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John M. Palmer (politician)
Encyclopedia
John McAuley Palmer was an Illinois resident
, an American Civil War
General who fought for the Union
, the 15th Governor of Illinois
, and presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party
in the 1896 election
on a platform to defend the gold standard
, free trade
, and limited government.
Palmer switched political parties throughout his life, starting out a Democrat
. He became in turn an anti-Nebraska
Democrat (against state sovereignty on slavery
), a Republican
, a Liberal Republican, returned to being a Democrat, then ended as a Bourbon Democrat. He said, "I had my own views. I was not a slave of any party," and added, "I thought for myself and [have] spoken my own words on all occasions."
, Palmer's family in 1831 moved to Alton, Illinois
. They were very poor, but he later worked his way through college. In 1839, he was admitted to the bar
in that state. Palmer married Malinda Ann Neely in 1842 and had ten children with her. His early careers included being a lawyer, school teacher, coopering, and selling clocks.
Palmer was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1848. Between 1852 and 1855, he was a Democratic member of the Illinois Senate
, but joined the Republican party upon its organization and became one of its leaders in Illinois.
He presided over the 1856 Illinois Republican Convention in Bloomington
that founded the party in his home state. In 1859 he was the Republican candidate in a special election to a vacancy in the 36th Congress caused by the death of Thomas L. Harris
, but he was defeated by John A. McClernand. He later became a Republican presidential elector in 1860, and was one of the leading people who got his friend Abraham Lincoln
nominated for the presidency at the national convention in Chicago.
In 1861, he was appointed by Lincoln to be a delegate to the peace convention
in Washington. It failed when no compromise could be reached.
, Palmer served in the Union army
, rising from the rank of colonel
to that of major general
in the volunteer service. He enlisted in 1861 and was commissioned Colonel of the 14th Illinois Infantry, serving under his friend John C. Fremont
in an expedition to Springfield, Missouri
, to put down the rebellion in that state. On December 20, 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general
and assigned command of a brigade under John Pope
.
Palmer took part in the capture of New Madrid and Island No. 10
, commanding a division
in the latter campaign. Taken ill in the field, he returned home to recuperate and raised a new regiment, the 122nd Illinois Infantry. Taking the field again in September, he was assigned by William S. Rosecrans to command the first division of the Army of the Mississippi
in Alabama
and Tennessee
. On November 29, 1862, he was promoted to major general of volunteers, and was conspicuous in the Battle of Stones River
, where his division held an important position within the Union lines.
Palmer effectively led his troops during the Battle of Chickamauga
in September 1863. He commanded the 14th Corps
of the Army of the Cumberland
during the Chattanooga Campaign (November 23,–November 25, 1863), and served under George Henry Thomas
in the Atlanta Campaign
. Palmer's corps was a part of William T. Sherman's March to the Sea
and the actions to capture Savannah, Georgia
, late in the year. In early 1865, he asked to be relieved of command and was reassigned to command all Federal forces in Kentucky
, helping to assert Federal control over the state for the next three years.
As Kentucky's military governor, Palmer established such control by two methods: waging a hard war against guerrillas and achieving the end of slavery in a state not bound by the Emancipation Proclamation. As late as May 1865, Palmer made clear his position on hard war after Kentucky irregulars still in the field had threatened him about summary punishment for captured partisans—“if you treat them as prisoners of war we will respect the same towards your soldiers if not we never can.” Palmer ordered that guerrillas would not be allowed to surrender. “[N]o commission, real or forged, shall save [them],” he ordered, “all will be driven out or punished accordingly . . . such men [will] be exterminated.” Palmer, one of the organizers of the Republican Party in Illinois, was an avowed abolitionist who had received his assignment from his friend the president specifically to implement military policies to end slavery in the state. (When Lincoln offered the assignment in Kentucky to Palmer, then without a command, the general claimed the president directed him firmly: “Go to Kentucky, keep your temper, do as you please, and I will sustain you.”) Palmer in fact needed little convincing, believing “that all that was left of slavery [in Kentucky] was its mischiefs” and, as he related, he was “determined to ‘drive the last nail in the coffin’ of the ‘institution’ even if it cost me the command of the department.” (Indeed, to his wife he opined in 1865 that “if [I] had been asked five or ten years ago what honor I would ask as the highest which could be confer[r]ed upon me I would have said let me destroy slavery in Kentucky.”) On March 20, at one of Louisville’s Methodist churches, he announced as much.
In the next few months, with an assiduousness that belied the initial impression he gave the legislature that he intended to placate the state’s loyal white populace, Palmer carried out Lincoln’s directive to do as he pleased. Not only did he actively enlist all able-bodied black men at an unprecedented rate—often with the assistance of all-black recruiting squads, and despite the legislature’s strident objection to the continued presence of black troops in the state—he sustained martial law in the state in order to override the state’s civil courts and governments because of their obvious unwillingness to assume "their clear and positive duty to protect the people from forcible wrongs, whether inflicted under the forms of law or otherwise." He legitimated slave marriages to protect the wives and children of enlisted men (in part a response to the Camp Nelson embarrassment), established refugee camps, fended off efforts by various municipal governments to expel fugitive slaves and free blacks alike and deny them the opportunity to find employment, released slaves from jails and workhouses, ordered that no bondman should be forced into service as substitutes, and issued tens of thousands of travel passes enabling African Americans to move freely within and without the state in search of employment. Called by African Americans “free passes” (and by white Kentuckians “Palmer passes”) they were both agent and symbol of the delayed yet inevitable death of slavery in the state. At an African American Fourth of July celebration at Louisville’s camp—one that followed a parade through the city streets, including some fifteen hundred armed black and white soldiers and band—Palmer, arriving in a gilded circus chariot, told an estimated twenty thousand attendees, most of whom he had already been assured believed the general was there to declare them free (and who he claimed later he set out to inform otherwise), “My countrymen, you are free, and while I command in this department the military forces of the United States will defend your right to freedom.” That one of its circuit courts was soon to strike down Congress’s act of March 3, 1865, liberating black soldiers’ dependants—some 72,045 individuals, or by one USCT officer’s estimate, “[t]wo and one half persons freed, for each Colored Soldier enlisted in the State of Kentucky” and two-thirds of the state’s slaves—only fueled the general’s intent to cure the state’s white residents of “Negrophobia in its worst form.” “Slavery is dead in Kentucky,” he crowed to his wife in October 1865, “and my Mission is accomplished.” He was soon met with an indictment by Louisville’s grand jury for aiding fugitive slaves and a wave of lawsuits from dispossessed Kentucky slaveholders.
In 1866, he resigned from the Army and two years later was elected Governor of Illinois
as a candidate of the Republican Party. He succeeded fellow Republican, General Richard James Oglesby
. He was succeeded in turn by Oglesby in 1873. In the Presidential election of 1872, Governor Palmer received three electoral votes for Vice President by electors who had voted for the Liberal Republican Party's Vice Presidential candidate B. Gratz Brown
for President after the death of Horace Greeley
. In 1890, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat and served one term.
In 1892, Palmer was seriously considered as a candidate for the presidency. At first, Palmer was taken up as a “refuge” candidate. Some Chicago Democrats, who were not prepared to accept Cleveland, Hill, or Gorman, were to support Palmer until they could go to the winner. This in itself was a point gained by Palmer and he proceeded to utilize it at once.
In early February 1892, Palmer had a conference with Patrick A. Collins, a former Democratic Massachusetts Congressman. At this conference, the two Democrats concluded a treaty. The purpose of the treaty was to make Palmer the Democratic Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor William Russell, Collin’s personal and political friend, the Vice Presidential candidate. It was argued by Collins that Palmer, being a Western Senator of Kentucky stock, would be acceptable to the Southern Democrats. The objection as to Palmer’s age would be met by pointing out that Russell, the youngest of governors, would become President in the event of his death. Russell’s nomination would command the support of New England Democrats.
Before the 1892 Democratic National Convention, Cook County Democrats held a convention and endorsed Senator Palmer for President. In the end, Palmer stood faithful to former President Grover Cleveland and worked to have him nominated. Even though he supported Cleveland, many Illinois Democrats still supported him for President. Palmer was such a serious candidate that he had to go to the Democratic Convention in Chicago to discourage his own nomination.
Rather than running for reelection in 1896, he ran for President.
in the 1896 election
. The National Democratic Party was a conservative splinter group opposed to the free-silver platform of the regular Democratic Party and its nominee, William Jennings Bryan. His running mate on this "Gold Democratic" ticket, was Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
, a former Confederate
general and governor of Kentucky
. The National Democratic Party ticket received the coveted endorsement of the New York Times.
The party arose out of a split in the Democratic Party due to the economic depression that occurred under Democratic president Grover Cleveland
. At the 1896 presidential convention, one of Palmer's main Illinois rivals was Governor John Peter Altgeld
, who succeeded in getting his own candidate, former Illinoisan William Jennings Bryan
, nominated for the presidency. The currency issue dominated the campaign, blurring party lines. Eastern Democrats, unable to accept the party's free-silver platform and unwilling to support McKinley for his tariff views, created their own political party and nominated Palmer as their own candidate.
Palmer opposed free silver
, which was a plan to place the value of silver to gold at 16-to-1 ratio, and then to tie the U.S. dollar to that value. Palmer noted that this plan ran contrary to the world market value of silver and gold, which was about 32 to 1. But, with Altgeld and Bryan in control of the Democratic convention, free silver won the day. Palmer believed it would have ruined the American economy, and he ran for president for a third party that was a breakaway group of Democrats. In waging this quixotic
campaign, he was a key figure in the "last stand" of classical liberalism
as a political movement in the nineteenth century.
Palmer and the other founders were disenchanted Democrats who viewed the party as a means to preserve the small-government ideals of Thomas Jefferson
and Grover Cleveland
, which they believed had been betrayed by Bryan. In its first official statement, the executive committee of the party declared, the Democrats had believed “in the ability of every individual, unassisted, if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness” and had upheld his “right and opportunity peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same right and opportunity. [They] stood for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are implied by the century-old battle-cry of the Democratic party, ‘Individual Liberty’” The party criticized both the inflationist policies of the Democrats and the protectionism of the Republicans.
Palmer's campaign platform was popular and he could have been a major factor in the election had he been younger, but few voters were willing to support a 79-year old candidate. Although he could have made up for this with a youthful running mate, he instead chose 73-year old Simon Bolivar Buckner
, in part because it was thought that the idea of a former Confederate and Union general teamed up would emphasis sectional unity and ease the still-lingering resentment in the South from the Civil War. The two displayed a good amount of energy for their age and embarked on a busy campaign schedule, but most supporters of the ideals of the National Democratic Party probably voted for McKinley because of his support of the gold standard
. Palmer and Buckner received just over 1% of the vote.
Palmer died of a heart attack in Springfield, Illinois
on September 25, 1900 and was interred in the City Cemetery at Carlinville, Illinois
.
John M. Palmer Elementary School, located at 5051 North Kenneth Avenue on the northwest side of Chicago was named in his honor.
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, an American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
General who fought for the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
, the 15th Governor of Illinois
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
, and presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party
National Democratic Party (United States)
The National Democratic Party or Gold Democrats was a short-lived political party of Bourbon Democrats, who opposed the regular party nominee William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Most members were admirers of Grover Cleveland. They considered Bryan a dangerous man and charged that his "free silver"...
in the 1896 election
United States presidential election, 1896
The United States presidential election held on November 3, 1896, saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by political scientists to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history....
on a platform to defend the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
, free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
, and limited government.
Palmer switched political parties throughout his life, starting out a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. He became in turn an anti-Nebraska
Nebraska Territory
The Territory of Nebraska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until March 1, 1867, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Nebraska. The Nebraska Territory was created by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854...
Democrat (against state sovereignty on slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
), a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, a Liberal Republican, returned to being a Democrat, then ended as a Bourbon Democrat. He said, "I had my own views. I was not a slave of any party," and added, "I thought for myself and [have] spoken my own words on all occasions."
Early life and career
Born at Eagle Creek in Scott County, KentuckyScott County, Kentucky
Scott County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The population was 47,173 in the 2010 Census. Its county seat is Georgetown.Scott County is part of the Lexington–Fayette Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
, Palmer's family in 1831 moved to Alton, Illinois
Alton, Illinois
Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in Southern Illinois...
. They were very poor, but he later worked his way through college. In 1839, he was admitted to the bar
Bar (law)
Bar in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession.-Courtroom division:...
in that state. Palmer married Malinda Ann Neely in 1842 and had ten children with her. His early careers included being a lawyer, school teacher, coopering, and selling clocks.
Palmer was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1848. Between 1852 and 1855, he was a Democratic member of the Illinois Senate
Illinois Senate
The Illinois Senate is the upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the state of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. The Illinois Senate is made up of 59 senators elected from...
, but joined the Republican party upon its organization and became one of its leaders in Illinois.
He presided over the 1856 Illinois Republican Convention in Bloomington
Bloomington, Illinois
Bloomington is a city in McLean County, Illinois, United States and the county seat. It is adjacent to Normal, Illinois, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area...
that founded the party in his home state. In 1859 he was the Republican candidate in a special election to a vacancy in the 36th Congress caused by the death of Thomas L. Harris
Thomas L. Harris
Thomas Langrell Harris was a U.S. Representative from Illinois.-Early life:Born in Norwich, Connecticut, Harris pursued classical studies and was graduated from Washington College, Hartford, Connecticut, in 1841 where he studied law.-Early career:He was admitted to the bar in 1842 and commenced...
, but he was defeated by John A. McClernand. He later became a Republican presidential elector in 1860, and was one of the leading people who got his friend Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
nominated for the presidency at the national convention in Chicago.
In 1861, he was appointed by Lincoln to be a delegate to the peace convention
Peace conference of 1861
The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of more than 100 of the leading politicians of the antebellum United States held in Washington, D.C., in February 1861 that was meant to prevent what ultimately became the Civil War. The success of President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party in the...
in Washington. It failed when no compromise could be reached.
Civil War
During the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, Palmer served in the Union army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
, rising from the rank of colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
to that of major general
Major general (United States)
In the United States Army, United States Marine Corps, and United States Air Force, major general is a two-star general-officer rank, with the pay grade of O-8. Major general ranks above brigadier general and below lieutenant general...
in the volunteer service. He enlisted in 1861 and was commissioned Colonel of the 14th Illinois Infantry, serving under his friend John C. Fremont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
in an expedition to Springfield, Missouri
Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. According to the 2010 census data, the population was 159,498, an increase of 5.2% since the 2000 census. The Springfield Metropolitan Area, population 436,712, includes the counties of...
, to put down the rebellion in that state. On December 20, 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general
Brigadier general (United States)
A brigadier general in the United States Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, is a one-star general officer, with the pay grade of O-7. Brigadier general ranks above a colonel and below major general. Brigadier general is equivalent to the rank of rear admiral in the other uniformed...
and assigned command of a brigade under John Pope
John Pope (military officer)
John Pope was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He had a brief but successful career in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the East.Pope was a graduate of the United States Military Academy in...
.
Palmer took part in the capture of New Madrid and Island No. 10
Battle of Island Number Ten
The Battle of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the New Madrid or Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River during the American Civil War, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. The position, an island at the base of a tight double turn in the course of the river, was held by the Confederates...
, commanding a division
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
in the latter campaign. Taken ill in the field, he returned home to recuperate and raised a new regiment, the 122nd Illinois Infantry. Taking the field again in September, he was assigned by William S. Rosecrans to command the first division of the Army of the Mississippi
Army of the Mississippi
Army of the Mississippi was the name given to two Union armies that operated around the Mississippi River, both with short existences, during the American Civil War.-1862:...
in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
and Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. On November 29, 1862, he was promoted to major general of volunteers, and was conspicuous in the Battle of Stones River
Battle of Stones River
The Battle of Stones River or Second Battle of Murfreesboro , was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, in Middle Tennessee, as the culmination of the Stones River Campaign in the Western Theater of the American Civil War...
, where his division held an important position within the Union lines.
Palmer effectively led his troops during the Battle of Chickamauga
Battle of Chickamauga
The Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19–20, 1863, marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia called the Chickamauga Campaign...
in September 1863. He commanded the 14th Corps
XIV Corps (ACW)
XIV Corps was a corps of the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was one of the earliest corps formations in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.-Creation:...
of the Army of the Cumberland
Army of the Cumberland
The Army of the Cumberland was one of the principal Union armies in the Western Theater during the American Civil War. It was originally known as the Army of the Ohio.-History:...
during the Chattanooga Campaign (November 23,–November 25, 1863), and served under George Henry Thomas
George Henry Thomas
George Henry Thomas was a career United States Army officer and a Union General during the American Civil War, one of the principal commanders in the Western Theater....
in the Atlanta Campaign
Atlanta Campaign
The Atlanta Campaign was a series of battles fought in the Western Theater of the American Civil War throughout northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta during the summer of 1864. Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman invaded Georgia from the vicinity of Chattanooga, Tennessee, beginning in May...
. Palmer's corps was a part of William T. Sherman's March to the Sea
Sherman's March to the Sea
Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign conducted around Georgia from November 15, 1864 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War...
and the actions to capture Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, late in the year. In early 1865, he asked to be relieved of command and was reassigned to command all Federal forces in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, helping to assert Federal control over the state for the next three years.
As Kentucky's military governor, Palmer established such control by two methods: waging a hard war against guerrillas and achieving the end of slavery in a state not bound by the Emancipation Proclamation. As late as May 1865, Palmer made clear his position on hard war after Kentucky irregulars still in the field had threatened him about summary punishment for captured partisans—“if you treat them as prisoners of war we will respect the same towards your soldiers if not we never can.” Palmer ordered that guerrillas would not be allowed to surrender. “[N]o commission, real or forged, shall save [them],” he ordered, “all will be driven out or punished accordingly . . . such men [will] be exterminated.” Palmer, one of the organizers of the Republican Party in Illinois, was an avowed abolitionist who had received his assignment from his friend the president specifically to implement military policies to end slavery in the state. (When Lincoln offered the assignment in Kentucky to Palmer, then without a command, the general claimed the president directed him firmly: “Go to Kentucky, keep your temper, do as you please, and I will sustain you.”) Palmer in fact needed little convincing, believing “that all that was left of slavery [in Kentucky] was its mischiefs” and, as he related, he was “determined to ‘drive the last nail in the coffin’ of the ‘institution’ even if it cost me the command of the department.” (Indeed, to his wife he opined in 1865 that “if [I] had been asked five or ten years ago what honor I would ask as the highest which could be confer[r]ed upon me I would have said let me destroy slavery in Kentucky.”) On March 20, at one of Louisville’s Methodist churches, he announced as much.
In the next few months, with an assiduousness that belied the initial impression he gave the legislature that he intended to placate the state’s loyal white populace, Palmer carried out Lincoln’s directive to do as he pleased. Not only did he actively enlist all able-bodied black men at an unprecedented rate—often with the assistance of all-black recruiting squads, and despite the legislature’s strident objection to the continued presence of black troops in the state—he sustained martial law in the state in order to override the state’s civil courts and governments because of their obvious unwillingness to assume "their clear and positive duty to protect the people from forcible wrongs, whether inflicted under the forms of law or otherwise." He legitimated slave marriages to protect the wives and children of enlisted men (in part a response to the Camp Nelson embarrassment), established refugee camps, fended off efforts by various municipal governments to expel fugitive slaves and free blacks alike and deny them the opportunity to find employment, released slaves from jails and workhouses, ordered that no bondman should be forced into service as substitutes, and issued tens of thousands of travel passes enabling African Americans to move freely within and without the state in search of employment. Called by African Americans “free passes” (and by white Kentuckians “Palmer passes”) they were both agent and symbol of the delayed yet inevitable death of slavery in the state. At an African American Fourth of July celebration at Louisville’s camp—one that followed a parade through the city streets, including some fifteen hundred armed black and white soldiers and band—Palmer, arriving in a gilded circus chariot, told an estimated twenty thousand attendees, most of whom he had already been assured believed the general was there to declare them free (and who he claimed later he set out to inform otherwise), “My countrymen, you are free, and while I command in this department the military forces of the United States will defend your right to freedom.” That one of its circuit courts was soon to strike down Congress’s act of March 3, 1865, liberating black soldiers’ dependants—some 72,045 individuals, or by one USCT officer’s estimate, “[t]wo and one half persons freed, for each Colored Soldier enlisted in the State of Kentucky” and two-thirds of the state’s slaves—only fueled the general’s intent to cure the state’s white residents of “Negrophobia in its worst form.” “Slavery is dead in Kentucky,” he crowed to his wife in October 1865, “and my Mission is accomplished.” He was soon met with an indictment by Louisville’s grand jury for aiding fugitive slaves and a wave of lawsuits from dispossessed Kentucky slaveholders.
Postbellum career
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
as a candidate of the Republican Party. He succeeded fellow Republican, General Richard James Oglesby
Richard James Oglesby
Richard James Oglesby was an Illinois statesman and U.S. Army officer. He served in the Mexican-American War and was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He also served Illinois in the legislature. Near the end of the civil war, he was elected the 14th Governor of...
. He was succeeded in turn by Oglesby in 1873. In the Presidential election of 1872, Governor Palmer received three electoral votes for Vice President by electors who had voted for the Liberal Republican Party's Vice Presidential candidate B. Gratz Brown
B. Gratz Brown
Benjamin Gratz Brown was an American politician. He was a Senator, the 20th Governor of Missouri, and the Liberal Republican and Democratic Party Vice presidential candidate in the presidential election of 1872.-Early life:...
for President after the death of Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
. In 1890, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat and served one term.
1892 Presidential Possibility
In early February 1892, Palmer had a conference with Patrick A. Collins, a former Democratic Massachusetts Congressman. At this conference, the two Democrats concluded a treaty. The purpose of the treaty was to make Palmer the Democratic Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor William Russell, Collin’s personal and political friend, the Vice Presidential candidate. It was argued by Collins that Palmer, being a Western Senator of Kentucky stock, would be acceptable to the Southern Democrats. The objection as to Palmer’s age would be met by pointing out that Russell, the youngest of governors, would become President in the event of his death. Russell’s nomination would command the support of New England Democrats.
Before the 1892 Democratic National Convention, Cook County Democrats held a convention and endorsed Senator Palmer for President. In the end, Palmer stood faithful to former President Grover Cleveland and worked to have him nominated. Even though he supported Cleveland, many Illinois Democrats still supported him for President. Palmer was such a serious candidate that he had to go to the Democratic Convention in Chicago to discourage his own nomination.
Rather than running for reelection in 1896, he ran for President.
Defending the Gold Standard
Palmer was the presidential candidate for the National Democratic PartyNational Democratic Party (United States)
The National Democratic Party or Gold Democrats was a short-lived political party of Bourbon Democrats, who opposed the regular party nominee William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Most members were admirers of Grover Cleveland. They considered Bryan a dangerous man and charged that his "free silver"...
in the 1896 election
United States presidential election, 1896
The United States presidential election held on November 3, 1896, saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by political scientists to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history....
. The National Democratic Party was a conservative splinter group opposed to the free-silver platform of the regular Democratic Party and its nominee, William Jennings Bryan. His running mate on this "Gold Democratic" ticket, was Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Simon Bolivar Buckner fought in the United States Army in the Mexican–American War and in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He later served as the 30th Governor of Kentucky....
, a former Confederate
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
general and governor of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
. The National Democratic Party ticket received the coveted endorsement of the New York Times.
The party arose out of a split in the Democratic Party due to the economic depression that occurred under Democratic president Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
. At the 1896 presidential convention, one of Palmer's main Illinois rivals was Governor John Peter Altgeld
John Peter Altgeld
John Peter Altgeld was the 20th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1893 until 1897. He was the first Democratic governor of that state since the 1850s...
, who succeeded in getting his own candidate, former Illinoisan William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
, nominated for the presidency. The currency issue dominated the campaign, blurring party lines. Eastern Democrats, unable to accept the party's free-silver platform and unwilling to support McKinley for his tariff views, created their own political party and nominated Palmer as their own candidate.
Palmer opposed free silver
Free Silver
Free Silver was an important United States political policy issue in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Its advocates were in favor of an inflationary monetary policy using the "free coinage of silver" as opposed to the less inflationary Gold Standard; its supporters were called...
, which was a plan to place the value of silver to gold at 16-to-1 ratio, and then to tie the U.S. dollar to that value. Palmer noted that this plan ran contrary to the world market value of silver and gold, which was about 32 to 1. But, with Altgeld and Bryan in control of the Democratic convention, free silver won the day. Palmer believed it would have ruined the American economy, and he ran for president for a third party that was a breakaway group of Democrats. In waging this quixotic
Quixotism
Quixotism is impracticality in pursuit of ideals, especially those ideals manifested by rash, lofty and romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action. It also serves to describe an idealism without regard to practicality...
campaign, he was a key figure in the "last stand" of classical liberalism
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
as a political movement in the nineteenth century.
Palmer and the other founders were disenchanted Democrats who viewed the party as a means to preserve the small-government ideals of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
and Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
, which they believed had been betrayed by Bryan. In its first official statement, the executive committee of the party declared, the Democrats had believed “in the ability of every individual, unassisted, if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness” and had upheld his “right and opportunity peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same right and opportunity. [They] stood for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are implied by the century-old battle-cry of the Democratic party, ‘Individual Liberty’” The party criticized both the inflationist policies of the Democrats and the protectionism of the Republicans.
Palmer's campaign platform was popular and he could have been a major factor in the election had he been younger, but few voters were willing to support a 79-year old candidate. Although he could have made up for this with a youthful running mate, he instead chose 73-year old Simon Bolivar Buckner
Simon Bolivar Buckner
Simon Bolivar Buckner fought in the United States Army in the Mexican–American War and in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He later served as the 30th Governor of Kentucky....
, in part because it was thought that the idea of a former Confederate and Union general teamed up would emphasis sectional unity and ease the still-lingering resentment in the South from the Civil War. The two displayed a good amount of energy for their age and embarked on a busy campaign schedule, but most supporters of the ideals of the National Democratic Party probably voted for McKinley because of his support of the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
. Palmer and Buckner received just over 1% of the vote.
Palmer died of a heart attack in Springfield, Illinois
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
on September 25, 1900 and was interred in the City Cemetery at Carlinville, Illinois
Carlinville, Illinois
Carlinville is a city in Macoupin County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 Census, the population was 5,685, and 5,912 at a 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Macoupin County, and so it is an outlying part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St...
.
John M. Palmer Elementary School, located at 5051 North Kenneth Avenue on the northwest side of Chicago was named in his honor.
See also
- List of American Civil War generals