november 2024 Edition
Feature Article
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project and the Office of Historic Alexandria believe history can teach us if we are willing to listen, hence, we are sharing a feature story about the Election of 1860. Trigger Warning: In the section titled, Lest Anyone Still Think The War Was Not About Slavery, there is a disturbing comment that uses the n word.
Previously, The Most Consequential Election
On November 6, 1860, Alexandrians crowded into the rooms on the first floor of the Gazette building. Those who couldn’t fit stood on the front steps and peered in through the windows from Prince Street. The gas light that spilled out the doors and windows revealed an anxiety and foreboding that drove the people there, hoping to be first to hear news of the results of the most consequential election of their time.
It was the first Presidential Election since the Supreme Court’s shocking Dred Scott Decision that upended established law and paved the way for slavery to spread into free states. Those in southern slave holding states felt justified by the decision while northerners in free states recoiled. The New York Senate Judiciary Committee stated, the Scott Decision “destroyed the confidence of the people in the [Supreme] Court.”
It was the second election in which a young upstart Republican Party, made up of factory workers, northern Protestants, farmers, businessmen and professionals, fielded a candidate for president. Many outsiders were surprised when the party chose the moderate Abraham Lincoln over presumed anti-slavery advocate William Seward to be their nominee at the convention in Chicago, Ill.
While some in the North were opposed to slavery, even more were fed up with southern slaveholders continual threats to leave the union if the federal government didn’t provide every possible protection for their property rights and slave economy.
First the Slave Trade Clause that delayed the end of the transatlantic slave trade roiled them for twenty years; then they were infuriated by the gag rule that didn’t allow any discussion that leaned antislavery in the U.S. House of Representatives (which lasted until 1844); but even more reprehensible in their view, was the Fugitive Slave Act that required free state citizens to return enlsaved people who had escaped. Northerners were expected to ignore the humanity, the grit, of people who had risked their lives, made it to freedom and liberated themselves and send them back into bondage. Imagine their weary disbelief when the US Supreme Court decided for the slavers in Dread Scott vs. Sandford in 1857.
Southerners, for their part, were greatly aggravated by the abolitionists in the North who consistently harranged them in newspapers and the halls of Congress for enslaving people for economic gain. Even worse, they were astounded by the way villages, towns and cities illegally flouted the Fugitive Slave Act, sidestepping legislative compromises and denying southerners their constitutionally guaranteed property rights.
With all of this going on, Democrats didn’t even try to hold a big tent party convention. Northern and Southern party members convened separately and offered their own presidential candidates: Steven Douglas was nominated in the North, and the South chose John Breckinridge.
Former pro-slavery Whigs devised another option - the status quo - and launched the Constitutional Union Party (CUP). The new party had no platform and offered no solutions to the problems the nation faced, instead, they proffered proslavery prounion slogans. The main difference between the CUP and the Breckinridge Dems was their desire to work within the system using checks and balances to ensure slavery remained intact if the Republicans took the White House, while the southern dems promised to leave the union of states - even if it required violence. The Snowden Family, who owned, edited and published the Alexandria Gazette, supported John Bell and the Constitutional Union ticket.
The Stakes
Months before the election, South Carolinians made it abundantly clear they would not accept the election results if Lincoln were the winner. F.D. Richardson, a legislator representing Charleston, declared “the election of Lincoln (about which I entertain no doubt) ought to be regarded as an act of determined hostility; and I regard it, also, as immediately threatening the peace and safety of the South.”
In Appling, GA, Democrats for Breckinridge held “one of the largest and most enthusiastic” political rallies “ever witnessed.” They adopted resolutions defining their political foes as the enemy.
“WHEREAS, the oft-repeated and continued aggressions of the anti-slavery party of the North leave us no hope that the ‘irrepressible conflict’ is to have an end, or that we can ever again ‘dwell in unity:’ Be It Therefore Resolved, that for the future we spurn all offers of compromise, and unhesitatingly and unequivocally declare it to be the duty of every slave state in the event of Lincoln’s election to the Presidency of these United States, without a moment’s delay – peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must – sever the bonds which bind them to the Union and hoist the flag of a Southern confederacy…..
That in thus publicly proclaiming to our enemies the course we intend to pursue, we warn them we have been so long goaded by their aggressions, their repeated violations of the most solemn compromises, that forbearance on our part, has ceased to be a virtue.”
Lest Anyone Still Think The War Was Not About Slavery
The same day the Dems identified anyone opposed to slavery as the enemy within, the Alexandria Gazette tried to calm fears printing this piece from the Boston Courier, Lincoln, if elected, “will not recommend a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, nor the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, nor a prohibition of the slave trade between the States; and his opposition to the admission of new States will not extend to those carved out of territory south of the 361/2 degree of latitude.” The report, which was “written with Lincoln’s knowledge and approval,” also stated that Lincoln would include members of the Constitutional Unionist party in his Cabinet.
Since the 1830’s Alexandria had been an epicenter of the domestic slave trade. The Slave Economy was so integrated into the Port City it was nearly impossible to avoid. Most Alexandrians could not fathom how the city could function without the slave industry and supported one of the two pro-slavery tickets. One man outlined the economic concern in a letter to the Alexandria Gazette this way, “If Lincoln’s elected by our split upon our own men, we are ruined who own n------, individually and collectively. Don’t you see it in the revival of that slave trade, and when it touches our pocket nerve, we’ll come to our senses. If Bell was elected, the South couldn’t have no pretext to secede.”
The day before the election, an editor at the Gazette wrote, “Our glorious institutions [slavery] are too precious to be placed at the mercy of demagogues and fanatics who prefer the success of their own selfish schemes and barren dogmas, to the peace and harmony of the country and the perpetuity of the Union. Let us rally, then and snatch its destiny from their power now and forever and raise around it an impenetrable wall of patriotic hearts. We have had agitation long enough. It has done evil enough in the country. It is time it should cease. There is not hope offered by any other organization, than that led on by Bell and Everett, that the slavery question shall forever be put at rest - agitation destroyed, and the Union preserved.”
Southerners weren’t the only Americans who wanted slavery to continue. There were a number of Northerners who attacked abolitionists and anti-slavery politicians. To thwart them, a small group of young men who went to hear Kentucky’s antislavery politician Cassius Clay give a speech in Hartford, Conn. escorted Clay by torch light back to his hotel. They covered him with an oil cloth cape to protect his clothes from the dripping lamp oil and marched him up to the door of the Inn. A week later, the Hartford men were joined by more than 30 anti-slavery, pro-labor young men at a meeting where they decided to start a club, the Wide Awake club. They made their own uniforms mimicking the cape they had draped over Clay, and prepared for the next political visitor who may need a protective escort. That turned out to be a politician from Illinois - Abraham Lincoln, who enjoyed a jaunty march with the Wide Awakes of Hartford back to his guest house.
News of the club spread and Wide Awake chapters sprung up in nearly every northern town from coast-to-coast. The young men threw spectacular showy events and let anyone and everyone participate - including women who were eager to have a voice if not a vote. According to Vogue Magazine, “the violent toxic masculinity of politics in previous years had deterred women from openly getting involved, but the Wide Awakes cleared the streets for them to join the cause.”
They made a big splash, a friend of Lincoln’s called the young people “soul inspiring” and the clubs were motivating people to vote. After an encounter with some Wide Awakes in New York City, former Whig, George Templeton Strong wrote in his diary, “I’ve nearly made up my mind to deposit a lukewarm Republican vote next month.”
The Wide Awake youth movement struck fear into already antsy pro-slavery southerners, some of whom began to organize paramilitary groups. Former Gov. Wise of Virginia, a staunch Democrat, called for “committees of safety” in every county. He referred to the armed, uniformed, young men he organized in Princess Anne County as “Minute Men.” Most of the state reacted harshly against him, including then Gov. Letcher. The Norfolk Herald wrote that Ex. Gov. Wise's attempt to set up a group “to watch the movements and control the actions of fellow citizens in a time of peace,” unconstitutional and a declaration of war upon the rule of law.
“It is looked upon as a daring attempt to usurp the authority of the Legislature, and subject the lives, the property and the dearest rights of the citizens to the control of a band of “Regulators” in every county of the State under the name of “Minute Men,” this attempt to introduce a “reign of Terror” into Virginia” won’t go beyond his own county.”
Worry Sets In
While the Constitutional Unionists refused to resort to political violence, as the election neared, their fears grew. The Gazette’s editors complained that immigrants were voting in New York, “The number of new voters that have been manufactured in New York during the last month is larger then the immediately preceding any previous election. The citizen papers that have been issued from the Superior and Common Pleas Courts during the last six weeks number upwards of 7,000. Much the larger portion of applicants were Germans, and it is safe to say that at least one half of this increased vote will be given to the Republican ticket.”
Their concerns intensified when they learned that Ohio was allowing men with Black descendants to vote. They had thought the Dred Scott Decision that determined Black men were not citizens meant Ohio’s partially Black voters would be disenfranchised and the Democrat would win. But Ohio’s Supreme Court didn’t see it that way. The Gazette reported, “In a large number of precincts, negroes [sic] voted the Republican ticket, and in consequence the Democratic candidate was defeated. The Marietta Republican gives the number of negroes voting in several precincts –enough to decide the result – and intimates that the election will be contested as the Constitution of the State provides that no one shall vote if he is not a white citizen of the United States, all persons of negro blood are disqualified from voting.”
While true stories were buttressing the fears of those who were pro-slavery, there were distortions and lies aplenty circulating. The Gazette warned readers about a slew of misinformation that was so convincing reporters at newspapers were being tricked into publishing it.
“How disreputable to any portion of the press of the country, to have the people put on their guard, against the statements they, the press, may make. And it is mortifying that the innocent share alike with the guilty in the censure which is cast upon the public journals. The most painstaking and conscientious newspapers are deceived, frequently, by the apparently authoritative manner in which cannards are put forth, and copy them innocently as matters of news, thus unwittingly circulating what afterwards turns out to be untrue. Some means should be adopted to trace frauds and forgeries to their authors and sources, and to expose both to scorn and contempt.”
Then, in an article titled, The Latest Programe, the Gazette reporter described a closed door meeting of southern political leadership at a favorite spot among southern elite - the Brick and Marble Metropolitan Hotel in Washington. Only two people were identified, Texas U.S. Sen. Wigfall and Alabama’s Judge Meek. The rest, who were there to plot treason, remained anonymous. The men conceived a plan, that in the event Lincoln prevailed on Election Night, South Carolina would declare her independence and send an Ambassador to Washington and request recognition, or else...
The week leading up to Election Day, the Armory on Royal Street was open nightly and volunteer companies drilled, which was unusual.
The night before the election, according to the Gazette, “the City was flooded…with proof slips, containing garbled extracts of John Bell’s record, and portions of Yancey’s treasonable speeches.”
Enough Already
An exhausted reader penned a letter to the Gazette, expressing his greatest desire was for the question of the presidency to be decided.
“For six long months the peace and quietness of the whole country has been disturbed with the incessant clamor and long winded harangues, of political demagogues and partizans, sensational newspapers, who following the legitimate work of their trades have been “trampoosing” every accessible point of attack? Exciting the people and alarming even women and children, threatening disunion, civil war – blood and carnage. Should the country survive the tempest thus raised and the glorious institutions under which we have lived and prospered, still be upheld, it is hoped in the future that the “Campaign Services” of many of the present leaders will be dispensed with, and new and more peaceful issues adopted.”
Election Day
At dawn the polls opened in each ward, the white men of property who were 21 or older, waited in line to announce the names of those for which they were voting to a judge. Of the approximately 1700 voice votes cast, the majority - 1,012 -went for the Constitutional Unionist John Bell, but Breckinridge carried 565 votes, while another 141 went to Douglas, the northern Democrat. In what was clearly an act of courage, 16 men voiced their vote for Abraham Lincoln at the polling place in their ward, then they confirmed and endorsed their vote with their signature. No shenanigans were reported in the Gazette, but not far away, at the Fairfax Court House, a man called Gartrel voted out loud for Lincoln, after which he was “seized” by a mob, doused in printers ink, set upon a horse and sent on his way in public humiliation.
Back at the Gazette building Alexandrians awaited the election results late into the night. The first “Extra” edition was printed at 8 p.m., but there still was not a confirmed winner. The Snowden’s were receiving news from the Associated Press which had offices all over the country, and from at least a dozen telegraph correspondents. They had arranged for a special midnight steam express train to bring election returns to town.
Just as the blast from the Conductor’s horn sounded, disappointed Breckinridge men, intent on violence marched to the Republican Party headquarters in Washington, D.C. The staff had gone and the lights were out, but the ruffians attacked the building anyway. They rioted and looted the furnishings, engravings and pictures. They threatened to set the building on fire in an attempt to rid “a disgrace on the city” but they decided instead to send up a cheer for themselves and march home, according to the Evening Star.
Shortly before 2 a.m. the election of president-elect Lincoln was confirmed. He had garnered 40 percent of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes. By dawn, the Alexandrians who had eagerly awaited each dispatch the Gazette published had returned to their homes. The paper was put to bed and the presses rested.
On November 5, 2024, the election of 1860 will be replaced with a new historically consequential contest. The similarities between the two abound, including a significant Supreme Court decision, misinformation, scapegoating and othering, concerns and lies over election security and the potential for political violence.
What is different is who can vote and how we cast our ballots. If we, like our historical counterparts, had to state our choice for President in front of family, friends, neighbors and foes, how would it affect the outcome?
Upcoming Events
Alexandria Film Festival Screening of ACRP Documentary Resolved: Never Again
Part of the Threads of Resilience Showcase
Friday, November 8,12 - 4 p.m.
Charles E. Beatley, Jr. Central Library, 5005 Duke Street
Admission: $15
Buy Tickets Here
If you missed the debut of ACRP’s new documentary “Resolved: Never Again” about the lynching of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas, it will be shown as part of the Alexandria Film Festival on Friday, November 8. It is one of a series of films under the theme, “Threads of Resilience: Stories of Family Found & Justice Pursued.” The series begins at noon. “Resolved: Never Again” is the last film - the 48 minute documentary will likely begin around 2:30. Film Producer Robin Hamilton will answer questions after the viewing. At this time, we are unsure when the film will be available to view again, and this may be the last time to see it this calendar year.
James Baldwin Documentary: The Price of the Ticket
Screening & Panel Discussion
Sunday, November 10, 3:30-5:30
The Lyceum, 201 South Washington Street
Admission: $15
Buy Tickets Here
ACRP and the Alexandria Film Festival are co-sponsoring a screening of James Baldwin’s 1989 documentary, “The Price of the Ticket.” The 87 minute film will be followed by a Q & A with Filmmaker Karen Thorsen, Producer Douglas Dempsey and ACRP Steering Committee Member RaAlim Shabazz. The film remastered for what would have been James Baldwin’s 100th birthday, gives the activist voice again, a new opportunity to share with us the world as he saw it.
Last Opportunity to attend a Tables of Conscience Dinner in 2024
Saturday, November 16, 6-9 p.m.
$125 scholarship donation per person
Learn more, reserve a spot and make a contribution
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future, by Robert P. Jones. The roots of white supremacy reach back to the 15th century according to author Robert P. Jones, who is also founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute. This book explores the connection of past injustices and massacres perpetrated against native and Black Americans, while also examining current attempts to repair these historic wrongs.
Meaningful Conversations: African-American History
Thursday, November 21, 7-9 p.m.
Alexandria Black History Museum, 902 Wythe Street
Free and open to the public
Join us for the new series of Meaningful Conversation that highlight local non-profits working for racial and social justice in our community. On Nov. 21, the program will focus on Protecting African American History. Those who come will hear from the Director of Gum Springs Museum Ronald L. Chase, who will talk about his organization and the oldest African American community in Fairfax. Joining him will be Dr. Darnella McGuire-Nelson a lifelong Alexandrian working with the Social Responsibility Group to restore Douglass Cemetery, an African American cemetery off of Duke Street. An interesting note: Douglass Cemetery is where Alexandria’s African American leadership wanted to move Benjamin Thomas after the City left his body in a pauper’s grave at Penny Hill.
African American History Related Programs & Events
"Philip Fendall II: Anti-Slavery in Antebellum Washington" - Lecture with Madeline Feierstein
Friday, November 8, 7 - 8:15 p.m.
Lee-Fendall House Museum & Garden, 614 Oronoco Street
$10
Purchase tickets.
While Philip Fendall II was the first child to be born at the Lee-Fendall House and a first cousin of Robert E. Lee, he held anti-slavery views despite his upbringing. Fendall’s prolific political and legal career, however, placed him on both sides of the slavery debate in Antebellum Washington during the rise of the abolitionist movement. This lecture will examine primary source material, in relation to Fendall’s environment, to determine the extent of his anti-slavery sentiments.
Story Time for Little Historians
Saturday, November 9
10 a.m.- 10:45 a.m.
Alexandria Black History Museum, 902 Wythe Street
Free
Dynamic storytellers use books written by and about African American people and other communities of color to engage with ages 5-8.
Memorial Dedication Ceremony in honor of Mr. Robert “Old Folks” Dawkins
Saturday, November 9
Reception at 1 p.m., Unveiling Ceremony and Program at 2 p.m.
Charles Houston Recreation Center, 901 Wythe Street
Free
Join us as we celebrate the Legacy of Mr. Robert “Old Folks” Dawkins with a Memorial Unveiling Dedication. For further information please contact Julian Haley at 571-217-9951 or aaahalloffame13@gmail.com. Presented by the Office of Historic Alexandria, The Alexandria African American Hall of Fame, and the Department of Recreation, Parks, & Cultural Activities.
Committee Reports
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Steering Committee met at the Black History Museum on Oct.8 and were updated on the ongoing work of ACRP.
Upcoming Committee Meetings
ACRP Schools and Libraries Action Committee will meet on Monday, Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. at the Alexandria Black History Museum.
Alexandria Community Remembrance Project
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project (ACRP) is a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandria understand its history of racial terror hate crimes and to work toward creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion.
In Memoriam
Write "ACRP" in Comments on the donation form.
Office of Historic Alexandria
City of Alexandria, Virginia
ACRP@alexandriava.gov