From the Pulpit to the Streets: The Impact of the Second Great Awakening on Race
Relations in Ohio
Thesis
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the
Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Thomas Free Albright
Graduate Program in African American & African Studies
The Ohio State University
2012
Master of Arts Thesis Committee:
Kenneth Goings, Advisor
Maurice Stevens
Denise Noble
Copyright by
Thomas Free Albright
2012
Abstract
From the Pulpit to the Streets: The Impact of the Second Great Awakening on
Race Relations in Ohio is a project which examines the ways that the Second Great
Awakening influenced racial thought and race relations in Ohio. When I started this
project I had noticed that race relations in Ohio started to shift from the 1830s to 1850
from race riots driving African Americans out of the state to by the 1850s some white
citizens working with the African American community. This change, illustrated by the
shift from Ohio’s Black Laws which in 1804 and 1807 heavily restricted Blacks’ rights to
the situation in the 1850s when white lawyers and citizens were working in conjunction
with the Black community fighting for African Americans’ rights and against federal
statutes. What was not clear was how and why this had occurred. Many times I was left
with the description of abolitionists acting against the slave system. What I was left
pondering was the ideology that influenced these abolitionists to turn on the racial status
quo and why in that particular moment? This project aims to illuminate the influence of
the socio-religious movement of the Second Great Awakening and how the religious
teachings of the movement effected those fighting for African Americans’ rights and
against slavery. This thesis focuses on the Second Great Awakening’s influence on
Theodore Weld and the Lane Rebels of Cincinnati, James G. Birney, and Salmon P.
Chase.
ii
Dedication
This document is dedicated to those students who fought for the establishment of African
American Studies throughout the nation. I would also like to dedicate this work to my
family.
iii
Vita
2005................................................................Van Wert High School
2009................................................................B.A. Psychology and African American
Studies, Ohio University
2012 ...............................................................M.A. African American & African Studies,
The Ohio State University
2010-2011…………………………………...Graduate Fellow, African American &
African Studies, The Ohio State University
2011-2012………………………………….. Graduate Grader and Teaching Associate,
African American & African Studies, The
Ohio State University
Fields of Study
Major Field: African American & African Studies
iv
Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iii
Vita………………………………………………………………………………………..iv
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1
Chapter 1: Racial Thought in Ohio from 1803 through the 1860s………………………12
Chapter 2: The Impact of the Second Great Awakening on Theodore Weld and the Racial
Thought of Cincinnati……………………………………………………………………37
Chapter 3:The Influence of the Second Great Awakening on the Work of James G.
Birney and Salmon P. Chase……………………………………………………………..57
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….77
Essay on Sources…………………………………………………………………………81
References………………………………………………………………………………..90
v
Introduction
When it comes to race relations in early American history, Ohio played a pivotal
role not only in the Midwest but also on the larger national front. Race relations in Ohio
from 1800 through the 1860s experienced some very dynamic changes. In 1804 and
1807, legal statutes in Ohio were highly restrictive of blacks’ rights, but by the 1840s
through the 1860s, some white Ohioans worked in conjunction with the black community
to challenge both state and federal laws that were restricting African American rights.
Ohio, unlike many of the states to its east and south, was founded as an antislavery territory. Although the state did not allow slavery within its borders, this political
move should not to be conflated with the idea that Ohio was composed entirely of
abolitionists or that the majority of Ohio’s early population was against slavery. The
anti-slavery prohibition was meant to discourage African American immigration.1 For
those blacks already living in Ohio, although a small population as historian James
Rodabaugh noted, they were less than 1 percent of the total population and were treated
as a pariah class.2
1
See 2 laws of Ohio 63 (1804); An act to amend the last named act, “an act to regulate
black and mulatto persons,” 5 Laws of Ohio 53 (1807).
2
James Rodabaugh, The Negro in Ohio,” The Journal of Negro History 31, no. 1 (1946):
13.
1
From the establishment of Ohio as a state in 1803 and onward, the treatment of
blacks in Ohio was quite severe. The Black Laws, first promulgated in 1804, were a
series of statutes that rivaled the slave South in regards to the legal treatment of blacks.
By the 1850s the state’s ideology on blacks was shifting and prominent citizens were
battling federal law to keep blacks within the state. Part of the progress on issues of race
was illustrated by the work of the Lane Rebels led by Theodore Weld in Cincinnati,
James Birney and his newspaper The Philanthropist, and Salmon P. Chase’s defense of
fugitive slaves.
What was it that influenced these individuals to take action? Were these men
natural-born abolitionists and racial progressives? What inspired men like Weld, Birney,
and Chase to abandon the racial status quo of the time and assist blacks in their struggle
for equality? Previous scholars have attributed this shift to economic influences along
with the rise of abolitionist sentiments.3 But I believe as well demonstrated in this thesis
that the socio-religious teachings of the Second Great Awakening heavily influenced
these individuals and others to help shape the race relations of Ohio during the mid1800s.
The Second Great Awakening as religious scholar William G. McLoughlin noted
took place roughly between 1795 and 1835.4 However, Linda Pritchard added, “intense
3
See Leon Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961) for the economic influences; See Nikki
Taylor, Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati’s Black Community 1802-1868 (Athens: Ohio
University Press, 2005) for the influence of abolitionist sentiments. See David Gerber,
Black Ohio and the Color Line 1860-1915 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976) for
abolitionists work.
4
William G.McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy
2
revivalism occurred throughout the nation between 1800 and 1860.”5 While most of the
intensity of the Second Great Awakening may have been early in the 1800’s, the
movement’s primary impact continued well into the 1860s. Two of the most notable
revivalists were James Grandison Finney and Lyman Beecher. As religious historian
Barry Hankins stated, “Charles Grandison Finney became the key figure of the Second
Great Awakening and indeed the most prolific preacher of the entire period.”6 During
this religious movement revivalism as McLoughlin stated, “was both a symptom of social
change and a means of social change.”7 These revivals would shift an individual’s core
understanding of the world.
Before further discussing the movement, a general understanding of the
terminology regarding the Second Great Awakening would be beneficial. As
McLoughlin noted in Revivals, Awakening and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social
Change in America, 1607-1977, awakenings were “periods of cultural revitalization that
being in a general crisis of beliefs and values and extended over a period of a generation
or so, during which time a profound reorientation in beliefs and values takes place.”8 He
further stated that revivalism, “Is the Protestant ritual (at first spontaneous, but since
1830, routinized) in which charismatic evangelists convey “the word” of God to large
Graham (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1959), 8.
5
Linda K. Pritchard, “The Burned-over District Reconsidered: A Portent of Evolving
Religious Pluralism in the United States,” Social Science History 8, no. 3 (1984): 244.
6
Barry Hankins, The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists (London:
Greenwood Press, 2004),16.
7
McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, 131.
8
William G. McLoughlin, Introduction to Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay
on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1978), xiii.
3
masses of people who, under this influence, experience what Protestants call conversion,
salvation, regeneration, or spiritual rebirth.”9 In more simplistic terms McLoughlin
claimed, “revivals alter the lives of individuals; awakenings alter the world view of a
whole people or culture.”10
These awakenings occurred when individuals’ beliefs conflicted with societal
norms. As McLoughlin noted,
“In short, great awakening are periods when the cultural system has had to be
revitalized in order to overcome jarring disjunctions between norms and
experience, old beliefs and new realities, dying patterns and emerging patterns of
behavior.”11
The individuals who participated in these revivals were now viewing their previously
held norms as invalid in comparison to their current understanding of the world. As
Hankins noted, revivalism “empowered the masses.”12 The preachers of the Second
Great Awakening told those attending the revivals that they as individuals had free will
and the ‘moral ability’ to influence their own salvation.13 Many of the revivals in the
West evoked much more of an emotional response than that of those in the East. These
revivals would often be held in fields, “where hundreds, and sometimes thousands”
would gather to listen to several preachers over the time frame of a few days.14
9
Ibid., xiii.
Ibid., xiii.
11
William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and
Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978),
10.
12
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 54.
13
William G. McLouglin, introduction to Lectures on Revivals of Religion, ed. William
G. McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), xiv.
14
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 7.
4
10
The individuals, after leaving these revivals believed they had power and the duty
to influence the world around them. As Anne Loveland noted, “Evangelicalism taught
that man was not powerless to prevent evil…and unless he acknowledged its existence
and attempted to eliminate it, he remained guilty in the eyes of the Lord.”15 These
individuals saw it as their duty to spread the word of God, Finney stated, “if you die
without the Spirit, you will fall into hell. There can be no doubt of this.”16 For many
influenced by the revivals they believed immediate action needed to be taken as to save
as many souls as possible. On sinners, Finney noted, “it is of great importance that the
sinner should be made to feel his guilt, and not left to the impression that he
unfortunate.”17 This concept of guilt and agency would play a large role in those who
took these teachings and applied them to abolitionism.
Regarding the connection of the Second Great Awakening to that of the antislavery and abolitionist movements, Hankins stated, “revival mentality put all human
beings on the same level before God. All were sinners in need of salvation. All needed
freedom from spiritual bondage and slaves needed freedom from physical bondage.”18
To those involved in the revivalist thinking, slavery was a national sin that needed to be
purged from American soil, because God would judge the nation for it.19 Finney claimed
15
Anne C. Loveland, “Evangelicalism and “Immediate Emancipation” in American
Antislavery Thought,” The Journal of Southern History 32, no. 2 (1966): 181.
16
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, ed. William G.
McLoughlin, (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), 122.
17
Ibid., 205.
18
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 91.
19
Ibid., 106.; see Finney, Lectures on Revivals, 298. on slavery Finney noted, “It is a
great national sin. It is a sin of the church. The churches by their silence, and by
permitting slaveholders to belong to their communion, have been consenting to it.”
5
that if the country did not change “God will curse the nation, and withdraw his spirit…the
church must act right or the country will be ruined.”20 Here Finney stated that not only
the individuals need to repent, but also the church needed to ‘act right’ or the country
would be lost. Revivalists believed all were in need of salvation irrespective of color.21
As the revivalist preachers claimed that man was a moral agent capable of choice,
Loveland noted, “many abolitionists concluded that individuals avoided the duty of
immediate emancipation from lack of will, not ability.”22 These revivals restructured the
social institutions of the time. Hankins claimed that it would not be an exaggeration “to
say that the revivals were responsible for antislavery becoming a radical national
movement.”23 The Second Great Awakening influenced much of the anti-slavery work
of Weld, Birney, and Chase, thus changing the race relations of Ohio in the mid-1800s.
When discussing the effects of the Second Great Awakening scholars have often
traditionally focused on the East and the Burned-over District in western New York.24
As Hankins noted, the Burned-over District revivals occurred between the 1820s and
1840s. The region of western New York received the name because the “preachers often
referred to ‘revival fire,’ hence the ‘burned-over imagery.”25 While this region was very
important to the development of the Second Great Awakening, our conceptions of the
movement should not simply be relegated to the East or the ‘Burned-over District’.
20
Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 298.
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 111.
22
Loveland, “Evangelicalism and “Immediate Emancipation”, 184.
23
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 88.
24
See Whitney Cross, The Burned-over District; the social and intellectual history of
enthusiastic religion in western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1950).
25
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 184.
6
21
For example, the Oneida Evangelical Society that Whitney Cross mentioned
heavily influenced the students at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.26 Not only did the
teachings of the Second Great Awakening affect the East and the “Burned-over District”
but also to a great extent those in Ohio, as well. Those affected by the Second Great
Awakening in Ohio have not been properly examined as those in the East and ‘Burnedover District’ have been. Those influenced by the Second Great Awakening in Ohio have
often been labeled solely as abolitionists in previous scholarship. As the biographies of
the individuals examined in this thesis illustrate, the authors do not consider the effects of
the Second Great Awakening as having a significant contribution on their subjects’
lives.27 For example, Betty Fladeland discussed the impact of revival spirit on James
Birney joining his church in Alabama, but she did not tie this to the larger movement of
the Second Great Awakening, or how the teachings of the movement deeply impact
Birney’s life.28 In his biography of Salmon P. Chase, Frederick Blue noted that a revival
occurred at Dartmouth while Chase was there and that it had a profound impact on his
life, but Blue does not connect that revival or the teachings that occurred during it to the
Second Great Awakening.29 Much of these works leave the reader wanting more
concerning the impact of the Second Great upon these individuals’ lives. This work
26
For information on the Oneida Evangelical Society see Whitney Cross, The Burnedover District; the social and intellectual history of enthusiastic religion in western New
York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950). For information on the Lane
Rebels see Lawrence Lesick, The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism and Antislavery in
Antebellum America (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980).
27
For Salmon P. Chase see Frederick Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent,
Oh: Kent State University Press, 1987).; For James Birney see Betty Fladeland, James
Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955).
28
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 31-38.
29
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 6-7.
7
attempts to shed light on those affected by the Second Great Awakening in Ohio and how
the teachings of the Second Great Awakening resonated in their work.
One of the most significant spaces in which race has been defined is through the
legal system. Over the years the law has been used as a tool both to oppress and liberate
black Ohioans. The dichotomous function was illustrated in the legal statutes and case
law of Ohio. Black Ohioans were not allowed to testify in a court of law simply because
of the color of their skin.30 Yet other African Americans would use the legal system to
escape the reaches of the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. In Chapter One,
I will examine the shifting racial thought of Ohio from the establishment of the
Northwest Ordinance through the 1860s. To investigate racial thought in Ohio, I will
look at case law and legal statutes. The Black Laws were created to curb African
American immigration into the state while also limiting the rights of those blacks already
residing in Ohio.31 The cases of State v. George (1821), Gray v. Ohio (1831), Jeffries v.
Ankeny (1842), Thacker v. Hawk (1842), Lane v. Baker (1843), Anderson v. Poindexter
(1856), and Monroe v. Collins (1867) along with changing social understandings of race
exemplify racial thought in early Ohio history.
In Chapter Two I will examine the significance of Cincinnati to the shifting racial
relations of Ohio. I will investigate its geopolitical location within the state and the
nation. Being a gateway to the west and an access point of antislavery and proslavery
30
An act to amend the last named act, “an act to regulate black and mulatto persons,” 5
Laws of Ohio 53 (1807).
31
2 laws of Ohio 63 (1804); An act to amend the last named act, “an act to regulate black
and mulatto persons,” 5 Laws of Ohio 53 (1807); see Otto Arnold Lovett, “Black Laws of
Ohio,” (Master’s thesis, Ohio State University 1929); see Stephen Middleton The Black
Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005).
8
dialogue, Cincinnati served as an important socio-political place in early American
history. It also played a large economic role as it was connected to the eastern markets
through the canal systems. As the Ohio River drained into the Mississippi River, which
then poured into the Atlantic Ocean, Cincinnati was connected to both southern and
European markets. Being at the core of western economics, maintaining amicable
relations with the south was important to many Cincinnatians. As Ohio was an
antislavery state bordering a slave state, there was often a tension between the states
when it came to race and slavery. The racial atmosphere in Cincinnati boiled and
instigated race riots in 1829, 1836, and 1841.32
Even with the threat of violence, racial progressives worked with the black
community to ameliorate race relations within the city and surrounding area. One such
example was the work of the Rebels from Lane Seminary.33 The Rebels, inspired by the
teachings of the Second Great Awakening, immersed themselves in the black community
to assist African Americans with their educational needs. The most famous incident at
Lane came with the 18-day student led public debate on the issues of slavery and the
colonization movement. Upon the end of the debate, the students at Lane were censored
and warned that such conversation like those of the debates and others over the past
months concerning slavery and the black community were to be no longer held at the
seminary. Upon hearing the news in the fall of 1834, nearly three-fourths of the student
32
For an in-depth analysis of the race riots of Cincinnati see Silas N. T. Crowfoot,
“Community Development for a White City: Race Making, Improvementism, and the
Cincinnati Race Riots and Anti-Abolition Riots of 1829, 1836, and 1841” (PhD
Dissertation, Portland State University, 2010).
33
The Lane Rebels consisted of 75 students; one of those students was an African
American.
9
body left Lane in protest.34 Many of these students after leaving Lane, continued their
work within the black community. The teachings of the Second Great Awakening
heavily influenced Theodore Weld and the Lane Rebels. Weld, the leader of the Rebels,
in particular was deeply moved by the revivalist work of Charles Grandison Finney, and
hence his religious teachings heavily influenced the debates at Lane Seminary. Part of
the rhetoric of the debates was immediate emancipation, which was inspired by Finney’s
work.35
In the Third Chapter I will examine the religious awakenings of James G. Birney
and Salmon P. Chase. Upon hearing of the issues at Lane, Birney met with Weld and
discussed what was occurring at the Seminary. Birney, like those discussed in Chapter
Two was impacted by the socio-religious thought of the Second Great Awakening. After
his awakening Birney freed his slaves in Alabama and moved north to Cincinnati. While
in Ohio he started the publication of the abolitionist newspaper The Philanthropist. His
paper incited uproar in the white Cincinnati community and possibly even a riot.
Birney, while living in Cincinnati was involved in a fugitive slave court case that
concerned the hiring of a black woman named Matilda. Salmon P. Chase defended
Birney. Chase, like those of the previous chapters, was influenced by the religious
revivals of the Second Great Awakening. As a lawyer in Cincinnati he worked on behalf
of fugitive slaves to help them maintain their freedom in Ohio, by trying to keep them
from being sent back to the slave south. For his work with fugitive slaves, as legal
34
See Lawrence T Lesick The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism and Antislavery in
Antebellum America (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980), 235.
35
See Anne C. Loveland, “Evangelicalism and “Immediate Emancipation” in American
Antislavery Thought,” The Journal of Southern History 32, no. 2 (1966): 172-188.
10
scholar Paul Finkelman noted, “Chase became known as ‘the Attorney General for
Fugitive Slaves.”36 Chase like Birney, Weld, and the Lane Rebels was inspired by the
Second Great Awakening to attack the institution of slavery, to save the nation in
preparation for the coming of God.
36
Paul Finkelman, “Introduction,” In Southern Slaves in Free States Courts: The
Pamphlet Literature, ed. Paul Finkelman (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988),vi.
11
Chapter 1: Racial Thought in Ohio from 1803 Through the 1860s
African Americans have fought for the right to be American citizens throughout
the country’s history. These fights often landed in the local, state, and federal courts.
Throughout the timeframe of this research racial thought was consistently evolving both
in Ohio and the nation, and these shifting ideas were exemplified through the work of the
courts. In this chapter I will be examining the ways that racial parameters in Ohio were
established and manipulated by the state legislature from the state’s beginning through
the Civil War. I will also be investigating how racial interactions between white and
blacks changed during this time period. Early in the state’s history Blacks’ rights were
heavily restricted as demonstrated from the 1804 and 1807 Black Laws. There was a
shift in race relations in the 1830s through the 1860s, one such example was the Oberlin
Wellington Rescue of 1858-59 where white Ohio citizens were willing to go to jail to
protect a black man from being caught by a slave catcher to be taken to the slave South.37
This shifting racial thought will be illustrated by the following cases: State v. George
(1821), Gray v. Ohio (1831), Jeffries v. Ankeny (1842), Thacker v. Hawk (1842), Lane v.
Baker (1843), Anderson v. Poindexter (1856), and Monroe v. Collins (1867) along with
shifting social understandings of race exemplify racial thought in early Ohio history.
37
On Oberlin Wellington Rescue see James Turner, “Use of the Courts in the Movement
to Abolish American Slavery.” Ohio State Law Journal 31, no. 2 (1970): 312-14.
12
These cases were in conversation with the Black Laws and/or have to do with fugitive
slaves contesting national Fugitive Slave Acts. This legal history will show that the law
has been used as a tool to both oppress and liberate African Americans; this analysis will
demonstrate how Ohio law initially heavily regulated blacks, but then in the mid-1800s
the state government, under social pressure, fought federal law to keep blacks in the state.
Race relations in Ohio changed in the 1850s due to the influence of the socio-religious
teachings of the Second Great Awakening.
A key aspect to racial thought in America was the continuation of white
supremacy, and as Ian Haney Lopez noted in White by Law that “in its first words on the
subject of citizenship, Congress in 1790 restricted naturalization to “white persons.”38 In
further examination of Congress’s use of race, Leon Litwack in North of Slavery noted,
“in 1792, it organized the militia and restricted enrollment to able-bodied white male
citizens; in 1810, it excluded Negroes from carrying the United States mail.”39 From
early on in the history of United States, Whiteness played a vital role in its socio-political
formation. Whiteness was and is a set of practices that has social, political, psychological
and power related stakes that work in the service to support and reproduce the ideology
38
Ian Haney Lopez, White By Law (New York: New York University press, 1996), 1.;
Lopez used Critical Race Theory to examine the use of the legal system as a tool to
establish the United States as a white nation, and how law created and established race.
Lopez showed how individuals defined as white by U.S. federal and state courts were
labeled so by proving who was non-white. Through his study of the law, Lopez
illustrated how whiteness was socially constructed.
39
Leon Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1961), 31.
13
of white supremacy.40 Whiteness often accomplished this goal by being racially
unmarked. White’s use Whiteness by establishing it as the norm, as a metonym for
human. In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills stated, “The fish does not see the water,
and whites do not see the racial nature of a white polity because it is natural to them, the
element in which they move.”41 Whiteness played a large role in the formation of Ohio,
as many of the earliest settlers in the territory were white men who shaped the sociopolitical reality of the territory. As Otto Lovett noted, many of the early settlers came
from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Kentucky.42 However,
these white men’s dream of an entirely white state would not last as historian Joan Pope
Melish noted, “In Ohio and other states of the Midwest, the steady influx of emigrants of
color from the South and the looming presence of slavery on their southern borders made
a claim of continuous historical whiteness impossible.”43 With the escalating black
population racial tensions and violence fluctuated within Ohio. For example, as the black
population increases in Cincinnati race riots plagued the city throughout the 1830s and
1840s. These riots were partially due to economic competition and also abolitionist
work.
40
See W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America for how Whiteness worked as
a public and psychological wage, 700-701; see Ian Haney Lopez’s White By Law; David
Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness for a description of working class constructions of
Whiteness and their psychological investment in Whiteness; see George Lipsitz’s
Possessive Investment in Whiteness although it is a critique of twentieth century
Whiteness the theoretical premise relates.
41
Charles Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 76.
42
Otto Lovett, “Black Laws of Ohio” (master’s thesis, Ohio State University 1929),1.
43
Joanne P. Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New
England, 1780-1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 228.
14
The language of the American Revolution that focused so heavily upon liberty
sounded duplicitous when it came to slavery. As Melish noted, “Revolutionary rhetoric
defined ‘liberty’ as the exercise of natural rights, and ‘slavery’ as the political condition
resulting from the loss of liberty as a consequence of the exercise of power, or perhaps a
corruption of will.”44 American patriots claimed they were political slaves to the British
crown, and as historian Douglas Egerton noted, “this rhetoric of bondage became a
constant and standard part of the dialectic of resistance.”45 After the American victory
over the British there was a shift in the racial dialogue as the United States continued the
physical bondage of blacks, and to justify their enslavement ‘race’ and ‘inherent
difference’ became a feature of the new discourse. As slavery was a part of the argument
for the colonies separation from England, whites had to create a rationale for the
continued enslavement of blacks in this new nation. As Egerton noted, “for white
Americans ill at ease with their failure to eradicate slavery, race served as the best
argument for the innate inferiority of men and women of African descent and explained
why they could not participate in a democratic republic.”46 Race during this time was
seen as biological rather than socially constructed, the work of Carolus Linnaeus,
Friedrich Blumenbach and other Enlightenment thinkers framed race as a biological
given.47 Blumenbach expanded the works of Linnaeus on categorization. In White Over
Black, Winthrop Jordan noted Blumenbach’s grouping of men, “In 1775, in the first
44
Ibid., 80.
Douglas R. Egerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary
America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 46.
46
Ibid., 225.
47
See Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company: 2010), 75-81.
15
45
edition of his De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa he described four varieties, then in
1781 five, and in 1795 introduced some badly needed precise terminology, including the
inept but remarkably adhesive term Caucasian.”48 With Blumenbach and other
Enlightenment thinkers there was the emergence of categorizing men by using race. The
logic of whites supporting slavery was that since blacks were naturally inferior and a
different race than that of whites the use of the slave system was justified. As Egerton
noted,
“Moreover, classical republican theory, which emphasized responsibility over
rights, demanded a great deal of its citizens, on whom the burden of government
now rested. Pamphleteers of the 1780s consistently described ideal voters as
disciplined, virtuous, self-sacrificing, hardworking, and wise, all traits essayists
attributed to European civilization- and so to Euro-American males. Whiteness, as
a result, was an important component of republican ideology.”49
With this theory, white men were those suited to be full citizens in this new nation.
Citizenship, as Derek Heater noted in A Brief History of Citizenship, “is a form of sociopolitical identity,”50 as a citizen, individuals were able to access education, participate
politically by voting, and serve in the military.
Before Ohio entered into the Union in 1803, race and slavery were issues being
heavily debated in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. Slave owners, abolitionists,
and those opposed to slavery due to their own economic aspirations quarreled over the
place of slavery in this territory. As David Gerber in Black Ohio and the Color Line
1860-1915 stated, “The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 barred the transplanting of the
48
Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1968), 222.
49
Egerton, Death or Liberty, 231.
50
Derek Heater, A Brief History of Citizenship (New York: New York University Press,
2004), 1.
16
slave system into the region east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. Though proslavery partisans made spirited attempts to overturn this decision, they were
unsuccessful.”51 With the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 this was as
Egerton noted, “the first national prohibition on slavery.”52 While this was the first
prohibition of slavery it was not done so for blacks, but rather to protect white workers.
In The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio, Stephen Middleton noted,
“The vast majority of whites in Ohio envisioned a free state, where black labor did not
compete with wage-earning white men.”53 Whites did not want to compete with the
institution of slavery, and thus an antislavery territory created more economic
opportunities for whites.
Some southerners thought that slavery should be excluded from the territory for a
similar reason. As Charles Hickok noted in The Negro in Ohio 1802-1870, that
southerners believed the prohibition of slavery in the territory would prove invaluable to
the economic markets of the south. Southerners believed that this territory would soon
fill with populations flooding from eastern states, and with this streaming population it
would open new markets for southern products, which the south then could monopolize.54
With the emergence of these new markets the southern states could widen their economic
51
David A. Gerber, Black Ohio and the Color Line 1860-1915 (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1976), 3.
52
Egerton, Death or Liberty, 236.
53
Stephen Middleton, The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio.
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005),19.
54
Charles M. Hickok “The Negro In Ohio 1802-1870.” (PhD diss., Western Reserve
University, 1896), 22.
17
opportunities. Economics along with race and other factors had an influence on the
creation of the Northwest Ordinance.
In 1802, the Constitutional Convention was held in Chillicothe from the first of
November through the twenty-seventh to draft a constitution for Ohio. The members of
the convention were divided on the issues that related to blacks in the territory, when race
was a central issue the voting was divided.55 The convention upheld the Northwest
Ordinance’s claim that slavery was not permitted in the state. Southerners and followers
of Thomas Jefferson as legal historian Paul Finkelman noted dominated the convention.56
The convention was not about wholly satisfying the participants’ conceptions of the
territory’s future function, socially, politically, or economically, but rather it was about
maintaining social cohesion. However, keeping individuals content on what they thought
the territory should be was difficult to do with the divergent ideas on race and slavery.
These varying viewpoints on the slave system were partially due to the state’s proximity
to the slave south. As historian James Rodabaugh has noted, Ohio bordered the slave
states for 375 miles.57 With so much adjoining territory, it was inevitable that northerners
and southerners would influence each other, and at times clash.
When it came to the place of black people in early Ohio as Gerber noted, “For the
most part, Ohio’s founding fathers intended to permit blacks to reside in the state and
55
Thomas Scott, Journal of the Convention of the Territory of the United States NorthWest of the Ohio. Chillicothe, OH: N. Willis, 1802.
56
Paul Finkelman, “Race, Slavery, and Law in Antebellum Ohio.” In The History of
OhioLaw Volume Two 2004, ed. Michael Les Benedict and John F. Winker (Athens:
Ohio University Press, 2004), 751.
57
James H. Rodabaugh, “The Negro in Ohio,” The Journal of Negro History 31, no. 1
(1946): 14.
18
enjoy the protection of its laws, but to have no part in governing.”58 One reason that the
convention members may have not been too concerned with the residency of blacks was
that during the time of the convention there were less than 400 blacks living in the
territory, and the statesmen believed that the black population was fading out.59 They
believed that the population would decrease because as Middleton further noted the
“Ohio officials” thought that they could keep the black population down by denying
runaway slaves access to the state.60 The convention could not have been more wrong;
by 1810 there were 1,899 blacks in the state and the population would consistently rise
almost doubling every decade, and by 1850 there were 25, 279 blacks in the state.61 The
territory became a state in 1803, and the elected officials did not believe, as the
convention had that the black population was going to diminish. Instead the fear of black
immigration had been transformed into a need to control those in the state. This led these
officials to enact a set of Black Laws that limited the rights and opportunities of African
Americans living in Ohio.
The first Black Law was passed in 1804, titled “act to regulate black and mulatto
person.”62 As Middleton noted, the act, required black immigrants “to provide proof of
their freedom on demand, such as filing a certificate of manumission with the clerk in
their county of residence” it also entitled slave owners or slave catchers access to Ohio’s
58
Gerber, Black Ohio and the Color Line, 4 and 337.
Middleton, The Black Laws, 245.
60
Ibid., 245.
61
Chaddock, Ohio Before 1850, 82.
62
2 laws of Ohio 63 (1804).
19
59
legal system to “capture and remove an alleged slave.”63 The state politicians with this
act tried to regulate the movement of blacks and discouraged their immigration, the
lawmakers were trying to protect white workers and establish a white state. The
politicians were afraid that if Ohio looked like a safe haven for runaway blacks it would
disrupt their economic relations with the South; therefore the state allowed southerners to
enter the state and reclaim fugitive slaves.
The 1804 Act was followed with the 1807 Black Law that excluded African
Americans from testifying in court against whites. The law also required blacks that
wanted to reside in the state to enter into a surety bond with two or more property holders
to guarantee good behavior.64 As Finkelman noted, the law did not require the sum to be
paid up front, but rather the two landowners would pay the sum if the black individual
violated the terms of law.65 These two Black Laws represented white Ohioans attempt to
create and preserve a white state, and ensure economic opportunities for white workers.
To be white meant that no black individual had the opportunity to present material
against them in the court of law. For example, a white man could have walked into a
black household and killed a member of the family in front of them and the family’s
testimony would not be admissible in a court of law under the 1807 black law. Paul
Finkelman in An Imperfect Union noted, “By demanding certificates of freedom and a
bond from any black migrating to the state, Ohio was initiating a negrophobic policy that
63
Middleton, The Black Laws, 49-50.
An act to amend the last named act, “an act to regulate black and mulatto persons,” 5
Laws of Ohio 53 (1807). also see Hickok, “The Negro in Ohio,” 42. Middleton, The
Black Laws, 51-52.
65
Finkelman, “Race, Slavery, and Law,” 757.
20
64
would be repeated in Indiana and Illinois.”66 These restrictive laws were not exclusively
operating in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, but also plagued other northern states as well. For
example, only Massachusetts allowed blacks to serve as jurors before the Civil War.67
Along with these laws as Middleton noted, “to further engineer Ohio society, the
General Assembly periodically enacted various other measures to subordinate blacks,
including affirming its militia policy in 1829 and passing jury laws in 1816 and 1831,
which officially barred blacks from jury service.”68 All of these duties of citizenship
were denied to blacks. These laws were not only about the subordination of blacks, but
were also about maintaining the privileges and economic superiority of whites. Much of
the racial tensions that occurred in Ohio, were also occurring in other states in the North,
as Litwack noted, “Legal and extralegal discrimination restricted northern Negroes in
virtually every phase of existence.”69 By denying blacks the right to full citizenship the
legislature claimed that only whites could hold that position. These laws established the
political and economic superiority of whites by degrading blacks and eliminating the
competition.
The Black Laws were partially repealed in 1849, and as Middleton noted, the
repeal did eradicate the testimony and registration laws, and other provisions like the
“exclusionary public school law,” but the full repeal of the Black Laws did not occur
66
Paul Finkelman, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 88.
67
Litwack, North of Slavery, 17, 75, and 93-94.
68
Middleton, The Black Laws, 55.
69
Litwack, North of Slavery, 64.
21
until 1886.70 Leo Alilunus argues that the 1849 repeal was the result of a political power
negotiation, in which, “the Democrats promised to repeal the "Black Laws" of Ohio and
elect Chase to the United States Senate in return for assistance for their political
measures. The deal went through. Chase became Senator and the "Black Laws" were
repealed, although accomplished in a clandestine manner.”71 The Democrats were not
specifically concerned with the Black Laws, but rather about gaining votes. The deal
with Chase was more about political control than the rights and well being of the African
American community. However, even though this legislation was partially repealed as
Litwack noted, “in the southern portion of the state, where the Negro population was
heaviest, observers admitted that the repealed law would still be practically enforced.”72
As the court cases will show, just because there was a legal precedent or statute, society
would not always follow the law or the courts.
The first case in Ohio to establish the specifics of racial boundaries was State v.
George (1821), and in this case the courts decided what it meant to be both white and
black. As Ervin Pollack in Ohio Unreported Judicial Decisions Prior to 1823 noted, the
case involved Elizabeth George who was labeled a quadroon. She was tried for killing
her child, and the only witness to the crime was Mary Cooper a black woman. The
defense stated that due to the 1807 Black Law, Cooper by law, could not testify against
70
Middleton, The Black Laws, 5.
Leo Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases in Ohio Prior to 1850” Ohio State Archeological
and Historical Quarterly 49, (1940): 164.
72
Litwack, North of Slavery, 94.
22
71
George.73 As Middleton noted, “The supreme court…prevented the testimony of the
black witness. A mixed-race individual with more than 50 percent Caucasian blood, the
court concluded, was white and entitled to the privileges belonging to that race.”74 In this
case there was a limiting of black’s rights that led to more power for whites. From this
case’s precedent those individuals with 51% Caucasian blood were entitled to the rights
and privileges that the law preserved for whites. This was measured through lineage and
blood quantum, invoking the biological notions put forth by Enlightenment thinkers.
However, this ruling of racial distinction was not the same way that Ohio society and the
nation for that matter saw race. A more common racial classification within the nation
was that of hypodescent. Ohio would not follow this rule of hypodescent or the common
one-drop rule.
In State v. George (1821) the Ohio courts acknowledged the racial categorization
of white, mulatto, and black. A mulatto was categorized as an offspring resulting from
the relationship of a white and black individual. In Polly Gray v. The State of Ohio
(1831) Polly Gray, a woman with a racially mixed background was on trial for robbery in
Hamilton County. The prosecution called a black witness against Gray, and the defense’s
attorney objected to her testimony under the 1807 Black Law that did not allow a black
individual to testify in court when it pertained to whites. The court overruled the
73
Ervin H. Pollack, Ohio Unreported Judicial Decisions: Prior to 1823 (Indianapolis:
A.Smith Co., 1952) 185-188. Also see Middleton, The Black Laws, 57.
74
Ibid., 57.
23
objection, the testimony was admitted, and Gray was found guilty.75 The defense brought
a writ of error to the courts and upon retrial stated that Gray did not fit the state’s racial
category of mulatto, as she had a larger preponderance of white blood than that of the
classification of a mulatto. Gray was referred to by one of the lawyers as a quadroon, but
under Ohio’s legal status of white, mulatto, or black she was entitled to the rights of
whites because she was not classified as mulatto or black. In the court’s opinion:
“We are of opinion that a party of such a blood entitled to the privileges of
whites, partly because we are unwilling to extend the disabilities of the statute
further than its letter requires, and partly from the difficulty of defining and of
ascertaining the degree of duskiness which renders a person liable to such
disabilities.”76
The court based their opinion on the State v. George (1821) finding where there was the
racial categorization of black, mulatto, or white. Thus in 1831 the judgment was reversed
and the black individual was not permitted to testify against Gray, as Gray was classified
as white. Gray’s racial classification was based on blood quantum as illustrated by the
court’s opinion. Since Gray was racialized as white by the court a black individual could
not testify against her due to the 1807 black law, here the court defined white as anyone
with more white blood than that of a mulatto, thus Gray was white. This case further
exemplified how whiteness was a privileged space, because upon being labeled white,
Gray no longer had to worry about the testimony of the black individual. In many other
states both in the north and south Gray would have been racially classified as black.
75
Gray v. Ohio, 4 Ohio 353 (1831) stated, “the prisoner appeared, upon inspection, and
of such opinion was the court, to be of a shade of color between the mulatto and white.
The court overruled the objection, and the witness was admitted.”
76
Gray v. Ohio, 4 Ohio 353 (1831)
24
What is interesting about the court’s decision is that in its opinion, the court stated,
“partly because we are unwilling to extend the disabilities of the statute further than its
letter requires.”77 From this opinion there was a strict adherence to the legal racial
classification of black, mulatto, or white, which was set forth by State v. George (1821),
and as the court stated, they were unwilling to extend the disabilities of the statute. So if
one was closer to white than black they were entitled to the privileges that came along
with Whiteness. In this case due to the 1807 Black Law, Gray was able to use the law to
escape punishment for the robbery. This case further disabled the black community of
Ohio, as they were unable to participate in the court proceedings when a white individual
was involved.
Another aspect of race formation and the shifting social and legal attitudes on race
was demonstrated by two cases that related to voting. In 1842, two cases came to court
concerning the right of individuals’ abilities to vote. One was in Greene County Parker
Jeffries v. John Ankeny et. Al (1842) and the second in Gallia County Edwill Thacker v.
John Hawk et. Al (1842). These cases are important because if an individual was not
provided the right of citizenship to vote, they could not impact the political structure of
the state. Both individuals in these case’s that filed claims were denied the right to vote
by white trustees of their respective townships, rather than discriminated against by the
state. In Thacker v. Hawk the white trustees of Wilkesville Township refused Mr.
Thacker’s vote, because they believed he was not white, so Thacker filed a claim in the
court of common pleas of Gallia County. During the initial trial there was testimony on
77
Gray v. Ohio, 4 Ohio 353 (1831)
25
both sides that the plaintiff had Negro blood in him, the plaintiff then moved to have the
court instruct the jury, that if he was nearer white than mulatto he was entitled to the
rights and privileges of Whiteness. However, the court refused to give such a claim and
stated that if he had any Negro blood in him he was not allowed to vote.78 In this
instance the court relied upon the one-drop rule and strayed from the precedent set forth
by Gray v. Ohio (1831), which established that if one was racially marked as closer to
white than black they were entitled to the privileges of a white citizen. Upon hearing this
case in the Ohio Supreme Court, the justices followed the precedent of Gray v. Ohio
(1831) and found for Thacker and he was considered a lawful elector. This case showed
the conflict between societal understandings of race, and the court’s classifications.
In the case of Parker Jeffries, a man with Indian heritage in Greene County was
refused the ability to vote because one of the trustees of the township, John Ankeny
believed him to be a person of color. The court ruled for Jeffries, thus upholding the
precedent put forward by State v. George (1821) and Gray v. Ohio (1831). In the opinion
of the court:
“that all nearer white than black, or of the grade between the mulattoes and the
whites, were entitled to enjoy every political and social privilege of the white
citizen; that no other rule could be adopted, so intelligible and so practicable as
this; and that further refinements would lead to inconvenience, and to no good
result.”79
The court upheld the precedent that those closer to white than mulatto or black were
entitled to the privileges of Whiteness. Ankeny believed Jeffries was non-white due to
78
79
Thacker v. Hawk, 11 Ohio 376 (1842)
Jeffries v. Ankeny, 11 Ohio 372 (1842)
26
his appearance thus Ankeny denied him the right to vote. The court however based its
decision on blood quantum, as had been set forth by State v. George (1821).
In both Thacker v. Hawk and Jeffries v. Ankeny the courts upheld the standard of
racial classification set for by Gray v. Ohio. However, what these cases also show was
that society did not operate under the same racial classification system as that set forth by
the courts. Some white individuals pushed for a more rigid definition of racial categories
as the trustees tried to deny the vote of these two individuals. The courts had one criteria
of racial classification and society was trying to enact another set of definitions, as
exemplified through the actions of those trying to strip Jeffries and Thacker from their
right to vote. Like that of society, the courts were not in unanimous agreement on racial
definitions. Judge Read in both cases dissented due to the court’s logic regarding race, he
believed that the court was using a system of classification that was too loose. In
Thacker v. Hawk, Judge Read stated, “The word "white" means pure white, unmixed.
The word expresses a simple idea, quality, or principle, homogeneous, not made up or
compounded of two different elements or qualities.”80 From Judge Read’s dissent, his
understanding of race was that of blood quantum. His ideology on race was in alignment
with the concept of hypodescent and the one-drop rule, as he stated to be white was to be
pure. Judge Read like trustees of the Counties believed race to be something more rigidly
defined than the court’s definitions established in legal precedents. Judge Read went on
to note,
“The two races are placed as wide apart by the hand of nature as white from black;
and, to break down the barriers, fixed, as it were, by the Creator himself, in a
80
Thacker v. Hawk, 11 Ohio 376 (1842)
27
political and social amalgamation, shocks us as something unnatural and wrong.
It strikes us as a violation of the laws of nature.”81
Judge Read talked about race as ‘barriers, fixed’ and as by the ‘Creator’ and ‘laws of
nature’ this was reminiscent of Enlightenment thinkers like that of Kant, Jefferson, and
Hume who saw race as something innate and biologically given.
Another case that was like Jeffries v. Ankeny (1842) that involved race formation
and voting rights arose in Greene County in 1867. In James B. Monroe, David Martin
and George A. Lanman v. George W. Collins (1867), Collins brought the suit against the
plaintiffs for rejecting his vote. The Court noted:
“In his petition Collins alleges, that he is a person having a "visible admixture of
African blood," but a large preponderance of white blood; and that at the time he
offered to vote, and his ballot was so rejected, the fact that he had a large
preponderance of white blood was well known to said judges, and plainly
apparent, and was proved to their satisfaction.”82
Monroe et al. said that Collins did not meet the requirements for the right to vote and they
defended themselves in an eight-point response that stated Collins had not sufficiently
proved he was white. These men asked Collins questions regarding his parents marriage
and if they lived together, they also asked him a question as to who he associated with
‘white or colored persons’ and if he was received as a white or colored person. The court
of common pleas found for Monroe et al., and Collins petitioned in error in the district
court of Greene County. The district court reversed the ruling of the common pleas
court, and then the Ohio Supreme Court upon hearing the case found in favor of Collins,
and reinforced his right to vote. In its opinion the Court stated:
81
82
Thacker v. Hawk, 11 Ohio 376 (1842)
Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio 665 (1867)
28
“A colored man, therefore, having more white than black blood, is a white man
within the meaning of the constitution, and the legislature have no more power to
deny or intrench upon his right to vote, than they have to deny or intrench upon
that of a man of pure white blood.”83
Justice Welch cited the findings of Gray v. The State of Ohio, Jeffries v. Ankeny, and
Thacker v. Hawk in his opinion, thus following their precedents. Like that of the cases of
Jeffries and Thacker, the county trustees too denied this man the vote, the social
definition of race was not in accordance with the legal designation. Collins was denied
the right to vote due to his physical appearance, as Monroe et al. denied him the vote
because they observed him as being Black. Race for Collins was not a simple construct,
as he was unable or unwilling to classify himself. The court documents stated:
“That when asked one of the questions specified in said act, to wit: "In the
community in which you live are you classified and received as a white or
colored person, and do you associate with white or colored persons?" Collins
answered as follows: "I know of no established and well defined classification
of persons as to color and shades of color, and am, therefore, unable to say how
I am classified. I associate with persons white and persons black, when
agreeable to all parties." And that Collins failed and refused further or more
fully to answer said question.”84
Either this was an attempt by Collins to circumvent the questioning or he genuinely saw
race as more fluid than the court did. The court in this proceeding tried to identify
Collins’ racial classification by those he associated with. The questions put forth in the
proceedings and Monroe et al.’s racial categorization of Collins relied both upon
appearance and behavior. From Collins’ understanding of race, the individuals who
denied his vote due to his physical appearance, and the court’s varying decisions, all
these exemplified how racial thought in Ohio was complex and varied.
83
84
Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio 665 (1867)
Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio 665 (1867)
29
In Thomas Lane v. Mathias W. Baker, Gideon Sphar, and John Ginn (1843), race
emerged as a key to access education. Thomas Lane sued Baker, Sphar, and Ginn
because they denied Lane’s child the right to an education by excluding him from a
school in Greene County. The school denied Lane’s son because they did not believe the
child was white. However the jury stated, "We find said youth, so rejected, to be of
negro, Indian and white blood, but of more than one-half white blood; and, if the law be
with the plaintiff, assess his damages at six cents."85 The opinion of the court put forth
by Judge Lane stated that this case relied upon the same principles of Jeffries v, Ankeny
and found no cause for change from the opinions of Polly Gray v. The State, Jeffries v.
Ankeny, and Thacker v. Hawk. The court found for Lane,86 and once again there was a
conflict between social and legal definitions of race. What these cases show was that
social understandings of race were not always the same as that of the courts. These cases
also illustrate that time and again individuals were denied their rights, often because of
observations of physical appearance. What these cases don’t demonstrate was just how
prevalent this denial of one’s rights was. Court proceedings were expensive, and many
individuals did not have the funds to fight for their rights. Also, some individuals when
turned away from voting may not have fully understood why they were being turned
away.
Along with these cases on racial classification there were lawsuits that concerned
fugitive slaves. These cases illustrate the increased influence of moral considerations in
connection with race, as some white citizens were defending fugitive slaves. As the prior
85
86
Lane v. Baker, 12 Ohio 237 (1843)
Lane v. Baker, 12 Ohio 237 (1843)
30
cases had to do with legal classifications of race, who was white and who deserved the
privileges of Whiteness, the fugitive slaves cases demonstrate the shifting racial relations
of the time. Instead of trying to oppress the African American community in Ohio, white
abolitionist and religiously inspired groups in these cases were trying to protect them; one
such case was that of ‘Black Bill’ who worked as a butcher and common laborer in
Marion, Ohio. As Alilunas noted in 1839 eight representatives of a Virginian Court
House “arrived to claim “Black Bill” as the runaway slave of Adnah Van Bibber. He was
arrested as a fugitive from service in accordance with the Ohio law of 1839, and jailed.”87
With the legal authority of 1807 Black Law, he was not allowed to testify in court, but
due to a few white citizens testimonies that stated he was the former slave of John Lewis
he was freed. The Virginians were not satisfied with the ruling and as a result they took
‘Black Bill’ with pistols and knives in hand to the office of a justice of peace. A white
crowd followed the men in an attempt to free ‘Black Bill,’ and in all of the commotion
‘Black Bill’ escaped from the jail and made his way to Oberlin and then escaped into
Canada.88 In this case, white citizens used mob rule to help gain Bill’s freedom.
The case of Black Bill was similar to other fugitive slave cases in Ohio, but the
lawyers of such cases were not willing to rely upon white mobs to save their defendants.
As Middleton noted, “Near the end of the 1840s, antislavery lawyers in Ohio shifted their
challenges to federal courts, seeking test cases or defending suits and prosecutions that
might void or at least undermine the federal slave policy.”89 These individuals modified
87
Alilunas, Fugitive Slave Cases, 175.
Ibid., 175.
89
Middleton, The Black laws, 195.
88
31
their attack in the federal courts in an attempt to dismantle the Fugitive Slave Act of
1850. Prior to this as Jonathan Howard noted, from the 1820s onward, “Ohio and its
African-American communities had undergone significant political changes. Racist
politicians and restrictive policies still remained in place, but Ohio’s legal and political
attitudes toward African Americans had undoubtedly improved.”90 This was illustrated
by the partial repeal of the Black Laws in 1849, the increased influence of morality in
connections to issues of race, and the attack on the nations Fugitive Slave Acts.
The case of Peyton Polly exemplified this political change, as Howard noted it
was one of the most heavily publicized fugitive slave cases.91 Polly’s black children
were kidnapped by southerners as Middleton noted, “a white gang from Kentucky visited
Ohio under cover of night, kidnapped eight children and grandchildren of Peyton Polly
and sold them to slave owners across two states.”92 Governor Ford under social pressure
issued a request that Kentucky release the children and produce the kidnappers for
prosecution.93 Due to Ohio’s large black and white communal appeal and political
pressure, Kentucky returned the Polly children that were in the state to Ohio in 1853.94 In
this case, Ohio’s highest position of authority pursued the rights of black Ohioans due to
societal pressure.
90
Jonathan Scott Howard, “Changing the Law; Fighting for Freedom: Racial Politics and
Legal Reform in Early Ohio, 1803-1860,” (master’s thesis, Ohio State University, 2011),
80.
91
Ibid., 93.
92
Middleton, The Black Laws, 216.
93
Ibid., 217.
94
Ibid., 218.
32
Another example of the shifting racial thought was the 1856 case Anderson v.
Poindexter. John Anderson was a slave owner from Kentucky. James Poindexter had
been the slave of Anderson for seven years, and had previously tried to buy himself from
Anderson. Anderson had sent Poindexter to Ohio on multiple trips and on the last trip he
decided not to return to Anderson and a lawsuit for Poindexter’s freedom ensued.
Poindexter argued that since Anderson allowed him to enter Ohio, he was free when he
landed on Ohio soil. The Supreme Court upon hearing the case agreed with Poindexter’s
argument and he was considered a freeman under Ohio law.95 Judge Bowen in his
opinion stated, “But the common law confers no right of property in persons…Slavery is
entirely local in its character, and is repugnant to reason and the principles of natural law
where it subsists.”96 He further stated, “No right to a slave can be revived after the right
has passed to the slave himself, and he has become free.”97 Judge Brinkerhoff in
concurrence noted, “The moment any person comes within the territorial limits of Ohio,
his personal rights are ascertained and determined by the constitution and laws of
Ohio.”98 From this case the precedent was put forward that once a slave stepped foot
onto Ohio soil he was free as long as he was not a fugitive. For example if a slave owner
brought his slave to Ohio, as soon as they touched Ohio soil, the slave was now free.
Judge Brinkerhoff put it more elegantly when he wrote:
“If a person held as a slave can be brought or sent into Ohio for one hour, and still
retain his status as a slave, then the same thing can be done for a day, a week, a
95
Anderson v. Poindexter, 6 Ohio 622 (1856); also see Middleton, The Black Laws, 227229.
96
Anderson v. Poindexter, 6 Ohio 622 (1856).
97
Ibid.,
98
Ibid.,
33
month, a year, a lifetime; and thus this institution, the shame of our county and the
opprobrium of christendom, be virtually established on a soil so early, so often,
and so solemnly devoted to absolute freedom.”99
The language Judge Brinkerhoff used is very interesting also, as it labeled the institution
of slavery “as the shame of our country and the opprobrium of Christendom.” There was
a connection between slavery and religion, and the slave system was a corruption of
religion and the United States.
The determination of abolitionists to deter kidnappers of ex-slaves and their
perseverance in assisting blacks in gaining rights is demonstrated in the OberlinWellington Rescue of 1858-59. This case further exemplified the influence of Christian
morality on racial thought. The issue started when a slave catcher from Kentucky caught
a runaway slave in Oberlin, and then while on the road the slave catcher and the runaway
were spotted, and as James Turner noted, “a demonstration shortly developed.”100 The
slave escaped to Canada, but thirty-seven of his rescuers were charged in Ohio with
violating the Fugitive Slave Act, but only two were brought to trial and convicted. Three
months after being convicted the lawyer of the rescuers charged the slave catcher with
kidnapping.101 As Turner noted, that the U.S. attorney “agreed to drop the charges
against the ‘rescuers’ if they would drop the charges against the kidnappers,” the U.S.
attorney’s motivation was due to the unpopularity of the case.102 The public was
pressuring the U.S. attorney to drop the case. After the rescuers were released there was
99
Ibid.,
James Turner, “Use of the Courts in the Movement to Abolish American Slavery.”
Ohio State Law Journal 31, no. 2 (1970): 312.
101
Ibid., 312-313.
102
Ibid., 313.
34
100
a celebration and one of the rescuers received a hundred gun salute by Oberlin’s Hook
and Ladder Company.103 This case exemplified the shifting social thought on race. The
early Ohio Black Laws tried to keep blacks out of the state, but in this case whites were
willing to go to jail for a black stranger. Not only did the thirty-seven rescuers fight for a
black man’s rights, but the public also backed them, as their pressure helped to persuade
the U.S. attorney to drop the case. After the case was resolved the rescuers were treated
as heroes, as one man received the hundred gun salute.
Racial thought in Ohio like that of the nation was not that of a linear progression
in the aim of racial equality, but rather due to the influence of certain socio-political and
religious movements along with shifting societal contexts racial thought shifted to meet
the needs of the time. For example as Middleton noted, “The territorial legislature
affirmed a color-neutral militia policy in 1788…Thus, for slightly more than a decade,
black soldiers had toted rifles in the Ohio Valley.”104 But then as the state grew and the
need for blacks to serve in the armed services diminished, the state then denied them the
opportunity to participate. Whites used blacks to protect the Ohio area when they lacked
enough white militiamen, but when they gained a sufficient amount of men they denied
blacks this right. The changing ideas about race were exemplified through the legal
statues and case law of Ohio; with the progression of time blacks were seen differently in
Ohio.105 The shifting race relations in Ohio were best illustrated from the Black Laws
trying to keep African Americans from entering the state in 1804 and 1807, to then in the
103
Ibid., 314.; The Hook and Ladder Company would be modern day firefighters.
Middleton, The Black Laws, 39.
105
Finkelman, “Race, Slavery, and Law,” 773.
35
104
mid-1800s the state challenged the federal Fugitive Slave Acts to protect its black
population.
36
Chapter 2: The Impact of the Second Great Awakening on Theodore Weld and the Racial
Thought of Cincinnati
By the mid-1800s Ohio was playing a vital role in the economy of the nation. As
historian William Utter noted, by 1820 Ohio had 578 factories.106 Not only were Ohioans
producing goods, but the state also served as a key route to access multiple economic
markets. Ohio served as an entrance to the west, an access point to economic
opportunities in eastern, southern and European markets; it also was the line of
demarcation between the antislavery north and the slave south. Even more central was
Cincinnati as it had a strategic geopolitical position being both on the Ohio River and
bordered the slave states of the south. As Finkelman has noted, in the antebellum era
Cincinnati was the most important city in the west.107 This was partially due to
Cincinnati being the fourth largest manufacturing city and its trade with southerners,
which helped the city gain the nicknames of ‘Porkopolis’ and the ‘Queen City of the
West’.108 As Nikki Taylor noted in Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati’s Black
Community 1802-1868, by 1850, being the sixth-largest city in the United States,
106
William Utter, The Frontier State: 1803-1825 (Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological
and Historical Society, 1968), 229.
107
Paul Finkelman, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 155.
108
Ibid., 155.
37
Cincinnati had a population in excess of a 115,000.109 The city also held a substantial
number of Ohio’s African Americans.
The African American population varied in Ohio, with the vast majority of the
black population residing in the southern half of the state. As historian Stephen
Middleton noted, in Cleveland the black population grew from 106 in 1820 to 224 in
1850. Columbus went from 63 in 1820 to 1,300 in 1850 and Cincinnati had a black
population of 1,090 in 1830 and 3,172 in 1850.110 Cincinnati held the most sizeable
number of Ohio’s African American population due to the economic opportunity for
blacks in the city. Taylor noted that at this time with its black population so considerable,
Cincinnati was one of the ten largest free black communities in America.111 With the
presence of such a large black population the city had to have neglected to enforce the
1804 and 1807 Black Laws, otherwise the city’s black population would have been much
smaller. Along with a large black population Cincinnati also had a significant immigrant
population, as Silas Crowfoot noted, by 1840, immigrants represented 46 percent of the
city’s population.112 Cincinnati’s large immigrant population made up one-third of the
European immigrants Ohio received before 1850.113
109
Nikki M. Taylor, Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati’s Black Community 1802-1868
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 2.
110
Stephen Middleton, The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio.
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 88.
111
Taylor, Frontiers of Freedom, 2.
112
Silas N.T. Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City: Race Making,
Improvementism, and the Cincinnati Race Riots and Anti-Abolition Riots of 1829, 1836,
and 1841” (PhD Diss., Portland State University, 2010), 41.
113
Charles M. Hickok “The Negro In Ohio 1802-1870.”(PhD diss., Western Reserve
University, 1896), 29.
38
Due to its geographical placement within the state and nation, Cincinnati citizens
were consistently on edge when it came to issues of race. One reason that led to tension
with the south was the issue of slaves fleeing north to Ohio and then onward to Canada in
search of freedom, which greatly frustrated southerners. As Leo Alilunas noted, “the
total number of underground operators in Ohio was more than 2,000. It has been
estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 slaves escaped through Ohio, thereby causing
a loss of thirty million dollars in property by Southern slave owners.”114 With this large
economic hit it was inevitable that southerners would be aggravated and at times clash
with Ohio.
Another reason for the tension as Roberta Alexander noted in A Place of
Recourse: A History of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, 18032003, was that common laborers resented African American workers, because they feared
that blacks would drive down wages.115 This fear of competition was not solely specific
to Cincinnati, or Ohio, but rather plagued the nation. The use of racialized language by
those in positions of power was used to divide the workers so that black and white
laborers would not band together and rebel against the owners and management. From
these fears conflict arose, and as Taylor noted from 1829 to 1840 four major riots
occurred in Cincinnati with white mobs whose focus was that of blacks and their
property, which helped land the city the nickname ‘Queen City of Mobs.’116 Being on
114
Leo Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases in Ohio Prior to 1850” Ohio State Archeological
and Historical Quarterly 49, (1940): 168.
115
Roberta S. Alexander, A Place of Recourse: A History of the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of Ohio, 1803-2003(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 35.
116
Taylor, Frontiers of Freedom, 2.
39
the Ohio River placed Cincinnati in an economically advantageous place. The river
allowed for goods to be shipped down the Mississippi River to southern and then to
European markets. However, the city’s physical location was both a blessing and a curse.
It allowed for a booming economy, but at the same time placed it in a precarious situation
by being an access point for southern and northern interaction.
With Cincinnati’s close proximity and economic ties with the south, its citizens
were likely to hold similar sentiments of blacks as some of their neighboring
Kentuckians.117 A part of the reasoning for the similar sentiments was as Betty Culpepper
noted, “commercial interests and inter-marriages bound many families on both sides of
the Ohio.”118 The intermarriage of southerners and Cincinnatians along with the
economic influence of the south fostered a dangerous environment for blacks in
Cincinnati as Taylor noted, “in Cincinnati, a southern racial code, northern segregation
and discrimination, and western frontier mob violence”119 dominated life.
Fear of economic competition, southern ties, abolitionist activity, a burgeoning
European immigrant population, southerners loss of runaway slaves, and a large black
populace all contributed to race riots in Cincinnati. As mentioned earlier race riots
plagued Ohio from 1829 through the 1840s, these riots as Crowfoot noted were, “Antiblack race riots and anti-abolition riots in Cincinnati in 1829, 1836, and 1841 were a race
making technology deployed by the white population as strategies in a community
117
See David Gerber Black Ohio and the Color Line 1860-1915, (Urbana :University of
Illinois Press, 1976), 10.
118
Betty Culpepper, “The Negro and Black Laws of Ohio, 1803-1860” (master’s thesis,
Kent State University, 1965), 3.
119
Ibid., 5.
40
development project to create a white city.”120 Yet from 1826 to 1829, Cincinnati’s
African American population went from 700 to 2258;121 this increase in the black
population partially influenced the race riot of 1829. The rioting occurred on August 15th
and then again from the 17th through the 22nd, and the rioting resulted in 1,100 blacks
leaving Cincinnati.122 As Taylor noted, “the mob action of 1829 was one of the earliest
examples in American history of a white effort forcibly to cleanse society of its black
population.”123
As the abolitionist movement was gaining momentum in Cincinnati, the riots of
1836 and 1841 were aimed at abolitionists, as to deter their work within the city. One
such target was the Cincinnati abolitionist newspaper, The Philanthropist. As Crowfoot
noted the motivations for these riots were, “an anti-abolition riot, an anti-black riot, and a
riot that combined both targets in 1836; and a race riot that also targeted abolitionists in
1841.”124 The abolitionist activism within Cincinnati upset the racial status quo and
partially led to the race riots that occurred after 1830. White Cincinnatians vehemently
denied black’s rights not only to citizenship but also at times to life. As Taylor noted,
“The mob action of 1841 has to be viewed against the backdrop of a long tradition
of antiblack violence in the city, in which all manner of violence against African
Americans-including forced exodus, the burning of black homes, personal violence,
and murder-was legally and extralegally sanctioned.”125
120
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City,” 4.
Ibid., 214.
122
Ibid., 209.
123
Taylor, Frontiers of Freedom, 50.
124
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City,” 36.
125
Taylor, Frontiers of Freedom, 125.
41
121
The impetus of the 1841 race riot as Jonathan Howard noted was, “Fueled by ethnic
tensions and working class competition over jobs in the midst of a severe national
economic downturn following the Panic of 1839, the 1841 Cincinnati riot marked one the
most contentious moments in the racial history of Ohio.”126 As the race riots illustrated
Cincinnati was not an ideal place to live for African Americans or those who worked
with the black community.
However, the work of the Lane Rebels at Lane Seminary played an important role
in shifting the racial thought of Ohio. As the race riots illustrated the abolitionist activity
caused a disruption in Cincinnati. Much of the abolitionist rhetoric and action in
Cincinnati came out of the revivalist thought of the Second Great Awakening. As
mentioned earlier the Second Great Awakening was a socio-religious movement aimed at
saving souls for the coming of God. The Second Great Awakening preachers spoke out
against the sins of slavery, endorsed the temperance movement, and believed in women’s
rights. The work of Theodore Weld and the Lane Rebels caused a great amount of social
unrest in Cincinnati in the 1830s. Their work in the black community caused a rift in the
status quo of racial thought, as they not only worked with blacks but also had close social
relations with the black community of Cincinnati that most whites saw as unacceptable.
Before discussing Theodore Weld and the Lane Rebels work in Cincinnati, it is
important to understand the political and historical context from which their work
evolved. As mentioned earlier, the Second Great Awakening was a socio-religious
126
Jonathan Scott Howard, “Changing the Law; Fighting for Freedom: Racial Politics
and
Legal Reform in Early Ohio, 1803-1860,” (master’s thesis, Ohio State University, 2011),
47.
42
movement, thus its teachings not only happened in the churches, but also in the fields,
streets, and anywhere preachers could find community members. Many of the preachers
of the movement believed whole-heartedly in their cause to save souls. They understood
it as their calling. Charles Grandison Finney was one of the most influential preachers of
the Second Great Awakening. As Garth Rosell and Richard Dupuis noted in the
introduction to The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, Finney left a legal career and put his
effort into evangelicalism in upstate New York at the age of twenty-nine in 1821 and
would later become a ordained Presbyterian minster in 1824.127 His career flourished and
“by 1827 he had risen to national prominence as the most effective evangelist in the
West.”128 This was not only due to his belief in the mission of saving souls, but also his
tactics in converting others.
Finney’s preaching style was not relegated to church sermons but rather as
Robert Abzug noted, “Finney and his helpers pursued sinners in the streets, in stores, at
factories; they sometimes even followed them home.”129 As Finney himself noted,
“having had no regular training for the ministry I did not expect or desire to labor in large
towns or cities, or in cultivated congregations. I intended to go into new settlements &
preach in school houses, & barns & groves, as best I could.”130 He believed that the
127
Garth Rosell and Richard Dupuis, introduction to The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney:
The Complete Restored Text, ed. Garth Rosell and Richard Dupuis (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1989), xx.
128
Ibid., xx.
129
Robert H. Abzug, Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of
Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 46.
130
Charles G. Finney, The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney: The Complete Restored Text,
ed. by Garth M. Rosell & Richard A. G. Dupuis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1989), 63.
43
message of God needed to be taken to people in the streets, rather than just in the physical
space of the church.
Finney was noted for having very successful revivals as they were emotionally
charged and could drastically shift the lives of those involved in a single day. As
William G. McLoughlin noted in Modern Revivalism, “Finney rose from local to
national fame in the years 1825 to 1827 when he conducted spectacular revivals in the
towns of Western, Rome, Utica, Auburn, and Troy.”131 Part of Finney’s message was
that of personal moral agency, in Lectures on Revivals of Religion Finney noted, “They
must be agreed in understanding that human agency is just as indispensable to a revival
as divine agency.”132 He went on to note that, “it is ridiculous, therefore, to say, that a
sinner is passive in regeneration, or passive in being converted, for conversion is his own
act.”133 Finney stressed moral agency and that it was the individual’s responsibility in
conversion, many of the problems Finney addressed in his sermons were that of the
individual’s and that person had the ability to remedy the situation. This position was not
wholly unique to Finney as Anne Loveland noted, “whatever their creed or confession,
revival preachers proceeded on the assumption that every individual had free will and
moral ability to work out his own salvation.”134 This concept of individual responsibility
would play a large role in the beliefs of the students at Lane Seminary, an institute of
131
William G. McLoughlin, William G. Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney
to Billy Graham (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1959), 27.
132
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, ed. William G.
McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), 318.
133
Ibid., 341-342.
134
Anne C. Loveland, “Evangelicalism and “Immediate Emancipation” in American
Antislavery Thought,” The Journal of Southern History 32, no. 2 (1966): 176.
44
higher learning based in Cincinnati.
Along with moral agency and personal responsibility, as McLoughlin noted in the
introduction to Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion, Finney believed that slavery
was not only a sin that the individual had to deal with, but it was also a problem that the
church needed to address.135 Finney in 1834 denied slaveholders and slavetraders
communion in his church.136 On this issue of church responses to slavery Finney noted,
“many churches have taken the wrong side on the subject of slavery, have suffered
prejudice to prevail over principle, and have feared to call this abomination by its true
name.”137 His believes on slavery influenced those at Lane Seminary.
Lane Seminary was a theological school founded in Cincinnati, with the intent of
being a revivalist institute. Throughout the country there was a spreading of New School
theology.138 Lane was to be the leading seminary in the West advocating this New
School theology, and as Lawrence Lesick noted in The Lane Rebels, “the New School
theology, emphasized man’s ability and responsibility in his response to God.”139 Two
main characters at Lane were Theodore Weld, a student leader and follower of Finney,
and Lyman Beecher the President of the Seminary. Beecher was known nationally for
his involvement in the Second Great Awakening on the east coast.
135
William G. McLoughlin, introduction to Lectures on Revivals of Religion, ed. William
G. McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), xliv.
136
Finney, Lectures on Revivals, 300.
137
Ibid., 288.
138
Lyman Beecher, The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher Vol. 2, ed. Barbara
Cross (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961), 263.
139
Lawrence Lesick, The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism and Antislavery in Antebellum
America (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980), 7.; On Beecher’s view see Lawrence
Lesick, The Lane Rebels, 48. “as far as he was concerned, Lane would be “a revival
seminary.”
45
Finney’s preaching and theological theory played an important role at Lane, but
when the leader of the Lane Rebels, Theodore Weld, first heard of Finney he opposed his
message. In response to Finney’s preaching Weld wrote, “My father,’ I said was a real
minister of the Gospel, grave and courteous, and an honor to the profession. This man is
not a minister, and I will not acknowledge him as such.”140 However, after partaking in
the Utica Revival of 1826-27 Weld was a converted follower of Finney.141 Weld was
already a religious individual prior to encountering Finney, as Azbug noted Weld had
read the entire Bible by the age of seven.142 Even as a child Weld had a concept of racial
interaction that differed from mainstream white society. When Weld was six he asked to
sit by his black classmate, Jerry who the teacher made sit by himself apart from the white
students. The class teased Weld for his action, but even at that young age societal
pressure did not sway his beliefs.143 This incident illustrates how Weld as a young child
already had a strong social justice foundation. Weld opposed slavery after encountering
it on his Mnemonics lecturing tour during 1822 to 1824; he stated, “on this tour I saw
slavery at home, and became a radical abolitionist.”144 These beliefs about racial
equality, the acknowledgment of the evils of slavery, along with the tools he acquired
from Finney on moral agency and the use of religion, these would all play a large role in
Cincinnati, and the nation.
140
Ibid., 232.
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 49. Also see Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of
Religion, lii.
142
Ibid., 16.
143
Ibid., 17.
144
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 232.
46
141
With Weld’s religious awakening as Abzug noted, “he had committed himself to
an extraordinary earthly cause - abolishing slavery in America - and to the cosmic
mission of preparing the world for Christ’s Second Coming.”145 While working with
Finney in New York he had stressed the need to move westward. In connection to his
understanding of the religious teaching of the Second Great Awakening and slavery,
Abzug noted, “the only answer was to convert slaveholders to immediate recognition of
their sin and them to immediate emancipation, and to bring all Americans to a full
recognition of the black man as a man.”146 For Weld slavery was the sin that needed the
most attention as “it so polluted that millennial reform must falter until the church
forthrightly rejected bondage.”147 Slavery needed direct national attention and Weld
believed immediate emancipation would come about with the religious teachings of the
Second Great Awakening. He believed the teachings of Christian moral agency would
influence slaveholders to repent.
Weld entered the Lane Seminary of Cincinnati, Ohio as a student in June 1833.
The president of Lane was Lyman Beecher a leading preacher of the Second Great
Awakening, who gained notoriety on the east coast for his sermons. As McLoughlin
noted in Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, that new light theology in New England after
1818 was referred to as Beecherism.148 Beecher was brought to Lane due to his
reputation, and in hope that he would raise the central theological institution of the west.
145
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 4.
Ibid., 88.
147
Ibid., 155-156.
148
William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion
and Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1978), 115.
47
146
As Lesick noted, “the eventual appointment of Lyman Beecher as Lane’s President
helped guarantee the Seminary’s existence and helped define Lane as a nationally known,
unique reform undertaking.”149 The students however saw Weld as the true leader of
Lane.150 Beecher was named the President and Professor of Theology at Lane in 1832,
and upon hearing the news of the opportunity Beecher stated,
“My views and feelings concerning the importance of the Lane Seminary remain
unchanged, and I am willing to relinquish any thing and to do anything during the
remainder of my days to raise up the institutions of the West which God shall
indicate to by my duty.”151
While Beecher had hoped to raise a great institution in the west, this mission would never
be met. As the President of Lane, Beecher was less of a preacher and more a politician;
he was often busy mediating disputes. On Beecher’s political philosophy William G.
McLoughlin noted in the introduction to Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion, that
“there is little doubt that Beecher never lost his Federalist political philosophy, which
maintained that the political, social, and moral life of any decent society should be
controlled by the educated, the wellborn, and the well-to-do.”152 As noted Beecher
believed in a top down approach of societal control. He did not have faith in the masses
of society. Beecher’s beliefs were in contradiction with others influenced by the Second
Great Awakening, as they very much believed in the masses.
Lane as Lesick noted, from 1831 to 1833, had between 50 and 100 students
149
Lesick, The Lane Rebels, 230.
Ibid., 77.
151
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 190.
152
William G. McLoughlin, Introduction to Lectures on Revivals of Religion. ed. William
G. McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), xviii.
48
150
attending the Seminary.153 In January 1834, there were 92 students at Lane and nearly
half of them came from Mid-Atlantic States, and many were driven there by
evangelicalism. Some of the Lane students: Theodore Weld, Charles Bush, Henry and
Robert Statnton, and Marius Robinson were all converted by Finney’s revivals.154 Lane
also admitted a black student, James Bradley an ex-slave who bought his freedom and
travelled north.155 In a response to a letter written to Arthur Tappan on admitting black
students to Lane, on April 23rd, 1833 Beecher wrote:
“no order on the subject, as none is needed, and I trust never will be. Our only
qualification for admission to the seminary are qualifications intellectual, moral,
and religious, without reference to color, which I have no reason to think would
have any influence here, certainly never with my consent.”156
Beecher, however, was not as progressive when it came to the idea of the students staying
in the black community. Upon entering Lane Seminary the student body began working
in the Cincinnati black community, as Crowfoot noted, “the students, under the
leadership of immediate abolitionist Theodore Weld, began teaching school, preaching,
and helping in any way they could in the black community, even staying with black
families to get to know them better.”157 Weld and his followers at Lane were immediate
abolitionists, which meant that they believed slavery should be abolished instantly.
Immediate abolitionism during this time was very much the radical side of abolitionism.
Along with immediate abolitionists, there were those who believed in gradual
emancipation, and colonization, which were seen as less radical. Litwack noted that
153
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 71.
Ibid., 71-72.
155
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 243.
156
Ibid., 242.
157
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City”, 111.
49
154
Weld and other abolitionists, “provided instruction for the Negro community through the
establishment of a regular adult school, Sabbath and evening schools, Lyceum lectures,
and Bible classes.”158 Crowfoot and Litwack, failed to acknowledge the impact of the
Second Great Awakening’s religious teachings upon Weld and the students involved in
the work with the black community of Cincinnati. While Weld at a young age already
had concepts of racial equality, these ideas were further solidified out by the religious
teachings of the Second Great Awakening. When Beecher heard of the students activities
in the black community he told Weld, “if you want to teach colored schools, I can fill
your pockets with money; but if you will visit in colored families, and walk with them in
the streets, you will be overwhelmed.”159 Beecher felt pressure from the White
Cincinnati community so he asked the students to pull back on their work. The students
did not appreciate Beecher or anyone interfering with their work.
The students at Lane were especially interested in public dialogue on the issues of
slavery. As during the time period slavery and abolition were being discussed throughout
the nation, as Whitney Cross noted in The Burned-over District, “the intensified demand
for immediate emancipation, which drove North and South apart and prepared them to
come to blows, arose in the 1830’s as a manifestation of religious ultraism.”160 This is
best illustrated by the Lane Debates, as Crowfoot noted, “Cincinnati’s first real exposure
to abolitionism in its immediatist form had come in 1834” with the debates over abolition
158
Leon Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1961), 122.
159
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 144.
160
Whitney Cross, The Burned-over District; the social and intellectual history of
enthusiastic religion in western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1950), 217.
50
and colonization at Lane Seminary.161 In 1834 Lane students held an eighteen-day debate
that discussed two questions for nine days each. As Lesick noted, “The first was
whether or not the people of the South should abolish slavery immediately. The second
was whether or not the Christian community should support the efforts of the American
Colonization Society.”162 Each question was given two hours a night for the nine days it
was debated. One of the most moving speeches of the first question was that of James
Bradley, the only African American student and former slave. He spoke of the horrors of
slavery and how blacks could prevail over the institution.163 Bradley in his speech
discussed the issue of slave emancipation and if freed how slaves would provide for
themselves. He stated, “they have to take care of and support themselves now, and their
master, and his family into the bargain; and this being so, it would be strange if they
could not provide for themselves, when disencumbered from this load.”164 None of the
students who spoke during the first question’s allotted time were against immediatism, so
the debate was rather one-sided. As James Thome a student at Lane during the debate
noted, nearly half of the speakers were sons of slaveholders.165 On the second question
only two students spoke and one defended colonization and the other opposed.166 Many
of these sons of slaveholders would go against the traditions of their families and fight
161
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City”, 267.
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 1.
163
Ibid., 80.
164
James A. Thome, “Speech of Mr. James A. Thome, of Kentucky,” in Debate at the
Lane Seminary Cincinnati: Speech of James A. Thome and Letter of the Rev. Dr. Samuel
H. Cox against the American Colonization Society. Boston: Garrison and Knapp, 1834, 4.
165
Ibid., 3.
166
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 81-82.
51
162
against slavery. Thome, was one of those sons of a Kentucky slaveholder, who fought
the system.
The outcome of the debate resulted in the formation of an antislavery society a
week after the debate on March 10th. As Lesick noted, “they lectured to crowds of 250 to
300 at the black-supported, bi-weekly lyceum, and helped secure a circulating library and
reading room” and taught reading three times a week in the black community.167 The
debates so greatly moved Augustus Wattles that he left Lane and opened a school for
blacks in Cincinnati on March 1, 1834, and by July he was “superintending four schools
with five teachers and a total of two hundred students.”168 Wattles, illustrated the effects
of the debates, and as Abzug noted, “it was not so much the doctrines as the wondrous
process of conversion that made the Lane Debates a momentous eighteen days.”169 The
debates were not just a public conversation, but rather they led to action by the Lane
students. Much of this work was orchestrated by Weld, and as Beecher stated,
“Weld was a genius. First-rate natural capacity, but uneducated. Would have
made a first-rate man in the Church of God if his education had been thorough. In
the estimation of the class, he was president. He took the lead of the whole
institution. The young men had, many of them, been under his care, and they
thought he was a god. We never quarreled however.”170
Many of the students saw Weld more of an authority figure than their professors, and his
ideas heavily influenced the other students.
Upon first hearing of the plan for the debate President Beecher had no quarrels, as
he even offered to attend and take part in it. However after talking with the school’s
167
Ibid., 88-89.
Ibid., 89.
169
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 94.
170
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 241.
52
168
trustees he advised the students to postpone the debate.171 The faculty and trustees did
not intervene, but they never supported the students either. After the debate, it was the
public actions of the students in the Cincinnati black community that upset President
Beecher, the faculty, and the Board of Trustees.172 As Abzug noted, “with the spread of
race-mixing rumors, community pressure demanded that the school control its
students.”173 The Board then censored the students by dismantling the antislavery and
colonization societies, which resulted in ninety-five of the one hundred and three students
leaving Lane.174 The seventy-five students that left and did not return gained the
nickname of Lane Rebels. The school from then on would not regain the promise it once
has as Beecher noted, “the classes from 1836 to 1840 averaged only five.”175 On the
Lane Rebels, Abzug noted, “in leaving they upset their own career plans and gutted an
institution they believed to be in the vanguard of millennial mission.”176 The Board’s
reaction to the students led to the Seminary’s gradual demise. However, Beecher
continued his religious works in Ohio, preaching New School Theology, as in May 1839
he visited Oxford, Ohio and during his stay there a revival occurred. It was estimated
that one hundred individuals were converted. He also stayed in his position at Lane until
1850.177
171
Ibid., 243.
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City”, 162.
173
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 111.
174
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 131 and 136.
175
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 307.
176
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 99.
177
Beecher, The Autobiography Vol. 2, 330 and 406.
53
172
After the Rebels left Lane, twelve of them moved to Cumminsville and continued
their work in the black community, and forty-two of the fifty-four that Lesick found
information on had worked in antislavery activities after 1834.178 Some students left Lane
for a more tolerant college as Finkelman noted they, “migrated to Ohio’s Western
Reserve where they helped create Oberlin College, the first racially integrated college in
the country.”179 About one-third of the Lane Rebels became students of Finney at
Oberlin.180 There was a revivalist spirit at Oberlin, as Rosell and Dupuis noted in
footnotes to The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, “the period from 1835 to 1840 was said
to have been one of continual revival,” they further noted that the Fall of 1836, 1837, and
1838 were the most remarkable in revivalist spirit.181 The Lane Rebels who ended up at
Oberlin found a place where their beliefs and actions would be accepted.
Weld however, would not be one of those students; he was offered a teaching position at
Oberlin in 1834 but turned it down to dedicate his life to the antislavery movement.182
Weld was quite successful in his war on slavery, and as McLoughlin notes in Revivals,
Awakenings, and Reform, “Finney’s young convert…may have been more effective than
Garrison’s efforts in the East.”183
Much of Weld’s success came from a strong foundation, as he would not waiver
from his religious beliefs that were solidified in the religious teachings of the Second
178
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 167.
Paul Finkelman, “The Strange Career of Race Discrimination in Antebellum
Ohio” Case Western Reserve Law Review 55, no. 2 (2005): 375.
180
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 235. Also see Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 94.
181
Rosell and Richard, The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, 389 and 405.
182
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 123-124.
183
McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform,130.
54
179
Great Awakening, nor would he waiver from his certainty of racial equality. A great
example of this was his response when Lane’s faculty asked him and other students for
less interaction with the black community, he noted that any reference to skin color in
social interaction was a sin, “and that in order to erase such sin one had to refrain from
practicing it, even if that were in advancement of public sentiment.”184 This illustrated
how Weld did not allow public opinion to dictate his actions. As Abzug noted, the very
existence of Weld and his followers “undermined social custom and order.”185 The
rebels’ beliefs were counter to what many white citizens believed, and these beliefs
jeopardized the positions of whites in the racial hierarchy.
The story of Weld and the Lane Rebels exemplified as Lesick noted, “Finney’s
concept of the moral agent. Man is a free agent and bound to sin by nothing except his
voluntary preference.”186 The students led by Weld believed that they were moral agents
and that their actions would bring others to believe as they did in racial equality. The
framework for their antislavery impulse was evangelicalism and the teachings of the
Second Great Awakening. As Loveland noted, “Extending the reform impulse of
evangelical Protestantism beyond the spiritual and religious realms, men like Theodore
Dwight Weld, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and James Gillespie Birney made revivalism a
pragmatic, activistic force for social good.”187 Weld took the religious teachings of the
Second Great Awakening and used them at Lane and later in his abolitionist endeavors
throughout the nation. The work of the Rebels further challenged the racial thought of
184
Abzug, Passionate Liberator, 111.
Ibid., 100.
186
Lesick, Lane Rebels, 85.
187
Loveland, “Evangelicalism and Immediate Emancipation”, 179.
55
185
many white Ohioans as they used the religious language of the Second Great Awakening
to bolster their claims of the evil of slavery. The Rebels and Weld would inspire others
to follow suite to speak out and act against the institution of slavery. James Birney was
on of those individuals impacted by the Second Great Awakening and more specifically
by Weld and the Rebels. Birney’s work in Cincinnati is focus of chapter three.
56
Chapter 3: The Influence of The Second Great Awakening on The Work of James G.
Birney and Salmon P. Chase
Ohio in the mid-1830s became a battleground between abolitionists and those
with proslavery sentiments. These battles often found their ways to the courts. The cases
often involved issues of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, with both
sides vehemently defending their positions. As mentioned earlier the issues of race and
slavery were topics of the day, and were not just discussed in the courts and newspapers,
but were also played out in the public as illustrated by the work of Theodore Weld and
the Lane Rebels. As Betty Fladeland noted in James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to
Abolitionist, “by 1845 Ohio was one of the most completely abolitionized states.”188 The
argument of this thesis is that much of the agitation in Ohio over abolitionism was due to
the religious teachings of the Second Great Awakening, and the works of James G.
Birney and Salmon P. Chase.
The Second Great Awakening was and is often celebrated as a northern religious
movement, most frequently tied to the region in western New York labeled The Burnedover District.189 The movement’s teachings had a much larger impact, and reached those
188
Betty Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1955), 254.
189
See Whiteny Cross, The Burned-over District; the social and intellectual history of
enthusiastic religion in western New York, 1800-1850. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1950.
57
in the West and South.190 James G. Birney, was an example of one of those southerners
outside the North affected by the Second Great Awakening. He was so influenced by the
movement that he freed his slaves, and left the South to pursue abolitionism in the North.
Prior to his “awakening”, Birney was a slaveholding southerner much as his father had
been. Before coming north he lived in Huntsville Alabama, and by 1821 he owned fortythree slaves, nineteenth of those he personally purchased.191 Just thirteen years later in
1834 he was so moved by the teachings of the Second Great Awakening that he freed all
his slaves.192
As Cathy Franklin noted, Prior to freeing his slaves, Birney was inspired by the
Second Great Awakening that was “spread by evangelists such as Charles Grandison
Finney and Theodore Weld, who captured the heart and mind of the Kentucky-born
Alabama planter.”193 Birney met Theodore Weld in 1832 at a friend’s dinner and as
Fladeland noted, “after several days Birney acknowledged his full endorsement of Weld’s
antislavery position” and told Weld that he would free his slaves.194 Birney was deeply
moved by Weld, and as Fladeland noted, Birney respected and admired no one more than
Weld.195
190
See Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 30-31.; Charles G. Finney, The Memoirs of
Charles G. Finney: The Complete Restored Text, ed. by Garth M. Rosell & Richard A. G.
Dupuis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1989), 389.; Lyman Beecher,
The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher Vol. 2, ed. Barbara Cross (Cambridge: Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1961), 330.
191
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 19.
192
Cathy Franklin, “James Gillespie Birney, the Revival Spirit, and The Philanthropist,”
American Journalism 17, (2000): 31.
193
Ibid., 31.
194
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 52-54.
195
Ibid., 289.
58
Birney became a member of a Presbyterian church in Huntsville Alabama; he
joined this specific church due to the ‘revival spirit’ that was spreading in the
parishioners.196 He was drawn to conversion by the emotional appeal of the revivalist
spirit, but as Fladeland noted, after his conversion Birney felt that his life should have
been measured by more than his societal accomplishments, and thus he began spreading
his religious beliefs to his friends, family, and law associates.197 Like many involved in
the Second Great Awakening, those converted often became heavily involved in the
movement. A distinguished preacher of the Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney,
noted, “Religion is something to do, not something to wait for.”198 Thus, many who were
converted by the Second Great Awakening were not passive members of their churches,
but rather took the teachings to the streets to bring others to God. As previously
mentioned the Second Great Awakening teachings reinforced notions of individual free
will, and that the responsibility to take action laid within the individual. The Awakening
teachings called for activism, one had to take action to spread the word of God and save
souls in preparation for the coming of the Lord. Birney after his conversion went from an
Alabama slave owning farmer to an abolitionist editor of an Ohio newspaper.199 His
impetuses for moving north were social and political incidents in the southern states
during 1831 and 1832. First the response of whites to the Nat Turner uprising200, and
196
Ibid., 30-31.
Ibid., 31.
198
Charles G. Finney Lectures on Revivals of Religion ed. by William G.
McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), 207.
199
Cathy Franklin, “James Gillespie Birney, the Revival Spirit,” 31.
200
The Nat Turner uprising was a slave rebellion in Virginia during 1831 that instilled
fear in the white community due to it initial success.
59
197
then an Alabama bill passed in 1832 that prohibited teaching African Americans how to
read or write, led Birney to leave the south out of despair in 1833.201 As Fladeland noted,
“it took an experience such as his religious conversion to make him feel any personal
guilt in doing something about it.”202 The conversations with Weld on slavery, his
religious awakening, and the social issues emerging in the south influenced Birney’s
move to the north. Birney, after his awakening, believed that he needed to take action but
after the response to the Turner revolt and the Alabama bill passed in 1832, he was
disappointed with the trajectory of the south. Thus he moved north where he believed he
could make a difference.
Birney first moved to Kentucky, and then near Cincinnati to begin publishing the
newspaper The Philanthropist. As Middleton noted, Birney was one of the earlier
abolitionist in Ohio, and throughout the 1830s he endlessly took on the “Slave Power,”
states that were protecting slavery.203 Birney’s activism against slavery was illustrated
through the work of his newspaper, which began publication on January 1, 1836.204
Franklin noted that The Philanthropist was not a radical abolitionist paper, but rather it
was open to discussion from all angles of debate.205 He would publish the views of many
who would write in to the paper, regardless of proslavery or antislavery sentiments.
201
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 48-49, 71.
Ibid., 37-38.
203
Stephen Middleton, The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio
(Athens:Ohio University Press, 2005), 78 and 208.
204
Franklin, “James Gillespie Birney, the Revival Spirit,” 38.
205
Ibid., 39.
60
202
The Philanthropist was originally established in New Richmond some twenty
miles outside of Cincinnati, moving to Cincinnati in April 1836.206 This was a risky
move as many white Cincinnatians were upset with the ideas that Birney and his paper
were distributing to the public. Birney however was not going to allow anyone to
intimidate him into ceasing his work. As Franklin noted, on May 13 1836, The
Philanthropist, declared that it was to be the official voice of the Ohio Anti-Slavery
Society.207 With The Philanthropist being the voice of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, it
then became even more of a target of proslavery whites. The paper as Howard noted
was, “arguably the most powerful medium sympathetic to the plight of black Ohioans.”208
Fladeland further noted that The Philanthropist was one of the leading antislavery
newspapers nationally.209 Due to The Philanthropist’s message, mission, and success,
many whites despised the paper and its editor. When intimidation did not work to temper
Birney’s work, some of the city’s white townspeople led a riot to destroy the paper, and
to pressure Birney to stop his efforts.
Prior to this riot involving Birney in 1836, there were other issues in Cincinnati
that led to the heightened racial tensions. Whites during the late 1820s and 1830s were
very open with their prejudice and discrimination as blacks were trying to improve their
lives in Cincinnati. For example, as Crowfoot noted, “in the mid-1830s white
journeymen walked off jobs when blacks were hired, and the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute
206
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 129 and 133.
Franklin, “James Gillespie Birney, the Revival Spirit,” 43.
208
Jonathan Scott Howard, “Changing the Law; Fighting for Freedom: Racial Politics
and Legal Reform in Early Ohio, 1803-1860” (master’s thesis, Ohio State University,
2011), 61.
209
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 155.
61
207
tried its president for teaching a trade to a Negro.”210 Whites were afraid of the economic
competition of blacks, and were also upset with the abolitionist rhetoric of The
Philanthropist. The language of the paper and that of abolitionists in Cincinnati
challenged the social hierarchy of Cincinnati. Not only were some white Cincinnatians,
but also white Kentuckians were upset with the paper. As Crowfoot noted, southerners
had pressured the city to repress the paper.211
Soon after its start of operation in Cincinnati, The Philanthropist was attacked,
Middleton notes, “In 1836, Kentucky slave owners hired thugs to sabotage the press
office of the Philanthropist newspaper.”212 As historian John Niven noted, Joseph
Graham, “a prominent commission merchant in the southern trade,” led the raid.213
Graham and the men who followed him were trying to silence Birney and his antislavery
message. The first attack was on July 12, 1836, focused on the office of Achilles Pugh,
the printer of the paper. The printing press was broken into pieces, the week’s papers
were torn to shreds, and as a further attempt of intimidation the next night there were
signs stuck on street corners that read “Abolitionists Beware.”214 Those behind the attack
on The Philanthropist believed that Birney would cease his work on the paper, and think
twice before speaking out against slavery. However, the day after the attack the shop and
210
Silas N. T. Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City: Race Making,
Improvementism, and the Cincinnati Race Riots and Anti-Abolition Riots of 1829, 1836,
and 1841.” (PhD Dissertation, Portland State University, 2010), 264-265.
211
Ibid., 270.
212
Middleton, The Black Laws, 81.
213
John Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995),
47.
214
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 136.
62
machinery were repaired and Birney continued with his work.215
Due to his perseverance to end slavery, Birney’s paper was again attacked on July
30, 1836. As Franklin noted, the office was left in disarray and the press was destroyed
and scattered in the streets.216 After destroying the office and press, the rioters were not
satisfied so they went looking for Birney. The mob went looking for Birney at his home,
but he was out of town so the rioters then turned their destruction on the black
community of Cincinnati.217 The following day, July 31st, the white mob continued its
destructive actions in the city, and they went to Franklin House, a hotel, under the
assumption that Birney was there. After hearing the news, Salmon P. Chase, a young
lawyer who was influenced by the Second Great Awakening, went to the hotel and stood
in the doorway challenging the mob.218 As historian Frederick Blue noted, Chase went to
the aid of Birney due to the threat of personal violence along with the mob’s challenge to
the freedom of the press.219 The angry mob left after being persuaded by the mayor that
Birney was not at the hotel. As Crowfoot noted, the mob violence continued until August
1, when the mayor took action by issuing a proclamation that restored order and then had
community volunteers patrol the city streets.220
This incident of Chase standing at the Franklin House Hotel was the beginning of
Chase and Birney’s relationship. This confrontation also led to Chase’s involvement in
215
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City,” 287.
Franklin, “James Gillespie Birney, the Revival Spirit,” 46.
217
Crowfoot, “Community Development for a White City,” 310-311.
218
Ibid., 313.
219
Frederick J. Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, OH: Kent State
University Press, 1987), 29.
220
Ibid., 314-315.
63
216
the antislavery movement. As Blue noted, Chase had not been moved to take action in
the antislavery movement until the 1836 anti-abolitionist mob harassed Birney.221 This
incident involving Birney was the catalyst for Chase to take action concerning slavery,
but the foundations of his antislavery beliefs were laid much earlier.
Chase grew up on the east coast but in 1820, as Stephen Middleton noted in Ohio
and the Antislavery Activities of Attorney Salmon Portland Chase, he moved to Ohio with
his uncle Philander Chase who was an Episcopal Bishop who had moved west to
establish a church school.222 Chase was heavily influenced by his uncle and as Middleton
noted Bishop Chase “inculcated in him a religious devotion which bordered on
fanaticism.”223 This religious influence would remain with him throughout his life.
Chase was not only influenced by his uncle, but was also moved by the Second
Great Awakening when a revival swept Dartmouth, the college he was attending in 1826.
Chase was a senior when the revival occurred in the city of Hanover and the campus. As
Niven noted the revival was prompted by the president of the college, Bennett Tyler.224
This revival as Blue noted left a ‘profound mark on Chase.”225 In a letter to his cousin
trying to spread the religious spirit Chase wrote, “Let your friends and acquaintances see
221
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 29.
Stephen Middleton, Ohio and the Antislavery Activities of Attorney Salmon Portland
Chase, 1830-1849 (New York: Garland, 1990), 17.
223
Ibid., 18. Also see Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 4. “The bishop forged him into a zealous
champion of Episcopacy.”
224
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 18-20.
225
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 7.
64
222
that you are anxious for their eternal welfare, and exhort them in the spirit of Christian
love to flee from the wrath to come.”226
Like many inspired by the revivalist message of the Second Great Awakening,
Chase was eager to spread the word of God. As historian Stephen Maizlish noted, his
religious dedication was extended by the revivals on campus and he was actively
advancing “the cause of religious reform.”227 In the letter to his cousin earlier mentioned
Chase wrote, “How important is it that we grow in grace day by day and that we do not
suffer ourselves to be led back into the world by any of the numerous temptations which
daily beset us.”228 Chase mentioned how this work was a daily struggle and how
everyday the individual had to recommit to the mission of growing in God’s grace.
Further in this letter Chase noted, “Christians are losing many old prejudices which
formerly were wont to divide them from each other. O may the time soon come when
they shall be of one heart and one mind and the only emulation be which shall do most to
build up the kingdom of the Redeemer.”229 This religious influence would transfer into
his later works both at the state and national level particularly concerning antislavery. He
was not only active in the antislavery movement but also supported women’s rights and
worked within the temperance movement. All three: temperance, antislavery, and
226
Salmon P. Chase, The Salmon P. Chase Papers: Correspondence, 1823-1857 (Vol.2),
ed. by John Niven, James P. McClure, Leigh Johnson, Steve Leikin (Kent: Kent State
University Press, 1995), 9.
227
Stephen E. Maizlish, “Salmon P. Chase: The Roots of Ambition and the Origins of
Reform,” Journal of the Early Republic 18, no.1 (1998): 57.
228
Chase, The Salmon P. Chase Papers, 9.
229
Ibid., 9
65
women’s rights were key issues that those influenced by the Second Great Awakening
fought for.
Upon graduating from Dartmouth in 1826 he stayed in the east for sometime
before moving to Cincinnati at twenty-two to practice law in 1830. As Niven noted,
Chase moved to Cincinnati because of its rapid growth and its potential for him as a
lawyer.230 After moving back to Cincinnati, he regularly attended church.231 The well
known Second Great Awakening preacher, and President of Lane Seminary, Lyman
Beecher led the church that Chase attended.232 Beecher also officiated Chase’s first
marriage in 1834.233 When charged with heresy, Chase served as Beecher’s attorney and
successfully defended him against the claim.234
The religious teaching and influence of Chase’s uncle Philander, the revival at
Dartmouth, and the incident with James Birney together led to Chase’s involvement
within the antislavery movement. As Blue noted, “Only through faith in God and the
performance of good works did Chase believe he could find salvation.”235 Much of
Chase’s ‘good works’ would be in his defense of fugitive slaves in Ohio and in the
federal courts. Also, as Middleton noted, his religious devotion became his motivation to
230
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 28.
Ibid., 74 and 153.
232
Lyman Beecher, The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher Vol. 2, ed.by Barbara Cross
(Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961 (original 1864)), 394.
233
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 42.
234
Beecher, The Autobiography, 394-396. In 1847 Chase served as Beecher’s lawyer in a
lawsuit, and successfully defended Beecher against a claim of heresy in connection to the
Presbyterian Church. Also see Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 118.
235
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 17.
66
231
try and abolish slavery.236 Chase’s contributions to the antislavery movement as Blue
noted, “took on religious overtones as he became convinced of the sin of
slaveholding.”237 This conviction of the sin of slaveholding was a driving force in the
works of Theodore Weld, and James Birney in Cincinnati in the 1830s and onward. As
the teaching of the Second Great Awakening saw slavery as a sin that plagued the nation,
those involved in the movement needed to cure the nation of this sin before God judged
the country as a whole for it.
As mentioned earlier, Chase and Birney started their relationship with Chase
standing in front of a mob at Franklin House hotel defending Birney’s rights. From this
moment forward these two lawyers would work together to defend blacks in Ohio. As
Fladeland noted, Chase’s first defense of a fugitive slave, was that of a woman named
Matilda, who had been working for James Birney. After that case, Chase then defended
Birney in March of 1837, when he was indicted for harboring and concealing Matilda.238
The case involving Matilda originated when as Niven noted, she was on a trip with her
master and father, Larkin Lawrence to St. Louis. The two had stopped in Cincinnati,
where Matilda pleaded for a certificate of freedom. When she was denied the certificate,
she waited for an opportunity to run off. When she did find the opportunity she fled to
the black community of Cincinnati.239 Lawrence did not try to find Matilda nor had he
posted any papers on her escape, thus she thought that she had gained her freedom.
236
Middleton, Ohio and the Antislavery Activities, 30.
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 34.
238
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 149.
239
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 50-51.
67
237
Matilda, while in Cincinnati was in search of employment and as Fladeland noted,
she went to the Birney’s and Mrs. Birney hired her. She most likely went to the Birney’s
due to their reputation for working with the black community. When Mrs. Birney first
met Matilda she was under the impression that Matilda was a poor white woman from
Missouri. Matilda however was of mixed racial background as her father /master was a
white man and her mother was considered a person of color, so she physically looked as
if she were white. Eventually Matilda told the Birney’s that she was a black woman who
had escaped from Mr. Larkin on a trip to St. Louis.240 With time Matilda thought that she
was free, but to her surprise Larkin had hired a notorious slave catcher, John M. Riley, to
seize her. Riley set a trap for Matilda in Cincinnati, and as Niven noted there was
nothing that Birney could do when she was seized by the constable “as a fugitive in
violation of the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.”241 Birney immediately turned to
Chase to defend Matilda’s freedom. Chase took the case and as historian Leo Alilunas
noted on Chase’s legal strategy, “He argued that when a slave owner voluntarily brought
a slave into a free state the slave automatically became free and could not be reclaimed as
a fugitive slave under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.” The argument did not sway the
judge in his decision, and Matilda was given to Riley to be returned to slavery.242 After
the case Matilda was shipped to St. Louis, but was never returned to Larkin, she was
most likely sold in a slave market.243 Upon losing the case, Chase feared the ruling
240
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 150.
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 51.
242
Leo Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases in Ohio Prior to 1850,” Ohio State
Archeological and Historical Quarterly 49 (1940): 174.
243
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 54.
68
241
would undermine the antislavery work in Cincinnati.244 Although Chase lost the case his
argument was published and widely circulated in pamphlets, and as Finkelman noted, that
such pamphlets, “doubtlessly influenced litigation beyond the immediate case they
focused on.”245 Even with the loss Chase’s argument furthered the antislavery
movement.
Following the case, Birney was prosecuted for harboring a fugitive slave, which
was a violation of the 1804 and 1807 Black Laws.246 Chase defended Birney and like
that of Matilda’s case Birney was initially found guilty, and the court imposed a fiftydollar fine.247 Chase appealed the case to the Ohio Supreme Court on a writ of error, and
the Supreme Court found on December 20, 1837 that Matilda had not offered a
‘presumption of condition,’ thus Birney was found not guilty of harboring a fugitive.248
The court believed that since Birney did not know that Matilda was a runaway slave
when he hired her, he was not guilty of harboring a fugitive.
Like that of Matilda’s case, Chase found himself in court again in In re Mary
Townes (1841), as he argued to maintain the freedom of Mary Towns. Chase took the
case and others like it because as Maizlish noted from the 1840 forward, antislavery work
was his passion.249 The case involved a Kentucky slave owner, Thomas Gaither who
came to Cincinnati to capture a slave named Rose, who then was known as Mary
244
Howard, “Changing the Law,” 75.
Paul Finkelman, Introduction to Southern Slaves in Free States Courts: The
Pamphlet Literature, ed. Paul Finkelman (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988), i-ii.
246
Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases,” 174.
247
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 56.
248
Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney, 153-154
249
Maizlish, “Salmon P. Chase: The Roots of Ambition,” 65.
69
245
Towns.250 Gaither was denied a certificate of removal, because he could not prove that
Towns was a runaway slave. Although he was not granted a certificate of removal,
Gaither did take the issue up in court. Gaither lost the case and as Niven noted Judge
Reed, the judge of the Court of Common Pleas, accepted Chase’s argument that Gaither’s
affidavit did not state that Towns was a fugitive, thus she was freed.251
Chase again assisted in the antislavery movement when he defended John Van
Zandt before the U.S. Supreme Court. Van Zandt was a former Kentuckian who moved
to Cincinnati due to his hatred of slavery.252 As Middleton noted, this was the second
case in which Chase defended an abolitionist, the first being that of Birney.253 The case
started in 1842 and lasted five years ending in 1847. The case arose when Van Zandt was
returning to his farm near Cincinnati in late April 1842, while on the drive home he
encountered nine African Americans on the side of the road. Van Zandt picked the
African Americans up and fifteen miles north of Cincinnati he was stopped by southern
slave catchers. The slave catcher captured seven of the nine blacks and took them to
Covington, Kentucky where they were jailed.254
Wharton Jones, the slave owner who sent the catchers after the fugitive slaves
sued Van Zandt for harboring fugitive slaves under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. This
case was similar to the one that involved Birney. As Niven noted, Chase took the case
without payment, and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Van Zandt had not
250
Middleton, The Black Laws, 178.
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 63.
252
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 77.
253
Middleton, Ohio and the Antislavery Activities, 121.
254
Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases,” 181.
70
251
known that the blacks were runaway slaves.255 Chase also argued as Alilunas noted that
the Fugitive Salve Act of 1793 was not in accordance with the Northwest Ordinance of
1787 that excluded slavery from the territory, but Chase’s argument failed and Van Zandt
was fined between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred dollars.256 Chase lost the case,
but his one hundred and eight page brief presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, as Niven
noted,
“must surely rank as one of the more penetrating examinations of the legal and
constitutional anomalies that slavery presented in a republic where human rights
were restricted to privileged whites who saw no contradiction when they
trumpeted democracy and virtue to the world.”257
Although Chase lost the case, parts of his argument would lay the foundation for his
future work.
In 1845 Chase again challenged the slave system in State v. Hoppess (1845). One
aspect of the case was the legal concept of comity, as the case involved a slave who was
on a boat on the Ohio River. As Paul Finkelman in An Imperfect Union, stated, “Comity
is the courtesy or consideration that one jurisdiction gives by enforcing the laws of
another, granted out of respect and deference rather than obligation.”258 The case
255
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 78-79.
Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases,” 181.; Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 81.;
Middleton, Ohio and the Antislavery Activities, 124. Alilunas and Middleton noted that
Van Zandt was fined twelve hundred dollars while Niven noted the fine was fifteen
hundred dollars.
257
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 83.
258
Paul Finkelman, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 4.
71
256
involved Henry Hoppess who was transporting Samuel Watson, a slave from Arkansas to
Virginia in 1845.259
Hoppess and Watson were aboard the Ohio Belle, a steamboat docked on the
Cincinnati side of the Ohio River. While the boat was docked on the river Hoppess was
afraid of abolitionist actions so he took Watson to the Justice of Peace Mark Taylor to
gain a certificate to remove Watson. As Middleton noted, Chase acquired a writ of
habeas corpus from Judge Nathaniel Read, to try and free Watson.260 A similar argument
was used in the Dred Scott case261, and it was likely that the work of Chase influenced
Scott’s lawyer. Chase and his fellow attorneys arguing for Watson believed that he
became free as soon as the boat “came within the state of Ohio” and that being restrained
by Hoppess was an ‘illegal assault and imprisonment.”262 Judge Read decided on
harmony between the states, and the Ohio River was seen as neutral water, thus Watson
was returned to slavery.263 In his opinion Judge Read stated, “the Ohio River is declared
to be the common highway of the citizens of the United States.”264 Read feared that if the
river were to be divided between Ohio and Kentucky it would as he stated, “make the
Ohio River in truth was it has been said that its name signifies, the river of strife -the war
river- the river of blood.”265 Out of fear of violence Read labeled the river as neutral.
259
State v. Hoppess, 2 West L.J. 279 1845.
Middleton, Ohio and the Antislavery Activities,108.
261
Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857) decided that African Americans were not protected
under the U.S. Constitution.
262
State v. Hoppess, 2 West L.J. 279 1845.
263
Ibid.,
264
ibid.,
265
Ibid.,
72
260
While this case on the surface looks as if it were a failure as Watson was returned
to slavery, but as Niven noted, “Read’s acceptance of Chase’s opinion that slavery was a
local and artificial condition which inflicted a moral wrong was a distinct victory for the
antislavery cause.”266 Chase’s legal success as Middleton claimed, was not the “number
of slaves set free,” but by how he weakened a slave master’s control in Ohio.267 For his
actions in this case and the antislavery movement, Howard noted, the Union Baptist
Church in Cincinnati held a gathering in 1845, where the congregation presented Chase
with an engraved silver pitcher as a gesture of appreciation for his work.268 As Niven
noted, Chase responded to the gesture of appreciation by stating, “I am only one of a
great number who adopt the opinion that in a country of democratic institutions, there is
no reliable security for the right of any, unless the right of all are also secure.”269 Chase’s
words echoed the religious teachings of the Second Great Awakening on equality. These
words were not hollow either, as he continued to work for African Americans the rest of
his life. As Finkleman noted, “the political power of the antislavery movement in Ohio”
and the work of Chase “made Ohio a leader in the North’s judicial war against
slavery.”270 After working on fugitive slave cases, Chase shifted his aims to the Ohio
Black Laws.
This shift occurred in the mid 1840s when Chase attacked the Ohio Black Laws.
Chase as mentioned earlier played a key role in the partial repeal of the Black Laws.
266
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 85.
Middleton, Ohio and the Antislavery Activities, 113.
268
Howard, “Changing the Law,” 1.
269
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 85.
270
Finkelman, An Imperfect Union, 149.
73
267
Chase was sent to the U.S. Senate in 1849.271 Part of the negotiation of the repeal and
Chase’s Senate seat was due to his ability to persuade the Free Soilers in 1848 that they
should support the Democrats, and in return the Democrats would help in the repeal.272
Chase drafted the bill that would repeal the Black Laws.273
Chase was successful in his repeal of the Black Laws, but his mission was left
incomplete until 1886 when the Black Laws were fully repealed. Chase’s repeal was no
small victory, after the partial repeal as Niven noted, blacks could enter the state without
restrictions, testify in court against whites, and the state would endorse segregated public
schools.274 The Black Laws that were not repealed in 1849 continued to deny African
Americans the opportunity to sit on juries, vote, and hold political office. The right to
vote would be given to African Americans with the ratifying of the 15th Amendment.
Although it was not a full repeal, it was as Finkelman stated, “the only one of its type in
the free states on the northern banks of the Ohio River.”275 This victory was only the
start of his political career.
In a speech before the Senate floor titled “Union and Freedom Without
Compromise” given on March 26, 1850, Chase stated sarcastically, “Instead of slavery
being regarded as a curse, a reproach, a blight, an evil, a wrong, a sin, we are now told
271
Paul Finkelman, “The Strange Career of Race Discrimination in Antebellum
Ohio,” Case Western Reserve Law Review 55, no. 2 (2005): 375.
272
Betty M. Culpepper, “The Negro and Black Laws of Ohio, 1803-1860,” (Master’s
thesis, Kent State University, 1965), 60.
273
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 71.
274
Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 119.
275
Finkelman, An Imperfect Union, 156.
74
that it is the most stable foundation of our institutions.”276 In this statement, the influence
of his uncle and the religious teaching of The Second Great Awakening emerged as he
stated that slavery was an evil, a sin, and as he believed it needed to be abolished. Just
five years after this speech on the Senate floor, Chase became the first Republican
governor of Ohio in 1856.277 While governor, Chase defended the rights of Ohio’s black
citizens as he denied Kentucky’s request of the return of Willis Lago, an African
American, indicted for assisting a slave escape from Kentucky into Ohio. As Finkelman
noted, Chase denied the request, “arguing that the crime of slave stealing did not exist in
Ohio.”278 After his time as governor, Chase was re-elected to the U.S. Senate, but left
that position to become Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury in 1860.279 While as the
Secretary of the Treasury as Maizlish noted, Chase “was responsible for suggesting that
“In God We Trust” be placed on the Civil War currency, and that the Emancipation
Proclamation conclude invoking “the gracious favor of Almighty God.””280 Chase’s
religious motivation continued to appear and reappear in his work.
In 1864 Chase was appointed and sworn in as the sixth Chief Justice of the United
States Supreme Court.281 He served the court until his death in 1873. Chase used his
position to further the rights of African Americans282, and as Blue noted, “To Chase, the
276
Salmon P. Chase, “Union and Freedom Without Compromise,” Senate, March 26,
1850, 9-10.
277
Finkelman, “The Strange Career of Race Discrimination,” 400.
278
Ibid., 405.
279
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 132.
280
Maizlish, “Salmon P. Chase: The Roots of Ambition,” 58.
281
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 245.
282
See Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 447. In 1873 Chase dissented in the
Slaughterhouse Cases trying to defend the rights of blacks.
75
position “that all freemen are entitled to suffrage upon equal terms” was an axiom of free
government. He advised federal judges in the south that the courts had a role to perform
in removing prejudice against black suffrage.”283 Throughout his career on the Supreme
Court, Chase consistently promoted black suffrage both in the courtroom and in the
public.284 Through the Supreme Court, Chase continued the work that he had started in
the 1830s with Birney.
Together, James Birney and Salmon P. Chase’s work show how deeply the
influence of the Second Great Awakening affected Ohioans and the nation. Birney was
so moved by his conversation with Theodore Weld and the religious teachings of the
Second Great Awakening that he freed his slaves, left the south, and then led a lifelong
attack on the slave system. Chase influenced by his uncle Philander, the revival at
Dartmouth, and the mob attack on Birney then also led a lifelong attack on legislation
that empowered the slave system. For his involvement in the fugitive slave cases, as
Finkelman noted, whites mockingly labeled Chase “the Attorney General for Fugitive
Slaves.”285 Chase started that career defending Birney’s employee, Matilda, and as Blue
noted, ended his career with a dissent in the Slaughterhouse Cases still defending the
rights of African Americans.286 The lives of these two men illustrate how the Second
Great Awakening was not just a Northern or Eastern movement, but rather its teachings
reached far beyond the Burned over District.
283
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 259.
See Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 383-393 and 437. He travelled South in
1865 promoting black suffrage, and he reiterated suffrage for African Americans “as a
consequence of state and federal citizenship” in Texas v. White.
285
Finkelman, Introduction to Southern Slaves, vi.
286
Blue, Salmon P. Chase, 307.
76
284
Conclusion
From the Pulpit to the Streets: The Impact of the Second Great Awakening on
Race Relations in Ohio is a project that was developed with the intent to further explore
the shifting race relations in Ohio from 1800 through the 1860s. From the examination of
the Ohio Black Laws, the courts cases of State v. George (1821), Gray v. Ohio (1831),
Jeffries v. Ankeny (1842), Thacker v. Hawk (1842), Lane v. Baker (1843), Anderson v.
Poindexter (1856), and Monroe v. Collins (1867), in combination with the works of
Theodore Weld, The Lane Rebels, James Birney, and Salmon P. Chase illustrate that the
socio-religious movement of the Second Great Awakening heavily influenced the race
relations in Ohio, which is something that scholars have typically ignored. This effect
was most drastically demonstrated in the altering race relations from the 1830s through
the 1860s. This change occurred due to the Second Great Awakening revivals that
Hankins claimed, “created in many Americans a sense that it was their God-ordained task
to reform their own society and export that reform impulse to other lands.”287 Many
individuals now saw the need to repent for the sin of slavery or the nation would perish.
287
Hankins, The Second Great Awakening, 86.
77
As Hankins noted, the sin of slavery did not just oppress African Americans, it “violated
biblical norms of a just society,” and thus God would judge the nation for this sin.288
Chapter One specifically focused on the legal constructions of race. This chapter
demonstrated the ever-evolving understanding of race, and the ways that the legal system
was used in regards to racial classification and oppression. As illustrated from the Blacks
Laws in Ohio, White statesmen used the legal system to repress the Black community of
Ohio. This chapter ended with a discussion of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 18581859, where White Ohioans were now protecting the rights of Black Ohioans. This case
in dialogue with the earlier Black Laws, illustrated how radically race relations shifted in
50 years. The subsequent chapters examined key figures that assisted in this
transformation of race relations in Ohio.
Theodore Weld, The Lane Rebels activities in Cincinnati, Ohio demonstrated the
effects of the Second Great Awakening’s teachings on the shifting race relations. The
Rebels as the chapter presented were very successful laboring in and with the Black
community of Cincinnati. This work as mentioned earlier included reading classes taught
three times a week, a library for the black community, and, due to Augustus Wattles, four
schools were founded in 1834 for Blacks in Cincinnati.289 As Lesick claimed, Wattles
along with the other Rebels believed, “it right to treat men according to their character
without respect to condition or complexion.”290 Much of the students’ ideology on race
relations came from the teachings of the Second Great Awakening. As Litwack noted,
288
Ibid., 106.
Lesick, The Lane Rebels, 89.
290
Ibid., 92.
289
78
many communities tried to replicate the work of the Cincinnati abolitionist, but were not
as successful.291 Litwack failed to implicate the influence of the Second Great
Awakening on the abolitionist activity in Cincinnati, which was key to their
achievements. The work of the Lane Rebels emerged directly out the teachings of the
Second Great Awakening.
The legal activity of James Birney and Salmon P. Chase were the focus of
Chapter Three. Their work helped to illuminate how the shift in race relations that was
mentioned in Chapter One changed so drastically. From the late 1830s through the
1860s, these two individuals used the legal structure to protect and increase the rights of
Blacks in Ohio. This was illustrated through Chase’s work on the partial repeal of the
Black Laws in 1849, and his work against the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. As
Middleton noted, Chase likely worked on the behalf of more runaway slaves and
abolitionists than any other Ohio lawyer.292
James Birney’s life demonstrated the far-reaching influences of the Second Great
Awakening as his awakening occurred in Alabama. Birney, after his ‘awakening’ freed
his slaves, left the South, and became an editor of the abolitionist newspaper The
Philanthropist. His paper’s message was extremely successful as illustrated from the
frustrated proslavery rioters who attacked the paper multiple times in 1836. Birney’s life
exemplified just how deeply the Second Great Awakening could affect an individual.
The Second Great Awakening has often been traditionally examined as a
phenomenon in the East and the ‘Burned-over District’ of western New York. The lives
291
292
Litwack, North of Slavery, 122.
Middleton, The Black Laws, 83.
79
of Weld, the Lane Rebels, Birney, and Chase illustrate how deeply the teachings of the
Second Great Awakening assisted in the shifting race relations in Ohio during the mid1800s. From the Pulpit to the Streets has demonstrated that the teachings of Second
Great Awakening had a much further influence than that of the East and ‘Burned-over
District,’ as it heavily informed the antislavery activity in Ohio.
80
Essay on Sources
This essay on sources will be selective, as to direct the readers to the most important
material used in From the Pulpit to the Streets: The Impact of the Second Great
Awakening on Race Relations in Ohio. The sources cited in this essay are not exhaustive,
and may maintain resources that are not in the footnotes, but informed the author’s
writing. To stay consistent, the structure of this essay will follow the flow of the thesis.
Court Cases, Legal Statutes, and the Black Laws
There is a great deal of material on the Black Laws of Ohio. A good place to start
is with Stephen Middleton’s The Black Laws in the Old Northwest: A Documentary
History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993). This text is more of a technical
collection of the Black Laws of Ohio, along with court cases that involved these laws.
Stephen Middleton’s The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005) thoroughly explored these Black Laws in narrative
form. The first text clearly defined what the Black Laws were, and the second explained
how those laws affected the lives of Ohioans. Other material to refer to on the Black
Laws are Betty Culpepper’s master thesis “The Negro and Black Laws of Ohio, 18031860” (Kent State University, 1965), Otto Lovett’s master thesis, “Black Laws of Ohio”
81
(The Ohio State University, 1929), and Reuben Sheeler’s article “The Struggle of the
Negro in Ohio for Freedom” (The Journal of Negro History 31, no. 2 (1946): 208-226).
The Black Laws and the court cases that I examined are placed in chronological
order to maintain consistency. The two Black Laws that were of specific importance to
this work were, the 1804 and 1807 Black Laws (2 Laws of Ohio 63 (1804); and An act to
amend the last named act, “an act to regulate black and mulatto persons,” 5 Laws of Ohio
53 (1807)). The cases I examined were State v. George (1821), Gray v. Ohio (1831),
Jeffries v. Ankeny (1842), Thacker v. Hawk (1842), Lane v. Baker (1843), State v.
Hoppess (1845), Anderson v. Poindexter (1856), and Monroe v. Collins (1867). For each
of these cases, excluding State v. George (1821), their rulings where either located at The
Ohio State University’s Michael E. Moritz Law Library or the online legal search engine
LexisNexis. State v. George (1821) was found in Ervin Pollack’s Ohio Unreported
Judicial Decisions: Prior to 1823 (Indianapolis: A. Smith Co., 1952).
Paul Finkelman’s work also prooved invaluable to my understanding of the legal issues
that were included in this thesis. His text An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and
Comity (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981) served as a general
understanding of the legal affairs that were involved with slavery in the national
narrative. This manuscript also evaluated the legal term of comity, which played a large
role in Ohio cases involving fugitive slaves. Finkelman’s “Race, Slavery, and Law in
Antebellum Ohio.” (In The History of Ohio Law Volume Two 2004, edited by Michael
Les Benedict and John F. Winker, 748-781. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004) added
to the discussion of the Black Laws, Ohio’s 1802 Constitutional Convention, and the
82
earlier expansion of Ohio’s population. Along with Finkelman’s analysis of the
Constitutional Convention I examined the Journal of the Convention of the Territory of
the United State North-West of the Ohio (Chillicothe, OH: N. Willis, 1802) to more fully
understand the Convention member’s thoughts on race and the place of Blacks in Ohio.
Whiteness
The theoretical concept of Whiteness was essential to this thesis although not
heavily cited. George Lipsitz’s Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People
Profit From Identity Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006) focused on
modern investments in Whiteness, but the theoretical foundation of white people’s
investment in Whiteness due to the privileges that accompany it was extremely important
to the reasoning behind how and why white’s treated African Americans as they did.
David Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness (New York: Verso Publishing, 1991)
informed the section on the separation of working class people along the lines of race as
to keep them from collaborating and rebelling against management. Ian Haney’s White
By Law (New York: New York University Press, 1996), added to the analysis on white
supremacy and its place within the nation, and how the courts were used to support white
supremacy. Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997)
and Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2010) played a crucial role in my understanding of race, Whiteness, White
Privilege and their place within the United States. Leon Litwack’s North of Slavery
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961) was the most comprehensive analysis of
race relations in the North from 1790 through 1860.
83
General Early Ohio History
Peter Onuf’s Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987) examined the Northwest Ordinance and
its role in excluding slavery from the territory. He also analyzed the complexities of the
ordinance, and how it did not serve as a useful tool of governance. Robert Chaddock’s
Ohio Before 1850: A Study of the Early Influence of Pennsylvania and Southern
Populations in Ohio (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1967) was informative on the reasons
why early settlers moved to southern Ohio, and why they were so adamant against having
slavery in the state. While David Gerber’s Black Ohio and the Color Line 1860-1915
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976) positions itself outside the timeframe of this
thesis the material in the first 40 pages added to my understanding of where Ohio’s black
population came from and the politics behind the repression of Black Ohioans. For a
detailed account of education in Ohio see Edward Miller’s The History of Education
Legislation in Ohio from 1803 to 1850 (New York: Arno Press and The New York
Times, 1969) as it outlined the creation of Ohio schooling. However, this work presents
little information pertaining to African Americans and their experience in Ohio’s
educational system. For a broad understanding of early Ohio history, specifically
economics (farming, waterways, roads, or industry) see William Utter’s The Frontier
State: 1803-1825 (Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1968).
Jonathan Howard’s master thesis “Changing the Law; Fighting for Freedom: Racial
Politics and Legal Reform in Early Ohio, 1803-1860” (The Ohio State University, 2011)
84
examined the role of the black community in fighting for their rights both in social and
political arenas.
Cincinnati and Race Riots
The most comprehensive examination of the Cincinnati race riots of 1829, 1836,
and 1841 was Silas Crowfoot’s dissertation “Community Development for a White City:
Race Making, Improvementism, and the Cincinnati Race Riots and Anti-Abolition Riots
of 1829, 1836, and 1841” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Portland State University, 2010).
Crowfoot placed the race riots in the context of white Cincinnatian’s attempts to create a
white city. Jonathan Howard’s work as mentioned earlier also discussed the race riots in
detail. Middleton’s The Black Laws (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005) briefly
touched upon the riots. The most comprehensive history of Cincinnati’s black citizens
was Nikki Taylor’s Frontiers to Freedom: Cincinnati’s Black Community 1802-1868
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005). Her analysis painted a larger background that
informs the race riots of Cincinnati, and the experiences of the city’s black population.
The Second Great Awakening
A good place to start when examining the Second Great Awakening is Barry
Hankins’ The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists (London: Greenwood
Press, 2004) as it gives a general but thorough outline of the movement. For a more
detailed examination of the Second Great Awakening and the terminology that
accompanied the movement see William McLoughlin’s Revivals, Awakenings, and
Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1978). McLoughlin’s Modern Revivalism: Charles
85
Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1959) presented an in
depth description of Charles Finney and his efforts within the movement. To more fully
understand Finney, his Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Edited by William G.
McLoughlin, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960) detailed
what he believed revivals were, and how one went about making them successful. This
text also discussed his views on slavery, sin, the role of the church, and the role of the
revival in society. The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney: The Complete Restored Text
(Edited by Garth M. Rosell and Riachrd A.G. Dupius. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1989) further explained his views on religion and his work at Oberlin
College. For an account of the revivalist spirit in Ohio see Lyman Beecher’s
Autobiography Vol. 2 (Edited by Barbara Cross. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 1961 (originally 1864)). Anne Loveland in “Evangelicalism and
“Immediate Emancipation” in American Antislavery Thought” (The Journal of Southern
History 32, no. 2 (1966): 172-188) illustrated the connection between the teachings of
Evangelicalism and the demand for immediate emancipation. For a comprehensive
examination of the influence of the Second Great Awakening upon the ‘Burned-over
District’ see Whitney Cross’ The Burned-over District: the social and intellectual history
of enthusiastic religion in western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1950). Two other useful works in understanding the Second Great Awakening and
its influenced were Linda Prichard’s “The Burned-over District Reconsidered: A Portent
of Evolving Religious Pluralism in the United States” (Social Science History 8, no. 3
(1984): 243-265) and Stephen Middleton’s brief notes on the movement’s connections to
86
Ohio in The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio (Athens: Ohio
University Press, 2005).
Theodore Weld and the Lane Rebels
For a well-written examination of Theodore Weld’s life see Robert Abzug’s
Passionate Liberator: Theodore Weld and the Dilemma of Reform (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980). This text gave a detailed account of Weld’s time with Finney,
experiences at Lane Seminary, and abolitionist work. For an in depth description of the
affects of the Second Great Awakening on the Lane Rebels and their work in the
Cincinnati community see Lawrence Lesick’s The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism and
Antislavery in Antebellum America (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980). Lyman
Beecher’s Autobiography Vol. 2 (Edited by Barbara Cross. Cambridge: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1961 (originally 1864)) illuminated the relationship between
Weld and Beecher. His writings also discussed the issues at Lane Seminary, revivalism
in Ohio, and his views on slavery. Beecher’s work along with James Thome’s speech
“Speech of Mr. James A. Thome, of Kentucky,” in Debate at the Lane Seminary
Cincinnati: Speech of James A. Thome and Letter of the Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox against
the American Colonization Society (Boston: Garrison and Knapp, 1834) gave a first hand
description of the views of those involved with the antislavery work in Cincinnati and
Lane Seminary. Another text that touched on the work at Lane was Paul Finkelman’s
article “The Strange Career of Race Discrimination in Antebellum Ohio.” (Case Western
Reserve Law Review 55, no. 2 (2005): 373- 404).
87
James Gillespie Birney
Betty Fladeland’s biography James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist
(Ithaca: Cornell Unversity Press, 1955) is a good starting point for examining Birney’s
life. Fladeland touched on the influence of religion on Birney’s life, but she understated
its importance. She also did not tie the religious revivals in Birney’s church in Alabama
to the Second Great Awakening. Fladeland’s work did a great job of illustrating Birney’s
admiration for Theodore Weld. Cathy Franklin’s article “James Gillespie Birney, the
Revival Spirit, and The Philanthropist” (American Journalism 17, (2000): 31-52)
demonstrated the influence of the Second Great Awakening, particularly the works of
Weld and Finney, on Birney.
Salmon P. Chase
Frederick Blue’s Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, Oh: Kent State
University Press, 1987) along with John Niven’s Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (Oxford
University Press, 1995) are the most comprehensive analyses of Chase’s life. Both texts
discussed the influence of religion upon Chase, but neither directly connected those
experiences to the Second Great Awakening. In The Salmon P. Chase Papers:
Correspondence, 1823-1857 (Vol.2) (Edited by John Niven, James P. McClure, Leigh
Johnson, Steve Leikin. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1995) Chase in a letter to his
cousin noted the importance of the revival at Dartmouth and how it had heavily
influenced him. Chase’s speech, “Union and Freedom Without Compromise,” (Speech
of S.P. Chase, of Ohio, in the Senate of the United States, On the Compromise
Resolutions Submitted by Mr. Clay on the January 25, Senate, March 26, 1850)
88
demonstrated the impact of the religious teachings of the Second Great Awakening upon
his notions of the sin of slavery. Stephen Maizlish’s article “Salmon P. Chase: The Roots
of Ambition and the Origins of Reform (Journal of the Early Republic 18, no. 1 (1998):
47-70) noted the connection between religious teachings and Chase’s work protecting
fugitive slaves. Maizlish did not specifically mention the Second Great Awakening in his
work, which left me wanting more as to what those religious teachings were. For
Chase’s work with the African American community and his effort to repeal the Black
Laws see Leo Alilunas, “Fugitive Slave Cases in Ohio Prior to 1850” (Ohio State
Archeological and Historical Quarterly 49 (1940): 160-184); Stephen Middleton’s The
Black Laws (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005); Betty Culpepper’s, “The Negro and
Black Laws of Ohio, 1803-1860” (Master’s thesis, Kent State University, 1965); State v.
Hoppess, 2 West L.J. 279 1845; Stephen Middleton’s Ohio and the Antislavery Activities
of Attorney Salmon Portland Chase, 1830-1849 (New York: Garland, 1990). Ohio and
the Antislavery Activities of Attorney Salmon Portland Chase, 1830-1849, by far is the
most comprehensive analysis of Chase’s antislavery work in Cincinnati.
89
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