Rutherford B. Hayes moved to Cincinnati as the calendar flipped to 1850. The timing of his move coincided with a debate in Congress that proved eminently consequential for the unity of the nation. Coming out of the debates over the annexation of Texas and the lands ceded from Mexico, uneasiness increased between the North and the South over the questions of slavery. This was compounded by Southern distaste for the Prigg v. Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision which allowed for the North to provide no assistance in retrieving freedom seekers in their states. To quell these tensions, and perhaps end the debate, Whig Henry Clay, and eventually Democrat Stephen Douglas, worked to develop a set of compromises. These included the admission of California as a free state and outlawing the slave trade in Washington D.C. But, the most consequential of the compromises was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.
As Historian Eric Foner comments, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was “the most powerful exercise of federal authority within the United States in the whole era before the Civil War.” This law required the North to return freedom seekers to the South with federal oversight. It denied a freedom seeker their rights to a jury trial and instead placed the case before a commissioner who was provided $10 to provide a verdict for the individual’s removal to the South or a $5 stipend for declaring the individual free. The South’s support for this act highlighted the extent to which Southern arguments about “states’ rights” were insincere since they were willing to use the federal government to seize freedom seekers in the North.[1]
The extent that the Fugitive Slave Act exposed cleavages in what historians call the “second party system” is exemplified in the state of Ohio. Both parties understood the growing anti-slavery sentiment within the state, and that topic muted other political tension points. Hayes understood this point very clearly. In 1852 he noted, “Politics is no longer the topic of this country. Its important questions are settled…Government no longer has its ancient importance…the real grounds of difference upon important political questions no longer correspond with party lines.”[2]
Instead, the nation was moving towards a sectional, North versus South, divide. Hayes noted:
“The progressive Whig is nearer in sentiment to the radical Democrat than the radical Democrat is to the “fogy” of his own party; vice versa.”
He made the astute argument that the partly lines were no longer compatible as they once were. Instead, slavery was moving Northern Whigs and Northern Democrats closer. The same was happeni
ng in the South.
The beginnings of this divide within the party lines was evident in Hayes’s thinking in 1850 as Whig Daniel Webster vocally supported the Fugitive Slave Act. Hayes felt disappointed in his own political hero: “There is much discussion in the political circles as to Mr. Webster's recent movements on the slavery questions. I am one of those who admire his genius but have little confidence in his integrity. I regret that he has taken a course so contrary to that which he has hitherto pursued on this subject.”[3] Image: Daniel Webster
He showed no interest in politics as a result. He wrote to his uncle that he had “no desire to figure in political life, at least not as I now view such things, I do not care about making much effort as a political speaker.” He declared, therefore, in 1852, “But enough of politics. Henceforth I am out more than ever.”[4]
But that sojourn away from political topics did not last long. The very next year he actively engaged in defending individuals who fled the institution of slavery—openly combating the Fugitive Slave Act. Later in life, he argued that he was consistently engaged in the topic of helping freedom seekers.
In the next entry, we will begin our discussion on Hayes’s involvement as a lawyer defending freedom seekers. First, by considering the different interpretations of why he gave his services to the call.
[1] PBS Resource Bank, Africans in America, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4i3094.html, retrieved on April 17, 2023. . This is important to note because of later arguments that the war was fought over states’ rights, and not slavery. The Fugitive Slave Law provides some evidence that the South was not truly concerned with states’ rights; it was about their rights to own slaves.
[2] RBH Journal, September 24, 1852, HPLM.
[3] RBH Journal, May 11, 1850, HPLM
[4] RBH Journal, September 24, 1852, HPLM.