Many Republicans were dissatisfied with President Abraham Lincoln’s policies, including his “lenient” plan to bring the southern states back into the Union. Some had proposed replacing Lincoln with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, but Chase had been discredited by the Pomeroy Circular. When Major-General John C. Fremont, who had long quarreled with Lincoln before resigning in 1862, expressed interest in running against him, his backers quickly organized an assembly at Chapin Hill in Cleveland, Ohio, a week before the Republican National Convention took place.
Most of the convention attendees were Radical Republicans who believed that conservatives like Lincoln were not waging a harsh enough war against both the South and slavery. The Radicals sought to protest the “imbecile and vacillating policy of the present Administration in the conduct of the war.” Organizers expected thousands to attend, but only about 400 actually showed. Of these, only 158 were delegates, and most of them held no significant political influence. They were mostly abolitionists and German immigrants loyal to Fremont (especially in Missouri), but some Democrats attended in an attempt to form a new “Radical-Democratic” alliance against Lincoln.
Some Radicals boycotted the convention after learning that it would be stacked with Fremont supporters. Republicans and Democrats pushing for Ulysses S. Grant to oppose Lincoln also stayed away. Even Horace Greeley, the influential editor of the New York Tribune who had called for this convention in the first place, withdrew his support.
The most prominent name associated with the convention was abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and even he did not attend. Instead, he submitted a written statement calling the Lincoln administration “a civil and military failure, and its avowed policy ruinous to the North in every point of view…” Phillips condemned Lincoln’s reconstruction plan because it “makes the freedom of the negro a sham, and perpetuates slavery under a softer name.” He added that it “puts all power in the hands of the unchanged white race, soured by defeat, hating the labor classes, plotting constantly for aristocratic institutions.” Phillips concluded, “If Mr. Lincoln is re-elected I do not expect to see the Union reconstructed in my day, unless on terms more disastrous to liberty than even disunion would be.”
Delegates adopted a platform that advocated:
- The “suppression of the rebellion by force of arms, without compromise”
- A constitutional amendment to permanently abolish slavery and “secure to all men absolute equality before the law”
- Granting black men the right to vote
- Empowering Congress, not the president, to administer reconstruction
- Seizing the land of Confederates by military force and redistributing it to Federal soldiers, former slaves, or anyone else the Radicals deemed worthy
- Abolishing the Electoral College and electing the president by popular vote
- Limiting the president to one term
- Barring the president from violating civil liberties, including suspending the writ of habeas corpus
Fremont was nominated by acclamation. The delegates expected him to run a strong race, just as he did as the first-ever Republican presidential candidate in 1856. As a nod to the small Democratic constituency in attendance, Democratic Brigadier-General John Cochrane was nominated vice president. Fremont agreed to run in the naïve hope that Radicals and Democrats could form a broad enough coalition to beat Lincoln in November.
In his acceptance statement, Fremont declared that he represented “a view to prevent the misfortune of (Lincoln’s) reelection,” which “would be fatal to the country.” He condemned Lincoln’s mismanagement of the war. However, he ignored the party’s pledge to uphold social and political equality, and he openly opposed the Radical plan to redistribute confiscated land.
A pundit called this disappointing convention “a most magnificent fizzle” that only featured “disappointed contractors, sorehead governors, and Copperheads.” Noting the delegates’ lack of political clout, the pro-Lincoln New York Times called the assembly “a congregation of malcontents… representing no constituencies, and controlling no votes.” Most Radicals renounced this party for its alliance with Democrats and ultimately acknowledged that the best way to advance their agenda was to back Lincoln.
When Lincoln was told that only 400 people attended this assembly, he thumbed through a Bible until he came upon 1 Samuel 22:2 and read, “And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about 400 men.”
Bibliography
- Angle, Paul M., A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
- Catton, Bruce and Long, E.B. (ed.), Never Call Retreat: Centennial History of the Civil War Book 3. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Kindle Edition), 1965.
- Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Garrison, Webb, True Tales of the Civil War: A Treasury of Unusual Stories During America’s Most Turbulent Era. New York: Gramercy, 1988.
- Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition), 1988.
- Schweikart, Larry and Allen, Michael, A Patriot’s History of the United States. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.