It was appropriate that Anderson delivered his personal and
moving tribute to Clay in Cincinnati on the very day of the election,
November 2. This was a eulogy for both the man and his party. It was
no coincidence, Anderson suggested, that this great leader was born
in the first year of his country’s independence in Hanover County,
Virginia, where so many noble patriots like Patrick Henry and
Anderson’s own father resided. Like Richard C. Anderson, Clay had
made his way to Kentucky early and dedicated his life to the service
of his commonwealth and his country. What set Clay apart,
according to Anderson, was “an undaunted independence of mind in
himself, and a most ardent and philanthropic sympathy with the rights
of Liberty in all Mankind.” Clay’s first vote and speech, Anderson
was quick to point out, was in favor of Negro emancipation. Just
as Anderson had experienced when advocating against Ohio’s Black
Laws, Clay had been “howled, by the accustomed outcries, into the
seclusion and consequent oblivion of private life.” Neither Clay nor
Anderson would remain in political exile long. Clay’s moral
objections to slavery were gradually overcome by “reason and
understanding,” in Anderson’s words, as the Great Compromiser realized that
his dream of general emancipation was both impractical and
dangerous to the fragile Union. Anderson called Clay the “model statesman
of the model republic.” He was also the model after which Anderson
patterned his public life and most cherished principles.
20
Cut adrift from the only political party he had ever supported,
Anderson vowed to maintain the principles and legacy of his hero,
describing his newfound status as a “fossil Whig.” As the emerging
Republican and American parties competed with the Democrats to
woo former Whigs to their camp, Anderson retained his
independence. He would only support good men from any party whom he
felt might help keep the Union intact. This principled stand brought
him praise from a select few as well as derision and scorn from the
vast majority of politicians. They could not understand how he could
avoid party affiliation and stay relevant. Yet Charles Anderson’s name
seemed to be constantly on the lips of Ohio’s political operatives. He
was still a man of influence, a wild card that might be played in an
uncertain game of power where the players and the rules were in a
state of perpetual flux.
A
S THE WHIGS SANK RAPIDLY
into the political abyss,
Charles
Anderson focused on his practice and achieved more success
than he had ever enjoyed in his adult life. To display his
new-found wealth, he constructed a lavish residence at the southeast
corner of Pike and Fifth Streets in Cincinnati, just a few hundred yards
from the mansion of Nicholas Longworth, whom many considered
the wealthiest man west of New York. Anderson hired accomplished
architect
John Hamilton, who had designed several public buildings
and cemeteries in his native England, to build his dream house. The
plan was ambitious. Anderson drew inspiration from his European
tour, choosing to design the house in the popular Italian Villa style.
The builder took advantage of its picturesque position, perched on
the edge of a steep hill, with a commanding view of the city and
countryside below. The house impressed visitors, not with scale and
opulence, but rather with its tasteful artistic sensibilities, creative use
of a difficult building site, and advanced technology.
Approaching the residence from the street, two iron statues of lions
copied from those at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome greeted Anderson’s
guests at the entrance gate. After ascending ten stone steps and
proceeding under a double-arched stone portico, visitors entered a
modest hall and continued on to an elegant suite of three rooms with
fourteen-foot ceilings. The adjoining parlors and dining room were
connected by large pocket doors that when opened created a grand
expanse nearly seventy feet wide. The parlor fronting Pike Street had
a unique feature. Hamilton inserted a huge window directly over the
fireplace, accomplished by bending twin flues around a wall
opening and rejoining them above the roof line into one central
chimney stack. This innovation brought copious daylight to the space. At
night, Anderson closed the window via a shutter mechanism concealed
in the wainscot. A large mirror graced the front of the closed
shutter, mimicking the one over the dining room fireplace at the
opposite end of the suite. The twin mirrors reflected the candlelight
from custom-made chandeliers. There was nothing quite like it in the
entire city.
The private spaces in the house were no less dramatic. From the
hall or central parlor, Anderson and his special guests retired to the
spacious library. This room, an octagonal retreat accessed at entrance
level, was a full three stories above the ground due to the steep rear
elevation. Kitchen and servants’ quarters were cleverly constructed
below in the rear of the house, creating opportunities for light and
views unheard of in a basement service wing. Climbing the main
staircase past the bedrooms on the second level, one continued
upward in a Romanesque stair tower, finally emerging into a beautiful
belvedere of open arches. Yellow sandstone tastefully accented
architectural elements across the red brick exterior of the house. The
highlight of any tour of the Anderson residence was the flat roof deck
off the belvedere, which boasted unparalleled views of the Cincinnati
environs that delighted everyone who visited.
1
By the time his new house was completed in 1854, Anderson
appeared to have it all. He was surrounded by like-minded people of
education and taste. His promising eighteen-year-old son,
Allen
Latham, was preparing to enter West Point. Daughters
Kitty and
Belle were busy being instructed in French, music, and the domestic
arts. Anderson’s services as a celebrated orator were always in
great demand. He rarely resisted an invitation to address friends and
neighbors on a wide range of topics. He and his law partner,
Rufus
King, once spent an entire afternoon discussing which works of art
they should purchase. While Anderson’s prosperity and leisure time
increased, however, the nation drifted closer to disaster.
2
One of the political deals that had held the nation together, the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, was essentially repealed in 1854 with
the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. Anderson imagined Clay
rolling over in his grave after
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was
successful in selling his doctrine of popular sovereignty in the territories
to the U.S. Congress and to
President Franklin Pierce. The act precipitated
a civil war in Kansas, a territory that had been free of slaves, as
slave owners rushed in to tip the political balance in their favor.
Free
Soil men and other Northerners felt betrayed, leading to the birth of
the Republican Party on an antislavery platform. While these alignments
were taking shape, a gubernatorial election loomed in Ohio in
the fall of 1855. Hard-core Union men like Anderson faced a difficult
choice between two candidates they could not abide.
Incumbent governor
William Medill, a Democrat, and Free Soil/Republican
“Fusion” candidate
Salmon P. Chase had only one thing
in common, according to Anderson and other prominent ex-Whigs
such as
Judge William Johnston. Their platforms were sectional and
threatened to accelerate the momentum toward disunion. Supporting
the Democrat was unthinkable. Chase was regarded by his opponents
as a radical abolitionist. What could Anderson and his friends do to
avoid either undesirable result? Their answer was to trot out
seventy-one-year-old federalist ex-governor
Allen Trimble and run him under
the banner of the American or Know-Nothing Party. This was a
tainted compromise, as Anderson was a bitter opponent of this party
and their brand of racist nativism. The campaign turned nasty. Judge
Johnston was accused of secretly supporting the Democrats in a guerilla
effort to defame and defeat Chase. Chase won the governor’s
race comfortably. Trimble finished a distant third with only 8 percent
of the vote. The press had a field day at the expense of Johnston and
Anderson, claiming that their political “firm” had been forced into a
“hopelessly insolvent state of liquidation.”
3
Although Anderson’s friends and critics had grown accustomed to
his stubborn independence in the political arena, many were shocked
when he came out in support of
James Buchanan for president in
1856. “Old Buck” was not only a Democrat but also the man whom
many felt had impugned Henry Clay’s character. Buchanan had accused
Clay of constructing a corrupt bargain to support
John Quincy
Adams for president in 1824, in exchange for a promise of the office
of secretary of state. The charge had since proven false, but the
former animus between Anderson’s chosen candidate and his departed
hero survived in the hearts of many ex-Whigs. The press continued
to harass Anderson for his latest and most unexpected alliance. The
Dayton
Gazette
compared Anderson to a boa constrictor, somehow
swallowing Buchanan after the candidate himself was compelled to
stomach
Pierce,
Douglas, and the
Nebraska Bill. “What politician
ever,” the
Gazette
teased, so completely demonstrated “straining at a
gnat and swallowing a camel?”
4
In his speeches and private letters, Anderson was clear that, despite
his unusual endorsement, he was no Democrat. In fact, he had sworn
off all parties for the rest of his life. Electing Buchanan was simply
the best chance that the nation had to avoid a disastrous breakup and
a possible civil war. Anderson’s logic was simple. A victory by the
Republican candidate
John Fremont would push the country to the
brink of disunion. American Party candidate
Millard Fillmore had
no chance to win in the North, as his party took no position on
slavery and had alienated recent immigrant voters. This was “no crisis
in which to exercise our suffrage as a sort of party sentimentalism,”
Anderson wrote his friend and former
Whig Orlando Brown. “I
must
vote and vote efficiently,” Anderson declared, “directly
against
disunion and everything standing that way.”
Soon after Buchanan won, Anderson received a visit from Virginia
governor
Henry A. Wise. Wise assured Anderson that he expected a
“national and more conservative” administration from the new
president than Republicans and others feared. “I may be perversely wrong
in all these hopes and opinions,” Anderson wrote to Brown in late
November 1856, “but I am as yet quite happy with any delusion if it
be delusion. I really believe the Union is now
safe
.” Anderson would
soon realize that he had been thinking more with his heart than his
head. He would later change his opinion and regard the defeat of
Fremont as a calamity for his beloved country.
5
C
HARLES ANDERSON WAS RESTLESS
. The law provided
a comfortable lifestyle, but he had always despised it. His
asthma had worsened to the point where he was confined to
his bed for weeks at a time. When he was finally forced to abandon
his profession, Anderson felt both anxious and relieved. He needed
to restore his health, find a new career, and support his young family.
Cincinnati had experienced devastating epidemics of cholera,
tuberculosis, and other diseases typical of emerging industrial cities. It was
no place for a person in his condition. He yearned for a
diplomatic
post. He had alienated many former allies in his bolt to the Buchanan
camp in 1856, and he expected that patronage was due him for this
sacrifice. As his brother Larz and other influential friends moved
behind the scenes, Charles dreamed of an ambassadorship in Berlin
or Naples, where he could indulge his love of the arts and become
immersed in European culture.
At first blush, Anderson seemed an ideal candidate for a foreign
post. He was well-traveled, highly educated, and particularly attuned
to the intricacies of American policy. His superior intellect and
magnetic personality made him a worthy candidate to develop intimate
relationships with world leaders. He had glaring liabilities, however,
that frustrated these ambitions time and again over the course of
his life. The plum appointments that Anderson craved were
typically bestowed on party loyalists or personal friends. By the 1850s he
had sworn off party politics and was now an avowed independent.
Among the many aspirants to political patronage jobs were lifelong
Democrats who had proven their party allegiance over the course of
many campaigns. An independent turn of mind could be viewed as
dangerous in key diplomatic posts. As Anderson had demonstrated in
the Ohio senate, he refused to toe the party line when those platforms
clashed with his own conscience. He never fully understood the art
of political compromise. Thus national party leaders often liked and
even admired him, but few really trusted him to be an unflinching
servant to administration policies.
1
The traditional approach to securing such appointments was to
drop hints to influential friends, then stand by for the call from the
president or one of his cabinet members. Campaigning for a post was
considered undignified. After just a few months of waiting, Anderson
surprised his close friends by traveling to Washington City in May
1857 to plead his case.
Rufus King felt sorry for Anderson’s “vain
and hopeless effort” to secure a foreign mission. Despite the
encouragement of Anderson’s many friends, King concluded that his law
partner had “neither game nor any intimation of Mr. Buchanan’s
will.” After nearly a month in the capital, Anderson learned that
Governor Joseph A. Wright, a pro-Union Democrat from Indiana,
was the president’s choice for Berlin. Subsequent posts to Vienna and
Naples landed in the laps of two natives of Buchanan’s home state of
Pennsylvania. Anderson returned home, discouraged.
2