When the subject of Northerners supporting the Confederacy comes up in conversation, everyone remembers Clement L. Vallandigham. An Ohio member of the U.S. House, Vallandigham opposed the Republican party and the prosecution of the war against the South. Vallandigham charged Lincoln with destroying the Constitution and civil liberties. Although not in the army, he was arrested by military authorities, tried and found guilty by a military commission, and sentenced to imprisonment. Lincoln commuted his sentence, and he was banished to the Confederacy. Yet there was another Northern politician before Vallandigham, one who faced expulsion: Jesse D. Bright.
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| US Senator Jesse D. Bright |
Prior to 1861, only
one US Senator had been expelled. That was Tennessee’s William Blount in 1797.
Several senators were “expelled” in 1861 for supporting the Confederacy,
although many of these had already resigned. Samuel Bright found himself in a similar
position in early 1862.
Bright was born in
Norwich, New York, in 1812. He studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1831,
setting up his practice in Madison, Indiana. In 1834, Bright was elected judge
of the probate court of Jefferson County; United States Marshal for the
district of Indiana; a member of the Indiana Senate, 1841-1843; and Lieutenant
Governor of Indiana from 1843 to 1845 when he was elected a member of the
United States Senate. One source stated that Bright was “a Buchanan adherent,
unpopular with many Democrats.” Yet he was also the Democratic party boss of
Indiana in the 1850s. His support of James Buchanan over Stephen Douglas led to
his unpopularity within the state. In the US Senate, he was president pro
tempore in 1854, 1856, and 1860, and was in conflict with Charles Sumner. While
president pro tempore, he “saw to it that Sumner received no committee
assignments.”[1]
In a series of
letters to his friend William H. English, a Representative in the US House, Bright
provided a glimpse into the thoughts of many in those turbulent weeks of late
1860 and early 1861. On December 20, 1860, he wrote that President Buchanan’s
message “was a more conservative paper than was generally expected. . . The radicals
are not at all pleased with its tone, while the more conservative practical
minded men here [Washington, DC] think it means the cold shoulder to the Fire
& Sword branch of the Republican party. . . There is some talk I understand
of their expelling me on account of my known disloyalty. Let it come. I have
got so that I believe nothing I read and am not surprised at anything that
takes place.”[2]
Bright saw three
groups contending for power. The first were the “extreme wing of the
Republicans, known generally as Abolitionists, and representing the sentiment
of the New England States, are for a war of subjugation as they term it, and
the total abolition of slavery, which they believe can be accomplished by the
march of the Army. . . through or over the States that have declared themselves
out of the Union.” The second group was known as the “Administration party” who
were “a more conservative class, who oppose this extreme policy.” The third group was “in favor of furnishing
the Government with all the aid that is necessary to defend the capital of the
United States against any and every enemy that may threaten to assail it, but who
are not willing to vote either men or money to invade the states that have
formally declared themselves out of the Union, until every effort to secure
peace and an honorable adjustment has been exhausted. There are a great many
who do not believe that all efforts have been exhausted; and I am free to admit
that I am one of that number.”[3]
In August 1861, a
letter that Bright wrote to his former senate colleague, Jefferson Davis, had
come to light. The letter was found in the possession of Thomas B. Lincoln, a
pre-war client and citizen of Texas who was arrested in Cincinnati on the
charge of treason. The letter in question was dated March 1, 1861, and was
written from Washington, D.C.: “To his Excellency Jefferson Davis, president of
the Confederate States: My Dear Sir:- Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance
my friend, Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas. He visits your capital mainly to
dispose of what he regards a great improvement in fire arms. I commend him to
your favorable consideration as a gentlemen of the first respectability, and as
reliable in every respect. Very truly yours, Jesse D. Bright.” The press went wild. “Hon. Jesse D. Bright
Implicated” read one New York newspaper. “One Traitor Arrested and Another
Discovered” read an Ohio newspaper. The paper in Evansville considered Bright “one
of the meanest, most bigoted and ignorant of the old clique of Senatorial
traitors-one of the most cringing lickspittle sycophants of Jeff. Davis,
Slidell & Co., he is a ‘peace man’ at this time.” And then a few days
later, wrote that Bright “Having long enjoyed the offices and emoluments of the
gallant Hooiser State, now that she has nothing further to offer him, he may be
safely set down as her enemy. We hope he will be arrested and tained [sic
retained?] as a traitor.”[4]
Given Bright’s position
regarding the Lincoln administration and his past entanglements with Republican
senators, his time in the senate was limited. On December 16, 1861, Sen. Morton
Wilkinson introduced a resolution to expel Bright over the letter to Davis. The
resolution was referred to the Judiciary Committee. On January 6, 1862, when
the Senate was considering the eligibility of new members, Sumner remarked that
the senate was “at this moment engaged in considering the loyalty of certain
members.” While not directing his comments toward Bright, Bright answered
Sumner: “The Senator from Massachusetts remarked that the Senate were now
engaged in examining into the loyalty of certain members of this body. I
suppose he alluded to me. I am in that category, and the examination is based
on three lines that it is alleged I wrote in a letter to a friend of mine. . .
[Before the beginning of the War.] The objectionable feature is that I
addressed Jefferson Davis as president of the confederate states. In that I was
but following the example of Senators upon this floor who, day after day, spoke
and addressed him by that title at that time; yet no exception was taken to
that.” Bright then complained that the committee was moving too slow in their investigation.
“I have done nothing that I would not do over again under the same
circumstance, and that I am not prepared to defend here as elsewhere,” Bright
concluded.[5]
On January 13,
1862, the Judiciary Committee reported that the facts charged against Senator Bright
were not sufficient to warrant his expulsion from the Senate, and it was their
recommendation that the Wilkinson Resolution should not pass. However, the
Radicals would not be appeased, and Wilkerson continued to hammer away,
denouncing any that “aided or abetted the South.”[6]
Bright’s trial in
the senate began on January 20, 1862, continuing sporadically until February 5.
Sumner compared Bright and others to Catiline, Aaron Burr, and Benedict Arnold.
Andrew Johnson slammed Bright for being in league with John C. Breckinridge and
other disloyal senators. Others somewhat sheepishly came to Bright’s defense. Senator
Edgar Cowan believed that the question revolved around treason. “Technically,
it was not treason. Mr. Bright was. . . simply being expelled because he held
political doctrines which were not palatable to the majority of the Senate. . .”[7]
In his defense, Bright simply stated that “From the hour
this war actually commenced I have had in view. . . one single object-the
reunion of these States.” To Andrew Johnson, he begged: “Point me to the road
that leads to peace, the restoration of the Union, making us one Government,
with one flag, not a star effaced, and I will travel it with you as long as
there is a gleam of light to guide me on such a path; and, forgetting and
forgiving, I would even consent to take as a traveling companion, with all his
heresies, the Senator from Massachusetts. . .”[8]
After finishing his
remarks, and given the Republican majority in the Senate, Bright gathered his
belongings from his desk and walked out the senate chamber. A few moments
later, the Senate voted, 32 to 14, to expel Jesse D. Bright. While other U.S.
Senators have been censured, and expulsion proceedings undertaken, Jesse D. Bright
was the last senator to be expelled from the U.S. Senate.[9]
Returning to
Indiana, Bright sought to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate. The Democratic
state senate refused. Shortly thereafter, his property in Port Fulton, Indiana,
was confiscated without compensation and became the Jefferson General Hospital,
the third largest hospital in the North during the war. Bright moved to
Covington, Kentucky, was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from
1867 to 1871, president of the Raymond City Coal Company, and in 1874, moved to
Baltimore, Maryland, where he died in 1875.
Was Bright sympathetic to the Confederates, or was he simply a moderate who fell victim to the radicals in Congress? The Daily State Sentinel, the organ of the Democratic Party in Indiana, believed the latter, writing that “A party [Republican] intoxicated with the possession of power, influence by political prejudices and animosity, has stricken down freedom of opinion and freedom of speech in the person of a Senator. It is of but little if any consequence. . . whether Mr. Bright occupies a seat in the Senate or retires to private life; but it is of vital importance. . . that this outrage upon the most valued prerogatives of a citizen. . . should be properly rebuked.”[10]
[1] Gray,
The Hidden Civil War: the Story of Copperheads, 70; “Some Letters of
Jesse D. Bright to William H. English,” Indiana Magazine of History, (December
1934): 370; “Expulsion Case of Jesse D. Bright of Indiana,” https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/expulsion/040JesseBright_expulsion.htm
[2] “Some
Letters of Jesse D. Bright to William H. English,” Indiana Magazine of
History, (December 1934): 385.
[4] The
Buffalo Commercial, August 20, 1861; Evansville Daily Journal,
August 21, 1861, August 23, 1861; Belmont Chronicle, August 22, 1861.
[5] “Some
Letters of Jesse D. Bright to William H. English,” Indiana Magazine of
History, (December 1934): 389.
[6] Murphy,
The Political Career of Jesse D. Bright, 140.
[7] Murphy,
The Political Career of Jesse D. Bright, 141.
[8] Murphy,
The Political Career of Jesse D. Bright, 144.
[9] “Expulsion
Case of Jesse D. Bright of Indiana,”
https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/expulsion/040JesseBright_expulsion.htm
[10] Daily
State Journal, February 7, 1862.
Excellent informative article!
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