INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Volume XLIX DECEMBER,1953 Number 4 Fusion Out of Confusion, 1854 Roger H. Van, Bolt* As the year 1854 opened, an Indiana correspondent of the Western Christian Advocate wrote: “Our Wealth is now rapidly increasing and our railroads are waking up every Poor Old Rip Van Winkle in the land. The Methodists are rich people in Indiana, and their whole country is growing so rapidly ‘that they will become immensely wealthy in a few short years more. The whole system of things’ is pass- ing away, and for one, I say let it go; give us the new life of the new age; let us feel the impulse of a new power, the forerunners of the millenium. Away with the old fogies . To work is the way to live and to go to heaven. To make plen’ty money and keep it, it is soul suicide; to be lazy and not make any is soul and body suicide; to make it and scat- ter it in blessings over our earth, is sober, Christian, God like action. This is an age of works. One reform produces another.”1 There were indeed signs of progress. Indianapolis was now a city of 15,000 people, with eight railroads completed to it. Its Union S’tation attracted the attention of visitors, for “the sight of four locomotives abreast in it was a sight worth seeing.”2 Even before the news came from Washington that Ste- phen A. Douglas had reopened the sectional case, the coming political season promised to be a “sight worth seeing,” too. The party factions were lining up abreast to await the out- * Roger H. Van Bolt is Historical Research Specialist, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. This article is a chapter of his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, 1950, written under the direction of Avery 0. Craven. 1 Western Chrktian Advocate, January 4, 1854. ZZbid., January 26, 1854. 354 Indiana Magazine of History come of political developments that promised to interest Indianians. On January 11, 1854, the State Temperance Convention opened at the Masonic Hall in Indianapolis with a meeting that filled the hall to overflowing. Temperance conventions had been held many ‘times before, but this one outdid all the former gatherings. The need for a strong prohibitory law to follow the ill-fated law of 1853 had aroused the tem- perance advocates to renewed vigor. To fit their demands, the Maine law type of legislation seemed ‘to be the most suitable. The convention did not go so far as to inaugurate a new party, as had been feared; it did declare that it would support only those parties that would make temperance an issue, thus putting ‘the matter directly in the laps of the politicians. The resolutions of the convention called upon the churches for support, de- claring that it was the duty of the ministers of the Gospel to interest themselves in the progress of the cause, and to bring the subject before their respective congregations “as often as they can make it! ~onvenient.”~ The organization of the temperance convention was sig- nificant in revealing the party affiliations of the delegates. The state central committee, appointed by the state oonven- tion for the purpose of organizing county meetings, was com- posed of two Democrats and three Whigs. The permanent organization of the state convention itself also cut across existing party lines. The President, Bishop Edward R. Ames, was a Democrat and a Methodist. On the list of vice presidents was Henry L. Ellsworth of Lafayette, king of the speculators in northern Indiana, a Free Soil Democrat, and a former commissioner of patents. James Blake of Indiana- polis was an old settler of that city, long active in the tem- perance reform as it evolved in the Methodist Church; a director of railroads and a merchant, he had been a prime mover of ‘the colonization society and for years was presi- dent of the Indianapolis Benevolent Society. Chauncey Carter of Logansport, born in Connecticut, had been a surveyor for the federal government; in 1847, he was appointed superin- tendent of the Wabash and Erie Canal. Stearns Fisher of Wabash County was a Whig and Baptist; born in Vermont, 3lndiana State Sentinel, January 16, 1854. Fusion Out of Confusion 355 this gentleman was a guiding light on the State Board of Agriculture. T. J. Sample of Delaware County in northern Indiana, a Methodist, had cast his first vote for John Quiniy Adams and had followed the party thereafter. A. Freeman of Valparaiso was a Democrat and a Methodist; his political positions included that of swamp land commissioner for the state. A. C. Stevenson of Putnam County was a Whig, an- other leader in the agricultural societies, and delegate to the constitutional convention of 1851.* These, all vice presidents, had supported many causes and been in numerous political battles in the past. They possessed the qualifications neces- sary to make something of the temperance movement, even if it required creating a new party. Many of them were to return to Indianapolis in July to lend their support to a fusion of the politically disgruntled. The fact ‘that so many of the leaders of the convention were Democrats brought from the Democratic Sentinel the cry that the convention was a Whig scheme to break up the Democracy. There seems to have been some justification for concern. Suspecting danger to their party, the Browns, edi- tors of the Sentinel, on the day of the convention had warned their readers : “There are interested partisans who are pleased with any movement tending to the discomforture of the dominant party in this State. A strong interest is to be sub- served by the defeat of the nominations of the Democratic party.”5 At least one party member tried to make the re- solutions more palatable to the Democracy; he urged the delegates to remove the “search and seizure” clause from the completed provisions. He was talked down, however. It was clear that the delegates did not intend to soften the attack on the liquor interests. Following the state convention came meetings of the county assemblies, which adopted resolutions similar to those of the parent body. The convention in Rush County asked the existing parties to nominate temperance men, declaring 4A Biographical Histow of Eminent and Self-Made Men of the State of Indiana (Cincinnati, 1880), District 7, p. 1; ibid, 102; ibid., District 10, p. 14; ibid., District 11, p. 16; ibid., District 6, p. 75; ibid., District 10, p. 18; Paul Wallace Gates, “Hoosier Cattle Kings,” Indkna Magazine of Histior2/ (Bloomington, 1905- ), XLIV (1948), 1-24; Jacob P. Dunn, Greater Indianapolis (2 vols., Indianapolis, 1910), I, 391; Indiana Daily Sentinel, January 12, 1854. 5 Indiana State Sentinel, January 11, 1864. 356 Indiana Magazine of History that if its wishes were not followed the temperance advocates would bring to the canvass independent candidates.e The growing temperance movement in Indiana was not part of a deliberate action to form a new political party, yet it developed certain features that made it resemble a politi- cal organization. There had been many temperance conven- tions before this time, but they had been held under the aus- pices of local temperance groups, organized at a local level, as, for example, the Washingtonians or the Sons of Tem- perance. There had been evidences of the church sanction- ing political reform, as in the resolutions of the Methodist conferences. But this January, 1854, state convention was not sponsored by the Methodist Church, despite the fact that the Western Christian Advocate reported that it appeared as if the whole Methodist, Church was present at the conven- ti~n.~If nothing else, the movement had all the appurten- ances necessary for the formation of an organization that could express itself upon political issues. All this took place before the old parties met in May. The temperance issue was hard put in its attempts to hold the center of the puMic stage, but the movement con- tinued to roll along as more county conventions met during the months following the state conclave. A correspondent of the Whig Journal lined up the cause with the forces of good when he wrote: “The spirit of Righteousness, Free- dom, and Temperance is one spirit, and that of Wickedness, Slavery, and Drunkenness is the other.”8 The growing poli- tical connotations of temperance were kept before the eyes of the party leaders, giving them much concern in the months before their conventions were to be held. Por example, a constituent, S. L. Ensley, wrote to Governor Joseph A. Wright warning him that he must hold with the temperance cause, even though the Sentinel had come out against the resolutions of the state temperance convention. Ensley claimed that there were as many temperance Democrats as Whigs, and that “Old Bill Brown” was wrong in the stand the Sen- 6Rushville Rewublican. March 8. 1854. cited in Charles Zimmer- man, “The OGgin-and Rise of the Republican Party in Indiana, from 1854 to 1860.” Zndiama Magazine of History, XI11 (1917).. 215. 7 Western Christian Advocate, .January 18, 1854. 8 Indianapolis Morning Jouml, February 9, 1854. Fusion Out of Confusion 357 tinel had taken. He warned that the editor would get a “stab” that would last for years.e The danger of splitting the party was apparent to many, since the issue cut across party lines. The Sentinel, however, continued to warn the threatening insurgents: “If Whiggery and Abolitionism can throw in the Temperance question as an auxiliary to aid them in electing a Whig legislature, they will achieve a triumph by the aid of temperance Democrats, which their political principles can never command.”lO As the time for the Democratic convention neared, a journal as influential as the Madison Courier predicted that the prohibitory liquor law would be the foundation; on which the canvass in October would rise or fall.