Part II.

1 The Great Edward Baker

His audiences were to him as a great organ under the fingers of a master. He called from dull natures,
from cold hearts, unsuspected sweetness, and lifted high natures into altitudes of lofty feeling.2
That the Pacific Coast states and territories did not secede from
the Union during the Civil war, was due in large measure to the efforts
of Abraham Lincolns close life-time friend and collaborator, Edward
Dickinson Baker, for it was Baker who played a crucial role in San
Francisco in the 1850's, and as U.S. Senator from Oregon in 1861. The
secession threat on the west coast was very real, and was organized by
the same forces instigating secession in the South and elsewhere in the
country. The conspiracy of southern governors and senators included
those on the west coast, as did the street level operations like the
Knights of the Golden Circle. Most history books make little or no
mention of the west coast, either of the danger at the outset of the war,
or the fact that California eventually contributed 17,000 troops, vast
amounts of gold, and the greatest contributions to the Sanitary
Commission3 of any state.
Bakers leadership, however, was not confined to his role in
saving the union. In every one of his public orations, campaign
speeches, Congressional speeches and courtroom arguments he sought
Edward Dickinson Baker
to educate the souls of the listeners. He spoke extemporaneously,
never using notes, but his impassioned speeches were always thoroughly composed and at the highest level.
People who heard him speak say that only a faint glimmer of the power of his words can be attained by
reading written transcripts. On one occasion, Baker agreed to substitute for Thomas Starr King at the last
minute, on a lecture on the life and death of Socrates. He continued playing billiards in his hotel until the
time of the lecture, a lecture which was said to be brilliant. Asked how he did that, he replied that he had
made the life of Socrates a study from his youth, and needed no preparation. I was already primed, and
wanted a chance, he said.

California on the Eve of the Civil War

In 1859 a bill passed in the California State Assembly to split off the
sparsely populated southern portion of the state and form the Territory
of Colorado. It passed the Senate, was signed into law by Governor
Weller, and approved by a majority of voters in a referendum. The
referendum was on the ballot at the same election at which the proUnion Broderick Democrats and Baker Republicans were both crushed,
and Broderick was assassinated a week later. If approved by Congress,
1

See part 1, David Broderick, A Relentless Fighter

T. W. Davenport, Slavery in Oregon Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, volume IX, p 346.
3
Forerunner to the Red Cross

the new territory would have given the southern slavocracy, once the Arizona Territory joined the
Confederacy, a continuous course to the Pacific.
California Senator William Gwin was operating as part of the conspiracy of southern senators. In a
speech in the U.S. Senate, in December 1859, he made a forecast, obviously based on personal knowledge,
that the Southern states would take possession of all the government establishments that are within their
borders, as in my judgment they will, in the event of the election of a Republican President, before his
installation, adding that By waiting they put themselves in the power of the federal Government; but by
preparing for the event in advance they put it out of the power of any government on the face of the earth to
inflict on them what they conceive to be a serious or fatal injury. He also noted that California and Oregon
had not seen the Republican victories recently seen in the East, i.e., that they would not go against the
south.4 Senator Joe Lane of Oregon was also a pro-Southern fanatic, who would be nominated as running
mate on the Presidential ticket of John Breckinridge the following year.
When Jefferson Davis, in February 1860, drafted a series of resolutions in the United States Senate
proclaiming that states rights and slavery were guaranteed by the Constitution, the Pacific Representatives
voted for them. At the Democratic National Convention in 1860, which split over the platform on the issue
of slavery in the territories, the California and Oregon delegates voted with the southerners, the only free
state delegates to do so. Ex-Governor Weller, at a campaign event in October stated: I do not know
whether Lincoln will be elected or not; but I do know that if he is elected, and attempts to carry out his
doctrine, the south will surely withdraw from the union; and I should consider them less than men if they
did not.5 Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, in 1858, had said of California and Oregon, there is no
antagonism between the South and those countries and never will be."6
California Congressman Burch declared that he was in favor of the Union, but should the Union be
dissolved he favored a Pacific Republic. He also asserted that all of the representatives in Congress from
Oregon, Washington, and Arizona supported secession, and that Latham, just elected Senator, also favored
it. Charles Scott, Californias other Congressman, wrote, "If this Union is divided, and two separate
confederacies are formed, I will strenuously advocate the secession of California and the establishment of a
separate Republic on the Pacific Slope." Scott later joined the Confederate Army.
Disloyal associations and companies emerged all over the state, being strongest in the southern
counties. The Bear Flag, emblem of California before statehood, became a symbol of disloyalty, and was
flown in Los Angeles, Sonoma, San Bernardino, Stockton, and other places. Palmetto flags from South
Carolina were raised even in San Francisco.
Influential newspapers supported the secession movement. The Tulare Post denounced loyal guards as
"bloodhounds of Zion," and incited such hostility against the United States troops stationed near its office
that some of the papers readers assaulted a small detachment of soldiers and killed two of them. Charles R.
Street, editor of the Marysville Express, conducted an exchange or clearing- house for correspondence
between disloyalists in all parts of California.
In January 1860, the new legislature convened in Sacramento. There were bitter debates, in which
extreme secession sentiments were uttered. Assemblyman Crittenden from El Dorado asserted that there
were thirty thousand men ready to take up arms in the event of the secession of the Southern States if the
Federal Government attempted to enforce its laws in California. Relying on the assurances of Gwin and
others, the treasonous Floyd, Buchanans Secretary of War, sent seventy five-thousand musket sets to
California for just such use as Mr. Crittendens men were ready to make of them, such use as the Charleston
men made of the United States muskets which Floyd sent for safe storage there where the rebellion began.
4

Cong Globe 36th Congress, part 1 pp.124-126.

Winfield Davis, History of Political Conventions in California, p 127
6
Ibid 35th Congress, 1st session p. 70
5

After Lincolns election, when Gwin returned to Washington, Buchanan was still President, and Floyd
still Secretary of War. Within a month, on January 15, 1861, orders from the War department were received
in San Francisco, relieving the two loyal officers in command of the departments of the Pacific, and
consolidating them into one command under the Kentuckian Colonel/General Albert Sidney Johnston.
The Federal office holders postmasters, mail carriers, customs officials, marshals, judges, and
numerous minor officials were generally in sympathy with the South, having received their jobs through
Gwin, and over whom Gwin maintained a system of espionage. The state officers and most of their
subordinates were of the same mind, along with nearly half the members of the legislature. And now, as
the crisis was intensifying, the Regular Army, with its control of the fortifications, garrisons, and munitions
of war, was turned over to an officer most likely recommended by Gwin.
Soon after Lincoln took office, at Bakers urging, General Johnston was relieved, and General E. V.
Sumner took command of the Pacific forces. This occurred on April 24th, 1861, the day the news of Fort
Sumter arrived in San Francisco. General Johnston left California and proceeded to Texas, where he
became a leading general in the Confederate Army.

General Sumner Takes Command

In his first report to Washington, General Sumner stated: There is a strong Union feeling with the
majority of the people of this state, but the secessionists are much the most active and zealous party, which
gives them more influence than they ought to have from their numbers. I have no doubt there is some deep
scheming to draw California into the secession movement, in the first place as the Republic of the
Pacific, expecting afterwards to induce her to join the Southern
Confederacy.7 Sumner summoned troops and equipment from Vancouver,
Washington and Oregon to San Francisco, and ordered a detachment to Fort
Alcatraz. He reported to Washington: I have found it necessary to
withdraw the troops from Ft. Mojave and place them at Los Angeles. There
is more danger of disaffection at this place than any other in the state. 8
On May 7th Captain Winfield Scott Hancock, commanding at Los
Angeles, reported, The Bear Flag was raised at El Monte, twelve miles
distant, on the 4th instant. The escort was, say forty horsemen. I have, I
believe, reliable evidence that it will be raised here on Sunday, the 12th
instant, that is, that flag will be paraded through our streets under a
strong escort. 9
Meanwhile, General Sumner had ordered Company K, First Dragoons,
from
Fort Tejon to Los Angeles. Captain Hancock wrote to headquarters
General E. V. Sumner
that a new six pound gun belonging to the state was likely to end up in the
wrong hands, and asked for a gun equal or greater. Sumner reported to Washington that he was forced to
withdraw most of the garrison from Fort Umpqua, Washington Territory to reinforce the Benicia arsenal,
the Presidio of San Francisco, and Fort Point, San Francisco. More companies were brought down from
Oregon. In another report, the General said, I believe there is a large majority of Union men in this state,
but they are supine from confidence, while there is an active and zealous party of secessionists who will
make all the mischief they can.
7

Elijah R Kennedy The Contest for California in 1861, p 210, quoting Rebellion Records
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
8

In San Bernardino a company of cavalry was organized among the numerous Mormons there,
commanded by a man who had resigned from the regular army. They pretended to be loyal, but cheered
Jefferson Davis. Loyal men in Santa Barbara reported that secessionists were armed and active, and asked
for reinforcements. In June, it was reported from Fort Tejon that disloyalists were giving whiskey to the
Indians, and inciting them to trouble.
At the Breckinridge Democratic state convention in Sacramento, Edmund Randolph II, of the Virginia
Randolphs, delivered a speech denouncing the war and calling for Lincolns assassination, railing that in the
east . . . tyranny and usurpation were slaughtering our fathers, our brothers, and our sisters and
outraging our homes in every conceivable way shocking to the heart of humanity and freedom. He spoke
of states being crushed under the heel of a reckless, and odious despot, and prayed for their victories
against the usurpers, concluding, If this be rebellion, then I am a rebel. Do you want a traitor, than am I a
traitor? For Gods sake speed the ball; may the lead go quick to his heart, and may our country be free
from this despot usurper that now claims the name of President of the United States.10 This received
cheers from the audience.
On September 17th Sumner wrote to Assistant Adjutant-General Townsend: the disaffection in the
southern part of the state is increasing and becoming dangerous, and it is indispensably necessary to throw
reinforcements into that section immediately. The rebels are organizing, collecting supplies, and evidently
preparing to receive a force from Texas and the worst feature of the affair is this: they have managed to
seduce the native Californians by telling them they will be ruined by taxes to maintain the war.11
Sumner reported that the secessionists had become bolder after the news of Bull Run, and would be
worse if they elected their candidate for Governor. (They did not.) He added that there were 32,000
secession voters in the state, and many were gathering in the south, waiting to receive support from Texas.
They were very restless and zealous, which gives them great influence. They are congregating in the
southern part of the state, and it is there they expect to commence their operations against the
government.
A prominent group of merchants, bankers, lawyers and others sent a letter to Secretary of War Simon
Cameron, on August 28th 1861, stating,
A majority of our present state officials are avowed secessionists, and the balance, being
bitterly hostile to the Administration, are advocates of a peace policy at any sacrifice upon terms
that would not be rejected even by South Carolina.
Every appointment made by our governor within the past three months indicates his entire
sympathy and cooperation with those plotting to sever California from her allegiance to the
Union, and that, too, at the hazard of civil war.
About three eighths of our citizens are natives of slave-holding states and are almost a unit
in this crisis. The hatred, manifested so pointedly in the South, and so strongly evinced on the field
of battle, is no more intense there than here . . .
Our advices, obtained with great prudence and care, show us that there are about sixteen
thousand Knights of the Golden Circle in this state, and that they are still organizing even in our
most loyal districts.12
There were many disloyal plots throughout the state. A company of two hundred men, organized
ostensibly to join the Union Volunteers, their arms and equipment paid for by Union men, was found to be
10

Davis, p 173
Ibid.. p 215
12
Ibid. p 219

11

intended for the Confederate army. A clipper ship loaded with arms and ammunition, supposedly bound for
Mexicos war against Maximillian, was seized by the Navy, after its real purpose was uncovered, which
was to capture a steamer along the way, with which to capture other steamers carrying gold to the East.
This was all part of a larger scheme for pro-Confederate groups to be secretly armed, then travel to
Sacramento, cut the telegraph wires, seize the Benicia arsenal, then Fort Point and Alcatraz, and declare
California part of the Confederacy.13 The chief conspirators were arrested, convicted, imprisoned, and
heavily fined. Soon after, a plot to take the Mare Island Navy Yard was discovered, in which the plotters,
after seizing the arms, would assault San Francisco.
Meanwhile there were disloyal operations reported by Sumner in Nevada Territory, where loyal
citizens discovered that secessionists intended to seize the fort and take possession of the territory. One
citizen wrote to Sumner that we are eleven twelfths union men, but we are without arms or organization,
while the rebels have control of all the public or private arms here.14
The situation in Oregon was no better. As a territory, numerous emigrants from the south had brought
slaves with them. Besides Senator Joe Lane, the Governor and other elected officials were pro-slavery and
pro-confederacy. They had passed a law prohibiting free negroes from residing in the state. If California
and Oregon had seceded, other western territories would have been drawn in, and the government in the
East would have had no way of defending the loyal citizens.
Dr. Anson Henry, an old Illinois friend of Lincoln and Bakers residing in Oregon, who had induced
Baker to move there and run for Senate, wrote to Lincoln, There is a much stronger secession feeling in
Oregon than is generally believed. In my opinion, the election of Baker and Nesmith to the Senate, and the
consequent defeat of Breckinridge and Lane in Oregon and California in November, is all that saved this
coast from going with the south. 15

Edward Dickinson Baker

A brilliant orator, a political organizer of the highest order, a war hero, a lawyer, a Senator, a poet,
Edward Baker was the best friend and closest co-thinker Abraham Lincoln ever had. (Lincoln named his
second son, born in 1846, Edward Baker Lincoln.) He was an ardent patriot who would give his life for his
beloved United States without a second thought. In the wild days of the gold rush, he was an indispensable
leader in California. His orations at public events, the courtroom, the campaign trail elevated the cultural
and moral level of the population in incalculable ways. Without him, Lincoln would not have won
California and Oregon.
Though a Whig and then a Republican, Baker always put principle before party. He knew the
Republicans had to ally with the pro-Union Democrats to save the union, while others insisted on partisan
objectives. When he was nominated for Congress by the California Republican state convention in June of
1859, he initially declined, saying that there was for the first time in the State a majority of people opposed
to the corrupt Buchanan Administration; yet we, by standing on party punctilio, would cause the sure
defeat of our candidates, while under a little less party pride, and a little less party feeling, a result might be
effected that would in a great measure rescue the State from the Administration Democrats.
Baker prided himself that he could organize men to do anything, whether recruiting and training
military regiments, organizing the team to build the Panama Railroad, speaking at public forums, or
winning elections. His oration over the body of David Broderick became a critical means to winning over
13

H.H. Bancroft, Hist of California Vol 7 pp 287,8

Kennedy, Contest
15
Ibid.
14

the population to the cause of the Union and against slavery. In multiple ways, he was instrumental in
saving the Pacific Coast to the Union, and instilling a moral purpose in citizens far from the national center,
far from home, citizens who, though patriotic, had been besieged and disoriented by secessionist rhetoric
for a decade, and who, without the guidance of the now-dead Broderick, were in a precarious state.
Baker and his family arrived in San Francisco in June of 1852, the culmination of a lifelong westward
movement. Born in London, England, on February 24, 1811 to Quaker parents, his family moved to
Philadelphia when he was five years old. The father, a teacher, opened a school of the Lancasterian model,
designed to educate poor children. While in Philadelphia, the father took his son, known as Ned at the time,
to many of the historical sites, and instilled in him a great love of the United States. The story is related by
Bakers nephew of the day ten year old Ned burst into tears while engaged in his favorite activity, reading
the Constitution. When his mother inquired as to the cause, he sobbed that he could never become
President of the United States, because the Constitution prohibited it; but, said he, it does not say that a
foreigner can not be a senator, and I shall be one before I die.16 Another relative states that he then
denounced his parents for not emigrating before he was born!
In 1825, the Bakers were attracted to the supposed cultural and scientific community of New Harmony,
Indiana. This did not meet the expectations, and within two years they moved on to Belleville, Illinois. It
was here that Ned came under the guidance of Governor Ninian Edwards17, who gave him access to his
extensive library, and encouraged the voracious young reader. Baker,
perhaps, never had any taste for, if he ever enjoyed the opportunity of pursuing, a systematic
course of study, such as has ever been considered, by the best educators of youth, essential to the
harmonious development and proper discipline of all the intellectual faculties. But he early
manifested a strong passion for books, reading with avidity everything on which he could lay his
hands, particularly History, Biography and Poetry.18
Next the family moved to Carollton, where Moses Bledsoe took Ned under his wing, and started him
on his law career. Baker qualified at age 19, but was too young to be admitted to the bar.
The following year he married Mary Ann Lee, a 22-year-old widow with two small children. She was
a fine musician and sang very sweetly, and the Colonel(Baker-ed.) having a fine tenor voice, they sang
together, and naturally fell in love.19 Following Bledsoe, Baker joined the Disciples of Christ church,
where his talent for public speaking first became apparent. He considered becoming a preacher. Around
this time he also saw his first military service, enlisting as did Lincoln, in the Blackhawk War.
In 1835 the Bakers moved to Springfield, where he opened a law practice.
He wore a dilapidated hat of an antique pattern, and a suit of homespun jeans, loosely and
carelessly thrown about him. The pants, being some inches too short, exposed to view a pair of
coarse woolen socks, whilst his pedal appendages were encased in broad, heavy brogans, such as
were commonly worn by the stalwart backwoodsmen of the day.20
Despite his appearance, he soon became accomplished at the law and as a public speaker.
16

Reminiscences of Colonel E. D. Baker , Edward Baker Jerome, the Californian, 1880

Edwards of Kentucky, was a lifelong friend of Lincolns. His wife was Elizabeth Todd, sister of Mary Todd, later Lincoln.
Lincoln met Mary at an event at the Edwards house; they were later married there.
18
Joseph Wallace, Sketch of the Life of Edward D. Baker
19
Oscar T Shuck, ed, Masterpieces of E D Baker p 281
20
Wallace
17

On July 4th, 1837, Baker delivered the oration at the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone of the
new Illinois capitol. He had been chosen from a select group of locals, which included Abraham Lincoln,
Stephen Douglas, James McDougall, and others. He ended the speech with a sonnet.
If with the firm resolve to wear no chain,
They dare all peril, and endure all pain;
If their free spirits spurn a chain of gold,
By wealth unfettered, and to ease unsold;
If, with eternal vigilance, they tread
In the true paths of their time-honored dead
Long as the star shall deck the brow of night;
Long as the smile of woman shall be bright;
Long as the foam shall gather where the roar
Of ocean sounds upon the wave-worn shore
So long, my country, shall thy banner fly,
Till years shall cease, and time itself shall die.21
One week later, he was sworn in as the Whig Assemblyman from
Lincoln, Baker, Anson Henry
his district. Lincoln had already been a member of the Assembly since
1834, and it was here that the two men first worked closely together, serving on the same committee.
In 1840 Lincoln and Baker worked tirelessly on the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. Baker
stumped the state for Tippecanoe and Tyler too, the Whig candidates against Martin van Buren. William
Henry Harrison was elected, but Democratic Illinois went for Van Buren by a small margin. It was during
this campaign that Lincoln intervened to protect Baker from a mob.
Baker was a brilliant and effective speaker, and quite as full of courage as invective. He was
addressing a crowd in the court room which was immediately underneath Stuart and Lincoln's
office. Just above the platform on which the speaker stood was a trap door in the floor, which
opened into Lincoln's office. Lincoln at the time, as was often his habit, was lying on the floor
looking down through the door at the speaker. I was in the body of the crowd. Baker was
hot-headed and impulsive, but brave as a lion. Growing warm in his arraignment of the
Democratic party, he charged that wherever there was a land office there was a Democratic
newspaper to defend its corruptions. This angered the brother of the editor of our town paper,
who was present, and who cried out, Pull him down, at the same time advancing from the crowd
as if to perform the task himself. Baker, his face pale with excitement, squared himself for
resistance. A shuffling of feet, a forward movement of the crowd, and great confusion followed.
Just then a long pair of legs was seen dangling from the aperture above, and instantly the figure
of Lincoln dropped on the platform. Motioning with his hands for silence and not succeeding, he
seized a stone water pitcher standing near by, threatening to break it over the head of the first
man who laid hands on Baker. Hold on, gentlemen, he shouted, this is the land of free speech.
Mr. Baker has a right to speak and ought to be heard. I am here to protect him, and no man shall
take him from this stand if I can prevent it. His interference had the desired effect. Quiet was
soon restored, and the valiant Baker was allowed to proceed. I was in the back part of the crowd
that night, and an enthusiastic Baker man myself. I knew he was a brave man, and even if Lincoln
21

Ibid.
7

had not interposed, I felt sure he wouldn't have been pulled from the platform without a bitter
struggle.22
That year Baker was elected to the State Senate.
In 1844 Baker was elected to the United States Congress, the only Whig in the Illinois delegation. The
hot issue of the day was the Oregon boundary question. Baker was impassioned that it was ours all
ours, to the 54/40 line. He had stumped his district with speeches on the subject, believing we had a
destiny to possess the entire Oregon Country and the rest of the continent as well, for good measure. On
January 25, 1846, he introduced a resolution saying that the President cannot consistently, with a just
regard for the honor of the nation, offer to surrender to any foreign power any territory to which, in his
opinion, we have a clear and unquestionable title.
A few days later, when the resolution from the committee on Foreign Affairs, requesting President
Polk to notify Great Britain of the intention of the United States to terminate the joint occupation of
Oregon, and to abrogate the convention of 1827 was under consideration, Baker addressed the Committee
in a powerful speech, invoking the Monroe Doctrine, and showing why the United States could not cede
any of this territory to Britain, even at the risk of war. He exposed southern Democrats, who had formerly
supported the Oregon claims, but now were enamored of Texas and the annexation of more slave states
instead. In response to ridicule of western men with their restless spirit causing the trouble by occupying
the territory, he reminded people that it had been the policy of the Government to encourage the settlement
of the West, that these settlers bear with them the arts of civilization, and will found a western empire. He
reduced all the arguments against fighting Great Britain over Oregon to a common origin. There is an
impression among what has been called the southern wing of democracy that war would affect their
peculiar institutions that our claim to Oregon would lead to war; and, therefore, they are ready to
abandon it.
He insisted that the Monroe Doctrine,
was a statement of a great American policy; that it well became our growing importance, that
subsequent events our increase in population, in States, in commerce, in all the constituents of
greatness give it still greater authority. And I submit that this is the very case which demands its
practical application. This territory is unsettled it is on this continent it is contiguous to this
Union . . . now the wave of population breaks across the peaks of the Rocky mountains, and
mingles its spray with the Pacific; it is becoming settled, and will soon be of commercial
importance. The question is shall we permit it to remain open to foreign colonization; I say that
question should be determined, judging of us not merely as we are, but as we shall probably be . ..
I think that to abandon the principles of Mr. Monroes declaration would be to falter in the path
which Providence has marked out for us, and to prove ourselves unworthy of a high destiny . . .
Ours will be the great predominating Power on this continent; and our permanent peace and our
essential interests will be jeopardized by any foreign colonization.

The Illinois Band of Brothers

To contemplate how great men like Lincoln and Baker emerged from the wild prairies of the West
(Illinois), some insights are offered from the men who were there. McDougalls eulogy of Baker, cited later,
paints the picture of these lawyers riding the circuit, gathering at the end of the day, writing and reciting
22

Herndons Life of Lincoln p 158

8

their own poetry, discussing history and philosophy. Isaac Arnold, an anti-slavery Democrat turned
Republican from Chicago, was Congressman during the Civil War and a very close collaborator of
Lincolns. He writes of the war Congress:
At this session of Congress, three of Lincoln's old associates at the bar in Illinois (if Baker
had been alive, there would have been four), occupied seats in the Senate: Trumbull and
Browning, from Illinois, and McDougall, from California, while in the House, there were Lovejoy,
Washburne, and others. There was something very beautiful and touching in the attachment and
fidelity of these his old Illinois comrades to Lincoln. They had all been pioneers, frontiersmen,
circuit- riders together. They were never so happy as when talking over old times, and recalling
the rough experiences of their early lives. Had they met at Washington in calm and peaceful
weather, on sunny days, they would have kept up their party differences as they did at home, but
coming together in the midst of the fierce storms of civil war, and in the hour of supreme peril,
they stood together like a band of brothers. Not one of them would see an old comrade in
difficulty or danger, and not help him out. The memory of these old Illinois lawyers and
statesmen: Baker, McDougall, Trumbull, Lovejoy, Washburne, Browning, and others, recalls a
passage in Webster's reply to Hayne. Speaking of Massachusetts and South Carolina, the great
New England orator said: Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution together; hand
in hand they stood around the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on
them for support. So, in the far more difficult administration of Lincoln, these old comrades of
his, Baker, McDougall, Trumbull, Browning, Lovejoy, and the others, whatever their former
differences, stood shoulder to shoulder, and hand in hand, around the administration of Lincoln;
his strong arm leaned on them for support, and that support was given vigorously and with
unwavering loyalty.
Arnold adds a footnote:
One evening in the summer of 1863, when the President was living in a cottage at the Soldier's
Home, on the heights north of the capital, some one spoke to him of Baker's burial place on the
Lone Mountain Cemetery. The name seemed to kindle his Imagination and touch his heart. He
spoke of this Lone Mountain on the shore of the Pacific, as a place of repose, and seemed almost
to envy Baker his place of rest. Lincoln then gave a warm and glowing sketch of Baker's
eloquence, full of generous admiration, and showing how he had loved this old friend. 23

Baker in Congress
When the Mexican War began, Congressman Baker considered it his patriotic duty to act, and returned
to Illinois to organize a regiment. In Mexico, when the troops were dying of hunger and disease at an
alarming rate, Baker rushed back to Washington, and took his seat in Congress. In full uniform, he gave a
speech admonishing Congress for debating on trivial matters, while men were dying on the front, short of
food, clothing, medicine and supplies.
After the war, he returned to his law practice in Springfield, but soon moved to Galena to run for
Congress again. (Lincoln had been elected to the Springfield seat, as per prior agreement between the two.)
Galena was a very Democratic district, but after stumping for three months, Baker was returned to Congress
23

Isaac Arnold, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, p 240

9

from that district with a margin of one thousand votes. This was a feat no one else would have undertaken,
much less accomplished. That year he also campaigned for Zachary Taylor for President.
Few men were more effective on the stump, in the heat of a political canvass. The masses
admired him for his talents and valor ,whilst they loved him for his easy familiarity and agreeable
social qualities. His speeches were clear, pointed and eloquent presentations of his political
views, abounding in happy hits and well turned periods, and always captivated the crowd. He
dealt unsparingly with his opponents; and if at a loss for arguments to sustain his position, he
would overwhelm them with ridicule and sarcastic wit.24
When he took his seat in December 1849, he walked into the middle of the firestorm over California
admission, in the 31st Congress. It was here that the issue of disunion again reared its ugly head. Baker
responded, prophetically, in the course of a speech,
I have only to say, that, if the time should come when disunion rules the hour, and discord
reigns supreme, I shall again be ready to give the best blood in my veins to my country's cause. I
shall be prepared to meet all antagonists, with lance in rest, to do battle in every land in defense
of the Constitution of the country, which I have sworn to support to the last extremity, against
disunionists, and all its enemies, whether North or Southto meet them everywhere, at all times,
with speech or hand, with word or blow, until thought and being shall be mine no longer.25
When President Taylor died in July of 1850, Baker was called upon to give the eulogy in the House.
The following year Baker took a job with the Panama Railroad Company, and undertook to organize a
force to aid in building the first transcontinental or transoceanic railroad, as it was called. He recruited 400
men from Illinois and vicinity, and sent them to Panama with his brother, Dr. Alfred Baker, joining them
soon after. This great project of the day, would vastly shorten the trip to Asia, as well as to California and
Oregon. Though only fifty miles, the Panama Railroad was a monumental task, as it traversed jungle,
mountains and swamps, and working conditions were unbearable. Many thousands of workers fell prey to
malaria and other diseases. Baker himself became deathly sick at one point, and was sent home. The
railroad would be completed in 1855.

California
No sooner had he recovered, than Baker, his wife and two daughters headed for California, in spring
of 1852. He opened a law practice in San Francisco, and, his reputation having preceded him, he soon had
many cases and many speaking engagements. At the dedication of the Lone Mountain Cemetery on May 30,
1854, Baker was the featured speaker. Only a small excerpt of his speech survives, but that provides an
insight into his mind.
Perhaps it may be well to acknowledge as a principle the great fact of immortality. No man
desires annihilation. No man, whatever be his faults or his crimes, is willing to go into endless
night; and when we come here, however loath we may be to stand in the Divine Presence, still we
recognize the fact that we are immortal, and the truth peals like thunder in our ears, Thou shalt
24
25

Wallace
Congressional Globe
10

live forever! With these thoughts we dedicate this spot. Here future generations, in long and
solemn procession, shall bring warriors who have given their lives for their country; statesmen,
remembered by the liberty they helped to create, and the institutions they aided to perfect. Here
shall be brought the poet, who buoyant, passed through sea and land, through earth and sky, and
vale and river, penetrating the affections and accomplishing the refinement of men. The projector
worn with toil and gray with thought leaving monuments to his fame and memorials of his
greatness, here, too, shall come to end his life; and, too, the tender maiden, smitten in early
blossom; and the little child, the pledge of love, to whose grave the aching heart shall oft repair to
weep and pray.26
In 1855 Baker ran for State Senate as a Whig, but lost. The following year he campaigned for the first
Republican Presidential Candidate, John Fremont and the Republican slate, from San Diego to Yreka. 27
Meanwhile, he pursued his law practice in San Francisco, adopting a partner, Isaac Wistar, a young 49er
from Pennsylvania who had tried mining, fishing, farming and eventually, law. He greatly admired Baker,
but observed, So far from keeping any pecuniary accounts, he had not even a docket of his cases, relying
solely on his memory and a mass of papers carried in his hat and about his person.28
Wistar also described Bakers principle of organizing. Baker had impressed upon Wistar that an
effective jury speech must come hot from the emotions; that while one may consider well the order,
arrangement and arguments, the words and sentences must never be prepared except at the peril of
grandiloquence, stiltedness and weakness.
During his first case, however, Wistar, being very nervous, did script
his closing argument, which he lived to regret. He recalls,
In delivering my slyly prepared slices of eloquence, I felt a little
guilty, as everyone must who simulates a red-hot passion in
phrases coolly prepared beforehand, and cast a surreptitious
glance or two at Baker, but as he was leaning his head on his
hands, over a table, apparently half-asleep, I flattered myself I had
escaped detection by the critic I most valued and feared. But after
all was over and we had got back to the quiet of the office, he
remarked,

Isaac Wistar

You made a very fair speech which would have been good, but
for the blemish of those prepared sentences which you, no doubt,
considered very fine.

What possesses you with the idea that any sentences were prepared? Can you specify them?,
Wistar demanded. Whereupon he repeated them, word for word, with a cold-blooded and
merciless fidelity that made me shudder. The lesson sank so deep that ever since if some phrase
that seems particularly fine, forces itself on my attention in advance, I make a point of avoiding it.
The fact is that though great speakers of set orations, like Webster or Everett, may deliver a
literary essay from memory, with studied gesture and carefully regulated emotion, the off-hand

26

Shuck
Kennedy p 127
28
Autobiography of Isaac Wistar, p 302
27

11

orators of the people cannot venture to smuggle in false notes or simulated passion, without
subjecting to dangerous contrast, the setting and the frame.29

The Defense of Cora

One of Bakers most famous cases was his defense of Charles Cora, a professional gambler, who shot
and killed General William Richardson, U.S. Marshall for California, in late 1855. The confrontation
stemmed from an incident at a theater, where Richardsons wife was offended by the presence of Cora and
his girlfriend, Belle, a known prostitute and madam. Several days later, Richardson picked a fight with
Cora at a bar, which ended with Cora shooting and killing Richardson. Newspapers were wild with their
condemnation of Cora, and popular opinion followed suit, the whole town being drawn into a lynch mob
frenzy. This incident would soon lead to the takeover of San Francisco by a revival of the earlier Vigilance
Committee.
The San Francisco Herald editorialized:
The truth is, that, from all accounts, we have come to the conclusion that the killing of General
Richardson was a most atrocious murder. He was assassinated in cold blood . . .
The Stockton Argus:
A man is shot down in one of the principal streets in the chief city of the Pacific Coast, by a man
who lives in a bawd-house, and who is instigated to the murderous deed by a harlot, and
immediately $40,000 is raised by subscription to cheat the law of its course, and protect the
murderer . . .
The most incendiary and obnoxious was the San Francisco Bulletin. In editorial after editorial, from
the time of the arrest of Cora through the trial, the crazed fundamentalist, failed banker, editor James King
of William railed at the Sheriff, the jailkeeper, and the courts, with headlines like Hang Billy Mulligan,
saying If Mr. Sheriff Scannell does not remove Billy Mulligan from his present post as Keeper of the
County Jail, and lets Cora escape, hang Billy Mulligan, and if necessary to get rid of the Sheriff, hang him
hang the Sheriff! and similarly condemning any potential lawyer, judge or juror who would not convict
Cora. Again and again he reminded people of the Vigilance Committee, saying that it could be revived in a
moments notice if the court were to relapse into the former farcical apologies . . . and that Cora must
and will be hung. All this interspersed with tirades against gamblers and prostitutes.
That the Coroners report found that Richardson was drunk, Cora was sober, and that Richardson said
he promised to slap this mans face, made no difference.
In this environment, Baker, at the pleading of Belle, who had raised a considerable sum for the
defense, agreed to lead the defense team. In his lengthy closing argument, he systematically stripped away
all of the prejudices and assumptions of the prosecutors and the popular opinion. He challenged the idea
that a gambler is de facto a murderer, or is even, as in this case, a violent person. He demonstrated that
Richardson, on the other hand was a violent person, always armed, always in trouble. He reiterated the
principles of the Constitution and due process, as against the mob and vigilante mentality, raising the
prevailing moral level to the highest standard, and especially challenging the legal profession.

29

Ibid. p 308
12

The profession to which we belong is, of all others, fearless of public opinion. It has ever stood
up against the tyranny of monarchs on the one hand, and the tyranny of public opinion on the
other; and if, as the humblest among them, it becomes me to instance myself, I may say with a
bold heart, and I do say it with a bold heart, that there is not in all this world a wretch, so
humble, so guilty, so despairing, so torn with avenging furies, so pursued by the arm of the law,
so hunted to cities of refuge, so fearful of life, so afraid of death;there is no wretch so steeped in
all the agonies of vice and crime, that I would not have a heart to listen to his cry, and a tongue to
speak in his defense, though around his head all the wrath of public opinion should gather, and
rage, and roar, and roll, as the ocean rolls around the rock. And if I ever forget, if I ever deny,
that highest duty of my profession, may God palsy this arm and hush my voice forever. 30
Baker then proceeded to grapple with the great bugbear of the case. That is, that Belle had tampered
with witnesses at a haunt of sensuality, as the prosecutor called it, that in general this woman was capable
of no good, and that if she was supporting him, he must be guilty. Baker attacked that whole line of logic,
turned it on its head, pointed out that she was the only friend in the world Cora had against this howling,
raging public opinion. If a prostitute was capable of rising to defend another human being in the midst of
massive attack, why did they not admire that? Why did they not admit the supremacy of the divine spark in
the merest human bosom?
Before closing, he condemned the press. Against this man the public press, so potent for good, so
mighty for evil, inflames and convulses the public mind and judgment. There is not one thing they have said
that is in accordance with truth and justice; there is not one version they have given that is based on
testimony and facts.
After forty-one hours, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked, and was dismissed on January 17th. They
stood six for manslaughter, four for first degree murder, and two for acquittal. King of William went
ballistic. The Bulletin dated 12 noon of that day, was headlined Hung be the heavens with black! The
money of the gambler and the prostitute has succeeded, and Cora has another respite!.......Rejoice ye
gamblers and harlots! Rejoice with exceeding gladness! and called for a Vigilance Committee to give a
fair trial, without the technicalities of law, and reiterated that One article in the Constitution of the
Vigilance Committee was that no lawyer could become a member! In April, one of his diatribes against
gamblers and prostitutes attacked Baker The harlot is lauded to the skies in open court, by Col. Baker, and
held up as a pattern of virtue and decency!31
On May 14, the Vigilance Committee would be revived with a vengeance, following the shooting of
King of William by editor James Casey.32 Baker, along with Broderick, was a leader of the Law and Order
Party, making speeches and doing everything in his power to thwart them. At one point, he was forced to
leave the city in order to practice in a real court, and spent some time in Sacramento and the gold country.

The Archy Lee Case

A case which Baker said he was prouder of being associated with than any he had ever worked on,
was that of Archy Lee, a celebrated fugitive slave case. 33 The story began on January 8, 1858, when Archy
Lee, a young black man, was arrested at a Negro rooming house, and safe house, in Sacramento. He was
30

Shuck 306
All quotes from the Bulletin from CHSQ Quarterly, June 1959.
32
See Broderick part one for story on the Vigilance Committee takeover of San Francisco.
33
Rudolph Lapp, Archie Lee: A California Fugitive Slave Case
31

13

hiding there after learning that Charles Stovall, his supposed master, who had brought him from
Mississippi, was planning to take him back there. In Sacramento, Archy had come under the guidance and
protection of the Colored Convention movement, which was helping slaves who had been brought to
California to gain their freedom.
After the arrest, the Colored Convention people went to court to have Archy freed. The case went up
and down the court system, with Archy being freed, then rearrested by a different court for four months. At
one point two southerners on the state supreme court decided to give
Archy back to Stovall. They agreed with the defense that Stovall was not a
mere traveler in California, but a permanent resident, thus possessing no
legal right to keep a slave. BUT, they decided, since Stovall was young
and inexperienced, and this was the first time the court had faced such a
case, the court could show kindness and give Archy back to Stovall!
There was a wild scene with supporters on both sides. The case had
become a big political cause. The Colored Convention, with white
supporters, was in full gear. There were demonstrations, fund-raisers and
meetings.
Archy Lee contribution appeal
At one hearing, Stovalls lawyer argued that Archy was a fugitive
from Mississippi, and, based on the national fugitive slave law, Archy had
no right to counsel, and Bakers presence was illegal. Archy is property and nothing more, and he has no
more right to be heard in this proceeding than has a bale of goods or a horse. 34
On April 7, Baker made the closing argument before the commissioner in San Francisco. After
reviewing the history of the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, he systematically dismembered every
argument of the plaintiffs lawyers. He pointed out that the claimants admitted that Archy did not escape
from Mississippi to California, and therefore is not a fugitive by the definition of those laws. Furthermore,
that no one had proven that slavery existed in Mississippi, and It is presumed that every man is free; and
that all laws are in favor of human freedom, until the contrary be proved. But there is no proof here. The
constitution and laws of Mississippi have not been produced here in evidence. If a man be held in slavery it
must be by virtue of some law; unless there be a law to enslave him, he is free, as a matter of course, and
owes service to no man. In this point, the case of the claimants is fatally defective. He then proved that
there was no evidence he had escaped.
In closing, Baker stated, My early education, my later habits, my associations my sympathies, all
teach me, and always have taught me, to abhor oppression and bondage. In so far as compliance with my
duty towards freedom, my conscience finds no ground of reproach, as it looks back over a life which has
now lasted beyond the medium period of human existence. And when that great day shall come as it must
come for all that I shall stand in judgement before the Most High, I shall be able to say it reverently, that I
can confidently meet the trial of my fidelity to freedom.
The report from the Daily Alta California ended, This is but a distant imitation of Col. Bakers
peroration: it was much longer than here represented. He rose gradually in elegance of language and depth
of feeling, until it became one of the most eloquent efforts that we have ever heard; and when it closed,
more than one eye in the room was moist with tears, called forth by its touching pathos. After the speaker
sat down, there was a faint applause.35
The commissioner issued his ruling ten days later. Archy was free.

34
35

Ibid.
All quotes from Daily Alta California, April 8, 1858
14

The Atlantic Cable Address

In September 1858 celebrations were held all over the country on
the occasion of the laying of the first telegraph cable across the
Atlantic. San Francisco was no exception, and Baker was the featured
speaker at a mass rally and parade on September 27th. In this address,
which includes his oft quoted apostrophe to science, his knowledge
of, and love of science shines forth. He noted that there had never
been such an expression of popular delight as on this occasion, and
painted a wildly optimistic picture of the future, and the unique roll
the Pacific Coast would play, where all people and all tongues shall
meet, and thereby form a more perfect civilization. A few excerpts
follow.

Laying Atlantic Cable

Amid the general joy that thrills throughout the civilized world, we are here to bear our part.
. . .The transmission of intelligence by electric forces is perhaps the most striking of all the
manifestations of human power in compelling the elements to the service of man. The history of
the discovery is a monument to the sagacity, the practical observation, the inductive power of the
men whose names are now immortal. The application to the uses of mankind is scarcely less
wonderful, and the late extension across a vast ocean ranks its projectors and accomplishers with
the benefactors of their race. The history of the Atlantic Telegraph is fortunately familiar to most
of this auditory. For more than a hundred years it has been known that the velocity of electricity
was nearly instantaneous. It was found that the electricity of the clouds was identical with that
produced by electric excitation; next followed the means for its creation, and the mechanism of
transmission. Its concentration was found in the corrosion of metals in acids, and the use of the
voltaic pile; its transmission was completed by Morse in 1843, and it was reserved to Field to
guide it across the Atlantic. Here, as in all other scientific results, you find the wonder-working
power of observation and induction; and nowhere in the history of man is the power of Art
action directed by Science knowledge systematized so signally and beautifully obvious. . .
O Science, thou thought-clad leader of the company of pure and great souls, that toil for their
race and love their kinds! measurer of the depths of earth and the recesses of heaven! apostle of
civilization, handmaid of religion, teacher of human equality and human right, perpetual witness
for the Divine wisdom be ever, as now, the great minister of peace. Let thy starry brow and
benign front still gleam in the van of progress, brighter than the sword of the conqueror, and
welcome as the light of heaven!. . .
Yet, more than this, we turn with wonder and delight, to behold on every hand the results of
scientific method everywhere visible and everywhere increasing; but amid that wonder and
delight we turn to a still greater wonder the human mind itself! Who shall now stay its
progress? What shall impede its career?. . .
But, even while we assemble to mark the deed and rejoice at its completion, the Almighty, as if to
impress us with a becoming sense of our weakness as compared with his power, has sent a new
signal of his reign in heaven! If to-night, fellow-citizens, you will look out from the glare of your

15

illuminated city into the northwestern heavens, you will perceive, low down on the edge of the
horizon, a bright stranger, pursuing its path across the sky. . . 36
But, amid all these wonders, it is obvious that we stand upon the threshold of new discoveries, and
at the entrance to a more imperial dominion. The history of the last three hundred years has been
a history of successive advances, each more wonderful than the last. . .
There is no reason to believe that the procession will be stayed, or the music of its march be
hushed; on the contrary, the world is radiant with hope, and all the signs in earth and heaven are
full of promise to the race. Happy are we to whom it is given to share and spread these blessings;
happier yet if we shall transmit the great trust committed to our care undimmed and unbroken to
succeeding generations.
I have spoken of three hundred years past dare I imagine three hundred years to come? It is a
period very far beyond the life of the individual man; it is but a span in the history of a nation,
throughout the changing generations of mental life. The men grow old and die, the community
remains, the nation survives. As we transmit our institutions, so we shall transmit our blood and
our names to future ages and populations. What multitudes shall throng these shores, what cities
shall gem the borders of the sea! Here all people and all tongues shall meet. Here shall be a
more perfect civilization, a more thorough intellectual development, a firmer faith, a more
reverent worship.(Emphasis added.)
Perhaps, as we look back to the struggle of an earlier age, and mark the steps of our ancestors in
the career we have traced, so some thoughtful man of letters in ages yet to come, may bring to
light the history of this shore or of this day. I am sure, fellow-citizens, that whoever shall hereafter
read it, will perceive that our pride and joy are dimmed by no stain of selfishness. Our pride is for
humanity; our joy is for the world; and amid all the wonders of past achievement and all the
splendors of present success, we turn with swelling hearts to gaze into the boundless future, with
the earnest conviction that it will develop a universal brotherhood of man.

The World at a Crossroads

Even while Baker was extolling that glorious vision of the future, the disunionist party was working
tirelessly for their cause.
This was the time of the great Lincoln-Douglas debates, a time when the slavery issue was becoming
the wedge to divide the nation, in the long sought effort by traitors and tories to do so. The battle over
Kansas was raging in the Congress, with President Buchanan proclaiming that slavery existed in Kansas by
virtue of the Constitution. Democratic Senator Broderick had addressed the Senate in February of that year,
1858, denouncing the Democratic Buchanan Administration in no uncertain terms over the fraudulent
Lecompton Constitution.37 By June, Democratic county conventions in California had begun viciously
attacking Broderick, as had Democratic newspapers, over party disloyalty. By August, the Democratic Party
in California had split, convening two separate conventions.
36

The Donati Comet. The brightest of the century, and first to be photographed. Lincoln sat up at his hotel balcony in Jonesboro
to watch the comet, the night before his third debate with Douglas.
37
The pro-slavery Constitution for Kansas, contrived by a fraudulent vote, and supported by the Buchanan Administration.
16

Baker was determined to defeat partisan loyalties, to support all candidates loyal to the Union. The
Republican Party convention, meeting on August 5th, with Baker on the resolutions committee, adopted a
resolution saying, That the conduct of the Hon. D.C. Broderick, senator in congress from California,
during the late session of congress is worthy of approval, and evinces a regard for the interests of free labor
and free men equally becoming the state which he represents and the station he occupies.38 Another
resolution praised Democratic Congressman McKibbin for also standing up to the Administration, then
endorsed him for re-election.

1859
In February of 1859 the Anti-Lecompton Democrats determined on an aggressive campaign in all
counties leading to the primary elections. On April 17th, Senators Broderick
and Gwin, and Congressmen McKibbin and Denver returned from
Washington and the political war escalated at once. It was at a Lecompton
Democratic Convention in June that David Terry set the trap for Broderick
that led to the duel.
When the Republican state convention met in Sacramento on June 8,
Baker led the faction fighting for a unity ticket with the Anti-Lecompton,
Broderick Democrats. The majority of Republicans demanded a straight party
ticket, with an eye to the 1860 presidential campaign, never minding that the
nation might be destroyed in the meantime. Baker was on the resolutions
committee which submitted resolutions attacking various moves to extend
slavery into territories, rebuking the Buchanan administration, promoting the
building of telegraph and rail lines to unify the country, approving the
homestead bill and denouncing discrimination against naturalized citizens.
The convention nominated a slate including Leland Stanford for Governor and
E. D. Baker for Congress.
Senator David Broderick
On June 29th, Baker was the featured speaker kicking off the campaign at
a Republican mass meeting in Petaluma. Stanford gave brief remarks on the
Republican platform, said he came rather as a listener than a speaker, and yielded the floor to Baker, who
was loudly cheered. Baker spent much of the speech, and the succeeding speeches of that campaign,
reaching out to the Anti-Lecomptons to join with them.
Identifying himself as a Republican now, and a Whig formerly, he vehemently attacked the tyranny of
the Buchanan Administration and praised the Broderick Democrats for standing up to that tyranny.
I am a candidate for Congress expecting to be beaten. [Laughter], he said, pointing out that the
Administration was too strong for both of them. He said he did not mind being beaten, it didnt hurt him,
and the campaign gave him a chance to speak to the people in support of the principles of liberty, and to
feel that I am doing something to unite the public sentiment of which I have spoken against the tyranny of
the power at Washington. I am in that sense an Anti-Lecompton man and of that organization - yet a
Republican at the same time. I bid, in that view, God speed to all Anti-Lecompton men and say: Hurrah for
you! You are doing nobly! You have come out from amongst them; you have given up chances for honor,
place and power. You dont mind if they call you half-breeds; soon you wont if they term you Blacks.
[Laughter.] .... I know and praise what McKibbin and Broderick, our Representatives in Congress, have
38

Davis, History of Political Conventions in California

17

done. I wish them God speed, and if I really believed my running for Congress would be in their way for a
moment I would get out of it before that moment expired.
He forecast, correctly, that the Opposition candidate for President would prevail in the following year,
citing all the states in the northeast and midwest which had begun to go Republican, California and Oregon
being the only free states claimed now by the Democratic Party. The Democracy of 1859 is just an
instrument - an instrument in the hands of Southern politicians to force a Southern policy on the people of
this Union and noted that eleven out of thirteen candidates on their slate were southerners. Meanwhile,
the Republicans had been assailed as a sectional party. This he refuted at length.
He attacked the administrations war on Brigham Young, Paraguay and above all Kansas, and again
appealed to the Anti-Lecomptons to unite. On his conception of the Republican Party he elaborated,
The history, the poetry, the invention, the literature, the learning of this Union is Republican.
The books your children read and your grandchildren will read are Republican. The inventions
that give beauty to your hearths and brilliancy to your homes are the inventions of Republicans.
The stimulus that Republican inventions give to free labor serves you with uncounted blessings.
The men who do great deeds and those who record them are alike Republican.... And the great
men of the past, whether Homer, who said: When you make a man a slave you take away half his
value; or all others good and wise, from Cicero, Plato and Demosthenes to Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Clay and Webster all the noblest thoughts Thoughts that breathe and
words that burn that fell from their lips were wrote for freedom. Who ever wrote a poem to
slavery? [laughter] There have been men venal enough, amid the perfume of proud courts, to sing
praises to monarchs and princes, but never a man base enough to write a poem to slavery.
[cheers]
After reiterating that others may be elected in his stead, he stated his real purpose:
...But at last when I am dead when principles shall prevail .... these thoughts will remain.
They will go forward and conquer; they are gathering now into a stream; they are spreading into
a rushing, bolding and bounding river; they are controlling mens minds; they are maturing lives;
they are kindling mens words; they are freeing mens souls; and as surely as the great procession
of Heavens host above us moves east in its appointed plan and orbit, so surely shall the proud
principles of human right and freedom prevail. [cheers] I may not be there to witness that great
glory; I may not see the great edifice of the American Republic placed upon so firm and stable a
basis that no recreant hand can rise to shake it.
He concluded,
In that day when the names of the great, the wise, and the good are called, will not some
generous comrade, remembering this hour and this sacrifice when my name shall be mentioned
half forgotten though I be remembering I did my best in my day and my generation say of me as
was said of another soldier in another struggle: fallen upon the field of honor! 39
At the conclusion of his remarks, he was greeted with the most enthusiastic applause.
Reiterating those themes, Baker would speak at more than twenty meetings and rallies throughout the
state in the following two months, from San Francisco, to Columbia, where 3000 gathered, to Chinese
39

Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1859

18

Camp to Dutch Flat. A handful are recorded in the Sacramento Daily Union. On July 8 at Musical Hall in
San Francisco, he added a lengthy history of the Democratic Party, asking how it became so strong, and
why, when coupled with slavery, it is now so weak?
In describing how the Democratic Party recruited, he cited their war against the national bank, in which
they went to the common men, the mechanics, the farmers, the laborers told them they were the party of
the common people and asked them to unite in the attack upon these monopolists, these foreign capitalists,
these Whig barons, these bank aristocrats. That while these were not particularly true, they professed them
earnestly, insisting that they were the peculiar friends of the poor man. Then there was the war about the
tariff. We,( the Whigs), said that a tariff for protection brought down goods; in the long run made them
cheaper; protective home industry made a home market. Meanwhile the Democrats went to the poor man,
the laboring man, and they said Help us to attack these monopolists, these New England manufacturers,
that would make you buy dear clothing, who are your enemies; come unto us and we will do you good.
Now, I didnt believe their professions then, and I dont believe it now. But the Democracy knew that there
was a great power and influence to be gained in the hearts of the people thereby, by the pretense of doing
them good.
On foreign policy, the Democrats first told the poor man that Texas and Oregon would give them all a
piece of land, but then demanded only Texas, from which they could create four slave states.
They said they would have Oregon. Polk said, 54' 40" or fight! and they said Fight! The lion
growled, and they turned round and took the half of it, and then went and whipped Mexico.
[cheers and laughter.] But the idea I want to impress upon you is, that the Democracy of that day
appealed to the heads and hearts of the common people; democracy appealed to the masses with
resistless power. And we Whigs, Conservative party as we were, might use our utmost efforts, and
it was no avail. Nor could even the great talent of a Webster, or the brilliant genius and the
unparalleled magnanimity of Clay save us from overwhelming defeat.
On the other hand, today, he could think of no reason why the common man should vote Democratic.
He again addressed popular sovereignty, showing that the pro-slavery Democrats did not believe in it at all,
but as soon as the tide went against them, they went to the Supreme court or other means to get their way.
He ended with praise of Broderick and the Anti-Lecompton Democrats.
I see that the Anti Lecompton men are opposing the Administration; they agree with me in this,
and if they are going anywhere else I am very much deceived. I have a better opinion of their
leader their leader Broderick I read that in his last speech40, I read it in his votes in Congress.
He may not be eloquent, in the usual sense of the word, but he is direct, firm, honest, unwavering,
unfaltering. . .he is the Richard Coeur de Lion, who, with his battle ax, cut down everything that
dared to cross his path or meet him face to face. [Cheers.] He illustrated from Bunyans
Pilgrims Progress, where although the Giant fought strong and lustily, yet, strong in the cause of
right, Great Heart conquered. And so I verily believe will Broderick, the Great heart of the AntiLecompton party,. . . will conquer the half way opposition of a Despair, or a more full opposition
of our Lecomptonism , until he reaches the great goal of the ambition of every American. [Loud
Cheers.] 41

40

Placerville, July 9th, most likely

Sacramento Union, July 15, 1859

41

19

On July 30 Horace Greely arrived in Placerville, and made a series of speeches attacking the
administration and urging unity with the Anti-Lecomptons. At one point he wrote to Stanford, asking if he
would withdraw in favor of John Curry, the Anti-Lecompton candidate, as he had no chance of winning.
Stanford refused, thus guaranteeing the victory of the Lecompton, Administration, pro-slavery Democrats.
These Democrats had an enormous advantage in the form or the Gwin-run patronage running the party.
Even with last minute withdrawals and mergers between Anti-Lecomptons and Republicans, they were
crushed in the election September 7th. On September 16th the pro-Union Democrat David Broderick was
murdered in a duel, and two days later it was the Republican Edward Baker who would deliver the oration
over his body. 42

Oregon
Bakers eulogy of Broderick would become, as one witness described, a rapier that split the
Democratic party beyond hope of reconciliation in the 1860 election. 43 In autumn of 1859, however, the
Lecompton Democrats were still in the ascendant in California. Oregon, which had become a state that
year, was overwhelmingly Democratic. Its rabidly pro-slavery and pro-states rights Senator, Joe Lane,
would soon become the Vice-Presidential running mate of John Breckinridge. As a territory, Oregon had
passed a Negro exclusion bill, prohibiting free blacks from entering the state, and its proposed state
constitution would have legalized slavery. That clause was only deleted from the constitution from fear that
Oregons statehood would not be ratified by Congress. Many emigrants from the south had brought slaves
with them. A split in the party was occurring, however, similar to what had happened in California, and
was occurring nationally. Meanwhile, a small group of Illinoisans and others had formed a Republican
Party. Dr. Anson Henry, a friend of Lincoln and Bakers from Illinois, later Lincolns personal physician at
the White House, led an effort among Republicans to convince Baker to move to Oregon and apply his
oratorical magic toward turning the state Republican, as he had done in Galena.
After a short trip to Oregon in December, Baker moved thence on February 17th, 1860, his family
following soon after. He undertook a vigorous campaign throughout the spring and summer, stumping in
dozens of towns, on horseback, stage coach and steam boat.
A great change came over the country after the advent of the Colonel. For the accommodation of
the people who came to see him, he had to keep open house, and this being insufficient, a part of
the day, he held court at the largest hotel in town, and in a few weeks had seen and captured all
who met him, and knew more of the social and political condition of the state than any man in it.44
In Oregon he succeeded in doing what he had attempted in California the previous year: uniting the pro
union Democrats with the Republicans. Despite an attempt by a band of Lecomptonite Democrats to
prevent a quorum of the State Senate by hiding out in a barn, they were discovered, forced back to their
seats, and on October 2, 1860, the Republican Baker and the Douglas Democrat James Nesmith were
elected to the United States Senate. Withing a few days, Baker and family were on their way to San
42

See David Broderick, A Relentless Fighter by this author.

Julian Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco 1936
44
T. W. Davenport, Slavery in Oregon,

43

20

Francisco, Baker to continue on to Washington. Before leaving Oregon, he spoke to a record audience in
Portland, then spoke in Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Lafayette, and Dallas.

The American Theater Speech

On October 19th, the ship carrying the Bakers steamed
into San Francisco Bay, greeted first by a hundred gun
salute at Fort Point, then a tumultuous crowd at the wharf.
A week later, at the American Theater at Sansome and
Halleck, Baker would deliver perhaps the greatest public
speech of his life, at a most critical time. It would swing
California for Lincoln two weeks later, and play a major
part in keeping California in the Union. People came from
around the state. Stores and offices closed early. The crowd
began gathering by afternoon. By seven oclock there were
12,000 present. The theater held 4,000. When Baker
appeared on the stage, the audience went wild. When the
presiding officer was able to be heard, and introduced the
Honorable Edward D. Baker, United States Senator from the State of Oregon, the tumult broke out again,
people jumping from their seats, cheering, waving. They seemed to forget they had defeated him the year
before.
After preliminary greetings, Baker first tackled the accusation that the Republicans were a sectional
party.
They used to say that we were a sectional party. ... I saw a letter last week from a very honest and a
very good man by the name of Abraham Lincoln [tremendous applause] , and he, in thus communicating
with a friend, said that it was very queer he should be called sectional by certain politicians when it was a
fact that he got more votes from the South in the Chicago Convention than Judge Douglas did in the
Baltimore convention. Yet the party to which I belong is said to be sectional while that of Judge Douglas
claims to be national.... whose fault is it? You wont let us go down South and make republicans or we
would soon have a host of converts in that latitude. Mr. Douglas intimates that Mr. Lincoln can't go South
to see his mother....
We sectional! Who, then, is national? Breckinridge will get no State at the North, and the Bell and
Everett men say he will get none at the South. [Laughter.] Sectional, are we ? We used to reply: First,
freedom can't be sectional; it must be national. But they used to affirm that, as a party, we mean to deal
unfairly with a portion of the States. When have we said or intimated anything of the sort? If we are not yet
represented in every State, whose fault is it? [Laughter.] If it is sectional not to get many votes in one
section, how many will Breckinridge get in New York? All he will get there will be by pretending not to run.
[Laughter.] How many votes will he get in Illinois? Will he get half as many votes in Illinois as Lincoln will
in Missouri?
But I prefer to test it in another way. I deny that in the beginning, or in the end, we desire to interfere
with slavery in any way where it exists by law. I deny that we desire to interfere with slavery in the
Territories where it has been put there by the people. And as a party and as individuals we have more
interest in preserving the Union than you have. We never proposedyou never heard one of us proposeto
dissolve the Union. Many of us were old Whigs, and we have been beaten out of our boots not once only,
21

but all the time. We deplored the election of James Buchanan as a national calamity. They got their
President, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court. They got the executive, the legislative powers, the
judiciary. Did you ever hear us threaten, imagine, or predict the dissolution of the Union? [Applause.]
But how stand you Breckinridge men on this subject? I will not say that every Breckinridge man is a
disunionist; but I will say that every disunionist is a Breckinridge man. [Great laughter and applause.] But
they say, Our sufferings are intolerable; and if you elect Lincoln we 'll dissolve the Union! We propose
to give them a chance to try it. What could Lincoln do without the Senate, and the House, and the Supreme
Court, to make a dissolution necessary? He can't touch a dollar he can't appoint an officer he can't
command a soldier to a single point he cannot free a slave. But suppose Lincoln gets the House, and I
think he will, suppose he gets a majority of the Senate, too. If he gets a majority of the Senate and the
House and the people, I should think it would be pretty hard to dissolve. Some of the judges of the Supreme
Court are getting very old; but, as Jefferson said of judges, they never die, and few resign [laughter], and it
will be a long time before the Republicans can get the power to do anything that the public voice and
conscience will not approve....
Many will persist that we don't mean to admit any more slave States. We have no such platform. We
have given no such votes. We have said that we will not interfere with slavery in the States, nor with
freedom in the Territories. They say we will pass laws opposed to the extension of slavery into the
Territories. Well, our fathers were in that wayWashington and Jefferson. Everybody was that way once;
and you are that way, too. The men who met to make the California Constitution hastened to dedicate free
territory to free men forever. We have yielded somewhat of the sternness of our first principles in this
matter. By the compromise of 1820 we allowed slave States to be made out of territory acquired by
purchase, and only insisted that north of a certain line they should not go with their slaves.
If territory was free when acquired, it was to be left free forever.
On Popular Sovereignty, he continued,
I seize from the Douglas Democrats this weapon, which in their hands is a reed, but in ours a spear
of fir, fit for the mast of some tall Admiral. We will make it a great weapon for freedom. Before it the
slaveholders writhe in deep distress. They go out and stand. [Laughter.] They break up their dearest
idolthe traditionary organization of the Democratic party. I mock at their calamityI laugh when their
fear cometh. [Laughter.] Popular sovereignty means government by the people; it is no odds whether they
govern Kansas by their votes in Kansas, or the Union by their votes in the Union.
Southern people claim the right to go wherever they choose with their property. I say in reply that the
Negro is not property in the general sense; he is property only in a sort of qualified sense. A Negro can be
property only in the face of the common law, humanity, religion, literature, and philosophyfor all these
claim that black or white, rich or poor, high or low, a man's a man for a' that. [Great cheering.] It is true
that there are certain compromises of the Constitution affecting this question, which we all agree to abide
by; but we deny that the Negro is by common law a slave. He is such slave only by local law; and we say,
catch him where you can, keep him where you can, hold him where you can; but when he gets away from
your local law, he is free, by every instinct of humanity, and every principle of the common law.
[Applause.] We deny, then, that he is property which you have a right to take into the Territories, and you
shall not carry him there against the common sentiment of the men among whom you go. Is not that fair?
Can you overcome the argument? [Applause.]
The normal condition of the Territories is freedom. Stand on the edge of the Sierra Nevadas, or upon
the brow of any eminence looking down into the Territories beyond, and what do you behold? You find
there the savage, the wild beast, and the wilderness, but you do not find slavery; and if it gets there, it goes
22

there by your local law. The Western man goes into the Territories with his family, his horses, his oxen, his
ax and other implements of labor. The Southern man goes with his slave. The Western man says, I can't
work by the side of the slavehe degrades my free labor. And the Irishman or German (who don't go
South to find employment) says, I can't work by the side of the slave eitherit degrades my labor. And
these free laborers say, Let us all go to work together and get Congress to make a law to do what
Madison did turn the Negro out; and if they don't do it, we will do it for ourselves! But the Southern
man says, No, you don't! Ive got the Dred Scott decision in my pocket, which holds that neither Congress
nor the Territorial Legislature, nor any human power can remove human slavery from the Territories; that
it goes there protected by the Constitution of the United States, and there it must remain; and now,
therefore, I tell you Irishman, and German, and Western man, that your ideas of popular sovereignty and
free labor are all humbug!
So says the slave-owner. Now, you Douglas Democrats, what are you going to do about this? Some of
you say you don't care. I say you do care, for you can't help caring; first, because you are a man, and you
feel that whatever affects humanity affects you. It is absurd to say that you don't care. There are four
million slaves, and they are increasing. The fell influence of slavery is paralyzing the interests of freedom
and free labor, and checking the advance of the whole country. It denies us legislation; it defeats our
Pacific Railroad, and withholds the daily overland mail. If freedom is right, and popular sovereignty is
right, sustain them like men; and sustain those alone through whom you can give it practical effect; if they
are not right, abandon them. I would not make war, revolutionize the Government, dissolve the Union, or
nullify the decisions of the Supreme Court. If that Court says a Negro is not a citizen, I submit; but I say to
Douglas men, Let's attack the Supreme Court and reform it! [Applause.] This is not nullification. We will
obey the decision of the Supreme Court in this particular case; but as soon as God in his wisdom takes
Taney and the rest of them to himself, we will, with the help of honest Lincoln put better men in their
places, and thus reverse the Court by the verdict of the people. [Great cheers.] What will you Douglas men
do? Will you hear the music of the march of freedom, and stand idly by, or turn a deaf ear ? We have the
right and duty thus lawfully and peacefully to reverse a decision which puts a construction upon the
Constitution that is higher than the Constitution itself, especially when that decision relates to personal
liberty. I say that a decision which claims that by the Constitution slavery goes everywhere the flag goes,
there to be and remain forever, is treason against human hope. [Tremendous applause.] You Douglas men,
you will vote for popular sovereignty, will you? Now, how will you do it? What State will you carry?
Perhaps California [cries of No, No!] and Missouri. What good will that do you? You can accomplish
nothing. Come to us, then, and we will do you good. We will stand with you, and use popular sovereignty
effectually, as a great engine of freedom.
There are people who talk as though we Republicans were doing the South some grievous wrong.
How? When? Where? They forget that freedom and free labor are the great interests of the country. There
are only about two hundred and seventy thousand white men who have a direct interest in human slavery.
Will legislating, then, for thirty million of free white men, instead of for the exclusive interest of two
hundred and seventy thousand, be a cause for disunion? There are poor white men in the South as well as
in the North, who have an interest in this question of free labor, and we stand for the interests of free labor
everywhere the world over, wherever a bright eye sparkles, or a bright idea gives forth its light!
He elaborated how the whole world was moving toward freedom, with the serfs being freed in Russia, and
other countries fighting for their freedom, and WE are the exception. The south wants no progress that will
threaten its institutions, and therefore opposes the railroad, the homestead, nothing but slavery.

23

Up in my country we often see men afraid of being suspected of sympathizing too much with the
Negro. One was saying there the other day, I ain't one of your damned Abolitionists; why, my uncle had a
nigger. [Laughter.] Now, I am very willing to, and I will confess I have a sympathy with the Negro race,
with all slaves, with all who are in sorrow and misfortuneand would to God I could deliver them all!
[Applause.] I have sympathy with a man who has a scolding wife, or a smoky chimney, or the fever and
ague; though I might not advise my friend to whip his wife, or pull down his chimney, or take arsenic for
his fever and aguenor do I feel myself bound to run a tilt to free all negroes. When I go to church, and the
preacher says, Have mercy upon all men! I don't respond, Good Lord! upon all white men! They make
the mistake of supposing that if we have human feelings, we are plotting against them. We live in a land of
constitutional law. Whatever is nominated in the bond, we abide. If I own ten thousand cattle, worth one
hundred thousand dollars, I have but one vote, and that is my own. If another owns one hundred negroes,
worth one hundred thousand dollars, he has sixty votes; the ownership of five negroes conveys the right of
three votesequals the representative power of three white men.
That is hard, but it is in the bond, and we abide it. It is hard to compel me to give up to slavery a man
on your simple affidavit that he is a slave. But it is in the compact, and we stand it. There need be no fear of
intestine feuds; there need be no threats of disunion. In the presence of God,I say it reverently,freedom
is the rule, and slavery the exception. It is a marked, guarded, perfected exception. There it stands! If public
opinion must not touch its dusky cheek too roughly, be it so; but we will go no further than the terms of the
compact.
We are a city set on a hill. Our light cannot be hid. The prayers and tears and hopes and sighs of all
good men are with us, of us, for us. [Applause.] As for me, I dare not, I will not be false to freedom!
[Applause.] Where in youth my feet were planted, there my manhood and my age shall march. I am not
ashamed of Freedom. I know her power. I glory in her strength. I rejoice in her majesty. I will walk beneath
her banner. I have seen her again and again struck down on a hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen
her friends fly from her. I have seen her foes gather around her. I have seen them bind her to the stake. I
have seen them give her ashes to the winds, regathering them that they might scatter them yet more widely.
But when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to
face, clad in complete steel, and brandishing in her strong right hand
a flaming sword red with insufferable light. [Vehement cheering.]
And I take courage. The Genius of America will at last lead her sons
to freedom! [Great applause.]
People of California! you meet soon, as is your custom every
four years, to conduct a peaceful revolution. There is no danger here.
Disunion is far away. The popular heart is right. It is a plain, honest,
simple duty you have to perform. All the omens are good, and the best
of omens is a good cause. On the Pacific coast we have labored long;
we have been scoffed, beleaguered, and beset. One year ago, I, your
champion, in your fair State, my own State then, was beaten in a fair
contest! With my heart somewhat bruised, my ambition crushed, one
week later it was my fortune to stand by the bedside of my slaughtered
friend Broderick, who fell in your cause and on your behalf , and I
said How long, oh, how long, shall the hopes of Freedom and her
champion be thus crushed! [Sensation.] The tide is turned. I regret
my little faith. I renew my hopes. I see better omens. The warrior,
indeed, rests. He knows no waking; nor word, nor wish, nor prayer,
can call him from his lone abode,[sensation] but his example lives
Republican Party mass pamphlet
24

among us. In San Francisco, I know, I speak to hundreds of men tonight perhaps to thousands who
loved him in his life and who will be true to his memory always. In another and higher arena I shall try to
speak of him and for him [a rumble of applause, increasing at last to a great demonstration], and I shall say
that the people who loved him so well, and among whom his ashes rest, are not forgetful of the manner of
his life, or the method of his death. [Profound sensation]
People of San Francisco! you make me very happy and very proud. Your kind words cheer, as they
have often cheered before. Another State, generous and confiding beyond any man's deserts, has placed me
where I may serve both her and you. And now, thanking you again and again, I bid you a cordial,
affectionate, heartfelt farewell. 45
Baker had spoken for two and a quarter hours.
The Sacramento Daily Union reported that Senator Baker retired amid a wild storm of applause and
cheering. Elijah Kennedy, reporter and Republican from Marysville, described how the audience had
been transformed,
The scene defies description. The excited multitude were disinclined to leave the place. Long
they continued cheering and shouting and singing. Deeper even than this manifestation was the
feeling of many, who, touched by their heros words of farewell and the pathos in his voice, wept,
and even sobbed aloud. When, at last the thousands had departed they went out in a mood quite
different from that in which they entered the hall. Then they were expectant; now they were full
of courage and confidence, which spread abroad with the speed of thought . . . from time to
time some reminiscent veteran recalls the oratorical drama of that fateful night, always with
the feeling that he was present when history was made.46
The shorthand notes were transcribed, typeset and printed overnight, ready for the outgoing steamboats
and stage coaches that were to distribute the pamphlet to every corner of the state. In many places crowds
assembled to hear the entire speech read. Kennedy himself read it aloud in a public hall in Marysville,
reporting, It was like the effect of mountain air.
A few days later, on November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln carried California with a plurality of
614 votes. In Oregon Lincoln won by only 270 votes. Fewer than 900 votes gave the two states to the
Republican ticket!

Washington and Springfield

Baker departed for Panama on the steam ship Sonora November 10th, arriving in Washington
December 5th. Senator Lane, his colleague from Oregon, refused to introduce him in the Senate, as would
be usual procedure, and this was done by Senator Latham of California.
At Lincolns invitation, Baker visited Springfield, arriving on Christmas Eve. While resting at his
stepdaughters house, he saw a tall figure step over the front gate, and walk into the house without
knocking.

45
46

Shuck
Kennedy
25

Hello, Baker, was Mr. Lincolns salutation; Im glad to see you. Id rather have had you
elected Senator than any man alive.
Senator Baker, with mischief in his eye, responded in mock formality, I was coming soon to call on
you, Mr. President;
Whereupon Lincoln interrupted him with None of that between us, Baker.47
While in Illinois, Baker was induced to give two speeches, one in Springfield and one in Winchester, where
his mother then resided. Under the clouds of disunion, Baker was ever the future-oriented optimist. In
Winchester he said,
Some of us may perhaps live to the age of my honored mother who sits before me. Should that be
our lot, we may, in thirty years from now, see a Confederation of sixty States, with a population at
60,000,000 our banner a constellation of sixty stars, its rainbow colors spanning our country in
one resplendent arch, under which arts and science, and civilization and religion shall march
hand in hand to work out for us a destiny which shall assign to our country the most glorious
page in the history of nations.48
At a huge reception at the Springfield capitol, Baker pledged himself to stand by Lincoln, both in his
official capacity and as a private friend, and presented Lincoln with an oil painting of himself, which still
hangs in the Governors mansion.

The Reply to Benjamin

When Baker took his seat in the Senate in late December, the country was descending into an
unprecedented crisis. South Carolina claimed to have seceded,49 and her Senators were withdrawn. Several
other states were about to follow suit. President Buchanan, advised by treasonous cabinet members, did
nothing. Amendments to the Constitution were being proposed by Senators Andrew Johnson of Tennessee,
Crittenden of Kentucky and Douglas of Illinois offering major concessions to the slave states in a final
effort to save the union. Bakers first task was to reply to the lengthy argument presented by Senator Judah
P. Benjamin of Louisiana50, considered to be the most able ideologue of the South, in the debate on the
Crittenden amendments. Benjamin and his followers thought he had made the definitive case for the
doctrine of states rights, including the right to secession, and the most thorough indictment of the north for
abusing the south. It was up to Baker, the newest member of the Senate, to prove otherwise, which he did
by way of a thorough cross examination and Platonic dialog which destroyed every one of Benjamins
assertions, false premises and lies. It was a final valiant effort to save the union without civil war.
After citing numerous authorities purporting to sustain the doctrine that states have a Constitutional
right to secession, Benjamin had ended his lengthy speech by detailing his dreary catalogue of wrongs and
outrages by which South Carolina defends her position. He accused Republicans of denying the
47

Kennedy, from a newspaper correspondent at Springfield.

Kennedy, from Illinois State Journal 12/28/60 also Carrollton Gazette January 5, 1861.
49
Neither Lincoln nor Baker accepted the idea that they could secede.
50
Benjamin would soon become Secretary of State of the Confederate States. After the war he renounced his US citizenship and
retired to Great Britain.

48

26

Constitutional right to own slaves, of passing laws to obstruct the return of their property, of slandering the
South, and of closing them in and suffocating them.
He concluded that this picture was not presented in the hopes of changing the minds of the
Republicans, that all hope of that was gone, and only asked that they be allowed to part in peace, ending
dramatically by saying, . . . you can never subjugate us; you never can convert the free sons of the soil into
vassals, paying tribute to your power; and you never, never can degrade them to the level of an inferior and
servile race. Never! Never! to which there was loud applause in the galleries, which were ordered
cleared.51
Two days later Baker replied. After gracious opening remarks, he began,
The entire object of the speech is, as I understand it, to offer a philosophical and Constitutional
disquisition to prove that the Government of these United States is, in point of fact, no government at all;
that it has no principle of vitality; that it is to be overturned by a touch, dwindled into insignificance by a
doubt, dissolved by a breath; not by maladministration merely, but in consequence of organic defects,
interwoven with its very existence....
I propose, in opposition to all that has been said, to show that the Government of the United States is
in very deed a real, substantial power, ordained by the people, not dependent upon States; sovereign in its
sphere; a union, and not a compact between sovereign States; that, according to its true theory, it has the
inherent capacity of self-protection; that its Constitution is a perpetuity, beneficent, unfailing, grand; and
that its powers are equally capable of exercise against domestic treason and against foreign foes.....
He first addressed Benjamins assertion that South Carolina, having, as he says, seceded, has seceded
from this Union rightfully . . . as based on the assumption that the Constitution of the United States is a
compact between sovereign States.
Baker pointed out that the argument was not new, referring to the attempt of South Carolina to do
before what she says she has done now, . . . and that the replies were not new. He tackled each authority
Benjamin had quoted, first, not the Constitution itself (and that is remarkable); second, not the arguments
made by the great expounders of the Constitution upon this question, and on this floor, but he had quoted
from Madison, Webster and Jackson first. Baker then proceeded to read extensive quotes from those three,
in which they say the exact opposite, such as from Webster, . . .
1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, confederacy, or compact between the
people of the several States in their sovereign capacities; but a government proper, founded on
the adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals.
2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that nothing can
dissolve them but revolution; and that consequently there can be no such thing as secession
without revolution.
He then demolished Benjamins claim that John Quincy Adams believed in the right of a state to
secede, quoting Adams,
In the calm hours of self-possession, the right of a State to nullify an act of Congress is too absurd for
argument, and too odious for discussion. The right of a State to secede from the Union is equally disowned
by the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

51

Congressional Globe Dec 31 1860 p 217

27

He further elaborated from John Quincy Adams Jubilee of the Constitution speech, delivered by him
with all his exhaustive power as to any subject to which he turned his attention, is, in point of fact, an
irresistible argument in favor of our proposition that the Constitution of the United States is an ordained
government by the people for the government of the people, and that it is in no sense, and can never be,
taken or considered as a compact between sovereign States, and that the Articles of Confederation was
intended to be that form of government also.
By asking Benjamin a series of questions, Baker drew out his logic on the constitutionality of states
rights, boxing him further and further into a corner. Benjamin was reduced to arguing, as his defense for the
Constitutional right to secession, that it was not prohibited, based on the tenth amendment. That Baker saw
no point in pursuing further, and advanced to another proposition.
Benjamin denied saying that, and after Baker quoted him to that very effect, Benjamin changed the
subject, saying that it was not one, but eight or ten grievances. Baker said they really derive from one. But
no matter how many, there is a Supreme Court, which, in fact, always decided in favor of the South.
As to the charges emanating from the defective constructions of the
Constitution, Baker said, you say we slander, we vilify, we abuse you. That is
not a Constitutional difficulty. There are only two Constitutional causes of
complaint: one in regard to the rendition of fugitive slaves, the other slavery in
the territories.
Benjamin was reduced to admitting it all came back to a single point
your constant, persistent warfare upon our property.
Baker said, And thus, Mr. President, after questioning and crossquestioning, and exercising that power of cross-examination which in courts,
and I believe elsewhere, we sometimes call the test of truth, I bring the Senator,
as I understand him, at last to agree that when he says in his labored speech the
difficulty arises chiefly out of a defective construction of the Constitution by us
Black Republicans, or us people of the North, it is to be found upon two
subjects: one in relation to the fugitive slave question, and the other to the
Senator Judah P Benjamin
government of the Territories.
On the fugitive slave issue, Baker pointed out that they were defeated, but have obeyed the Supreme
Court ruling ever since. He said Mr. Lincoln, about to be inaugurated as President of these United States
a man who seeks to make his opinions known in all proper ways and upon all proper occasions; a man who,
for simplicity of purpose, directness of expression, is not surpassed in this country; a man whose honesty
has already worthily passed into a proverb. You will find in the history of the debates, unsurpassed in
ability in this country, between the distinguished Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] and the President
elect, that he was asked what his opinion was upon this fugitive slave law question, and he replied:
Question. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the
unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law?
Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave
law. (from Debates of Lincoln and Douglas, p. 88.)
Is that clear and distinct? And, sir, I echo him, not because he is President, but because he is honest
and wise and true. I, who want nothing of him; I, who am not, and in no sense can ever be, dependent on
him; I reply with him . . . adding that he agreed with him. He pointed out that since the passage of that
law, the Republican Party had sprung into existence, and asked if it had ever tried to repeal the fugitive
28

slave law. Do we not, upon all fit occasions, say that, though many of us believe it is a hard bargain, yet
that it is so nominated in the bond, and we will endure it?
He spoke further of Lincoln.
Sir, speaking in my place, with some knowledge of the Republican party, speaking by no authority in
the world for the President elect, but speaking of him because I have known him from my boyhood, or
nearly so, I say that, when the time arrives that he shall be inaugurated in this capital, and exercise in the
chair of the Chief Magistrate all the high responsible duties of that office, he will enforce the execution of
all the laws of this Government, whether revenue, or fugitive slave, or territorial, or otherwise, with the
whole integrity of his character and the whole power of the Government. Now, I ask my distinguished
friend if that is not a fair, frank reply to all the objections he may make as to differences of construction
about the fugitive slave law?
Benjamin replied that it was not satisfactory in the remotest degree.
Baker countered that such reply would not hold up in a court of law, and further pinned him down, til
Benjamin was reduced to admitting that Congress did not attack slavery where it exists, but that states do.
Baker then asked how a law in one state could possibly interfere with slavery in another
Benjamin tried to prove it by citing a Governor of Massachusetts who supported John Browns
invasion of a sister State. He raved on, about how the people of Massachusetts elected Senators who
have insulted people of the south, have cast slander and opprobrium upon them; called them thieves,
murderers, violators; charged them as being criminals of the blackest dye . . .
Baker replied that his answer was an acknowledgment that a free state cannot, as a state interfere in any
conceivable with slavery in a slave state; and that being so, we advance another step. We agree now that
congress never have interfered and that states never can.
As to the charge that individuals in the North have interfered with slavery in the south, Baker believed
that to be true, but asked if that was the chief ground of dissolution. Are you going to revolt for that? Will
you plunge us into civil war for that? Is that all?
After Baker reiterated that no one in Oregon or California or Illinois, or the Republican party proposed
to interfere with slavery in the slave states, Benjamin blurted out:
The belief of the South is, and I admit I share it, that, without intending to violate the letter of the
Constitution by going into States for the purpose of forcibly emancipating slaves, it is the desire of the
whole Republican party to close up the Southern States with a cordon of free States, for the avowed
purpose of forcing the South to emancipate them.
Baker attempted to reply, but Benjamin interrupted him to rant about how Massachusetts legislature
endorsed the attack on slaveholders made by her Senator, and passed a law in violation of the rights of the
slaveholders, a law which legal scholars say is unconstitutional and should be repealed.
That legal scholars supported repeal of that law proved that the Constitution was working, said
Baker and that he had now brought him down to a clear statement by way of abandonment of three or four
of the specifications, namely that the great complaint was that the North desired to circle the slave states
with a cordon of free states.
Baker continued, Now, I approach that question: first, if we, a free people, really, in our hearts and
consciences, believing that freedom is better for everybody than slavery, do desire the advance of free
sentiments, and do endeavor to assist that advance in a Constitutional, legal way, is that, I ask him, ground
of separation?
Benjamin: I say, yes; decidedly.
Baker: That is well. And I say just as decidedly, and perhaps more emphatically, no! And I will
proceed to tell him why . . . How are you going to help it? How can we help it? Circle slavery with a
29

cordon of free States! Why, if I read history and observe geography rightly, it is so girdled now. Which
way can slavery extend itself that it does not encroach upon the soil of freedom? Has the Senator thought of
that? It cannot go North, though it is trying very hard. It cannot go into Kansas, though it made a
convulsive effort, mistaking a spasm for strength. It cannot go South, because, amid the degradation and
civil war and peonage of Mexico, if there be one thing under heaven they hate worse than another, it is
African slavery. It cannot reach the islands of the sea, for they are under the shadow of France, that guards
their shores against such infectious approach. It is circled . . . I will not say girdled . . . circled, inclosed,
surrounded; I may say hedged in . . . encompassed, . . . It will be some day lost and absorbed in the
superior blaze of freedom . . .Therefore it is that it appears to me idle and I had almost said wicked to
attempt to plunge this country into civil war, upon the pretense that we are endeavoring to circle your
institution , when if we had no such wish or desire in the world, it is circled by destiny, by Providence, and
human opinion everywhere.
He ended by quoting the last paragraph from Websters famous reply to Hayne thirty years earlier,
during the nullification crisis:
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining
on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant,
belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble
and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a
stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory
as What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards;
but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float
over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to
every true American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!
If reason had ruled, the secession movement would have ended then and there.

The Railroad and Tariff Bills

Three days later, a brawl ensued in the Senate over the Pacific Railroad Bill, a crucial issue for uniting
the country physically and psychologically, for which Baker and his collaborators had long fought.
Strategically minded people also saw the railroad as ending British supremacy over world trade, as the Asia
trade with Europe could pass through the United States. The House had passed a bill, after years of
wrangling, and now, in the Senate, every mode of argument was being hurled against it. Following lengthy
arguments by Judah Benjamin and Jefferson Davis, Baker made an impassioned intervention.
I had been led to suppose, when I came here, that there was a party in congress in favor of a Pacific
railroad. I believe I am mistaken; or if there be, I am sure that it is lying supinely by and giving the
control of the measure that is proposed into the hands of its enemies. We have seen now every conceivable
mode of objection, which the time will permit, made against it, with the appearance sometimes of
friendship, but with all the tenacity of enmity . . . Now, I understand the distinguished Senator from
Mississippi (Jefferson Davis), who has just spoken, to say that he will not go for any measure which will
give the Government political control, and that he will not go for any measure which will tend to enrich
individuals . . .
Now, after ten years struggle; after hope so long delayed; when the Representatives of the people by
a very large majority, after every conceivable objection has been made and answered and overcome; now,
30

when the condition of public affairs, when a desire to end sectional strife, when desire for the Union, when
every reason so well presented by the distinguished Senator from New York would seem to point out to us
the necessity of doing it now, and at once, it appears to me that we are further off from it today than ever . .
Baker made the point that the bill should be passed now, and he would vote for it even it was not
exactly the way he wanted it. ...If I had my way, I would say, unhesitatingly, make a road from San
Francisco as near to St. Louis as you can get it. It appears to me that every consideration would point out
that as the best way. Again: I am an old Whig; I am not afraid of extending the power of this Government; I
wish it was a more consolidated and stronger Government than it is; I have not a bit of respect for this idea
of States rights, which I think is now convulsing the country to its center; and if I had my choice, my way, I
would build the road with the power of the Government, with the money of the Government, for the benefit
of the people; and I would build it at any cost, and I would build it right off.
By the time the vote was taken on January 30th, even though three more states, Florida, Alabama and
Mississippi had departed for the Confederacy, the bill that was finally passed, was so far altered from the
House bill that it could not be reconciled that session, as Baker had warned.
Also in January of 1861 a tariff bill was under debate. Baker supported the bill, calling for a tariff on
wool to help Oregon, and also making the case for a tariff on imported wine to protect California farmers,
stating, prophetically, I do not know that I shall live to see it, but many gentlemen in this body will live to
see the time that the value of the wine product of California will be greater than the gold product now is . .
. In the course of the debate Baker restated the old Whig doctrine of the protective tariff as a principle,
I, as a Whig, in old times, understanding a little of the principles of a tariff and very little of the
details, used to argue with the distinguished Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] in the presence
of a great many people, to make them believe that the way to have things that they wanted to eat,
to drink, and to wear, very cheap, was to put a very high duty on them. [Laughter] Well, I
reasonably believed that then, and I reasonably believe it now; that is, I believe that in the
infancy of a manufacture you may really help the country by laying a protective tariff in its
favor.

The Compromise Measures

From December 1860 through March 1861 several compromise measures were proposed in an effort
to keep the union intact. Baker was willing to go to great lengths to satisfy the southern states which wished
to remain loyal to the Union; not so with the deep south states which blatantly denounced the United States.
On March 1, two days before the end of the session, during a lengthy debate over the Peace Conference
propositions, propositions which would have involved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the rights
of slave owners to take slaves into territory south of the 36E30' line, (e.g., New Mexico) Baker intervened,
praising the twenty states who sent delegates to the peace convention for making this determined effort to
save the nation, and stating,
....if this proposition will suit the border states, if there will be peace and union, and loyalty and
brotherhood, with this, I will vote for it at the polls with all my heart and with all my soul; but if I
see that the counsels of the senators from Virginia shall prevail; if my noble friend from
Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] shall be overwhelmed; if secession shall still grow in the public mind
31

there; if they are determined, upon artificial causes of complaint, as I believe, still to unite their
fate, their destiny, and their hope, with the extremest south, then, perceiving them to be of no
avail, I shall refuse them.
His attitude of compromise was clarified the next day in further debates on the amendments: no
compromise with traitors, and no compromise with threats of secession.
When I go to North Carolina and say, let us vote for this resolution, I do not say, I offer
you this to stay in the union. I have an abiding hope that they do not mean to go out. When I say
to Virginia, come, let us vote for this resolution, I do not mean to say, Virginia, you are going
out of the union, and I mean to keep you in. I say it because I believe you are not; because I
really do want fellowship and brotherhood with you; and therefore I vote for this to allay your
apprehensions . . .
Let us go among our people and say, there is the olive branch; there is peace; there is
concession; there is compromise, reasonable, dignified, fair, just; they have refused it; they are
not satisfied; they go out; they confederate; they are treasonable; they are rebellious; now the
peace of the world requires that we should try strength with them to maintain the Union. Sir, we
can do that; and then every hill top, every valley, every plain, every riverside will pour forth its
thousands and tens of thousands of men to stand by the Union; and God and his angels will
march to defend the right . . .
On the upcoming Lincoln inauguration, he added,
Since the day when Washington was inaugurated, never did a President of the United
States pronounce his introductory address surrounded with more difficulties, calling for more
wisdom, demanding more the spirit of just conciliation and manly compromise, than will
Abraham Lincoln when he pronounces that address tomorrow. I would back him; I would
encourage him; I would hold up his hands; I would remind him that he was elected by the votes
of the whole people; I would call upon him to act for the whole people; I would do it with my vote
tonight. I shall not approach him tomorrow. The time is too far gone by. I do not profess to be in
his confidence; but, as his constitutional adviser, among our lasts acts, I would record my word,
my pledge, my vote.
...I said in the early part of this session, and I say again, I will not compromise with treason;
I will not bow to South Carolina . . . We are right; they are rebels; they are traitors, not only to
the Government, but to the peace of the world; and with them I desire no fellowship, until they
return and repent; and for them I have no word of compromise or concession. But to Virginia, as
yet, to Kentucky, as yet, to Tennessee, as yet, not so.
It is very easy to be for the Union when it costs us nothing. It costs no man anything to say
that the Union is a great institution, to sing paens in its praise, to shout hallelujahs to its glory.
This is easily done; but when we have got to give up something of pride of opinion, if you like, of
past conviction for the Union, theres the rub
In closing, he recapped,
32

I do believe now it is necessary to preserve the Union by yielding, conceding, compromising, a

little more than I believed a year ago. I would have done it to preserve the Union then, and I will
do it to preserve the Union now. Again: I desire it to be remembered that when I compromise, I
compromise nothing to treason, I yield to President Davis, sitting upon a throne which he has
assumed, nothing; to the rebellion of South Carolina, nothing; and to her floating batteries, if it
were possible, less than nothing. But to the states yet loyal, yet fraternal, with all the loving blood
of the Union still gushing through their veins, I will yield much, if it be required; and I rejoice
tonight that, in the judgment of good and wise men, so little will do.
Stephen Douglas rose after Baker had finished to say, Mr. President, I have listened to the patriotic
speech of the Senator from Oregon with a great deal of pleasure. It is in such contrast with the mere
political speeches which we had been compelled on this Sabbath day to listen to, that I was rejoiced that a
change had taken place in the debate . . . He proposed to stop all political debate and vote on the measures
before the Senate and to send them back to the House. 52
Needless to say, none of these propositions passed.

Inauguration Day
March 4, 1861, Inauguration Day, was a momentarily joyous occasion for Lincoln and Baker. It was
the culmination of their lifetime efforts. The previous summer, Baker had written a letter to Lincoln from
the campaign trail in Oregon, following Lincolns
nomination as the Republican Presidential candidate.
The letter concluded,
. . . The seed which you planted in the fields we
tilled together ripens in the sunshine of your later life, at a
great distance. I rejoice in the luxuriance of the harvest.
My whole heart is with you in the great battle, if we win
here, my whole soul will go out in the struggle.53
At the inauguration, it was Baker who had the honor
of introducing Lincoln, which he did simply,
Fellow citizens, I introduce to you Abraham
Lincoln, the President elect of the United States. 54
Lincoln then delivered his great first inaugural
address, assuring the South they had nothing to fear from
his administration as long as they were faithful to the
Union, and appealing to the whole country on the highest
level. He asserted, as Baker had done in the Senate in the
previous months,
Inaugural carriage. Lincoln and Buchanan facing
forward; Baker and Franklin Pierce facing back.
52

Congressional Globe March 2, 1861 p 1386

Harry Blair/Rebecca Tarsis Colonel Edward D Baker, Lincolns Constant Ally
54
Crittendens Recollections.

53

33

1. That, in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States
is perpetual.
2. That no state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves
and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any state or states,
against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary....
3. That the union is unbroken...that the laws of the Union (shall) be faithfully executed in all
states.
He further elaborated that the perpetuity of the Union preceded the Constitution, beginning with the
Articles of Association in 1774, matured by the Declaration of Independence in 1776, further matured by the
Articles of Confederation of 1778, and finally by the Constitution, ordained to form a more perfect Union.
Lincoln concluded his speech with:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it
must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet
swell the chorus of Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of their
nature.
If reason had ruled, war would not have come. But reasoning seemed to vanish, and in the Capital the
next day, southern Senators launched diatribes against Lincoln, attacks which lasted for the rest of the
month. One happy was occurrence was that Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas inspired by both Lincoln
and Baker rose to become a great defender of the Union.

The Monster Mass Meeting

On April 14th, Fort Sumter was bombarded and fell to the Confederates. Lincoln promptly called for
75,000 volunteers to defend the Capitol.
Pro-Union mass meetings were held throughout the north and midwest, the largest being in Union
Square, New York City, on April 19th. The crowd was reckoned at 100,000, the largest public meeting ever
held, and was addressed by twenty prominent men but it was the profound and impassioned speech of
Senator Edward Baker which electrified the participants. A few excerpts follow.
The majesty of the people is here today to sustain the majesty of the Constitution [cheers],
and I come a wanderer from the far Pacific to record my oath along with yours of the great
Empire State. [Applause and three cheers for Baker.] The hour for conciliation is passed; the
gathering for battle is at hand, and the country requires that every man shall do his duty. [Loud
cheers.].....
That hour of conciliation will come back when again the ensign of the Republic will stream
over every rebellious fort of every Confederate State [renewed cheers], to be, as of old, the
emblem of the pride, and power, and dignity, and majesty, and peace of the nation. Young men of
New York! You are told that this is not a war of aggression. In one sense, that is true; in another,
not. We have committed aggression upon no man. In all the broad land, in their rebel nest, in
their traitors camp, no truthful man can rise and say that he has ever been disturbed, though it
34

be but for a single moment, in life, liberty, estate, character, or honor. [Cheers, and cries of
Thats so!] The day they began this unnatural, false, wicked, rebellious warfare, their lives were
more secure, their property more secure by us (not by themselves, but by us), more strongly
guarded than the lives and property of any other people from the beginning of the world.
[applause.]...
I propose that we do now as we did in Mexico conquer peace. [Loud and enthusiastic
applause.] I propose that we go to Washington and beyond. [Loud cheers.] I do not design to
remain silent, supine, inactive nay, fearful until they gather their battalions and advance upon
our borders or into our midst. I would meet them upon the threshold, and there, in the very hold
of their power, in the very atmosphere of their treason, I would dictate the terms of peace. [Loud
cheers.] It may take thirty millions of dollars, it may take three hundred millions what then? We
have it. [Cries of Good! and applause] Loyally, nobly, grandly do the merchants of New York
respond to the appeals of the Government. It may cost us seven thousand men; it may cost us
seventy-five thousand; it may cost us seven hundred and fifty thousand what then? We have
them. [Renewed cheering.] The blood of every loyal man is dear to me. My sons, my kinsmen, the
men who have grown up beneath my eye and beneath my care, they are all dear to me; but if the
countrys destiny, glory, tradition, greatness, freedom, Constitutional government demand it, let
them all go.55 [Enthusiastic cheers.]
I am not now to speak timorous words of peace, but
to kindle the spirit of determined war; I speak in the
Empire State, amid scenes of past suffering and past glory.
The defenses of the Hudson above me, the battle field of
Long Island before me, and the statue of Washington in my
very face56 [loud, Enthusiastic cheers], the battered and
unconquered flag of Sumter is waving at my side, which I
can imagine to be trembling again with the excitement of
battle. [ Great enthusiasm.] And as I speak, I say my
mission here today is to kindle the heart of New York for
war short, sudden, bold, determined, forward war.57 . . .
Civil war . . . is always dangerous to liberty, always
fearful, always bloody. But, fellow citizens, there are yet
worse things than fear, than doubt and dread, and peril
and bloodshed. [Renewed cheers.] Secessionists are worse.
To have star after star blotted out [cries of Never!
Never!] to have stripe after stripe obscured [cries of No!
No!] to have glory after glory dimmed, to have our
women weep and our men blush for shame through
generations to come; that and these are infinitely worse
than blood. [Tremendous cheers.]...
Statue of Washington in Union Square
The President himself, a hero without knowing it,
and I speak from knowledge, having known him from
boyhood, the President says; There are wrongs to be
redressed, already long enough endured; and we march to
55
56

Baker indeed recruited his brother, nephew and son to his regiment.
The statue of Washington, the first in the New York City parks, still stands today in Union Square.

57

The phrase sudden, bold, determined, forward war, which he would later repeat in the Senate, so incensed the New York
Times, that 150 years later that paper would quote those words in a vile slander of Baker on the anniversary of his death in battle.
35

battle and to victory because we do not choose to endure

this wrong any longer . . . They are wrongs against our
ensign; they are wrongs against our Union; they are
wrongs against our Constitution; they are wrongs against
human hope and human freedom.
Baker noted that 100,000 New Yorkers declaring themselves for the Government to the last drop of
blood and treasure would be immediately telegraphed to the world. Finally,
... if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword, never yet dishonored, not to
fight for honor on a foreign field, but for country, for home, for law, for government, for
Constitution, for right, for freedom, for humanity and in the hope that the banner of my country
may advance, and wheresoever that banner waves, there glory may pursue and freedom be
established. [Loud and prolonged applause.]

The California Regiment

On May 8th, Lincoln issued an order, authorizing Baker to raise and equip an infantry regiment of
sixteen companies, to be called the California Regiment, to be mustered into the U.S. service at New York,
and to be organized and commanded by him as colonel. The idea was to recruit former residents of
California and Oregon. Baker wired his friend and partner from San Francisco, Isaac Wistar, now practicing
law in Philadelphia, asking if he could raise this regiment. Wistar replied that he could not in New York, but
maybe in Philadelphia. Very well; your private business is sure to be broken up and not worth following
for a while at least. Abandon it. Go to work and raise this regiment in Philadelphia, bringing the men over
here to be mustered, Baker replied, adding I cannot at this
moment accept military rank without jeopardizing my seat in the
Senate, but you know my relations with Lincoln, and if you will
do that for me, I can assure you that within six months I shall be a
major-general, and you shall have a brigadier-generals
commission and a satisfactory command under me. Wistar,
newly in the state militia, who, until shortly before, had doubted
that war would come, and when it did wasnt sure which side he
was on at first, took the plunge. After visiting all the local saloons
and drumming up patriotic fervor, by the second night he had 100
men on the train for New York, the first of many such runs,
A Wistar recruitment poster
ending at a building at 4th Street and Broadway which Baker had
procured for the purpose. The brigade would soon march to Fort Schuyler in the Bronx, then on to
Philadelphia and then Fortress Monroe, Virginia.
While the men were training at Fort Schuyler, Baker, at Lincolns request, traveled to Fortress Monroe
to make a confidential survey of the equipment and condition of the troops. On board the ship from
Baltimore to the Fortress, a correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial conversed with Baker, and after
Bakers death wrote a report that again attests to Bakers immortal character and unmitigated devotion to the
Union.

36

The writer met Colonel Baker on the steamer going from Baltimore to Fortress Monroe. He said
he did not expect to survive the war; that in his judgment he never should see the shores of the
Pacific again. This was hardly so much a presentiment on his part as a calculation. He said the
troops were green and it would be necessary for the officers to expose themselves. He had seen
service and would feel it a duty to lead his regiment. The enemy had plenty of sharpshooters and
he presumed they would pick him off. He said he believed it would be his fate to die at the head of
his regiment. It may illustrate the temper and character of the man to mention that after saying,
with as perfect calmness as he could have named the most trivial circumstance, that he believed it
would be his fate to fall in battle and that he should never see his home on the Pacific again, he
retired from the guard rail, where he had engaged in conversation, to the cabin, and seating
himself at the piano played, with grace and skill remarkable for a gentleman amateur on that
instrument, several touching airs, among them that favorite of the English soldiers before
Sebastopol sweet and mournful Annie Laurie.58

Lincoln defends Baker - again

It was shortly thereafter that Lincoln fiercely defended Baker again. This time the offence came from a
group of California Republicans seeking patronage appointments, in the midst of the outbreak of the Civil
War. The group was split between pro and anti Baker men, the antis led by James Simonton, now the editor
of the San Francisco Bulletin, the same paper which had incited the revival of the Vigilance Committee in
1856. Baker was at the meeting, having been invited by Lincoln. The story was related by D. J. Staples
thirty-five years later.
....Then Mr. Simonton spoke up. He read a paper in which he abused Colonel Baker, the Senator
from Oregon, and a long time friend of Lincoln, in the most violent and vituperative manner . . .
He said that Baker was an associate of gamblers and all that class of persons. Baker sat there
listening to it all. I thought I could see a dark frown gathering on Lincolns brow as the reading
went on. Well, Lincoln heard it all without interruption; but as I said, it seemed to me as if I
could read a growing storm prophesied by his countenance. When Simonton got through he gave
the names of those who indorsed his position, and the names of those men whom he insisted
should be put in office . . .
Mr. Lincoln asked if the paper was for him. He then took the paper and said I will burn it in the
presence of the man who wrote it. and he at once stepped over to the fireplace and reaching forth
his arm stuck the paper in the fire.
When Staples tried to defend Baker, Lincoln cut him off.
Not a word; not a word. I dont want to hear a word. I have known Colonel Baker twenty five years.
I have known him better than any of you know him, and I dont want any defense of him from any one.
After asking if there were any other requests, and all were silent, Lincoln said,
Now I have a request to make of you. I want you to go home. You will be needed in California far
more needed there than here.59
58
59

Reprinted in Sacramento Daily Union, November 18, 1861

San Francisco Call May 3, 1896 Lincolns Vindication of Colonel E D Baker.
37

July 4 th Session of Congress

Lincoln had called a special session of Congress, commencing on July 4th, 1861, to give him
authorization to fight the war, and to confirm the measures he had already taken. These included the call to
arms of 75,000 militia, the blockade of ports seized by the rebels, and suspension of habeas corpus where
necessary. In the Senate, the remaining southerners and their allies vociferously objected to all of the
measures. Baker forcefully intervened to support the President.
I approve, as a personal and political friend of the President, of every measure of his
administration in relation to the rebellion at present raging in this country. I propose to ratify
whatever needs ratification. I propose to render my clear and distinct approval not only of the
measure, but of the motive which prompted it. I propose to lend the whole power of the country,
arms, authority almost unlimited, until the conclusion of this struggle. He has asked for
$400,000,000. We propose to give him $500,000,000. He has asked for four hundred thousand
men. We propose to give him half a million; and for my part, if, as I do not apprehend, the
emergency should be still greater, I will cheerfully add a cipher to either of these figures.
He reiterated that he did this as a war measure only, and repeated his declaration from the Union
Square rally, I want sudden, bold, forward, determined war; adding, and I do not think anybody can
conduct war of that kind as well as a dictator.
Later, he commented, . . . make war upon a scale as vast as the emergency that calls it forth; let it
be sharp, sudden, bold, determined, forward. When the war ceases, let all the measures of the war cease
too.
In the event returning states did not become loyal and send new representatives to Congress,
We may have to reduce them to the condition of Territories, and send from Massachusetts or
from Illinois Governors to control them . . . warning that if you patch up a peace; if you
make it before you are ready; if you imagine them conquered before they really submit; if you
treat with rebels and confederate states, you may need a standing army forever; but if you really
conquer a peace; if your bayonets gleam in every city in this Union; if you hold them by the
strong hand of power; if you tell them, Gentlemen, you have been regardless of the great
blessings of free government under which you lived and rejoiced for over seventy years, now as
you have sought the despotism of arms, we will show you what arms are; when you really do
that, and break their spirit, when Toombs and Davis are wandering in exile, despised and almost
forgotten among men, except by the enormity of their crime, then, sir you want no standing
army.60

The Reply to Breckinridge

During this session, Senator John Breckinridge of Kentucky, former Presidential candidate of the
southern Democrats, was an outspoken mouthpiece for the southern cause, and clashed with Baker several
60

These formulations cohere exactly with Lincolns peace conditions of 1864, but that emancipation was added.
38

times. The last was on August 1st, during a debate over Senate Bill 33 to suppress insurrection and
sedition. Breckinridge entered the debate to gloat over the indecision of the loyal Senators, attacking every
section of the bill as unconstitutional and appalling, calling the Congress worse than the President in its
outrages upon personal and public liberty. Among various dire predictions as to the outcome of the war,
he predicted that the Pacific coast would soon tire of the added tax burden of the war, and the war in
general, and would turn aside in disgust from the sickening spectacle, and become a separate nation, and
that the remaining states, disagreeing as they were already as to the course of the war, would also break up.
Republican Senators had sent messengers to find Baker, who was drilling his troops a mile from the
Capitol, and bring him back to most ably reply, knowing that the speeches would be printed together and
distributed about the country.
Blaine describes the scene,
On the first of August, while performing the double and somewhat anomalous duty of
commanding his regiment and representing Oregon in the Senate, Mr. Baker entered the
Chamber in the full uniform of a colonel of the United States Army.
He laid his sword upon his desk and sat for some time listening to
the debate. He was evidently impressed by the scene of which he was
himself a conspicuous feature. Breckinridge took the floor shortly
after Baker appeared, and made a speech of which it is fair criticism
to say that it reflected in all respects the views held by the members
of the Confederate Congress then in session at Richmond. Colonel
Baker evidently grew restive under the words of Mr. Breckinridge.
His face was aglow with excitement, and he sprang to the floor when
the Senator from Kentucky took his seat . . . It is impossible to
realize the effect of the words so eloquently pronounced by the
Oregon Senator. In the history of the Senate no more thrilling speech
was ever delivered. The striking appearance of the speaker in the
uniform of a soldier, his superb voice, his graceful manner, all
united to give to the occasion an extraordinary interest and
Colonel Baker
attraction.61
Baker began by asking Breckinridge which provisions of the bill he found unconstitutional.
Breckinridge replied that they were equally atrocious, and refused to be drawn into debate with the adroit
debater. After demonstrating two examples as perfectly constitutional, Baker addressed the Senators
predictions.
The Senator from Kentucky stands up here in a manly way in opposition to what he sees is
the overwhelming sentiment of the Senate, and utters reproof, malediction, and prediction
combined. Well, sir, it is not every prediction that is prophecy. It is the easiest thing in the world
to do; there is nothing easier, except to be mistaken when we have predicted. I would ask him
what would you have us do now a confederate army within twenty miles us, advancing, or
threatening to advance, to overwhelm your Government; to shake the pillars of the Union; to
bring it around your head, if you stay here, in ruins? Are we to stop and talk about an uprising
sentiment in the North against the war? Are we to predict evil, and retire from what we predict?
Is it not the manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy armies, to organize
61

James Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol I p 344

39

them, to prepare to advance; when we do advance, to regulate that advance by all the laws and
regulations that civilization and humanity will allow in time of battle? Can we do anything more?
To talk to us about stopping, is idle; we will never stop. Will the Senator yield to rebellion? Will
he shrink from armed insurrection? Will his State justify it? Will its better public opinion allow
it? Shall we send a flag of truce? What would he have? Or would he conduct this war so feebly,
that the whole world would smile at us in derision? What would he have? These speeches of his,
sown broadcast over the land, what clear distinct meaning have they? Are they not intended for
disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull our weapons? Are they not
intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not
words of brilliant, polished treason, even in the very Capitol of the Confederacy? [Applause in
the galleries] (order demanded)
What would have been thought if, in another Capitol, in another Republic, in a yet more
martial age, a senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky,
yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all
the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just, and that
Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace? What would have been thought if, after the
battle of Cannae, a senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman
people, every expenditure of its treasure, and every appeal to the old recollections and the old
glories?
Senator Fessenden quipped that he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock.62
Baker continued,
Sir, a Senator, himself learned far more than myself in such lore, tells me, in a voice that I
am glad is audible, that he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock. It is a grand
commentary upon the American Constitution that we permit these words to be uttered. I ask the
Senator to recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions of
his amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every confederate ear.
Every sound thus uttered is a word (and falling from his lips, a mighty
word) of kindling and triumph to a foe that determines to advance. For
me, I have no such word as a Senator to utter. For me, amid temporary
defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to utter another
word, and that word is, bold, sudden, forward, determined war,
according to the laws of war, by armies, by military commanders clothed
with full power, advancing with all the past glories of the Republic
urging them on to conquest.
I do not stop to consider whether it is subjugation or not. It is
compulsory obedience, not to my will; not to yours, sir; not to the
will of any one man; not to the will of any one State; but
compulsory obedience to the Constitution of the whole country. The
Senator chose the other day again and again to animadvert on a
single expression in a little speech which I delivered before the
Senate, in which I took occasion to say that if the people of the
Senator John Breckinridge
rebellious states would not govern themselves as States, they ought
62

A cliff in Rome from which traitors were thrown to their death.

40

to be governed as territories. The Senator knew full well then, for I explained it twice he knows full well
now that on this side of the Chamber; nay, in this whole chamber; nay, in this whole North and West; nay,
in all the loyal states in all their breadth, there is not a man among us all who dreams of causing any man
in the south to submit to any rule, either as to life, liberty, or property, that we ourselves do not willingly
agree to yield to. Did he ever think of that? Subjugation for what? When we subjugate South Carolina, what
shall we do? We shall compel its obedience to the Constitution of the United States; that is all. Why play
upon words? We do not mean, we have never said any more....
I ask him, I appeal to his better judgment now, what does he imagine we intend to do, if
fortunately we conquer Tennessee or South Carolina call it conquer, if you will, sir what do
we propose to do? They will have their courts still; they will have their ballot boxes still; they will
have their elections still; they will have their representatives upon this floor still; they will have
taxation and representation still; they will have the writ of habeas corpus still; they will have
every privilege they ever had and all we desire. When the confederate armies are scattered; when
their leaders are banished from power; when the people return to a late repentant sense of the
wrong they have done to a Government they never felt but in benignancy and blessing, then the
Constitution made for all will be felt by all, like the descending rains from heaven which bless all
alike. Is that subjugation? To restore what was, as it was, for the benefit of the whole country and
of the whole human race, is all we desire and all we can have.
Baker accused Breckinridge of misrepresenting the sentiments of the North, when he teaches such
doctrines to the people of the South. He then made some predictions of his own, based on his personal
knowledge of the people of Illinois, California and Oregon, that they will be true to the Union, no matter the
cost in life or treasure. That while there may be a few in California and Oregon from the South who are
perverse, violent, destructive, revolutionary, and opposed to social order, who persistently
endeavor to create and maintain mischief; the great portion of our population are loyal to the
core and in every chord of their hearts . . . I tell the Senator that his predictions, sometimes for
the South, sometimes for the middle States, sometimes for the Northeast, and then wandering
away in airy visions out to the far Pacific, about the dread of our people, as for loss of blood and
treasure, provoking them to disloyalty, are false in sentiment, false in fact, and false in loyalty.
The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all . . .
If we have the country, the whole country, the Union, the Constitution, free government
with these will return all the blessings of well ordered civilization; the path of the country will be
a career of greatness and of glory such as, in the olden time, our fathers saw in the dim visions of
years yet to come, and such as would have been ours now, today, if it had not been for the treason
for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize.
That would be Bakers last major speech before the Senate. On August 5th he rose merely to state that
he had declined to accept the office of brigadier general, tendered to him by the President of the United
States. He considered it his duty to make this statement, as the issue had been raised as to the propriety of
being a general and senator. Congress recessed, and Baker would never take his seat again.

Lincoln visits the California Regiment

41

Baker continued to drill his officers and men. In September the regiment had moved from Fortress
Monroe to a position in advance of the Chain Bridge, near Washington. One day Lincoln and Secretary of
State Seward visited the camp. The soldiers, not having been paid for nearly three months, had constructed a
stuffed dummy, hung it near the entrance to the camp, and labeled it The Defunct Paymaster.
As the carriage containing the distinguished visitors rolled up the avenue of tents toward
Headquarters some of the men recognized the President, and thinking, probably, to give him a
hint of the Governments delinquency, dragged the defunct paymaster from his elevation and
formed an impromptu procession with the effigy at their head, marching behind the carriage. As
the guests, followed by this boisterous crowd, arrived at Headquarters, the Colonel came down to
greet his friends. When he caught sight of the procession a little way in the rear his eye twinkled
and he remarked, Mr. President, allow me to congratulate you on the fine appearance of your
bodyguard. Mr. Lincoln turned and for the first time saw the effigy of the defunct paymaster.
A broad smile spread over his genial countenance, and he said, Men, I take the hint. Your case
shall be attended to. The men gave three cheers for Uncle Abe and broke ranks. The next day a
live paymaster came and paid the troops in shining gold the last of that metal the regiment saw
during the war.63

Balls Bluff
By September Bakers brigades were part of the Army of the Potomac under the command of Brigadier
General Charles Stone. On October 20th, Baker was ordered into battle at Balls Bluff, in Leesburg, Virginia.
The details of the battle need not be elaborated here. As a result of bad intelligence, bad communication
and bad judgment on the part of various officers, his forces were greatly outnumbered, and trapped on a cliff
over the Potomac. Baker urged his men on, encouraged them, cheered them, as all hope, except for honor,
was disappearing. Wistar fought gallantly, but was shot three times, and Baker finally ordered him off the
field. At 5:00 p.m., in a volley of bullets, Edward Baker was shot dead. Edward Dickinson Baker was
promoted by one grand brevet of the God of Battles, above the acclaim of the field, above the applause of
the world, to the heaven of the martyr and the hero.64
Lincoln had gone to McClellans headquarters to receive a report on the battle. A reporter also waiting
for news describes the scene. Lincoln was in McClellans office conferring, while the telegraph could be
heard clicking away.
Five minutes passed, and then Mr. Lincoln, unattended, with bowed head, and tears rolling
down his furrowed cheeks, his face pale and wan, his heart heaving with emotion, passed through
the room. He almost fell as he stepped into the street and we sprang involuntarily from our seats
to render assistance, but he did not fall. With both hands pressed upon his heart, he walked down
the street, not returning the salute of the sentinel pacing his beat before the door.
McClellan emerged a moment later, and informed the reporters of the defeat at Balls Bluff and Bakers
death. 65
63

Edward Baker Jerome, Reminiscences of Colonel E. D. Baker, California Magazine, May 1880. Jerome was a nephew of
Bakers, and second lieutenant in the regiment, who helped rescue his uncles dead body from the hands of the rebels.
64
John Hay Harpers Magazine, December 1861
65
Harry Blair and Rebecca Tarsis Colonel Edward D Baker, Lincolns Constant Ally p 156
42

Returning to the White House, the President walked up and down his room for hours lamenting the
loss of his friend. Mrs. Lincolns sorrow was equally poignant. Only the day before Baker had visited the
Lincolns at the White House, sitting outside on a warm autumn day, he and Lincoln talking in subdued and
grave voices, while Willie Lincoln played nearby. Finally Baker arose and shook hands with the President.
Lifting Willie in his arms, Baker kissed the boy good-by. Mrs. Lincoln presented him with a bouquet of
autumn flowers . . . 66
George Wilkes, Brodericks old friend, had become a war correspondent. Just as he had finished his
report for October 21st, he learned of Bakers death, and appended a report on the Battle of Balls Bluff, and
the terrible loss felt by everyone, especially the President. He ended with the following personal note,
another tribute to Bakers undying patriotism and immortal spirit.
Upon me Col. Bakers death produced a startling effect. I had the honor of entertaining him,
as my guest at dinner, on an afternoon in last July, and on that occasion, when I expressed a
natural concern as to the probable deportment of his troops in battle, he said: Wilkes, I have
some queer notions about the part I am to play in this war, and I want you to bear in mind that
what I now say to you is not the result of any idle fancy or frivolous impression. It is doubtful if I
shall ever take my seat again in the Senate. To the look of surprise which I turned upon him at
this remark, he replied: I am sure I shall not live to see another year, and if my troops show any
want of resolution, I shall fall in the first battle! I cannot afford, after my career in Mexico, and
as a Senator of the United States, to turn my face from the enemy!
There was no gloom or despondency in his
manner, but it was characterized by a temperate
earnestness, which made a profound impression on
my mind. So, before October sheds its leaves, his
sword lies upon his pulseless breast, and his toga in
the cerements of the grave. G. W.67
In San Francisco, October 25th had begun with great joy,
as the transcontinental telegraph that day became operational.
The second message, however was of the loss at Balls Bluff
and the death of Baker. Thomas Starr King was at the telegraph
office.
Soon thereafter, Bakers brother, Dr. Alfred Baker,
surgeon, and the nephew, Edward Baker Jerome, called on
Lincoln at the White House. They presented him with a piece
of blood stained paper, taken from Bakers dead hand, which
read: You will cross the river, take up a strong position, make
a dash on Leesburg. Lincoln exclaimed, Gentlemen: My
Baker was murdered.68
Balls Bluff National Monument

66

Ibid. p 157

67
68

Sacramento Daily Union, 11/18/1861

Jerome. The story is disputed. There is no official record that Stone issued that order.
43

Funeral
The body arrived in Washington on the 23rd. Lincoln wished it brought to the White House, but due to
construction work ongoing it was brought to another home for two days, then carried to the Congressional
Cemetery. Hundreds of dignitaries joined the procession, including President Lincoln. This was a temporary
resting place, until it could be embalmed and sent to San Francisco. On November 7th, the long journey
began, leaving by train first to Philadelphia, where the casket would spend two days in Independence Hall. It
was met by four members of the California Regiment, who placed it in a hearse, then proceeded to
Independence Hall accompanied by a hundred police in uniform, a band, several regiments of Home Guards,
followed by a dozen officers who had taken part in Balls Bluff, the Mayor of Philadelphia and arrangements
committee. During two days thousands of people filed by. On November 9th the casket was placed on a
steamer for New York. There it was met by former citizens from Oregon and Washington Territory, and the
hearse proceeded up Broadway, people lining the streets in a torrential downpour, to City Hall, where
services were held on November 11th. Finally, it was placed on a steamer for San Francisco.
The ship arrived on December 6th; the funeral took place on the 11th. A delegation of Republicans from
Oregon was present, and had appealed to Bakers widow to allow him to be buried in Oregon. She
responded in a very gracious letter that she would wait and see if he had left any wishes in that regard.
Apparently, he had requested to be buried in San Francisco, next to his friend David Broderick, at Lone
Mountain.
On the same day, funeral services were held in the US Senate. Under the heading, Death of Hon. E. D.
Baker, the report begins, The President of the United States entered the Senate Chamber, supported by
Hon. Lyman Trumbull and Hon. O.H. Browning, Senators from the State of Illinois; he was introduced to
the Vice President, and took a seat beside him on the dais appropriated to the President of the Senate . . . 69
The first Senator to speak was Bakers colleague James Nesmith70 of Oregon, who made the formal
announcement of Bakers death and reviewed his life, quoting Bakers oft repeated declaration in favor of
bold, sudden, forward, and determined war, and adding What he said as a Senator he was willing to do as
a soldier. At the end of his speech he offered a resolution for the members of the Senate to enter a thirty
day mourning by wearing a black crepe on their arms.
The most inspiring speech was given by Senator James McDougall of California, formerly of Illinois, a
Democrat, who noted that he and Baker were usually on opposite sides politically.
McDougall detailed Bakers numerous attributes, that he was learned, skilled in metaphysics, logic and
law; a master of history and of literature, and music not only music as it gives present pleasure to the
ear, but music in the sense in which it was understood by the old seekers after wisdom, who held that in
harmonious sounds rested some of the great secrets of the infinite.
Poetry he inhaled and expressed. Many years since, on the then wild plains of the West, in the middle
of a star-lit night, as we journeyed together, I heard first from him the chant of that noble song, The Battle
of Ivry, which he then recited.
He was an orator not an orator trained to the model of the Greek or Roman school, but one far
better suited to our age and people. He was a master of dialectics, and possessed a skill and power in words
which would have confounded the rhetoric of Gorgias.
He was not a man of authorities, simply because he used authorities only as the rounds whereby to
ascend to principles.

69
70

Congressional Globe December 11, 1861

Nesmith was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment.
44

He was a soldier. He was a leader . . . No one felt more than he the majestic dignity of the great
cause for which our nation now makes war. He loved freedom . . . He loved this land, this whole land. He
had done much to conquer it from the wilderness; and by his own acts he had made it his land.
It was in the spirit of the patriot hero that the gallant soldier, the grave Senator, the white-haired
man of counsel, yet full of youth as full of years, gave answer, as does the war horse, to the trumpets
sound.
To those who would question the wisdom of the Senator risking his life in battle, McDougall recalled
Socrates, who had refused elected office because he deemed his office as a teacher of wisdom a higher and
nobler one, did not think it unworthy of himself to serve as a common soldier in battle.
Bakers motto that day was; a good heart and no hope....he said: Forward, my brigade, although
some one has blundered.
It may be called sacrifice, self sacrifice; but I who know the man who was the late senator the calm,
self possessed perfectness of his valor, and who have studied all the details of the field of his last offering
with a sad earnestness, say to you, sir, to this Senate, to the country, and particularly to the people of the
land of the West, where most and best he is known and loved, that no rash, reckless regardlessness of
danger can be attributed to him. It is but just to say of him that his conduct sprung from a stern, hero,
patriot, martyr spirit, that enabled him to dare, unflinchingly, with a smile to the green earth, and a smile to
the bright heavens, and a cheer to his brave companions, ascend the altar of sacrifice . . .
In long future years, when our night of horror shall have passed, and there shall have come again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace, young seekers after fame and young lovers of freedom,
throughout all this land, yea, and other and distant lands, will recognize, honor and imitate our late
associate as one of the undying dead.
Following McDougall, Orville Browning of Illinois spoke, noting that Bakers memory was not less
dear in the hearts of the people of that state, and his death had shrouded the state in mourning. He began that
Baker had been a close personal and political friend from early manhood, and he recounted the days of
traveling the circuit together.
He was a true, immovable, incorruptible and unshrinking patriot. He was the fast, firm friend of
civil and religious liberty, and believed that they should be the common heritage and blessing of
all mankind, and that they could be secured and enjoyed only through the instrumentality of
organized constitutional government, and submission to, and obedience of, its laws; and the
conviction upon his mind was deep and profound that if the wicked rebellion which had been
inaugurated went unrebuked, and treason triumphed over law, constitutional government in
North America would be utterly annihilated, to be followed by the confusion of anarchy, then the
atrocities of despotism . . . he believed that the issue of the contest (the Civil War) was powerfully
and vitally to affect the welfare and happiness of the American people, if not indeed of all other
nations, for centuries yet to be . . .
Senator Sumner cited Bakers homage to Broderick, this early victim of the war, repeating Bakers
quote of Broderick, They have killed me because I was opposed to the extension of slavery and a corrupt
Administration, and as the impassioned orator repeated these words his own soul was knit in sympathy
with the dead; and thus at once he endeared himself to the friends of freedom, even at a distance. On
Bakers oratory, he noted,

45

Ideas, illustrations, words seemed to come unbidden, and to range themselves in harmonious
forms as in the walls of ancient Thebes each stone took its proper place of its own accord,
moved only by the music of a lyre . . . In his reply to Benjamin, Perhaps the argument against
the sophism of secession was never better arranged and combined, or more simply popularized
for the general apprehension . . . and that in replying to Breckinridge, he began simply and
calmly; but, as he proceeded, his fervid soul broke forth in words of surpassing power. As on the
former occasion he had presented the well ripened fruits of study, so now he spoke with the
spontaneous utterance of his own mature and exuberant eloquence meeting the polished traitor
at every point with weapons keener and brighter than his own . . . 71

The San Francisco Obsequies

The funeral oration was given by Hon. Edward Stanley, a leading Republican, in Platts Music Hall, to
a packed house. Stanley recounted Bakers life history, with many vivid images and quotes from his
speeches. He particularly cited the Broderick oration, spoken two years earlier, quoting his condemnation of
dueling, saying that one effort should crown him with immortality, and concluded by echoing Bakers
farewell to Broderick:
Patriot-warrior, farewell! Thus, oh brave heart! we leave thee to thy rest. Thus, surrounded by
tens of thousands, we leave thee to the equal grave. As in life, no other voice among us so rung
his trumpet tones upon the ear of freemen, so in death its echoes will reverberate amid our
mountains and our valleys, until truth and valor cease to appeal to the human heart.
At the grave site, next to Brodericks tomb in Lone Mountain Cemetery, the Reverend Thomas Starr
King pronounced the eulogy.
The story of our great friends life has been eloquently told. We have borne him now to the
home of the dead, to the cemetery which, after fit services of prayer,
he devoted in a tender and thrilling speech, to its hallowed
purposes. In that address he said: Within these grounds public
reverence and gratitude shall build the tombs of warriors and
statesmen . . . who have given all their lives and their best thoughts
to their country. Could he have forecast, seven years ago, any such
fulfillment of those words as this hour reveals? He confessed the
conviction before he went into the battle which bereaved us, that his
last hour was near. Could any slight shadow of his destiny have
been thrown across his path, as he stood here when these grounds
were dedicated, and looked over slopes unfurrowed then by the
plowshare of death? His words were prophetic. Yes, warrior and
statesman, wise in council, graceful and electric as few have been
in speech, ardent and vigorous in debate, but nobler than for all
these qualities by the devotion which prompted thee to give more
than thy wisdom, more than thy energy and weight in the hall of
senatorial discussion, more than the fervor of thy tongue and the
Reverend Thomas Starr King
71

All speeches from Congressional Globe December 11, 1861

46

fire of thy eagle eye in the great assemblies of the people even the blood of thy indomitable heart when
thy country called with a cry of peril we receive thee with tears and pride. We find thee dearer than when
thou camest to speak to us in the full tide of life and vigor. Thy wounds through which thy life was poured
are not dumb mouths, but eloquent with the intense and perpetual appeal of thy soul. We receive thee to
reverence and gratitude, as we lay thee gently to thy sleep; and we pledge to thee, not only a monument
that shall hold thy name, but a memorial in the hearts of a grateful people, so long as the Pacific moans
near thy resting place, and a fame eminent among the heroes of the Republic so long as the mountain shall
feed the Oregon! The poet tells, in pathetic cadence, that,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
But this is true only in the superficial sense. It is true that the famous and the obscure, the devoted
and the ignoble, alike await the inevitable hour. But the path of true glory does not end in the
grave. It passes through it to larger opportunities of service. Do not believe or feel that we are
burying Edward Baker. A great nature is a seed. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual
body. it germinates thus in this world as well as in the other.
King concluded by admonishing against pessimism and fatalism, challenging the audience to reject
sense certainty, and rise to higher ideas.
And let us not be tempted, in view of the sudden close of our gifted friends career, in any sad
and skeptical spirit, to say, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue! The soul is not
a shadow. The body is. Genius is not a shadow. It is substance. Patriotism is not a shadow. It is
light. Great purposes, and the spirit that counts death nothing in contrast with honor and the
welfare of our country these are the witnesses that man is not a passing vapor, but an immortal
spirit.
Thomas Starr King would take up the mantle of the leading patriot, orator, fundraiser and inspirational
voice of the west coast throughout the Civil War.
A marble statue of Baker commissioned by Congress was installed in the Capitol in 1876.
A statue in San Francisco was discussed several times in the 19th century, but never created.
Lone Mountain Cemetery was demolished in 1937. The remains of Baker, his wife, and son were
moved to the Presidio Cemetery, and marked with a simple stone in a row.
In 2011 the State of Oregon passed a law designating February 24th a state holiday, in honor of Bakers
200 birthday.
th

47

POEMS

TO A WAVE

Dost thou seek a star with thy swelling crest,

O wave, that leavest thy mother s breast?
Dost thou leap from the prisoned depths below,
In scorn of their calm and constant flow?
Or art thou seeking some distant land,
To die in murmurs upon the strand?
Hast thou tales to tell of pearl-lit deep,
Where the wave-whelmed mariner rocks in sleep?
Canst thou speak of navies that sunk in pride
Ere the roll of their thunder in echo died?
What trophies, what banners, are floating free
In the shadowy depths of that silent sea?
It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar,
Of banner, or mariner, ship, or star;
It were vain to seek in thy stormy face
Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace.
Thou art swelling high, thou art flashing free,
How vain are the questions we ask of thee !
I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea;
I, too, am a wanderer, driven like thee;
I, too, am seeking a distant land,
To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand.
For the land I seek is a waveless shore,
And they who once reach it shall wander no more.
- E D Baker

Written 1849; published October 29, 1861, in Colonel John W. Forneys Philadelphia Press.

48

To his friend in peace and right arm in battle this tribute is presented by his brother,
A. C. Baker, M.D, Surgeon 71st Regt. Pa. Vols.
'Twas a calm October morning,
Long before the East was gray,
That our Chief received the order
Straight to marshal the array.

"Then my own, the Senate's honor,

Western lands and Keystone State
Tell to me a General's duty
Is to dare a soldier's fate!

Lightly from his narrow war-couch

Gaily up the Hero sprung,
Cheerful as if called to banquet,
Or to join the festive throng.

"They are trained to move like veterans

And like veterans they shall fight,
Never while I live to lead them,
Shall they turn their backs in flight!

Promptly was each order given,

And before the morn was light,
His beloved and own battalion
Proudly marched to find the fight.

"With the cold and silent bayonet

I will lead our freemen on;
Others then will tell the story
How the day is lost or won."

As he started, I addressed him,

"Brother, brother, mind today
You but do a General's duty,
Do not seek the thickest fray.

Vaulting on his tall bay charger

With a smile serene and bright,
Thus my gifted, gallant brother
Rode to that unequal fight.

"Think how much the country needs you,

Think your life is not your own,
Do not seek the hottest battle,
Do not venture forth alone!"

My brother, Oh, my brother!

Brother that I loved so well,
Other pens must trace the story
How you fought and how you fell!

"If the day goes lightly with us,

If I deem the field our own,
I'll but do a General's duty,
Wistar leads the column on.
Reprinted in The Autobiography of Isaac Wistar

"But if overborne by numbers,

We are like to lose the day,
If my own battalion falters
In the fury of the fray;

The California Brigade became the 71 st PA Regiment

"Should I lose my valiant right arm,

If by rebel steel or ball
'Mid the smoke and shock of battle
Gallant Wistar chance to fall;

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To the editor of the National Republican

Dear Sir:
I enclose you my first attempt at poetry.
Yours truly,
William W. Lincoln

Lines on the Death of Colonel Baker

There was no patriot like Baker,

So noble and so true;
He fell as a soldier on the field,
His face to the sky of blue.
His voice is silent in the hall,
Which oft his presence graced.
No more hell hear the loud acclaim
Which rang from place to place.
No squeamish notions filled his breast,
The Union was his theme;
No surrender and no compromise,
His day-thought and nights dream.
His Country has her part to play,
Tord those he has left behind;
His widow and his children all,
She must always keep in mind.

Published in the National Republican.

Eleven year-old Willie Lincoln would himself be dead within four months.

Andrea J. Ingraham, February 24, 2015

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