petition drive for abolition of slavery
in Washington, D.C. John Quincy Adams championed the cause in the House of
Representatives.

Congress responded by blocking anti-slavery petitions, in violation of the 1st Amendment.

In defiance, abolitionists and their congressional allies flooded Congress with petitions
demanding racial equality. When Adams presented a petition for diplomatic recognition of
Haiti, Congress blocked it and censured Adams.

In 1836, the Lynn Female Anti-Slavery Society petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for
the right to interracial marriage. This overtly racist cartoon mocks both Adams and the
women petitioners.
 44

5W.2R __ A Printing Press Demolished at Slavery’s Bidding. Antislavery Almanac for

1839, p. 11.

A Printing Press Demolished at Slavery’s Bidding. Reproduced from Anti-Slavery Almanac

for 1839. (Cincinnati, 1840).

Abolitionists valued print media as a powerful weapon in war against slavery.

In 1835, the Anti-Slavery Society launched a first direct mail campaign sending out
thousands of anti-slavery pamphlets to the South. This backlash was fierce. Southern
states ordered these publications destroyed. In the North, abolitionist presses became
targets of mob violence.

Anti-slavery activists denounced the attacks as a gross violation of the freedom of the
press.

5W.3__R Interior of the Engine-House, just before the Gate is Broken down by the
Storming Party. The life, trial, and execution of Captain John Brown, known as "Old
Brown of Ossawatomie," ... New York : R.M. DeWitt, [c1859]
 45

Alfred Berghaus. John Brown’s assault on Harper’s Ferry. Reproduced from: The life, trial,
and execution of Captain John Brown, known as "Old Brown of Ossawatomie," (New York :
R.M. DeWitt, [c1859)

In 1858, militant abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859) issued “Provisional Constitution and
Ordinances for the people of the United States” that condemned slavery as “a most
barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another
portion,” an assault on the “those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our
Declaration of Independence.”

On October 17, 1858, Brown and his supporters seized the federal arsenal at Harper’s
Ferry. U.S. marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed the engine house
where Brown’s forces had taken refuge.

Convicted of treason, murder, and inciting slave insurrection, Brown was hanged on
December 2, 1859.
 46

CASE LIST.

5.1 __ BR Box 43 __1809, July 30. Montpelier Plantation, Va. Pope, William. To
Micaiah Crew __ TOP PAGE. –

William Pope (1762-1852). Letter to Micajah Crew. July 30 1809.

Slaves were not afforded the protection of the writ of habeas corpus. The writ, however,
may be available to persons who had documents proving their freedom.

Here the Commonwealth attorney for the Powhantan County revels in his triumph in
securing the writ to Phyllis who had been illegally sold to slavery: at first the court of
Powhatan determined that “Phillis was not free because she had been sold. But in about 10
minutes they were convinced of their error.” The writ of habeas corpus “will restore Phillis
to her freedom.”

5.2_ Goodspeed Collection. Addenda, folder 14 __ 1837, Jan. 24. Boston. Mary S.
Parker. To George Nixon Briggs __ TOP PAGE.

Mary S. Parker. Letter to George Nixon Briggs. January 24 1837.

An abolitionist activist transmits to her representative “three petitions for the abolition of
slavery and the Slate trade in the District of Columbia, signed by 225 wives and daughters
of your constituents … Inasmuch as you do it for one of us you do it for the Slave.”

In 1837 and 1838 abolitionists sent more than 130,000 petitions to Congress demanding
abolition of slavery in the nation’s capital. All petitions were blocked under the “gag rule.”

5.3 __ 189362 __ Appeal of forty thousand citizens, threatened with disfranchisement

(Philadelphia, 1838) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

In 1838, the Reform Convention of Pennsylvania voted to amend the state constitution to
limit voting to "white freemen." This appeal, drafted by Robert Purvis (1810-1898), called
to preserve the rights of Pennsylvania African Americans guaranteed by the state 1780 Bill
of Rights.

On October 9, 1838, the citizens of Pennsylvania ratified the new state constitution that
disenfranchised free blacks; they would not regain the right to vote until the 15th
Amendment.
 47

5.4 __ 441653 __ Rev. Elijah Parrish Lovejoy was born at Albion, Maine, 1802, and
murdered at Alton, Illinois, November 7, 1837, a martyr to liberty (1837) __ Broadside,
24 x 18 cm

[NO TOMBSTONE. A SELF-EXPLANATORY PAGE]

This mourning broadside announces the death of Rev. Elijah Parish Lovejoy who was killed
in Alton, Ill., defending his press against an anti-abolitionist mob.

The broadside was written by Lovejoy’s brother, Joseph Cammet Lovejoy (1805-1871).
Lovejoy’s other brother, Owen (1811-1864), a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, served as a
Republican representative from Illinois in the 35th and 36th Congresses.

5.5. 218028 The colored patriots of the American Revolution : with sketches of several
distinguished colored persons : to which is added a brief survey of the condition and
prospects of colored Americans / by William C. Nell ; with an introduction by Harriet
Beecher Stowe (Boston, 1855)__ AS TABBED, ON THE PICTURE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN
ARTILLERIST.

William Cooper Nell. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution … to which is added a
brief survey of the condition and prospects of colored Americans (Boston, 1855)

In this book, introduced by Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Cooper Nell (1816-1874), an
African American abolitionist and educator, celebrates the contribution of black heroes of
the American Revolution.

5.7 __ 116774 __ Benjamin R. Curtis. The case of Dred Scott in the United States
Supreme the full opinions of Chief Justice Taney and Justice Curtis, and abstracts of
the opinions of the other judges with an analysis of the points ruled, and some
concluding observations. – AS TABBED, ON CURTIS’S DISSENTING OPINION.

The case of Dred Scott in the United States Supreme the full opinions of Chief Justice Taney
and Justice Curtis, and abstracts of the opinions of the other judges with an analysis of the
points ruled, and some concluding observations (New York, 1857)

On March 6, 1857, the Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issued his infamous ruling in the case
Dred Scott v. Sandford. Writing for the majority, he declared that no American black
enslaved of free, could ever be a citizen of the United States.

In his dissenting opinion, Benjamin R. Curtis (1809-1874) contends that African Americans
were in fact “in every sense part of the people of the United States”

5.7 __ HM 2121__ Lincoln’s notebook. his speeches delivered during the debates with
Douglas, to Capt. James N. Brown (1806-1868) __ AS TABBED.

Abraham Lincoln. Letter to James N. Brown. October 13, 1858.

 48

Lincoln put together this little scrapbook of newspaper clippings covering his debates with
Stephen A. Douglas for an old colleague in the Illinois legislature who was then running for
re-election.

Frustrated by the continuing race-baiting, Lincoln rejects the charge of promoting

“amalgamation” of the races as irrelevant. He, however, makes “plain that I think the negro
is included in the word ‘men’' used in the Declaration of Independence.”

5.8 __ EG Box 1. __ 1859, Sept. 28. Kennedy’s Farm, Maryland __ OPEN ON BI-FOLIO.

Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson (1833-1859). Letter John Q. Anderson. September 28 1859.

A close friend of John Brown’s writes to his worried brother: there are but a few who are
willing to help “millions of fellow beings” whose “cries for help go out to the universe daily
and hourly.” These few are the ones “who dare to answer their calls and answer them in a
manner that will make this land of Liberty and Equality shake to its center. If my life is
sacrificed it can’t be lost in a better cause.”

Anderson was bayoneted to death at Harpers’ Ferry three weeks later.

 49

CASE 6.

6__The Supreme Law of the Land

By the end of 1850s, it had become clear that Article 6, which defined federal law as “the
supreme law of the land,” was no longer sustainable.

Free states refused to observe federal laws that protected slavery. Slave states rejected any
restrictions on the “peculiar institution.” All blamed one another for violating the
Constitution.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the antislavery Republican Party,
was elected president with less than 40 percent of the popular vote. Governors and
legislatures of slave states, fearful of an abolitionist takeover of the federal government,
clamored for secession.

On February 4, 1861, delegates from seven slaveholding states established the Confederate
States of America. The new nation immediately wrote slavery into its constitution.

On April, 14, 1861, the United States and the Confederacy were at war.

IMAGES.

6W.1R __ Lincoln at Springfield, with the campaigners. (UDID 175896; ARHD008 /

PA381)
 50

Abraham Lincoln at his home in Springfield, Ill., after a Republican rally, August 8, 1860.

In May 1860, the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln as its candidate for the
presidency. The party platform affirmed “the inviolate rights of the states” to maintain their
own “domestic institutions.” It condemned the inordinate influence exercised by the
slaveholding South over national politics and vowed to fight the effort to expand slavery to
the territories.

Following the custom of the day, the nominee refrained from campaigning. Here Lincoln,
dressed in a white suit, is shown towering over his supporters in the doorway.

6W. 2R__ Compromise Doctors. Lithograph; N.Y. : Published by Benj. Day, 1861.

Compromise Doctors, lithograph, New York, 1861.

On December 3, 1860, the lame-duck president, James Buchanan, called for Congress to
amend the Constitution to recognize slavery as a property right, annul all state personal
liberty laws, and guarantee slavery in the territories.

In response, Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky proposed to amend the Constitution to

allow slavery everywhere south of the parallel 36° 30′ north, including the territories in the
Caribbean and Central and South America.

This cartoon mocks Crittenden for trying to revive an ailing snake labeled “slavery.” The
compromise was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 25 to 23, with all nays coming from the
Republicans.

6W.3R __ 499751 __ Jefferson Davis Addresses the crowd in Montgomery, Ala., on

February 16, 1861. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.] 397136 ARHD022 /
Rarebooks 895 – Crop out the masthead please
 51

Jefferson Davis addresses the crowd in Montgomery, Ala., on February 16, 1861. From
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, March 14, 1861.

On February 4, 1861, a month before Lincoln’s inauguration, delegates from seven

slaveholding states met in Montgomery, Ala. In a mere six days, the convention adopted the
Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States of America and selected Jefferson Davis
of Mississippi and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia as president and vice president of the
new nation.

On February 16, Davis delivered his first speech. “The time for compromise has now
passed,” he declared. “The South is determined to maintain her position and make all who
oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.”

CASE LIST.
 52

6_1 __ 49833 __ The Republican party : its origin, necessity and permanence : speech
of Hon. Charles Sumner, before the Young men's Republican union of New York, July
11th, 1860 (1860)__ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts rallies Lincoln’s supporters, asserting that

Lincoln’s election will keep the territories free of slavery, rid the country of the slave trade,
preserve the Constitution from perversion, save the principles of the Declaration of
Independence, and “expel the Slave Oligarchy from all its seats of national power.”

6_2 __ 284084 __ Perils and duty of the South : Substance of a speech delivered by Jabez
L.M. Curry, in Talladega, Alabama, November 26, 1860 (Washington, D.C. 1860)__ TITLE
PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

Here a Democratic representative from Alabama condemns the results of the 1860
presidential election. The Republican Party, which has already made a mockery of the
constitutional protection of property, he says, is “a standing menace,” and Lincoln’s victory
is “a declaration of war against our property and the supremacy of the white race.”

6_3 __ HM 25116 __ Abraham Lincoln. Letter to Lyman Trumbull. 1860, Dec. 10__ TOP
PAGE.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Lyman Trumbull, December 10, 1860.

In this letter, written a week after President Buchanan proposed a series of constitutional
amendments that would forever guarantee slavery in western territories, the president-
elect enjoins Senator Trumbull from Illinois: “Let there be no compromise on the question
of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again.” He
concludes: “Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.

6_4_ Abraham Lincoln. Letter to Alexander H. Stephens; 1860, Dec. 22. __ VERSO, WITH
THE SIGNATURE.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Alexander H. Stephens, December 22, 1860.

In this letter to the future vice president of the Confederacy, Lincoln offers his assurances
that his administration will not interfere with slavery in the Southern states. Wherever
slavery already existed, it “would be in no more danger in this respect, than it was in the
days of Washington.” He continues: “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended;
while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub.”

6.5__ HM 27048__ George William Curtis. Letter to “Sir.” 1861, Jan. 21 __ TOP PAGE.
 53

George William Curtis, letter to “Sir,” January 21, 1861.

George William Curtis, a renowned writer and a founder of the Republican Party, writes,
“There are only two parties now among us: those who think that the Constitution
establishes slavery and those who are sure it does not.”

6_6 __ 274373 __ [A collection of pamphlets, broadsides, and newspaper clippings

pertaining to the Conference at Washington in 1861] __ AS TABBED.

Collection of documents from the Washington Peace Convention, 1861.

On February 4, 1861, 131 politicians representing 14 free and 7 slave states gathered at the
Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., hoping to prevent the breakup of the Union.

After three weeks of deliberation, the convention produced a seven-point constitutional

amendment confirming the status quo with regard to slavery. The package included an
article prohibiting Congress from interfering with slavery where it already existed.

On March 2, Thomas Corwin of Ohio proposed a similar amendment in Congress. It had

been approved by both houses and ratified by Ohio, Maryland, and Delaware when the Civil
War broke out.

6.7 __ 5552__ Provisional and permanent constitution. (Montgomery, 1861) __ AS

TABBED, on Section 9, Article 4. No bill of attainder post facto law, or law denying or
impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Provisional and Permanent Constitutions, Together with the Acts and Resolutions of the First
Session of the Provisional Congress, of the Confederate States. Montgomery, Ala., 1861.

A week after Lincoln’s inaugural address, the Confederate States of America adopted its
permanent constitution, guaranteeing property in man.

6.8 __ 263744 __ Three Unlike Speeches __ AS TABBED, P. 70 emphasize the first

paragraph from the top “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite
idea.”

Alexander H. Stephens, African Slavery: The Cornerstone of the Southern Confederacy: A

Speech . . . delivered on the Atheneum, Savannah, March 22, 1861. New York, 1862.

In his famous “cornerstone speech,” the vice president of the Confederacy rejects the ideas
that prevailed “at the time of the formation of the old Constitution” that slavery was “an evil
they knew not how to deal with.” These ideas that “rested on the assumption of the equality
of races” were “fundamentally wrong.” The Confederacy will rectify the error of the
Founders: “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea: its foundations
are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.”
54
 55

CASE 7.

TEXT PANEL

7__ In Time of Actual Armed Rebellion

Purged of Southern lawmakers, Congress swiftly abolished slavery in places under federal
control: the District of Columbia and the territories. The federal authorities also
emancipated hundreds of thousands of slaves (known as “contrabands”) who had flocked
to the Union lines.

The Constitution still banned Congress from interfering with slavery in the states.
Abolitionists argued that the law of nations allowed the freeing of enemy slaves in time of
war. To do so, however, would be tantamount to acknowledging that United States was
fighting a war against an independent nation rather than suppressing a domestic
insurrection.

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln decided the matter. Invoking his power as commander-in-
chief “in time of actual armed rebellion,” he annulled proslavery laws in the states that had
“suspended or disturbed” their constitutional relations with the United States. On January
1, 1863, “all persons held as slaves” in the rebellious states would become “forever free.”

IMAGE LIST.

7W.1R __ 499751 Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, vol. 12, pp. 56-57. UDID
42396 ARHD011 / Rarebooks 320

Stampede to Fortress Monroe. Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. 1862.

On May 23, 1861, three fugitive slaves came to Fort Monroe, a Union military under the
command of Benjamin F. Butler.

When the men’s master claimed his “property” under the Fugitive Slave Act, Butler
declared that federal law no longer applied to Virginia and refused to hand over the “self-
emancipated” slaves.

The three men were followed by many others, in what Union newspapers gleefully
reported as a “stampede to Fortress Monroe.”

On August 8, 1861, the War Department issued orders instructing Butler to free all the
slaves in the fort.
 56

7W.2R __ Execution of Gordon the slave-trader, New York, February 21, 1862 in:
Harper's weekly, v. VI, no. 271 (1862 March 8), p. 157 (bottom). [CAN BE OMITTED IF
DOES NOT FIT]

“Execution of Gordon the Slave-Trader, New York, February 21, 1862.” From Harper’s
Weekly, March 8, 1862.

The Lincoln administration stepped up the prosecution of cases involving transatlantic

slave trading.

In August 1860, the slave ship Erie, commanded by Nathaniel Gordon of Maine, was seized
by the USS Mohican. The 897 slaves onboard were sent to Liberia, and Gordon was brought
to New York for trial, expecting to be acquitted or let out on bail.

In February 1862, Gordon was convicted of slave trading and sentenced to death. President
Lincoln gave Gordon a two-week stay of execution to allow the condemned man to make
“the necessary preparation for the awful change which awaits him.”
 57

7W.3R__ 277677 Contraband refugee quarters after surrender of Vicksburg. Vol. 3;

[image 7] ARHD022 / PA430

Contraband refugee quarters after surrender of Vicksburg. 1863.

“Contraband Refugee Quarters after Surrender of Vicksburg,” 1863.

On July 15, 1862, Congress passed a law declaring all Confederate slaves who resided
within Union lines “forever free.”
 58

The promise of freedom made thousands of slaves flock to Union lines, leaving behind their
communities and risking recapture by their masters or Confederate authorities. The
government resorted to housing the fugitive slaves, or “contrabands,” in special
“contraband camps” that were often poorly run and ridden with disease.
By the end of the war, approximately 13 percent of all Southern slaves had been freed
under the provision.

7W.4O__ 13851. The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln.

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln.

The Second Confiscation Act, passed in July 1862, required the president to issue an
advance “public warning” by means of a proclamation. Rebels and their abettors were to be
informed that they were facing confiscation of their property and emancipation of their
slaves.

The president issued the confiscation warning immediately, but decided to wait until a
Union victory to issue the emancipation proclamation. It appeared on September 22, 1862,
five days after the bloody battle of Antietam. Unless the Confederate slaveholders returned
to the Union by January 1, 1863, their slaves “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the final Emancipation Proclamation, making good on
the warning and ending months of anxious speculation and suspense. The dry legal
document became a powerful symbol of the war and its mission.

Lincoln signed this print of the Emancipation Proclamation in June 1864; it was intended to
be auctioned off at a charity event.

CASE LIST.

7. 1__ LN 795 __ 1861, Oct. 3. Walter, Charles. Order to Ward H. Lamon to deliver
Robert Brooks to his master__ TOP PAGE.

Charles Walter, order to Ward H. Lamon to deliver Robert Brooks to his master, October 3,
1861.

Six months into the war, the justice of the peace for Washington, D.C., ordered U.S. Marshal
Ward Lamon to deliver a fugitive slave to his master.

At the time, the capital was still subject to the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law, and
Robert Brooks was not entitled to a court hearing. Congress abolished slavery in the
District of Columbia in April 1862.
 59

7_2 __ Hooker papers. List of Contraband Negroes in Camp Woodhull, Md. November
21st, 1861 __ TOP PAGE, AS TABBED.

List of Contraband Negroes in Camp Woodhull, Md., November 21, 1861.

The United States Army was required to return fugitive slaves (known as “contrabands”) to
masters loyal to the Union.

In the accompanying letter, the regiment’s captain asks his commanding officer, Joseph
Hooker, what to do with the refugees who had fled loyal Maryland masters. Hooker refused
to return any slave who voluntarily had come to Union lines.

7.3 __ BR Box 153 (2).__ Benjamin Smith. Line-a-day diary. 1861, Nov. 21 __ TOP PAGE
AS TABBED, EMPHASIZE NOV. 21.

Benjamin H. Smith, line-a-day diary, 1861.

Running away to Union lines was fraught with danger. On November 21, 1861, a
Confederate soldier recorded in his diary: “2 Contraband women and children arrested;
they are supposed to be spying for the Yankees.”

7.4 __ 54134 __ Report by the committee of the Contrabands' Relief Commission of

Cincinnati, Ohio : Proposing a plan for the occupation and government of vacated
territory in the seceded states. “(Cincinnati, 1862) __ TITLE PAGE.

NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE.

Contraband camps were poorly run and overcrowded, and their occupants suffered from
disease, neglect, and abuse. The contraband camp in Cincinnati was so appalling that
journalists described it as “disgraceful to barbarism.” The authors of this report proposed
to settle the freedmen and their families on lands taken away from rebels. The plan never
materialized.

7.5. 16837 The constitutionality and expediency of confiscation vindicated : Speech

of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on the bill to confiscate the property and free the
slaves of rebels ; delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 7, 1862
(Washington, 1862)__ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE]

On December 1, 1861, Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced a confiscation bill that would
free all of the Confederacy’s slaves. The ensuing debates lasted for nearly eight months and
ended with the passage of the Second Confiscation Act in July 1862.

Here Trumbull argues that the Constitution does not recognize property in slaves and that
Congress has the power to emancipate Southern slaves.
 60

The Second Confiscation Act only added the threat of emancipating the slaves to the list of
punishments for the crime of treason.

7. 6 __ LN 2297__ 1862, July (?).. Sherburne, John Pitts. Circular. Headquarters.

Military District of Washington, D.C. __ TITLE PAGE.

John Pitts Sherburne, orders, July 1862.

The commander of the Military District of Washington, D.C., banned his soldiers from
preventing “the arrest of persons of Color claimed Fugitive Slaves as belonging to loyal
citizens.”

Fugitive slaves of slaveholders loyal to the Union were still returned to their masters until
the infamous Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was repealed in 1864.

7_7 __ Shaffer, John Wilson. To Ward H. Lamon. LN 605. 1862, Nov. 7 __ OPEN ON BI-
FOLIO.

John Wilson Shaffer, letter to Ward H. Lamon, November 7, 1862.

Here a Union officer praises the policies of Benjamin F. Butler, commander of the Union
forces in Louisiana. All slaves in Union-occupied parts of the state have been freed. Loyal
planters are allowed to keep their plantations, provided they hire their former slaves and
pay them fair wages. “Other Planters who are disloyal he tells to clear out” and takes over
their plantations and hires freedmen to work on them. Butler’s main goal is to demonstrate
that “Negros work better for wages than as Slaves.” Shaffer considers Butler’s experiment a
success.

7_8 __ 36272 Benjamin Robins Curtis. The Executive Power (Boston, 1862) __ AS
TABBED, ON THE DISSENTING OPINION.

Benjamin R. Curtis, Executive Power. Boston, 1862.

Curtis, a former Supreme Court justice known for his dissent in the Dred Scott case,
critiques the impending Emancipation Proclamation. If the president’s wartime powers
give him the authority to emancipate slaves, he asks, “What other power, reserved to the
States or to the people, may not be exercised by the President, for the same reason?”
 61

CASE 8.

TEXT PANEL 8.

Into the Armed Service of the United States

The Constitution gave Congress the power to raise and support an army and organize and
govern state militias. But a subsequent federal law had barred blacks from service.

On July 17, 1862, Congress passed a law that amended the Militia Act of 1795. The word
“white” was dropped from the list of qualifications for enrollment: service was now open to
all “able bodied male citizens,” including “persons of African descent.”

The Emancipation Proclamation specified that freed Confederate slaves could also be
“received into the armed service of the United States.”

Military service, the ultimate duty and privilege of citizenship, was now open to American
blacks. By the end of the war, some 180,000 black men had joined the United States Army.

IMAGES

8W.1R__ 499752__ Battle of Milliken Bend. Harper’s Weekly __ UDID 42425 ARHD011
/ Rarebooks 324, vol. 9, p. 712.
 62

James Walker, “The True Defenders of the Constitution.” From Harper’s Weekly, November
11, 1865.

On June 7, 1863, a Confederate brigade attacked a Union outpost at Milliken’s Bend, about
15 miles north of Vicksburg. Most of the outpost’s defenders had been slaves less than two
months before. The new African American recruits fought bravely, despite their minimal
training.

This image celebrates the fallen heroes of the battle.

 63

8W.2. R __ .499751 __ Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, vol. 19, p. 97. (UDID 42400
ARHD011 / Rarebooks 320)

“Rebel Massacre of the Union Troops after the Surrender at Fort Pillow, April 12.” From Frank
Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 7, 1864.

On April 12, 1864, Confederate cavalry under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest
captured the federal garrison Fort Pillow, 40 miles north of Memphis. Forrest’s men then killed
 64

the fort’s defenders, many of whom were unarmed and wounded. The blacks, soldiers and
civilians, were slaughtered indiscriminately.

In May 1864, Congress conducted special hearings that included testimony of black
survivors. One of them, Duncan Harding, testified that the Confederate officers did not stop
the massacre and instead commanded, “Kill the goddamned nigger.”

8W.3R __ 499751 Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, vol. 19, p. 241 (UDID 42402
ARHD011 / Rarebooks 321)
 65

Edward F. Mullen, “The Colored Infantry Bringing in the Captured Guns, amid the Cheers of
the Ohio Troops.” From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 9, 1864.

8W.4O__ HM 41543 (1) At the end of the case: FRAMED ORIGINAL.

Julian A. Scott, Nine Mile Road, pencil on paper. 1865.

The artist Julian A. Scott depicts a site of the attack near Nine Mile Road, at Petersburg, Va.,
by the United States Colored Infantry.

The inscription in reads: “Large fortification thrown up across the ‘9 mile road’ & the scene
of the charge of the negro troops last fall (Oct) where nearly all perished in trying to gain
the top of the redoubt; but who finally succeeded in entering the fort but with a handful of
men & the fate of those who (the successful ones) was no better: the Rebels merciless
murdered them all.”

CASE LIST.

8_1. 107478 Edward Bates. Opinion of Attorney General Bates on citizenship

(Washington, D.C., 1862)__ OPEN ON BI-FOLIO.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

On November 29, 1862, the United States Attorney General Edward Bates declared that the
Constitution “says not one word, and furnishes not one hint, in relation to the color of the
ancestral race” of citizens, and the privileges and immunities granted to citizens of the
United States “cannot be destroyed or abridged by the laws of any particular state.”

The citizenship ruling made African American men eligible for volunteer service and, soon,
for conscription.

8.2.HM 75139 1863, Jan. 10. Burrud, John. Letter to Ocena Newton Burrud. A.L.S. 4 p.
27 cm. __ OPEN ON BI-FOLIO.

John Burrud, letter to Ocena Newton Burrud, January 10, 1863.

A Union soldier writes from Louisiana: “All the reliable loyal citizens there are heare are
the slaves. I thought I hated Slavery before I came down heare but it has increased a
hundred fold it is one of the most damniable man degrading soul killing God dishonoring
institutions that ever was permitted to exist on the face of the earth and I think I can see its
Death struggle and here its Death Grones and Oh how I rejoice to see it reath in its Agony.”

8.3 __ HM 47987 (3) __ Gay, Jabez. To Samuel F. Gay. 1863, Jan. 16 __ TOP PAGE. [CAN
BE DROPPED IF DOESN’T FIT]

Jabez J. R. Gay, letter to Samuel F. Gay, January 16, 1863.

 66

Here a father rebukes his soldier son, who had criticized Lincoln for having made
emancipation “the whole war cry.” He defends the Emancipation Proclamation as an act
dictated by “not only humanity, but necessity, benevolence, philanthropy, religion, love to
God and love to man.” Those who claim that the war has been brought on by “the d—d
abolitionists,” he argues, “falsify history.” He concludes: “Can there be any doubt which side is
right and which wrong in this war?”

8.3. HM 23992. Abraham Lincoln. Letter to David Hunter. 1863, Apr. 1

Abraham Lincoln, letter to David Hunter, April 1, 1863.

On March 8, 1863, 900 Union soldiers occupied Jacksonville, Fla. The men had been slaves
on the sea island plantations of South Carolina.

Here Lincoln writes to the men’s superior officer: “It is important to the enemy that such a
force shall not take shape, and grow, and thrive, in the South; and in precisely the same
proportion, it is important to us that it shall. . . . The enemy will make extra efforts to
destroy them; and we should do the same to preserve and increase them.”

8.4 238598 __ ... Instructions for the government of armies of the United States in the
field (Washington, 1863)__ TOP PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

On December 12, 1862, Francis Lieber, professor of international law at Columbia, was
appointed to head a small board charged with revising the Articles of War. On May 13,
1863, President Lincoln issued General Orders No. 100, the first-ever code guiding modern
armies in the field.

The code defined slavery as a municipal institution not acknowledged by the law of nations.
Because wars are conducted according to the law of nations, it stated, slavery ceased to
exist in wartime.

8.5 __ HM 71063. James L. Colby. Album __ AS TABBED. Open on the picture of the
black family at Fort Wagner.

James Lloyd Colby, A black family at Fort Wagner, pencil drawing. 1863.

The war gave many Northern soldiers their first opportunity to meet Southern blacks.
James Lloyd Colby of the 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry, took part in the
operations in South Carolina in the summer of 1863. This sketch was made at that time.
 67

8.6 __ 431621 __ Holman, William Steele, 1822-1897 Contraband camps--

Discrimination in favor of Negro soldiers : Debate in the House of Representatives,
April 30, 1864 / Remarks of Mr. Holman and Mr. Clay Argument against the Senate
amendment to the Army Appropriations bill to equalize the pay of black and white
soldiers __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

William Steele Holman, a Democratic senator from Indiana, rails against a bill that would
establish equal pay for black soldiers. He asserts that white soldiers are the ones suffering
from discrimination because the government is “generously” supporting the families of
black soldiers.

Holman’s assertion was immediately disproved by Senator Thomas Eliot of Massachusetts:

the support was provided for refugees in the Mississippi Valley, not families of black
enlisted men.

8.7. 41369 __ Message of the President of the United States : communicating, in

compliance with a resolution of the Senate, a copy of the opinion of the Attorney
General on the rights of colored persons in the army or volunteer service of the
United States, together with the accompanying papers : May 7, 1864 /read, ordered
lie on the table, and to be printed (Washington, 1864) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

The president affirmed the principle of equality of all Union soldiers. Nothing in American
military law prevented black men from serving in the Army, and therefore nothing
demanded discrimination in pay.

Five weeks after Lincoln made this statement, Congress passed a law mandating equal pay
for black and white soldiers. In a concession to opponents of the law, the act mandated that
ex-slaves would receive retroactive pay only to January 1, 1864, not the day of their actual
enlistment.
 68

CASE 9. THE CONSTITUTION AS IT IS.

The Constitution as It Is

The wartime emancipation of slaves did not abolish slavery. The Constitution still
protected the rights of slaveholders loyal to the Union, and wartime laws, including the
Emancipation Proclamation, could be overturned once the Union was restored.

Under the Constitution, slavery could only be outlawed by the states themselves, but few
thought this likely. The Lincoln administration tried to induce the slaveholding states in the
Union to abolish slavery on their own. The results were meager.

In the meantime, a growing antiwar movement in the North was clamoring for a peace that
would return the country to the prewar status quo: “the Union as it was and the
Constitution as it is.”

Lincoln insisted that slavery be abolished. To preserve slavery would be “an astounding
breach of faith” with the black soldiers fighting to save the Union.

IMAGE LIST.

9W.1R__ “God Watches Over Them.” The colored envelope. Please crop out the right
(blank) side. (UDID 397107. ARHD022 / PA460)
 69

God Watches over Them. New York, ca. 1863.

This ornate envelope symbolizing loyalty to the Union and its Constitution envisions the
restoration of the old Union under the old Constitution.

The country “as it is” is represented by two boys fighting under the Union and Confederate
flags. Below, the picture of the nation “as it will be” shows the boys sleeping together peace-
fully beneath the Union flag. A broken black doll lies discarded on the ground.
 70

9W.2R__ 499752 Harper’s Weekly. 1863. August. How To Escape the Draft.

“How to Escape the Draft.” From Harper’s Weekly, August 5, 1863.

On July 13, 1863, New Yorkers, mostly Irish immigrant workers—calling the military draft
“a monarchical principle & a sin”—attacked draft offices, police officers, federal
government offices, and the homes of rich Republicans. They went on to set fire to the
Colored Orphan Asylum and to rob, beat, and kill African Americans. The mayhem did not
end until July 17, when the riot was put down by troops diverted from Gettysburg.

The horrific images of black New Yorkers being assaulted by Irish mobs transformed public
opinion, turning the city’s “Africans” into American victims of foreign violence.
 71

9W.3 R __ 499751 __ Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 26, 1864, p. 4-5.

“Presentation of Colors to the 20th U.S. Colored Infantry . . . at the Union League Club
House, N.Y., March 5.” From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, March 26, 1864.

The 20th Regiment of the United States Colored Infantry was organized on Riker’s Island in
New York City in February 1864. As the men were leaving for Louisiana, the ladies of New
York presented them with a regimental flag in a grand ceremony in Union Square.

A New York Times correspondent wrote in amazement: “The same men who could not have
shown themselves in the most obscure street in the City without peril of instant death now
march in solid platoons, with shouldered muskets, slung knapsacks, and buckled cartridge
boxes and everywhere are saluted with waving handkerchiefs, with descending flowers,
and with the acclamations and plaudits of countless beholders.”

CASE LIST.

9. 1 __ HM 3186 __ Lincoln, Abraham. A draft of a bill to abolish slavery through

compensated emancipation in Delaware. December 1861 __ TOP PAGE.

Abraham Lincoln, draft of a plan to abolish slavery in Delaware, December 1861.

In November 1861, Lincoln tried to get Delaware, one of the Union’s slaveholding states, to
abolish slavery gradually, offering federal compensation to the state’s slaveholders. If the
plan succeeded, Lincoln hoped to implement similar plans in other slaveholding states. In a
special resolution, the state legislature rejected Lincoln’s plan; it was never put to a vote.
 72

9.2 __ 288849 __ New constitution of the state of Illinois (Springfield, 1862)__ AS

TABBED, Article 18 (Negroes and Mullatoes).

New constitution of the state of Illinois: Adopted by the Constitutional convention at

Springfield, March 24, 1862, and submitted to the people for ratification or rejection, at an
election to be held June 17, 1862. Springfield, Ill., 1862.

Article 18 of the proposed Illinois constitution read: “No Negro or Mulattoe shall migrate or
settle in this State.” The voters rejected the constitution, but the article was voted on
separately and approved by a vote of 178,252 to 73,287.

9_3. 304550 An Appeal of the people of West Virginia, to Congress, for its immediate
action, and their acceptance of the "Nation's proposal" for the gradual abolishment
of slavery (Wheeling, 1862) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

By the spring of 1864, West Virginia was the only Union state that had abolished slavery,
and only because this had been a condition of its statehood.

9_4. 54391 Speech of the Hon. Montgomery Blair (postmaster general,) on the
revolutionary schemes of the ultra abolitionists, and in defence of the policy of the
President : delivered at the unconditional Union meeting, held at Rockville,
Montgomery Co., Maryland, on Saturday, October 3, 1863 -- CAN BE OMITTED IF
DOESN’T FIT

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

Montgomery Blair objected to any plans that would abolish slavery by an act of Congress.
These plans, Blair declared, were part of the radical’s conspiracy to foist upon the American
nation “amalgamation, equality, and fraternity.” Because Blair and his family were close to
Lincoln, many observers saw the speech as a sign that the president would withdraw the
Emancipation Proclamation.

9. 5 __ 75425 __ The Democratic Anti-Abolition State Rights Association of the City of

New York (New York, 1863) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

The Democratic opposition to Lincoln was particularly strong in New York. Various groups,
such as the Democratic Anti-Abolition State Rights Association, promoted white
supremacy, defended slavery, and attacked the Lincoln administration for violating the
constitutional limits to federal power.

9.6 __ HM 23339 1863, July 7. Hunt, Washington. To Samuel Bulkley Ruggles __ OPEN
ON THE BI-FOLIO.
 73

Washington Hunt, letter to Samuel B. Ruggles, July 7, 1863.

The former governor of New York writes in the wake of the battle of Gettysburg: “I pray
that our splendid victories in Pennsylvania may prove to be a decisive step towards the
termination of our national difficulties.” He hopes that the president can be persuaded “to
cancel his abolition Proclamation, and offer the old Constitution to the South as the ground
of a lasting reconciliation.”

9.7 __ HM 23886__1864, Jan. 20. Abraham Lincoln. Letter to Frederick Steele.

Executive Mansion Washington, D.C __ TOP PAGE.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Frederick Steele, January 20, 1864.

The Lincoln administration demanded the abolition of slavery as a condition for

readmission of Confederate states into the Union.

Here Lincoln instructs the head of the United States military command of Arkansas to set
the gubernatorial elections for March 28, 1864. By then, the state constitution must be “so
modified as to declare that ‘There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,’” and
the state legislature be empowered to “make such provision for the freed-people as shall
recognize and declare their permanent freedom.”

The state constitution, with the abolition amendment, was ratified on March 14. It said
nothing about the rights of freedmen.

9.8 __ 76480 The constitution of the state of Maryland / Reported and adopted by the
convention of delegates assembled at the city of Annapolis, April 27th, 1864, and submitted
to and ratified by the people on the 12th and 13th days of October, 1864. With marginal
notes and references to acts of the General assembly and decisions of the Court of appeals,
and an appendix and index, by Edward Otis Hinkley (Baltimore, 1865) __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE.]

On September 6, 1864, the constitutional convention in Annapolis adopted a new state

constitution that abolished slavery in Maryland. The constitution was then submitted to the
people for ratification.

On October 12, the amended constitution was defeated at the polls by a tally of 27,541 to
29,536. Only after the ballots cast by soldiers were counted did Maryland abolish slavery—
by a mere 263 votes.

9_9_ [uncat. Jonathan D. Hale collection] __ Lav’s pass from the Jonathan D. Hale’s
collection __ TOP PAGE.
 74

Pass to Lavender Hale, April 14, 1864.

In 1863, the authorities in Kentucky, a Union slave state not subject to the Emancipation
Proclamation, began arresting and re-enslaving fugitive slaves.

The Union military command in Kentucky responded by issuing special “passes” to former
slaves. This pass was issued to Lavender (Lav) Hale, a slave from eastern Tennessee who
had assisted his master, Jonathan D. Hale, in gathering intelligence for the Union Army.

In November 1865, a Kentucky grand jury indicted Union military governor John Palmer on
a charge of “enticing” slaves away from their owners.
 75

CASE 10.

TEXT PANEL.

Two Thirds of Both Houses

Amending the Constitution came to be seen as the only way to end slavery permanently.
The Republican Party’s 1864 platform included a demand for a constitutional amendment
that “shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of Slavery.”

Article 5 allows the Constitution to be amended “whenever two thirds of both houses” of
Congress “shall deem it necessary.” Mustering the vote for abolition, however, seemed an
impossible task in an election year.

With William T. Sherman’s army stalled near Atlanta and Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign
bogged down in Virginia, and the future of the Lincoln administration uncertain, the
prospects of the constitutional amendment seemed slim.

But on November 8, Lincoln won the electoral votes in all but three states—New Jersey,
Kentucky, and Delaware. Addressing Congress in December 1864, Lincoln declared that the
time for the amendment had come: “It is the voice of the people now.”

IMAGE LIST.

10W.1R. Miscegenation or the Millenium of Abolitionism UDID 42101 ARHD008 /

PA137
 76

Miscegenation, or the Millennium of Abolitionism, lithograph, New York, 1864.

In December 1863, two journalists from a leading Democratic newspaper published a

brochure titled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races. The hoax purported
to be the official platform of the Republican Party “revealed” that the ultimate goal of the
Civil War was forging a new American race by promoting interracial marriage or
“miscegenation.” The book caused a wide uproar that fueled the anti-Lincoln campaign.
This anti-Republican cartoon, published by G. W. Bromley & Co., circulated during the
campaign of 1864.
 77

10W.2R__ 499752__ Thomas Nast. Compromise with the South __ 397142 ARHD022 /
Rarebooks 895

Thomas Nast, “Compromise with the South:

Dedicated to the Chicago Convention.” From Harper’s
Weekly, September 4, 1864.
The Democratic National Convention met in Chicago in late August 1864. The party
platform proclaimed loyalty to “the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired.”
 78

Here Thomas Nast, a Harper’s Weekly caricaturist, pictures the result of such a peace. A
defeated and maimed Union soldier submits to a triumphant Jefferson Davis, who is
treading contemptuously on the grave of Union heroes, as a black Union soldier is dragged
away to slavery.

10W.30__ HM 3121 __ Thirteenth Amendment.

Copy of the 13th Amendment, signed by the congressmen who had voted for it, 1865.

During the debates in the Senate, Charles Sumner proposed to replace the amendment
abolishing slavery with one declaring all people “equal before the law.” Sumner’s proposal
was rejected. Instead, the Senate opted for the language of Article 6 of the Northwest
Ordinance (1787).

Seventy-eight years after Congress banned slavery in the Northwest Territory, the
Constitution was amended to expand the ban throughout the entire United States.

The second clause gave Congress “power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
This marked the end of the federal consensus that banned Congress from interfering with
slavery in the states.

CASE LIST.

10.1. __ 255855 __ Samuel S. Cox. Miscegenation or Amalgamation: Fate of the

Freedman … February 17, 1864. – TITLE PAGE.

NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE

In January 1864, Charles Sumner persuaded the Senate to create a committee on slavery
and freedmen. Sumner planned to use the committee to propose and promote his
constitutional amendment guaranteeing full citizenship rights for African Americans.

Here Ohio Democrat Samuel “Sunset” Cox rails against the “grand plunder scheme of a
department of freedmen” and blasts the Republicans for pushing for the “perfect social
equality of black and white.”

10.2 __ LI 911 __ 1864, Mar. 14. Horace Binney. Letter to Francis Lieber __ TOP PAGE.

Horace Binney, letter to Francis Lieber, March 14, 1864.

On February 10, 1864, the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in the United
States was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Senate began its
debates.
 79

Here one of the nation’s most prominent lawyers argues that the Constitution must be
amended not only to outlaw slavery but also to define national citizenship as free of any
racial limitations.

Without such an amendment, “It might happen that after slavery is abolished and men of
colour everywhere in the land made free, [Chief Justice] Taney would say again that the
offspring of an African slave, tho’ free was not a citizen.”

10_3 __ 267122 __ 1864, Apr. 8. Lazarus Powell. Amendments to the Constitution__

TITLE PAGE

The Democratic senator from Kentucky denounces the proponents of the antislavery
amendment as “fanatics” intent on remaking the country into “the Union without slavery.”
He declares: “I want the Union with all the institutions that our fathers ordained; and I
desire to leave to each State the control of its own domestic policy… I do want the Union as
it was, and the Constitution as it is.”

On April 8, 1864, the Senate passed the resolution adopting the amendment. It was shortly
blocked in the House, where 65 out of 68 Democratic congressmen voted against it.

10.4 __ WE 224 A & B.__ “The Blind Memorandum.” 1864, Aug. 23 __ TOP PAGE

Abraham Lincoln, the “blind memorandum,” August 23, 1864. Copy made for Gideon
Welles.

Lincoln makes provisions in case “this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be
my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the
election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he
can not possibly save it afterwards.”

Folding it so none of the text was visible, Lincoln asked his cabinet members to sign it. This
is a copy made for Gideon Welles.

10.5 _HM 52618 __ October 1864. Leslie Combs to Lossing __ TOP PAGE

Leslie Combs, letter to Benson John Lossing, October 26, 1864.

Two weeks before Election Day, Combs, a veteran of the War of 1812 and a staunch
Kentucky Unionist, sent his friend a newspaper article predicting that Lincoln’s reelection
would mean that “Negro troops” would keep “white people in subjection.” He frets, “In a
few days from now I expect a nigger can vote and a white man can’t.”
 80

10.6 __ 54328 __ James Mitchell Ashley. Amend the Constitution - It is the way to Unity
and Peace Speech of Hon. J. M. Ashley, of Ohio, delivered in the House of
Representatives, on Friday, January 6, 1865, on the Constitutional Amendment for the
abolition of slavery. __ TITLE PAGE.

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE.]

On the morning of January 6, 1865, James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio delivered this speech
introducing a motion to bring the antislavery amendment to debate in the House of
Representatives: “The proposition before us is, whether this universally acknowledged
wrong shall be continued or abolished.”

By mid-January, the passage of the amendment seemed unlikely. Sensing defeat, Ashley
postponed the vote until the end of the month.

10.7 HM 22659__ Abraham Lincoln. Letter to Alexander H. Stephens, John A.

Campbell and Robert M. T. Hunter __ TOP PAGE.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Thomas T. Eckert, January 30, 1865.

As congressional Republicans scrambled to muster votes, Washington was abuzz with

rumors about a Confederate peace commission expected in the capital.

On January 30, Lincoln handed this note to the head of the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps. It
set up the protocol for the reception of the Confederate envoys arriving for the “purpose of
an informal conference” with the president. The next day, he assured the House, “So far as I
know, there are no peace commissioners in the city, or likely to be in it.”

The Confederate delegation was due to arrive in Hampton Roads, Va., on February 3.

10.8 __ LI 4095 __ Thayer to Lieber. January 31, 1865 __ TOP PAGE.

Martin Russell Thayer, letter to Francis Lieber, January 31, 1865.

The Republican representative from Pennsylvania wrote right after the clerk called the
vote: “119 to 56!! Passed with 2 votes to spare!” He continued, “We have wiped away the
black spot from our bright shield and surely God will bless us for it.”
 81

CUBE CASE 11 (FACING CASE 9)

Strohm’s souvenir copy of the 13th Amendment.

“Souvenir” copy of the 13th Amendment, February 1865.

Lincoln signed the congressional resolution adopting the 13th Amendment on February 1.
Three days later, the Senate ruled that no president’s signature was needed to “give effect
to the action of Congress in proposing said amendment.” In 1798, the Supreme Court had
ruled in Hollingsworth v. Virginia that the president had no formal role in amending the
Constitution.

Nevertheless, “souvenir” copies of the 13th Amendment with Lincoln’s signature almost
immediately became collector’s items. This copy was made by the House’s chief engrossing
clerk, Isaac Strohm, and signed, at his request, by Lincoln.

CUBE CASE 12 (facing Case 10). PLEASE PUT 12.1. and 12.2. together, on the same
side of the case.

INTRODUCTORY CASE LABEL.

“Cure for All The Evils”

On February 1, 1865, Lincoln addressed an enthusiastic crowd that had gathered at the
White House. To loud cheers, the president celebrated the 13th Amendment as “a King’s
cure for all the evils.” With “the original disturbing cause” of the disunion gone, the future
of the Union was assured.

Less than three months later, Lincoln was dead, struck down by a Confederate assassin.

It took almost a year and a considerable amount of pressure to garner the constitutionally
mandated approval of three-fourths of the states of the restored Union. The amendment
was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. Among the states that
refused to ratify the amendment were the Union states of Delaware and Kentucky, which
vowed to nullify it. The Bluegrass State did not ratify the amendment until 1976.

It took another five years to amend the Constitution to guarantee “the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States” to “all persons born and naturalized” and
another century to guarantee their right to vote.

12.1 __ HM 21702__ Charles Sumner. Letter to Salmon P. Chase. April 10, 1865.

Charles Sumner, letter to Salmon P. Chase, April 10, 1865.

 82

On April 4, 1865, Lincoln toured Richmond hours after the Confederate government had
fled the capital. The president was greeted by large crowds of the city’s African Americans.

Six days later, Charles Sumner lamented Lincoln’s silence on the question of the civil rights
of freedmen: “On the main question he is reticent. But he saw with his own eyes at
Richmond & Petersburg, that the only people who showed themselves were negroes. All
others had fled or were retired to their houses. Never was I more convinced of the utter
impossibility of any organization which is not founded on the votes of the negroes.”

12.2 __ HM 2171__ Abraham Lincoln. Pass to Ward Hill Lamon. April 11, 1865.

Abraham Lincoln, pass to Ward H. Lamon, April 11, 1865.

On April 11, Lincoln dispatched Ward Hill Lamon, his close friend and self-appointed
bodyguard, to Richmond. That evening, Lincoln addressed a jubilant crowd at the White
House. At the end of his speech, Lincoln said that “it may be my duty to make some new
announcements to the people of the South.” He never had a chance to clarify this cryptic
sentence.

One man in the crowd thought he understood it perfectly. “That means nigger citizenship,”
muttered John Wilkes Booth. “That is the last speech he will ever make.”

12. 3 __ 263784 __ Caldwell Slavery and southern Methodism : two sermons preached
in the Methodist church in Newman, Georgia (1865) __ OPEN ON THE PREFACE.

John H. Caldwell, Slavery and Southern Methodism: Two Sermons Preached in the Methodist
Church in Newman, Georgia. Newman (?), Ga., 1865.

On June 11, 1865, a large portion of the congregation of the Rev. John H. Caldwell of
Newman, Ga., walked out on his sermon when he pronounced: “If the institution of slavery
had been right God would not have suffered it to be overthrown.” Caldwell pressed on:
“God has destroyed slavery because of the moral evils inherent in the system which we
would not remove.” Caldwell later worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgia.

12.4 __ ML 405 __ The Lay of the Last Rebel. First page. Sung to the tune of Joe
Bowers.” COVER PAGE.

“The Lay of the Last Rebel, Sung to the tune of Joe Bowers,” ca. 1865.

This is one of the first records of a popular Southern song known as “Old Unreconstructed”
and “I am a Good Old Rebel.” An early edition of the song was copyrighted in 1864 with “J.
R. T.” listed as the author. An 1866 edition attributes the text to Innes Randolph. This copy
was found among the papers of Confederate general Mansfield Lovell.

I hates the Constitution,

This “glorious Union,” too
 83

I hates the Freedman’s Bureau

and niggers dressed in blue.

12.5. JK4625 __ 1865 .A25 __ Journal of the proceedings and debates in the
Constitutional Convention of the State of Mississippi, August, 1865 __ TITLE PAGE

[NO TOMBSTONE. TITLE PAGE]

In August 1865, The Mississippi Constitutional Convention rejected the 13th Amendment
and enacted a “black code” for the state. Any black person who had not signed a labor
contract was regarded as a “vagrant”; blacks were prohibited from renting or leasing land
and banned from owning guns. The state could take children away from parents deemed
unfit to care for them. This was the first in a series of black codes adopted by the Southern
states that remained on the books until the Civil Rights era.

Mississippi ratified the 13th Amendment in 1995; the process was completed in 2013.