ENPages
page_0001
CASSIUS M. CLAY1The Kentucky free-labor advocate Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810–1903) inherited seventeen slaves and extensive farm acreage in 1828. As a Whig representative in the state legislature, Clay began expounding an economic indictment of slavery. In 1843 he freed his slaves and hired them as laborers. At the same time, he launched a campaign for gradual abolition that was addressed largely to the state’s nonslaveholding whites. In June 1845, Clay launched a weekly newspaper in Lexington, the True American, to advocate for the formation of a moderate antislavery party in Kentucky. After local residents forcibly dismantled his press and shipped it to Cincinnati, Clay published the True American in Louisville. Clay joined the U.S. Army in the Mexican War, a move denounced by abolitionists, who otherwise generally applauded him. Clay sold the newspaper to John C. Vaughan, who suspended it in September 1846. Clay provided crucial financial support and physical protection to John G. Fee’s abolitionist colony at Berea in the 1850s. He served as U.S. ambassador to Russia (1861–69) and remained active in Kentucky politics during and after Reconstruction. David L. Smiley, Lion of White Hall: The Life of Cassius M. Clay (Madison, Wisc., 1962); Asa Earle Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky prior to 1850 (1918; New York, 1970), 112; Harrold, Abolitionists and the South, 28–29, 32–33, 40–41, 132–33; DAB, 4: 169–70. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
N[ew] York, [N.Y.]2Clay added the following address information: “Box 4950 / No. 89 Liberty St.” 15 July 1871.3This letter contains the notation “Private.” at the top.
MY DEAR MR. DOUGLAS,
Your letter of the 7th inst. is recd.4In a letter from Douglass to Clay dated 26 July 1871, published later in this volume, Douglass denies that he had written that earlier letter to him. I take your paper because of my regard for you—not because I approve at all of the spirit of your paper—
1.st Why should you be the partizan of Grant: who never voted but once I am told & then for J. Buchanan: a man who ignores the leading
page_0002
Republicans5Critics of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency, primarily Democrats and Radical Republicans, charged him with having no real political convictions and holding the office merely for personal aggrandizement. They found the fact that Grant had voted only once before the Civil War, for Democrat James Buchanan in 1856, to be damning evidence. In both a postpresidential interview and his famous Personal Memoirs, Grant stated plainly that the charge was true, but deserved clarification. As a professional military officer between 1843 and 1854, Grant was stationed in posts around the United States, thus never fulfilling the residency requirements to vote in any state until 1856, when he had lived as a civilian in Missouri for two years. Also, Grant followed his father in supporting the policies of the Whig party, but by 1856 that organization had become defunct; it was replaced by the Republican party, which deeply alienated the South with its strong stand against the expansion of slavery. Although Grant detested slavery and supported restrictions on its spread, he believed that victory for the Republican John C. Frémont in the 1856 presidential election would provoke slave states to secede; therefore, he voted for the status quo candidate, Buchanan. In a relaxed moment during his postpresidential world tour, Grant made light of the incident and the persistent controversy it created: “The reason I voted for Buchanan was that I knew Frémont.” Curiously, Grant did not vote in the 1860 presidential election, since he had only recently moved to Galena, Illinois. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, 2 vols. (New York, 1885), 1: 212–15; John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant, abridged, edited, and introduced by Michael Fellman (1879; Baltimore, 2002), 284–85; Ron Chernow, Grant (New York, 2017), 94–95. and is led by Fish6Conservative in instincts and calm in demeanor, Hamilton Fish became Grant’s most trusted political adviser. Although some scholars have criticized Fish for his insensitivity to the plight of southern blacks during Reconstruction, others have praised him as one of America’s best secretaries of state. Hans L. Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction (Westport, Conn., 1991), 77–79; Calhoun, Presidency of Grant, 152–54, 196–97, 325. who voted for Hoffman,7John Thompson Hoffman (1828–88), lawyer and politician, was the recorder of New York City from 1861 to 1865, mayor of New York City from 1866 to 1868, and governor of New York from 1869 to 1872. Hoffman’s rapid rise and fall were due to the machinations of “Boss” William M. Tweed, leader of the city’s Democratic party, which was headquartered in Tammany Hall. Tweed’s corrupt practices were so blatant that they provoked elite New Yorkers to form the bipartisan Committee of Citizens and Taxpayers for the Financial Reform of the City and County of New York. As a result, Tweed, Hoffman, and other members of the Tammany faction fell from power in the early 1870s. Ironically, Hoffman had won the 1866 mayoral race running as the reform candidate, even attracting the votes of many Republicans associated with the longtime Whig-Republican political operative Thurlow Weed. Since Hamilton Fish was part of the Weed faction of the New York Republican party, Clay is accusing him of supporting Hoffman and, thereby, Tweed and his corrupt Democratic political machine. Mitchell Snay, Horace Greeley and the Politics of Reform in Nineteenth-Century America (Lanham, Md., 2011), 172; Foner, Reconstruction, 490-91; “John Thompson Hoffman,” hallofgovernors.ny.gov. & Butler8Benjamin F. Butler. who voted for Jeff. Davis9Jefferson Davis.—who has promoted but one man <(not a relative)> in the diplomatic service—and that man Bancroft10George Bancroft (1800–91) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University. In 1818 he sailed to Europe to study at Georgia Augusta University in Gottingen (Hanover), Germany. Returning to the United States in 1822, Bancroft received an appointment as a Greek instructor at Harvard. In 1824 he cofounded the Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, modeled on the German gymnasium. In 1827, Bancroft published the first volume of his History of the United States, which was quickly hailed as both a literary and a scholarly triumph. Bancroft moved to Boston, where he was appointed collector of the port. In 1840, the second volume of his History was published. After campaigning for James Knox Polk in 1844, he was appointed to Polk’s first cabinet as secretary of the navy; in that position, he played a key role in both the acquisition of California and the founding of the U.S. Naval Academy. Polk then appointed Bancroft ambassador to Great Britain, where he served for the next three years. Returning to the United States in 1848, he concentrated on completing the unfinished History of the United States. The following year, Bancroft returned to public life and accepted an appointment from Andrew Johnson as U.S. minister to Prussia, a position he continued to hold under Ulysses S. Grant. Returning to the United States in 1874, he moved to Washington, D.C., and published the tenth and final volume of the mammoth History of the United States. In recognition of his stature in the field, he was elected president of the American Historical Association in 1885. DAB, 1: 564–71; ANB (online). who never was and is not now a republican! Who crushes out liberty in Cuba against the will of a majority of republicans—and who allows killing of American citizens, and continual murder of Cuban Patriots Black & White!11Ulysses S. Grant’s eight years as president (1869–77) roughly coincided with the Ten Years’ War (1868–78), the first of three wars of liberation that Cubans waged against the Spanish Empire before finally gaining their independence in 1898. The Cuban cause was widely popular in the United States, and sympathetic Americans smuggled money, guns, and men onto the island in support. Several American citizens were celebrated for dying in these efforts. As a result, Grant was heavily pressured to recognize Cuban independence by the press, Republican congressmen, several of his cabinet members, and prominent African Americans, led by Frederick Douglass. But Secretary of State Fish steadfastly resisted American intervention in the affair, fearing that it would undermine other diplomatic concerns, especially the crucial negotiations with Britain over the Alabama claims. Through adroit diplomacy with Spain and skillful counseling of Grant, Fish managed to keep the United States officially neutral through the end of the conflict. Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction, 77–78, 81; Calhoun, Presidency of Grant, 179–98, 426–32; Jay Sexton, “The United States, the Cuban Rebellion, and the Multilateral Initiative of 1875,” Diplomatic History, 30: 338–46 (June 2006). —who [illegible] his office to family [illegible]—and gives the highest places to those who make him presents—a thing never before done by any President!12President Ulysses S. Grant was accused of practicing nepotism to an exceptional degree during his two administrations, and the charge has haunted his legacy ever since. In truth, there are credible claims that roughly forty of the president’s relatives held governmental posts or were awarded contracts during his terms. Nevertheless, scholars who have reevaluated Grant’s career since the 1980s believe that allegations of exceptional corruption in the Grant presidency are overstated. Before the establishment of a rigorous civil service system in the late nineteenth century, the notorious “spoils system” meant that nearly all governmental posts and contracts were awarded via political patronage. Much unethical behavior inevitably resulted, most of it technically legal at the time. Therefore, corruption during the Grant presidency, even among his relatives, was certainly real, but more typical than exceptional for the era. Modern scholars also note that the emphasis on corruption by Grant appointees has overshadowed the fact that he assigned more African Americans, Native Americans, and Jews to federal positions than any president before him. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 14 June 1872; Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Era of Good Stealings (New York, 1993), 181–85, 263; Chernow, Grant, 638–40, 641–43; Lawrence M. Salinger, ed., Encyclopedia of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, 2 vols. (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2005), 1: 374–75. But I have not space for my objections to him. Is there no republicans in all our ranks fit to rule us? if no then we ought to perish as a party—the sooner the better!
2. I cannot approve of the proscriptive course against the South—[illegible] if you please. The the Republicans: Black & White are in a minority (amnesty being granted) in the South—is it our intent to have a [illegible] [illegible] majority against us for centuries? You know parties change rule in this country—now when the national party are in power—and we have shown a spirit of revenge, denunciation, and unconstitutional action against them!
3. The force bill13From 1869 to 1872, the depredations of the Ku Klux Klan spread throughout the South, especially in Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Since the Klan’s strength exceeded the power of any one state to control it, President Grant and Congress took measures to curb the terror. In his first few years in office, Grant cautiously helped reinforce some state militias so they could combat the Klan. On 31 May 1870, Congress passed the Enforcement Act. Intended primarily to protect the guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment, the act made it a federal felony for anyone in disguise to deprive someone of their rights or to act against a person for exercising them. This bill, which received President Grant’s support, laid the basis for further federal indictments against the Klan. Under growing public pressure, especially from Republicans in the South, President Grant and Congress created a committee in January 1871 to investigate the Klan further. From this inquest issued the Ku Klux Klan Act of 20 April 1871, which made any conspiracy to travel on public highways in disguise with the purpose of depriving anyone of his rights a federal offense subject to federal jurisdiction. The act empowered the president to use U.S. troops against the Klan and to suspend habeas corpus if necessary. President Grant speedily issued a proclamation in support of the act and gave warning to conspirators in the South. Although Grant’s actions had checked some of the Klan’s expansiveness by 1872, he had by no means thwarted the silent society. Klan activities continued unabated in many parts of the South, and political considerations and constraints on the exercise of federal power within the states often checked Grant’s hand. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: 338n; James E. Sefton, The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865–1877 (Baton Rouge, 1967), 220–29; Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, La., 1999), 383–418; William B. Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (New York, 1935), 238–51; McFeely, Grant, 367–73. is an iniquity I am not willing to lay all my liberties down at the feet of any man—not for the sake of the Blacks or Whites of the South!
In a government like ours we must trust something to the people—we dont want a strong government—but a strong people—a vital people— ready to resist oppression—and to avenge wrong. Some blacks will suffer after a great war—some whites will suffer by more law—we must leave the remedy to the legal normal actions of the states. If this will not or cannot cure the evils—then our republicanism is lost.
It would take hours to explain how much I feel that the party is wrong in all this.
Greeley14Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune in 1841 and made it arguably the most influential Republican newspaper of the Civil War era. A reform Whig at heart, Greeley argued for the protection of American industry, western expansion, temperance, restrictions on slavery expansion, and full-throated nationalism. He also evinced a consistent sympathy for the plight of African Americans, free and enslaved. Once war commenced, Greeley was an early voice for emancipation as a war aim. Nevertheless, he held a deep passion for national reunion without rancor, which led him to quixotic and inconsistent behavior during Reconstruction. At first, he supported Andrew Johnson’s mild policies, but came to advocate for his impeachment. He initially backed Radical Republican policies, yet persistently called for a general amnesty for Confederate leaders, notoriously signing Jefferson Davis’s bail bond in 1867. He endorsed Ulysses S. Grant’s run for president in 1868, but by 1871 he had begun to attack the administration over corruption and its southern policy. Greeley argued that the high taxes and graft common in southern Reconstruction governments repelled the northern migration and investment required for regional development and national reconciliation. In 1872, one year after this letter to Douglass was written, Greeley ran for president on the Liberal Republican ticket, advocating “local self-government” in the South and calling on Americans to “clasp hands across the bloody chasm” in order to put the war and sectional strife behind them. He was decisively defeated by President Grant and died only a few weeks later. Foner, Reconstruction, 503–04; Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction, 95–96, 128–29. or some other man comes with the olive branch—if you refuse him or such for Grant the Dictator with the sword—you declare eternal war upon the South! is this just—or safe?
4. I think the Blacks have gained much by freedom. They should enjoy their great advance with moderation. They should be encouraged to make a living—an independence—and [illegible] to educate themselves in whatever way possible. I regard a pursuit of politics per se—as a great [illegible] to all of us—and especially to the freed men. It took time to overthrow slavery—and it will take time to build up the freedmen. Let us enter upon the work in a spirit of gratitude to God and good-will to all
page_0003
men—even the late deluded master. I feel sure as I do of my part—that such is the just way, and the only road to success.
Wishing you and the race to which I have devoted my life in equal enjoyment of all our rights, I remain as ever your friend
C. M. CLAY
P. S. All Grant’s fight in N. York—is but the contest was of the old Seward traitor party15Clay probably alludes to followers of the former New York governor William H. Seward, who had been secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. When the latter broke with the Republican party over Reconstruction policies and formed a short-lived National Union party coalition of Democrats and a few northern conservative Republicans in 1866, Seward was most prominent among the latter. Eric L. McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (Chicago, 1960), 428–39; Patrick W. Riddleberger, 1866: The Critical Year Revisited (Carbondale, Ill., 1979), 86–104, 217–23, 395–97. against the old Republicans! C.
ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 598–600, FD Papers, DLC.
