A Reluctant Unionist: John A. Gilmer and Lincoln's Cabinet

A RELUCTANT UNIONIST: John A. Gilmer and Lincoln's Cabinet Daniel W. Crofts During the early months of 1861, as the Union disintegrated and the country drifted toward civil war, John Adams Gilmer, the congressman from Greensboro, North Carolina, had to make the hardest decision of his life. He had received, to his great surprise, an offer to join the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. Gilmer knew that his prospective appointment was intended to reassure Southerners about the new President. But he also knew that the appointment could not by itself arrest the ominous excitement that gripped the South. He and other Southern Unionists agreed that the Republicans needed also to provide a symbolic concession on the vexing territorial issue, and a specific promise to use peaceable means in trying to win back the already seceded states of the deep South. Gilmer thus made his acceptance of the Cabinet appointment contingent upon conditions; Lincoln eventually decided the conditions were ones he could not meet. The entire episode far transcended the routine considerations of personality and patronage, which dominated Cabinet-making decisions during quieter times. Instead, the Gilmer appointment represented a form of intersectional diplomacy at a time of unprecedented crisis. It symbolized, ultimately, the fateful inability of moderates both North and South to arrange a peaceful solution to that crisis. John A. Gilmer represented a somewhat atypical Southern district. Guilford and adjacent counties on the North Carolina piedmont had long proven more hospitable to modest landownings and yeoman farmers than to plantation slavery. A substantial number of Quakers in the region opposed slavery on principle. During the 1840's and 1850's, successful coal-mining operations were initiated in the area; the improvement of water transportation on the Deep River and the construction of the North Carolina Railroad also stimulated hopes for economic diversification and industrial development. Economic aspirations and geographic circumstances intersected to make the political allegiance of the Greensboro region emphatically Whiggish. * A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Facilitated the Research for the essay. 225 226CIVIL WAR HISTORY North Carolina had experienced internal tensions for more than a century because the western part of the state felt slighted by and underrepresented in a state government dominated by eastern planters. First the Federalists and later the Whigs had taken advantage of this cleavage to build a base of support in the west. The Guilford county area was therefore less affected than most parts of the South by the rising sectional tensions of the 1850's. Efforts to unite the South behind the Democratic party on a strict states rights platform made no headway here. Rather, there still flourished an intense nationalism and love of the Union, a tradition strongly rooted in memories of local valor and sacrifice in the battle of Guilford Courthouse during the Revolution.1 Gilmer himself, a "bluff, frank and cordial" man of medium height and powerful physique, had deep roots in the Greensboro region. His Scotch-Irish family had lived in the area since before the Revolution. Both his grandfathers had fought at Guilford Courthouse. Born during Jefferson's presidency, in 1805, Gilmer was named for the Virginian's deposed predecessor and rival, John Adams. His parents thereby gave their son an unmistakable identification with the Federalist loyalties of the region. The oldest of twelve children, Gilmer "lived the life of a country boy" until his late teens. But he soon emerged as a prototype of the self-made man. After studying with the eminent Greensboro judge and legal scholar, Archibald D. Murphey, Gilmer opened his own practice and became by all accounts a hardworking and successful lawyer. A fortuitous marriage to the daughter of a prominent local Presbyterian minister further secured Gilmer's rising status. By 1850 he had become wealthy, partly through land and slaves inherited by his wife, partly through successful investments in railroad building and coal mining, and partly through his extensive caseload on the legal circuit, where his talents and modest fees had produced a booming and "very lucrative" business.2 1 The best source on the Greensboro region in the 1840's and 1850's is the local newspaper, the Greensboro Patriot. For comments on railroads see...