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Indiana Historical Collections
Volume XI
Biographical Series
Volume I
Copyright, 1923 By
The Indiana Historical Commission
INDIANAPOLIS:
WM. B- RUBFORD- CONTRACTOR FOR STATE PRINTING AND BINDING
1923
Indiana Biographical Series
Volume I
r
GEORGE W. JULIAN
3 By
crx
Grace Julian Clarke
\
With an Introduction By
William Dudley Foulke
>
Published by the
Indiana Historical Commission Indianapolis
1923
ET4IS
.1
.OVCs
INDIANA HISTORICAL COMMISSION
Gov. Warren T. McCray, President Samuel M. Foster, Vice-President Harlow Lindley, Secretary
James A. Woodburn Charles W. Moores Lew M. O’Bannon
Matthew J. Walsh
Mrs. John N. Carey
Kate Milner Rabb
John W. Oliver, Ph. D., Director Lucy M. Elliott, Assistant Director
C1A7G0705
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m ? 1923 .
“For this was all thy care —
To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds Judged thee perverse.”
John Milton — Paradise Lost, Book VI
“All honor to Jefferson, to the man who in the concrete struggle for national independence by a single people had the coolness, forecast and capac¬ ity to introduce into a purely revolutionary docu¬ ment an abstract truth applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that today and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappear¬ ing tyranny and depotism.”
Abraham Lincoln in letter to Henry L.
Pierce, April 6, 1859
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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
With this volume the Indiana Historical Com¬ mission begins a new series of publications : “The Biographical Series of Noted Indianans.” Bi¬ ographical studies are always interesting, not alone because of their human flavor and personal appeal, but also because of their special value in explaining the causes for pursuing a certain line of action. And in a state like Indiana, long known as one of the ‘pivotal states’ in national political campaigns, and where political leadership counts for so much, biographical studies possess an interest beyond the ordinary.
The Indiana Historical Commission is glad to begin this new series of publications with the Life of George W. Julian , one of our state’s really great men, written by his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke. A man of Julian’s temperament, high ideals, and uncompromising attitude on questions of moral righteousness, requires the sympathetic pen of one who knew him as only a daughter could have known him properly to portray his career. However, in preparing this volume Mrs. Clarke has not permitted any personal bias or family pride to enter into her work. In fact she has in certain pages assumed the role of a critic in passing judgment upon some of her father’s acts. But running through the entire volume is found that just and sympathetic interpretation
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GEORGE W. JULIAN
7
which characterizes a successful biographical study.
In preparing this biography Mrs. Clarke had access to the invaluable collection of Julian's letters, his Unpublished Autobiography, his per¬ sonal “Journal”, and a “Scrap-book” of newspaper clippings kept by Julian. Also she has drawn largely upon his volumes of Speeches on Political Questions, Political Recollections, and Later Speeches. Mrs. Clarke had the additional advan¬ tage of having been the intimate companion and secretary of her father during the last years of his life. It was during this period, one given over largely to sober reflection and reminiscences, that Julian gave expression to the views he had enter¬ tained on the great issues for which he had battled during his long and eventful life.
John W. Oliver, Director Indiana Historical Commission
State House Indianapolis, Ind.
April, 1923
CONTENTS
4
Page
Chapter 1 . 21
Ancestry and Early Life.
Chapter II . 43
First Flights — Begins Practice of Law — Marriage — Elected to Legislature.
CHAPTER III . 69
'/feeligious Perplexities — V Politics — Buffalo Convention — Campaign of 1848 — Persecu¬ tion — Dissolution of Law Partnership — Letters to Giddings.
Chapter IV . 85
Elected to Thirty-first Congress — Washing¬ ton in 1850 — Social Ostracism of Free Soilers — Contest fox Speaker — William J. Brown Episode— 'rf'he Compromise— First Speech in Congress—1 Letter from Sumner — Speech on the ‘Healing Measure’ — Visit to New England — The Homestead Bill — International Peace.
Chapter V . 117
Defeated for Re-nomination to Congress — Oliver P. Morton — ‘Carrying On’ — Tem¬ perance — Free Soil National Convention,
1852 — Nominated for Vice-President — Incidents of the Campaign — “The State of Political Parties.”
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GEORGE W. JULIAN
9
Page
Chapter VI . 143
Professional and Home Life — Throat Cut in Court — Fugitive/ Slave Cases-^Kansas- Nebraska Bill-^fulian Fights It — Cam¬ paign of 1854 — Opposes Know Nothing Movement — Speeches in Cincinnati and Indianapolis-vdCetter from Giddings.
Chapter/ VII . 167
/Anti-slavery Progress Slow — Pittsburgh Convention — Julian’s Political Independ- ence-^Friendship of Chase— >-Some Letters — Election of Buchanan — The Western Pres¬ age — Speech at Raysville.
Chapter VIII . 189
Another Fugitive Slave Case — Politics — Anti-slavery Missionary Efforts — “Mental Faithfulness” — Reading — Rev. Daniel Worth — Nominated for Congress 1860 — Interesting Letters — Death of Anne E.
J ulian — Spiritualism .
Chapter IX . y . 210
Visits Lincoln^ietter from Chase — Office Seekers — Inauguratioi^-of Lincoln — Thirty- seventh Congress— ^Julian’s Radicalism — Fremont’s Proclamation August 30, 1861 — Committee on Conduct of the War — Speeches — Letter from Lydia Maria Child.
Chapter X . 242
Politics — Second Marriage — Movement to
10 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Page
Nominate Chase — Lands of the Rebels —
Speech on Radicalism and Conservatism.
Chapter XI . 268
Land Matters — Death of Lincoln — The New President — Speech on Reconstruction — Attack by Meredith.
Chapter XII . 298
Soldier’s Bonus — Land Bill — Eight Hour Bill — Reconstruction — Loss of Patronage — Redistricting — Johnson Impeachment Trial — Land Matters — The Bonus Again —
Woman Suffrage Amendment.
Chapter XIII . 320
Election of Grant — Broken Health — Rail¬ way Land Grants — Retirement.
Chapter XIV . 346
Julian in the Campaign of 1872 — Rockville Speech — Removal to Irvington — Campaign of 1876 — The Louisiana Returning Board.
Chapter XV . 375
Articles for the Reviews — Campaign of 1880 — Political Recollections — Death of Laura Giddings Julian — Election of Cleveland — Surveyor General of New Mexico.
Chapter XVI . 397
New Mexico — Spanish and Mexican Land Grants — Makes Enemies — Opposition to Confirmation — Plan for Settling Titles —
GEORGE W. JULIAN
11
Page
Speech in Behalf of Cleveland — Horne Again — Life of Giddings — Campaign of 1892 — Sonnet by Isaac Hoover Julian —
Last Speech — Latest Activities — Death — Funeral.
Chapter- XVII . 422
Newspaper Estimates — Personal Traits.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
1. Birthplace of George W. Julian . . 21
2. George W. Julian, age twenty-eight . 61
3. Julian, age fifty . 307
4. Julian, age seventy-seven . 413
INTRODUCTION
By
William Dudley Foulke
The leaders of great movements that change the face of the world are of two kinds, quite different in character but both absolutely necessary for the work; one is the pioneer, who originates these movements or espouses them in their earliest stages and propagates them through the commun¬ ity ; the other is the political statesman, who takes them up later and modifies them so as to adapt them to existing conditions and embodies their results in institutions of government.
In the great struggle for the elimination of slav¬ ery Indiana has produced two such leaders, one of each kind, George W. Julian and Oliver P. Morton. They both came from Wayne County at the eastern edge of the State and they both at¬ tained their early development in the county seat, the little village of Centerville. They were essen¬ tially different, and were even antipathetic in their conduct and their modes of thought. They were likened to “two great lions that could not live in the same forest”, but in spite of their differences the results they obtained in the development of the great principle that America should no longer be the home of slavery have been beyond calculation.
I wrote many years ago a biography of Oliver P. Morton; it is now my grateful task to write
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14 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
these few lines of introduction to the biography of George W. Julian, a man whom I revered for his fearless espousal of the cause of human rights at a time when this involved calumny, obloquy and personal disaster, and a man whom I greatly loved in later years during the declining days of his life.
George W. Julian was essentially the pioneer; not merely that he was born in a pioneer’s cabin in the early days of Indiana and lived during his youth and early manhood in a pioneer community sometimes as a rustic schoolmaster bringing to order the bullies of his school, then acting as rod- man in surveying the land for early public works, and afterwards as a lawyer in his rural town; but he was also a spiritual pioneer to that com¬ munity itself as well as to the wider world, lead¬ ing his fellow citizens along the pathways of lib¬ eral thought, of “truth against orthodoxy”, and of political independence rather than blind party al¬ legiance. He was one of the early protagonists for human rights, the right of women to equal suffrage, the right of the naturalized citizen as opposed to the bigotry of Know Nothingism, and most of all the right of the negro to his freedom.
Like a number of others who were leaders in this struggle for liberty, he came from an ancestry composite in its character — French, English, Scotch, Spanish and German — excellant ingredi¬ ents for that best output of the melting pot, the genuine American. From the Huguenot Rene St.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
15
Julien who left France on the occasion of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and fought under William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne, he received that spirit of resistance to oppression which characterized his life. This was united with the sturdiness of the German and tempered with the liberalism of his immediate Quaker progenitors. Such an inheritance, to¬ gether with his surroundings in the early days when Indiana was a forest and the home of his widowed mother was exposed to the hostile in¬ cursions of the savages, was well calculated to produce the character, intrepid and uncompro¬ mising, of a devoted lover of liberty. And so it was. As soon as the evils of negro slavery were fully presented to him he was willing to renounce all, professional advantages, including a lucrative partnership and valuable clients, and to incur social ostracism, the opprobrium of the communi¬ ty in which he lived and afterwards (when he went to Congress) the bitter denunciation and contempt of the slave holding oligarchy in that body, in behalf of those human rights which he held fundamental and more essential to mankind than any law, creed or compromise which denied them.
I can feel thrilling through my own veins today that same indignant repudiation of time-serving concessions to expediency such as were demanded of those who resisted the domination of the slave power in the early fifties and are still demanded
16 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
for the support of party platforms and candidates at the hands of those who know that they are unworthy. Though I realize most fully that the advances of the world must be made through com¬ promise and by the curtailment of high ideals in their application to practical necessities, yet I cannot withhold the highest honor from a man who maintained these ideals in the face of a world which repudiated them, who stood firm in what seemed to his contemporaries a hopeless cause but one which has been more than justified by the verdict of posterity. Such a man was George W. Julian. Not only Indiana, but America and all the world has been the better for his apostolate.
WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE
Richmond, Ind.
May, 1923
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
While writing his illuminating biography of Fleeming Jenkin, Robert Louis Stevenson record¬ ed in a private letter his pleasure in digging into the past of a dead friend and finding him “at every spade-full shine brighter”. So it has been a peculiar satisfaction as I have studied the career of my father to see the picture of the man whose daily companion I was in his declining years, happily rounded out and filled in by a survey of his youth and active manhood. His character had not the complexities that sometimes puzzle the student; indeed it was so transparent that one could not be with him long or frequently without understanding its mainsprings. To be sure, I have been a little surprised at the severity of some of his earlier utterances; for a certain judi¬ cial quality, a tone of moderation and restraint, characterized his last years. But one must bear in mind the very different situations presented. It is said that every man has his block given him and that the figure he cuts must depend to a great extent on the shape of that, on the knots and twists that existed in it from the beginning. To a man of his nature there was no alternative in dealing with a great evil but to be “as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice”.
He once said to me that but for the question of human slavery and his service in helping to bring
2—24142
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18 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
about its overthrow his life would not seem to have been worth while, a remark which shows that he only partially envisaged the situation. It is true that slavery was the transcendent abomi¬ nation of his time, and in entering the lists against it and never wavering until its final extinction he displayed a singleness of purpose and a steadfast¬ ness to principle that were alike admirable and effective. But if there had been no slavery, and if no other great issue had challenged his atten¬ tion (an almost impossible hypothesis) yet a per¬ sonality so unique, so pleasing a combination of tenderness and belligerence, of mind and heart, of seriousness and mirth, a character so simple, straightforward and companionable withal, must have been its own sufficient excuse for being. But because he regarded his anti-slavery crusade as the vital and dominant fact of his career I have thought it wise to confine my narrative chiefly to this, only lightly touching on the more personal side.
The world is so full of books, and every angle of the struggle against slavery is so sure to be set forth, as well as every actor involved, that the deciding factor in venturing upon this brief chron¬ icle is my conviction that it possesses another and compelling claim to attention, and a timeliness too, in the lesson it embodies of the duty of independ¬ ent judgment, particularly in regard to public questions, of fidelity to principle even though one forfeit by such action fellowship greatly prized.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
19
It is this attribute, so marked and dominant as to partake of the nature of a quality, or essential property, that gives to his career a unique impor¬ tance.
Carlyle declares that history is connected bi¬ ography. Certainly the history of Indiana would not be complete without some account of this anti¬ slavery Congressman, this political free-lance who played a conspicuous and influential part in a struggle that now seems almost as remote as our Revolutionary War, so foreign were its under¬ lying motives from those that control society today.
Soon after removing to Irvington my father prepared an autobiography, not for publication (this he expressly stipulated) but as a memorial for his children. He declared that his life had been too uneventful and that his account of it abounded in too many details to interest the pub¬ lic. “And yet”, he added, “I do not disguise the fact that it interests me profoundly. Notwith¬ standing its many ills I have clung to it as a priceless possession and crowded into it the sin- cerest endeavors to make it honorable and worthy. Whether regarded as the prelude to another and an endless existence or as the fleeting boon of a few short years, it is to me an unspeakably momentous fact. ‘What has been the object of so much partiality’ says a thoughtful writer, ‘and has been delighted and pained by so many emo¬ tions, might claim, even if the highest interest
20 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
were out of the question, that a short memorial should be retained by him who has possessed it, has seen it all to this moment depart, and can never recall it\ In this spirit I have written, fully resolved that those who are to follow me shall not grope in the dark as to my character and work as I have been obliged to do respecting my own ancestry/’
From this narrative, and from the Journals that were the basis for it I have drawn the chief facts of the story here presented, in some cases using his own words and expressions. I have also consulted his two volumes of Speeches , Po¬ litical Recollections , Life of Giddings and many other volumes, besides old letter hies dating as far back as 1836. I have made no effort to recover my father’s letters addressed to others except in the case of Joshua R. Giddings.
Acknowledgments are gratefully made to the Hon. William Dudley Foulke of Richmond, Dr. James Albert Woodburn of Indiana University, and Prof. Harlow Lindley of Earlham College for encouragement and helpful suggestions. I am especially indebted to Dr. John W. Oliver, Di¬ rector of the Indiana Historical Commission, for aid in verifying statements and references and for valued counsel.
G. J. C.
Irvington,
April, 1923
Birthplace of George W. Julian, one mile and a half southwest of Centerville, Indiana.
CHAPTER 1
Ancestry and Early Life
In the afternoon of May 5, 1817, a wayfarer journeying on horseback along a rough road that was scarcely more than a bridle-path, about a mile and a half southwest of Centerville, Wayne County, Indiana, halted before the cabin of Isaac Julian, pioneer justice of the peace, and was greeted by the latter with an invitation to come in and make the acquaintance of George Washing¬ ton. Many years later the traveller in relating the incident told how on entering the two-story log house the admiring father held before him a lusty infant only a few hours old upon whom had already been bestowed the revered name of the Father of his Country. That it was a very young country is indicated by the fact that its father had been dead less than eighteen years, and In¬ diana, the sixth commonwealth to enter the orig¬ inal sisterhood of thirteen, had worn her State¬ hood honors not yet a twelvemonth. Jonathan Jen¬ nings, that redoubtable foe of slavery, who had taken the lead in preventing the legalization of the institution in Indiana,1 was governor of the
1. For a discussion of Jonathan Jennings’ stand against the extension of slavery into Indiana Territory, see Dunn’s Indiana and Indianans, Vol. I, pp. 248-249, 304 ; Dunn’s Indiana, pp. 389, 390, 409, 419 ; Journal of Indiana House of Representatives, First Session, pp. 10-11 ; a paper on Jonathan Jennings, by Governor Samuel M. Ralston, Third History Conference Proceedings, 1921, pp. 48, 49.
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22 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
new State, which contained only about 65,000 peo¬ ple, most of them residing along the Ohio river, on the lower Wabash and in the Whitewater valley.
It was indeed a primitive society irtto which this child had been born. Wayne County, which until 1810 had been a part of Dearborn County, then marked the northern boundary of civiliza¬ tion in this state. Only five years before, the cabin of Isaac Julian had been used as a block¬ house or fort in which the settlers gathered for protection against the Indians, and with the ex¬ ception of a few clearings the country was an unbroken wilderness, in which bears and other wild animals abounded. Wolves did much damage to livestock and the records show that for the year 1816 wolf claims in the county amounted to $84.00, the bounty being one dollar for each scalp.2 That men and women of gentle breeding and a degree of culture left comfortable homes farther east, establishing themselves and rearing families amid hardships and actual dangers that have never been adequately set forth, is eloquent testi¬ mony to the hardihood, patriotism and faith of the founders of these mid-western States. The fact that many of them, like the Julians, came hither in order to escape from the demoralizing influence of negro slavery only adds an element of moral principle to the situation.
George Washington Julian was an early prod-
2. Young’s History of Wayne County, p. 83.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
23
uct of the “melting-pot”, for in his veins flowed French, Spanish, Scotch and English blood on his father’s side, while his mother’s contribution so far as known was entirely German. Two an¬ cestors stand out in family annals with special vividness — a Frenchman and a German — and the impress of each was plainly distinguishable in the character under consideration. Curiously enough, both were soldiers by profession, and both emi¬ grated to this country to escape from autocracy and oppression.
Rene St. Julien, the founder of this branch of the family in the United States, was a native of Paris and a Huguenot who left France on the occasion of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and went to Holland, attaching himself to the fortunes of William of Orange. He accom¬ panied Prince William in his expedition to Eng¬ land in 1688 and for his services at the Battle of the Boyne two years later received from that monarch, now become King William III of Eng¬ land, “a grant of land beyond the Mississippi”. St. Julien at this time was upwards of forty years of age, but although he had grown weary of soldiering, the spirit of adventure was still strong within him. In his various rovings he had heard much of the New World, and the religious atmos¬ phere of France continuing to be inhospitable to men of his views he determined to seek his distant land-grant. Accordingly, probably early in the decade beginning with 1690, he set sail for Amer-
24 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
ica, tarrying a year on the Island of Bermuda, where he married Margaret Bulloch, a lady half Spanish and half Scotch, reputed to have been possessed of wealth and beauty. On reaching this country and learning that the Mississippi was far in the wilderness the idea of immediate occupancy of the land-grant was abandoned ; but Rene is said to have impressed upon his children that they were not to consider themselves permanently established until they reached the Mississippi. Of course all such claims were outlawed by the Revo¬ lutionary War. The St. Juliens first purchased an estate in Cecil County, Maryland, on the Chesa¬ peake Bay, but later settled near Winchester, Va., and their descendants are scattered over many states, especially in the South. Rene St. Julien is reputed to have been a giant in stature, with red hair, a quick temper and an indomitable will. It is also said that he was a Presbyterian of the strictest sort, and that he particularly disliked Quakers because of their testimonies against war and slavery. Whether he or his children made the change in the name is not known, but it has ever since been spelled Julian or Julien.
The Isaac Julien referred to in Irving’s Life of Washington 3 as residing near Winchester at the time of Braddock’s Defeat was a son of Rene who had married Barbara White, daughter of Dr. Robert White, a surgeon in the British navy, and Margaret Hoge White. Isaac and Barbara after-
3. Vol. I, Chap. XVIII, p. 216.
GEORGE W. JULIAN 25
wards removed to Randolph County, North Caro¬ lina, where a son of theirs, likewise named Isaac, married Sarah Long, a Quakeress, whose grand¬ father, Edward Long, [spelled Langue in his will] had accompained William Penn to America, prob¬ ably on the occasion of the latter’s second visit in 1699. Isaac and Sarah came to Indiana Ter¬ ritory in 1816, following their third son, the pio¬ neer Justice of the Peace who had settled here in 1808, and hither too came nine of their family of twelve children.4 Isaac Julien the second, like his grandfather Rene, was a man of strong con¬ victions, which he did not hesitate to make known, whether or not they coincided with the views of his associates. It is related that on one occasion, learning that the Friends at West Grove, Wayne County, had refused to allow some Dunkers to hold funeral services in their meeting-house, he saddled his mare, galloped to the scene, and after characterizing in fitting terms the proposed re¬ striction, he boldly assured the Dunkers that the meeting-house was at their disposal. Although without authority in the matter (he was not a member of the meeting) such was the effect of his commanding appearance, made more im¬ pressive by his advanced age, and in so great respect was he held, that the Quakers imme¬ diately dispersed and the funeral took place. The physical strength of the Julians was some-
4. The names of these were: Bohan, Tobias, Isaac, Zeruah, Ja¬ cob, Elizabeth, Rene, Shubal, Sarah, Elinor, Martha and Barbara, the last two being twins.
26 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
times a neighborhood asset, a fact which might be illustrated by numerous stories that have taken their place in local tradition. They are also noted for their sense of justice, love of reading, and longevity.
The other ancestor whose name is held in par¬ ticular honor by this branch of the Julian family was John Rudolph Waymire, a native of Hanover, who served under George II of Great Britain at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 and subsequently joined the forces of Frederick the Great of Prussia, becoming one of that famous regiment composed of men of great height and physical prowess.5 No land-grant lured him hither, nor did religious persecution play any part in his coming. Tradi¬ tion has it that Waymire, for distinguished serv¬ ices, had been made provisional governor of one of King Frederick’s conquered provinces, in which capacity he was commanded to perform an act that did not coincide with his conscientious scru¬ ples. He accordingly refused, giving his reasons, whereupon he was clapped into prison for a month. This confinement afforded time for re¬ flection on a number of subjects, and the erst¬ while governor emerged from bonds with the de¬ termination to migrate to the American colonies of His Britannic Majesty, which he had heard offered a degree of freedom and opportunity un¬ known elsewhere. Information of this resolve
5. According to one story he was one of King Frederick’s body¬ guard, no member of which was less than seven feet in height.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
27
reaching King Frederick, the unruly subject was at once remanded to jail for a much longer period, to cure him of his roving fancy. When again at large, Waymire appeared docile and content. He was, however, only biding his time, and with the help of faithful friends he at length escaped from Prussia, landing in Philadelphia in the year 1750 with his wife and two children, his father and two sisters, his mother having died on the voyage, which consumed more than six weeks.
John Rudolph Waymire was the father of fif¬ teen children, one of whom, Elizabeth, became the wife of Andrew Hoover, son of another German immigrant, likewise named Andrew, and a mem¬ ber of the Society of Friends, or Quakers.6 This young couple first established a home in Randolph County, North Carolina, coming later to Indiana Territory by way of Ohio and it was to their log cabin in Wayne County, on a bluff command¬ ing a beautiful view of the Whitewater Valley that Isaac Julian (the third) went a-wooing in the year 1809, the object of his suit being their daughter Rebecca. George treasured the memory of this grandmother, Elizabeth Waymire, and in his latest years used to recall affectionately her blue eyes, sunny face, and the musical tones of her voice, as she called to him, “Kom, Georg, kom zu hausen.” It is significant that the Hoovers, like the Julians, left the South because of slavery,
6. That Andrew Sr. wrote the name Huber appears from an old deed now in possession of his great-great-grandson, Andrew Hoover of Richmond, Ind.
28 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
that they too live to advanced age, and possess in an unusual degree the courage of their convic¬ tions. David Hoover, the oldest son of Andrew and Elizabeth, laid off the city of Richmond, now the Wayne county-seat, and gave it its name, he and his brother Henry being honorably conspic¬ uous in the early politics of Wayne County.7
Rebecca Hoover’s union with Isaac Julian was stoutly opposed by her father on the ground that the prospective bride-groom was not a “birthright Friend”, that is, one whose parents were both members of that Society at the time of his birth. As a result the marriage took place at Elkhorn, south of Richmond, at the home of Richard Rue, a justice of the peace who had been one of General George Rogers Clark’s soldiers and had lived for several years in captivity among the Indians. The strict but not implacable father soon forgave the young couple however, in token of which he pre¬ sented them with a beautiful service of pewter “dresser ware”, then much in vogue.
Isaac Julian, a man of scholarly tastes who ap¬ preciated the value of educational facilities in a new community, after assisting in clearing the land where Richmond now stands, taught the first school in the county during the winter of 1808- 1809. He served as a private in the War of 1812 in Capt. Enos Butler’s Company, eighth Regi-
7. Herbert Hoover, who gained world-wide renown for invaluable service during the World War of 1914-1918, is another descendant of the German immigrant, Andrew Hoover, Sr„ his great grandfather having been a first cousin of David, Frederick, Henry and Rebecca.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
29
ment, Indiana Militia, Col. George Hunt, Com¬ mander. He was commissioned a justice of the peace by both Governors Posey and Jennings, held the office of County Commissioner, and was one of the first trustees of the town of Centerville.8 In 1822 he was elected as a Whig to the Indiana Legislature, which met in Corydon, then the cap¬ ital of the State.9
Soon after his return from this legislative ses¬ sion, having become pecuniarily involved by sign¬ ing some notes for a friend on the eve of a finan¬ cial panic, he sold his pleasant farm, paid off the notes, and removed to the New Purchase,10 select¬ ing a site about eight miles from the present city of Lafayette, where prices were considerably lower than in the older settlements. First going alone on horseback to the chosen location, he erected a log house, and then returned to conduct thither his family. The journey was safely made by the father, mother and six children (one an infant of half a year) in a covered wagon;11 but
8. Young’s JJistory of Wayne County, p. 183.
9. A part of #iis salary he invested in a set of silver teaspoons marked “R. J.” which have descended to a great-granddaughter, a Rebecca of the present generation.
10. Secured from the Miami, Delaware and Pottawatamie Indians by treaties negotiated in October, 1818, Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass and Benjamin Parke being the purchasing agents for the State. It covered the central portion of Indiana and comprised about eight million acres.
11. The children of Isaac and Rebecca Hoover Julian were John M., b. 1811, d. 1834 ; Sarah, b. 1813, m. Jesse Holman (son of George Holman who with Richard Rue spent several years in captivity among the Indians), d. 1902; Jacob Burnet, b. 1815, m. Martha Bryan, prac¬ ticed law in Centerville and Indianapolis, was judge of the Marion
30 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
the projector of the enterprise, who had had a fever before setting out, suffered a relapse and died soon after their arrival, on December 12, 1823, in the cabin that was to have been their home, his age being forty-three years. His re¬ mains were placed in a rude coffin, hewn out of an oak, and buried on the bluff near by, the spot being afterwards marked by a headstone and an iron fence. With the kind assistance of a neigh¬ bor on the Wea plain, Abel Janney, Rebecca Julian and her children were enabled to return to Wayne County. This Good Samaritan, a total stranger up to that time, conducted the bereaved family through the unbroken wilderness, himself going alongside on his own horse. Many inter¬ esting tales in which friendly Indians and wild animals figure, date back to this expedition, which was attended with much suffering and hard¬ ship. Upon their arrival the widow and children were received with open arms by her brother Henry Hoover, whose hospitality they were glad to accept for the winter, and Abel Janney, de¬ clining all compensation for his services, left im¬ mediately on his return journey. They never saw him again. The knight-errantry of pioneer days has never been adequately celebrated, but from sundry side-lights such as this we recognize that
Circuit Court, d. 1898; George Washington, b. 1817, d. 1899; Eliza¬ beth, b. 1819, m. first Allison Willetts, second Andrew Beaty, d. 1889 ; Henry, b. 1821, d, 1823 ; and Isaac Hoover, b. 1823, m. Virginia Spil- lard, edited newspapers in Centerville and Richmond, Ind., and San Marcos, T«x., d. 1910.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
31
although it lacked the pomp and circumstance of chivalry’s earlier and more renowned exploits, it was not less admirable.
Rebecca Julian had saved one hundred and sixty-five dollars from the general wreck of her fortunes, with which a farm of fifty acres, three and one-half miles northwest of Centerville was purchased, where the battle of life proceeded. In order to pay for her children’s schooling, she did the washing and mending for the school-master, besides weaving and spinning for those who needed her services. The older children were em¬ ployed by neighboring farmers, while the younger ones supplemented their mother’s labors in the care of their own farm. Their fare was substantial, consisting almost entirely of corn-bread and milk. When milk failed, birch-bark or spice-brush tea was substituted, and on Sundays they indulged in the luxury of coffee and warm biscuits, to which were added maple molasses and chicken when they had a guest. They raised every year the flax which was spun and woven into linen for summer wear, a surplus being exchanged for “calico and other finery” for the girls, while their sheep sup¬ plied wool for winter garments. Sometimes on rainy days, after the necessary chores were at¬ tended to, the boys occupied themselves in making their own straw hats, which were not marked by a dull uniformity, but frequently expressed in¬ dividual taste and superior deftness.
In the evening, while the mother and daughters
32 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
were spinning, John used to entertain the family by reading aloud “The Brownie of Bodsbeck” , the poetry of Robert Burns, the speeches of Henry Clay and other public men, and by telling stories of ghosts and fairies. This oldest brother, who was destined to drop out of life at the age of twenty-three, exercised a lasting influence not only on the younger members of his own family,
but throughout the settlement, and fifty years
*
after his death aged men and women recalled with glowing faces his words and deeds. A school teacher at the age of sixteen, and his mother's special pride and hope, he was also a leader and exemplar in the little community, and George’s first lessons in democracy came from hearing John read from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and Rights of Man, while his abhorrence of negro slavery was early awakened by listening to Gar¬ rison’s Liberator and the poetry of Cowper as set forth by this enthusiastic young advocate. Their mother read to them regularly from the Bible, never omitting an opportunity to impress lessons of truthfulness, obedience and thrift, and to inspire them with worthy ambition.12
Rebecca Hoover Julian was a typical pioneer mother, facing the privations and responsibilities of life with courage and cheer. Her earnest face framed in its Quaker cap, looked out upon a world where a multitude of tasks waited to be per¬ formed, and a vigorous physical equipment ena-
12. Julian’s unpublished Autobiography.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
33
bled her to do her full share. Writing many years later with characteristic frankness and simplicity of those early days she said :
“The country around us was an entire wilder¬ ness, with here and there a small cabin contain¬ ing a small family. We were nearly all beginners at that time, and although we had to work almost day and night we were not discouraged.
“We were in fine spirits until the battle was fought at Tippecanoe by General Harrison and the Indians. After that, we lived in continual fear and passed many sleepless nights. Well do I recollect how I kept my head raised off my pillow in listening, expecting the savages to come and take our scalps. We had every reason to believe that such would be the case, as they were frequently to be seen scouting all around us. At length the time arrived when two men were sta¬ tioned at our fort for our protection. My husband also enlisted and served three months as a soldier, but was not called out from the fort. We were truly thankful that there was no fighting to be done, as we were then few in number and com¬ pletely in the power of the enemy. But it is evident they intended harming only such persons as they thought hostile to them. A young man by the name of Shortridge was killed by the In¬ dians about three miles from our fort. He had on at the time a portion of the dress of another man, who had made threats against them, and it is supposed they mistook him for the latter. In
3—24142
34 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
the spring following Charles Morgan and his two half-brothers were killed at their sugar camp, scalped, and one of them thrown into the fire. This happened about six miles from our residence. This was quite alarming; we knew not what to do ; we gathered ourselves in small groups in order to hold counsel. Finally we concluded to leave our homes ; which we did time after time for a space of two years. We were grateful indeed to see peace returning, so that we could again enjoy our homes.
“There were many and serious trials in the beginning of this country with those who settled amid the heavy timber, having nothing to depend on for a living but their own industry. Such was our situation. However, we were blessed with health and strength, and were able to accomplish all that was necessary to be done. Our husbands cleared the ground and assisted each other in rolling the logs. We often went with them on these occasions to assist in the way of cooking for the hands. We had first-rate times, just such as hard-working men and women can appreciate. We were not what would now be called fashion¬ able cooks: we had no pound-cakes, preserves or jellies, but the substantial, prepared in plain, honest, oldfashioned style. This is one reason why we were so blessed with health — we had none of your dainties, nick-nacks, and many fixings that are worse than nothing. There are many diseases that we never heard of thirty or forty
GEORGE W. JULIAN
35
years ago, such as dyspepsia, neuralgia, and many others too tedious to mention. It was not fashion¬ able at that time to be weakly. We could take our spinningwheels and walk two miles to a spin¬ ning frolic, do our day’s work, and after a first- rate supper join in some innocent amusement for the evening. We did not take very particular pains to keep our hands white: we knew they were made to use to our advantage; therefore we never thought of having hands just to look at. Each settler had to go and assist his neighbors ten or fifteen days or thereabouts, in order to get help again in log-rolling time — this was the only way to get assistance.
“I have thought proper to mention these mat¬ ters in order that people now may know what the first settlers had to undergo. We however did not complain half as much as people do now. Our diet was plain, our clothing we manufactured our¬ selves; we lived independent and were all on an equality. I look back to those by-gone days with great interest. Now how the scene has changed! Children of these same pioneers know nothing of hardships ; they are spoiled by indulgence and are generally planning ways and means to live with¬ out work.”13
George, at the age of seven or eight, happened to be a witness to a proposal of marriage received by his mother, who was only thirty-three at the
13. Letter of Rebecca Julian in Wayne County Journal, a news¬ paper published at Centerville by Hosea Elliott in 1854, reproduced in Young’s History of Wayne County, p. 66.
36 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
time of her husband’s death, and the impression of her dignified bearing and the seriousness of her face as she emphasized her refusal by re¬ ferring to the care of her children as the ruling purpose of her life, fixed itself indelibly in his memory and deepened his almost reverential love for her.
It was George’s custom to gather every year quantities of walnuts (as many as fifteen bushels one fall) the hulls of which were sold at Nathan Bond’s carding and fulling mill at six cents per bushel, the money being used to buy books and stationery. He was the marketman of the family, making regular trips to Centerville with butter, eggs, chickens, etc. to be exchanged for dry goods. He used to recount to his children how on these expeditions he carried his shoes tied together and swung over his shoulder “to save them”, stopping beside the roadway to put them on just before he entered town, in order to make a creditable ap¬ pearance, and how he used to roll up his trousers while at work, as high as he possibly could, for the purpose of keeping them clean, letting them down only when he went to the village or on some unusual occasion ; also, how he went “a-swimming” seventeen times in one day, which feat was followed by a protracted attack of ague. That boy nature is much the same in all genera¬ tions is shown by the fact that at the age of eight he fell into the popular vice of stealing water¬ melons, which he declared was not his only sin-
GEORGE W. JULIAN
37
ful accomplishment, for, finding one day a bottle of whiskey in the fence corner where Humphrey Lloyd, an old toper, was mowing, he helped him¬ self so liberally that as he was approaching home he found the earth hitting him in the face and his mother gazing at him with mingled amaze¬ ment and concern. He became fearfully sick, and was never afterwards intoxicated. His most marked characteristic until he was nearly grown was an ungovernable and painful bashfulness, which prompted him to run like a deer if any visitor attempted to talk with him. A look would set him in motion. Of course this natural timid¬ ity was largely outgrown, and in later life was somewhat counterbalanced by other qualities ; but it was never conquered, and he declared that it was not only a source of anxiety and suffering, but an ugly stumbling block in the path of his ambition.
Physical development was not neglected in the pioneer community, and George was a master of swimming, hopping, running, jumping and climb¬ ing trees while his only successful rival in a foot¬ race was one Jehu Martin. At the age of sixteen he had reached the height of six feet and two inches, and could lift a blacksmith's anvil with one hand and toss it out of the shop. He used also to hold his own at one end of a handspike in a “solid lift” with David Beeson, the strongest man in that section of the country. His zeal some¬ times outran his discretion, for in a lifting match
38 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
with his cousin Caleb Kinley he received an in¬ jury which disabled him for many weeks and caused a limp from which he never recovered. He was fond of dogs and horses, and after the lapse of seventy years recalled the names and charac¬ teristics of those he had owned in early life.
Entering school at the age of five years, his text-book was a copy of Barclay’s Apology; it being the custom in backwoods regions to equip the child just beginning the pursuit of knowledge with a volume selected, often at random, from the family shelves, and Isaac Julian’s library was made up entirely of serious books. It was an old- fashioned district school continuing three months of the year at most, and the walk to and from was a long one for the very young. One day in crossing a swollen stream on a foot-log George was so unfortunate as to drop the Apology, and as the current rapidly bore it away his agony was such that he carried a vivid recollection of it into old age, and he said that his howls must have been heard for miles. Fortunately, his brother Jacob was able, by swift measures, to rescue the treasure, to the great delight of all concerned. Books were rare and precious in that primitive society, and he never ceased to regard them with a consideration bordering on reverence.
Few teachers in the middle west in those days could take their scholars beyond the 'Single Rule of Three,’ and Julian’s account of his efforts to master Pike’s Arithmetic was both amusing and
GEORGE W. JULIAN
39
pathetic. His absorption in study became so in¬ tense that for a considerable period he denied himself all sports and gave his entire time, after work, to books, with a twofold result: he became a recognized neighborhood authority in English grammar and spelling, and his eyes were seriously affected. The Bible was read through again and again, and the dictionary was studied with inde¬ fatigable zeal, words and their formation posses¬ sing for him a fascination that was never out¬ grown. Referring in later years to his unyield¬ ing spirit, once he had decided on a course of ac¬ tion, he related an incident that occurred while he was attending the school of Andrew Nicholson.14 Webster was the new authority in spelling, and Nicholson duly followed his lead in omitting the “k” in such words as ‘mimic/ ‘fabric' and the like. George had been brought up on Walker, the gen¬ erally recognized standard, and he declined to abandon the “k”. Nicholson insisted on his com¬ plying with the rule, but he stoutly refused, finally having his way in the face of the school and to the peril of its discipline. Several years after¬ wards, when he had himself become a teacher, he wrote Mr. Nicholson a letter acknowledging his fault and asking pardon, to which the latter re¬ sponded in the kindest terms. The matter did not end there, however, for when Julian first be¬ came a candidate for Congress his rebellious
14. A well-known schoolmaster of eastern Indiana esteemed for his personal virtues no less than for his scholastic attainments, who lived almost a century, retaining his facuities to the last.
40 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
espousal of the letter “k” was alleged as a reason why he should not be elected, whereupon his old teacher came promptly to the rescue, stating the facts and ridiculing the desperation of the opposi¬ tion.
It is perhaps worthy of note that from early childhood the society of girls appealed to him rather more than that of boys and that in what¬ ever differences and squabbles arose he always constituted himself their defender. Fond of physical sports as he was, and skilled in outdoor games and accomplishments, there was also a pro¬ nounced gentleness about him and a fondness for the quiet of the fireside and the conversation of thoughtful elderly folk. One of the joys of his young life was to lie on the floor and listen to the conversation of his mother and certain of her neighbors, particularly Mrs. Martha Sackett, the intelligent and capable wife of David F. Sackett, for many years clerk of the county. These two women discussed local affairs, religion, politics, books, the fashions, schools and their children’s progress, all in a manner that held him spell-bound, and at sight of Mother Sackett en¬ tering the door-yard, he invariably cut short the task in which he was engaged to avail himself of the entertainment he knew to be forthcoming.
At that time there yet lingered a number of Revolutionary soldiers, venerable men who ex¬ cited his enthusiastic admiration and whose words he eagerly drank in at Fourth of July cele-
GEORGE W. JULIAN
41
brations where they sat in the front row on the platform. The winter preceding his tenth birth¬ day was spent at the home of his paternal grand¬ parents, with whom he was a favorite and who because of advanced years needed attentions such as a sprightly and willing lad could render. He attended school and assisted his grandmother (the Quaker Sarah Long) with the household tasks, regularly accompanying her to meeting, where he sat beside her in the gallery and was duly im¬ pressed by the stillness which commonly charac¬ terized the occasion.
Julian once declared that in the rude pio¬ neer community in which he was born and reared, religion appeared to be the chief and all absorbing concern, its most popular form being “a volcanic sort of Methodism manifesting itself not so much in a struggle for heaven as in a scuffle to escape hell.” His own family connec¬ tions were with the Hicksite Friends, but the Methodist revivals and camp meetings appealed to his dramatic sense and were regarded by him rather as spectacles than as spiritual awakeners. He was much interested also in “the occasional irruption into the neighborhood of an old Uni- versalist preacher, then well known in eastern Indiana and soundly hated by all orthodox peo¬ ple.” This was Jonathan Kidwell, who, although he had had little if any schooling even of the primitive variety then and there attainable, was a vigorous thinker, prone to controversy, and
42 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
t
gifted in the use of invective. There were also several Free Thinkers, or “Infidels” as they were called, one of whom, Louis Hosier, an aged and eccentric farmer of rugged honesty and common sense, used frequently to ask the fifteen year old boy to read aloud to him from such works as Vol- ney’s Ruins, Frances Wright’s Lectures, Hume’s Essays, etc. No one seems to have become alarmed at the spectacle of a boy at this impres¬ sionable age falling under the influence of teach¬ ings so dangerous in the eyes of the great ma¬ jority of the people by whom he was surrounded. It is probable that his mother was aware of the readings, but if she knew the character of the books she doubtless consoled herself with the as¬ surance that he would safely weather the storm guided by that “inner light” in which her own re¬ liance lay. He was certainly learning to use his reasoning powers, and this period marked the beginning of a course of wide and varied investi¬ gation of theological subjects extending over many years.15
15. An article in The Unitarian Review for January, 1888, enti¬ tled “A Search After Truth,” gives an interesting account of his religious wanderings, the initial steps in which were taken at this time.
CHAPTER II
First Flights — Begins Practice of Laiv — Mar¬ riage — Elected to Legislature
The question of a vocation was the occasion of much concern and was not settled hastily nor without serious misgivings. Three possible courses presented themselves. Farming was the most logical and popular means of livelihood in the pioneer community, but Julian seems to have had no special bias in this direction. His father and his brother John had both been teachers, and his own love of study was a further inducement to enter upon a profession which promised both personal satisfaction and the fulfillment of a com¬ munity need. Civil engineering offered an allur¬ ing prospect at that time, when canals, pikes and railroads were being projected all over Indiana and people were completely psychologized by the State’s brilliant future.1 During his last two pe¬ riods at school, under the tutelage of the Quaker, James Osborn,2 at West Grove and later of
1. Noah Noble was then Governor, his administration being espe¬ cially notable for the beginning of the Wabash and Erie Canal, the construction of the Michigan Road and the issuing of several railway charters. Some one has said that canals (on paper) led from every man's doorway in every direction.
2. Son of the famous Quaker preacher, Charles Osborn, who pub¬ lished at Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, an anti-slavery paper and was the first person who publicly advocated immediate and unconditional emancipa¬ tion of the slaves in this country. Article by George W. Julian on “The Rank of Charles Osborn as an Anti-slavery Pioneer” in the In¬ diana Historical Society Publications, Vol. II, No. 6, p. 233.
(43)
44 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Samuel K. Hoshour,3 a well known educator and preacher of the Disciples denomination, in Cen¬ terville, he had studied algebra, plane trigonom¬ etry and surveying, and in the summer of 1835, having procured a quadrant, he frequently aston¬ ished the inhabitants by determining the height of a tree, or the distance t** an object without actual measurement. Many refused to believe that this could be done, and were only convinced by their own repeated verifications of the young surveyor’s calculations.
In September of this year he performed his first public service, five days’ labor with a spade on the National Road. His remuneration amounted to four dollars and twenty cents, the largest sum he had ever possessed, which he straightway invested in books, mathematical works which he boldly tackled and to which he persistently clung until he had mastered their in¬ tricacies.
He was then eighteen years of age, and entered upon the profession of teaching in what was called “the Harvey district,” two miles west of his home. The most noteworthy incident of this ex¬ perience occurred in connection with the annual Christmas treat. It was an early custom, not confined to Indiana, for the schoolmaster to pro-
3. Born in Pennsylvania in 1803. In 1837 he was conducting a book store in Centerville, Ind., at the same time teaching languages and mathematics in the County Seminary, editing the Wayne County Chronicle, preaching “every Lord’s Day” and writing the great part of his Altissonant Letters. Autobiography of Samuel K. Hoshour.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
45
vide apples and cider in abundance on Christmas day, and the occasion was not infrequently marked by rowdyism. The year before, the teacher at the Harvey school, an aged man of in¬ firm health who had declined to treat, had been carried out astride of a rail and ducked repeat¬ edly in the icy water of a stream near by. The story of the old man’s piteous pleas for mercy and of the ruffianly conduct of the big boys who finally obliged him to order the refreshments was told throughout the neighborhood, and it is more than likely had something to do with Julian’s determi¬ nation to undertake that particular school. At any rate, he gave due notice that there would be no treating during his administration. The young schoolmaster had a mighty frame, together with a reputation for physical accomplishments; but some of his scholars were fully as large and pow¬ erfully built. As the day approached two rival parties developed, one determined to stand by the teacher and the other bent on forcing his sur¬ render. The people for miles around became interested, taking one side or the other, and con¬ gregating at the school house early on Christmas morning to witness or share in the conflict. It was soon manifest that the majority was with the teacher, and so, after giving vent to the accumu¬ lated excitement in a spirited spelling-match, a form of entertainment much and properly es¬ teemed at that time, the crowd quietly dispersed and there was no more treating in the Harvey
46 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
school. The compensation was forty dollars for three months’ service, a princely sum in his eyes ; but having decided to discard the blue jeans of his mother’s manufacture which up to this time had seemed altogether satisfactory, a consider¬ able part of the money was s;_ c in outfitting himself after the mode then prevailing among the well-to-do.
The next summer he worked as rodman on the Whitewater Canal, at sixteen dollars per month, he and a Mr. Pritchard measuring every foot of the route between Hagerstown and Lawrenceburg. His employer was an old friend of his father’s, General Elisha Long, one of the State’s Canal Commissioners, with whom he presently had a disagreement which led to his abandoning the un¬ dertaking and returning home on foot, in no very amiable state of mind. In view of the subsequent collapse of the system of canal improvements it was probably fortunate that events took the course indicated, but in giving up the work he liked and which offered far better financial re¬ turns than anything then in sight, rather than submit to what he regarded as an injustice, he illustrated a trait that often bore fruit in later life.
Resuming teaching in the fall and winter, first near his home and later in Milton, he followed the advice of Dr. Jacob Abbott whose book on Peda¬ gogy he had just read in essaying the policy of government without the rod. The innovation met
s
GEORGE W. JULIAN
47
with marked success in the former school, but in Milton the boys gave “such strong proof of innate depravity” that he reluctantly abandoned “the rose-water, Jacob Abbott policy,” and more than once spoke with regret of the severity with which he flogged several of his Milton scholars.4
The time not devoted to teaching was spent at home, where he helped with the farming, he and his brother Isaac reading together, and also memorizing a great deal of poetry. The list of books thus enjoyed included the histories of Gib¬ bon, Hume and Goldsmith, Plutarch's Lives , the English poets, Locke’s Essays, Abercrombie on The Intellectual Powers, Watts on The Mind, Combe’s Constitution of Man, Dr. Spurzheim’s works on Phrenology and Education, Paine’s political works, Godwin’s Political Justice, Sterne’s and Fielding’s novels, Don Quixote, Ossian’s Poems, etc. Pie also continued the study of mathematics and took up rhetoric and astrono¬ my. All this sounds as if life were an arduous business, but it doubtless seemed quite the reverse to the eager young seeker after knowledge to whom every day opened up new and alluring vistas.
After two years of alternate teaching and farm work, Julian set out on April 1, 1839 in company with some Wayne County friends on a visit to eastern Iowa where several of their former neigh-
4. “I lost my temper and was in the wrong; and I now see that I ought to have sought them out in later years and offered them any reparation or atonement in my power.” Unpublished Autobiography.
48 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
bors had recently settled. The journey was chiefly by stage and afforded an opportunity to cogitate about the future as well as see the coun¬ try. Teaching was not exactly to his liking: perhaps he would find employment as a surveyor, or else purchase land in “the west” (his savings, which he carried with him, were sufficient for this) and settle down as a farmer after all. His course was by no means clear before him, and grew steadily less so during the weeks spent in New Madison, Burlington, and other Iowa towns. He therefore decided to go up the Mississippi River to Mercer County, Illinois, where Dr. Thomas Willetts whom he had known intimately in Milton, Wayne County, resided. It was during his stay under this hospitable roof that his anxiety as to a career reached an acute stage, and after much mental wrestling, during which Carlyle’s maxim, “Know what thou canst do,” seemed to mock his indecision and helplessness, he decided to lay his case before Dr. Willetts. There had all along been moments when he seemed to feel an indefinable consciousness of power, when like John Foster he had “a painful sense of an awkward but entire individuality,” but these were invariably followed by a deadening unbelief in himself, which was at once his pre¬ vailing mood and worst enemy. Dr. Willetts listened sympathetically, and without a moment’s hesitation advised him to study law. This was a totally new idea, as surprising as it was flatter¬ ing, for he had not supposed that any person could
GEORGE W. JULIAN
49
entertain so favorable an opinion of his capacity.5 Dr. Willetts went on to say that the only draw¬ back was self-distrust, which he could overcome if he would, and urged him to take up the new study at once. Accordingly a copy of Blackstone’s Commentaries was procured, which he read while he taught a term of school near New Boston, hav¬ ing his first love affair at the same time. The object of his affection was an English girl, Rachel Crapnel, who seemed to him an angel of light and loveliness and to whom he would have proposed marriage but for the fact that he lacked the necessary courage. He kept his legal study a secret from all but one or two friends, and blushed at the sheet on which he wrote to his brother Isaac that he was reading Blackstone, in¬ forming him that he had no idea of being a lawyer, but that he thought it would be as useful to him as any other general reading.
Another incident of his sojourn in Illinois is interesting in the light of present medical prac¬ tice. Dr. Willetts was one of the leading physi¬ cians of what was called “the western country” and a man whose personality and attainments commanded the respect and confidence of all who knew him. Moreover he took a genuine interest in young men, many of whom looked up to him as counsellor and guide. Having seen Julian em¬ barked on the study of law, the Doctor next ad-
5. Great dignity and prestige attached to the so-called ‘learned professions’, the lawyer, the doctor and the clergyman being regarded as in a manner set off from the rest of the community.
4—24142
50 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
vised bleeding, although no physical malady was in evidence, but inasmuch as he tipped the scales at two hundred and twenty-five pounds, there was evidently an excess of blood. Leeches were ac¬ cordingly applied, a^ 1 the young student was relieved of two quarts of good red blood, the re¬ sult being an exceeding weakness accompanied by a happy consciousness of having thus warded off serious trouble.
On his return to Indiana, whither home-sick¬ ness drove him the following spring, he again taught school while continuing the reading of law under the guidance of his cousin, John S. New¬ man, a leading member of the Centerville bar, and was duly licensed to practice in October, 1840, at the age of twenty-three years. He had an honorable ambition socially and in a business way, and was striving manfully to overcome the bashfulness that hindered him by taking part in the meetings of the Rustic Club at the district school near his home, and of the Centerville Sci¬ entific and Literary Association, seizing also every opportunity to listen to and converse with the notable men of the village in whose presence he did his best to feel at home.
This year likewise marked his first appearance as a contributor to the press, two articles of his being printed in The Philomath Encyclopedia, a nondescript monthly edited by the Rev. Jonathan Kidwell, the Universalist preacher referred to in the preceding chapter.6 One of these was a de-
6. Ante, p. 41.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
51
fence of Thomas Paine against a savage attack by the Cincinnati Gazette , and the other was entitled ‘Truth Against Orthodoxy.” These were fol¬ lowed by three other articles in the succeeding year, the subjects being “Skepticism and Infidel¬ ity,” “Causes of Skepticism and Irreligion” and “Methodist Sermons,” which he afterwards de¬ clared possessed little value beyond the mental training they afforded, but which plainly showed his taste for religious thinking and the same in¬ dependent spirit that was later to manifest itself in politics.
His radical and destructive theological reading, however, presently became wearisome and unsat¬ isfactory, and so, on the advice of Prof. Hoshour, who continued to be a valued mentor, he entered upon a very different course. He now began to read such books as Watson’s Apology For the Bible, Simpson’s Plea For Religion, Nelson on In¬ fidelity, Faber on Infidelity, Leslie’s Short Method With the Deists, and Butler’s Analogy, the very names of which suggest a period remote and archaic, while they show what ponderous topics were sometimes included in the curriculum of a Hoosier youth of the last century.
In his first chapter of Political Recollections Julian has given an account of his experience in the Harrison campaign of 1840, when he called himself a Whig, not because he had any real knowledge of politics but because his father had belonged to that party and because he remem¬ bered his brother John’s admiration for Henry
52
INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Clay. He naively declares too that he was “not the only political lunatic who enlisted in the hard cider campaign,” which he fitly characterizes as a great national frolic rather than a struggle in behalf of reform and into the spirit of which he threw himself with all the ardor of his twenty- three years. In company with a number of jolly fellows he rode one hundred and fifty miles on horseback through the mud to the great meeting at Tippecanoe Battleground on May 29th and 30th, where they slept on the ground two nights, drank a considerable quantity of hard cider and had a rollicking good time. He also visited his father’s grave7 and the cabin in which he died, noting with interest how few changes had taken place in the neighborhood. On September 10th, he was one of another horse company which at¬ tended the mass meeting at Dayton, Ohio, where he heard Gen. Harrison speak, and it was while listening to this first great man he had ever be¬ held, with an awe such as he said he never after¬ wards felt for any mortal, that he had the misfortune to be relieved of his pocketbook.
In November, 1840, he entered upon the. prac¬ tice of law, first in Newcastle for six months, teaching in the County Seminary there “as a sort of flank movement,” (for he distrusted his ability at the bar) and later in Greenfield, Hancock County, for two years. It was in the latter
7. On what is now known as the Gay farm, about ten miles west and two miles south of LaFayette. The fence and headstone are still (1923) in a good state of preservation.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
53
town that he organized “The Dark Lyceum,” a debating society whose proceedings were always conducted with lights out, and which had but two members, a young lawyer named George Pattison and himself.8 The only officer was a Premier, whose duty it was to preside, preserve order, and decide disputed questions, the members occupying this position by turns. His friendship with Pat¬ tison, who read law with him, was one of those fortunate relationships that mold character and sweeten life. They were almost constantly to¬ gether, basking before the fire at Nick Pumphrey’s tavern, rambling through the woods, or un¬ tangling legal puzzles in the office. All sorts of questions were debated in the Dark Lyceum, and so valuable did Julian consider the discipline thus afforded that on returning to Centerville he revived the institution under the name of “The Dark Lyceum of Centerville.” The following ac¬ count of this locally famous organization was given by him many years later and throws light on the simple yet earnest life of the period :
“Soon after my settlement here (Centerville) I gathered about me from the young men of the town a few congenial and attached friends who joined me in organizing ‘The Dark Lyceum of Centerville/ They were N. C. McCullough, D. W. Reed, and C. J. Woods. Desiring to consult the ornamental as well as the useful in this enter¬ prise, we created three offices in addition to that
8. Pattison later moved to Carroll County, Missouri, where he served for many years as judge of the Probate Court.
54 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
of Premier, namely, Prelate, Inductor and Sponsor, the duties of which were particularly defined. The origin of our secret order, as we now styled it, was traced back to Demosthenes, who made it the instrument of his wonderful triumphs in oratory ; and its history was solemnly set forth by the Premier on the initiation of a candidate. We allowed the public to know enough of our proceedings to excite curiosity, while the exclusiveness of the body awakened some opposi¬ tion and jealousy among outsiders. Prompted by the love of fun with which we sought to spice our proceedings, I composed the following hymn which was always sung at the opening of the meetings, to the tune of Bruce's Address: [The first of the five stanzas is sufficient to show the quality of this composition.]
Here choice and kindred spirits meet To mingle in communion sweet,
Here truth and friendship guide our feet,
And cheer us on our way.
“But it must not be supposed that the Lyceum gave itself up to mere sport and trifles. Its con¬ trolling purpose was intellectual improvement, and the discussions were earnest, always credit¬ able and sometimes able. From time to time the membership was increased by the admission of Thomas Dill, J. E. Burbank, R. N. Hudson, J. P. Siddall, 0. P. Morton and others, and I feel sure that every surviving member would acknowledge his indebtedness to it for valuable training and
GEORGE W. JULIAN
55
real improvement in the art of public speaking. Through varying fortunes and subject to some interruptions, the organization continued its work until early in the year 1848, when it was dissolved by radical differences of opinion among its members respecting the slavery question, which had found its way to the front as a subject of debate.”9
While residing in Greenfield, Julian after an examination, was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the State. The Judges at that time were Isaac Blackford, Charles Dewey and Jeremiah Sullivan, all men of commanding figure, whose appearance as they strode into the court¬ room created quite as much terror among the ten aspirants as did the forty formidable written questions which they propounded. There was lit¬ tle society in Greenfield at that time that inter¬ ested him, but he was doing a fairly good business and would probably have made it his permanent home but for the conduct of one Thomas J. Wal¬ pole, the leading lawyer of the town, who on his return from serving a term as State Senator seems studiously and unremittingly to have persecuted the young attorney whose sole offense was that he was prospering and, inferentially, poaching on Walpole's domain. Julian defended himself, but the ugly warfare presently disgusted him and he decided to accept his brother Jacob’s offer of a partnership in Centerville in May, 1843.
9. Unpublished Autobiography.
56 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
This village, the second capital of Wayne Coun¬ ty10 was then in its hey-day, and perhaps a more favorable location for an aspiring young barrister could not have been found in the State. The lead¬ ing lawyers were James Rariden, John S. New¬ man, (both afterwards members of the Constitu¬ tional Convention of 1851) Charles S. Test and Martin M. Ray, all men of ability, and litigation was plentiful. The town was prosperous in a business way. There was an excellent county Seminary, a literary society brought noted lec¬ turers in the winter, there were several churches, well attended, the Temperance reform had begun to forge to the front, and an exceptionally inter¬ esting society of young men and women added much to the cultural tone of the community.11 As the junior partner in the firm of ‘Julian and Julian/ George’s chief employment at first was in probate business and the trial of cases before jus¬ tices of the peace. Jacob liked chancery cases, for which his younger brother had no taste, the
10. The first seat of justice of Wayne County was Salisbury, a little east and south of Centerville. This was from 1811 to 1816. Then for thirty-six years Centerville was the county-seat, the finally successful effort to remove it to Richmond occasioning one of the fiercest county-seat contests known in Indiana history.
11. A quaint reminder of the social activities of Centerville in 1843 is a neatly printed invitation in which “the company of Mr. Alexander Finch (afterwards the brother-in-law of Mr. Julian) is respectfully requested at a Social Party to be given at the Mansion House in Centerville on Monday Evening, [December] 25th instant, at Four O’clock”. The names appended as “managers” in addition to Mr. Julian are J. G. Talbott, C. N. Elmer, L. Noble, J. Jemison, C. J. Woods, E. J. Bonine, J. H. William, J. E. Burbank and I. A. Hannah, Julian Collection.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
57
latter decidedly preferring actions, either civil or criminal, in which a jury was demanded. The first of these in which he took part after his re¬ turn to Centerville was an action of slander brought by Collins S. Stevens against James Jones, an old Irishman who had not sufficiently bridled his tongue and who was familiarly styled “Jemmy Jones.” “I was for the plaintiff,” said Julian, “and was obliged to make the opening speech, and I well remember what I suffered from the dread of doing this in the presence of the old lawyers and the curious crowd of acquaintances who had come to hear me. But I succeeded sur¬ prisingly to myself and I believe to everybody else, and when I sat down, John Finley,12 our well known Hoosier poet, then clerk of the court, handed me the following :
“Your maiden speech I call 0. K.,
And so the jury thought it;
Their countenances seemed to say ‘Old Jemmy Jones has caught it.* ”13
This was not literally his first speech in court, for he had tried cases both in Greenfield and Newcastle. The latter village was the scene of his earliest venture in this line, the action being before Green T. Simpson, a country Justice of the
12. John Finley, author of The Hoosier’ s Nest, born in Browns-
burg, Rockingham County Virginia, Jan. 11, 1797, and died in
Richmond, Indiana, December 23, 1866. Among other poems which he wrote are “The Clock,” “Advertisement for a Wife,” and “The Last of the Family”.
13. Unpublished Autobiography.
58 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Peace, with N. W. Miner of Dublin as the opposing counsel. Both the lawyers were panic stricken, and the recollection of the affair caused consider¬ able amusement in later life. “The justice was a good-natured old farmer/’ said Julian, “who knew less law than either of us, and whose judgment of our rhetoric was quite indifferent. The amount involved was only a few dollars, and in no event could there be the least danger of any serious consequences to body or soul. And yet, in open¬ ing the case and making our speeches we were almost convulsed with excitement. I remember trying to keep cool and hating myself for being so affected, but there was no remedy for my affliction.”14
He was the orator of the occasion at an all-day celebration of the Fourth of July following, his speech being described as “a most happy effort”.15
Julian’s first political speech was delivered be¬ fore the Clay Club in the Centerville Court House early in the campaign of 1844 and was followed by numerous calls to speak in other parts of the county. Although he had as yet given little seri¬ ous thought to the questions that then divided the parties, his legal studies and social affiliations had tended to keep him in alliance with the Whigs. His faith in the theory of protection, however, had been greatly weakened by reading Say’s Political Economy, while the land policy of the Whigs ap-
14. Ibid.
15. Wayne County Record, July 10, 1844.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
59
pealed to him as little as did their advocacy of a national bank. But the plan of annexing Texas for the purpose of extending the area of slavery met with his decided opposition, and in the cam¬ paign of 1844 in behalf of the Whig candidates he used much the same line of reasoning that led him to desert the party four years later. It is doubtful if people today take their politics as seri¬ ously as they did in 1844, when the defeat of Clay was so severe a trial that it literally prostrated large numbers of his admiring followers. “It seemed to me an irretrievable national calamity,” said Julian, “and I so brooded over it that for near¬ ly a week sleep was impossible. I felt indignant at the Birney men, ignorantly believing that they elected Polk. If Clay had not trimmed in the canvass, and if he had not made his unfortunate Mendenhall speech in 1842, 10 he might have won the long coveted prize of the presidency, but as the champion of compromise he proved himself unfit for it, and unworthy of that idolatry of de¬ votion with which his friends espoused his cause.”17
In May, 1845, occurred Julian’s marriage to Anne Elizabeth Finch of Centerville, only daugh¬ ter of Cyrus Finch, an able lawyer of eastern In¬ diana who had been cut off in early life by tuber-
16. On the occasion of Clay’s visit to Richmond in 1842 a delega¬ tion of Quakers headed by Hiram Mendenhall besought him to free his slaves. Clay’s somewhat heated reply to his petitioners lost him many votes in the ensunig presidential election.
17. Julian’s Autobiography.
60 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
culosis. The following wedding notice is from The Wayne County Record , a Centerville news¬ paper published by Samuel C. Meredith,18 John Finley being the author of the verses :
MARRIED — On Tuesday the 13th inst., by Elder S. K. Hoshour, GEORGE W. Julian Esq., to Miss Anne E. Finch, both of Centerville.
We received no cake, but by request publish the following lines written for the occasion: —
Life hath its joys as well as sorrows,
A bliss to balance every pain;
Our dark todays bring bright tomorrows,
A checkered scene of loss and gain.
But of all joys to life pertaining,
The nonpareil of every sweet Is found in Hymen’s silken chaining,
When youth and love in rapture meet.
Just below appears the notice of another union, that of Oliver P. Morton Esq. and Lucinda Maria Burbank, which occurred two days later, the same bride’s maid, Miss Sarah Jane Noble, serv¬ ing at both functions.
Mrs. Julian was only eighteen at the time of her marriage, and all accounts agree that she was beautiful, while her singularly quick perceptions, impulsiveness and enthusiasm were in marked contrast with her husband’s sedate manner and reflective habits. They set up their household
18. Grandfather of Meredith Nicholson.
Julian at the age of twenty-eight, while serving in the Indiana General Assembly, session of 1845
GEORGE W. JULIAN
61
gods in a one-story brick residence, still stand¬ ing, a little south of the Methodist church in Centerville, where during the first year their total expenses amounted to a trifle over two hundred dollars. “The furniture and entire appointments were exceedingly plain,” wrote Julian many years later, “and yet we were perfectly happy,” which perhaps is only another way of saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” Mrs. Julian had completed the course at the County Seminary, the best educational institution then accessible, and like her husband was naturally studious. One contemplates with satisfaction the picture of the young husband sharing the domestic tasks on re¬ turning from his office, so as the more speedily to enter upon their joint reading, and also their co¬ operation in the care of the little son who came within a twelvemonth to complete their joy.19
In August following his marriage Julian was elected as a Whig to the State Legislature, where he took a firm stand in favor of the Butler Bill, which was opposed by his Whig brethren, and the abolition of capital punishment, and against the shameful policy of Legislative divorces. Among the most active of the younger members, he was not content with simply expressing his convictions in the Legislative hall, but sent fre¬ quent communications to the newspapers for the
19. George W. and Anne E. Julian were the parents of three chil¬ dren — Edward Channing, b. April 15, 1846, d. March 2, 1865 ; Louis Henry, b. Jan. 27, 1854, d. Oct. 16, 1863 ; and Frederick Hoover, b. Feb. 14, 1856, d. Sept. 30, 1911.
62 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
purpose of educating and molding public opinion. It is a curious fact that until the adoption of the Constitution of 1851 the granting of divorces by the General Assembly was common, and the prac¬ tice had reached such extraordinary proportions and was carried on in so haphazard a manner as to lead to serious misgivings in the interest of public morals. In an article in The Indiana State Journal of December 23, 1845, Julian care¬ fully set forth the reasons for his opposition, over the signature “A Lobby Member.” In the first place he held that the power to grant divorces was plainly vested by the Revised Statutes in the Judiciary alone, and that the legislative body by its action was exercising a function in direct vio¬ lation of the constitution. But even admitting for the sake of the argument that the Legislature was not restrained by any constitutional prohibition, he insisted that public policy was utterly opposed to the present practice of granting divorces with¬ out inquiry as to facts. The members of the General Assembly acting under oath faithfully to discharge their duties, were turning that oath into derision by making a legislative frolic of that which ought to be a very serious and solemn busi¬ ness. “Thus the institution of marriage is dese¬ crated and scoffed at by a set of apparently un¬ reflecting and unconscientious politicians whose moral perceptions can only be quickened by the well applied rod of their constituents.”20
\
20. Indiana State Journal, December 23, 1845.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
63
The measure known as the Butler Bill was fully discussed by him in the Wayne County Record of February 11, 1846, over his own signature. This bill, which took its name from Charles Butler of New York, the agent of English bondholders, provided for the satisfaction of one half of the State’s eleven-million-dollar indebtedness by transferring to these bondholders in trust the Wabash and Erie Canal with its lands and reve¬ nues, and the payment of the interest on the other half by taxation. In view of the financial condi¬ tion of the State at the time, its passage was of vital moment, and probably saved Indiana from the shame of repudiation ; but it became a party is¬ sue and for giving it his support Julian was se¬ verely censured by Whig friends and organs. He however always regarded this vote with satisfac¬ tion as a conscientious endeavor to solve a vexa¬ tious problem as well as an early exhibition of inde¬ pendence, and his action was destined to meet with a gratifying reward three years later in his first race for Congress.
His service in the General Assembly was help¬ ful in several ways. For the first time he came in contact with men of varying talents from other parts of the state, and by measuring himself with them he must have been able the better to gauge his own abilities. Among his associates were Joseph Morrow,21 one of his former teachers, Den-
21. Born in North Carolina in 1799, he came to Wayne County when a boy and served in the State Legislature in 1838, 1839, 1845, 1846, 1850 and 1851.
64 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
nis Pennington,22 then past seventy, who had come to Indiana Territory in 1802, and to whom must have attached a peculiar interest from the fact that he had served in the Legislature with Julian’s father in 1822; Reuben A. Riley, destined to be the father of Indiana’s favorite poet; Conrad Baker, afterwards governor of the State, and Joseph Lane, who later represented Oregon in the United States Senate and became a candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Breckenridge in 1860. James Whitcomb, an able and adroit party leader, was then Democratic Governor of Indiana, and was elected United States Senator a few years later. The Lieutenant Governor was Jesse D. Bright, then at the threshold of his public life, and it was this Legislature which elected him for the first time to the United States Senate and launched him upon his remarkable career as the autocrat of his party in the State. Julian enjoyed some of the social functions of the capital, form¬ ing friendships that lasted through life. He learned something of parliamentary procedure in a larger assembly than the Dark Lyceum and the literary and debating societies of his own village, and he was led to consider questions to which he
22. Dennis Pennington, born in Virginia, 1776. Came to Ken¬ tucky with Henry Clay in 1797. Moved to Corydon, Harrison County, Indiana. Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1811 and 1815 and it is said that he sat in more sessions of the Legislature than any other man in the history of the State. Was a member of the first Constitutional convention of 1816 and helped build the old Capitol at Corydon. Illiterate but of excellent natural powers. Matilda Gresham, Life of W. Q. Gresham, Vol. I, p. 13.
GEORGE W. JULIAN 65
had hitherto given little thought. Also, and this is important, his love of home and of domestic life was heightened by the enforced absence.
On returning to Centerville he continued read¬ ing, with his wife, the works of Dr. William El¬ lery Channing, whose sermon at the ordination of Jared Sparks which had accidentally fallen in his way the preceding summer, marked an epoch in his spiritual development and had a decided effect on his political views ; also such anti-slavery papers and pamphlets as he could procure; and the works of Thomas Carlyle. Certain passages of Carlyle’s about justice, truth and human rights so fixed themselves in his consciousness that they became “trumpet-calls to battle against oppres¬ sion and inequality, whether taking the undis¬ guised form of chattel slavery, or that organized cupidity which makes labor the helpless drudge of capital, or that system of agricultural serfdom which rests upon the unrestricted monopoly of the soil.” There is no doubt that these books were timely helps in the unfolding of his moral nature, a process still further stimulated by the state of public affairs at that time. “Cheap post¬ age for the people” was becoming a rallying cry and taking its rank as a new question. The land policy of the Whigs, which looked to the sale of the public domain as a source of revenue, was seriously challenged by the issue of land reform, which proposed to set apart the public lands for free homes for the poor and to derive revenue
5—24142
66 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
from their productive wealth. The prohibition of slavery in our national territories was another much discussed subject, destined soon to over¬ shadow all others. It was a period fraught with tremendous significance, the full import of which could not then be clearly apprehended, and this slowly developing young man of open mind and genuinely democratic instincts was unconsciously preparing to play an honorable part in more than one engagement of the future.
When a Methodist minister named Kavanaugh lectured in Centerville in behalf of ‘Colonization’ in the winter of 1845-6, declaring that the people of the free States had “nothing to do with slav¬ ery” and that they ought to “worship God and mind their own business,” Julian replied to him in two decidedly anti-slavery articles which ap¬ peared in the Centerville News-Letter 23 and were copied into other papers, and which, reinforced by an article on the Black Laws of the State in The Wayne County Record, first directed against him the charge of Abolitionism. He however still considered himself a Whig in spite of that party’s recreancy on certain vital issues ; for men do not lightly desert the political standard under which they have served, and he earnestly hoped that with
23. A literary paper started in Centerville in 1846 by C. B. Bent¬ ley, with whom was afterwards associated Hampden G. Finch, brother- in-law of Mr. Julian. Young’s History of Wayne County, p. 93.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
67
such leadership as that of Adams24 and Giddings,25 the old organization might yet be conducted into right channels. That the soil was being prepared for his final break with Whiggery two years later is clearly indicated in an editorial contributed by him to the News-Letter of June 6, 1846, en¬ titled “The Age We Live In,” which is a warning against yielding the individual conscience and judgment too much to the prevailing and accepted opinion of the time, and a plea for independent thought and action.
In the spring of 1847 Julian sought the Whig nomination as State Senator for Wayne County in place of David P. Holloway,26 who in the late Legislature had strongly opposed the Butler Bill and had not ceased to condemn, through his organ, The Richinond Palladium, Julian’s support of that measure. The latter defended himself in a series of articles in The Wayne County Record over the signature “Caveat,” which were widely copied and constitute one of the best contemporary accounts of that much discussed measure. Holloway was renominated after a fierce canvass, the chief con¬ tributing causes being Julian’s apostacy on the
24. Charles Francis Adams, Free Soil candidate for vice president in 1848. Ambassador to England 1861-1868.
25. Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, for twenty-one ■«.; : a leading anti-slavery Representative in Congress, 1838-1859.
26. Editor the Richmond Palladium.
68 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Butler Bill and the charge of Abolitionism indus¬ triously circulated, which assuredly had some foundation not only in his News-Letter articles of the previous year, but in his public avowal that he would never vote for another slaveholder or military chieftain for the presidency. His defeat for this nomination was no doubt fortunate, as it naturally deepened his anti-slavery convictions and still further opened the way for his final separation from the Whigs in the following year.
CHAPTER III
Religious Perplexities — Politics — Buffalo Conven¬ tion — Campaign of 18^8 — Persecution — Dis¬ solution of Law Partnership — Letters to
Giddings.
In June, 1847 the Julians moved into a new brick house on Main Street, Centerville, the con¬ struction of which had been begun the previous autumn, a modest dwelling, but more pretentious than the one where they had spent the first two years of their married life. They continued their miscellaneous reading, enjoying among other things Harriet Martineau’s Society in America, where for the first time they found woman suf- rage advocated. Julian records in his Journal his surprise at the idea and also at the fact that it had not before occurred to him, adding that the logic of democracy made its acceptance inevitable.1 He was thenceforth a consistent supporter of this reform, with which his name is honorably con¬ nected. They found time for poetry too, Lowell,
1. “The subject was first brought to my attention in a brief chapter on ‘The Political Non-existence of Women’ in Miss Marti- neau’s book on Society In America which I read in 1847. She there pithily stated the substance of all that has since been said respecting the logic of woman’s I'ight to the ballot ; and finding myself unable to answer it I accepted it. On recently referring to this chapter I find myself more impressed by its force than when I first read it.” History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. Ill, p. 552, by Elizabeth Cady Stan¬ ton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Quoted from George W. Julian.
(69)
70 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Whittier and Wordsworth sounding helpful notes. It was their custom, as it had been the custom of Julian and his brother Isaac, to commit passages to memory, and among the lines traceable to this period that remained with him through life were The Happy Warrior and parts of the Ode To Duty.
That his interest in religious questions had not abated is shown by some long letters in 1848 from Lucretia Mott2 to whom he had written for counsel in regard to certain theological difficulties that had presented themselves. She and her husband had been among the first guests in the newly completed home, on the occasion of a western tour, and the friendship then begun was terminated only by death. It was Julian’s custom always to reach out towards those who knew more than he knew, and such were his sincerity and frankness that he was never rebuffed. His eager endeavors to satisfy his spiritual doubts and longings kept him on the anxious seat and occupied much of his leisure for years. The miracles and prophecies puzzled and perplexed him. How could he recon¬ cile the former with the unchangeableness of nat¬ ural laws? Some of the prophecies, he learned, were written after the events which they pre¬ tended to foretell. The Christian Examiner, which dealt with these questions, did not dispel but rather increased his doubts. So he laid his
2. B. 1793 ; d. 1880. Minister of the Society of Friends or Quakers, also pioneer in the anti-slavery and Woman Suffrage move¬ ments.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
71
troubles before Mrs. Mott who seemed to him the embodiment of spiritual insight and intelligent sympathy, and who now recommended Palfrey’s Lectures On The Old Testament , Norton’s books on the Genuineness Of The Gospels , De Wette’s Introduction To The Old Testament translated by Theodore Parker, and other works. She sent him Parker’s famous sermon on “The Transient and Permanent in Christianity”, the Life of Joseph Blanco White and other volumes prized both for their helpfulness and because of his regard for the donor.
Mrs. Mott also laid his case before the Rev. William Henry Furness,3 whose earnest advice she repeated : “If your young friend would read the prophecies in the Quaker spirit and philos¬ ophy, he would see that those men were the fiery reformers of their day, men who regarded every clear intuition of their consciences as a direct word from the Lord, . . . and that their in¬
spiration was the same in kind with the inspira¬ tion of all truth and goodness and wisdom.” And the saintly Quaker thus set forth her own views as to the inspiration of the Bible: “Now that skepticism of the theology of the schools has be¬ come somewhat a duty, free-thinkers may go to the other extreme and fail to award to the scrip¬ tures all the beautiful and blessed instruction they contain. I have for years accustomed myself to read and examine them as nearly as I would any
3. B. 1802 ; d. 1896. For fifty years pastor of the First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia. Actively engaged in the anti-slavery cause.
72 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
other book as early education and veneration would permit. I have now no difficulty in decid¬ ing upon the human and ignorant origin of such facts as conflict with the known and eternal laws of Deity in the physical creation, be the claim to the miraculous ever so high and the assumption of the prophetic and God-inspired ever so strong. Still less, if possible, do I waver when any viola¬ tion of the divine and eternal law of right, such as murder in any of its forms, slavery in any of its degrees, and priest-craft in its various shapes, as palmed upon the religious world, is declared to be THUS SAITH THE LORD.”4
But professional and other responsibilities presently became so absorbing that the reading and study were necessarily abridged. Earnest and persevering as were Julian’s theological in¬ vestigations, he yet did not feel entirely satisfied with the results, and doubts continued to harass and perplex him until he finally found himself compelled, in order to secure intellectual peace, to take his stand with the radical wing of the Uni¬ tarian body in demanding absolute freedom of thought. “My experience”, said he, “during the years I was struggling to be satisfied with my semi-orthodox religion strikingly resembled that of Harriet Martineau as stated in her charming Autobiography ; but I did not follow her into Positivism and the denial of a future life. I did not abjure religion altogether because one of its
4. Letter of Mrs. Mott dated “11th mo. 14th 1848”.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
73
accepted foundations gave way; while in facing the duties and trials of life I gradually found strength and tranquility of mind. And when I espoused the anti-slavery cause and unselfishly gave my whole heart to its service, the doctrinal doubts and anxieties that had troubled me seemed unworthy of one who loved his neighbor and be¬ lieved in the brotherhood of man.”5
During the fall and winter of 1847-8 the ap¬ proaching presidential struggle was the engross¬ ing topic of discussion throughout the country. Old party issues were becoming subordinated to the question of slavery, which persistently forced itself to the front and challenged attention. While the Southern leaders entertained no hope of establishing their peculiar institution in Ore¬ gon, they resisted the application to that Terri¬ tory of the provisions of The Ordinance of 1787 without a public legal recognition of the validity of slavery south of 36° and 30' in the recent Mexican cessions, including part of California. The obvious danger of further slavery extension had awakened an unprecedented interest in the subject among the people of the free States. The Wilmot Proviso, or the exclusion of slavery from all territory to be acquired from Mexico, had be¬ come a great national issue that threatened the disruption of both the old parties, each of which was trying to ignore it in the interest of harmony and ascendancy. In the North the parties were
5. Unpublished Autobiography.
74 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
divided on the question, while in the South they were perfectly agreed. General Lewis Cass, who eagerly sought the Democratic nomination for the presidency, was seeking to pacify the southern wing of his party by the doctrine of non-interven¬ tion with slavery in the Territories, while General Zachary Taylor was doing his best to secure the Whig nomination by extensive letter writing in which he dodged the issue, while he was sup¬ ported by northern and southern friends on ex¬ actly opposite grounds.
In the spring of 1848 Julian recorded in his Journal his anxiety as to the situation and his de¬ termination to remain aloof from political excite¬ ment and to attend strictly to business.6 Only that Muse who is said to smile aloft, “surveying our acts from their well-springs”, could have known the futility of this resolve. Inclination and interest alike prompted avoidance of the com¬ ing political strife, and especially a quarrel with his party, in whose ranks were nearly all the clients of ‘Julian and Julian', as well as their close personal friends. In view of these considera¬ tions, and of his fixed purpose not to vote for another slaveholder or military chieftain for president, he became more and more concerned lest Taylor should be named as the Whig stand¬ ard bearer. The argument of availability was irresistible, however, and “Old Rough-and-Ready” was nominated on June 7th at Philadelphia by
6. Julian’s Journal, May 5, 1848.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
75
that convention which Horace Greeley branded as “the slaughter house of Whig principles.”
What was the young lawyer to do? On one side was his vow, perfectly coinciding with his clear sense of duty. On the other, were his bread and butter, the claim of party fealty, and the desire to live in peace with old and valued friends. He at first thought that he would withhold his vote from the presidential ticket while support¬ ing the other Whig nominees, but he soon found that this would not satisfy the party leaders, who openly threatened him with political and profes¬ sional ruin if he did not fall into line. His brother Jacob, impatient at his hesitation, urged submission as a duty to his family. “Sound the conscience and sink the family”, exclaims George Meredith, and does not Henrik Ibsen say that friends are an expensive luxury not because of what one does for them, but because of what out of consideration for their wishes, one refrains from doing? This is well illustrated by the pain¬ ful dilemma that Julian faced at this time, and he expressed the conviction long afterwards, that the choice he then made was one of the decisive acts of his life.
The Free Soil movement of 1848 in which he presently found himself launched was one of the most picturesque as well as crucial in our coun¬ try’s history. With Cass and Taylor as the lead¬ ers of the old parties, the many northern Whigs and Democrats who were committed to the policy
76 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
of the Wilmot Proviso were confronted with the necessity of a new organization which should voice their earnest convictions in regard to the freedom of the Territories, and it was generally felt that the Liberty party men who had sup¬ ported James G. Birney four years before would join with these and other elements provided a suitable candidate could be found.
A national Free Soil convention was therefore called to meet in Buffalo on August 9th, and to this convention Julian went as a delegate. It is a significant fact that the delegates to this gather¬ ing were not chosen; they were men who went because they felt such a compelling interest that they could not remain away. During the early summer [1848] Julian had contributed, over the signature “A Northern Whig”, two forcible arti¬ cles to The National Era 7 on “The Claims of General Taylor”, in which he showed that these claims were based exclusively on military serv¬ ices, Taylor himself admitting that he had no opinions on any of the great questions that were considered vital to the prosperity of the country; that he was politically in the hands of the South, and the undoubted representative of southern as opposed to northern policy and interest; that it was high time to take a stand against slavery en¬ croachment and to maintain that stand regardless of any supposed consequences; and finally, that
7. Anti-slavery newspaper established in Washington in 1844. Ed¬ ited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey. Uncle Tom's Cabin made its first appear¬ ance in this paper.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
77
party is not an end but a means, allegiance to which ought to cease when it fails to subserve the public good.
“There is a moral in every political duty. I am willing to acknowledge the reasonable claims of party, but its claims must be reasonable. I re¬ pudiate the idea that my right to think and act for myself on political matters is utterly gone the moment my party shall issue its decree. To con¬ cede this would be to subscribe to a system of popery in politics, which makes every votary of it a slave. The idea of infallibility in any man or body of men has been abandoned in the Protestant Christian world, and ought to be abandoned in the political world. Shall I allow a set of men like myself to say to me, ‘You are a Whig and we have determined upon the course Whigs ought to pursue. . . . Our party will be ruined unless
General Taylor is elected ; and if you vote for him contrary to your own convictions of duty we here¬ by absolve you from allegiance to your country and your Creator, and will be answerable in your stead’. This is virtually the claim set up by the Whiggery of 1848. Ought men who claim to be free to submit to it? Shall men who have their eyes fixed upon duty, and who in pursuit of it have already abjured the tyranny of party, be driven back to its devil-worship by the cry of Abolitionism or any other cry? If through fear of public opinion or dread of popular obloquy, we fail to do our duty, can we escape the responsibil-
78 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
ity by throwing it upon our party? Shall honest convictions be stifled through lack of courage to avow and stand by them, under whatever circum¬ stances, in the good hope of ultimate triumph? I submit these questions to the judgments and consciences of the Whigs of the North.”8
He also wrote numerous articles for The Free Territory Sentinel, an organ of the new party published at Centerville by Rawson Vaile, the first number of which appeared on August 28, 1848. In view of Julian’s subsequent connection with public land matters it is interesting to note that one of these articles was in advocacy of a national homestead policy.
He had hoped for the nomination of Charles \Francis Adams by the Free Soilers, and previous ito his arrival in Buffalo felt that he could not support Van Buren, because even though the lat- jter had opposed immediate annexation four years before and thus lost the Democratic nomination, he had nevertheless been too subservient to the slave power to render him a desirable leader for the new party. But when Van Buren consented to run as the candidate of so many elements, on an outspoken anti-slavery platform, the situation was altered and his own course was clear.
The Buffalo convention afforded him his first contact with the vital forces of the anti-slavery movement, and his political principles were strengthened by listening to such men as Salmon
8. Julian Scrap-Book,
GEORGE W. JULIAN
79
P. Chase, Joshua R. Giddings, Charles Francis Adams, Preston King, Samuel Lewis and Joshua Leavitt, all of whom he had known by reputation and longed to meet. Soon after his return he was appointed an elector for Van Buren and Adams for the Fourth Congressional District of Indiana and prepared for an active campaign on the stump. Having procured from a Quaker friend, Jonathan Macy, “an old white horse fully seven¬ teen hands high, and rather thin in flesh”,9 and having playfully christened the animal “Old Whitey” in honor of General Taylor’s war steed, he set out on his anti-slavery mission, speaking twice and frequently three times a day, for two or three hours at a time. His training in the Dark Lyceum was turned to good account, and his earnestness as well as absolute faith in the cause he advocated made him more than a match for any of the Whig leaders in the district.
That was a period of bitter personalities, when vituperation, ridicule, and every weapon that partisan malice could suggest were the order of the day. Social ostracism was his portion, and friends of a lifetime became enemies. His twen¬ ty-one-year old wife was not spared ; when she walked abroad she was conscious not only of the averted glance but occasionally of jeers, and dur¬ ing her husband’s absence she was more than once awakened at night by hoodlums, groaning and hooting beneath her window. It seems almost
9. Political Recollections, p. 66.
80 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
past belief that methods so outlandish could have been resorted to in Indiana almost within the memory of persons now living. The charge of Abolitionism was flung at Julian wherever he went, and it is well nigh impossible to appreciate the odium then attached to this term. He was called an “amalgamationist”, a “woolly-head”, the “apostle of disunion” and the “orator of free dirt”. He had the “negrophobia”, and it was in¬ sisted that he carried in his pocket a lock of the hair of Frederick Douglass, which it was said the latter had given him in Buffalo. At one time party feeling ran so high in Centerville that he was threatened with transportation out of the village on a rail, and he would not have been sur¬ prised had some such violence been attempted. But this was not all that he was called upon to endure. Under date of September 19th, occurs this entry in his Journal:
“This day, because I would be a Barnburner10 J. B. Julian requested a dissolution of our part¬ nership, to which of course I promptly agreed. I am now thrown entirely upon my own resources, political and professional. I set out anew, with the loss of my standing in the great Whig party,
10. The Barnburners were the Van Buren faction of the New York Democracy who opposed the extension of slavery into the Terri¬ tories, as distinguished from the Hunkers or followers of Gen. Polk. So called from an alleged eagerness for radical measures, in allusion to the Dutchman who burned his barn in order to rid it of rats. The appellations Conscience Whigs and Cotton Whigs had about the same significance as applied to the two wings of the other party. The names were also current outside of New York.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
81
the alienation of a large body of political and per¬ sonal friends, including nearly all who under other circumstances would have been my best clients. Everything that party tyranny and ex¬ asperation can suggest will be done to prostrate me, by men who know that I am honest in my convictions and that I could have no sinister mo¬ tives. And now even a brother, chiming in with the popular clamor, sees proper to join in the gen¬ eral cry of ‘mad dog’. Well, be it so. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. A better day will come; and believing this, and seeing it with the eye of faith, I shall not despair but thank God and take courage.”11
The Free Soil party failed to carry the vote of even one State, and Julian felt that Van Buren afterwards proved unworthy of the splendid sup¬ port accorded him in 1848. But this organized stand for the right and protest against the wrong met with gratifying results, the most important being that a rallying point was thus afforded for the friends of freedom during a chaotic period, presaging the great movement which elected Lincoln in 1860 and successfully prosecuted the Civil War.
As for the effect of the campaign on Julian’s personal fortunes, to the eye of worldly prudence it must have seemed disastrous. By careful sav¬ ing he had probably laid by one hundred dollars, possibly a little more. He had a wife and child,
11. Julian’s Journal, Sept. 19, 1848.
6—24142
82
INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
and his only means of livelihood was the legal pro¬ fession, on which he had but fairly entered. Had Mrs. Julian been of a different fiber, or had there been any lack of understanding and sympathy be¬ tween them, great unhappiness must have re¬ sulted. That increased self-denial was entailed, and even hardship, goes without saying. But in meeting a great issue openly and honestly, un¬ biased by selfish considerations, their entire horizon had widened, so that things that had once seemed of large moment in their lives were dwarfed by comparison with other and more weighty concerns.
The two following letters show how the slavery question was taking possession of him, and the thoroughness with which he was preparing to make war upon the institution; they also fore¬ shadow a long and beautiful friendship between two men who had many characteristics in com¬ mon :
Centerville, Indiana, December 5, 1848. Hon. J. R. Giddings, Washington, D. C. :
Dear Sir — Although an entire stranger to you I take the liberty of addressing you a few lines. I have long been your admirer and a reader of your speeches in Con¬ gress; and I owe to you, to John Quincy Adams and to Dr. Channing my emancipation from the thraldom of that truckling and time-serving policy which has so long char¬ acterized alike the politicians and the people of the North¬ ern States. Having been disappointed in my expectation of a personal introduction to you at Buffalo, I avail myself of this method of bringing myself into closer relations with
GEORGE W. JULIAN
83
you, so that hereafter, if agreeable to you, I may have the advantage of your friendship in advocating in this portion of Indiana the great Free Soil movement.
By way of further introduction to the favors I am about to ask I ought perhaps to say that I was one of the Free Soil electors for this (Caleb B. Smith’s) Congres¬ sional district, having canvassed the whole district labori¬ ously and I think not without effect in the way of public speaking; and that in the ensuing Congressional campaign here it may devolve upon me again to take the field in defense of Free Soil.
With a view to more extensive acquaintance with slavery in our government I need a good deal of informa¬ tion, mostly historical. I have lately come across a pam¬ phlet called Facts for the People , compiled in part from your writings, with which I am much pleased. If I had a number of copies for circulation much good could be done in opening the eyes of the blind. Where can the work be procured and what would be the cost by the hundred or in larger quantities? I should like the whole of your work entitled “The Rights of the Free States Subverted”. Per¬ haps you will forward me a copy. I hear Jay’s writings on slavery highly spoken of, and should like to have them if I knew the titles and where to direct for them. I also want your speeches delivered heretofore on the encroach¬ ments of the slave power. I should like some speech or document showing how northern men of both parties have generally voted on such questions as taxing the North to pay for run-away slaves, and whether the Whigs of the free States have been a consistent anti-slavery party. This is their boast here, and I wish to confront them with facts.
Please let me hear from you in reply and oblige Very respectfully Your friend,
GEO. W. JULIAN.
84 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Centerville, Jan. 4, 1849.
Hon. J. R. Giddings:
Dear Sir — Your letter of Dec. 10, came duly to hand, and I have also received from you a number of documents for which I return my thanks.
I have a few other favors to ask provided you can grant them without putting yourself to too much trouble, and I ask them only on this condition. Perhaps your recollec¬ tion will sufficiently serve without a reference to docu¬ ments. I should be glad to know how the northern Whigs voted on the bill in 1846 to appropriate money under the treaty with the Creek and Seminole Indians in 1845. Also how they voted on the bill brought forward at the last session of Congress to pay the executors of Benjamin Hodges for his run-away slaves; how they voted on the right of petition and the resolutions in 1842 for intro¬ ducing which you were censured; how they voted on the bill to pay for the Amistad negroes, and how they have uniformly voted on measures for abolishing slavery and
the slave trade in the District. *******
I should like to know whether the Wilmot Proviso ques¬ tion will probably be settled in any way this winter or not; also if there are any lights on the subject in Wash¬ ington, what Taylor will do if required to act on the ques¬ tion.
Please write me and oblige
Yours with great respect,
GEO. W. JULIAN.12
12. Giddings Letters. Unfortunately Giddings’ replies to these let¬ ters can not be found.
CHAPTER IV
Elected to Thirty-first Congress — Washington in
1850 — Social Ostracism of Free Soilers — Contest for Speaker — William J. Brown Episode — The Compromise — First Speech in Congress — Letter from Sumner — Speech on ‘ The Heal¬ ing Measures’ — Visit to New England — The Homestead Bill — In terna tional Peace
A totally unforeseen but by no means unnat¬ ural result of Julian’s efforts in behalf of Free Soil principles in 1848 was his nomination for Congress the following autumn by conventions of the new party in every county in the ‘Burnt Dis¬ trict’.1 His Whig opponent was Samuel W. Parker, brother-in-law of the then incumbent, Caleb B. Smith, and in the canvass all the pas¬ sions of the year before were rekindled and in¬ tensified. Parker declared that he too was an
1. Then the Fourth Congressional District of Indiana; now the Sixth. First so called in 1845 when an overwhelming Whig victory almost wiped out the Democratic party. This occurred shortly after two severe fires, one in Pittsburgh and the other in New York City, details of which were set forth in newspapers under the caption “Burnt District”. The name at first applied facetiously by the Democrats themselves to the region of their party’s disaster has ever since clung to the Whitewater district. Julian’s Unpublished Autobiography. Also J. P. Dunn’s article on “Burnt District”, Indianapolis News, Sept. 23, 1922.
(85)
86 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Abolitionist, “no yearling” either, but “of twenty- one years standing”, having started out with Garrison. Although deficient in the logical fac¬ ulty, Parker was a lawyer who ranked high as an orator, and was an intense partisan.
At the opening of the campaign the odds seemed decidedly with the Whigs, but as the Democrats, who had no hope of electing a candi¬ date of their own, began to rally to the support of the Free Soil nominee, which they did partly because they were eager to chastise the Whigs, heretofore overwhelmingly in the ascendant in eastern Indiana, and partly in recognition of Julian’s independent attitude in the State Legis¬ lature four years before, it was seen that the con¬ test was to be close. It is said to have been a picturesque campaign, in which Julian’s earnest¬ ness, his facile use of humor and sarcasm, sup¬ plemented by the rough training gained in his contests with Walpole in Greenfield, enabled him at least to hold his own ; the result was the elec¬ tion of the Free Soiler by a majority of one hun¬ dred and fifty-three votes.
It seemed doubtful however whether he would ever occupy the seat he had gained because of a series of hemorrhages from the lungs, brought on by excessive speaking, which confined him to his bed for weeks and threatened his life. Ac¬ counts in his Journal of being “cupped in fifty- seven places” and of copious applications of croton oil, remind one that there were terrors
GEORGE W. JULIAN
87
other than political in those days, and that a vigorous constitution may be proof against almost any assaults. This was his first serious illness and he became so restive under it and so eager to be at his post that almost as soon as con¬ valescence began the doctors consented as a choice of evils that he should set out for Washing¬ ton, which he did on December 10th, arriving there nine days later. The journey was by car¬ riage to Cincinnati, thence by steamer to Pitts¬ burgh, and over the mountains in a stage coach, an exhausting ordeal for a man able to sit up only a few hours each day. But ambition and deter¬ mination are powerful factors, and improvemeent was so steady that he was able to go at once to the Capitol and to assume the regular duties of his position.
The Julians at first took quarters in the United States Hotel, where their vis-a-vis at table were Col. Jefferson Davis, then a Senator from Missis¬ sippi, and his family. In the course of a few weeks, however, they joined Giddings and Judge Charles Allen, a Representative from Massa¬ chusetts, in lodgings on the north side of the Public Grounds facing the Capitol.
The Washington of that time, with its unpaved streets, open gutters and nondescript architec¬ ture, presented the appearance of an overgrown village rather than the seat of government of a great nation. The Capitol consisted of the cen¬ tral portion only, without the two wings which
88 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
add so greatly to its majestic appearance, and the old wooden dome had not yet been replaced by the present massive structure topped by its figure of Freedom. But to the Hoosier pair who made its acquaintance during the winter of 1849-1850 it was grandly impressive, and although their in¬ troduction to the civilization of the south had in it an element of repulsion, bringing them face to face for the first time with human bondage and its accompaniments, yet they were vastly interested and correspondingly edified.
Members of Congress then lived for the most part in boarding-houses, forming what they called “messes” or groups whose tastes and ideals were congenial. In Mr. Biddings’ “mess” of the pre¬ vious session had been Abraham Lincoln, a Rep¬ resentative from Illinois, whose honesty and native ability had appealed to the Ohio member, and he may well have referred to the tall west¬ erner in conversation with his new friends. Bid¬ dings’ urbanity and kindliness at once won for him a place in the affections of Mr. and Mrs. Julian, and he became their guide and confidential adviser. The other members of the Indiana delegation were eight Democrats: — Nathaniel Albertson of Breenville, First District; Cyrus L. Dunham of Salem, Second District; John L. Robinson of Rushville, Third District; William J. Brown of Indianapolis, Fifth District; Willis A. Borman of Bloomington, Sixth District; Joseph E. McDonald of Crawfordsville, Eighth District; Braham N.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
89
Fitch of Logansport, Ninth District; and Andrew J. Harlan of Marion, Tenth District; and one Whig, Edward W. McGaughey of Rockville, Seventh District. Of these McGaughey and Julian [Fourth District] were the only native Hoosiers, the others having been born in Vir¬ ginia, Kentucky, Ohio, or New York.
Julian had met only two of his colleagues be¬ fore going to Washington, but in any event his relations with them could not have been intimate owing to the sharpness with which party lines were then drawn and the wide divergence of his political views from theirs. He was cordially welcomed by the Free Soil members however, who were particularly glad to see him because of rumors in regard to his illness and the possibility that he would never reach Washington. Owing to their limited number, every individual Free Soiler loomed large in the eyes of Freedom's friends at that time. He soon felt at home among his new associates, which was fortunate, for socially these men were made to feel the effect of their ultra political ideas and were thrown much upon their own resources.2
The home of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the National Era, offered the chief social refuge for this group of “pestilent fanatics", and their
2. Mrs. Clement C. Clay of Alabama in her volume of reminis¬ cences after describing the location of a group of “true line” Southern¬ ers some five years later adds: “We keep Free Soilers, Black Repub¬ licans and Bloomers on the other side of the street. They are afraid even to inquire for board at this house.” A Belle of the Fifties, p. 43.
90 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
weekly gatherings there, frequented by literary men and women, philanthropists and reformers of various kinds, constituted a veritable salon of the elect. That these companies were not always formal and staid affairs is indicated by the fact that such games as “blind man’s buff” were occa¬ sionally engaged in, which has a quaint and al¬ most primeval sound to the ears of the present generation. Here came “Grace Greenwood” (Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott) one of the most widely known newspaper correspondents of the day, who has since written entertainingly of these com¬ panies, and here too were met other notable women, among them Fredericka Bremer, the Swedish novelist then on a visit to this country, and Mrs. Southworth, at the height of her fame as a writer of romances, whose home was a social Mecca for men and women of widely varying opinions.
The memorable contest for Speaker of the ' House of Representatives in which Howell Cobb, Democrat, opposed Robert C. Winthrop, Whig, was nearing its close when Julian arrived, a con¬ test that well represented the controversy then challenging the attention of the country. The Free Soilers were agreed that they could not vote for Cobb, a slave-holder, even though their Demo¬ cratic friends strongly desired and urged it. Neither could they gratify the Whigs by support¬ ing Winthrop, because his conduct as Speaker in the preceding Congress had proven him “an ac¬ complished Doughface”, and he declined to pledge
GEORGE W. JULIAN
91
himself to a more anti-slavery attitude in case of re-election. They accordingly voted for one an¬ other, most frequently for David Wilmot of Penn¬ sylvania. Cobb was elected on the sixty-third ballot by the operation of the plurality rule, whereupon the Free Soilers were accused of hav¬ ing elected a slave-holder Speaker of the House, although they had insisted all along that they were ready to vote for any reliably anti-slavery Whig, and it was clearly understood that Win- throp could not command their support. The historian Pvhodes in this connection insists that while it is true that there are now and then politi¬ cal principles that cannot be compromised under any circumstances, yet “for the most part in pub¬ lic life one should sacrifice his ideal good for the best attainable”,3 and pronounces this such a case. On the other hand, we have the instance of an eminent New England worthy who when asked what his course would be if the choice lay between Satan and Belial, replied that his ballot would be cast with those of “Gabriel and the scattering vot¬ ers.” Just how far personalities entered into this particular incident it is impossible to say, but the character of the men who took this responsibility warrants the assumption of their sincerity and honesty of purpose.4
While Julian was steaming along the Ohio on
3. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 117.
4. Their action was thought by Julian to have been further vindi¬ cated by Winthrop’s subsequent course in supporting Fillmore against Fremont in 1856, Bell against Lincoln in 1860, and McClellan against Lincoln in 1864.
92 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
his way to Washington he learned of a happening in connection with the Speakership contest that caused him much annoyance and that was des¬ tined indirectly to affect his own political future. William J. Brown, a Democratic colleague from Indiana, and one of the candidates for Speaker, had received the support of several Free Soil members and had at one time come within two votes of being elected. Brown was known to be pro-slavery in his sympathies, and the fact that staunch Free Soilers had voted for him aroused a suspicion of a secret bargain of some sort and alienated a sufficient number of southerners to defeat him. After the vote, the fact was brought out in open session that Brown had actually prom¬ ised David Wilmot in writing to constitute certain committees in a manner satisfactory to the Free Soilers, and of course general discomfiture en¬ sued. Julian lost no time after his arrival in ex¬ pressing his surprise and dismay at the action of those Free Soilers who had entered into such a compact and in painting Brown in his true colors.
The Thirty-first Congress was one of the most interesting in the history of our government, and the young man whose fortune it was to partici¬ pate in its deliberations was privileged in a rare degree. In the Senate appeared for the last time Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, all of whom ex¬ cept Clay, were born in 1782, and hence connect-
GEORGE W. JULIAN
93
ing links between the Revolutionary and Civil War periods. Not less picturesque and dating back almost as far, was Sam Houston of Texas, while among the new men destined to exert a com¬ manding influence on national affairs were Wil¬ liam H. Seward of New York and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio.
Slavery extension wras the great question before the country. Oregon had been organized in the previous Congress, slavery being prohibited there, and the question of admitting California and New Mexico was now uppermost. Neither had yet taken on the form of territorial governments, but since the discovery of gold the population of Cali¬ fornia had so increased as to warrant application for statehood. A convention accordingly met, drafted a constitution in which slavery was dis¬ tinctly prohibited, and this constitution was over¬ whelmingly ratified by the California people. President Taylor in his message to the new Con¬ gress advised admission, expressing the opinion that New Mexico would soon follow suit. Of course the southern members saw in this proposal an attempt to disturb the time honored equi¬ librium between the two sections in favor of the north, and great excitement prevailed.3 The south hoped to organize both California and New Mexico as territories, without slavery restriction, thus enabling southerners to settle there with
5. This equilibrium had for years been maintained by the admis¬ sion of a free state and a slave state at about the same time.
94 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
their slaves and presently to form governments wherein slavery should be perpetuated. This situation was complicated by the question of the Texas boundary, the debt of Texas, the proposal to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the Dis¬ trict of Columbia, and the alleged necessity for a new and more rigorous Fugitive Slave Law.
It was with the hope and earnest desire of solv¬ ing all these vexed questions and once more smoothing out the wrinkled aspect of national af¬ fairs that Senator Clay brought forward on Janu¬ ary 29th his famous Compromise. He would admit California as a State without any restric¬ tions as to slavery; he would establish territorial governments in the remaining Mexican cession, likewise without slavery restrictions ; he would fix the western boundary of Texas without taking away any of New Mexico; he would have the gen¬ eral government assume the Texas debt on condi¬ tion that Texas relinquish all claims on New Mex¬ ico ; he would abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia so far as it related to negroes brought into the District for that purpose-; and he urged a Fugitive Slave Law more satisfactory to the South.
This was Clay’s famous “Omnibus Bill”, and these were the principles debated by both Houses of Congress during more than seven months, and finally enacted into law, not in the form originally proposed by Clay but as separate measures, the last being out of the way in time for adjourn-
GEORGE W. JULIAN
95
ment on September 30th. Throughout the long hot summer the discussion continued, many mem¬ bers being prostrated by the heat and returning to their homes. Cholera raged in and around Washington a part of the time, adding to the ap¬ prehension and discomfort. The death of Presi¬ dent Taylor on July 9th cast a gloom over the city such as had not been known for years. Calhoun had died on March 31st, less than four weeks after his great speech on the Compromise in which he referred to Washington as “the illustri¬ ous southerner”, a speech which he was too feeble to deliver, his friend Mason of Virginia perform¬ ing this service. Julian heard this and the other notable utterances on the Compromise. His judgment of Webster’s “Seventh of March Speech” coincided with the prevailing view at the north, that it was a shameless surrender of prin¬ ciple and an open bid for the presidency. Al¬ though some writers of a later day have looked with charitable eyes upon this act, seeing in it only a supreme effort to avert the threatened war between the sections, Julian never altered his view as to Webster’s recreancy. Where freedom was involved he was implacable, and he firmly believed that the great New Englander had sold out to the south.6
During the first weeks of his service Julian properly remained quiet, a studious and watchful
6. For Julian’s impressions of the Thirty-first Congress see his Political Recollections, chapters IV and V.
96 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
on-looker. That he was alert and not afraid to incur censure appears from the Congressional Globe, which shows that on January 6, 1850, he called down upon himself the displeasure of slave¬ holders and Doughfaces by presenting a petition from anti-slavery Friends praying for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law and getting the yeas and nays on receiving it. His own delegation did not disguise its disapproval of this performance, as of later similar acts showing his disposition to do his own thinking and his defiance of the slave power.
In his first speech Julian made use of some of the material supplied the year before by Giddings, examining the subject of slavery in all its bear¬ ings, noticing and answering the arguments of southern members in its defense, replying effect¬ ively to the charge of “northern aggression”, proving conclusively the uniform and shameless submission on the part of the north to the de¬ mands of the slave-holders, gallantly defending the Abolitionists, from whose constitutional doc¬ trines he expressed total dissent, against the bitter charges made by southern statesmen, de¬ fining exactly the position of the little Free Soil contingent in Congress, and concluding by throw¬ ing down the gauntlet to the defenders of slavery North and South. The speech was ready for de¬ livery in March and day after day for weeks he endeavored to obtain the floor, finally succeeding on May 14th. Considering the time, the attend-
GEORGE W. JULIAN
97
ant circumstances, the audience to which it was addressed, and the speaker, a young westerner who had just passed his thirty-third birthday and whose educational advantages had been exceed¬ ingly meager it was a remarkable effort, of which his constituents may well have been proud. The following paragraphs from the opening of the speech convey an idea of its character:7
“I am not vain enough to suppose that anything I may say will influence the action of this commit¬ tee (Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union) ; yet I should hereafter reproach myself were I to sit here day after day and wreek after week till the close of the session, listening to the monstrous heresies, and I am tempted to say the impudent bluster, of Southern gentlemen, without confronting them on this floor with a becoming protest in the name of the people I have the honor to represent. Sir, what is the language with which these gentlemen have greeted our ears for some months past? The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Clingman) tells us that less pauper¬ ism and crime abound in the South than in the North, and that there never has existed a higher civilization than is now exhibited by the slave¬ holding states of this Union ; and so in love is he with his “peculiar institution”, which thus pro¬ motes the growth of civilization by turning three millions of human beings into savages, and pre-
7. Congressional Globe, Appendix, May 14, 1850, 31st Cong. 1st Sess. Vol. XXII, pp. 573-579.
7—24142
98 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
vents them from becoming paupers by converting them into brutes, that he gives out the threat, doubtless in behalf of his Southern friends, that unless they are permitted, under national sanc¬ tion, to extend their accursed system over the virgin soil of our territories, they will block the wheels of government, revolutionize the forms of legislation, and involve this nation in the horrors of civil war. Nay, he goes farther, and antici¬ pating the triumph of Northern arms, and com¬ paring the vanquished “chivalry” to the Spartans at Thermopylae, he kindly furnishes the future historian with the epitaph which is to tell to posterity the sad story of slave-holding valor: “ Here Lived and Died as Noble a Race as the Sun Ever Shoivn Upon ”, — fighting (he should have added) for the extension and perpetuation of human bondage.
“The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Brown) manifests an equal devotion to the controlling in¬ terest of the South. He declares that he regards slavery as a great moral, social, political and reli¬ gious blessing, — a blessing to the slave and a blessing to the master. The celebrated John Wesley was so fanatical as to declare that slavery is the sum of all villainies. Had he lived in this enlightened age and Christian land he would have learned that on the contrary it is the sum of all blessings. He would have been told that even the Bible sanctions it as a divine insti¬ tution. Southern gentlemen remind us that it “existed in the tents of the patriarchs and in the
GEORGE W. JULIAN
99
households of His chosen people” ; that “it was established by decree of Almighty God”, and is sanctioned in the Bible — in both Testaments — from Genesis to Revelation” ; and so sacredly is it to be cherished that we in the North are not allowed to give utterance to our deepest moral convictions respecting it. My friend from Mis¬ sissippi graciously admits that we think slavery an evil; but he adds, “Very well, think so; but keep your thoughts to yourselves .” Thus, in the imperative mood and characteristic style of a slave-driver are we to be silenced. In this “freest nation on earth” our thoughts must be suppressed by this slaveholding inquisition. . . .
“And the gentleman from Mississippi, like his friend from North Carolina, is in favor of extend¬ ing the blessings of slavery at all hazards. The South will not submit to be girdled round by free soil ; and if we dare to thwart her purpose we are reminded of the struggle of our fathers against British tyranny. Southern gentlemen point us to the battlefields of our Revolution and bid us be¬ ware. A Northern man, especially if disposed to be “fanatical”, would suppose that our Southern brethren would avoid such allusions. Our fa¬ thers, it is true, resisted the aggressions of the mother country “at all hazards and to the last extremity” ; but their resistance was not in behalf of slavery, but of freedom. Mr. Madison de¬ clared in 1783 that “it was the boast and pride of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature.” And Mr.
100 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Jefferson said that one hour of this American slavery which has so recently been transfigured into all blessedness “is fraught with more misery than ages of that which we rose in rebellion to oppose.” In speaking of an apprehended strug¬ gle of the blacks to rid themselves of their bondage he affirmed that “the Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest.” Yet Southern gentlemen appeal to our Revolutionary history as a warning to us, and a justification of a war on their part, not for the establishment but the subversion of liberty, and the destruction of the ‘rights of human nature’ by the indefinite extension over free lands of that system of bondage which the very soul of Jeffer¬ son abhorred. All this, to northern men, seems strange. As a specimen of southern philosophy it may be very creditable to politicians from that quarter and it may appeal powerfully to their pa¬ triotism, but we cannot comprehend it. Nothing short of the serene understanding and unclouded vision of a slaveholder can fathom such argu¬ ments.”8
8. Ibid.
“It is refreshing in the midst of the disgusting and sick¬ ening exhibitions of Southern insolence, arrogance and rapacity on the one hand, and Northern concession, cowardice and treachery on the other, which form most of the history of the present Congress, to meet now and then a man who has not bartered away his manhood and who regards principle as something better than a bait to catch pious fools, a man who while he respects the rights of others will make his own respected. Mr. Julian’s speech gives evidence of such a man. It is in its spirit and tone as welcome as a draught of pure water to a traveller who has journeyed many days over hot and putrid marshes.” Pennsylvania Freeman, June 18, 1850.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
101
This speech called forth letters from Charles Sumner, Rev. William H. Furness, John G. Pal¬ frey, Lewis Tappan and many others, the first of which is here given :
Boston, June 6, 1850.
My Dear Sir:
I am obliged to you for your kindness in sending me a copy of your speech. I am more grateful to you still for making it. You have gone over the whole field of the slavery question and have presented in a most interesting manner the true conclusions. Few have treated it in the same exhaustive manner. I hope your speech will be widely circulated. The knowledge it contains, its temper, and its conclusions, cannot fail to influence all who read it.
We had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Julian here during the winter. I hope that her account of our frigid region will not discourage you from making us a visit also. I can promise you a warm welcome from the heart, whatever the climate may be.
The old parties seem now, more than ever, in a state of dissolution. The cry will soon be
Mingle, mingle,
Ye that mingle may.
At least so it looks from many indications. But we have a clear course to pursue — to stick to our principles wher¬ ever they may carry us.
I have not heard lately from Mr. Giddings, but trust that he is well.
Believe me dear sir,
Very faithfully yours,
CHARLES SUMNER.9
9. Julian Letters. “I get a lot of letters every day commending my speech and describing its good effect on friend and foe, and am really becoming so used to being praised that I don’t mind it much ! I spend much time in franking copies to individuals who still keep ordering it. I have partially converted my Carolina relatives and am sending a quantity to them for distribution.” Letter to Mrs. Julian, June 26, 1860.
102 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Early in the year 1850 Mrs. Julian had paid a visit to friends in Massachusetts and about June 1st she returned to Indiana. In her husband’s daily letters to her, often brief and dashed off hastily at night, but breathing the atmosphere of the Washington of that time, he dwells on the do¬ ings of Congress and the tedium of the weary weeks of that longest session yet known. It was particularly distasteful to the Free Soil members, because while entirely disapproving of the meas¬ ures that were slowly being enacted they were nevertheless powerless to do more than protest. He tells of the walks and games of ten-pins of Giddings, Allen and himself, of their attendance at Presidential levees, of the calls they made to¬ gether and the calls received in return, of their “endeavors after” a better boarding place, of the “feats in gallantry and wonderful adventures” of Senator [Charles] Durkee, the Wisconsin member of the Free Soil coterie, and himself, also of their foot-races on the green and visits to Mrs. South- worth, of Dr. Bailey’s receptions and the interest¬ ing persons met there. On July 18th he described the funeral of President Taylor, the most mag¬ nificent pageant Washington had ever witnessed, and declares that notwithstanding the severe things he had said about the old General he had come to have sincere respect for his rugged hon¬ esty and the firmness with which he had opposed the dictates of his southern friends on the ques¬ tion of the admission of California; for it was
GEORGE W. JULIAN
103
generally understood that he had sorely offended them by this action.
One feels conscious in reading these communi¬ cations that it was a very different world from
ours, a far less complex, but not a better world,
*
over which brooded constantly the threatening shadow of civil war. The almost universal drink¬ ing disgusted him, as did the prevailing and ap¬ parently unnoticed profanity even among educated and otherwise cultivated people. On September 9th he describes the public rejoicing over the passage of the Texas Boundary bill, the New Mexico Territorial bill, the latter an open aban¬ donment of the Wilmot Proviso, and the bill for the admission of California. “On Saturday night one hundred guns were fired in honor of the great southern triumph, and the whole city was in an uproar of glorification. Stands were erected and large crowds assembled to hear the speaking. The impression seems to be that the Free Soilers and their principles are dead and buried, and that no more 'agitation’ will ever be heard of. We shall see.”10
On September 14th Charles Francis Adams wrote Julian from Quincy:
“The consummation of the iniquities of this most disgraceful session of Congress is now reached. I know not how much the people will bear. My faith in their moral sense is very much shaken. They have been so often debauched by
10. Julian Letters.
104 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
profligate politicians that I know not whether a case of breach of promise will lie against their seducers. Yet I do hope that our true and staunch men of all sides will consent so far to over¬ look party lines as to unite in a joint address giv¬ ing a naked history of the events of the session and leaving it to the judgment of all honest people to act as they shall think proper. If this cannot be done, then our Free Soil band has a duty to perform. I pray that they may not leave it un¬ done.”11
Adams’ reference in the first sentence was to the most shocking of all these measures, the new Fugitive Slave law, which was hurried through the House on September 12th without reference to any committee, without being printed, and with no opportunity for debate. This measure, far more objectionable than the Fugitive Slave law of 1793, 12 provided among other things that every citizen, when called upon by the proper officer, should actively aid in the capture of a fugitive slave. In his speech on “The Healing Measures”, on September 25th, Julian dealt with some of the worst features of the Clay Compromise, the pass¬ age of the Fugitive Slave bill being the immediate occasion of his utterance. Replying to the charge that those who voted against the Texas Boundary bill voted for civil war, he said :
11. Julian Letters, Sept. 14, 1850.
12. Laivs of the U. S. of America*, Feb. 12, 1793, Vol. II, Chap. 152, p. 331. “The mere statement of the provisions of this law is its condemnation.” Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 186.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
105
‘‘Mr. Chairman, I deprecate war as much as any gentleman on this floor. I claim to be an humble advocate of the great peace movement of the age. I stand opposed to the war spirit and the war mania in all their popular manifestations. . . . And yet I will not deny that I think war
sometimes necessary. I must say that I believe there are things more to be dreaded. The be¬ trayal of sacred trusts is worse than war ; shrink¬ ing from a just responsibility when necessary to encounter it is worse than war; the extension of slavery by the Federal government and with the approval of the nation, I should pronounce worse than war; and to be more specific, war is less to be deplored than the dastardly and craven spirit which would prompt the representatives of twen¬ ty millions of people to cower and turn pale at the bandit threats of Texan slaveholders, and give them millions of acres and millions of gold as a peace-offering to the vandal spirit of slaveholding agression.”13
In regard to the admission of New Mexico and Utah with or without slavery as the people of those territories might determine, he declared:
“My honorable colleague has discovered that the Wilmot Proviso was ‘conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity'. Does he understand the import of the term? Does he not know that it means simply the right of a whole people, whether of a State or Territory, to the common
13. Globe, Sept. 25, 1850 Vol. XXII, Pt. II, App. p. 1300.
106 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
blessing of freedom? In its application to our Territories the Wilmot Proviso is the Declaration of Independence embodied in a fundamental law for their government. Our fathers declared that 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are among the inalienable rights of men, and that ‘governments are instituted to secure these rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed’. Make these truths operative in the Territories by the competent law-making power, and you have the Wilmot Proviso, call it by whatever name you choose. Instead of being ‘conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity’, it was conceived in the brains of such patriots as Sir Harry Vane and Algernon Sidney, in the time of the English Commonwealth, and finally brought forth in the glorious fruits of our own Revolution in 1776. It is the very life-blood of our freedom; and although for the present its friends are powerless, they should stand by it and maintain it as long as they retain their faith in the rights of man and the duty of government to provide guards for their security. And I desire to say too that did I feel as confident as some gen¬ tlemen profess to feel that slavery in any event- will not obtain a foothold in our Territories, I would still insist on the Proviso as a wholesome and needful reassertion in the present crisis of the principles on which the government was founded and was designed to be administered, — as a means of restoring it to its early policy and animating it anew with the breath of freedom
GEORGE W. JULIAN
107
which bore our fathers through their conflict and made us an independent nation. It is peculiarly an American principle and devotion to it should be as honorable to an American citizen as his abandonment of it should be disgraceful. And if there is one circumstance connected with my service in the present Congress to which in after years I shall look back with pleasure and with pride, it is that in the midst of the false lights and false alarms and seductive influences by which the ranks of freedom have been thinned and the policy of Jefferson trampled under foot, I insisted to the last on the duty of Congress to pro¬ tect our infant Territories from inroads of sla¬ very by positive law.”14
Referring to the provisions of the new Fugi¬ tive Slave Law, and especially the one compelling citizens of the free States to assist in the capture of run-away slaves, he said :
“Mr. Chairman, I tell these southern gentlemen and their northern brethren that for one, I would resist the execution of this latter provision, if need be at the peril of my life. I am sure that my constituents will resist it. I repeat what I said on a former occasion, that there is no earthly power that can induce us thus to take sides with the oppressor. If I believed the people I represent were base enough to become the miserable flunk¬ ies of a God-forsaken southern slave-hunter by joining him or his constables in the bloodhound
14. Ibid. p. 1301.
108 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
chase of a panting slave, I would scorn to hold a seat on this floor by their suffrages and would denounce them as fit subjects themselves for the lash of the slave driver. Sir, they will do no such thing, and I give notice now to our southern brethren that their newly vamped Fugitive Slave bill cannot be executed in that portion of Indiana which I have the honor to represent.”15
After asserting that it would be as easy to re¬ verse the currents of the Mississippi as to control those moral forces by which American slavery must perish, he concluded :
“Gentlemen may quarrel about Pennsylvania iron and New England manufactures, river and harbor improvements and the best disposition of the public lands; but the question which more than all others comes home to the bosoms of men is whether slavery or freedom shall have the as¬ cendancy in this government. ‘I never would have drawn my sword in defense of America’ said General Lafayette, ‘if I had thought that I was thereby founding a land of slaves’. Here, sir, lies the great question, and it must be met. Neither acts of Congress nor the devices of partisans can postpone or evade it. It will have itself an¬ swered. I am aware that it involves the bread and butter of whole hosts of politicians, and I do not marvel at their attempts to escape it, to smother it, to hide it from the eyes of the people, and to dam up the moral tide which is forcing it
15. Ibid .
GEORGE W. JULIAN
109
upon them. Neither do I marvel at their firing of guns and bacchanalian libations over ‘the dead body of the Wilmoth Such labors and rejoicings are by no means unnatural ; but they will be fol¬ lowed by disappointment. It is in vain to expect peace by continued concessions to an institution which is becoming every hour more and more a stigma upon the nation, and which instead of seeking new conquests and new life should be pre¬ paring itself with grave-clothes for a decent exit from the world . . . When the action of the
Federal government shall be entirely withdrawn from the support of slavery and the states in which it exists shall be content with the protec¬ tion which their own laws shall afford, then agi¬ tation may cease. Sooner than that it cannot and it ought not.”16
This speech received numerous complimentary notices and was widely copied. Its clear-cut and uncompromising deliverances made for its author many new friends, particularly in the New Eng¬ land States, whither, in response to urgent invita¬ tions, he went on the adjournment of Congress, tarrying en route for a brief visit with James and Lucretia Mott in Philadelphia. He attended the Free Soil State convention in Boston, where he heard for the first time Charles Sumner, already talked of as Webster’s successor in the Senate of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, Van Buren’s running mate in the campaign of 1848,
16. Ibid. p. 1302.
110 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
young Anson Burlingame, only four years out of Harvard, but destined to distinguished honors, and Dr. John G. Palfrey, historian and one of Giddings’ close associates in the previous Con¬ gress. He himself also addressed the convention, setting forth the infamous character of the Com¬ promise measures and appealing to the people to put in power men who would be faithful to free¬ dom and their own consciences.17
While in Boston he called on Theodore Parker, whom he was surprised to find conducting a prayer-meeting, and also at the office of The Liberator where, in Garrison’s absence he was en¬ tertained by his faithful coadjutor, Stephen S. Foster, dubbed by Lowell “a kind of maddened John the Baptist”, with whom he discussed non- resistance. He also heard Jenny Lind to his great delight, and dined in company with Bur¬ lingame at the old Adams mansion in Quincy, where there seemed to the Hoosier “too much ceremony”, a comment that provokes a smile in view of the words of Mr. Adams’ son Henry sixty years later to the effect that “a simpler manner of life and thought could hardly exist short of cave-dwelling.”18 Julian’s next stop was at Salem as the guest of Stephen C. Phillips, who on his retirement from Congress in 1838 had served four years as mayor of this his native city, devoting
17. “The speech of Mr. Julian, one of the noble little band in Congress who have been faithful among the faithless, was warmly received by the convention. His presence was welcomed by enthusi¬ astic cheering.” Boston Commonwealth, October 10, 1850.
18. The Education of Henry Adams, p. 10.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
111
his entire salary to the improvement of its public schools, and had been the Free Soil candidate for Governor in 1849. Although he had given up political life, he was keenly interested in the cause that was then uppermost in the minds of all these men. At Lynn, Julian was surprised to find him¬ self advertised along with Wendell Phillips and Charles S. Burleigh to address an anti-Fugitive Slave Law meeting that day, a meeting presided over by the mayor, John B. Alley, who was to serve the cause of freedom with him in the thirty- seventh and thirty-eighth Congresses.
After a brief visit at the home of Judge Charles Allen in Worcester, Julian hastened home to Centerville, from which he had been absent more than ten months, and one is not surprised that the village impressed him as “dingy and dilapidated” and “a lonesome placq”. He of course enjoyed his little domestic circle, the reunion with friends, and the rest from excitement; but his adventures in the larger world had insensibly dwarfed the old familiar surroundings, which would never again assume their one-time imposing appear¬ ance. It is noteworthy that his interest in the slavery question was the means of bringing him in contact with the intellectual and moral salt of the earth in our country at that period, and the friendships thus formed were destined to endure and to exercise a shaping influence on his later life.
Returning to Washington for the opening of the second session of the thirty-first Congress on
112 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
December 2, 1850, he at once devoted consider¬ able time to the land question which had first challenged his attention some years before. A common interest in this subject had brought him during the previous session into close touch with Andrew Johnson, Representative from Tennessee, who had introduced a bill providing free home¬ steads of a hundred and sixty acres each to actual landless settlers on certain conditions of occu¬ pancy and improvement, and when Julian’s Home¬ stead speech was ready for delivery it was through Johnson’s friendly help that he obtained the floor on January 29, 1851, in opposition to the wish of Speaker Cobb.19 Although the doctrines set forth by the Indiana member met with scant favor at that time, being only a little less objectionable than Abolitionism itself, the speech undoubtedly played its part in preparing the way for the Home¬ stead Bill which became a law eleven years later.20 The radical defect of the bill finally passed was the failure to provide against the sale of the pub¬ lic lands in large bodies to non-residents for speculative purposes. To remedy this defect, Julian labored for years in an effort to have an amendment passed, as abundantly appears from a perusal of his published speeches.
This speech of 1851 on the Homestead Bill is notable for its thorough and lucid exposition of the subject and for its tone of faith in the ulti-
19. Globe, Jan. 29, 1851, Vol. XXIII, p. 365, 2nd Sess. 31st Cong.
20. Acts of Cong. 37th Cong, 2nd Sess. Ch. 75, p. 392, May 20, 1862.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
113
mate triumph of the principles for which he con¬ tended. There were at that time some fourteen hundred million acres of public lands, the manage¬ ment of which devolved by the Constitution on Congress, and its just disposition presented a grave question. The Homestead Bill under con¬ sideration contemplated a radical change of poli¬ cy in that it abandoned the idea of holding the public domain as a source of revenue and likewise the policy of further grants to the states or to chartered companies for special objects, and made it free, in limited portions, to actual settlers on condition of occupancy and improvement. Of the more than one hundred million acres already sold by the government through the several land of¬ fices, about half had already fallen into the hands of speculators who were holding it without im¬ provement, thus excluding actual settlers who would have made it a source of wealth to them¬ selves while adding to the public revenue.21
The bill appealed to him as an anti-slavery measure. Should it become a law, the poor white laborers of the South as well as of the North would flock to the Territories, where labor would be respectable, our democratic theory of equality would be put in practice, closely associated com¬ munities would be established as well as a system of common schools offering to all equal educational opportunities. He insisted that a new sacredness would be given to the home, and the broad shield
21. Globe, 31st Cong. 2nd Sess. App. p. 135.
8—24142
114 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
of the government would be thrown over that greatest and most beneficent of all institutions, the family. A student of history and philosophy, Julian's utterances here as elsewhere were en¬ riched and his positions illustrated and supported by references to high authorities, while his sym¬ pathy with the toiler, the man on whom fall the heaviest burdens, was manifest. In view of later legislation in aid of agriculture and the education of the farmer the following sentences appear prophetic :
“Mr. Speaker, the bill under consideration possesses one recommendation which I think worthy of special consideration. It gives encour¬ agement to a business which more than any other promotes the happiness of those engaged in it, whilst it favors the prosperity of the whole coun¬ try. No other occupation perhaps is so well cal¬ culated to inspire trust in the Creator and charity toward his creatures. The pleasures and virtues of rural life have been the theme of poets and philosophers in all ages. The tillage of the soil was the primeval employment of man. Of all arts it is the most useful and necessary. It has justly been styled the nursing mother of the State ; for in civilized countries all are equally dependent upon it for the means of subsistence, since hunger and nakedness are universal wants. It is esti¬ mated that nearly three-fourths of the labor and capital of the country are employed in this single pursuit; and that agriculturists themselves are a
GEORGE W. JULIAN
/
115
large majority of the voters, tax-payers, and con¬ sumers of all foreign and domestic goods. Is not such an employment deserving of the care of Congress? The cultivation of the soil is an obli¬ gation imposed upon man by nature; and this fact alone would seem to impose upon government the obligation to encourage it to the full extent of its power. When so much is done by direct legislation for other interests is it not fair that the one paramount to them all should be aided?
“The public domain has been a common fund to which the government has resorted for almost every variety of object; but not a single acre has ever been granted for the benefit of agriculture. Such a phenomenon as an appropriation for ex¬ perimental farms, or agricultural colleges, has never been known. Is the cultivation of the soil an occupation so contemptible, so useless to the state, as not to demand the attention of the gov¬ ernment? The encouragement of manufactures, of commerce, and of other less important interests is to be commended ; but is not the encouragement of agriculture, the parent of them all, at least equally important?”22
Mr. Julian returned to Indiana immediately on adjournment, March 4th, and his recorded reflec¬ tions show that he felt reasonably satisfied with his course. In this his first Congress he had taken a position among the outspoken antagonists of slavery; he had enunciated ideas on the subject of
22. Ibid. p. 137.
116 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
land reform that however unpopular at the time, he felt sure were right and must eventually pre¬ vail; life had been diversified, sometimes pain¬ fully so, but he had a consciousness that its con¬ flicts were necessary to progress and he was far from regretting them. He did not disguise from himself the fact that inexperienced as he was he must have made mistakes; but he had honestly tried to do his duty and always counted it a priv¬ ilege and an honor to have shared in the great conflict between liberty and her foes during that memorable crisis.
A subject that strongly appealed to him was that of international peace, and but for the ex¬ treme length of the first session of this Congress, December 1849 to September 1850, he would prob¬ ably have carried out his intention to attend the World’s Peace Convention in Germany in August of the latter year. Disappointed in this expecta¬ tion he looked forward to the London Peace Con¬ gress the year following, but by that time he was in the thick of another political race which ren¬ dered such a venture out of the question. It seems likely that his Quaker inheritance and en¬ vironment were largely responsible for his early stand on this question, a position strengthened by his reading of Hugo Grotius’ great work on “Peace and War ” and by other books of a kindred nature.
CHAPTER V
Defeated for Renomination to Congress — Oliver
P. Morton — ‘ Carrying On’ — Temperance — Free Soil National Convention, 1852 — Nominated for Vice President — In¬ cidents of the campaign — uThe State of Political Parties.”
Before the close of the session Julian wrote to his wife : “I see you expect to drive around with me in canvassing the district next summer, but I think the prospect much better for quitting pol¬ itics entirely. I mean to take the straightforward course without regard to consequences.”1 Those who had stood out against the Compromise meas¬ ures and who continued to rebuke the pro-slavery reaction of the times did not face a rosy prospect so far as political honors were concerned. It was a trying period for anti-slavery men, only the most earnest of whom were able to withstand the temptation to acquiesce in the popular verdict that agitation against the institution had at last been silenced. Press, pulpit and politicians were prac¬ tically a unit in commending the “final settle¬ ment” of the question that had so long troubled the country and in branding as fanatics and dan¬ gerous members of society those who insisted that the end was not yet. This was true all over the
1. Letter to Anne Elizabeth Julian, January 9, 1850.
(117)
118 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
north, but in no State was it more difficult to with¬ stand Hunker sentiment than in Indiana, whose large southern population naturally colored the political atmosphere.
That the fighting blood of his ancestors had not lost its quality and that his zeal in behalf of the cause he had espoused only increased as he saw the dire straits into which it had apparently fallen, is shown by Julian’s resolve to enter upon a second race for Congress, backed by his Free Soil friends, against his former opponent, Samuel W. Parker, the nominee of the Whigs. It is quite probable that he would again have been success¬ ful too, because Parker in his enthusiastic support of the Compromise utterly repudiated his anti¬ slavery professions of two years before, had it not been for the fierce hostility of the Indiana State Sentinel, edited by William J. Brown,2 re¬ inforced by a formidable local opposition headed by Oliver P. Morton. The latter succeeded in get¬ ting up a Democratic meeting in Centerville to consider the situation, having announced that Hon. Jesse D. Bright would deliver an address and publicly condemn further coalition with the Free Soilers. Senator Bright did not put in an ap¬ pearance, but Morton and others spoke, denounc¬ ing abolitionism, praising the Compromise meas¬ ures, including the Fugitive Slave Law, and in-
2. Born Nov. 22, 1805, Kentucky ; moved to Indianapolis, Ind., and was elected Secretary of State 1836-37 ; elected to 28th Congress 1843-45 ; Assistant Postmaster-General, 1845-49 ; re-elected to 31st Con¬ gress, 1849-51. Editor, Indiana State Sentinel. Died Mar. 18, 1857.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
119
sisting upon a convention for the purpose of nam¬ ing a regular Democratic candidate for Congress. The convention was duly held in Cambridge City, its decision however, being against such a nomin¬ ation, which did not prevent the individuals thus overruled from openly espousing the cause of Parker, an unrelenting foe of the Democratic party for years, in whose behalf they labored zealously.3
Brown’s vindictive spirit was directly traceable to Julian’s having revealed his true character to Giddings and other Free Soilers at the time of the Speakership contest in December, 1849, and he now joined Senator Bright in stumping Wayne County for Parker. Morton’s antagonism was likewise not difficult to explain. A member of the Democratic party, this embryo political giant had denounced the Wilmot Proviso in 1848, believed in and accepted the Compromise of 1850 as a finality, and voted for that provision of the In¬ diana Constitution of 1851 excluding negroes from the state and punishing those who encouraged them to remain.4 Born only a few miles apart, mingling in the same society, members of the same bar, Julian and Morton had been friends until radical differences on the slavery question brought about a breach which for several years had been widening under the favoring influence of politics. Totally unlike in temperament, both intellectually gifted and both ambitious, they well
i
3. Julian’s Journal, Aug. 5, 1851.
4. Foulke’s Life of Morton, Vol. 1, pp. 30-35.
120 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
exemplified two elements always present in public life and always at odds, and that their ways must sooner or later diverge was inevitable. Parker was elected at the end of a struggle quite as bitter as that of two years before, which Julian after¬ wards characterized as creditable neither to the chief participants nor to the methods of political warfare of that day. On August 22nd he wrote Giddings who awaited the result with anxiety:
“Contrary to the general expectation I was de¬ feated in the late election. The Free Soilers stood by me with unsurpassed zeal and devotion. Some hundreds of Whigs supported me who op¬ posed me two years ago, and the mass of the Democrats were true; but they had among them a sufficient number of miserable Hunkers to turn the scale against me. I mention these facts lest you may imagine my defeat to have been in some way or other attributable to myself. I have more real friends than at any former period.
“I am preparing to go back to my books and my business and shall lose nothing by defeat except a little mortified pride. Indeed I have found de¬ feat far less terrible than the apprehension of it. I do however seriously regret that the only dis¬ trict in this benighted State where Free Soilism was thought to have any vitality is now repre¬ sented by a man who obtained his seat by declar¬ ing everywhere on the stump that he was “in favor of the Fugitive Slave law without the altera¬ tion of a letter.,, When you think of this, and also by how large a vote we have determined upon
GEORGE W. JULIAN
121
the colonization and exclusion of negroes you will be able to form some idea of what a pack of saints we Hoosiers must be !”5
To this Giddings replied: “Thanks for the noble fight you have made. I well knew you had the matter in you, notwithstanding your Quakerism, which by the way I begin to think is the best part of you. I had seen by the papers that your defeat was caused by a union of the Hunkers of both parties. I am pleased to see that your po¬ litical strength is unimpaired. We shall want it put forth next year in the most effective manner. I do not see that you should feel the least morti¬ fication at your defeat. We regard it as a triumph here. The times are developing our real strength, the strength of freedom. Those who stand by us now are reliable at all times. Your opponent, though successful now, will be ashamed of his advocacy of the Fugitive Slave Law before his two years shall have expired.”6
That other anti-slavery men likewise deeply regretted Julian’s defeat a number of letters bore witness, while there was general rejoicing among the friends of compromise who did not look be¬ neath the surface. From Kenosha, Wisconsin, Senator Charles Durkee sent this message: “You have suffered a defeat, it is true, in one sense of the word, but in the higher and more glorious sense, where truth always triumphs over error, you are really victorious, and will be so long as
5. Julian Letters, Aug. 22, 1851.
6. Ibid, Aug. 27, 1851.
122 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
you continue bold and aggressive against the wrong. This temporary respite is designed only to strengthen you for a more valiant fight, where the enemy shall be entirely routed and driven from the field.”7 And Sumner wrote, on taking his seat as Webster’s successor after a long and exciting contest: “Would that you were here! I counted much on your presence, and mourn the fickleness of your constituents.”8
In dealing with the decade of unofficial life on which Julian now entered, the first thing to be noted is his resolve to give up politics and devote himself assiduously to his profession;9 and the second is his total failure to carry out this reso¬ lution. He reopened his law office, but the subject of slavery had so taken possession of him that in spite of all efforts to the contrary it permitted only a divided allegiance to the affairs of private business. In response to Giddings’ urging and his own inclination he attended a Free Soil national convention in Cleveland September 24, 1851, the object of which was to confer upon the general situation and the duty of anti-slavery men. The presidency of this convention was offered Julian, but his “foolish timidity” led him to decline, al¬ though he accepted the chairmanship of the reso-
7. Ibid. Sept. 9, 1851.
8. Ibid. Dec. 7, 1851.
9. “I am done with politics and intend to practice law. But there is likely to be need for a Free Soil party for some time to come, and it may be that in 1852 I shall be again on the stump, battling for John P. Hale, Joshua R. Giddings, or some other true man. Cer¬ tain I am that I shall never desert the cause I have espoused.” Julian’s Journal, Aug. 21, 1851.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
128
lutions committee and came away with renewed courage and zeal.
In January 1852, he took the lead in calling Free Soil conventions in his own county (Wayne) for the purpose of encouraging independent action looking to the holding of a state convention a little later. It seemed to him that if men could only be aroused to a sufficient interest in the anti¬ slavery cause to grasp its real significance, and if they could be made to see the present position of the Whig and Democratic parties as alike the allies of slavery, their allegiance to these parties must be weakened and the cause of freedom proportion¬ ately strengthened. He spoke twice at a three- days’ anti-slavery convention in Cincinnati in April along with Frederick Douglass, the Rev. John G. Fee and others, and perhaps never were his words more pointed or prophetic.10 He insist¬ ed that northern Whigs and Democrats by their espousal of the slave interest as a great national concern were levying war against the institutions of their fathers, who in their day took measures for the extinction of slavery in a majority of the States, whilst they believed it was rapidly per¬ ishing in the remainder. ‘They excluded it from every inch of territory then belonging to the gcv-
10. “I was offered the presidency of this convention also, which I declined in favor of John G. Fee, but was unexpectedly appointed a vice-president, along w'ith Douglass, Bigg and others of different color. I am glad I attended this truly catholic anti-slavery gathering. I was delighted with the oratory of Douglass and with the man him¬ self, and feel much strengthened in my desire to overcome the ridicu¬ lous and wicked prejudice against color which even most anti-slavery men find it difficult to conquer.” Julian’s Journal, May 5, 1852.
124 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
ernment [Territory of the Northwest] and limited to twenty years the importation of slaves from abroad, which they regarded as the life of the system. They were Abolitionists, though their process of abolition was gradual. But Whigs and Democrats today preach a totally different gospel ... If there are incendiaries in this government, those who would destroy the Union by building up ‘sectional parties’, they are the leaders and tools of these factions who are en¬ deavoring to make slavery and not freedom its cornerstone and to restore concord between things totally irreconcilable in their nature. If there is such a crime as ‘moral treason’, it is perpetrated by every Whig and Democrat who refuses to sever himself from his faithless organization and labor by every honorable effort to bring its rule to an end. Not for all the offices which this slavehold¬ ing government could bestow upon all the ‘Dough¬ faces’ from Maine to the Pacific would I commit my judgment and conscience to the keeping of either of these profligate factions.”11
Having established the complicity of both the leading parties in the sin of slavery, he next pro¬ ceeded to show the recreancy of the church in an equal degree. “The preachers and members of our Protestant denominations alone own more than six hundred thousand slaves. . . Even
our tract, missionary and Sunday School associa¬ tions, those mighty agencies for the diffusion of
11. Julian’s Speeches, pp. 78-79.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
125
Christian truth, are under slaveholding espionage. The scissors of the peculiar institution must be applied to their publications, which must be so carved and mangled as not to send forth even an intimation that freedom is a blessing or slavery a curse/’ In answer to the plea that schisms would be created by any other course, he continued : “Is the church rent in twain when a religious de¬ nomination is divided? On the contrary, I hold that we should welcome divisions where they pro¬ ceed from an honest and faithful endeavor to ap¬ ply Christianity to all known sins. The unity of the church demands the breaking up of outward organizations when they espouse and persist in upholding a great wrong. Who believes that Christianity would be blotted out if every over¬ shadowing hierarchy in the land were broken into fragments? The cause of true religion, instead of being mortally wounded, might even be ad¬ vanced. The free spirit of Congregationalism, strengthened by the shock, might stand up stronger than ever as a breakwater against ec¬ clesiastical tyranny in future; for centralization is not less an evil in religious than in civil matters. The great body of the people, freed from priestly rule and strong in their religious yearnings, would gather together in smaller flocks under their chosen shepherds, and thus a free church, armed with every available instrumentality for good, would be found laboring in the cause of Christ, and boldly smiting every form of sin.
126 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
“The church, I fully believe, is to redeem the race. But as in ancient days, so now, the work of reform must begin outside of existing systems, beyond the shadow of our ruling church judi¬ catories, among the great body of the people. We must not commence with the chief priests and rulers, who are always ready to crucify reform, but like Fox and Wesley take our stand in the midst of the multitude, who have no other interest than to find and embrace the truth.
“If we make our appeal to them, and wisely and faithfully labor, we shall triumph. The ruling powers in church and State, like Pilate and Herod, may combine against us, but we shall be sustained. The strong blasts of the world may oppose us, but we shall be wafted onwards by The trade- winds of Heaven’. ‘One strong thing I find here below, the just thing, the true thing’. And a great consolation to Abolitionists it is, that few in num¬ bers, hated of the world, branded as fanatics, incendiaries and mad-men, they yet have a per¬ fect assurance, a faith running over with fulness, that an Almighty arm will crown with ultimate success their humble and sincere strivings for freedom and humanity.”12
One is not surprised, on reading this speech, that more than one person in the audience took it for granted that Julian was a minister of the gospel ; and reflecting on the solid front presented by both the Whig and Democratic parties in 1852
12. Ibid. p. 82.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
127
and the apparent 'finality’ of the famous Compro¬ mise, it is evident that it required almost as much courage thus to arraign them as it had done to break away from his party four years before. At the State Free Soil convention in Indianapolis on May 17th he spoke in much the same vein as at Cincinnati, urging the duty of maintaining the Free Soil organization, not for the sake of the offices but in order to provide a rallying point for the opponents of slavery extension.13 There were two kinds of Abolitionists. One followed the lead of Garrison and Phillips and insisted on fighting slavery solely with moral weapons ; this class dep¬ recated political action, some even going so far as to advocate disunion and to call the Constitu¬ tion of the United States “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”14 The other class,
13. The Indianapolis newspapers paid little attention to Free Soil activities at this time. The organ of the Whig party, the Daily Journal, said of this convention: “The State Free Soil Convention was in session Tuesday with Andrew L. Robinson of Evansville in the chair. We noticed in attendance George W. Julian, S. S. Harding, M. R. Hull and other distinguished advocates of Free Soilism. Dele¬ gates were appointed to attend the National Convention to be held at Cleveland on the first Wednesday in August. (The convention met in Pittsburgh, August 11.) Of the delegates chosen we heard mention (ed) the names of A. L. Robinson, S. C. Stevens, J. P. Milliken, J. H. Cra¬ vens, S. S. Harding, George W. Julian, M. R. Hull, Ovid Butler, John B. Semans, H. L. Ellsworth, C. B. Crocker and' several lesser lights. Resolutions were adopted in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law and the 13th Article of the State Constitution ; favoring the freedom of the public lands ; declaring that the anti-slavery party is not a sec¬ tional party, but for the Union ; and asserting that the Democratic and Whig parties had outlived the measures which brought them into ex¬ istence and that they were mere factions.” Indianapolis Daily Jour¬ nal, May 20, 1852.
14. William Lloyd Garrison.
128 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
hating slavery quite as intensely, would not in¬ terfere with it in states where it was already established, but sought to prohibit its spread into regions over which the general government had exclusive jurisdiction, that is, in the territories and the District of Columbia. They would have the government divorce itself absolutely from slavery by refusing to be a party to the recapture of runaway slaves. They believed that the insti¬ tution, thus shut in, could not long endure. The old Liberty party men of 1840 and 1844 were Abolitionists of this class. So were Free Soilers like Giddings and Julian.
The great temperance crusade was then for the first time making itself felt in the middle west, and while in Indianapolis Julian delivered an address on the subject, by invitation, in the Hall of Representatives,15 advocating legislation similar to the celebrated law of Maine. He would treat the dealer in strong drink with the same rigorous justice as was meted out to other of¬ fenders. “Let his accursed poison, wherever it can be found, be poured into the gutter along with other filth, whilst he is marched off to answer to the charge of a crime against society ; and let him distinctly understand that when once caught in the toils of this law no art can elude, no arm can save, no hand can deliver.” The sweeping program then and there set forth by him caused a smile in later years, for he came to believe that
15. Indiana Daily Journal, May 21, 1852.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
129
the temperance reform was a many-sided one, involving the general improvement of the condi¬ tions of life and to distrust all legislation that lost sight of this fact. “We must reform our land policy”, said he, “and thus facilitate the ac¬ quisition of homes by the poor. We must curtail the remorseless power of corporate wealth. We must legislate for the rights of labor rather than the prerogatives of capital. We must educate the masses and equalize their opportunities. We must have better household training. The magnitude of the temperance movement in this comprehen¬ sive sense cannot be overstated, but it gives coun¬ tenance to no scheme of fanaticism. Its friends have little faith in any legislative short-cut to the virtue of temperance, but rely chiefly upon time, toil and patience in dealing with the essential conditions of progress. They comprehend the logic of their work and its inevitable limitations, and only expect the final overthrow of the fabric of intemperance by undermining its founda¬ tions.”16
The spectacle of the old parties in their national conventions “bowing low before their southern masters” and acquiescing in the Compromise seems not to have disturbed Julian. He had fore¬ seen and publicly foretold this. He liked to face an issue sharply drawn ; under such circumstances his course was clear. But when he found men like John A. Dix, Robert Rantoul, Preston King,
16. Unpublished Autobiography.
9—24142
130 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
John Van Buren, Horace Greeley and William Cullen Bryant, who had supported the Free Soil ticket four years before, mustering under the Dem¬ ocratic banner, he was both puzzled and dismayed. In his opinion there was more reason for out¬ spoken opposition than there had been in 1848 when these men had boldly defied the slave power. He continued to give utterance to his convictions on every possible occasion during the summer, and looked forward with eager interest to the National Free Soil convention at Pittsburgh in August, which however he was prevented by pro¬ fessional engagements from attending, although he had been chosen a delegate at the State con¬ vention. “I am sure”, he wrote, “that those who go will ever after regard it as marking an era in their lives and a new baptism in the religion of freedom. I trust it will breathe fresh spirit into our drooping cause. I long to see the calm broken ; it is becoming oppressive and suffocating. We must stir the stagnant waters.”17
This convention, over which Henry Wilson of Massachusetts presided,18 adopted a platform de¬ nouncing the Fugitive Slave law, slavery exten¬ sion and the other Compromise measures and declaring that ‘emigrants and exiles from the old world should find a cordial welcome to homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the new’, and that ‘any attempt to abridge their privilege of
17. Julian’s Journal, Aug. 5, 1852.
18. B. 1812; d. 1875. U.S. Senator 1855-75. Vice-President 1873- 75. Author, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power.
GEORGE W. JULIAN
131
becoming citizens ought to be resisted with in¬ flexible determination’. It then proceeded to nominate John P. Hale of New Hampshire19 and George W. Julian of Indiana for President and Vice president of the United States. No non- miraculous event could have been more surprising to the Hoosier thus honored than his own nomin¬ ation. He had expected that Samuel Lewis of Ohio, for whom <