The Republican Presidential Campaigns of 1856 and 1860: Analysis Through Artifacts (1981)

THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS OF 1856 AND 1860: ANALYSIS THROUGH ARTIFACTS Roger A. Fischer A continuing source of CONTROVERSY among students of early Republican politics has been the degree of difference between the presidential campaigns of John C. Fremont in 1856 and Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Scholars generally agree that the Fremont campaign was essentially a rather shrill, narrowly ideological, single-issue crusade waged by a new coalition that seemed much more eager to condemn slavery in the territories than elect its standard-bearer to the presidency.1 There is general agreement that after 1856, as one historian so aptly expressed it, "Republicans became less issue oriented and more winning oriented."2 Few would deny that the party's selection of Lincoln as its nominee, creation of a multi-issue platform, generally subdued campaign rhetoric, and concentration upon carrying the rather conservative states of the lower North provided evidence of a new pragmatism and professionalism almost altogether lacking in 1856. Consensus dies, however, on the vital question of whether the 1860 Republican campaign represented an actual retreat on the slavery issue or merely a more subtle manifestation of I would like to express my appreciation to the University of MinnesotaGraduate School and to the Department of History of the University of Minnesota, Duluth, for travel funds during the summer of 1979 that made much of this research possible, and to Edmund B. Sullivan, curator of the J. Doyle DeWitt Collection of the University of Hartford, and the staff of the Political History Division of the Smithsonian Institution for numerous courtesies and insights. 1 No really adequate general study of the Fremont campaign has been written, but Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free lAibor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (New York, 1970) provides a superb analysis of the ideological impulse which gave the campaign its essential tenor. Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827-1861 (Princeton, 1971) offers cogent insights into 1856 Republicanism in one key state. Superficial discussions of the campaign as a whole may be found in Ruhl J. Bartlett, John C. Fremont and the Republican Party (Columbus, 1930), pp. 37-69; Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, 2 vols. (New York, 1947), 2:460-514; and Nevins, Fremont : Pathmarker of the West, rev. ed. (New York, 1955), pp. 421-58. 2 Formisano, Birth of Mass Political Parties, p. 277. Civil War History, Vol. XXVII, No. 2 Copyrightß 1981 by The Kent State University Press 0009-8078/81/2701-0002 $01.00/0 124CIVIL WAR HISTORY the old "crime against Kansas" idealism, whether the departure from the 1856 Fremont campaign was fundamental or essentially cosmetic. ' Scholars in both camps have reached their respective positions after painstaking scrutiny of the cumulative verbiage of 1856 and 1860— convention proceedings, party platforms, public and private statements by the candidates, the speeches and correspondence of party leaders, and pronouncements in the key Republican newspapers. None has paid much attention, however, to the physical remains of the two canvasses, especially the ribbons, tokens, handkerchiefs, songsheets, and other objects sold as souvenirs or given out by campaign groups to win votes or cement loyalties and the parade banners, floats, transparencies, and other visuals which helped make the political torchlight parade a hallowed American institution. This is unfortunate, for these scraps of cloth, metal , paper and wood provide outstanding examples of candidate and issue identification at the grassroots level. It is especially unfortunate for those historians who have argued that 1860 represented a fundamental departure from the ideological fervor of 1856, for these artifacts offer clear and convincing evidence to support their interpretation, at least in those crucial northern states where antislavery zeal was far from universal. That these 1856 and 1860 Republican campaign relics have been largely overlooked by scholars is hardly surprising, for political historians have invariably ignored such objects or, at best, utilized them only as decorations or as examples of the colorful, exuberant banality of American electioneering.4 Even among antiquarians and material culturista, they are often referred to as campaign "trivia" or "ephemera." Despite the remarkable success enjoyed by archaeologists in interpreting civilizations through their material remains, students of American politics...