unfazed

Posted on January 7, 2017 by SUMPTER
NY Times January 8, 1867

NY Times January 8, 1867

As 1867 began, newspaper headlines indicated that the United States Congress was definitely planning on impeaching President Andrew Johnson. The president wasn’t cowed. On January 7th Congress received his veto of An act to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, which specifically mandated that the right to vote was guaranteed to every man in the District “without any distinction on account of color or race.”

You can read the veto message at The American Presidency Project. It was a long message. Two of President Johnson’s points: Congress was ignoring the will of existing D.C. voters; by prohibiting the Southern States representation in the national legislature Congress was ensuring it was veto-proof:

… Measures having been introduced at the commencement of the first session of the present Congress for the extension of the elective franchise to persons of color in the District of Columbia, steps were taken by the corporate authorities of Washington and Georgetown to ascertain and make known the opinion of the people of the two cities upon a subject so immediately affecting their welfare as a community. The question was submitted to the people at special elections held in the month of December, 1865, when the qualified voters of Washington and Georgetown, with great unanimity of sentiment, expressed themselves opposed to the contemplated legislation. In Washington, in a vote of 6,556–the largest, with but two exceptions, ever polled in that city–only thirty-five ballots were cast for Negro suffrage, while in Georgetown, in an aggregate of 813 votes–a number considerably in excess of the average vote at the four preceding annual elections–but one was given in favor of the proposed extension of the elective franchise. As these elections seem to have been conducted with entire fairness, the result must be accepted as a truthful expression of the opinion of the people of the District upon the question which evoked it. Possessing, as an organized community, the same popular right as the inhabitants of a State or Territory to make known their will upon matters which affect their social and political condition, they could have selected no more appropriate mode of memorializing Congress upon the subject of this bill than through the suffrages of their qualified voters.

Entirely disregarding the wishes of the people of the District of Columbia, Congress has deemed it right and expedient to pass the measure now submitted for my signature. It therefore becomes the duty of the Executive, standing between the legislation of the one and the will of the other, fairly expressed, to determine whether he should approve the bill, and thus aid in placing upon the statute books of the nation a law against which the people to whom it is to apply have solemnly and with such unanimity protested, or whether he should return it with his objections in the hope that upon reconsideration Congress, acting as the representatives of the inhabitants of the seat of Government, will permit them to regulate a purely local question as to them may seem best suited to their interests and condition. …

Congressional Library, (In U.S. Capitol) / photographed and published by Bell & Bro., 480 Penn, Avenue, Washington, D.C. ([Washington, D.C.] : [Bell & Bro.] [1867]; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/cph24851/)

Capitol full of Republicans … and librarians?

In addition to what has been said by these distinguished writers, it may also be urged that the dominant party in each House may, by the expulsion of a sufficient number of members or by the exclusion from representation of a requisite number of States, reduce the minority to less than one-third. Congress by these means might be enabled to pass a law, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding, which would render impotent the other two departments of the Government and make inoperative the wholesome and restraining power which it was intended by the framers of the Constitution should be exerted by them. This would be a practical concentration of all power in the Congress of the United States; this, in the language of the author of the Declaration of Independence, would be “precisely the definition of despotic government.” …

As shown in charts at Wikipedia, the Republican majorities in both House and Senate in the 39th United States Congress were veto-proof, given the exclusion of southern states. As documented at The Daily Render, Congress did indeed override the veto by January 8th.

The Library of Congress provides the image of Congressional Library at the U.S Capitol. The Library of Congress didn’t move out until 1897. The image of exhibit cases at the Smithsonian Institution also comes from the Library. Andrew Johnson served as a representative from Tennessee in the U.S. House from 1843 until 1853. According to Hans L. Trefouse, he generally supported economy in government and consistently opposed the Smithsonian Institution. In the fall of 1847 Congressman Johnson exhibited an “ever more pronounced vendetta against the Smithsonian Institution, which he attacked at every opportunity. After advocating the establishment of a committee of supervision for the institution, he so severely criticized one of its regents, his fellow congressman Henry W. Hilliard of Alabama, that members of the House were appalled.” David Outlaw of North Carolina denounced the “real demagogical speech.” [1]
Interior of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., showing exhibit cases (1867; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2005680852/)

at the Smithsonian about 1867

  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 69.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Letter to the Loyal Alabamans

Posted on January 2, 2017 by SUMPTER

A document at the Library of Congress indicates that 150 years ago today the Grand Council of the Union League of Alabama wrote an epistle to its local branches. The letter began by thanking God that thanks to federal soldiers Alabamans could publicly proclaim the doctrine that “all men are created equal.” It discussed the 1866 elections:

Facsimile of Union League of Alabama Constitution (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41680/41680-h/41680-h.htm#Page_566)

“Facsimile of Page from Union League Constitution.”

The National situation, so dark before the manifestation given by the people in October and November last of their determination that the Government of the United States should not be administered in the interest of the rebels who tried to overthrow it, is now steadily improving. Loyalty maintains the ascendancy in Congress, endorsed by the people of the Nation with marked unanimity. …

No word of cheer, however applies to our very properly unrecognized State[,] Alabama.

But for the loyalty before alluded to, which manifests so much power at a distance, the personal safety of the loyal men of Alabama might well be questioned. The late devotees to treason have far too much power to permit a loyal man to be regarded with respect by the masses in their train. The pains taken in all places of public resort to denounce the Government and its defenders; the manner in which a vicious press alludes to our flag; the continual annoyance of those who wear the National uniform in either service; the misrepresentations of a Bureau instituted to secure the colored man justice, and which has not been allowed to secure him that justice; and the ingratitude towards the Government in view of its lavish charity dispensed to suffering whites; all indicate that old things have not yet passed away – that treason is still a power in Alabama. …

The missive described several ways in which the freed people were being mistreated and said “that the old pro-slavery ideas, in which [treason] had its birth, have still controlling power in the State.”

And yet we say to you, our loyal brethren, take courage. The power which has made treason stagger, can make it die.

We desire that you keep bright the council fires, and see that the fact that positive loyalty still exists within our borders, is kept before the people, in season, and when the faint hearted would deem out of season. …

The loyal members were to promote the Constitutional amendments and the test oath. They were to clean up their own acts by abolishing “the spirit of hatred and contempt” toward the freed people. The whole world was moving toward greater liberty and justice. The United States federal government was going to make sure that the freedmen were treated with equal rights.

It is your duty then, brethren, in view of this fact – if from no higher consideration – to discard the prejudices of the past against race and color. We would that nobler motives than those of policy might influence you, because even-handed justice is more potent and creditable as an incentive than the lower maxims of the mere politician – But if you will not be constrained by these higher impulses, heed the reasoning of sound policy[.] In the nature of things, the black man is your friend. In the war, the loyal men of the nation found nothing but kindness and respect on his part. He loved the land which we love, and he suffered privation and death in behalf of the cause to us so dear. Shall we have him for our ally, or the rebel for our master?

Trifle not with his friendship by denying him the rights to which he is justly entitled … [including the right to vote.]

Be strong, then, in the love of truth. Seek not to increase your numbers unless the numbers can be increased and the principles here enunciated be maintained at the same time.

Do this, and we will shortly be able to prove before the nation the falsity of the charge now made by rebels, that the loyal men of Alabama have not the ability to manage the State.

Do this, and we will be able to show before God and man, that we have not been unfaithful to the high trust committed to our care.

Done at the Council Chamber in the City of Montgomery, Alabama, on the 2nd day of January, 1867, and the Sixth year of the League.

Parties in the Convention of 1865" (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41680/41680-h/41680-h.htm#Page_566)

north more loyal to the North?

According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, the Union League of Alabama “run locally by Freedmen’s Bureau agents and various pro-Union groups, mobilized labor protests and promoted voter registration. The Union League helped create the Reconstruction movement, and it established a tradition of black voting for the Republicans that lasted well into the twentieth century.” The Alabama League started the northern hill country. “League branches sprang up in these areas when former draft resisters and native-born Union veterans found themselves a besieged minority after ex-Confederate soldiers returned to their homes. The league also provided a forum for opponents of Presidential Reconstruction, especially those inclined to organized self-defense, and played an integral role in the passage of military Reconstruction in 1867.”

According to Walter L. Fleming’s 1905 Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, it was difficult for some white members of the League to get over their prejudices:

Extension to the South

Even before the end of the war the Federal officials had established the organization in Huntsville, Athens, Florence, and other places in north Alabama. It was understood to be a very respectable order in the North, and General Burke, and later General Crawford, with other Federal officers and a few of the so-called “Union” men of north Alabama, formed lodges of what was called indiscriminately the Union or Loyal League. At first but few native whites were members, as the native “unionist” was not exactly the kind of person the Federal officers cared to associate with more than was necessary. But with the close of hostilities and the establishment of army posts over the state, the League grew rapidly. The civilians who followed the army, the Bureau agents, the missionaries, and the northern school-teachers were gradually admitted. The native “unionists” came in as the bars were lowered, and with them that element of the population which, during the war, especially in the white counties, had become hostile to the Confederate administration. The disaffected politicians saw in the organization an instrument which might be used against the politicians of the central counties, who seemed likely to remain in control of affairs. At this time there were no negro members, but it has been estimated that in 1865, 40 per cent of the white voting population in north Alabama joined the order, and that for a year or more there was an average of half a dozen “lodges” in each county north of the Black Belt. Later, the local chapters were called “councils.” There was a State Grand Council with headquarters at Montgomery, and a Grand National Council with headquarters in New York. The Union League of America was the proper designation for the entire organization.

Disaffection 1861-1865 (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41680/41680-h/41680-h.htm#Page_110)

Tories and deserters more in the north

The white members were few in the Black Belt counties and even in the white counties of south Alabama, where one would expect to find them. In south Alabama it was disgraceful for a person to have any connection with the Union League; and if a man was a member, he kept it secret. To this day no one will admit that he belonged to that organization. So far as the native members were concerned, they cared little about the original purposes of the order, but hoped to make it the nucleus of a political organization; and the northern civilian membership, the Bureau agents, preachers, and teachers, and other adventurers, soon began to see other possibilities in the organization.

From the very beginning the preachers, teachers, and Bureau agents had been accustomed to hold regular meetings of the negroes and to make speeches to them. Not a few of these whites expected confiscation, or some such procedure, and wanted a share in the division of the spoils. Some began to talk of political power for the negro. For various purposes, good and bad, the negroes were, by the spring of 1866, widely organized by their would-be leaders, who, as controllers of rations, religion, and schools, had great influence over them. It was but a slight change to convert these informal gatherings into lodges, or councils, of the Union League. After the refusal of Congress to recognize the Restoration as effected by the President, the guardians of the negro in the state began to lay their plans for the future. Negro councils were organized, and negroes were even admitted to some of the white councils which were under control of the northerners. The Bureau gathering of Colonel John B. Callis of Huntsville was transformed into a League. Such men as the Rev. A. S. Lakin, Colonel Callis, D. H. Bingham, Norris, Keffer, and Strobach, all aliens of questionable character from the North, went about organizing the negroes during 1866 and 1867. Nearly all of them were elected to office by the support of the League. The Bureau agents were the directors of the work, and in the immediate vicinity of the Bureau offices they themselves organized the councils. To distant plantations and to country districts agents were sent to gather in the embryo citizens. In every community in the state where there was a sufficient number of negroes the League was organized, sooner or later. In north Alabama the work was done before the spring of 1867; in the Black Belt and in south Alabama it was not until the end of 1867 that the last negroes were gathered into the fold.

The effect upon the white membership of the admission of negroes was remarkable. With the beginning of the manipulation of the negro by his northern friends, the native whites began to desert the order, and when negroes were admitted for the avowed purpose of agitating for political rights and for political organization afterwards, the native whites left in crowds. Where there were many blacks, as in Talladega, nearly all of the whites dropped out. Where the blacks were not numerous and had not been organized, more of the whites remained, but in the hill counties there was a general exodus. Professor Miller estimates that five per cent of the white voters in Talladega County, where there were many negroes, and 25 per cent of those in Cleburne County, where there were few negroes, remained in the order for several years. The same proportion would be nearly correct for the other counties of north Alabama. Where there were few or no negroes, as in Winston and Walker counties, the white membership held out better, for in those counties there was no fear of negro domination, and if the negro voted, no matter what were his politics, he would be controlled by the native whites. What the negro would do in the black counties, the whites in the hill counties cared but little. The sprinkling of white members served to furnish leaders for the ignorant blacks, but the character of these men was extremely questionable. The native element has been called “lowdown, trifling white men,” and the alien element “itinerant, irresponsible, worthless white men from the North.” Such was the opinion of the respectable white people, and the later history of the Leaguers has not improved their reputation. In the black counties there were practically no white members in the rank and file. The alien element, probably more able than the scalawag, had gained the confidence of the negroes, and soon had complete control over them. The Bureau agents saw that the Freedmen’s Bureau could not survive much longer, and they were especially active in looking out for places for the future. With the assistance of the negro they had hoped to pass into offices in the state and county governments. …

The constitution and two maps are found in Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama at Project Gutenberg. The Library of Congress provides Carol M. Highsmith’s photo of the Jeff Davis star
State Capitol, Montgomery, Alabama (by Carol M. Highsmith, 2010 February 22; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2010637479/)

Montgomery was also first Confederate capital

Posted in 150 Years Ago, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

hilltop experience

Posted on January 1, 2017 by SUMPTER
Bearded man, standing, three-quarter length, wearing backpack, with walking stick, Russia (between ca. 1880 and 1924; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/93506572/)

pause a bit

In its New Year’s piece 150 year ago today The New-York Times changed up the Janus imagery a little bit:

… New Year’s Day is like a hill upon which a traveler pauses to rest, to look back over the ground he has traversed, and to look forward to that which is before him. How long it took to reach the place on which he stands; how short the distance to the eye, now that it has been passed over! Points of interest were slow of reaching, and few and far between, but in the foreshortening of the landscape they seem a little crowded now.

We start fair this morning upon a new stage of the journey, and as the stage is twelve months[,] long let us lay in a good stock of good temper, the best mental pabulum known to science; a good stock of self-appreciation, which pushes nations as well as people along at high speed, and above all make conscience our compass and honor our staff as we go through the journey. …

I like the idea of a rest-stop but realize it’s going to be very brief as time keeps marching relentlessly on, maybe something like Stonewall’s foot cavalry. In the same issue the Times helped out short-sighted (forgetful) people like me by providing a chronicle of EVENTS IN 1866. I double-checked February 22nd. Five separate events were listed, including the celebration of George Washington’s 134th birthday, a great Union meeting in New York to support President Johnson, and Speech by the President at Washington on reconstruction. Relations between Andrew Johnson and the Congress, northern elites, and the northern people definitely went South during 1866. The president’s Washington Birthday speech was a big part of this process. Encouraged by the audience, President Johnson named Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips as traitors to the Union in the same category as southern rebels.

Skip ahead 10 months. In its December 28, 1866 issue The New-York Times reprinted an article from the December 20 [I think] 1866 issue of the Anti-Slavery Standard in which Wendell Phillips argued that there were two important reasons to seek a conviction of President Johnson after he was impeached. Andrew Johnson should not be allowed to pick judges for the U.S. Supreme Court:

… Such is one of the dangers of leaving a rebel at the head of the Government for two years more. We may, and probably shall, have the Supreme Court reinforced with fresh, young blood, to last another quarter of a century, and be always the refuge of abuses and the foe of progress. If his crimes have given us sufficient grounds to remove JOHNSON and avert this momentous danger, it is fool-hardy, it is madness, to leave the criminal untouched and run all these risks.

The article stated that North Carolina was still whipping negroes under state laws, but there was no state of North Carolina. The second reason Mr. Phillips wanted a conviction was that even if Congress abolished all the “phantom” state governments in the South and established Territorial governments, President Johnson would still have the power to nominate Territorial officers:

… He can so shape his nominations as to keep those Governments wholly subservient to his policy. Of course he would not name WADE HAMPTON or Mayor MUNROE to Governorships; he knows such men would never be approved by the Senate. But he can select from rebeldom, North and South, men, more decent but not less dangerous – indeed, for that very reason of their decent behavior, more dangerous than the swaggering bravos of their party – and thus, sure in time of the Senate’s acquiescence, make Territories as supple tools as he has made his so-called States.

We see, therefore, that it is impossible to make one step in the direction of permanent and thorough reconstruction while Johnson remains in office. We have the legal right to remove him; the country, indignant and disgusted, demands it; the necessity of the situation requires it. Delay is dangerous, and may be fatal. Who dares to trust such a man as ANDREW JOHNSON with the power thus to baulk the plans of the conqueror …

Thanks for the break. It looks like the path ahead in the new year may be a bit rocky.

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

dress code

Posted on December 30, 2016 by SUMPTER
View of the upper village of Lockport Niagara Co. N.Y. (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2003654291/)

locked up in Lockport

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper presumably sometime in 1866:

[pointing finger] A FEMALE CANAL DRIVER. – On Thursday last a canal driver was arrested in Lockport, on suspicion of being a woman in male attire. On being taken before a justice she owned up and was committed to jail, a fate not shared by all women who “wear the trousers.”

Seneca Falls, New York was a hotbed of the women’s rights movement and the dress reform that temporarily accompanied it. An obituary for Amelia Jenks Bloomer explained how her name became associated with the mid-19th century pantsuit (The Evening Dispatch (Provo, UT), February 7, 1895, Page 3, Image 3, col. 2-3.):

Amelia1 (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86091038/1895-02-07/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1836&index=3&rows=20&words=AMELIA+Amelia+Bloomer+BLOOMER&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=amelia+bloomer&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1)

Amelia2 (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86091038/1895-02-07/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1836&index=3&rows=20&words=AMELIA+Amelia+Bloomer+BLOOMER&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=amelia+bloomer&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1)

Bloomers 1851 (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024442/1895-07-14/ed-1/seq-11/#date1=1836&index=15&rows=20&words=bloomer+Bloomer+bloomers&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=bloomer&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1)

_______________

The obituary went on to say that Amelia Bloomer abandoned the costume after seven or eight years. Two possible reasons: she didn’t want to be known only for the dress reform, and she wanted to alleviate the social pressure applied to her husband.

The National Park Service backs up the obituary’s claim that Elizabeth Smith Miller ” first wore the costume of Turkish pantaloons and knee length skirt popularized by Amelia Bloomer in The Lily. Reportedly, she began wearing the outfit after seeing this type of clothing on a trip to Europe.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote about the new costume in History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1881; pages 469-471):

Turkey. Young woman. Dame Virique / Dumas. (between 1860 and 1900; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2004670414/)

“the Turkish style”

Quite an agitation occurred in 1852, on woman’s costume. In demanding a place in the world of work, the unfitness of her dress seemed to some, an insurmountable obstacle. How can you, it was said, ever compete with man for equal place and pay, with garments of such frail fabrics and so cumbrously fashioned, and how can you ever hope to enjoy the same health and vigor with man, so long as the waist is pressed into the smallest compass, pounds of clothing hung on the hips, the limbs cramped with skirts, and with high heels the whole woman thrown out of her true equilibrium. Wise men, physicians, and sensible women, made their appeals, year after year; physiologists lectured on the subject; the press commented, until it seemed as if there were a serious demand for some decided steps, in the direction of a rational costume for women. The most casual observer could see how many pleasures young girls were continually sacrificing to their dress: In walking, running, rowing, skating, dancing, going up and down stairs, climbing trees and fences, the airy fabrics and flowing skirts were a continual impediment and vexation. We can not estimate how large a share of the ill-health and temper among women is the result of the crippling, cribbing influence of her costume. Fathers, husbands, and brothers, all joined in protest against the small waist, and stiff distended petticoats, which were always themes for unbounded ridicule. But no sooner did a few brave conscientious women adopt the bifurcated costume, an imitation in part of the Turkish style, than the press at once turned its guns on “The Bloomer,” and the same fathers, husbands, and brothers, with streaming eyes and pathetic tones, conjured the women of their households to cling to the prevailing fashions. The object of those who donned the new attire, was primarily health and freedom; but as the daughter of Gerrit Smith introduced it just at the time of the early conventions, it was supposed to be an inherent element in the demand for political equality. As some of those who advocated the right of suffrage wore the dress, and had been identified with all the unpopular reforms, in the reports of our conventions, the press rung the changes on “strong-minded,” “Bloomer,” “free love,” “easy divorce,” “amalgamation.” I wore the dress two years and found it a great blessing. What a sense of liberty I felt, in running up and down stairs with my hands free to carry whatsoever I would, to trip through the rain or snow with no skirts to hold or brush, ready at any moment to climb a hill-top to see the sun go down, or the moon rise, with no ruffles or trails to be limped by the dew, or soiled by the grass. What an emancipation from little petty vexatious trammels and annoyances every hour of the day. Yet such is the tyranny of custom, that to escape constant observation, criticism, ridicule, persecution, mobs, one after another gladly went back to the old slavery and sacrificed freedom to repose. I have never wondered since that the Chinese women allow their daughters’ feet to be encased in iron shoes, nor that the Hindoo widows walk calmly to the funeral pyre. I suppose no act of my life ever gave my cousin, Gerrit Smith, such deep sorrow, as my abandonment of the “Bloomer costume.” He published an open letter to me on the subject, and when his daughter, Mrs. Miller, three years after, followed my example, he felt that women had so little courage and persistence, that for a time he almost despaired of the success of the suffrage movement; of such vital consequence in woman’s mental and physical development did he feel the dress to be.

Amelia Bloomer (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28020/28020-h/28020-h.htm#v1_1497)

Amelia Bloomer

Gerrit Smith Samuel J. May, J. C. Jackson, C. D. Miller and D. C. Bloomer, sustained the women who lead in this reform, unflinchingly, during the trying experiment. Let the names of those who made this protest be remembered. We knew the Bloomer costume never could be generally becoming, as it required a perfection of form, limbs, and feet, such as few possessed, and we who wore it also knew that it was not artistic. Though the martyrdom proved too much for us who had so many other measures to press on the public conscience, yet no experiment is lost, however evanescent, that rouses thought to the injurious consequences of the present style of dress, sacrificing to its absurdities so many of the most promising girls of this generation.

Amelia Bloomer published The Lily from 1849 to 1853. The paper initially focused on promoting temperance but later took on more women’s rights issues. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote several articles for the paper “under the pseudonym ‘sunflower’.” You can read more about The Lily at Accessible Archives

Amelia Bloomer statue (11-20-2016, Ludovico Sculpture Trail, Seneca Falls, NY)

the wearing of the trousers

Bloomer NY State Historical marker (12-11-2016; Cayuga Street (Routes 5&20), Seneca Falls, NY(

claims to fame

_______________________________

Any possible connection to the Civil War or Reconstruction? – the canal driver does sort of remind me of all the women who disguised themselves as men so that they could soldier on during the war.
I found the Lockport article in the 1866 section of a big binder of newspaper clippings at the Seneca Falls, New York public library, but there was no date written on the artcle. Based on a search of its archives The New-York Times didn’t pick up the story.
Cherry Rahn’s 2001 statue of Amelia Bloomer stands on the Ludovico Sculpture Trail along the Seneca-Cayuga Canal in Seneca Falls, New York. The Bloomer historical marker appears on Cayuga Street in Seneca Falls.
The portrait of Mrs. Bloomer comes from History of Woman Suffrage at Project Gutenberg”. You can read about The Bloomer at the Library of Congress Chronicling America series, which also provides links to the obituary and the image of the outfit. Also from the Library of Congress: Lockport, Turkish, Elizabeth Smith Miller then and 1906.
Elizabeth Smith Miller (LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbcmil&fileName=scrp7000601/rbcmilscrp7000601.db&recNum=0&itemLink=h?ammem/rbcmillerbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(rbcmiller002593)))

wore bloomers before they were bloomers

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devilish plot

Posted on December 26, 2016 by SUMPTER
The toy department / L.M. Glackens. Enlarge (N.Y. : Published by Keppler & Schwarzmann, Puck Building, 1913 December 17; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011649653/)

Satanesque?

Or consider Christmas – could Satan in his most malignant mood have devised a worse combination of graft plus buncombe than the system whereby several hundred million people get a billion or so of gifts for which they have no use, and some thousands of shop-clerks die of exhaustion while selling them, and every other child in the western world is made ill from overeating – all in the name of the lowly Jesus?

Upton Sinclair: Money Writes!, 1927[1]

From The New-York Times December 25, 1866:

Christmas. …

ONE OR TWO THINGS MORE.

Santa Claus sugar plums--U.S. Confection Co., N.Y. (c1868.' LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/93500123/)

Gotham candy (and liquor) stores open on Christmas Day

To-day, of course, business will be generally suspended. Candy-stores will keep open where full pocketed little ones may exchange their pennies for candies and sick headaches, and we fear that corner liquor-stores will be available for the full grown monsters, who, if they don’t buy candies they buy worse, and get the headaches like the babies.

At the Custom-house, entrances and clearances of vessels will be made from 9 to 10 AM. This will be the only business of the day, and at the Post-office the doors will close for deliveries of the mails at the last hour named.

Bird's eye view of New York and environs. (John Bachmann 1865; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/75693052/)

What Mrs. Grundy saw?

A balloon ascension is promised us, by a daring navigator of the ethereal blue, and is to take place between 3 and 4 o’clock of the afternoon and from the City Hall Park. Mrs. Grundy is going up with him, so it would be well for people of sensitive organizations to be on the lookout and on their good behavior.

So having given you all the news that we could gather, we say once more, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” to all! …

I second that wish on this Second Day of Christmas.

Christmas morn / painted by W.C. Bauer. (c1880s; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/92510292/)

Merry Christmas!

From the Library of Congress: toy department from Puck December 17, 1913; sugar plums; John Bachmann’s 1865 bird’s eye view; country Christmas
  1. [1]Seldes, George, compiler. The Great Quotations. 1960. New York: Pocket Books, 1967. Print. page 158.↩
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bait and scalp

Posted on December 21, 2016 by SUMPTER
The Indian battle and massacre near Fort Philip Kearney, Dacotah [sic] Territory, December 21, 1866 ( Illus. in: Harper's weekly, v. 11, no. 534 (1867 March 23), p. 180; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2001700334/)

ambushed near the Bozeman Trail

On December 21 1866 a small band of Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne lured a force of about 80 United States soldiers away from the confines of Fort Phil Kearny, which was there to protect the Bozeman Trail, and into a trap. An estimated 1,000 American Indians won the resulting Fetterman Fight by killing the entire United States contingent. First reports apparently had the battle on December 22nd. Here’s one section of the coverage in The New-York Times of December 28, 1866:

THE INDIAN TROUBLES.
          ________
THE FORT PHILIP KEARNY MASSACRE.
          ________

…The Indian Troubles at Fort Philip Kearny – Slaughter of United States Troops – Eighty-seven Killed.

FORT LARAMIE, Thursday, Dec. 27.

The Indians are very troublesome, and the troops at Fort William Kearny have been almost in a state of siege for weeks past. On the 22d a number of Indians came near the post, and Brevet Lt.-Col. FELTMAN [Fetterman], Capt. J.H. BROWN and Lieut. GLUMMOND [Grummond], all of the Eighteenth Infantry, gathered hastily 39 men of Company C, Second Cavalry, and 45 men of the Eighteenth Infantry, and went after the Indians. The troops were gradually drawn on until at a point four miles from the fort, when they were surrounded and slaughtered. Not a man escaped to tell the story of disaster. The bodies were stripped of every article of clothing, scalped and mutilated. Thirty bodies were found in a space not larger than a good sized room. Nearly all the bodies were recovered and buried in the fort. …

William Judd Fetterman enlisted in the Union army on May 14, 1861 and seems to have served in the Eighteenth U.S. Infantry throughout the Civil War and beyond. The Fetterman Fight was part of Red Cloud’s War, which is considered an American Indian victory, albeit a short-lived one. Red Cloud was living on a reservation after the Treaty of Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

[Red Cloud, Oglala division of Lakota, Sioux, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right wearing suit] / Trager and Kuhn, Chadron, Neb. (c1891; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c04561/)

Red Cloud c1891.

Red Cloud (c1905 December 26.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002719668/)

Red Cloud c1905 December 26.

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firewall

Posted on December 13, 2016 by SUMPTER

150 years ago this month an article about Reconstruction by Frederick Douglass was published in The Atlantic Monthly. In the first section Mr. Douglass asserted that the only way to protect the rights of ex-slaves in the South without creating a despotic federal government was to ensure that the ex-slaves had the right to vote.

From The Atlantic Monthly, VOL. XVIII.—DECEMBER, 1866.—NO. CX:

Statue of Fred. Douglass (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2006013463/(

long federal arm not long enough

RECONSTRUCTION.

The assembling of the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress may very properly be made the occasion of a few earnest words on the already much-worn topic of reconstruction.

Seldom has any legislative body been the subject of a solicitude more intense, or of aspirations more sincere and ardent. There are the best of reasons for this profound interest. Questions of vast moment, left undecided by the last session of Congress, must be manfully grappled with by this. No political skirmishing will avail. The occasion demands statesmanship.

Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought and so victoriously ended shall pass into history a miserable failure, barren of permanent results,—a scandalous and shocking waste of blood and treasure,—a strife for empire, as Earl Russell characterized it, of no value to liberty or civilization,—an attempt to re-establish a Union by force, which must be the merest mockery of a Union,—an effort to bring under Federal authority States into which no loyal man from the North may safely enter, and to bring men into the national councils who deliberate with daggers and vote with revolvers, and who do not even conceal their deadly hate of the country that conquered them; or whether, on the other hand, we shall, as the rightful reward of victory over treason, have a solid nation, entirely delivered from all contradictions and social antagonisms, based upon loyalty, liberty, and equality, must be determined one way or the other by the present session of Congress. The last session really did nothing which can be considered final as to these questions. The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. While there remains such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local affairs,—an idea, by the way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections of the country than perhaps any one other political idea,—no general assertion of human rights can be of any practical value. To change the character of the government at this point is neither possible nor desirable. All that is necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national statute-book.

ballot_man_hand (http://www.wpclipart.com/holiday/election_Day/ballot_man_hand.png.html)

“a wall of fire for his protection”

Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the depths of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not neglected its own conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around it favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong that it could exist, not only without law, but even against law. Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and accustomed authority of the master, you have the conditions, not out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it is impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority, and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road. This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could. The true way and the easiest way is to make our government entirely consistent with itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franchise,—a right and power which will be ever present, and will form a wall of fire for his protection. …

The image of the ballot box comes from WPClipart. The Library of Congress provides the photo of the statue, which appears to be located in Rochester, New York. You can get more detail at RIT
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standing pat

Posted on December 8, 2016 by SUMPTER

150 years ago this week President Andrew Johnson delivered his second annual message to Congress. Despite the overwhelming Republican victory in Northern states in the 1866 midterm elections, President Johnson did not alter his position: Southern states should be readmitted to the Union and representation in Congress regardless of whether or not the state ratified the would be Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Here’s one Northern newspaper’s view, from The New-York Times of December 4, 1866:

Our presidents (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2006676651/)

“he has learned nothing from the elections”

The President’s Message.

President Johnson’s Message has the merit of comparative brevity. It discusses the aspect of the restoration question, embodies the salient points of the Departmental reports, offers suggestions on minor matters of practical legislation, and glances at our foreign relations – all with moderation and good temper, though not with uniform good taste.

On the exciting question of the day – the restoration of the Southern States and the relation of the Executive to Congress – the President has disappointed those who anticipated a change of tone or position. He has neither modified his views not [sic] given any indication of a readiness to concede aught of principle or policy to the demands of the governing States or Congress. He reviews the bearings of the question precisely as he reviewed them more than once during the last session. … He urges the immediate admission of “loyal members from the now unrepresented States” as a measure “imperatively demanded by every consideration of national interest, sound policy, and equal justice.” And he appeals to maxims of WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON and JACKSON to show that the course he recommends is in conformity with the lessons of illustrious statesmen.

It will be seen that the President offers nothing new. His statement of the case is a reiteration of the statement heard many times within the last nine months; his arguments have all been used before; and his recommendation is chiefly noticeable as evidence that he has learned nothing from the elections, and forgotten nothing in connection with his struggle with Congress. The pending Constitutional Amendment is not noticed in the Message, though of course the tenor of the whole argument is adverse to the principle on which the measure rests, and the purposes it is intended to serve. Negro suffrage, universal or qualified, is passed over untouched, and there is not the remotest allusion to an amnesty. In no respect does the President attempt to meet, or even indirectly to recognize, the recent manifestations of public opinion throughout the States which elevated him to office. On the contrary, he explicitly declares that his “convictions heretofore expressed, have undergone no change,” and that “their correctness has been confirmed by reflection and time.”

This exhibition of unyielding purpose on the part of the President may not occasion surprise to those who know the firmness of will which marks his character. We cannot but consider it, however, a serious error of judgment, and a source of difficulty which we would gladly have seen adverted in the session now opened. It has suited the Democratic Press to belittle the significance of the recent elections; but only something a little short of judicial blindness can have led Mr. JOHNSON to rely upon the Democratic rendering of popular opinion. He, of all men, should be able to estimate correctly the import of the verdict pronounced at the polls. He cannot complain of having been misrepresented or misunderstood. He was the exponent of his own case – the active, energetic champion of his own cause. He submitted his policy, in contradistinction to the policy of Congress, to the people of the North and West, everywhere avowing confidence in the rectitude of their intentions and in the sagacity of their judgment. When they decided against him, therefore, – when they repudiated his policy and ranged themselves on the side of Congress – it became his duty, not indeed to abandon his convictions, but to accept the will of the people as the law of his Administration, and either to withdraw all opposition to the Congressional plan, or to propose some new basis of adjustment. By neglecting to pursue one or the other of these courses he has lost the last opportunity of effecting a reconciliation with the great majority of the party that elected him, and has furnished a weapon to his adversaries which they wield to his detriment.

The South, already obstinate to the verge of insolence, will plead the weight of the Executive example. North Carolina has just exemplified its fitness for restoration by electing a conspicuous rebel, Judge MANLY, to the Senate. Alabama has illustrated its abounding loyalty by choosing as United States Senator another conspicuous rebel – Ex-Governor WINSTON. Texas testifies to its acceptance of the situation by tolerating – according to Gen. SHERIDAN – the killing of freedmen as of no more moment than the killing of dogs. And this state of things, bad as it is, and widespread as it seems to be, will grow worse under the influence of the feeling that the President is on the Southern side, and is fighting Congress in their behalf.

Charles Keck's statue honoring three North Carolina-born U.S. presidents: James K. Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson, outside the state capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina (by Carol M. Highsmith (between 1980 and 2006); LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011632478/)

“He defended the Constitution”

The Radicals in Congress, meanwhile, are not slow to avail themselves of the pretext which the Message affords them. … How much further the attack upon his position may be carried, we venture not to prophesy. Enough that this renewal of the argument against the policy of Congress will assuredly be used to feed and intensify a most disastrous conflict of authority. …

According to Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson didn’t always prioritize state representation in Congress. In 1841 the Tennessee state legislature had to elect two U.S. senators. The Whigs would have controlled the joint session. Andrew Johnson, as a first-term state senator, joined twelve other Democrats who prevented the election of two Whigs by not showing up for a vote. Without a quorum no one was elected to the federal senate. The way I’m reading Wikipedia: Tennessee was completely unrepresented for about a year and a half until October 1843.[1] It wouldn’t have seemed to work out that well for the Immortal Thirteen in the long run: “No senators were elected before the session’s adjournment, and Tennessee remained unrepresented in the U.S. Senate for two years. The controversy proved a major liability for Democrats in the 1843 state elections, in which Whigs won control of both chambers and subsequently elected Ephraim Foster and Spencer Jarnigan to the U.S. Senate.”

From the Library of Congress: seventeenth; Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph of the three native North Carolinians
  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 46-47.↩
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thanks for the schooling

Posted on November 29, 2016 by SUMPTER
The Union must be preserved, Fabrica de Tabacos ... Habana (c1860; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/96516068/)

mission accomplished

The seventh Thanksgiving since Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. President Andrew Johnson unobstreperously followed Mr. Lincoln’s example by proclaiming a national commemoration. According to an editorial in The New-York Times all the states went along, except for Mississippi, whose citizens were “called to observe a fast and not a feast.” Another Times article that Richmond, the ex-Confederate capital, observed Thanksgiving with most shops being closed. Henry Ward Beecher delivered another Thanksgiving sermon at Plymouth Church, just as he did in 1860. The Times covered many of the sermons in the metropolitan area, including one from a Unitarian church in Manhattan.

From The New-York Times November 30, 1866:

The American Mind Under Six Years’ Schooling.

DISCOURSE IN THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH BY REV. SAMUEL OSGOOD.

For God has not given us the Spirit of peace [sic], but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind – 2d Epistle of Timothy, 1st chapter, 7th verse.

The boyhood of Lincoln--An evening in the log hut / E. Johnson 1868 ; W. Harring. (Boston : Chromo-lithographed and published by L. Prang & Co., c1868.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/99405503/)

“a learner like the rest of us”

The six years since November, 1860, have been the most memorable period in the history of America – more memorable even than the six years after the Declaration of Independence, in 1776 – since they have established the idea of that Declaration in its true meaning upon a new and immense domain, and alike in the face of home-insurrection and foreign hostility. Compare our position and temper when we met for worship Thanksgiving Day, 1860, and now. The election of President had passed, and the choice of the people called ABRAHAM LINCOLN to the seat of Government. It was generally supposed that the States in the minority would peacefully, although reluctantly, acquiesce in the decision. Alas! we little knew what was in store for us, and we turned away with incredulity, and almost with contempt, from the few, dark prophets who pointed out to us the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that was to swell into a fearful storm and break with fury upon the land. The speaker here gave some statistics showing that the country was by far more prosperous now than at any time previous to the war. The war had educated the American mind, given it experience, and rendered it practical in all things. He continued: It is hard to say what man best expresses the national idea, or embodies the American mind. We have had no WASHINGTON, HAMILTON or MADISON to guide us from the beginning, or even to tell us what was to happen. We had to make our own way, often in the dark, and our most conspicuous man was a learner like the rest of us; and honest ABRAHAM LINCOLN was willing to take his primer of patriotism and go to God’s school to learn what to do and say. He learned his lesson and said it to the people, and then died, struck by a foul hand that wrote its own doom, and the doom of its rebel crew, and turned the victim, who was sometimes the doubting patriot, into the triumphant martyr. We have had no great leader, and God means that the nation shall be great, and that the American mind itself shall be imperial, and shall need no one chief to imperil its dignity and perhaps tempt it to idolatry. Noble men we have, indeed, who have helped build up the national mind – perhaps, preachers, merchants, poets, journalists, orators, statesmen, philosophers – but the American mind is greater than them all, and follows the call of God and His providence, no matter what a President or Secretary of State, a popular preacher or a noted editor may say. The American mind has learned wisdom of God, and can say with confidence, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound mind.” The muscular force of the American mind tells upon its judgment, and our people judge of men and things not by the doctrinaire, but by the dynamic scale. They have been so often disappointed by mere professors, and have tried so many men, and found them wanting, that they have learned to be very discriminating, and to distinguish between the substance and the show. We ask now what a man really is and really can do, and wish to give fair play to every man, without expecting perfection from any. It is remarkable how shrewd our people are, and also how considerate. It is true that they do not mean to run into any extremes, or play the fool with zealots of any faction, or to run into the arms of sectionalists of either type. We mean to work out the problem of peace as we work out the problem of war, by wanting God’s will and doing our best as time called. The nation evidently expected to follow the lead of the President to speedy reconstruction, but they were disappointed in his temper and policy,especially in his veto of the Civil Rights Bill, and his somewhat greater disposition to fraternize with some of the old enemies of emancipation than with its friends. They are sorry that he loses his temper and dignity sometimes, and talks more vehemently than is well. Yet they give him his due and do not think that he meant to betray the old flag, little as he knows its highest worth. They take him as he is and hope to see him learn wisdom and calmness by disappointment. The party of conservative reconstruction was damaged, if not ruined, by the President’s undignified tour; and the party of progressive reconstruction may be sure of the same fate if they make the new apostle of impeachment their organ, and offend the common sense of the country by mistaking a smart lawyer or a staunch Provost-Marshal for a good General or a great statesman. The American mind has learned to like words less and deeds more. It looks with little satisfaction upon blatant orators of the stump or platform, and seems most pleased at present with that quiet man who, after doing the great thing that was to be done to make peace, and giving the order that finished the war, shut his mouth, and showed mainly by his lighted cigar that there was breath still in him and some fire too. The reverend gentleman continued at great length to illustrate how the events of the past six years had educated the American mind to rely upon itself, drawing its ideas of right and justice directly from God, and that those principles actuated it at all times. Speaking of the freedmen, he said: We are putting the dynamic estimate upon classes as well as persons. We have come to the conclusion that we all weigh something, and no useful class can be spared. The millions emancipated by the war – our freed people – are weighed and found not wanting. In 1860 they worked and gave the South its wealth and the North most of its trade. Since 1860 they have fought, and now, all free, they are mostly at work, and many of them and their children, thank God, are at school. They are free and intensely national in their feelings, and, with God’s grace, the great American mind is at work upon them and with them. Fair play for the freedmen in all respects and free suffrage – impartial, intelligent suffrage, for all our people of every hue and blood. Impartial suffrage – the ballot to all who know how to use it, but no ballot to idiots, dunces or sots, black or white.

President Johnson’s proclamation was filled with respectful references to God. According to Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, as a young Tennessee legislator in about 1840, “successfully moved to postpone a resolution calling for daily prayers to open legislative proceedings.”[1]

From the Library of Congress: advertisement; Eastman Johnson’s young Abe Lincoln
  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 41.↩
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“pernicious isms of the day”

Posted on November 24, 2016 by SUMPTER
Charles Lenox Remond (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Lenox_Remond2.jpg)

Charles Lenox Remond

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper probably in 1866:

FANATICS IN COUNCIL. – A so-called Equal Rights Convention was held at Rochester, on Tuesday and Wednesday last, at which a strolling company of mountebank performers, half male and half female, who favor negro suffrage, woman’s rights, and all the other pernicious isms of the day, appeared. Parker Pillsbury, the negro Redmund [sic], Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and one or two other unsexed women, amused the small audience present.

I don’t think the event was held in Rochester. According to  November 21, 1866 issue of The New-York Times, the convention, with between 250 and 300attendees, was held in Albany, New York on November 19th-21st. Lucy Stone was the president of the convention. All the people mentioned in the Seneca County article attended, along with Frederick Douglass:

Lucy Stone with daughter Alice Stone Blackwell, half-length studio portrait, sitting, facing front (ca. 1858; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2005677274/)

Lucy Stone could vote AND take care of her babe

… Special Dispatch to the New-York Times
ALBANY, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 1866.

A call for a Convention of those who favor the rights of all persons to equal privileges in the eye of the law was held in Tweddle Hall, in this city, yesterday, and its sessions will continue through tomorrow. The old and shining lights of the anti-slavery rostrum, and the itinerent [sic] lecturers on womens’ rights were there, each and all ready with a panacea for the disordered condition of the country, and predicting a reign of peace and plenty when their suggestions should be heard. It will not be too much, probably, to say that FREDERICK DOUGLASS was the most distinguished in the gathering. He made a speech in his usual close and logical style, or in what his admirers term so, which was received with loud applause. …

Frederick Douglass House Parlor, Washington, D.C. (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011631100/)

“Frederick Douglass House Parlor, Washington, D.C.”

SPEECH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, being called on, said that he had not expected to speak, yet he was always prepared, and would comply with their requests. He had marveled that men had attempted to carry on the fabric of Government without calling in the assistance of women. He affirmed that it was impossible to think of any reason why man should construct a Government which would not apply equally to woman. We do not need government because we are men and women, but because we are human beings, capable of determining between right and wrong, and influenced by good and evil motives. All this, and more, applies to woman as well as to man, and there is not an argument which does not bear with equal weight for both. Our republican form of government is often spoken of as a masterly and unsurpassed specimen of workmanship, provided with checks and balances, which would insure its working right, and to which there is no other Government to be compared. I admit this in part, but not wholly, for there is a partial failure in that part which deprives woman of the franchises of freedom. It appeared to him that this was to be a Woman’s Rights Convention, instead of an Equal Rights Convention. He should not object to this if the women would only kindly take the negro by the hand and elevate him. For his part, he could not attend a public meeting without bringing the negro with him – in fact, he was inseparable. While he thought that the question of equal rights was of importance to women, he thought it was much more so to them. It was a question of life and death, for New-Orleans was remembered by them. Women have a hold on the affections of men, but his race had none on that of the ex-slaveholders. They disliked the black men, and it was therefore essential that they should have the power to vote. Women, if they get the power of voting, will raise the negro, and check the ravages of intemperance and degradation. They say, if woman votes, she will be indifferent to her household duties, and that she will be a mere echo of her husband. He denied this. The wife will look as tenderly on her babe as if she had not voted, and her duties as wife will be as well discharged. He did not see why she should not go with her husband to deposit a ballot, as well as to go to the Post-Office. If she commits a crime, she is punished like any other criminal, and she should have the rights of a citizen. If there was any objection in the minds of persons listening, he hoped to hear from them. He thought if the Convention which nominated LINCOLN and JOHNSON had been composed in part of women, the whole of that nomination would not have been made. …

So women could have saved the country from Andrew Johnson, who was showing himself to be opposed to freedmen aspirations. In a February 1866 meeting President Johnson told Mr. Douglass that he opposed black suffrage. According to Hans L. Trefousse, the president’s official mouthpiece, the Washington National Intelligencer, condemned the September 1866 Southern Loyalists’ Convention in Philadelphia for “welcoming Frederick Douglass. It was the first time a great party had practically carried out the theories of Negro equality,” even though the white race always considered itself superior. “It was obvious that Johnson shared this sentiment, and presumably few blacks or their supporters were taken in by his efforts to appear as their friend.” [1]

F Douglass speech (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34915/34915-h/34915-h.htm)

Frederick Douglass – abolition fanaticism in 1847

Abolitionism was certainly an ism that shook things up in the 19th century. Project Gutenberg provides a speech Frederick Douglass delivered in 1847. Here’s a paragraph:

…I cannot agree with my friend Mr. Garrison in relation to my love and attachment to this land. I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this country do not know me—do not recognize me as a man. I am not thought of, spoken of, in any direction, out of the Anti-Slavery ranks, as a man. I am not thought of or spoken of, except as a piece of property belonging to some Christian Slaveholder, and all the Religious and Political Institutions of this Country alike pronounce me a Slave and a chattel. Now, in such a country as this I cannot have patriotism. The only thing that links me to this land is my family, and the painful consciousness that here there are 3,000,000 of my fellow creatures groaning beneath the iron rod of the worst despotism that could be devised even in Pandemonium,—that here are men and brethren who are identified with me by their complexion, identified with me by their hatred of Slavery, identified with me by their love and aspirations for Liberty, identified with me by the stripes upon their backs, their inhuman wrongs and cruel sufferings. This, and this only, attaches me to this land, and brings me here to plead with you, and with this country at large, for the disenthrallment of my oppressed countrymen, and to overthrow this system of Slavery which is crushing them to the earth. How can I love a country that dooms 3,000,000 of my brethren, some of them my own kindred, my own brothers, my own sisters, who are now clanking the chains of Slavery upon the plains of the South, whose warm blood is now making fat the soil of Maryland and of Alabama, and over whose crushed spirits rolls the dark shadow of Oppression, shutting out and extinguishing forever the cheering rays of that bright Sun of Liberty, lighted in the souls of all God’s children by the omnipotent hand of Deity itself? How can I, I say, love a country thus cursed, thus bedewed with the blood of my brethren? A Country, the Church of which, and the Government of which, and the Constitution of which are in favor of supporting and perpetuating this monstrous system of injustice and blood? I have not, I cannot have, any love for this country, as such, or for its Constitution. I desire to see it overthrown as speedily as possible and its Constitution shivered in a thousand fragments, rather than this foul curse should continue to remain as now. [Hisses and cheers.] …

I know I must live too much in the past … I was surprised to discover that there was a birthday party for Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls on November 12th this year. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass attended. Mrs. Stanton sure is holding up well for being 201. During her speech she alluded to her winter wheat quote. One advantage to living in the past – I discovered that public birthday parties for Elizabeth Cady Stanton were also a thing of the past.
The image of Charles L. Remond is licensed by Creative Commons. The cover from the abolition speech is at Project Gutenberg. From the Library of Congress: Lucy Stone and daughter, Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph at the Douglass house, 80th birthday souvenir
80th birthday bash (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbcmil&fileName=scrp1017501/rbcmilscrp1017501.db&recNum=0&itemLink=h?ammem/rbcmillerbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(rbcmiller001467)))

80th birthday bash

  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 269.↩
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