Shayne Del Cohen

Madison/Monroe By 1810 the population of the US was 7,239,881; 1,191,362 were slaves.  Census enumerators were asked to include categories: name of head of household; number of free white males and females in various age categories; number of other free persons except Indians not taxed; number of slaves; and town or district and county of residence. Presidents and their constituencies continued to grapple with the issues, exploring a variety of  “answers”. James Madison (VA 1809-1817) owned slaves all his life.  In 1819 he stated, “A general emancipation of slaves ought to be 1. gradual.  2. equitable & satisfactory to the individuals immediately concerned.  3.  consistent with the existing & durable prejudices of the nation…  To be consistent with existing and probably unalterable prejudices in the U.S. freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or alloted to a White population.” By 1833 Madison had become president of the American Colonization Society, moving free blacks to what is now Liberia.
In 1801 James Monroe (VA-1817-1825) stated “We perceive an existing evil which commenced under our Colonial System, with which we are not properly chargeable, or if at all not in the present degree, and we acknowledge the extreme difficulty of remedying it.” Monroe had been  governor of Virginia during Gabriel’s Conspiracy, an abortive slave uprising in the state.  The slaves who reported the conspiracy were purchased by the government and freed as a reward. During his presidency both Haiti and Mexico abolished slavery; Monroe commented, “(The international slave trade) is an abominable practice, against which nations are now combining,  and it may be presumed that the combination will soon become universal.  If it does the traffic must cease, if it does  not it will still be carried on, unless the nations favorable to the suppression unite to crush it, under flags hose  powers tolerate it, which would in effect be to make war on those powers.”  (1821) Monroe signed a treaty (1824) with Great Britain that would have declared African slave trade a form of  piracy, making it easier to fight the trade supposedly without making it easier for foreign navies to stop and search U.S. ships.  He made a plea to the Senate, but did not convince them to  ratify.   “Should this convention be adopted, there is every reason to believe that it will be the commencement of  a system destined to accomplish the entire abolition of the slave trade… (Other nations   will  follow the U.S. and U.K.)  The crime will then be universally proscribed as piracy, and the traffic be suppressed  forever. “ 432 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada.  This article is part of a series that will be published during that time.  The first part of the series covers the Presidencies leading up to Lincoln in order to review national policy and experience leading to Emancipation. Please feel free to circulate and share (credited), comment or submit your own articles.

Shayne Del Cohen

John Q Adams pre presidency Although some historians state John Q. Adams (MA-1825-29) was a do-nothing president, consistently anti-slavery, his lifetime of comment provides a provocative and pithy history: 1804: While setting up government for Louisiana Territory, Congress passed a bill to forbid the slave trade (but not slavery) there.  Freshman Senator Adams felt the people of Louisiana had never asked to be part of the United States and that therefore such a government would be colonialism:  “Slavery in a moral sense is an evil; but as connected with commerce it has important uses.  The regulations offered to prevent slavery are insufficient.  I shall therefore vote against them.” 1804: Drawing Adams’ ire, the clause in the Constitution that counted slaves as three-fifths of  a free person when calculating congressional representation created a “privileged order of slave-holding Lords,  and a race of men degraded to a lower status, merely because they were not slave-holders.  Every planter south of the Potomac has one vote for himself and three votes in effect for every five slaves he keeps in bondage; while a New England farmer, who contributes tenfold as much to the support of the government, has only a single vote.” However, in 1815  as Ambassador to Great Britain,  Adams negotiated the return of American property taken by the British in the War of 1812 – including slaves captured by the army and others who sought refuge with them. 1820:  “Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union…  A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary… The Union might then  be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation.” 1826 (On anniversary of his father’s death)  “Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize/ Man still is bound to rescue or maintain:/ The native’s God commands the slave to rise,/ And on the oppressor’s head to break his chain,/ Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll around,/ Till not a slave shall on this earth be found.” 1841:  “What can I do for the cause of God and man, for the progress of human emancipation, for the suppression of  the African slave-trade?  Yet my conscience presses me on; let me but die upon the breach.” 1842: “Threats of lynching and of assassination are the natural offspring of slave-breeders and slave-traders… 
  Such dross the fire must purge.” For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada.  This article is part of a series to be published during that time.  The first part of the series covers the Presidencies leading up to Lincoln in order to review national policy and experience leading to Emancipation. Please feel free to circulate and share (credited), comment or submit your own articles.

Shayne Del Cohen

John Adams, presidency and beyond John Adams’ presidency (1825-29) also underscored another escalating tension.  Industrialization of the North was creating a commercial – and economic – imbalance that would be exacerbated by the addition of new territories and states. 1820:  “If I were a member of the Legislature of one of the free States, I would move for a declaratory act, that as long as the article in the Constitution of Missouri depriving the colored citizens of the State, say of Massachusetts, of their rights as citizens of the United States within the State of Missouri, should subsist, so long the white citizens of the State of Missouri should be held as aliens within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, not entitled to claim or enjoy within the same any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States.” 1833:  Congress debated a tariff which would have protected the manufacturers of the North and hurt the farmers of the South.  Congressman Clayton of Georgia  complained: “Our slaves are our machinery, and we have as good a right to profit by them as do the northern men who profit by the machinery they employ.”  In replying, now Congressman Adams referred to the Constitutional clause that counted each slave as three-fifths of a free person for calculating how many congresspersons each state was entitled: “Now those Machines have twenty-odd Representatives in this Hall, Representatives elected not by the machines, but by those who own them… Have the manufacturers asked for representation from their machines?  Their looms and factories have no vote in Congress…  Everybody knows  that where this type of machinery (slaves) exists there is liable to be more violence than elsewhere because the machinery sometimes exerts self-moving power.  Such a 
case (Nat Turner rebellion) has been exerted. 1836:  “The war in Texas is a Mexican civil war, and a war for the reestablishment of slavery where it was abolished.  It is a war between slavery and emancipation, and every effort has been made to drive us into the war on the side of slavery.  Do not you, slaveholding exterminators of Indians, from the bottoms of your souls,  hate the Mexican-Spaniard-Indian emancipator of slaves?  …And this is the nation with which, at the instigation of your executive government, you are now rushing into war – a war of conquest.” 1839: Proposing his own solution to the slavery issue:  “1.  From and after the 4th of July, 1842, there shall be, throughout the United States, no hereditary slavery; but on and after that day every child born within the United States, their territories or jurisdiction, shall be born free.  2. With the exception of the territory of Florida, there shall henceforth never be admitted into this Union any state, the constitution of which shall tolerate within the same the existence of slavery.  3.  From and after the 4th of July, 1845, there shall be neither slavery nor slave 
trade at the seat of the government of the United States (i.e. Washington, D.C.)” The House never voted on these resolutions.

Shayne Del Cohen

Adams as a Legislator As President, John Quincy Adams sought to modernize the American economy,  promote education and pay down the national debt. To preserve the separation of church and state he took the oath of office on a book of laws instead of the more traditional Bible.  Returning to Congress for seventeen years after his Presidency, he continued to be an active force of anti-slavery in the Congress until his death in 1848. Adams barraged the House with anti-slavery petitions, irritating the Speaker James Polk who ruled in 1835 that the petitions had to be received, but could then be rejected – a compromise that pleased no one.  Polk’s inability to control the House permitted Adams to link abolitionism  to the Constitutional right to petition and keep the debate alive, delighting in being “obnoxious to the slave faction.”  He said that he must “bring about a day prophesied when slavery and war shall be banished from the face of the earth.” John Q,  a bridge in many ways,  personally knew the Founding Fathers as well as Abraham Lincoln,  He knew the aversion to the slave trade issue resulted in “the great silence” from 1789-1809 and he was present when the Pickney Resolutions were passed,  May 26, 1836, resulting in another “great silence” through 1844.  The first resolution stated that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states; the second that it “ought not” do so in the District of Columbia. Known as the “gag rule” the third automatically “tabled” all anti-slavery petitions, preventing them from being read or discussed. Throughout this period, Adams’ “superior talent in using and abusing parliamentary rules” and skill in baiting his enemies into making mistakes, enabled him to evade the rule.

1838:  Pro-slaver ministers are “prevaricating with their own consciences, and taxing their learning and ingenuity to prove that the Bible sanctions slavery… These preachers of the Gospel might just as well call our extermination of the Indians an obedience to Divine commands because Jehovah commanded the children of Israel to exterminate the Canaanitish nations.” In 1842 Adams attempted to present a petition from Northern abolitionists calling for dissolution of the Union.  Southern congressmen branded the idea treason and attempted to have him censured by the House.  Censure was dropped when his defense went on so long and became popular with the nation. Adams predicted presidential use of war powers to free slaves.  He believed Southern independence would result in bloody slave revolts based on his understanding that a southern country could not be sustained if isolated.

Shayne Del Cohen

We interrupt this journey through Presidents and their pronouncements or status as slave holders to take a look at the western world at the time. Haiti had started the trend in the New World by abolishing slavery in 1817. In freeing itself from Spain and Spanish law, the Mexican Independence also abolished slavery in 1821, although not codified til later, starting with the 1824 Constitution. An 1833 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom abolished slavery throughout the British Empire (with some exceptions). Although France had abolished slavery with its 1789 Revolution, Napolean had restored it in its colonies. This put a great deal of stress in the northern parts of Mexico where American colonists were busy making cotton king.  This economy depended on free labor in order for the balance sheet to provide a profit. The colonists felt more aligned with US policy than that of Mexico and had been seeking (Mexican statehood) but when Santa Anna moved to assert more control over the area in 1835, they rebelled. “There is a considerable number of slaves in Texas who have been introduced by their masters under cover of certain questionable contracts, but who according to our laws should be free. Shall we permit those wretches to moan in chains any longer in a country whose kind laws protect the liberty of man without distinction of cast or color?” Santa Anna Most persons familiar with popular culture know the story of the Alamo, but they don’t often realize it was a fight for slavery.  The battle itself became romanticized and facts poorly documented. However it is known that the Mexicans released two dozen surviving women and children as well as James Bowie’s slave, Sam, and William Travis’ slave, Joe.  There were others, slaves, indentured servants and freedmen who did not survive.  There were substantial numbers of Afro-Americans in the San Antonio area, slaves as well as freedmen. The “Heroes of the Alamo” all had fascinating lives.  Bowie had profited buying smuggled slaves from the pirate Jean Lafitte on Galveston Island and then take the slaves to a customhouse to inform on himself.  Southern states allowed anyone who informed on a slave trader to receive half of what imported slaves would have earned at auction (protest against the 1808 cessation slave trading per the US Constitution).  Bowie would then buy them back, receive half of what he paid, and then legally transport and sell them in New Orleans and up the Mississippi. Even Davy Crockett, legislative champion for the poor on the land, was a slave owner, albeit the “under ten” average of the middle to lower-middle class farmers he represented. For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada.  This article is part of a series to be published during that time.  The first part of the series covers the Presidencies leading up to Lincoln in order to review national policy and experience leading to Emancipation. Please feel free to circulate and share (credited), comment or submit your own articles. osi.ourstoryinc@gmail.com     http://www.ourstoryinc.com Follow Us On  FaceBook  Twitter   LinkedIn YouTube

Shayne Del Cohen

It was during the presidency of Martin Van Buren (1841-45) that the land ultimately called Nevada began to experience travelers of European extraction. The first “American-born”, although English-as -a-second-language speaker, Martin Van Buren  was known as a great orator and political organizer.  He came to the presidency having been  a NY State Senator, NY Governor, US Senator, US Secretary of State and Vice President during Andrew Jackson’s second term. Van Buren inherited slaves.  Twenty years before he became president his only slave ran away.  When the slave was caught eight years later he offered him for sale.  His entire life was filled with slavery dichotomies. In 1821 during a convention to create a new constitution for New York that proposed forbidding free Blacks from voting, Van Buren fought that but approved a compromise that allowed only Blacks who possessed $250 to vote.   He said this “held out inducements to industry.”, despite the fact that free Blacks had been voting in NY for years. When he succeeded Henry Clay as Secretary of State, Van Buren allowed Charlotte Dupuy, a slave fighting her return to Clay’s Kentucky, to live in the Secretarial House as a wage earner while she pursued her case through the courts. In 1837:‘I must go into the Presidential chair the inflexible and  uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slaveholding States, and also with a determination equally  decided to resist the slightest interference with it in the States where it exists.’” “I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it.” The year of 1840 was pivotal.  Van Buren  ordered  a federal marshal to bring the Amistad prisoners to a Navy ship to be returned to their  Spanish (alleged) owners.  The courts ruled against Van Buren and, a year later, the prisoners (whose attorney had been John Q Adams) went free. He then got in trouble with the South for supporting his Navy secretary’s decision that Black witnesses could testify in a court martial, even though the alleged crime took place in North Carolina which forbid  such testimony. Vigorous opposition to the expansion of slavery cost him nomination for a second term. By 1848 Van Buren was the presidential nominee of the Free Soil Party, accepting a platform that called for keeping slavery out of the territories.  He announced that, if elected,  he would not veto a law that forbid slavery in the District of Columbia.

Shayne Del Cohen

William Henry Harrison had the shortest presidential term in office, dying a month after inauguration. His career, however reflects the various incarnations and dichotomies slavery could take for public figures. Harrison’s father and grandfather owned many slaves; he took seven of them to the Northwest Territory in 1800 where slavery was illegal. They then became indentured servants on terms, an action followed by many conflicted slave owners.   The average term for indenture was 10 years and many felt it undistinguishable from slavery as some terms ran to 90 years. Harrison purchased a runaway, freed him and kept him on as a servant for many years. Harrison was appointed Governor of “free soil” (no new slaves allowed) Indiana.  He attempted to have slavery legalized but had to continue with an 1805 act allowing slaveowners to convert (illegal) slaves to indentured servants.  Negroes under fifteen could be kept in service until 35; women until 32.  Offspring of such stayed in service until 30 (male) or  28 (female).   He led a convention that petitioned Congress to repeal the ban on slavery for 10 years.   Five years later he signed a bill to repeal the indenture law. By 1819  as an Ohio congressman  Harrison claimed to be against slavery, but  consistently voted against bills that would have kept slavery from spreading.  As an Ohio State Senator, he voted for a bill which allowed petty thieves (of any race) to be sold into a term of service if they were unable to pay their fines. In 1833 Harrison declared he was in favor of emancipation only if the slaves were sent back to Africa.  And in 1835 “Am I wrong, fellow-citizens, in applying the terms weak, presumptuous and unconstitutional, to the measures of the emancipators?    Some of the emancipators propose immediate abolition.  What is the proposition then, as it regards the states and parts of states (where Blacks are in the majority) but the alternatives of amalgamation with the blacks, or an exchange of situations with them?  Is there any man of common sense who does not believe that the emancipated blacks, being a majority, will not insist upon a full participation of political rights with the whites; and when possessed of these, they will not contend for a full share of social rights also?” By 1836  presidential candidate Harrison declared that Congress had no power to eliminate slavery in the states or the District of Columbia. Again a candidate in 1840 Harrison swore he had never been an abolitionist and that the organization he had joined at age 17 was simply a “humane society.” Wm Harry Harrison died March 4, 1841 just as the first organized wagon train embarked across Nevada.

Shayne Del Cohen

James Knox Polk was a slaveholder for his entire life. He became an absentee cotton planter, sending slaves to clear plantation land that his father had left him in Tennessee, later buying a cotton plantation in Mississippi which he ran for the rest of his life.  Polk rarely sold slaves, although as President could better afford it, and bought more. Polk’s will stipulated that their slaves were to be freed after his wife Sarah had died but the Emancipation Proclamation and the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution freed all remaining slaves in rebel states long before her death in 1891. 1826: “ When this country became free and independent, this species of population (slaves) was found amongst us.  It had been entailed upon us by our ancestors, and was viewed as a common evil; not confined to the locality where it was, but affecting the whole nation.  Some of the States which then possessed it have since gotten clear of it: they were a species of property that differed from all other: they were rational; they were human beings.” 1838:  “The Abolitionists (are) fanatical and wicked agitators.” Polk had focused goals for a one-term Presidency: Reestablish the Independent Treasury System. Reduce tariffs. Acquire some or all of Oregon Country. Acquire California and New Mexico from Mexico. By linking acquisition of new lands in Oregon (with no slavery) and Texas (with slavery), he hoped to satisfy both North and South. The Bear Flag Rebellion helped fan Polk’s complete embrace of Manifest Destiny; his attention on California was his interest in San Francisco Bay as an access point for Asian trade. His envoy John Slidell was rebuffed in attempt to buy Mexican territory, causing Polk to remark that this slight was “ample cause of war”. He also sent Romulous Saunders to purchase Cuba from Spain.  Cuba had slavery, thereby was attractive to the South but not the North.  Spain, however, was making huge profits from sugar, molasses, rum and tobacco, so rejected the overture. “The agitation of the slavery question is mischievous and wicked, and proceeds from no  patriotic motive by its authors.  It is a mere political question on which demagogues and ambitious  politicians hope to promote their own prospects for political promotion.  And this they seem willing to  do even at the hazard of disturbing the harmony if not dissolving the Union itself.” 1848 Against a rapidly changing landscape, the empire builders started the politics that would lead to the creation of Nevada.  One of Polk’s last acts as President was to sign the bill creating the Department of the Interior (3.3.49), also known as the “Department of Everything Else” which also would have major impact on what became Nevada.

Shayne Del Cohen

The last president to own slaves while in office was the twelfth, Zachary Taylor.  A military hero, Taylor was the compromise Whig candidate who only served sixteen months of his presidency due to cholera contracted from a bowl of cherries and chilled milk. Taylor became President at the end of the 1840’s, often characterized as the actualization of Manifest Destiny.  While he did not believe in extension of slavery to the new territories, Taylor firmly supported the right of each state to determine their own future. 1847:  “I too have been all my life industrious and frugal, and that the fruits thereof are mainly invested in slaves, of  whom I own three hundred.” 1847: “The moment (the abolitionists) go beyond the point where resistance becomes right and proper, let the  South act promptly, boldly and decisively with arms in their hands, if necessary, as the Union in that case will be  blown to atoms, or will be no longer worth preserving.” 1847:  “So far as slavery is concerned, we of the south must throw ourselves on the constitution and defend our  rights under it to the last, and when arguments will no longer suffice, we will appeal to the sword, if necessary.” Texas, having become a Republic, was claiming vast areas of the West.  The Gold Rush was on.  The Mormons were developing the State of Deseret.  It was not a quiet time Taylor viewed the West as an inappropriate place to cultivate sugar and cotton, thus not lending itself to a plantation economy.  He encouraged New Mexico and California to apply for statehood, bypassing a Territorial phase, believing these states would not adopt slavery, despite the fact that there was a “southern movement” in Southern California. Taylor’s unexpected death enabled legislators Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas and others to negotiate, finesse and legislate the Compromise of 1850. Skillfully breaking many of the controversies of the day into five separate bills, the final September outcome set the stage for the next decade: –  California  admitted  as an undivided “free” state thwarting Southern expansion to the   Pacific Texas surrendered claims to New Mexico and lands north of Missouri Compromise Line,   transferred its crushing public debt to federal government and kept the Panhandle –  New Mexico and Deseret denied statehood, becoming Territories with slavery left to popular  sovereignty  – avoidance of secession/civil war over the issue of what to do with lands acquired during     the Mexican American War South avoided adoption of Wilmot Proviso –  Southern gained a stronger Fugitive Slave Act,  and preservation of slavery in the national capital. Slave trade was banned in Washington D.C. – Land that was to become Nevada was formally under the jurisdiction of the United States.

Shayne Del Cohen

Millard Filmore succeeded unexpectedly to the Presidency, prior NY State office, eight years in Congress, and as Comptroller of New York from which he was nominated to become the Vice-President,  served him as he presided over the Senate during the debates of the Compromise of 1850.  When Taylor’s Cabinet resigned,  Fillmore appointed Daniel Webster Secretary of State, intimating alliance with the moderate Whigs who favored the Compromise.

His August 6, 1850, message to Congress recommending Texas be paid to abandon her claims to part of New Mexico helped Whigs give up their insistence on the Wilmot Proviso. California was admitted as a free state; the critical questions averted and submerged for another decade. 1838:  After nominated to Congress, an abolitionist group sent the following  questions:  “Do you believe that petitions to congress…on slavery and the slave trade, ought to be  received…and…considered?  Are you opposed to the annexation of Texas…?  Are you in favor of  congress (abolishing) the…slave trade between the states?  Are you in favor of immediate… abolition of  slavery in the District of Columbia?”  Fillmore supposedly shouted “The Philistines are upon us,” but to all  questions answered: “Yes.” 1846: (The Mexican War) a “wild and wicked scheme of foreign conquest” to add “another slave  territory to the United States.”  ……while the North had the majority, “the South has managed to have  the Speaker of the House about two-thirds of the time, and the Presidency about two-thirds of the time…I cast no  imputations upon the South for this, but ask: Shall we submit to our servile condition?” 1850:  Signing Fugitive Slave Act with the warning he would use federal troops to enforce it:  “God  knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it, and  give it such protection as is guaranteed by the constitution, till we can get rid of it without destroying the last hope of  free government in the world.” 1852:  Left out last state-of-the-union message, Fillmore predicted that within a century the population, White and  Black,  would overwhelm the land.  “It will give birth to a conflict of races with all the lamentable  consequences which must  characterize such a strife…  The terrific scenes of St. Domingo (Haiti slave rebellion) are sooner or  later to be re-enacted here, unless something be done to avert it.” “If emigration could take place at the rate of 100,000 per annum, that would not  only prevent the increase of the slave population, but constantly  diminish it, and at last…wipe it out entirely.”   (At that time Asian labor was proposed to replace the slave labor force.) Critical to  the evolving Nevada saga,  Fillmore appointed Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah Territory.

Shayne Del Cohen

Franklin Pierce was a “dough boy”, a Northerner supporting the Southern position on slavery.     A former New Hampshire legislator, Mexican War officer, and close friend of  Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, Pierce was the compromise candidate on the 48th ballot of the 1852 Democratic Convention He vigorously enforced the Fugitive Slave Act and oversaw the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, negating the Missouri Compromise.  Outrage, threats and passions inspired by admitting Kansas as a slave state caused Pierce to hire a full-time bodyguard – the first president to do so. 1835:  (In New Hampshire,  “not one in a hundred (voters) who does not entertain the most sacred  regard for the rights of their Southern (slaveowning) brethren – nay not one in five hundred who would not have  those rights protected at any and every hazard.  There is not the slightest disposition to interfere with any rights  secured by the constitution.”  1838:  “Would any man  here abridge the liberty of speech, or assail the freedom of the press?  I think not…  I  oppose the Abolitionists, for the very reason that I entertain a sacred regard for these in common with all other rights  secured by the Constitution…  the citizen of New Hampshire is no more responsible, morally or politically for the  existence and continuance of this domestic institution (Slavery) in Virginia or Maryland, than he would be  for the existence of any similar institutions in France or Persia.  Why?  Because these are matters over which the  States…retained the sole and exclusive control, and for which they are alone responsible…  It is admitted that  domestic slavery exists here (Washington, DC) in its mildest form.  That part of the population are bound together  by friendship and the nearer relations of life.  They are attached to the families in which they have  lived from childhood.  They are comfortably provided for, and apparently contented.” 1853: “I believe that involuntary servitude as it exists in different states of this Confederacy, is recognized by the  constitution.  I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the states where it exists are  entitled to  efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions….  I fervently hope that the question is at test, and that no  sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our  institutions.”  (inaugural address) 1855:  “If the passionate rage of fanaticism and partisan spirit did not force the fact upon our attention, it would be  difficult to believe that any considerable portion of the people of this enlightened country could have so  surrendered  themselves to a fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States to  totally abandon and disregard the interests of 25,000,000 Americans.” (3.6 million slaves, 1850 census)

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James Buchanan, US Congressman, US Senator, former Secretary of State, was another “doughface”.  From Federalist to Democrat, he was the winner of a three way presidential election between himself, Millard Fillmore and John C. Fremont. Two days after his inauguration the the southern majority Supreme Court asserted in its Dred Scott Decision that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the Territories, thus invalidating the Missouri Compromise and leading to escalation in “Bleeding Kansas”, a territory with two proposed state constitutions, the pro-slavery “Lecompton” and the abolitionist “Topeka”. Throwing administrative support behind Lecompton, Buchanan further alienated his party; Stephen Douglas emerged the leader and the next Democratic presidential candidate facing Abraham Lincoln. 1826: “I believe (slavery) to be a great political and a great moral evil.  I thank God, my lot has been cast  in a State  where it does not exist.  But, while I entertain these opinions, I know it is an evil at present without a  remedy.  It has been a curse entailed upon us by that nation which now makes us a subject of reproach to our  institutions.  It is, however, one of those moral evils, from which it is impossible for us to escape, without the  introduction of evils infinitely greater.  There are portions of this Union, in which, if you emancipate your slaves, they  will become masters.  There can be no middle course.  Is there any man in this Union who could, for a  moment, indulge in the horrible idea of abolishing slavery by the massacre of the high-minded, and the chivalrous race of men in the South?” 1836:  “The natural tendency of their publications is to produce dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves, and to  incite their wild passions to vengeance…  Many a mother clasps her infant to her bosom when she retires to rest,  under dreadful apprehensions that she may be aroused from her slumbers by the savage yells of the slaves by whom  she is surrounded.  These are the works of the abolitionists.” 1837:  “When the States became parties to the federal compact, they entered into a solemn agreement that property  in slaves should be as inviolable as any other property.  Whilst the Constitution endures no human power, except that  of the State within which slavery exists, has any right to interfere with the question..” 1852:  “History teaches us that but for the provision in favor of the restoration of fugitive slaves, our present  Constitution would never have existed.   Think ye that the South will ever tamely surrender the Fugitive  Slave Law to Northern fanatics and Abolitionists?” 1860:  “The immediate peril arises… from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question  throughout the North, for the last quarter of a century, has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves, and  inspired them with vague notions of freedom.”

Shayne Del Cohen

In 1847 the Mormon Pioneers entered what would be called Utah Territory with freedmen and a slave. As Church founder, Joseph Smith had condemned slavery, oversaw the baptism of Ezekial Roberts, the first black man to be given the priesthood in the LDS Church, and had run for President of the US in 1844 on an anti-slavery platform :“[We] hold[s] these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;…but at the same time some two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life, because the spirit in them is covered with a darker skin than ours.”……He also proposed the sale of public lands to pay for the release of every slave and to abolish slavery by 1850. Killed in Missouri before the exodus to Deseret, Smith was succeeded by Brigham Young who had a more checkered history. With the Compromise of 1850, Utah Territory was created with its western border at the now Nevada-California line and given the privilege of organizing Territorial government. Church President Brigham Young was appointed Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In a speech to the Joint Session of the Legislature in February, 1852, Young stated, “The moment we consent to mingle with the seed of Cain, the Church must go to destruction–we should receive the curse which has been placed upon the seed of Cain, and never more be numbered with the children of Adam who are heirs to the Priesthood until that curse be removed.” The Legislature made slavery legal that year with several “unique” provisions including termination of the owners contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant “of the African race,” neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abuse a servant, or attempt to take him from the territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty. The State of Deseret subsequently amended its Constitution to eliminate the words “free, white, male” from voting requirements in 1867 but theoretically, the law for the Nevada land that was originally part of Utah Territory was slavery from 1852-1861. Young never recognized the priesthood of the blacks ordained by Smith. Persecution of the Mormon state caused Young to declare martial law on September 15, 1857, further weakening Utahʼs ability to control the Eastern Sierra region. By 1860, the Utah Census listed 50 blacks, 29 of whom were listed as slaves. For “Nevada Territory” (not yet officially declared), the census lists 16 freedman, 2 mulatto women and one slave in Genoa, T.J. Singleton. For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada.

This article is part of a series that will be published during that time. Please feel free to circulate and share (credited), comment or submit your own articles. osi.ourstoryinc@gmail.com http://www.ourstoryinc.com

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Two Former Slaves Impact Nevada Territory Manumitted by his father, Sir Jennings Beckwith, after four years in a St. Louis school and an unsuccessful four-year apprenticeship to a blacksmith, James Beckwourth (b. April 6, 1798) joined Gen. William Ashley’s fur trapping company as a wrangler on expedition to explore the Rocky Mountains. Within a few years, Beckwourth became known as a prominent trapper, mountain man, Indian fighter and storyteller. He worked with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and lived with the Crow for eight or nine years. Another decade plus saw more adventure, trading and soldiering; Beckwourth joined the Gold Rush emigration to California. After stints as a store owner (Sonoma) and professional card player (Sacramento), Beckwourth is credited with discovering “Beckwourth Pass” in 1850. He improved the path which started near Pyramid Lake, climbed the mountain, rode the ridge between two forks of the Feather River and came into the gold fields at Marysville, being safer and having less steep grades than the Donner Trail. His ranch/trading post/hotel on the trail were the start of the Beckwourth settlement. Over 10,000 travelers and many persons who contributed to the evolution of both California and Nevada received assistance from Jim Beckwourth. Ben Palmer, born into slavery in South Carolina around 1817, and his sister, Charlotte (married to white D.H. Barber) were among first settlers in the Carson Valley. Originally bound from Missouri to California, reaching the well-watered Carson Valley, they decided to adjust their flight, settle and raise cattle to sell to other emigrants on the California Trail. Palmer and Barber made side by side land claims of 320 acres and 400 acres on the west side of Carson Valley in 1853. Ben Palmer claimed homestead water rights. He sold grazing rights to emigrants who took their livestock through the area and harvested grass to provide feed for those who crossed in early spring or late autumn. Palmer and Barber constructed ditches and dams to control area water. Famous for hospitality, the Palmer operation was widely known for quality of livestock and especially fine horses. Their home was often used as a lodging house for travelers and new settlers in the Carson Valley. By the 1860’s, illiterate Palmer had became one of the most successful ranchers in the area. The Territorial Enterprise, listed him as one of the largest taxpayers in Douglas County as did the Carson Valley News, eight years later in publishing a list of the 47 largest taxpayers. Later Palmer was listed again, as the 10th largest taxpayer with assessed real and personal property totaling $17,380, ahead of most prominent white landholders in Douglas County. He was included in a ranking that was topped by lumber companies and a railroad. He was partners with rancher, H. F. Dangberg, and the Genoa postmaster and surveyor, C. P. Young, in the Douglas Consolidated Mill and Mining Company. For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada.

This article is part of a series that will be published during that time. Please feel free to circulate and share (credited), comment or submit your own articles. osi.ourstoryinc@gmail.com

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Nevada in the Middle It has always been about commerce. In search of huge payoffs from trade with the Orient, Englishmen invested vast sums in Jamestown and other colonies often consuming major shares of capital available in London. England’s motivation in establishing colonies was commercial, in large part to find a river route through North America. Investor debates were heated disagreements on priorities: Establish a profitable plantation? Find a passage through the continent to the Orient? Secure cargoes of medicinal herbs? Seek out rumored mineral riches especially gold? … The idea of reaching China by cutting through the heart of North America was a powerful idea particularly inspired by a writer, Hayes, who proposed there must be great rivers in North America draining not only eastward into the Atlantic but also westward into the Pacific. Goods “could be transported overland between them by horses mules or ‘beasts of that country apt to labour’ such as elk or buffalo or ‘by the aid of many Savages accustomed to burdens; who shall stead us greatly in these affairs.” Colonization was a precursor to making a passage search; those at Jamestown were charged “you shall do your best endeavour to find out a safe port in the entrance of some navigable river making choice of such a one as runneth farthest into the land.’. … “ This passage-making premise was at the core of English designs on eastern North America. So when it came to Nevada Territory, the race was still on. Was there a navigable river? What was going to be the transcontinental route? Who would get contracts for wagon roads and mail delivery? Who would be able to garner the water and land to grow the crops that would feed transcontinental purveyors and the towns needed to support mines and that new technology, railroads? Would this be controlled by Salt Lake City (Mormons) or by San Francisco (eastern capitalists)? Thousands of stories and hours of entertainment can be derived from reading the debates, the maneuvers, the shenanigans, the personalities and human pathos that played this stage, making todayʼs socio-economic struggles tame and genteel. The lands of Nevada Territory did not appear to lend themselves to the cultivation of cotton or tobacco, thus negating the economic necessity of field slaves to make a profit. Anglo-American miners did not want competition from the slave-holders in the gold fields or subsequently, the Comstock, so the twenty year march toward statehood did not center around the question of slavery on a local level, despite the national turmoil. This, then, was a pivotal facet in Nevadaʼs eventual Constitutional proposal. For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada. This article is part of a series that will be published during that time. Please feel free to circulate and share (credited), comment or submit your own articles.

Shayne Del Cohen

Abraham Lincoln. Much has been written about his log cabin origins, two decades of which shaped his world. His immediate family owned no slaves, but extended family did. Growing up in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, Lincolnʼs physical world included few slaves and freedman, so the question of one man owning another was more of a moral debate than family situation. The macro world was in transition, emerging from an agricultural economy to that of an industrial one. The term “slave wage”, already in use, was couched in the observation that wage earners were not owned by their employer; they were free to “rent” their individual labor for exploitation or partnership with a capitalist who would apply that labor to raw goods (or land) to produce a final product for profit. The employer was not responsible for feeding, clothing, or sheltering the wage employee, thus the beginning emergence of unions which addressed the resultant working and living conditions. In the observation of some, persons could sell themselves into slavery. Without real property, heretofore the means to wealth and the basis of civil rights (ability to vote and run for office), all women and a sizable number of white males were not enjoying the “fruits of liberty” as espoused in the United States Constitution. The Lowell Mill Girls labor protests in 1836 used and bandied the term “wage slave”. Lincoln’s world, however, was that of the old Northwest Territories, wherein the 1787 Ordinance prohibited slavery but through which fugitive slaves were still pursued. Increasingly, the lands were settled by southerners moving north, bringing their institutions and customs with them. New state constitutions banned the introduction of slavery but did not free those already there. Indentured servitude was allowed. Voting and public education were denied to blacks. Continuing US acquisition of continental lands during Lincolnʼs first half century gave many the hope they could attain wealth and prosperity based on understanding of the agricultural age from whence they came. For those that understood the coming Industrial Age, the acquisition of new lands was key for tying together two coasts over which to distribute and vend new products..Lincoln, himself, left the land, becoming a lawyer. His income, and then his politics, were based on ideas – legal theory, precedence and philosophy, not labor. His marriage represented a tie to landed gentry and wealth. A man of his times, he was caught midst unresolved conundrums. Slave trade was pretty much abolished; the ownership of another human was not. Stasis achieved by the founding fathers in 1789, the Compromises of 1820 and 1850 was unravelling with additions of new territories aspiring to Statehood. Would federal policy or state legislatures determine the outcome? For the years 2012-2013, Our Story, Inc. will be be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Project and its legacy in Nevada.

Shayne Del Cohen