Historical Perspective: Col. Thompson and the 1860 presidential campaign
Rob Robbins
Historical Perspective: Col. Thompson and the 1860 presidential campaign
By Mike McCormick Special to the Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — The presidential
campaign of 1860 — 150 years ago — laid the foundation for the American Civil
War.
Complex issues of slavery, state’s rights, sectionalism,
expansionism and federalism combined to fracture the fabric of preexisting
political parties.
The once dominant Democratic party split into Northern
and Southern factions. Components of the Whig and American (or Know Nothing)
parties usually turned to either the newly-formed Republican party or the
Constitutional Union party.
Former Whig Congressman Richard W. Thompson
of Vigo County was identified as one of America’s ablest politicians.
The
New York Times described Col. Thompson as “eloquent and patriotic throughout.”
More than any other single officeholder, he was “the voice of
Indiana.”
“He can speak longer and louder,” one reporter asserted in the
Times, “and weary himself and his audience less, than almost any man I ever
heard. He is, and has been for twenty odd years, a first rate popular
orator.”
On Sunday, Aug. 5, 1860, the Times dispatched a reporter to
attend, transcribe and publish every word of Col. Thompson’s speech at the Vigo
County Courthouse.
Another thorough report was provided following his
speech in Jeffersonville on Sept. 22.
Thompson made it clear that he was
neither for the North or the South but “for the Union.” He supported John Bell
of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, the respective presidential
and vice presidential nominees of the Constitutional Union party chosen at its
national convention in Baltimore during the week of May 9.
Thompson
blamed the Democratic party for “all the agitation over slavery.” He feared that
slavery was “a difficult and dangerous topic.” Proponents for and against
slavery were so zealous, he claimed, that patriotism barely existed.
“We
have no (Henry) Clay, (Daniel) Webster and (Andrew) Jackson to check the awful
tendency of partisan politics,” the statesman from Terre Haute
asserted.
“Under an angry Providence,” he predicted, “our Union may be
dissolved within twelve months and the Ohio turned into a river of
blood.”
There were no easy answers as to how to solve the problem.
Naively, Thompson suggested that the question of slavery should be banished from
American politics or subordinated to “greater objects of national
concern.”
Thompson served in Congress with Abraham Lincoln, the
Republican candidate for president, and John C Breckinridge of Kentucky, the
Southern Democratic Party’s nominee. He knew the two men very well and felt both
were patriots who “would not suffer the Union to be dissolved under any
contingency.”
Though he did not intend to vote for Lincoln, Col. Thompson
did not sever ties with the former Illinois congressman. “President Lincoln,”
predicted Thompson, “being a practical, common-sense man, and an old Whig, would
reject radical Republicans (and) discountenance positive prohibitory legislation
against slavery …”
Refusing to become a Democrat, he would not support,
directly or indirectly, Stephen A. Douglas, the Northern Democratic Party
candidate for president.
Though he was incorrect in his assessment of
Lincoln’s ambivalence on slavery, Thompson ultimately became one of the new
president’s closest advisers.
• Other 19th Century news notes of
interest:
On Sept. 17, 1870, a fire ravaged downtown Rockville,
destroying all buildings on the north side of the public square except the bank.
The estimated total loss was $130,000.
Among the businesses consumed by
the blaze were Thomas Jewelers; Theckerford’s Dry Goods; Hargrave’s Boot; Shoe
and Saddle Shop; Colt’s and McMillan’s Grocery and Agricultural Store; Cole’s
Millinery; Stark Bros. Drug Store; Hugh’s Dry Goods; Cox’s Stove & Tin
Store; American Express; Hays’ Grocery, G.W. Bill’s Dry Goods; and Hanna &
Green Livery.
Arson was suspected. Telegraph wires between Rockville and
Terre Haute had been cut severed before the fire.
• On Aug
2, 1875, the Wabash River was three miles wide at Terre Haute, spilling over its
banks and causing severe damage.
Houses were removed from their
foundations and floated downstream.
Some livestock and millions of
bushels of wheat were carried away. Water was within a few inches of the windows
of the waterworks company and even with the floor of the gasworks. Frantic
sandbagging kept the interior of both reasonably dry.
The Clinton wagon
bridge collapsed and floated south. All railroads, except one running between
Vincennes and Terre Haute, were unusable.
The deluge was considered the
worst flood since Terre Haute was founded as a village in 1816, surpassing the
great floods of 1828 and 1858.
• On Nov. 27, 1880, the New York
Times reported that deputy constable William Ash of Terre Haute was shot and
killed 12 miles east of the city by Elijah Pierson, whom he attempted to arrest
on a peace warrant.
• The New York Times divulged that David H.
Arnold, an importer of English goods with retail store at 53 Greene St., New
York, died at age 71 on March 17, 1885.
Born in Wittenberg, Germany June
21, 1813, Arnold settled in Terre Haute in 1834. He relocated to Manhattan in
1860, founding the firm of D. H. Arnold & Co. He retired in
1881.
Arnold was a member of the Society of Ethical
Culture
~Catherine Pulsifer~
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