The Ties That Bind: George Peabody's Politics

He supported Millard Fillmore as the 13th president and during the Presidential election of 1860, George Peabody favored the Constitutional Union Party’s ticket of John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts.

Questions of states’ rights and slavery divided the country, setting the stage for a colorful three-party race between the Republican and Democrat parties, as well as the newly formed Constitutional Union Party.

In September 1860, surprised citizens of South Danvers (now Peabody) turned out to see the ringing of a large church bell that was drawn through the streets on a carriage drawn by four horses with plumes on their heads. Labeled “Bell and Everett,” the “Great Bell” announced a rally to be held in Danvers that was attended by delegations from Boston, Salem and South Danvers, the South Danvers Wizard reported.

Made up of conservative former Whig politicians who wanted to avoid discussion of slavery, the Constitutional Union “campaign deplored demagogy, party politics, territorial expansion and the spoils system,” wrote Daniel Walker Howe in The Political Culture of the American Whigs. The Constitutional Union party united Whigs and Know-Nothings, who were unwilling to join Democrats or the Republicans. They also appealed to undecided voters.

The party’s platform was a simple resolution: “To recognize no political principle other than the Constitution….the Union…and the Enforcement of Laws.” The party motto was, ”No North, No South, No East, No West. Nothing but the Union.”  It was hoped that by not taking a stand for or against slavery or its expansion, the issue would slip away.

There was a prevalent impression that George Peabody’s sentiments were with the Confederacy. Peabody was interviewed in December 1861 and acknowledged “that the side of the North was stronger than he had regarded it; that for several months his conversations had been with Americans who presented the question in a widely different aspect; that the business years of his American life had been passed in Georgetown and Baltimore; thus his sympathies, while in England, had not been with Abolitionists; and that during the many years of excitement upon the subject of slavery, he had regarded the ultras of the North and the South equally mischievous; and that his view of the questions had led him to regard extreme men of both sections as enemies to the Union; but, he added, that his devotion to our Government and Union, was so strong that, painful as was the thought of a war with our own brethren, if he were at home, he should stand by the Government, and that whatever he could do then and there for the Union  cause he would do cheerfully.”

Peabody’s remarks and other anecdotes about George Peabody’s support of the Union were published in 1870 by Thurlow Weed (1797-1882), a U.S. Journalist and leading Whig politician in the years before the Civil War. In 1861, he was sent to England to serve as a special agent and propagandist for the United States. On war issues, he favored compromise -- which put him out of step with the Republican Party. Weed’s report, “The Late George Peabody: A Vindication of His Course During the War” was published in the Danvers Monitor, January 12, 1870.