“De Union! Used to be
de cry –
For dat we went it
strong;
But now de motto seems
to be,
'De nig _ _ _ , right or
wrong!'”
– After
Emancipation, a growing number of Democrats opposed the abolitionist
struggle
In the 1800s, fear
of Negro migration was intense in the Midwest. Three factors – an
agricultural economy, the Southern heritage of many Midwesterners,
and the lower Midwest's common border with the slave South – made
the residents keenly aware of the “dangers” of Negro migration.
In general, the closer to the Ohio River a white Midwesterner lived,
the more race sensitive he was. Southern Ohio fit all the criteria
required for bitter opposition to this migration.
Without
a doubt, poor whites in Ohio disliked Negroes for the same reasons
Southern poor whites did. Most carried a burden of bigotry developed
over generations. And at this time, Midwestern racists exploited this
fear by accusing the Government of making emancipated slaves move
north.
Make
no mistake, resistance to abolition was common. Before abolitionism
succeeded, it was strongly opposed. Even among Northerners who wanted
to stop the spread of slavery, the idea of banning it altogether
seemed fanatical It’s hard to accept just how unpopular
abolitionism was before the Civil War. The abolitionist Liberty Party
never won a majority in a single county, anywhere in America, in any
presidential race.
During the campaign
for state offices in 1863, the Ohio Democratic Central Committee
asked the northern soldier if he liked the idea of returning home
from battle to find his job taken by the Negro whom he had risked his
life to free. When asked to support the proposed Thirteen Amendment
shortly before the end of the war, Representative George Bliss of the
Fourteenth District publicly refused because he feared passage would
invite the former slaves to compete for jobs with returning Union
veterans.
Yet, antislavery
congressmen were able to push through the 13 Amendment in 1865
because of the absence of the pro-slavery South and the complicated
politics of the Civil War. The passage was considered a surprise
victory
I
would like to offer two articles from the Portsmouth Times
from 1862 that attest to the conflicting views on abolition. The
first is titled “Is Ohio To Be Africanized?” It was printed in
the Times on June 21,
1862. In the article, Mr. Samuel Cox of Ohio, member of the House of
Representatives, charges that the Civil is being carried on with the
emancipation of the Negro as the dominant purpose, and not the
preservation of the Union.
Cox opposes the
abolition of slavery and claims its result will be disastrous to Ohio
because it will be made the home of thousands of free Negroes by
immigration and will add a population that will be “vicious,
indolent, and improvident.” He dwells at length on the character of
the free Negro settlements in Greene and Brown counties of Ohio,
claiming they are deleterious to the white population. He objects to
the distribution of the colored race among the people of the free
states because it will affect white labor and detract from the
prosperity of the various communities.
______________________________________________________
*Note – Here is
some background on the author of the article, Samuel Cox:
Samuel Sullivan "Sunset" Cox
(September 30, 1824, Zanesville, Ohio – September 10, 1889, New
York City) was an American Congressman and diplomat. He represented
both Ohio and New York in the United States House of Representatives,
and also served as United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Cox attended Ohio University and Brown
University, graduating from Brown in 1846. He practiced law in
Zanesville and became the owner and editor of the Ohio Statesman,
a newspaper in Columbus, Ohio. In 1855, he was secretary of the
U.S. legation to Peru.
Cox was elected to Congress as a
Democrat in 1856, and served three terms representing Ohio's 12th
congressional district and one representing the 7th district.
After giving an impassioned speech in 1864 denouncing Republicans for
allegedly supporting miscegenation (mixing of different racial groups
through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation), he
was defeated for reelection and moved to New York City, where he
resumed law practice.
The miscegenation hoax was concocted by
Democrats, to discredit the Republicans by imputing to them what were
then radical views that offended against the attitudes of the vast
majority of whites, including those who opposed slavery. There was
already much opposition to the war effort.
The pamphlet and variations on it were
reprinted widely in both the north and south by Democrats and
Confederates. Only in November 1864 was the pamphlet exposed as a
hoax. The hoax pamphlet was written by David Goodman Croly, managing
editor of the New York World, a Democratic Party paper, and
George Wakeman, a World reporter.
______________________________________________________
The following are excerpts
from the Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) article “Is
Ohio To Be Africanized?” published June 21, 1862. The article itself was taken from an address
delivered in the House of Representatives on June 6, 1862 by Ohio Rep. Samuel S. Cox.
"Is Ohio To Be Africanized?"
“The right and power to exclude
Africans from the States North, being compatible with our system of
State sovereignty and Federal supremacy, I assert that it is
impolitic, dangerous, degrading, and unjust to the white men of Ohio
and of the North, to allow such immigration.
“By the census of 1860, in Ohio, we
have 36,225 colored persons, out of a population of 2,339,559. As a
general thing, they are vicious, indolent, and improvident. They
number as yet one black to about sixty-three whites; but their ratio
of increase during the last ten years has seen 43:30 per cent, while
that of the white increase is only 17:82 per cent. (I assume the
colon was used as a decimal period.)
“About one-tenth of our convicts are
Negroes. I gather from the census of 1850, that four-tenths of the
female prisoners are blacks, although they compose but one-eightieth
of the female population of Ohio... In Ohio the blacks are not
agriculturists. They soon become waiters, barbers, and otherwise
subservient to the whites. They have just enough consequence given to
them by late events to be pestilent. The resistance of the
abolitionists to the Federal authority in Ohio, within the past three
years, was abetted by colored men, some of whom had received
schooling enough at Oberlin to be vain and ostentatiously seditious.
“The last Legislature of Ohio, by
their committee, gave their proteges this certificate of character in
their report:
'The Negro race is looked upon by the
people of Ohio as a class to be kept by themselves – to be
debarred of social intercourse with the whites – to be deprived of
all advantages which they cannot enjoy in common with their own
class.
'Deprived of the advantages here
enumerated, it could not be expected that he should attain any great
advancement in social improvement. Generally, the Negro in Ohio is
ignorant and vicious.'
“If this be true, it would be well to
inquire why energetic legislation was not had in view of the
emancipation schemes here impending, to prevent this lazy, ignorant
and vicious class from overrunning our State. Such legislation was
asked and refused ...
“The Ohio Senator Sherman (John
Sherman), speaking of emancipation in this district (District of
Columbia), he balanced himself on the slack wire after this fashion:
'This is a good place to begin
emancipation for another reason. This is a very paradise for free
Negroes. Here they enjoy more
social equality than they do anywhere else. In the State where I
live, we do not like Negroes. We do not disguise our dislike. As my
friend from Indiana said yesterday, the whole people of the
Northwestern States are, for reasons, whether correct or not,
opposed to having many Negroes among them, and that principle or
prejudice has been engrafted on the legislation of nearly all the
Northwestern States.'
“It is a fine thing, the Senator
thinks, to free Negroes here: not so good in Ohio. Here they have a
paradise: in Ohio it is opposite, I suppose. If the Senator could
visit Green's Row, within the shadow of this capitol, henceforth
'Tophet (A place where children were sacrificed in Canann.) and black
Gehenna (a small valley in Jerusalem where some of the kings
of Judah sacrificed their children by fire) called,
the type of hell,' and note the squalor, destitution, laziness,
crime, and degradation there beginning to fester, if he could visit
the alleys in whose miserable hovels the blacks congregate, he would
hardly be reminded of the paradise which Milton sang, with its
amarinthine flowers, (Laughter) its blooming trees of life, its
golden fruitage, its amber rivers rolling o'er Elysian flowers, its
hills and fountains and fresh shades, its dreams of love, and
adoration of God. Alas! He would find nothing here to remind him of
that high estate in Eden, save the fragrance of the spot and the
nakedness of the inhabitants. (Laughter)
“If the rush of
free Negroes to this paradise continues, it would be a blessing if
Providence should send Satan here in the form of a serpent, and an
angel to drive the descendants of Adam and Even into the outer world.
If it continues, you will have no one here but Congressmen and
Negroes, and that will be punishment enough. (Laughter) You will have
to enact a fugitive law to bring the whites to their capital.
(Laughter)
“But it may still
be urged that in the North – in Ohio – the free Negro will work,
will rise, will add to the security of the State and the prosperity
of the people ... Greene County, Ohio, has nearly 1500 Negroes. The
following article from the Xenia News, a Republican paper,
will give us some idea of their condition:
'There are about
one hundred Negroes here in Greene County who are always out of
employment. A part of these are those who have lately been freed by
their masters, and furnished with a bonus, on which they are now
gentlemanly loafing. Our jail is continually filled with Negroes
committed for petty offense, such as affrays, petty larceny,
drunkenness, assault and battery, for whose prosecution and
imprisonment the town of Xenia has to pay about five hundred dollars
per annum. And to such persons going to jail is rather a pleasure
than a disgrace. They are better fed and lodged there than when
vagabondizing round our streets.'
'We have seen
Negro prostitutes flaunting down Main Street, three or four abreast,
sweeping all before them indiscriminately. We have seen ladies of
respectability running upon the cellar doors, and even into gutters,
to avoid being run over by these impudent hussies … Gentlemen have
complained of the insulting boldness of their address. But we are
sickened with the recital. It is a disagreeable task to lance the
sore which has long been gathering unheeded; and it is equally so to
probe this evil, which unawares is growing in our midst.'
“Some years ago,
there was a Negro colony established in Brown County, Ohio, as to
which the Cincinnati Gazette said that 'in a little while the
Negroes became too lazy to play.'”
As evidenced in
Cox's impassioned plea against racial equality, the resistance to
emancipation in the Buckeye State was formidable. Those who believed
in the fight to save the Union did not necessarily include blacks in
their vision of a United States of America.
The second article
from the Portsmouth Times was published on July 12, 1862. It
was titled “A Grim Joke.” It deals with opposition to the views
of the Portsmouth Tribune, a rival paper. I present it here
for your reading pleasure:
“A Grim Joke”
Intro: “The following article, which
we take from the Logan Gazette, one of the most logical,
vigorous and keen-witted papers published in the State, applies with
so much force to the Portsmouth Tribune, and the heartless and
reckless manner in which it has treated the question of Negro
immigration, that we desire to bring it under its notice. But few
papers in the State have dared to come openly in opposition to a law
preventing the influx of Southern blacks. Yet the Tribune has
sought to ridicule (it never argues) a movement for this purpose –
just insert the name of that paper in place of the Cincinnati
Commercial, and the article fits admirably and pinches to severity:
“The black immigration, by which the
Free States are menaced, and which portends nothing but calamity to
both races, is made the subject of merriment by the Cincinnati
Commercial. The men to whose criminality and folly must be
charged the invasion of our Free State communities, by the houseless,
homeless, penniless, shiftless hordes of Negro slaves, affect to
laugh at the black man's calamity, and mock at the very natural fear
manifested by the white people. They find it very laughable, indeed,
that these unfortunate freedmen should offer to work at ten cents a
day.
"It is so very funny to see the poor wretches, deprived of the
guardianship which once provided them with food and raiment and
shelter, now turned out upon the streets and highways, without a roof
to shelter them from the storm, with a morsel of bread to appease
their hunger, with none to care for or look after them, and impelled
by imminent starvation to offer the toil of a day for the wretched
pittance which will barely purchase bread for the day. It is a grim
joke; but there are monsters who laugh at it.
“This very laughable affair has
another feature which will probably be considered extremely funny.
Every Negro that is hired at ten or twenty cents per day throws a
white man out of employ, and must inevitably reduce the daily wages
of those who are still so fortunate as to find employment. Is not
this matter for increased merriment? The spectacle of a white man and
his family deprived of the comforts of life, or haggard from absolute
destitution, because of the influx of Negroes, whom meddling fanatics
have cursed with a freedom for which their race is not fitted, will
probably cause more joyous, hilarious, uproarious laughter among the
monsters than the less funny spectacle of a gaunt, enfeebled Negro
tatterdemalion (person dressed in ragged clothes) working at one cent
per hour to keep his soul and body together.”
I offer these
remnants from local history in an effort to “tell it like it was.”
In doing so, I hope people can better understand the tremendous
strides that have been made in race relations and also better
comprehend that ethnocentric hatred still lingers in xenophobic,
prejudiced individuals. So many stereotypes used to describe “the
unwanted masses” of the past remain as do the same adverse
conditions that confronted black slaves who made a desperate, mad
dash to freedom.
“Farewell,
Ohio!
I
cannot stop in thee;
I'll
travel on to Canada,
Where
colored men are free.
M.C.
Sampson, free Negro, 1833
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