President Ben Wade

 

As you all know by now, i have a strong dislike for counterfactual history. I find it entirely useless, as a matter of fact. So you can rest easy. I am not going to try and construct some "what if" scenario featuring the gentleman from Ohio ascending to the executive office.

But not so very long ago, Senator Wade came within one vote of doing exactly that. During the 1868 impeachment trail of Andrew Johnson, Wade was serving as president pro tem of the Senate. Since the vice president's seat was vacant, then Wade was next in line should something happen to Andy Johnson. Something...for example...like a conviction in an impeachment trial.

But too bad for Ben Wade. It seemed a few of his fellow republican colleagues thought him a touch too radical for the job. His ascendency would surely have secured his nomination for president in '68 - and many thought he was too radical to win. What's more - he was pro-labor and favored a high tariff. This made northern business interests cringe. And what's worse - I don't think his colleagues liked him very much at all. I'm not sure how Mrs. Wade felt.

Sure, pleny of people would have loved to sack AJ, but not if it meant filling his seat with Ben Wade. In the end, he missed it by a tad - only one vote short of the 2/3 necessary to make him president.

Some alleged that Senator Ross of Kansas - the deciding vote - may have been helped along by promises from the Johnson camp. Ben "the Beast" Butler launched an inquiry to check in to such matters, but nothing really came of it.

Poor Ben Wade just couldn't catch a break.

K

Election of 1868 - Campaign Posters

The campaign posters for the Democratic nominee Horatio Seymour and the Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 presidential contest show remarkable similarities. But there are a few significant difference as well - care to give them a shot?

K

Reconciliation in Grant's Memoirs

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

There are a number of ways to define the reconciliationist sentiment of general/president/citizen Ulysses S. Grant. His magnanimity at Appomattox would be a good place to start. Speaking of his Confederate prisoners, he noted: "we did not want to exult over their downfall." And there is evidence suggesting that his generous terms of surrender won him, if not admiration, at least at modicum of respect among defeated Confederates.

His 1868 presidential campaign rested on the cornerstone of reconciliation. the campaign slogan, "Let Us Have Peace," undeniably furthered the desires among many members of the Republican party to extend a hand of friendship across the Potomac. The slogan became so associated with the Grant's campaign, presidency, and life that it found a prominent place on Grant's tomb in New York.

One can find Grant's most clearly articulated vision of reconciliation in his two-volume memoirs. This enormously popular work - that restored his family's fortune after a financial disaster destroyed it - does more to promote friendship between sections than any other work in the reconciliationist literature broadly defined. “I feel that we are on the verge of a new era,” he wrote shortly before his death, “where there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy; but I feel within me that it is to be so.”

But we must be careful not to accept Grant as a reconciliationst and leave it at that. It would be foolish to assume that reconciliation necessarily meant that what men had fought for was simply forgotten. Coupled with Grant’s reconciliationist bent was a steadfast devotion to the Union cause of freedom. Soon after the war, Grant acknowledged in a rousing speech honoring general Daniel Butterfield that Confederates had sowed the “germ of treason, in the vain attempt to overthrow this Government, that slavery, despotism, and sin might thrive upon its ruin.” He later affirmed in his memoirs, “the cause of the Great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery” and reminded Americans that the Confederate cause was “one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

So was Grant a reconciliationist? Without question. But one who made sure to promote reconciliation on northern terms - acknowledging that former Confederates were countrymen once again, but that they had fought with brutal determination for disunion and the preservation of slavery.

Peace,

Keith

PS - if you haven't already, be sure to check out the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.

James A. Garfield on Partisanship, Treason, and the 1868 Elections

Greetings Cosmic Americans.

In 1868, as presidential and congressional races heated up, partisans on both sides invoked the Civil War to further their (or others') political campaigns. In the Republican camp, that wasn't all that hard to do. Jefferson Davis was a Democrat, most prominent Rebels were Democrats, and yes...the man who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat too.

Of course there were loyal Democrats as well - so Republicans did their best to discredit them by making the obvious association.

I recently came across this letter written by James A. Garfield in October, 1868. Garfield had served as a major general in the Union army, spent nine consecutive terms as a Republican congressional representative from Ohio, and eventually was elected (in 1880) the 20th President of the United States - where he served only 200 days before he fell to an assassins bullet.

In 1868, Garfield was trying to convince one of his former Union army comrades - prominent Democrat William S. Rosecrans -  that supporting a Democrat for the House of Representatives was a heinous mistake - perhaps as odious as supporting treason. Rosecrans had moved to California after the war and was heavily involved in land development in Los Angeles...where he also became a key Democratic Party spokesperson. The following letter is a great example of a former Union soldier "waving the bloody shirt," as it were, to make as argument.

“I cannot look upon your present political affiliations with out keen sense of regret – for it seems that the leaders of the Democratic party are so blinded by the fury of partisan feelings that they are quite ready to be led by the old secession rebel element of the south. Our good friends Gen. Schenck is fighting a desperate battle with the Democracy of the District – who are running Valandingham for Congress – I cannot for a moment suppose that were you here – you would differ with me in my purpose to so all in my power to defeat the traitor whom you and I sent through our lines – and electing his stead the Union soldier who helped save the Republic."

So those who had fought to save the Republic always had this card up their sleeve - and would pull it out regularly.

One last thing - someone came after me the other day for not posting footnotes when I quote original research. I have mentioned on several occasions that I would provide my sources to anyone who asked - just send me a note. But for the record, my snarky friend...

James A. Garfield to William S.Rosecrans, Oct 7, 1868, Box 12, Folder 71, Rosecrans Papers, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Peace,

Keith