The Fiery Trial_ Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery - Eric Foner [86]
The issue came to a head in Wisconsin and Ohio. In the former, the state supreme court declared the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional, and when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the ruling in 1859, the Republican legislature denounced its decision, quoting the Kentucky Resolution to reaffirm the state’s sovereignty. In Ohio, the Republican state convention of 1859 demanded repeal of the federal law and denied renomination to a judge who had upheld its constitutionality.7
Moderate and conservative Republicans were aghast. “Almost the whole country,” wrote Timothy O. Howe of Wisconsin, “has declared nullification to be an unconstitutional remedy,” and it would be suicidal for Republicans to allow themselves to become associated with the doctrine. Lincoln, always a strong nationalist and believer in the rule of law, fully agreed. He had no liking for the 1850 act, which was heavily weighted against the accused fugitive, but he had long affirmed the South’s right to “an efficient fugitive slave law.” To repudiate one clause of the Constitution, he said during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, would undermine the entire document. In 1859, Lincoln complained to Ohio Republican leaders that their demand for repeal seriously imperiled the party’s chances elsewhere by suggesting that it stood “in disregard of the constitution.” “I assure you,” he wrote, “the cause of Republicanism is hopeless in Illinois, if it can be in any way made responsible for that plank.”8
But if Lincoln warned against Radicals’ efforts to add to the Republican platform positions of dubious legality, he also opposed efforts by conservatives to “lower the Republican standard” by deemphasizing the slavery question altogether. The economic downturn that began in 1857 revived demands for tariff protection among manufacturers, especially Pennsylvania iron-makers. Conservative Republicans, most of them former Whigs, promoted the tariff as an issue that could broaden the party’s base by attracting voters more interested in economic recovery than slavery. It might even win votes in border states like Maryland and Virginia, where industry was growing. “An attempt is making from the old Whig side,” Charles Francis Adams warned, “to stuff in the protective tariff as a substitute for the slave question.” Radicals like Adams strongly opposed such plans, as did the numerous former Democrats in the Republican party, long advocates of free trade. Despite his previous enthusiasm for the tariff, Lincoln sided with them. “I was an old Henry Clay tariff Whig,” he wrote, and “in olden times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other.” But, he insisted, the revival of the tariff question “will not advance the cause.” As Lincoln explained to Thomas Corwin, the venerable Ohio Whig who had been elected to Congress as a Republican in 1858, slavery was “the living issue of the day” and it would be as disastrous to abandon it for the tariff or other “old issues” as to create a “rumpus” within the party over fugitive slaves.9
Ever since the 1858 election, local newspapers in Illinois had promoted Lincoln as a potential president. In April 1859, Lincoln rebuffed one editor who wanted to endorse his candidacy, explaining, “I must, in candor, say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency.” Lincoln still harbored political ambitions. But another term as a freshman member of Congress lacked appeal, and he could not challenge Trumbull’s reelection in 1860 without wrecking the party, even though, he wrote, “I would rather have a full term in the Senate than in the Presidency.” Certainly, Lincoln’s speaking tour outside his home state in the fall of 1859 could hardly be explained by political requirements in Illinois. His purpose, he explained to a Pennsylvania correspondent, was to promote “the Republican cause.” He would “labor faithfully in the ranks