Joshua Reed Giddings

Joshua Reed Giddings (October 6, 1795 – May 27, 1864) was an American statesman prominent in the anti-slavery conflict.

He was born at Tioga Point, now Athens, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, on 6 October, 1795. In 1806 his parents, Joshua and Elizabeth Pease Giddings, moved the family to Ashtabula County, Ohio, then sparsely settled and almost a wilderness. Here they settled on Ohio's Western Reserve, where Giddings lived for most of the rest of his life. It was perhaps here that Giddings had his first stirrings of passion for antislavery, as the Reserve was widely famous for its radicalism.

Giddings worked on his father's farm and, although he received no systematic education, devoted much time to study and reading. For several years after 1814 he was a schoolteacher, but in February 1821 he was admitted to the Ohio bar and soon obtained a large practice, particularly in criminal cases. From 1831 to 1837 he was in partnership with Benjamin F. Wade, a future U.S. Senator. The Panic of 1837, in which Giddings lost a great deal of money, caused him to cease practicing law, but indirectly led to his decision to run for federal office.

Giddings served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1826-1828, and from December 1838 until March 1859 was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing first Ohio's Sixteenth District until 1843 and then Ohio's Twentieth District until 1859. Giddings ran first as a Whig, then as a Free-soiler, next as a candidate of the Opposition Party, and finally as a Republican.

Recognizing that slavery was a state institution, with which the Federal government had no authority to interfere, he contended that slavery could only exist by a specific state enactment, that therefore slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories was unlawful and should be abolished, that the coastwise slave-trade in vessels flying the national flag, like the international slave-trade, should be rigidly suppressed, and that Congress had no power to pass any act which in any way could be construed as a recognition of slavery as a national institution.

His attitude in the so-called Creole Case attracted particular attention, particularly since it was so closely associated with struggles by antislavery Congressmen to repeal the notorious "gag rule barring antislavery petitions," a campaign led in the House of representatives by ex-President John Quincy Adams. In 1841 some slaves who were being carried in the brig "Creole" from Richmond and Hampton Roads, Virginia, to New Orleans, revolted, wounded the captain and killed one of the white overseers, gained possession of the vessel, and soon afterwards entered the British port of Nassau. Thereupon, according to British law, they were set free. However, the minority who had taken an active part in the revolt were arrested on a charge of murder, and the remaining were liberated. Efforts were made by the United States government to recover the slaves; Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, asserting that on an American ship they were under the jurisdiction of the U.S. and that they were legally property.

On March 21, 1842, before the case was settled, Giddings introduced in the House of Representatives a series of resolutions, in which he asserted that in resuming their natural rights of personal liberty the slaves violated no law of the U.S. For offering these resolutions Giddings was attacked with rancor, and was formally censured by the House. Thereupon he resigned, appealed to his constituents, and was immediately reelected by a large majority. Gidding's return to Congress with the tremendous support of his district was a good sign that antislavery voices were not to be stifled, and that sectional disputes could not be prevented. As further proof that antislavery voices were being heard, the "gag rule" was repealed three years thereafter.

Giddings' daughter Lura Maria, an active Garrisonian, convinced her father to attend the Garrisonian meetings, rallying his antislavery notions even further. Influenced by the Garrisonians, in the 1850's, Garrison identified with perfectionism, spiritualism, and religious radicalism. He claimed that his antislavery sentiments were based on a higher, natural law, rather than merely on the Constitution. Taking this new view very seriously, Giddings called the caning of Senator Sumner a crime "against the most vital principles of the Constitution, against the Government itself, against the sovereignty of Massachusetts, against the people of the United States, against Christianity and civilization."

Giddings often used violent language, and did not hesitate to encourage bloodshed. He talked about the justice of a slave insurrection and the duty of Northerners to fully support said insurrection. Giddings took a stand against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and even advised runaways to shoot at their potential captors.

Giddings went on to lead Congressional opposition by free state politicians to any further expansion of slavery, condemning the annexation of Texas (1846), the Mexican War (1846-8), the 1850 Compromises and the Kansas Nebraska Act(1854). Following the war with Mexico, Giddings cast the only ballot against a resolution of thanks to Zachary Taylor.

His hatred of slavery led Giddings to abandon his initial allegiance to the Whig party for the "Free-Soil party" (1848) and in 1854-5 he became one of the leading founders of the Republican party. Giddings campaigned for John C. Fremont and Abraham Lincoln, even though Giddings and Lincoln disagreed over extreme antislavery. Throughout his life, Giddings was active in the Underground Railroad and was widely known (and condemned) for his egalitarian racial beliefs and actions.

In 1859 he was not renominated, and retired from Congress after a continuous service of more than twenty years. From 1861 until his death, at Montreal, on the 27th of May 1864, he was U.S. consul general in Canada. Giddings published a series of political essays signed Pacificus (1843); "Speeches in Congress" (1853); "The Exiles of Florida" (1858); and a "History of the Rebellion: Its Authors and Causes" (1864).

See "The Life of Joshua R. Giddings" (Chicago, 1892), by his son-in-law, George Washington Julian (1817-1899), a Free-soil leader and a representative in Congress in 1849-1851, a Republican representative in Congress in 1861-1871, a Liberal Republican in the campaign of 1872, and afterwards a Democrat and more recently, James brewer Stewart, " Joshua R. Giddings and the Tactics of radical Politics" [Cleveland, 1970]

Literature

* Buel, "Joshua R. Giddings" (Cleveland, 1882)
* Julian, "Life of Joshua R. Giddings" (Chicago, 1892)
* Stewart, " Joshua R. Giddings and the tactics of radical Politics"

References

*1911

ee also

*Joshua R. Giddings Law Office National Historic Landmark

External links