Last updated: September 26, 2024
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Anti-Secessionist Jefferson Davis at Faneuil Hall
On October 11, 1858, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis took to the stage in the Great Hall of Faneuil Hall. Here he spoke against the secession of southern states and defended the Union. However, he also attempted to connect the legacy of the space to his argument that the United States should be a nation based on states' rights, and particularly the right of owning enslaved people. His views directly contrasted those of Boston abolitionists who referenced the nation's founding ideals shaped in this Hall while they advocated for the end of slavery.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Background to the Speech
The 1850s featured fierce political debates, with Davis playing a central role. As a veteran of the Mexican War and having served as Secretary of War, Davis gained the reputation of a Unionist committed to preserving slavery. Davis supported the Union so long as the power of slave owning states in the federal government remained unchallenged. These views guided him as he navigated the tense political climate. Davis's speech at Faneuil Hall marked the only time the future Confederate president spoke in the heart of an abolitionist leaning city.
The 1858 elections reflected the growing tension in the nation. Republicans, dedicated to halting the expansion of slavery, continued to gain national influence. Southern political leaders grew more vocal about leaving the United States if a Republican won the election. In late 1858, the Democratic party remained the last national political party binding the rural slave-owning South to those with manufacturing interests in the North.[1] Massachusetts, the center of abolition in the nation, maintained strong ties to the slave holding South with its immense textile industry. Local Democratic party officials reflected this complicated relationship.
Traveling to Boston
Davis traveled to New England in 1858 to recover from an illness. He used his time in New England to enhance his image through local speeches and meeting with members of the public. Davis's interactions with New Englanders drew attention in newspapers as far away as Iowa.[2] That summer, he received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College. He spoke in Portland, Maine in July, praising the Union. "Our Constitution," said Davis,
stands a monument of principle, of forecast, and, above all, of that liberality which made each willing to sacrifice local interest, individual prejudice or temporary good to the general welfare, and the perpetuity of the Republican institutions which they had passed through fire and blood to secure.[3]
After spending the summer in Maine recovering, he started his return journey. However, his son fell ill while traveling, so Davis and his family stopped in Boston. Democratic Party leaders in the city, who held similar political views as Davis, requested the Senator from Mississippi to join a series of talks at Faneuil Hall to discuss the upcoming election.[4]
Boston Public Library
Inviting Davis to speak at Faneuil Hall held important symbolic meaning. As a center of the American Revolution, Massachusetts colonists had first resisted British policies during Boston's town meetings held at the Hall in the 1760s. By the early 1800s the Great Hall had been commonly recognized as the "Cradle of Liberty."[5] Northerners and Southerners took pride in the nation's history symbolized in the space, although by the 1850s they interpreted it in drastically different ways.
Abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, had defied slavery and the return of freedom seekers under the federal fugitive slave laws since the 1840s, organizing gatherings in the Great Hall. Bostonians protested to protect fugitives George Latimer and Anthony Burns in the Great Hall. While abolitionists saw the "Cradle of Liberty" as a symbol of defending the liberties and rights for all, southerners and supporters of slavery, including Davis, saw it as defending the rights of property and enslaving people. The Union was permanent as long as no serious threat existed to the institution of slavery.
Davis' Speech
On the evening of October 11, 1858, Massachusetts Democratic leaders introduced Davis to the gathered crowd. Davis's speech began with a reflection on the founders, but it quickly descended into a diatribe against what he called "Northern fanaticism." His speech culminated with an unapologetic attachment to slavery. Underlying his entire argument was his claim that the founding generation established the United States under the basis of states' rights. [6]
Original Portrait by John Singleton Copley. NPS Photo.
Davis's address wove the history of the American Revolution with an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Gesturing to the portraits of Adams and Hancock, Davis stated:
And here, too, you have, to remind you, and to remind all who enter this hall, the portraits of those men who are dear to every lover of liberty, and part and parcel of the memory of every American citizen. Highest among them all I see you have placed Samuel Adams and John Hancock. You have placed them the highest and properly; for they were the two, the only two, excepted from the proclamation of mercy, when Governor Gage issued his anathema against them and their fellow patriots.[7]
To Davis, Samuel Adams and John Hancock represented American heroes who saw the "necessity of community independence" as they envisioned Massachusetts independence. Davis cast Faneuil Hall as the location where colonists defended their version of "states' rights" from British officials. He claimed the framers of the Constitution's highest intent had also been the protection of property and states' rights, specifically the right to enslave people.[8] Using the terms "states' rights" and "property rights," Davis's argument embodied the political philosophy protecting slavery in the 1850s. Having linked states' rights to revolutionary liberty and the Constitution, Davis condemned "criminals" advocating to abolish slavery. In Davis's depiction, anti-slavery advocates were anti-American and should be suppressed to preserve the Union.
Davis dismissed the moral arguments against slavery. Referring to anti-slavery agitators, Davis condemned public officials in Massachusetts who refused to enforce the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law:
Among culprits there is none more odious to my mind than a public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution—the compact between the States binding each for the common defense and general welfare of the other—yet retains to himself a mental reservation that he will war upon the principles he has sworn to maintain.[9]
Davis reduced the slavery debate to religious posturing by moralists. Turning religious arguments against slavery upside down, he stated that the true Christians were slave owners.[10] Davis justified bondage, using a common racist argument in the 1800s. According to Davis and other supporters of slavery, enslavers brought Christianity and civilization to African Americans, thereby benefiting humanity.
Davis concluded his address with a stark warning against electing Republicans. To Davis, electing a Republican president would lead to national calamity and be a cause for secession. Davis placed the responsibility upon Northern citizens to ensure that anti-slavery politicians never gained national power. "Men may be driven by infringements on their rights," stated Davis, "I therefore plead with you to arrest a fanaticism which has been evil in the beginning and must be evil in the end."[11]
The Aftermath
Davis's speech, while covered in the Boston Transcript, drew more attention nationally. Newspapers in the North generally ignored Davis's defense of slavery, instead focusing on his patriotic themes. The Akron, Ohio, Summit County Beacon, reported Davis as promoting a spirit of nationalism akin to Daniel Webster, calling for a strong national government and speaking as a presidential candidate.[12] Southern papers criticized Davis for daring to offer praise to Northern society. The Charleston Mercury called Davis a "Union Mormon." Davis, said the Mercury, heaped disgusting praise on the Union, after increasing slavery agitation in the Congress by the Republicans.[13]
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
From Davis's perspective, his words rang true in the 1860 presidential election. Voters elected a new President of the United States: Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion. Following Lincoln's election, Southern political leaders decided leaving the United States was the only way to guarantee the protection of slavery. Davis joined the secession movement and resigned from the Senate. Mississippi and ten other Southern states seceded from the United States between December 1860 and April 1861. To lead these seceded states, Southern officials elected Jefferson Davis as the President of the new Confederate States of America.
Despite Davis's efforts at framing Massachusetts as a state's rights bastion, the Commonwealth proved one of the most dedicated to the Union cause. In 1861, U.S. soldiers were barracked in Faneuil Hall, where Davis had spoken less than three years earlier, before going to fight the Confederacy.[14] In 1863, African American soldiers began enlisting in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment on Beacon Hill. These Massachusetts soldiers and civilians played a critical role in ending slavery and redefining the meaning of freedom in the United States.
Footnotes
[1] James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 30-33.
[2] "Floating Items," The Daily Gate City, October 15, 1858, 2.
[3] "Speech at the Portland of the Serenade July 9, 1858," Project Gutenberg eBook of Speeches of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, The Project Gutenberg, accessed May 5, 2024.
[4] "Democratic Meeting at Faneuil Hall," Boston Evening Transcript, October 12, 1858, 4.
[5] National Park Service, "Faneuil Hall, 'The Cradle of Liberty,'" February 6, 2024.
[6] "Jefferson Davis Speech in Boston: Faneuil Hall October 11, 1858," Rice University The Papers of Jefferson Davis from Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist ed. Dunbar Rowland, volume 3, p. 315-332, Rice University.
[7] "Jefferson Davis Speech in Boston," Rice University.
[8] "Democratic Meeting at Faneuil Hall," Boston Evening Transcript, October 12, 1854, 4.
[9] "Jefferson Davis Speech in Boston," Rice University.
[10] "Jefferson Davis Speech in Boston," Rice University.
[11] ”Democratic Meeting in Faneuil Hall,” Boston Evening Transcript.
[12] "How a Fire Eater Talks to New England Democrats," The Summit County Beacon Akron OH, October 27, 1858.
[13] "Hon. Jefferson Davis a Union Mormon," The Nashville Patriot, October 23, 1858, 2.
[14] ”Massachusetts Soldiers in Boston,” The Boston Evening Transcript, April 17, 1861, 2.