FREE SOIL, FREE SPEECH, FREE MEN, FREMONT—THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856 The Great Republican Reform Party, Calling on Their Candidate. Lithograph (New York: Currier & Ives, 1856). The Republican
Party is shown as a group of cranks and fanatics.
Welcomed by Frémont are an abolitionist and a free black;
a temperance supporter, a Socialist and a suffragette; a Roman Catholic
priest (Frémont was charged with being a closet Catholic), and,
in the middle, a free love advocate — “We are all Fremounters.” Southern Chivalry – Argument versus Clubs. Lithograph, John L. Magee (Philadelphia, 1856). While seated
at his desk in the Senate chamber franking copies of his Crime
Against Kansas speech, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner
was attacked and beaten by South Carolina Representative Preston
Brooks. Proslavery assaults on freedom of speech in
Kansas Territory had come to the floor of the U. S. Senate. “James Buchanan, Democratic Candidate for President,” in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 3, 1856. The Fearful
Issue to be Decided in November Next!
Shall the Constitution and the Union Stand or Fall?
(n. p., 1856). Black
Republican Imposture Exposed! Fraud
Upon the People. Fremont
and his Speculations (Washington:
Polkinhorn’s Steam Job Office, 1856). The Democrats
campaigned as the national party and denounced Republicans as the
purely northern sectional party of abolitionists who would destroy
the Union. Their campaign
tactics included personal attacks on Frémont and playing the race
card – their opponents were “Black Republicans,” a name they would
use consistently in campaigns through the Civil War and Reconstruction. But Buchanan’s total reliance upon the South
for his victory belied the national pretensions of the Democrats. American politics had become inescapably sectional. The New “Democratic” Doctrine. Slavery
not to be confined to the Negro Race, but to be made the universal
condition of the Laboring classes of society (Philadelphia,
1856). In an appeal
to northern laborers, this dramatic Republican broadside linked
the Democratic Party to proslavery ideology defining all labor as
servile. This text was reprinted
in handbills and pamphlets for the 1856 campaign.
This message is a bold expression of the conflicting cultures
of the free states and the slave states. The Border Ruffian Code in Kansas (New York: Greeley & McElrath,
1856). The Democrats
had allowed proslavery invaders from Missouri to impose draconian
slave laws on the Kansas Territory, charged this campaign pamphlet.
Freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right
to hold a contrary opinion were all suppressed in this legal code
effectively making Kansas a slave territory - the forced regulation
of black labor had taken precedence over the rights of free labor. William
Henry Seward, Immigrant White Free Labor, Or Imported Black
African Slave Labor. Speech
of William H. Seward, At Oswego, New York, November 3, 1856
(Washington: By the Republican Association, 1856). Republican
antislavery was for the benefit of white folks, not black slaves.
Distancing the Republicans from both Democrats and Know-Nothings,
Seward in this pre-election speech declared their aim to save the
western territories exclusively for free white
labor, both native-born and immigrant. “Freedom
and Slavery, and the Coveted Territories,” wrapper illustration
to Life of John Charles Fremont (New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1856). This map
was reprinted on numerous pamphlet wrappers, Broadsides, and display
banners to emphasize the stakes involved. Note the distorted scale making the free states
appear geographically eclipsed by the slave states, threatening
to consume the vast contested territories.
The accompanying text notes that there are only 347,525 slave
owners, and only 92,257 of them own ten or more slaves. Fremont the Conservative Candidate. Correspondence
Between Hon. Hamilton Fish, U. S. Senator from New York, and Hon.
James A. Hamilton, Son of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1856). Two prominent
New York Whigs narrowed the issues of 1856 down to resisting the
extension of slavery and the Democrats’ expansionist foreign policy,
and declared their support for Fremont and the Republicans. Republican Bulletin, No. 4. Issued by the Fremont & Dayton Tenth Ward
Club. Twenty Reasons for
Leaving the Democratic Party. By an Old Democrat. (Philadelphia,
1856). Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Men. Proceedings
of the Democratic Republican State Convention, At Syracuse, July
24, 1856 . . . (Albany: By Order of the Convention, 1856). As if in
reply to the above handbill, antislavery Democrats in New York declared
their party the captive of slaveholders and endorsed Frémont, but
remained loyal on other issues. “We are none the less attached to all democratic
principles and measures, and none the less ready to labor for them
on all necessary occasions.” Col. Fremont Not a Roman Catholic (Washington?, 1856); To Catholic
Citizens! The Pope’s Bull,
and the Words of Daniel O’Connell (New York: Joseph H. Ladd,
1856). In an effort
to chip away the support of antislavery Know Nothings, Democrats
charged that Frémont was a closet George Weston,
The Poor Whites of the South (Washington:
Buell & Blanchard, 1856). Weston,
a Maine Democrat and newspaper editor, marshaled statistics and
observations to show how slave society impoverished non-slave-holding
white laborers, the vast majority of the southern white population.
Republicans hoped their free labor agenda would attract the
support of these white southerners, who would eventually abolish
slavery in their individual states. Charles
Sumner, The Crime Against Kansas. The Apologies for the Crime. The True Remedy (Washington: Buell &
Blanchard, 1856). Following
Sumner’s scathing denunciation of proslavery violence in Republican Campaign Edition for the Million. Containing the Republican Platform, the Lives of Fremont and Dayton
. . . (Boston & Cleveland: John P. Jewett, 1856). Republikanische Feldzugs-Ausgabe für die Millionen Deutsche in den Berein
. . . (Boston & Cleveland: John P. Jewett, 1856). Cheap give-away pamphlets such as these brought
the Republican message to a larger public. Much campaign material was also printed in
German-language editions to appeal to the large and important German-American
community. The Republican Campaign Songster: a Collection of Lyrics, Original and
Selected, Specially Prepared for the Friends of Freedom in the Campaign
of Fifty-Six (New York & Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan,
1856). Campaign songs fired the enthusiasm of rallies
and mass meetings. The songs
were usually the lyrical creations of activists, set to the tune
of a well-known song. Shown
here is “For Fremont and Freedom,” which features Fremont’s attractive
and adventurous wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, daughter of Missouri
Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and an important strategist in Frémont’s
campaign. She was the first woman to play a central role in managing
a presidential campaign. Circular. Philadelphia, November
4, 1856. In Philadelphia
the campaign was an unsuccessful fusion effort with the American
Party. This is an election ticket issued just before the vote, giving voters
the option of choosing the same electors for either Frémont or Fillmore. Voters clipped their selection and cast it
as a ballot. Free
Ticket to the ‘Saline Springs,’ For all “Wooley Heads,” “Nigger Thieves,” “Underground R.R.
Directors,” and “BlackRepublicans” (Philadelphia, 1856).
After Frémont’s
predictable defeat in prosouthern anti-black Philadelphia, the Republicans
were sent on an excursion to Salt River, or political oblivion. This cartoon is part of the persistent and consistent denunciation
of Republicans as abolitionists.
Note the references to Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd
Garrison, and Philadelphia’s Lucretia Mott.
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