Joshua Reed Giddings (1795-1864) was an American statesman prominent in the anti-slavery conflict. He was born at Tioga Point, now Athens,
Bradford County, Pennsylvania, on 6
October 1795. In 1806 his parents removed to Ashtabula County, Ohio, then
sparsely settled and almost a wilderness.
The son worked on his father's farm, and, though he received no systematic education, devoted much time to study and reading.
For several years after 1814 he was a schoolteacher, but in February 1821 he was admitted to the
Ohio bar and soon obtained a large practice, particularly in criminal cases. From 1831
to 1837 he was in partnership with Benjamin F. Wade. He served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1826-1828, and from December 1838 until
March 1859 was a member of the United States House of
Representatives, first as a Whig, then as a Free-soiler, next as a candidate of the Opposition
Party, and finally as a Republican.
Recognizing that slavery was a state institution, with which the Federal government had no authority to interfere, he
contended that slavery could only exist by a specific state enactment, that therefore slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories was unlawful and should be abolished, that the coastwise
slave-trade in vessels flying the national flag, like the international slave-trade, should be rigidly suppressed, and that
Congress had no power to pass any act which in any way could be construed as a
recognition of slavery as a national institution.
His attitude in the so-called Creole Case attracted particular attention, particularly
since it was so closely associated with struggles by antislavery Congressmen to repeal the notorious "gag rule barring
antislavery petitions,, a campaign led in the House of representatives by ex-President John Quincy Adams. In 1841 some slaves who
were being carried in the brig Creole from Richmond and Hampton Roads, Virginia, to New Orleans, revolted, wounded the captain and killed one of the white overseers, gained
possession of the vessel, and soon afterwards entered the British port of
Nassau. Thereupon, according to British law, they were set free. However, the minority
who had taken an active part in the revolt were arrested on a charge of murder, and the remaining were liberated. Efforts were
made by the United States government to recover the slaves; Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, asserting that on an
American ship they were under the jurisdiction of the U.S. and that they were legally
property.
On the 21st of March 1842, before the case was settled, Giddings introduced in the House of Representatives a series of
resolutions, in which he asserted that in resuming their natural rights of personal liberty the slaves violated no law of the
U.S. For offering these resolutions Giddings was attacked with rancor, and was formally censured by the House. Thereupon he
resigned, appealed to his constituents, and was immediately reelected by a large majority. The "gag rule" was repealed three
years thereafter.
Giddings went on to lead Congressional opposition by free state politicians to any further expansion of slavery, condemning
the annexation of Texas (1846), the Mexican War (1846-8), the 1850 Compromises and the Kansas Nebraska Act( 1854) His hatred of
slavery led him to abandon his initial allegiance to the Whig party for the Free-Soil party (1848) and in 1854-5 he became
one of the leading founders of the Republican party. Throughout his life he was always very active in the Underground Railroad
and was widely known (and condemned) for his egalitarian racial beliefs and actions.
In 1859 he was not renominated, and retired from Congress after a continuous service of more than twenty years. From 1861
until his death, at Montreal, on the 27th of May 1864, he was U.S. consul general in Canada. Giddings published a series of political essays
signed Pacificus (1843); Speeches in Congress (1853); The Exiles of Florida
(1858); and a History of the Rebellion: Its Authors and Causes (1864).
See The Life of Joshua R. Giddings (Chicago, 1892), by his
son-in-law, George Washington Julian (1817-1899), a Free-soil leader and a representative in Congress in 1849-1851, a
Republican representative in Congress in 1861-1871, a Liberal Republican in the campaign of 1872, and afterwards a
Democrat and more recently, James brewer Stewart, " Joshua R. Giddings
and the Tactics of radical Politics" [Cleveland, 1970]
References
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