A Radical Republican in the Irrepressible Conflict

PEGGY SEIGEL

over slavery up to the Civil War, conflicts D challengedduring the decade citizens leading in northeast to examine the most basic principles of their democracy. While most hoped that the compromise measures of 1850 would silence the demands of slave states, they were pulled into an escalating series of crises and finally, into civil war. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, meant to appease the South, outraged north- erners as it was enforced on their free soil. Citizens across the political spectrum felt betrayed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 which allowed for the possibility of slavery in western territories that the 1820 Missouri Compromise had promised to keep free forever. Hoping for peace with the South, a majority of Hoosiers voted for as president in 1856, based upon the Democratic Party's pledge to sup- port free territorial elections to decide the territorial quagmire. Buchanan's role as a compromiser was short-lived, however, for he soon sided with southern politicians intent on bringing Kansas into the Union as a slave state. The conflict over Kansas rapidly deepened into irreversible political crisis. Violent clashes raged from the floor of the Congress to Kansas territory, deepening sectional allegiances. Fort

Peggy Seigel is the author of "A Passionate Missionary to the West: Charles Beecher in Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1844-1850," which appeared in the December 2010 issue of the IMH.

INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, 107 (December 2011) C 2011, Trustees of Indiana University. 328 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Wayne residents, divided in their support for Abraham Lincoln in the November 1860 election, were largely united in their passion to preserve the national union. During the secession months of the 36th Congress in December 1860 and the first months of 1861, ordinary citizens, like their elected officials, passed through stages of panic, denial, and finally, resolve. Among the leaders in this transformation was Hoosier lawyer, political organizer, Republican congressman, and future Civil War offi- cer Charles Case. Reflecting the position generally described as "radical Republican," Case believed that the Declaration of Independence ensured freedom and basic rights for all Americans, including African Americans. As Indiana's Tenth District representative in the 35th and 36th Congresses, he stood firm against the extension of slavery into western territories and steadfastly exposed the corruption of the Buchanan administration. During the secession winter of 1860-1861, Case teamed with the radical faction of the Republican Party in Congress, strongly arguing against concessions that he believed would betray the nation's principles and weaken the national government. Amidst bitter factionalism and disorder, Case defended the Republican Party, the preservation of the Constitution, and president-elect Abraham Lincoln.' Charles Case's uncompromising principles may have cost him renomination to Congress in 1860. In the place of politics, at age 44, he began over three years of service with Union forces that included the battle of Fort Donelson and Sherman's campaign through Georgia. After the war, he resumed law practice-first in Fort Wayne, then in New Orleans, and finally, during his last eight years, in Washington, D.C. Following his death at age 66 in 1883, he was buried in the .

'Eric Foner defines the radical Republicans of the 1850s as those who exhibited "a persistent refusal to compromise with the South on any question including slavery." Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor; Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970; New York, 1995), 103-148. Among those frequently associated with the radical element of the party in the 35th and 36th Congresses were Charles Sumner (Mass.), Preston King (N.Y.), and Benjamin Wade (Ohio) in the Senate; Joshua Giddings (Ohio), Owen P. Lovejoy (Ill.), (Penn.), John Gurley (Ohio), and (Ind.) in the House. Julian of Centerville, Wayne County, served in Congress before and after Charles Case. Patrick W. Riddleberger, George WashingtonJulian, Radical Republican (Indianapolis, Ind., 1966); David M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (New Haven, Conn., 1942), 176-77. CHARLES CASE 329

Congressman Charles Case. This 1859 photograph depicts Case during his first of two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he consistently spoke and voted against attempts to allow the spread of slavery into new western territories.

Courtesy, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 330 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Despite his leadership in a time of national crisis, Case was largely forgotten, both in his own time by a town that by 1864 had turned against Lincoln in favor of his Democratic opponent George McClellan, and by historians, who seldom include Case in the small group of radi- cal Republicans identified with Indiana. A study of Case brings overdue awareness of a less-known side of Indiana's antebellum political history. More importantly, Case's career adds to our understanding of the Republican antislavery movement in the Old Northwest preceding Lincoln's inauguration. Finally, such a study draws attention to an exceptional individual who exemplified the ideals of a more just society.2 Born in 1817 in Ashtabula County, part of Ohio's Western Reserve, Charles Case was well-placed to grow into a man with a deep sense of social justice. More than most other areas of Ohio-and any part of Indiana-the Reserve was settled by New Englanders, and, as early as 1832, it welcomed Yankee missionaries who came to the West to spread their moral revolt against American slavery. Foreshadowing his future political interests, Case delivered his first public speech, in 1837, on the necessity of ending slavery in the District of Columbia. In the audience was Joshua Giddings, a formidable attorney and outspoken antislavery leader who was about to begin twenty years in the House of Representatives. The next year, Case began his formal study of law under two of the Reserve's other leading attorneys, Benjamin Wade and R. P. Ranney. At the beginning of a long political career that would take him to the , Wade was then leading a fight in the Ohio legislature to repeal the state's black laws and to defeat attempts to tighten state laws governing fugitive slaves. 3

2 According to Mark Neely, Allen County Democrats' racial fears accounted for Lincoln's unpop- ularity. Neely is quoted in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, November 13, 1982. John D. Beatty argues that Fort Wayne Democrats strongly opposed Lincoln's 1864 draft and feared the admin- istration's use of government powers. "Fort Wayne in the Civil War Era 1855 - 1870," in John D. Beatty, ed., History of Fort Wayne and Allen County (Evansville, Ind., 2006). See also Beatty, "'The Douglas' Has Come!': Stephen A. Douglas and the Presidential Campaign of 1860 in Fort Wayne, Indiana," Old Fort News 72 no. 2 (2009); and Kerry Hubartt, "City Sent Thousands to Civil War Front Lines," Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, April 11, 2011. 3 W. W. Williams, History of Ashtabula County, Ohio (, 1878), 34; G. W. Julian, The Life offJoshua R. Giddings (Chicago, 1892), 45; A. G. Riddle, "Rise of Anti-Slavery Sentiment in the Western Reserve," roll 8, box 51, Wilbur H. Siebert Collection Microfilm Edition, MIC 192, Ohio Historical Society Archives/Library, Columbus, Ohio (hereafter Siebert Collection); G. L. Dumaree, "The 'Underground Railroad' in the Western Reserve of Ohio," roll 12, box 60, Siebert Collection; "Death of Case," Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, July 2, 1883; "Hon. Charles Case, Reminiscences of One of the Original Abolitionists," Fort Wayne Gazette, CHARLES CASE 331

In his first years in legal practice, Case already evinced the anti- slavery philosophy of Giddings and Wade. As Congressman Case later recalled of his early antislavery position:

When it was comparatively unpopular to be called an anti-slav- ery man, my sentiments were never concealed; and, sir, as to the inherent right or wrong of these questions, I have not changed my opinions from that day to this.

His reputation grew as a result of his successful defense of a fugitive slave named Clarke in 1842. By the end of the decade, Case had fol- lowed his mentors into politics. Acquisition of territories as a result of the Mexican War had created new fears that slavery would expand west. Convinced that the existing political parties were bowing to southern demands, in 1848 Case joined Giddings and other defecting Ohio Whigs in organizing the Free Soil Party, whose platform emphasized that pros- perity was only available in the free social system of the North. That summer, he served as a delegate to the national convention in Buffalo that nominated Martin Van Buren for president. At about the same time, Case moved to Bryan in the northwest corner of Ohio, where he edited a Free Soil newspaper and campaigned against the spread of slavery.4 Case's decision to move to Fort Wayne in 1850 was likely made for both personal and professional reasons. Benjamin S. Woodworth, a friend from student days, had started a medical practice in the northern Indiana town four years earlier. The promise of economic growth would also have appealed to the thirty-three-year-old attorney with a wife and three young children to support. After the first railroad came through in 1852, the town of some 5,000 citizens began to transition from a signifi- cant hub on the Wabash & Erie Canal to a major midwestern rail center. Newcomers from eastern states and from Germany were arriving daily.

February 27, 1873; Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, Bound with Them in Chains: A Biographical History of the Antislavery Movement (Westport, Conn., 1972), 257; Douglas A. Gamble, "Joshua Giddings and the Ohio Abolitionists: A Study in Radical Politics," Ohio History 88 (Winter 1979), 49; H. L. Trefousse, Benjamin Franklin Wade: Radical Republicanfrom Ohio (New York, 1963), 34. 4Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 2d Sess. 981 (1859); Fort Wayne Gazette, February 27, 1873. Case explained his political background in letters published October 5, 1854, in the Fort Wayne Times and The (Fort Wayne) Standard. 332 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

At this early point in his career, Case practiced with two of the town's leading lawyers, Joseph Edgerton and James Worden. Since set- tling in the town in 1843, Edgerton had promoted the development of canals and had already acquired significant wealth as a land speculator. In 1850, he now turned his attention to bringing railroads through the area and likely anticipated a growing legal practice. Case and Edgerton advertised their "special attention to Land Agency, and the Selecting and Collecting of Debts in any part of Indiana" with a practice in both state and federal courts. Within a year, Case formed a partnership with James Worden, the Allen County prosecutor. Like many other citizens in the West, Case also began a pattern of buying and selling local property.5 Case found the residents of Fort Wayne sharply divided over slav- ery. The opinion expressed in January 1850 in the Fort Wayne Sentinel, the town's Democratic newspaper, captured the reluctance of many to challenge the growing demands of southern states. It was better to repress the question of slavery, the Sentinel's editor argued, better not to stir the "monomania" and "fanaticism" that was taking hold of southern members of Congress. In October, Congress passed the Omnibus Bill, and optimists hoped that its compromises would stem southern aggres- sion. California was to come into the Union as a free state; the decision to allow slavery in the vast New Mexico territory would be deferred; the slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia. "The territo- rial slavery question is settled," wrote the Fort Wayne Times on October 10, 1850, ignoring the deep revulsion created by another part of the compromise bill, the Fugitive Slave Law.6 Across political allegiances, many Fort Wayne citizens found the harsh provisions in the new slave law morally repulsive. The Sentinel deemed it "obnoxious" and a "godsend to the abolitionists, in giving them something by which to keep up the agitation on that everlasting slavery topic." Case considered it "a law of unparalleled injustice and cruelty," "a nauseous cup" forced on northerners to prevent disunion. Local religious leaders reminded citizens that Christians had an obliga- tion to help those in need, even if that meant disobeying the law. Moreover, many northerners felt that allowing federal commissioners to transport fugitive slaves across state lines and denying slaves representa- tion in court violated a common sense of justice. Fines as great as

'Fort Wayne Times, August 8, 1850; Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, July 2, 1883. 6Fort Wayne Sentinel, January 5, 1850; Fort Wayne Times, October 10, 1850. CHARLES CASE 333

$1,000, six months imprisonment, and heavy civil damages were seen to unfairly penalize those who followed their religious beliefs.7 Despite uneasiness over the new law, Fort Wayne citizens shared a widespread exhaustion among Hoosiers over race-related issues. Like voters across the state, they overwhelmingly approved the 1850-1851 state constitutional convention's controversial Article XIII, which pro- hibited African Americans from moving into the state. Furthermore, blacks already living in the state prior to November 1851 were required to sign a formal register as a testimony of their earlier residence. Case was among the minority who objected on principle. Years later in a speech in the House of Representatives, he recalled the similarity of his vote on Article XIII with his vote on the constitution proposed for Oregon's admission to statehood. He believed that African Americans had legal rights under the U.S. Constitution, and both votes were "a question of humanity."8 Widespread opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law was nevertheless evident during the summer of 1851, when both Whig and Democratic candidates for the Tenth Congressional District seat pledged to repeal the act if they were elected. Such a direct promise was not surprising from Whig candidate , a well-known minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a denomination strongly on record against slavery. Indicating a shift in popular opinion, Democratic candidate Judge James W. Borden took a similar position. Even in traditionally Democratic Allen County, Brenton had a strong showing, reportedly drawing first-time voters from "the most secluded corners of back- woods." When the votes were counted for the fourteen counties com- prising the district, Brenton showed a narrow three-hundred-vote victory.'

7Fort Wayne Sentinel, October 19, 1850; The Standard, August 3, 1854. A helpful summary of the provisions is in H. Robert Baker, The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War (Athens, Ohio, 2006), 52. On reaction to the law in Indiana, see Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850-1880 (Indianapolis, Ind., 1965), 50-51.

8Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 2d Sess. 981 (1859). On Article XIII of the 1851 Indiana Constitution, see Emma Lou Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana Before 1900: A Study of a Minority (1985; Bloomington, Ind., 1993), 63-73. 'Fort Wayne Sentinel, July 19, 1851; Fort Wayne Times, July 24, September 4, 1851; Indiana True Democrat,July 31, 1851. In 1851, the Tenth Congressional District included fourteen counties: Adams, Allen, Blackford, DeKalb, Delaware, Grant, Huntington, Jay, LaGrange, Noble, Randolph, Steuben, Wells, and Whitley. 334 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Brenton's first term in the U.S. Congress was limited to only one year under the calendar in the revised Indiana constitution. Although he was widely applauded for his principled service and was renominated in 1852, he lost to the Democratic candidate, likely due to the disintegra- tion of the Whig Party. In the national elections, Democrat Franklin Pierce took the reins as president with a somber pledge to uphold all provisions of the 1850 compromise. During this period of relative national calm, Case served on Fort Wayne's first school board and joined temperance supporters in pushing for state legislation to prohibit the manufacture and sale of whiskey. For a short period he served as co-edi- tor of the local movement's campaign newspaper, The Prohibitionist.'0 When Congress passed Sen. Stephen A. Douglas's Kansas- Nebraska Act at the end of May 1854, Case was pulled into a long-feared political storm. Northerners were stunned by the bill's repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The newly formed territories of Kansas and Nebraska were now subject to popular sovereignty, a policy whereby voters would decide if slavery was to be allowed. While Douglas and his supporters tried to assure the country that this policy would fairly settle the slavery issue, northerners were convinced that the slave power had won an astounding victory. The Missouri Compromise had been consid- ered a sacred trust. In Fort Wayne, as across the North, waves of protests swiftly began a political revolution." Within days, Case and other opposition leaders launched a news- paper to oppose the unlimited spread of slavery threatened by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In its June 1 debut, The Standard announced the editors' intention to discuss "the question of Slavery, so far as we of the north are interested in it, in all its bearings, fairly and truthfully it is hoped." Taking its support for reform still further, The Standard prom- ised to be "unequivocally and prominently the advocate of 'Equal Rights' opposing whatever conflicts with such rights, whether it be Involuntary

0 1Baker, The Rescue offJoshua Glover, 55. Following defeat of a funding referendum to build the town's first public school, Case and two fellow board members-banker Hugh McCulloch and former mayor William Stewart- resigned. John D. Beatty, "A City Takes Root: Fort Wayne's Pioneer Development 1819-1855, in Beatty, ed., History of Fort Wayne and Allen County, 38. Case's co-editors on The Prohibitionistwere fellow attorneys Lindley M. Ninde and John Hough Jr. Fort Wayne Times, May 31, 1854. "On Douglas's motives and the political fallout within the Democratic Party, see Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, 1852-1857 (New York, 1947), 2:102, 157; and Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor; Free Men, 155-62. CHARLES CASE 335

Personal Servitude, or any other violation of the doctrine, of 'equal and exact justice to all men."' While the editors would also give attention to other reforms of the day-especially temperance and universal educa- tion-the newspaper's emphasis was clearly on the issue of slavery. 2 Standard publisher Daniel W. Burroughs was a Vermont native, Baptist minister, and bookstore owner who dabbled in homeopathic cures. As an inspector for the local board of health and the sealer of weights and measures, he was also a trusted public servant. Burroughs seemed to have been best known about town, however, as a passionate reformer who had organized early temperance societies. In 1846, he had led the regional Baptist association in denouncing the sin of slavery, thus putting Baptists in northeast Indiana on record, alongside Presbyterians and Methodists, as part of the evangelical antislavery crusade. Moreover, Burroughs was believed to participate in the clandestine work of the Underground Railroad. Any newspaper skills that he lacked, he found in the young attorney Charles Case.' 3 As editor during the Standard's first months in the summer of 1854, Case brought issues relating to slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act before his readers by reprinting stories from other newspapers. He also reported in detail on local affairs, including the meetings organizing the new People's political party. Following journalistic practices of the day, he wrote from a strong personal bias. Case's report of a widely publicized fugitive slave case, for example, conveyed a deep outrage over the increased power of slave states.

The man Anthony Burns, has been sent back to servitude. We have full accounts of the affair from the time of his arrest until we (the free Sovereigns of the whole North we mean) marched him between double columns of troops surrounded by a hundred deputy Marshalls armed with swords and revolvers, from the Boston Slave-pen to Long Wharf, and on board the U.S. vessel which carried him back to 'Old Virginia!'

2 The Standard, June 1, 1854; Peggy Seigel, "The Fort Wayne Standard: A Reform Newspaper in the 1850s Storm," Indiana Magazine of History 47 (September 2001), 169-89. "Peggy Seigel, "Fort Wayne's Road to Freedom: Another Look at the Underground Railroad," Old Fort News 73 no. 2 (2010), 9. 336 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Case told readers that he had spared them the full details, unable to rec- oncile the event to his concept of a free America. "For the present it is enough to say, that Slavery has triumphed," he wrote. "When within forty years past, was it otherwise? When will it be otherwise, so long as such mockery of all justice as the Fugitive Slave law, remains the law of the Land?" Several weeks later, Case pointed out the irony of celebrating freedom on the Fourth of July when more than three million African Americans were legally enslaved. Case described the groans "into the ears of Freedom's God" that told "the story of a nation's confessed Hypocrisy . . . . Strange progress have we made since July fourth Seventeen hundred and seventy six! "14 In early August, Case hailed a recent legal victory in Wisconsin as "the first judicial blow to the monstrous" Fugitive Slave Law. The wide- ly publicized case carried significance on two levels. First, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had acquitted prominent abolitionist attorney Sherman Booth of charges of promoting the escape of a fugitive slave. What Case recognized as cause for even greater celebration was the upholding of the defense argument regarding states' rights. Reversing the doctrine used by southerners to justify slavery, the court agreed that northern states were not legally bound to sanction slavery. Because each state had power over slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law was unconstitutional and could not be enforced. Furthermore, the court had upheld the opinion on appeal. "Years hence," Case wrote of this landmark decision, "the year 1854... shall furnish a bright page amidst its general darkness." 5 By July 1854, Case found himself in the middle of local efforts to defeat the pro-Kansas-Nebraska Democrats in the coming fall elections. On July 1, a large opposition group made up of men from several politi- cal parties came together in a mass meeting. Attendees appointed Case to a committee to choose officers, to draw up resolutions, and then to argue for their approval. Reflecting on the surprisingly large and enthu- siastic crowd packed into the county courthouse, Case wrote of their earnest attention to Brenton's remarks and "the hearty and oft repeated cheers, which greeted all the speakers." After each call for a vote on a resolution, the crowd responded with "loud unanimous" shouts of

"Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2:152; The Standard,June 8, July 6, 1854. "The Standard, August 3, 1854. See Baker, The Rescue offJoshua Glover, for a detailed analysis of the legal proceedings and the series of challenges in following years. CHARLES CASE 337

approval. United in a common cause, Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, Free Soilers, and Know Nothings pledged to restore the compromise of 1820, to oppose recognition of slavery as a national institution sanc- tioned by the federal government, and to "never consent to any compro- mise with slavery." In its final business, the meeting appointed Case to a central committee to organize township anti-Nebraska associations and encouraged everyone to attend the upcoming mass state meeting "of the people" in Indianapolis.16 In his last weeks as The Standard's editor, Case used the paper to campaign for the new anti-Nebraska party. He stressed the urgency of current events, telling readers that proslavery settlers moving into Kansas had promised bloodshed to anyone who opposed the introduc- tion of slavery. In a series of editorials under the heading "Keep it before the People," Case attacked the Democratic Party's reversal of its earlier positions against slavery extension. At their recent national convention in Baltimore, Democrats had pledged "to resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the question." "Keep it before the People," Case wrote: "The Democracy were right in 1849, when they - Resolved, That the institution of slavery ought not to be introduced into any territory where it does not exist."" In September, the new People's Party unanimously nominated Brenton for another term as Tenth District representative. Case accepted the nomination for Allen County representative to the state legislature. In the October elections, Brenton defeated the Democratic incumbent in seven out of the district's eight counties. Statewide, People's Party candi- dates took nine out of eleven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, showing formidable strength in all but the southern third of the state. People's candidates also won control of the Indiana House. In Allen County, however, Brenton and Case both lost.18

6 1 The Standard, July 6, July 13, 1854. Ten thousand "freemen of Indiana" attended the meeting, according to the Fort Wayne Daily Times, July 16, 1855. On the People's Party and the subse- quent formation of the Republican Party in Indiana, see Charles Zimmerman, "The Origin and Rise of the Republican Party in Indiana from 1854 to 1860," Indiana Magazine of History 13 (September 1917), 211-69.

17The Standard, August 3, 1854. On settlement in Kansas after the 1854 act, see Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2:307-312. 'The Tenth Congressional District now included Allen, DeKalb, Elkhart, Koskiosko, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, and Whitley Counties. 338 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

According to the editor of The Times, Brenton's defeat in Fort Wayne was due to the importation of out-of-district voters, a frequent form of election fraud. Other explanations seem equally likely. Brenton and Case had both supported the recently passed state prohibition law, which divided local voters, particularly the town's German Americans. Many immigrant voters opposed slavery in western territories, but restricting the manufacture and sale of alcohol ran counter to their cul- tural traditions. Furthermore, German Americans distrusted the faction of anti-immigration Know Nothings within the People's Party.19 At the end of July 1855, James P. Brown, a young man from Ohio described as "mulatto," was arrested under Article XIII of the revised Indiana Constitution and brought before Allen County Circuit Court Judge James Borden. Borden was a prominent Democrat who four years earlier had served as one of the county's two representatives to the state constitutional convention. Now, as judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Borden was tasked with enforcing the provisions of the new state consti- tution. Case and Lindley Ninde, another attorney known for his strong Free Soil views, volunteered to represent the defendant. 20 Case argued that Brown did not meet the narrow definitions of "negro, a full blooded African" or "mulatto," a person half-black and half-white, intended by Article XIII. Furthermore, he claimed that since there was no proof of Brown's race, there was no justification for his arrest. The prosecutor insisted on the meanings of "negro" and "mulat- to" as defined by Indiana's black laws. Under these laws, persons with as little as one-eighth "negro" blood were denied basic civil rights such as testifying against a white person, voting, or serving in the militia. In what was considered a major departure from his political colleagues,

"The Standard, September 7, October 19, 1854; Fort Wayne Times, September 14, 1854, January 4, 1855; Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 67; Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2:128. Richard L. May points out that because the Kansas-Nebraska Bill denied suffrage to naturalized citizens settling in Kansas, recent German immigrants would not have favored the bill. May, "Notes on Formation of the Republican Party in Fort Wayne, Indiana 1852 - 1858," Old Fort News 30 no. 1 (1967), 6-10. 20 Lindley Ninde was an Allen County delegate to the Free Soil state convention in Indianapolis on May 17, 1852. One of the resolutions adopted was "That the notorious 13th article of the recently adopted Constitution of this State is not only a palpable violation, but a direct contra- diction of the principles avowed in the first article of that instrument, and of the principles avowed in the Federal constitution, which declare that all men are created equal." The Indiana True Democrat, May 27, 1852. CHARLES CASE 339

Judge Borden agreed with Case's position and ordered Brown to be discharged.2' The detailed coverage in The Times was a barometer of public opin- ion. Like many northerners, the newspaper's editor, John Dawson, had conflicting attitudes about race. While he adamantly opposed the exten- sion of slavery, he attacked abolitionists as troublemakers and ridiculed their advocacy of social equality. Nevertheless, he drew a strong line against the enforcement of laws that threatened basic concepts of social justice. He praised Case as "a friend of humanity and liberty." He described Article XIII as an "atrocious" law "that would shame the tyranny of Austria or the oppression of Turkey" and that "made a man guilty for wearing a black skin, when he has no power to make it white." Dawson also praised the local African American community, noting "their quiet, orderly, yet anxious watching of the whole proceedings." Moreover, he stressed that his views were shared by the wider communi- ty and noted that many of his readers had expressed "aid and sympa- thy. "22 In Fort Wayne, as across the nation, events in the spring of 1856 created a sense of alarm. South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks viciously attacked Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate chamber. Despite the paralyzing severity of Sumner's injuries, House members failed to raise the necessary two-thirds vote to expel Brooks. In Kansas, proslavery and free-state settlers claimed control over separate territori- al governments at Lecompton and Topeka. President Pierce, siding with proslavery forces, ordered more than 500 federal troops to the area, but they did little to keep the peace. In November 1855, over 1,500 "border ruffians" from Missouri marched on the free-soil town of Lawrence. After the first group was persuaded by proslavery Gov. Wilson Shannon

21 An 1853 state law declared that no person "having one-eighth or more of Negro blood" could testify in any case involving a white person. Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana, 123. 22 Fort Wayne Times, August 2, 3, 9, October 29, 1855. The Standard, September 14, 1854, pub- lished a detailed report on Indiana's black laws, attempting to increase public awareness of and sympathy for the free black population in the state. For studies of Fort Wayne antislavery reli- gious leaders, see George R. Mather, Frontier Faith: The Story of the Pioneer Congregations of Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1820-1860 (Fort Wayne, Ind., 1992); Peggy Seigel, "Who's Hiding in our Basements? Abolitionists and the Underground Railroad in Allen County, Indiana Reconsidered," Old Fort News 60 no. 2 (2003). In 1860, Congressman , repre- sentative from South Bend, remembered that even in the "Democratic county of Allen," Article XIII was not enforced. Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. 1903 (1860). 340 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

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"Liberty, the fair maid of Kansas, in the hands of the 'border ruffians,' 1856. President Franklin Pierce stands in the middle over the figure of Kansas, as Sen. Stephen Douglas (far right) and James Buchanan (far left) join him and their fellow "border ruffians" attacking anti- slavery settlers in the territory.

Courtesy, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

to disperse, another group of 800 formed in May 1856 and rampaged through Lawrence, destroying buildings and looting. Violence escalated a few days after the attack on Lawrence, when antislavery zealot John Brown led seven men in a massacre of proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek. Brown and his men split the skulls of five of their victims and then hacked their bodies to pieces. Kansas was in the midst of a brutal civil conflict.23 Moral outrage and fear over events in Kansas ignited the North. By the summer of 1856, the remnants of the Whig Party had come together with many Free Soilers and Know Nothings, and some anti-Nebraska Democrats, to form the new Republican Party. Early in June, Brenton and Case spoke before "tremendous" audiences about "Free Kansas and its incidents," attracting "enthusiasm" that "far exceeded any thing yet witnessed in Fort Wayne." When Republicans met in Philadelphia in the same month for their first national convention, they committed them-

"Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2:434-36, 449; James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988), chap. 5. CHARLES CASE 341

selves to the "preservation of republican institutions" and the return to "the principles of Democracy" articulated in the Declaration of Independence. They demanded the admission of Kansas as a free state and the prohibition of the spread of slavery, assailing the institution as a "relic of barbarism." Delegates chose the dashing explorer John Fremont as their nominee for president, hoping that they had found a leader "to command respect and crystallize into one solid mass the popular ele- ments of hostility to the Democratic ticket."24 In the summer of 1856, Case led district Republican campaigns, everywhere drawing spontaneous crowds. He shared the podium with gubernatorial nominee Oliver P. Morton; he crisscrossed the district stumping for Brenton and Fremont. Young men on horseback formed Fremont Clubs; Case spoke at rallies with local bands and glee clubs, and a large presence of women and children. Again and again, Case "stirred the blood of every auditor as he depicted the brutal outrages in Kansas and the corruption of the [Pierce] Administration in Washington." In the Tenth District, as across Indiana, the Fremont cam- paign "touched the popular heart" and took on the aspect of a religious crusade. Against this tide of enthusiasm, Democrats portrayed Fremont and the Republicans as "disunionists" and tried to convince voters that James Buchanan would bring peace to Kansas. Campaign banners prom- ised "Buchanan, Breckenridge and Free Kansas." The career politician known as "Old Functionary" had served the Pierce administration as minister to England; his separation from the Kansas-Nebraska crisis worked strongly to his advantage When the election returns came back in October, Republicans in Fort Wayne had some cause for celebration. Voter turnout had been at an all-time high. Brenton was elected for a third term, now for the Republican Party, and Morton won the governorship for the new party's state ticket. While Fort Wayne voters supported Buchanan as the "safe"

24Fort Wayne Daily Times, June 6, 1856; New York Daily Times, June 21, 1856; Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2:449, 460; Riddleberger, George Washington Julian, Radical Republican, 115; Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 2. 25G. W. Julian, Political Recollections (Chicago, 1884), 152; Fort Wayne Daily Times, July 9, 1856; Fort Wayne Weekly Times, July 17, September 18, 1856; Mark W. Summers, The Plundering Generation: Corruption and the Crisis of the Union, 1849-1861 (New York, 1984), 240. McPherson describes Buchanan as a "colorless and safe" candidate, who "carried no taint of responsibility for the mess in Kansas." On Fremont and Buchanan and the 1856 campaign, see McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 155-62. 342 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

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"The Great Republican Reform Party, calling on their candidate," 1856. Republican presiden- tial nominee John Fremont and his followers-depicted, from right to left, as an African American, a Catholic priest, a supporter of Free Love, a socialist, a cigar-smoking suffragette, and a temperance advocate-struck many voters as too radical, and James Buchanan became the next president.

Courtesy, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

candidate over Fremont by a roughly two-to-one ratio, Buchanan won Indiana by a narrower margin, his statewide support diluted by third- party candidate Millard Fillmore on a Know Nothing ticket. Hoosier Republicans also contended that thousands of fraudulent votes had been cast statewide for Buchanan by migratory Irish railroad workers. Encouraged by Fremont's victories in eleven of the fifteen northern states, Republicans expected their party to gain strength by the next presidential election. 26

26 George R. Mather, "Samuel S. Brenton Clergyman and Congressman," Old Fort News 52 no. 1 (1989); Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2:501-510; Julian, Political Recollections, 157; G. Stanley Hood, "Political History of Allen County," in Beatty, ed., History of Fort Wayne and Allen County, 291. Buchanan won Indiana with 118,672 votes to 94,376 votes for Fremont and 22,836 for Fillmore. Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 76. CHARLES CASE 343

The lame duck session of the 34th Congress, from December 1856 through March 1857, might have been used to heal the nation's wounds, but instead, President Pierce's continued support for proslavery factions in Kansas brought greater partisanship. Furthermore, by his inaugura- tion in early March, Buchanan had put together an administration that favored southern interests. Within days of the new president taking office, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision polarized the nation. Slaves were recognized as property no different from any other; free African Americans had no rights recognized under the Constitution; and slaveholders could now take slaves into all new territories. Northerners justifiably feared that slavery would soon become a national institution. The more immediate concern, however, was whether or not the Buchanan administration would enforce Douglas's policy of popular sov- ereignty in Kansas with an honest election or bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton constitution, widely regard- ed by northerners as a fraud.27 As Congress adjourned in March 1857, Indiana's Tenth District had added worries. Their respected Republican congressman, Samuel Brenton, unexpectedly died at the age of 47. By August, Case was deep into the political stream as the Republican candidate in a special election called to decide Brenton's former seat. His Democratic opponent was none other than his early law partner, James L. Worden, now Allen County circuit court judge. Throughout his late summer and fall campaign, Case seemed to walk on thin ice. He had won the Republican nomination at a special convention on the third vote with a very slim majority. John Dawson, the editor of The Fort Wayne Times, wrote that the choice was "not as we desired it." Case's reputation as an abolitionist was a political disadvan- tage. Local Democrats attempted to defuse the Kansas conflict by emphasizing that free-soil settlers were a growing majority. They also appealed to racial prejudices by affirming support of the Dred Scott deci- sion and opposing "the revolting doctrine that seeks to elevate the Negro in his social and political relations, to an equality with the white man." 28 Appearing with Worden before a large Fort Wayne audience on August 20, Case focused on what he saw as the key issue-the role of

27Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (New York, 1978).

28Fort Wayne Times, August 20, 1857. 344 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

the federal government regarding slavery. In conformity with the 1856 Republican platform, he believed that the federal government had power to restrict slavery to states where it already existed and to prevent its fur- ther extension. He attacked the Dred Scott decision by citing its incon- sistencies with long years of judicial precedent. The next week, The Times published a letter from Isaac Jenkinson, a local Republican leader, entitled "Is Case an Abolitionist?" Reviewing the candidate's position on slavery over the past nine years, Jenkinson argued that Case's views were consistent with those of the Democratic Party prior to the Kansas- Nebraska Act. Case had an "unsullied moral character," Jenkinson wrote, a "commanding ability," and "above all a deep hold...on the hearts and affections of all classes of the people." When election returns came in, Case won by eight hundred votes.29 In the late fall and early winter of 1857, President Buchanan com- mitted what historian Kenneth Stampp has memorably labeled as "one of the most tragic miscalculations any President has ever made." In November, Buchanan reversed his policy that the full Kansas constitu- tion be presented to voters in an open and free election. Instead, he now supported the decision of the recent proslavery convention in Lecompton to ask voters to approve slavery with a simple vote for or against. Approval would bring immediate statehood. If voters rejected slavery, those slaves already in the territory would be allowed to remain. Moreover, the constitution could not be revoked until 1864. In his annu- al message to Congress on December 8, Buchanan blamed the Kansas crisis on free-state voters who boycotted elections, and he stood by the legitimacy of the Lecompton convention. Only admission of Kansas dur- ing the present term of Congress, he warned, would dissipate the "dark and ominous clouds" threatening the nation.30 In the early weeks of the 35th Congress, freshman congressman Case witnessed the split in the Democratic Party as Douglas sympathiz- ers broke away from Buchanan Democrats. Douglas Democrats now stood with other northerners in agreement that the Lecompton constitu-

29 Fort Wayne Times, August 20, 27, 1857. Jenkinson signed the letter "I.J." Case's victory came with what was described as a light turnout by Democrats. Fort Wayne Sentinel, October 17, 1857. 30 Kenneth M. Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (New York, 1990), 281-82, 299- 300, 325. Reports of fraudulent elections of delegates to the Lecompton convention further undermined the convention's legitimacy. CHARLES CASE 345

tion was a fraud which denied a free election to Kansas settlers, most of whom had expressed their opposition to slavery. As a freshman and a "Black" Republican, Case was kept in the background of the contentious congressional arena. Buchanan supporters controlled committee assign- ments and access to the floor. Filibusters extended for days at a time, blocking efforts of special committees to investigate, among other issues, the Lecompton vote and administration attempts to peddle influ- ence. One all-night filibuster that extended from February 5 into the early hours of the next day disintegrated into a brawl that made nation- al headlines.3' In the early evening of March 10, 1858, Case gained the House floor for the first time. Hours before, Speaker James Orr had denied the hearing of a minority report of a select committee looking into charges that then-president-elect Buchanan had intervened during the Supreme Court's deliberations on the Dred Scott case. The charges seemed to be supported by comments that Buchanan had made regarding the case in his inaugural address-days before the Court's decision was announced. Congressmen were angry, weary, and impatient to adjourn. As Case gained the floor, he met objections not from Democrats but from fellow Republicans. Galusha Grow of moved that the House adjourn; Israel Washburn of Maine expressed hope that Case's speech would not run over a half hour; Edwin B. Morgan of New York argued a point of order that there was no quorum. Thomas Florence, Democrat of Pennsylvania, serving as chairman, overruled the point of order. Morgan, neither willing to back down nor to take his seat, insisted on his position and after lengthy give-and-take, a roll call determined that a quorum was not present. The House adjourned for the day, and Case had to wait until the next day for his maiden speech.32

31 Case was appointed to the lackluster Committee on Invalid Pensions. The Congressional Globe described the fight between Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania and South Carolina Democrat Lawrence Keitt as a "violent personal altercation" that led to "the greatest possible confusion." Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 603 (1858); James T. DuBois and Gertrude S. Matthews, Galusha A. Grow: Father of the Homestead Law (Boston, 1917), 172-78; "A Graphic Descriptive Sketch of the Scrimmage In Congress," New York Times, February 11, 1858. 32 Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 1042, 1058-59 (1858). This incident is referred to in Case's reminiscences, published in the Fort Wayne Gazette, February 27, 1873. On Buchanan and charges of his intervention in the Dred Scott decision, see Stampp, America in 1857, 90-93, 105-106. 346 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

When he rose to speak on March 11, Case delivered a lengthy address on the Kansas problem. Case explained that he felt compelled to respond to Democratic Rep. James Hughes's endorsement of the Lecompton constitution and its "startling statements and bitter charges." His purpose was neither to restate positions already made nor to discuss the institution of slavery, which he had long abhorred and condemned. Instead, he intended to restrict his remarks to the "rights of freemen" in Kansas. While "every sentence" of the president's message had been "provocative" and "acrimonious," Case argued that Buchanan's charge that free-state settlers were rebels grated especially "harshly on American ears." He reminded the president and House members that these settlers were their kinsmen; many were "old-fashioned Democrats." Moreover, free-state settlers who backed the Topeka consti- tution, like the American colonists who rose up against the British, had the right to consent to "fundamental laws" that were "to be imposed upon them." Buchanan and his predecessor Pierce were responsible for "a catalogue of crime such as has disgraced no other civilized land in the nineteenth century." Hoping that his words would reach his constituents back home, Case warned that voters would remember Buchanan's address and "pronounce a verdict upon its author similar to that long since pronounced by posterity on those who libeled the patriots of revo- lutionary times."" On March 23, the Senate approved the admission of Kansas to the Union under the Lecompton constitution. The fight then raged in the House. On the first of April, the House dealt the administration a blow when it passed the compromise Crittenden-Montgomery Bill. Under this bill, the entire Lecompton constitution would be submitted to voters in a supervised election. If defeated, a new constitutional convention would be called. Gridlock resulted, however, when the Senate refused to agree to the new provisions. The administration fought to save face with a bill proposed by Indiana Rep. William H. English, an anti-Lecompton Democrat. The so-called English bill offered Kansas settlers immediate statehood provided they accept a smaller land grant to use for building schools; a vote for the bill, however, would still be an indirect vote for the Lecompton constitution. By the end of April, the English bill cleared

"Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 1079-84 (1858). Democrat James Hughes repre- sented the Third District of Indiana. He was defeated in the next election. Hughes's speech ref- erenced by Case was given on February 2. CHARLES CASE 347

the Senate, then passed in the House with a vote of 112 to 103. Case, together with fellow Indiana Republicans Schuyler Colfax, , John U. Pettit, and James Wilson voted with the minority oppo- sition. For the time being, the administration had won a bitter victory in its misguided effort to solve the Kansas crisis.34 By the time that the House recessed on June 11, members had been frequently missing roll calls, evidently seeking respite from the weeks of contentious debates and late night sessions. The sergeant at arms was assigned to arrest absent members at the theatre, at dinner parties, or at their boarding houses. On May 17, Case was one of dozens of members returned to the House floor and interrogated by the speaker. Many of the congressmen, Case included, found the situation amusing. Responding to the summons, he replied that he had had a "very good" excuse. He had left almost an hour after debate had ended to go home for his din- ner. When he returned, the House doors were closed, and, he added: "A man has to eat in Washington as everywhere else." Upon the request of fellow Republican Benjamin Leiter, Case was "discharged on the pay- ment of fees."35 When Case returned to Fort Wayne near the end of June, the Kansas crisis was again the single burning issue. Constituents welcomed him home with a brass band procession through the downtown streets. Across the district, he recounted his story of the passage of the Crittenden-Montgomery Bill-"when the people triumphed" in the House-and he described the stillness in the chamber as the "unbought people took their triumph in silence." He also related the contrasting "most boisterous uproar in the House and galleries" when the adminis- tration succeeded in passing the English bill. He left unsaid that Buchanan's victory had again split the Democratic Party and thereby strengthened the Republican voting block. 36 At the Tenth District Republican convention August 13 in Kendallville, delegates reaffirmed the national party's 1856 principle that

4All 92 Republicans voted for the Crittenden-Montgomery Bill. Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 1437 (1858). The vote on the English amendment appears in the Journal of the House of Representatives, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 719. On details of the original Crittenden bill, the Crittenden-Montgomery substitute bill, and the amended English bill, see Stampp, America in 1857, 326-29. "Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 2145 (1858). 36 (Fort Wayne) Weekly Republican, June 23, 1858. 348 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

slavery was sectional and that "Freedom [was] National." They repudi- ated the Dred Scott decision, arguing that the court had no authority to sanction slavery in government territories. They endorsed a campaign that clearly focused on the Buchanan administration's attempts to force the Lecompton constitution on the people of Kansas. The delegates "heartily" approved the course of their "present worthy member" and, on the first ballot, they chose Case as their party's nominee for the U.S. Congress, even though Elkhart County delegates had alleged that Allen County was unfairly favored. Amidst "shouts of applause," Case was declared the convention's unanimous choice.37 For the next two months, Case canvassed the district attacking the Democratic record on the Kansas crisis. No doubt his campaign was strengthened when, at the end of August, Kansas voters overwhelmingly voted down the English bill, adding further evidence of their unwilling- ness to be brought in as a slave state. Case also demonstrated again his effectiveness before large crowds. Local supporters credited him with thoroughly demolishing "every inch of ground" old-line Democrats claimed "to stand upon." In the middle of October, as election day approached, Case spoke of the dream northerners shared of social mobility in the western territories: "Let every friend of free labor, free speech and free thought, vote for Charles Case for a seat in Congress." Like other radical Republicans who personally supported abolition, Case, in his campaign speeches, emphasized how free western territories would benefit whites. He pledged that he was "in favor of the Territories of the United States being kept free for the use of white men . . . . If you are in favor of free white men occupying the Territories of the U. States, vote for Charles Case for Congress." In a town that was widely known as a Democratic stronghold, Case avoided the liability of race issues. 38 On October 20, Case won a majority of votes against the Democratic candidate in five of the district's eight counties. Although Fort Wayne had gone Democratic, his opponent, Reuben Dawson, had defeated him by only 251 votes. Overall, Republicans had great reason for celebration. Charles Case had been re-elected "by about double the majority heretofore given to any nominee of [their] party," and

37Weekly Republican, August 18, 1858.

380n August 2, under strictly controlled elections, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected the English bill, thereby blocking the spread of slavery and postponing statehood. Stampp, America in 1857, 328-29; Weekly Republican, September 1, October 13, 1858. CHARLES CASE 349

Republicans had won seven out of Indiana's eleven congressional dis- tricts. Across the nation, Republican victories gave a majority of seats in the 36th Congress to the young party.39 When the lame duck session of the 35th Congress convened in early December, sectional bitterness deepened over Kansas and the Dred Scott decision. Republicans, aided by disaffected Democrats, relentlessly attacked the Buchanan administration's role in the Lecompton vote and blocked efforts to acquire new slave territory in Mexico and Cuba. Northern congressmen found still more reasons for alarm. During the summer, two ships carrying kidnapped Africans had reached southern ports. On August 29, 1858, the Echo, a slave ship caught off the coast of Cuba with a cargo of 318 Africans, was brought into the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor. More recently on November 28, the Wanderer had carried 409 kidnapped Africans to Jekyll Island, Georgia. With southern congressmen bickering over appropriations for the return of kidnapped Africans to Liberia and for their future care, Case spoke out against the hypocrisy of such a discussion when millions of slaves and free blacks in the United States were deliberately kept in igno- rance. With deep cynicism, he argued that

this education of free negroes ... seems to be at war with the sen- timent of the age-that sentiment sometimes embodied in State constitutions where they are excluded from the soil, and from all appeal to the courts, whereby the free negro is completely ani- malized and outlawed, so that if the policy were to be universally adopted, he would find no spot this side of Heaven on which to rest his foot.

As Congress grew "eloquent on 'the horrors of the middle passage,"' Case continued, "let us blush that almost beneath the flag that floats from this Capitol we have, not a middle passage, but a passage that tells its tale of suffering in scarred hands and much-scarred backs." Case went on to point out that "such stories of misery are current advertise- ments in newspapers of our Federal capital." Attacking the racist laws of

3 Weekly Republican, October 20, 27, 1858. In addition to Case, David Kilgore, James Wilson, Schuyler Colfax, and John U. Pettit were re-elected; William M. Dunn and Albert G. Porter were elected to a first term. 350 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

the day, Case argued that "it is in many instances criminal for Africans to learn, and for white men to teach them. If these home laws are right, why should we have a different policy abroad?"40 In February, as the House debated the admission of Oregon to statehood, Case took what appeared to be an inconsistent position. Like many fellow Republicans, he condemned provisions in the territorial constitution which excluded African Americans from moving into the state and denied their rights to criminal justice. Nevertheless, he believed that admission of Oregon under such a constitution was prefer- able to citizens remaining subject to the corrupt proslavery territorial legislature. Because the denial of legal rights to African Americans was a "clear violation of the letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution," Case argued, the territorial constitution would become meaningless. When Oregon statehood was put to the vote, Case sided with a small majority, separating from antislavery leaders Giddings, Lovejoy, and Grow.4 In the closing weeks of the 35th Congress, Case might have found some solace in being part of a strengthened opposition party. With fel- low Republicans, he had called attention to the administration's "notori- ously lax" enforcement of international slave trade laws. In defending the rights of African Americans to education and legal justice, he had appealed to the nation's conscience. He could look forward to being part of the majority party in the next Congress. More than ever, however, Case and his fellow Republicans looked ahead to a Republican presiden- tial victory in 1860 as the only means to curb slavery's expansion and bring about national reconciliation. Voters in the swing states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois would likely decide the nation's fate. Before leaving Washington, Case, along with sixty-seven other Republicans, endorsed a book to be distributed throughout these crucial states (and the South) with the hope of educating voters on the crippling effects of slavery. When the new Congress convened on December 6, 1859, a book titled The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, written by south- erner Hinton R. Helper, became political fodder for southern Democrats.

0 Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 2d Sess. 615 (1859). Foner's discussion of Republican racial ideology is helpful for understanding Case's political strategy. See Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor; Free Men, 261-300. 'Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 2d Sess. 981, 1011 (1859). The vote on Oregon statehood was 114 in favor and 103 opposed. 2 Dawson's Daily Times, December 8, 9, 10, 1859. CHARLES CASE 351

They charged John Sherman, a moderate Ohio Republican and the pop- ular choice for House speaker, with treason for having endorsed it. Coming just weeks after the execution of John Brown for his raid on the military arsenal at Harper's Ferry, southerners were in no mood to yield ground. For two months, they blocked Sherman's election. Finally, on February 1, after forty-four votes, House members chose New Jersey Rep. William Pennington as speaker. Although elected as a Republican, Pennington won some southern supporters for his pledge to not inter- fere with slavery in the territories.43 After this attempt to organize, the House once again fell into disor- der. Members claimed that they were sickened by the shouting and jeer- ing from spectators in the crowded galleries. Southerners accused Republicans of treason, fanaticism, and conspiracy; they threatened to withdraw from the Union. Republicans, with cause, felt personally endangered. They insisted on their intent not to interfere with slavery where it already existed. At the same time, they led initiatives to limit the broad reach of Buchanan's powers. Over vehement opposition, the House approved resolutions introduced by John Covode, abolitionist Republican from Pennsylvania, to form a committee to investigate the president's actions during the previous Congress.44 Prospects for Kansas statehood looked good on April 12, when the House passed a bill for admission under the recent Wyandotte con- stitution. The Committee on Territories, led by Rep. Grow, set as their next goal organizing governments for new territories to be carved out of the immense areas of New Mexico, Utah, and Nebraska. On May 12, Grow introduced a bill to organize Idaho-which he considered the most important territory-"to make that a test of the sense of the House. ""5

3 David Brown, Southern Outcast: Hinton Rowan Helper and The Impending Crisis of the South (Baton Rouge, La., 2006). 44On April 5, 1860, southern Congressmen hurled insults and clicked their pistols at Illinois Rep. Owen Lovejoy while he delivered an impassioned speech. Physical violence was narrowly avoided. Edward Magdol, Owen Lovejoy: Abolitionist in Congress (New Brunswick, N. J., 1967), 234. The Covode Committee spent the spring and summer of 1860 investigating Buchanan and submitted its report, detailing the corruption of the administration, on June 16. See "President Buchanan and the Report of the Covode Committee," New York Times, June 20, 1860. "Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. 2080 (1860). The Wyandotte constitution, based on the Kansas constitutional convention of July 1859, prohibited slavery in the state. See the entry for Wyandotte Constitution in the online "Kansapedia" at http://www.kshs.org/ kansapedia/. 352 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Now serving on the Committee on Territories, Case took the floor to add his support for formal government organization for the more than 20,000 people living in the vast Idaho territory. Outside of the jurisdic- tion of the federal government, they were more than six hundred miles from the nearest territorial capital in Kansas. Case countered Democratic objections to the bill's provision for popular sovereignty, a position that was now highly controversial. As he had reminded Indiana voters during his recent campaign, the bill repeated "the doctrine of the Democratic party of the North no longer ago than 1854." Republicans were nevertheless unable to generate sufficient momentum to move for- ward against southern accusations that they were deliberately provoking agitation over slavery. As a result, the bill to organize Idaho was formal- ly tabled by a vote of 91 to 82.46 During the third week in June, as Case was about to leave Washington, the Tenth District Republican convention met in Kendallville to choose its fall nominee for U.S. Representative. Through a combination of circumstances, party leaders selected William Mitchell, a moderate and obscure nominee from Noble County, to replace Case. Allen County Republicans publicly stated that it was time to give north- ern counties the choice of a candidate. Mirroring the national party's support for Abraham Lincoln, the moderate candidate for president, Indiana Republicans likely considered Case a political liability. The party leadership, however, was not content to have Case retire from public service. Just days after the Kendallville convention, they named him pro tem judge of the Court of Common Pleas for northern Indiana.4' Although Case was to return for the lame duck session of Congress in December, delegates formally acknowledged his retirement with

6 4 Case drew heavily from speeches of Indiana Democrat William H. English. Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. 2082, 2085 (1860).

47Foner discusses the Republican Party's concern to attract moderate voters in the 1860 elec- tion. See Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 130-34. Thornbrough also emphasizes the "expediency" of Indiana Republicans who "did not intend that victory should elude them because of any taint of radicalism or abolitionism"-a resolve that applied to Lincoln as well, probably, as to Case. Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 85-87. Case may also have had family obligations which made his absence from Fort Wayne difficult. By the summer of 1860, Case and his wife Jane Tappan Case had six children. One of their sons, six-year-old Charles Bosworth Case, may have been seriously ill, for he died August 20. Fort Wayne & Allen County, Indiana, Area Obituary Index 1841-1899, Allen County Public Library Genealogy Databases; Fort Wayne Daily Times, June 23, 1860. CHARLES CASE 353

solemn praise: "Resolved, That we look with pride upon our able, elo- quent and efficient Representative in Congress from this District, the Hon. Charles Case; that we fully approve his official course, and that personally and politically he will ever bear with him our respect and admiration." The following week, the Daily Times published a letter from "A Citizen" who wrote:

It is really gratifying in these days of political degeneracy and official dereliction to be permitted to join with the multitude in demonstrations of respect to a faithful public servant and an able representative of the rights and interests of a free people in the most dignified deliberative body in the world, and say of him that he has well earned the distinguished applaud, "Well done good and faithful servant." 48

Back in Fort Wayne, Case joined Allen County Republicans on the campaign trail. To the Republicans' advantage, Lincoln would face two Democrats on the fall ballot, northern favorite Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, and Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. In addition, the Constitutional Union Party had nominated John Bell, a conservative for- mer senator from Tennessee who remained neutral on slavery. Republicans were running against the Buchanan administration's record, targeting working class Democrats, and promising immigrant and native-born voters their support for homesteading laws.49 Before a large audience packed into Colerick's Hall in July, Case shared vivid details of the Buchanan administration's corruption, which, he warned his listeners, would lead the country to certain ruin. Case promised that the Republicans regarded working men as "citizens, co- equal in rights, privileges and power with any of the millionaires of the country." He also lamented that Democratic Senators had recently defeated a bill to set apart western lands for homesteading. Case's evening speech concluded with a procession to his home led by the local

48Fort Wayne Weekly Times, June 27, 1860; Fort Wayne Daily Times, June 23, July 7, 1860. "In contrast to its 1856 platform, the Republican Party in 1860 projected a more moderate position against slavery. The platform emphasized a protective tariff, a homestead act, and the absolute right of each state "to order and control its own domestic institutions." Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 30-31; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 189-93. 354 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Lincoln Wide Awakes, who had formed themselves into a marching brass band.50 During the next few months, Case and fellow Republicans courted German American voters with extravagantly staged events that included bonfires, processions of Wide Awakes with flaming torches, and German bands. On at least three occasions, enthusiastic campaigners raised poles to symbolize "the attachment of hundreds to principles which hereto- fore they refused to endorse." The most impressive pole, 204 feet 7 inch- es tall, was hoisted by local German Republicans in front of Turner Hall on August 31. In addition to these festivities, Republicans twice drew crowds of a thousand people, mostly German, to Colerick's Hall to hear the acclaimed hero of the 1848 German revolution, Carl Schurz of Wisconsin. A popular and zealous Lincoln campaigner, Schurz was on his sweep through German communities across Indiana. Holding his audiences' attention for a reported two hours, he plucked "to pieces Senator Douglas's new sophistries - or rather his old sophistries revived and readjusted to his requirements as a presidential candidate facing both ways, North and South."5 Case's campaigning throughout the summer and fall undoubtedly contributed to the historic Republican victories of 1860. In the state elections in mid-October, Allen County gave the Democratic candidates a small four-hundred-vote majority, a marked decline from earlier elec- tions. Republican candidate Mitchell won a solid victory throughout the Tenth District. Republicans took seven of the ten congressional seats for Indiana and elected their candidate for governor, Henry S. Lane. Exuberant over their "political revolution," Fort Wayne citizens turned

0 5Fort Wayne Daily Times, July 18, 1860. The Wide Awakes were primarily young, working-class men, who formed military-style marching groups in towns and cities across the North in sup- port of Lincoln's candidacy. Jon Grinspan, "'Young Men for War': The Wide Awakes and Lincoln's 1860 Presidential Campaign," Journal of American History 96 (September 2009), 357- 78. "Schurz's speeches in Fort Wayne on August 10 and September 28 predictably created hostility in the Democratic camp. His speech on August 10 was interrupted by someone hurling a large cabbage through a window, forcibly striking Peter Bailey, a local Republican leader, on the back of the neck. Distorting the incident, the Democratic Sentinel alleged that Schurz called fellow countrymen "cabbage heads." On August 29, the German Republican Club elected officers in Turner Hall: C. F G. Meyer, president; L. E. Grove, vice president; G. J. Neubert, secretary; and Peter Kline, treasurer. Neubert was editor of the Indiana Staatszeitung. Fort Wayne Daily Times, July 20, August 11, 30, September 1, 4, 5, 26, 29, 1860; Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vol. 2, 1852-1863 (New York, 1913), 163; Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 93-94; Beatty, "The Douglas' Has Come!" 4, 10. CHARLES CASE 355

out for a torchlight procession. On the eve of the presidential election, November 5, Republicans conducted a similar parade to the courthouse. Reflecting his continued popularity, Case gave the last speech of the campaign.52 On the following morning, The Daily News reported that "Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States to take the oath of Office on 4th March 1861." While Allen County voters had sup- ported Douglas over Lincoln by a roughly three-to-two margin, Lincoln had won the state. "Republicans Be Glad!" editor Dawson proclaimed. He cautiously added, "But let Wisdom and Urbanity be the governing principle in your gladness." The long Democratic hold over the White House and Congress had been broken. By the time Case returned for the lame duck session of Congress in early December, however, the country was rapidly descending into disunion.53 In the interim between Lincoln's election and the reconvening of Congress on December 4, seven states in the Deep South began formal procedures to secede from the Union. Longtime threats, considered ploys to strengthen the power of slave states, became a reality. On the opening day of the House, Isaac Morris, an anti-Lecompton Democrat from Illinois, immediately called for a unanimous pledge of loyalty to the Union, insisting that Lincoln's election did not justify secession. Virginia Democrat Alexander R. Boteler moved to create a special com- mittee of one representative from each state to consider President Buchanan's recent message relating to the nation's crisis. Soon one repre- sentative after another offered resolutions hoping to slow the secession movement, promote negotiations, and somehow conciliate the South.54 Case broke away from his more moderate colleagues to pursue an unpopular stand against compromise. In a lengthy letter dated December 7 to the Daily Times, Case defended his vote against the for- mation of the so-called Committee of 33 that the majority of House members had supported. He was convinced that decisions to secede were irrevocable, even if secession meant "self ruin" and the end of slav-

2 Fort Wayne Daily Times, July 20, August 11, September 3, 14, October 1, 10, 12, November 1, 6, 1860. 3 Fort Wayne Daily News, November 7, 1860; G. Stanley Hood, "Political History of Allen County," in Beatty, ed., History of Fort Wayne and Allen County, 292. "Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 46, 75; Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 6 (1860). 356 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

ery. Buchanan, a "weak and vacillating man," would be unable to pre- vent civil war. Furthermore, Case believed that the Committee of 33 would call for a constitutional amendment strengthening slavery that would provoke further conflict:

To sustain me now, comes the conviction, that the great political organization with which I act has done nothing to warrant pres- ent distrust, or to produce prevailing financial distress .... I can therefore only see my way clear by adhering to the Union - insisting that no essential principle on which it is based shall be compromised away, and that the Federal Constitution and laws shall be respected and observed.

Case was the only Indiana Republican to oppose the bill.55 Through December, Republicans took generally conciliatory posi- tions as southern representatives resigned from committee assignments and confirmed their intentions to follow the will of their states' secession conventions. On December 18, bowing to mounting pressure, Sen. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky introduced a series of Constitutional amend- ments that stunned Republicans. The six measures included proposals to extend slavery into territories south of the 36-degree 30-minute line and to guarantee that Congress would never interfere with slavery where it currently existed. Two days later, South Carolina became the first state to formally separate from the Union; others soon followed in its wake. By the middle of January 1861, the House Committee of 33, under Ohio Republican Chairman Thomas Corwin, still hoping for some reconcilia- tion, proposed resolutions contained in the Crittenden Amendments along with a resolution to admit New Mexico as a slave state. Ironically, at the end of the month, the House announced that President Buchanan had approved the bill for admission of Kansas to statehood. The conclu- sion of a battle that had long divided the country now was received "with slight applause on the floor and in the galleries."56

"The December 4 vote to establish the Committee of 33 was 145 in favor and 38 opposed. Sixteen of the twenty-two Congressmen present from southern states abstained from voting. Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 6 (1860); Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 90; Fort Wayne Daily Times, December 29, 1860. Dawson delayed printing Case's letter, perhaps because of the editor's opposition to Case's position. 6 5 Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 646 (1860). CHARLES CASE 357

During these weeks of crisis, Republicans seemed to lack a common policy. They were leaderless and increasingly open to appeasing southern extremists; some held on to the hope that southern Union supporters would block further secession and perhaps bring the "fire eaters" back. Congressmen were continually flooded with petitions in support of the Crittenden Amendments. At the end of January, the Virginia legislature invited delegates from each of the states to meet in Washington to negotiate a plan to save the Union. Until the middle of December, President-elect Lincoln remained mostly silent, his policies largely enigmatic. As David Potter argues, however, when the very survival of the nation was at stake, Lincoln asserted his opposition to compromise and thus shaped Republican policy. By mid-January, as they considered the report from the Committee of 33, House Republicans followed Lincoln's guidance and began a steady effort to reaffirm their principles against the expansion of slavery5 Case helped build the "backbone" that encouraged more moderate Republicans to resist compromise. In a February 8 speech, he laid out a rebuttal of "every inch of ground" used as justification for secession. Case reminded House members that twelve years earlier, in 1848, Whigs, Democrats, and Free Soil men had shared the current Republican policy prohibiting slavery in territories. "Who, for that cause, then threatened to destroy the Government? Who then thought it a sufficient reason for interfering with the Union, that parties in the North were committed to the policy of making all the Territories free?" he asked. Case reviewed selections from the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay that expressed the "doctrine of the 'irrepress- ible conflict"' in words stronger than any "employed by any member of the Republican party." In point after point, he emphasized that current arguments justifying secession were nothing new. The real cause of southern secession was the election of a president "opposed to the extension of chattel slavery," as Case declared:

These alleged causes of disunion are a sham, a mere pretense; while the real object of those who would destroy the Government is to retain power by dissolving in advance and for-

5Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, ix, 46, 132-33, 177. On December 10 and December 13, Lincoln wrote to William Kellogg and Elihu B. Washburne, both of Illinois, urg- ing them to avoid any compromise over the extension of slavery. Hans L. Trefousse, The Radical Republicans: Lincoln's Vanguard for Racial Justice (Baton Rouge, La., 1968), 141-42,167; Magdol, Owen Lovejoy, 270. 358 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

ever all connection with an Administration whose policy will be adverse to their own.

Expressing no intention of passing judgment on slaveholders, Case insisted that the institution of slavery "has already as much strength in this Confederacy as I am willing to accord to it. To add to it one iota, may be giving it all the power wanting, if indeed any be wanting, to enable it to completely destroy the Government." In conclusion, he emphasized his commitment to preserving the Constitution: "Believing that at this time we cannot improve the handiwork of the fathers, mine shall be the last hand that shall undertake to erase or add a single word."58 During these same weeks, Case twice unsuccessfully attempted to introduce a bill to provide aid to destitute settlers in Kansas. He was serving on a special committee under Isaac Morris of Illinois to investi- gate fraud in the Department of the Interior. In one of many corrupt practices under the Buchanan administration, $3 million in negotiable bonds kept in the Indian trust fund had been used in a scheme to pay railroad contractors. On behalf of the committee, on February 12 Case submitted to the House a detailed report which was the result of lengthy interviews, close investigations, and "extraordinary labors." 59 In the last days of the 36th Congress, the Committee of 33 called for a vote on a series of resolutions designed to save the Union. Seven resolutions presented on February 27 ranged from the repeal of person- al liberty laws and the denial of "any authority outside the slave States to interfere with slavery," to measures to grant southerners additional pro- tection of slavery under the Constitution and to punish "attempts at lawless invasion of any State." All passed with a vote of 136 to 53. Not surprisingly, Case was the single Indiana Republican voting with the minority. The following day, a separate vote was taken on the Constitutional amendment to prohibit Congress from interfering with slavery where it already existed (Article XIII, the so-called Corwin Amendment). Case, again voting with the minority in opposition, was now joined by two other Indiana Republicans, John U. Pettit and James

5Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 185-89 (1861). "Summers, The Plundering Generation, 246; Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 874 (1861). CHARLES CASE 359

Wilson. In the closing hours on March 1, radical Republicans experi- enced some turnaround in their favor when a bill for the admission of New Mexico was tabled. They helped to defeat a contentious provision to transfer jurisdiction of fugitive slaves back to the state from which they had escaped. In addition, they helped vote down a motion to receive the propositions of the recent peace conference. 60 As the session drew to a close, northern representatives expressed concern over defense of the forts in Charleston harbor and other gov- ernment property, as well as the need to raise militias to defend the Union. The House passed bills to organize the new Nevada and Dakota territories. Casting a dark shadow over all government business was the real prospect of civil war. As Lincoln arrived in Washington to prepare for his March 4 inauguration, the nation's survival was uncertain. 61 For Charles Case, a new era was beginning as well. During the past decade, including years of service in two of the nation's most historic Congresses, he had defended the principles that he believed lay at the foundation of the country. Standing with a minority against compromise as seven states from the Deep South left the Union, he had incurred the wrath of many of his contemporaries in Washington, D.C., and in Indiana. The editor of the Fort Wayne Daily Times wrote: "Indeed out here none but abolitionists or ignorant men were against raising the Committee nor against compromise. To be against compromise, liberal and general, is to be swept away before public indignation." When Case returned home, there were no brass bands or street processions. Fort Wayne's mood was justifiably somber and apprehensive.62 By the summer of 1861, the nation faced another revolution, this time a military rebellion against the Union by the Confederate States of America. By September, Case and other local leaders had organized the 44th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. As the regiment's adjutant general, he boarded a train for Camp Morton in Indianapolis. In early 1862, the reg-

60 0n the first vote, Article XIII failed to receive the required support of two-thirds of the mem- bers present. Following appeals for another vote, "great confusion in the hall," and disputes on whether the required quorum was present, the Corwin Amendment was again brought before the House. It passed by a vote of 133 in favor, 65 opposed. Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 1263-1338 (1861); Fort Wayne Daily Times, March 1, 6, 1861. 61 Lincoln made an unexpected appearance in the House on February 25: "The President elect appearing in the House, much confusion occurred in consequence of members crowding about him for introductions." Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 1198 (1861). 62 Fort Wayne Daily Times, March 1, 1861. 360 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

iment fought in Tennessee at the capture of Fort Donelson and in the Battle of Shiloh. In late 1864, now the first colonel of the 129th Volunteer Regiment, Case participated in Sherman's march through Georgia. He was mustered out with his health broken by exposure and exhaustion. After the war he moved to New Orleans to regain his health and again to practice law. In his final years, he returned to Washington, D.C., once again pursuing the profession that had been a lifelong pas- sion.63 As memory of the Civil War faded, occasional articles in Fort Wayne newspapers recalled Charles Case as "One of the Original Abolitionists," "One of Our Citizens whom Fort Wayne Delights to Honor," and "An Early Hoosier Statesman [who] Warred on Slave Owners." Perhaps the most appropriate tribute to Case appeared in the Fort Wayne Gazette in February 1873. A Congressional aide during the years of crises leading up to the war remembered Case as one of the men "who composed the original antislavery party," an abolitionist "who always bitterly opposed slavery, but equally opposed any violation of the law." Antislavery men "were few in number, but they were dreadfully hard workers, and hung on to their principles and objects with bulldog like tenacity, and they won in the end, after years of persecution." 64 Charles Case's political career reminds us today of the underlying causes of the tragic war fought 150 years ago. In his efforts to establish a moral compass in his district, his state, and his nation, he stood as one of the leaders of a debate over race and social justice that Fort Wayne and the nation at large chose to ignore in the decades after the war. Case's record deepens our appreciation of the long, difficult paths that lead toward fulfillment of the promises of our free democracy.

63 Robert Willey, The Iron 44th: The Story of Company H of the 44th Indiana Volunteer Infantry as Told by the Men of This Company in Letters Sent Home and to the Local Newspaper (1980; Bloomington, Ind., 2011), 6; John H. Rerick, The 44th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, History of Its Services in the War of the Rebellion (LaGrange, Ind., 1880), 261; Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, June 3, 29, 1864, July 2, 1883; Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette,September 29, 1912. 64Fort Wayne Gazette, February 27, 1873; Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, July 14, 1926.