Racism and Republican Emergence in Illinois, 1848-1860: A Re-Evaluation of Republican Negrophobia

RACISM AND REPUBLICAN EMERGENCE IN ILLINOIS, 1848-1860: A RE-EVALUATION OF REPUBLICAN NEGROPHOBIA John M. Rozett In 1848 the citizens of Illinois were confronted by two major issues which probed their attitudes toward slavery and the plight of the black man. The emergence of the Free Soil party in the 1848 Presidential election provided the voters with an opportunity to oppose the extension of slavery into the territories; the state constitutional referendum of 1848 presented the voters with a separate clause on Negro exclusion which, when passed, permitted the state to prohibit the immigration of free Negroes into Illinois. It seems simple and logical to equate free soil and anti-exclusionist sentiment and to assume that the Illinois Free Soilers also opposed Negro exclusion. By extension, the free soil Republican party which emerged six years later can also be assumed to have incorporated free soilism and antiexclusionism under one moralistic anti-slavery banner. However, these traditional assumptions are now the subject of considerable debate , for free soil sentiment sprang from a variety of sources including a virulent Negrophobia which some historians believe supplied the dynamic element of the free soil crusade. "Racial prejudice—as well as economic, political, and idealistic factors—," wrote James A. Rawley, "was a foundation for thinking about slavery in the territories." Rawley argued that "when antislavery sentiment sought political action through the Free Soil Party, it evaded the issue of Negro rights." Instead, the chosen issue of the party was the threatened presence of the Negro, for "Keeping the territories free for white men only was the only anti-slavery stand northern voters might be expected to support."1 Eugene H. Berwanger also maintained that "prejudice against Negroes was a factor in the development of anti-slavery feeling in the antebellum United States." Berwanger argued that "Anti-Negro prejudice became more pronounced as the extension of slavery became a more dominant issue," and as whites began to fear that the newly opened territories would become inundated with blacks. "Early opposition to slavery extension centered in the Free Soil 1 James A. Rawley, Race and Politics: "Bleeding Kansas" and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1969), pp. vin, 12. 101 102CIVIL WAR HISTORY Party," he explained, "but some of its members adhering to its principles did so more out of repugnance to the presence of the Negro than to moral revulsion against slavery."2 The western states, Berwanger pointed out, had enacted from the beginning "stringent restrictions" against free Negroes, and this discrimination reached its height in the period from 1846 to I860. An Illinois law of 1829, for example, required a $1000 bond from immigrant free blacks, but then, in March of 1848, Illinois voters decided 50,261 to 21,297 to exclude free blacks entirely—70.2 per cent for Negro exclusion.3 Opponents of the anti-slavery political parties—first the Free Soil and then the Republican—attempted to equate racial equality with anti-slavery sentiment. Sensing the importance of these accusations, Berwanger explained, "politically astute" Republicans moved to still white fears and became "frantic to disclaim" such charges.4 Consequently the argument evolved of free territories for white men only as the free soil proponents sought to assure Negrophobes about their intentions by insisting that they represented the true interests of the white man and white labor. These arguments had their desired effect, Berwanger contended, and won the votes of Negrophobes. For some Republicans, he admitted, such arguments were mere propaganda, and by 1860 the Republican party "was too diverse in its make-up to attempt a suggestion of the precise amount of support it received from Negrophobes."5 The thrust of Berwanger's argument, however, an argument buttressed by exclusion or suffrage limitation in states throughout the Northwest, is that a very sizable element of both the Free Soil and Republican parties was composed of racist Negrophobes concerned only with keeping a proper distance between themselves and blacks—free or slave. The contention that many of the free soilers were racist is an important historical point, one which has grown out of the heightened racial awareness of the last two decades and which has served as a necessary corrective...