Benjamin Wade: "The Man Who Almost Changed History"

Portrait of Benjamin Wade

 

Benjamin Wade: The Abolitionist Who Fought Slavery at Every Turn

Benjamin Franklin Wade didn't just oppose slavery—he made it his life's mission to destroy it. From his earliest days in politics through the Civil War and Reconstruction, Wade never wavered in his conviction that slavery was a moral evil that had to be eliminated completely.

                                                                                             

Early Anti-Slavery Advocacy

Photo of Library of Congress

Wade's partnership with Joshua Giddings, a prominent anti-slavery advocate, shaped his political identity from the start. In 1831, the two lawyers joined forces in Jefferson, Ohio, and Wade absorbed Giddings' fierce abolitionist principles. When Wade entered the Ohio State Senate in 1837, he immediately went to work trying to repeal the Black Codes that restricted African American rights. His determined anti-slavery stand cost him reelection in 1839, but he won another term in 1841.

                                                                             

                                                                  

Fighting Slavery in Washington

Wade arrived in the U.S. Senate in 1851 as an uncompromising foe of slavery expansion. He vehemently opposed the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced Northern states to return escaped slaves to their owners. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in 1854, opening western territories to slavery, Wade was so incensed that he left the Whig Party and helped organize the Republican Party in Ohio.

Wade's opposition to slavery wasn't just rhetorical—he was willing to fight physically if necessary. After a Southern senator witnessed and approved an assault on abolitionist Charles Sumner, Wade challenged Southern senators to personal combat. He, Zachariah Chandler, and Simon Cameron made a pact to respond to any insult from a Southerner with a duel challenge.

Wartime Action Against Slavery

When the Civil War began, Wade used his position as chairman of the Committee on Territories to abolish slavery in all federal territories in 1862. This was a critical step toward total emancipation. He also helped pass the Homestead Act of 1862, which provided land to settlers and undermined the plantation system.

Wade was furious with Lincoln's cautious approach to slavery. In September 1861, he privately wrote that Lincoln's views on slavery "could only come of one born of poor white trash and educated in a slave State." He was especially angry when Lincoln delayed recruiting Black soldiers into the Union Army. Wade advocated for the immediate emancipation and arming of enslaved people, as well as the execution of Confederate leaders and confiscation of their property.

The Wade-Davis Bill

Wade's most significant legislative effort to reshape the post-slavery South was the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. Co-authored with Representative Henry Winter Davis, the bill demanded complete abolition of slavery and required Confederate states to give Black men the right to vote before being readmitted to the Union. The legislation called for far stricter conditions than Lincoln's lenient "Ten Percent Plan." While the bill passed both houses of Congress, Lincoln pocket-vetoed it, preferring his more moderate approach.

Fighting for Freedmen's Rights

Wade didn't stop fighting after slavery ended. He supported the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bills, successfully extending civil rights protections to the District of Columbia. He was a strong advocate for the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship and equal protection to formerly enslaved people. Wade also pushed for Nebraska and Kansas statehood, strengthening the Republican majority in Congress.

When Andrew Johnson became president and pursued lenient reconstruction policies, Wade became his harshest critic. He argued that Johnson represented "the tyrannical slave power" and accused him of being "the lineal successor of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis." Wade's vision for reconstruction included both economic and social transformation of the South through free labor, where Black and white Americans would "finally occupy a platform according to their merits."

A Lasting Legacy

Wade remained bitter about the betrayal of Reconstruction principles until his death. When President Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877, Wade wrote that he felt "indignation and a bitterness of soul that I never felt before." He declared that "to have emancipated these people and then to leave them unprotected would be a crime as infamous as to have reduced them to slavery once they are free."

Benjamin Wade died on March 2, 1878, having devoted his entire political career to abolishing slavery and securing rights for African Americans. His uncompromising stance cost him politically, but placed him on the right side of history.

Disclaimer: I used Claude AI for my information and research and added pictures.