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German Americans, African Americans, and the Republican Party in St. Louis, 1865–1872

KRISTEN L. ANDERSON


      IN THE PAST, German Americans frequently have had the reputation, both among scholars and contemporaries, of being staunch supporters of the Republican Party throughout the Civil War. While the work of many scholars has ably demonstrated that this view is an oversimplification, it is nonetheless a fairly accurate portrayal of political affiliations within the German population of St. Louis. Unlike in many midwestern cities such as Cincinnati or Milwaukee, where the German population contained sizable numbers of Democrats throughout the Civil War, Germans in St. Louis overwhelmingly supported the Republican Party.1 At least 80 percent of St. Louis Germans voted for Lincoln in 1860, a degree of support that set them apart from other Missourians as well as from Germans in other states.2 These Germans would be among the most radical of the Radical Republicans throughout the Civil War, providing support for the immediate abolition of slavery and the enrollment of black soldiers in the Union Army.3 1
      During the years immediately after the war, however, some of the policy decisions of the Missouri Republican Party threatened to undermine its base of support within the German population. Some Germans threatened to abandon the Republican Party due to its failure to address economic concerns after the war. Others expressed concern about the religious stance of the party, including the incorporation of religious language and a loyalty oath for clergymen into the new Missouri constitution. Finally, the issue of black suffrage aggravated this concern, as some Germans worried that the African Americans moving to St. Louis seeking work after the war, if allowed to vote, would likely support the most nativist and pietistic segments of the Republican Party, due to the influence that pietistic religion supposedly had over them. These concerns led German voters to oppose measures that the Missouri Republican leadership endorsed—including the 1865 constitution and the 1868 black suffrage amendment—even when they otherwise continued to vote for Republican candidates. Furthermore, in 1870 and 1872 many German voters joined the Liberal Republican bolt from the Republican Party, further distancing themselves from that party's Reconstruction policies. Ultimately, the Republican Party's failure to address adequately Germans' economic, religious, and racial concerns cost them supporters among the German population. 2
      The political uncertainty of the postwar years was compounded by the economic difficulties of that period, which made more precarious the situation of workers in St. Louis, as elsewhere. As in other parts of the country, workers in St. Louis organized to protect their interests, and the Germans played prominent roles in such organizations.4 German Americans were prominently involved with organizations associated with specific trades, including cigar makers, masons, and coopers, as well as general labor associations such as the St. Louis Arbeiter-Verein and the Deutscher und Böhmischer Arbeiter-Unterstützungs-Verein.5 Germans also participated in other labor activities in St. Louis, including meetings and parades for the eight-hour movement, labor festivals, and political activities.6 3
      As might be expected, race played a role in some of the labor conflicts after emancipation. In addition to the former urban slaves who were now free laborers, African Americans moved to St. Louis during and after the war.7 One notable example of a labor conflict involving racial issues was the strike of journeymen printers against several of the major St. Louis newspapers in December 1864.8 The issue of race entered this conflict almost immediately when the St. Louis Dispatch hired an African American man to replace a striking printer on December 17, the day after the strike began. As would be expected, the strikers did not approve of the hiring of scabs, but the hiring of a black scab was particularly distasteful to them. The Typographical Union's Daily Press ran an article titled "The Negro and the Strike" on December 18, in which they condemned this hire, remarking that it was in "perfect harmony" with the goals of the proprietors. The article pointed out to its readers that the man in question had been put to work "alongside of a white man, engaged in the same enterprise." It further contended that "the negro keeps his person clean and works not hard enough to cause perspiration, so that no offensive smell is emitted," thus both criticizing the man's supposed inability to work as hard as a white printer and engaging in a racial slur at the same time. The article concluded by remarking that in this situation, "the matter of taste we leave to the judgment of the public," obviously expecting that the public would share the author's distaste for the idea of a black man doing a white man's job.9 4
      The printers of the major German-language newspapers, the Republican Westliche Post and the Democratic Neue Anzeiger des Westens, appear not to have gone on strike. However, these papers were both aware of the strike and commented on the issue of the hiring of the black scab. German radicals, represented by the Westliche Post, responded indignantly to the show of racism within the labor movement. One local German radical, Arnold Krekel, addressed the issue in his speech at the January 15 celebration of emancipation in Missouri. He maintained that most southerners barely saw African Americans as human and argued that this was also the case in St. Louis, where what he described as "a so-called English workers' paper" (the Daily Press) wrote about an African American being hired as a printer "in a way that makes the hair stand up on one's head."10 The conservative Neue Anzeiger des Westens, on the other hand, used this as an opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of those who claimed to support equal rights for African Americans. In an article titled "How humane, how tolerant!" Carl Dänzer, the editor of the Anzeiger, maintained that many of those involved in the creation of the Daily Press had been in opposition to slavery and were supposedly supporters of black rights, but that once their own livelihood was threatened, they were seeing things differently.11 5
      Conservative politicians, aware that some workers were dissatisfied with economic conditions after the war and with the radicals' support for greater racial equality, attempted to use these sentiments to win working-class voters to their cause. Although most Germans in St. Louis would continue to vote Republican throughout the 1860s, it appears that at least some of the working-class Germans of St. Louis were beginning to turn against the Westliche Post and its political positions. The Westliche Post, although it had never been a labor paper per se, had been quite friendly to both the idea of workers' rights and to the various labor organizations in St. Louis from the time of its founding in 1857 and throughout the Civil War. During this period the Post published numerous articles in support of the labor movement, and many German labor organizations chose to advertise their meetings in this paper.12 Such support was recognized in the Daily Press, the labor newspaper that the St. Louis Typographical Union founded. The Westliche Post had published a supportive article about the new paper, wishing it well and expressing support for a publication devoted to the interests of workers.13 The Daily Press thanked the Post for this acknowledgement, commenting that the Post was "a true friend of mechanics." They further compared the Post with the other Republican newspaper in the city—the English-language Missouri Democrat—commenting that "their [the Post's] radicalism leads them to sustain labor, and the radicalism of the Democrat leads it to attempt to crush it out."14 6
      The Daily Press's praise of the Westliche Post would be short lived, however. By April 1865 a group of workers, dissatisfied with the increasing radicalism of Republican policies and the general lack of an active Democratic Party in the city, decided to form an independent workers' ticket for the city election. The local English-language Democratic press, the Missouri Republican, was quite indifferent to this ticket, announcing that it had no advice for its readers on whom to support.15 Both the Daily Press and the Neue Anzeiger des Westens enthusiastically endorsed the workers' ticket.16 The Westliche Post, however, strongly denounced the ticket as a trick of the conservatives to get workers to vote for them under another name. It called on the German workers not to be fooled and stated that all workers knew that their true interests lay with the radical party.17 7
      It appears that at least a few German workers did not feel that their true interests were so obviously aligned with the radicals. One man, identifying himself as a German worker and signing his name only as "A FREE MAN," wrote a letter to the Daily Press expressing his anger at the Post's accusations against the workers' ticket. He maintained that after their long fight against secession and slavery, calling the German workers the tools of "slavery barons" was "an outrage to German Radicalism." He also made an implicit threat to the Post, asking what would happen to the paper if it lost the support of the German working classes.18 8
      This threatened revolt of German workers against the Post did not take place immediately. The Westliche Post remained the most popular German-language paper in the city by a considerable margin throughout this period, increasing steadily from about 7,490 copies of the daily edition in 1867 to 9,720 in 1871, while the Anzeiger had a smaller but still respectable circulation of about 3,000 copies in 1871.19 Many workers also continued to support the Republican Party, as is evident in its strong showing against the workers' party candidates in the heavily German sections of the city. Despite attempts by the Daily Press and the Neue Anzeiger des Westens to win German workers to their cause, the German population of the city overwhelmingly voted against the independent candidate, Daniel T. Wright, in numbers large enough that they had to have included many members of the German working class. Of the major ethnic groups in the city, Germans had a strong positive correlation of voting for the Republican candidate, James Thomas, of 0.84, while native-born Americans and the Irish had positive correlations of voting for the independent candidate, Wright, of 0.75 and 0.76, respectively. (See Tables 1, 2, and 3.)20 9

Table 1. Nativity of Eligible Voters Based on 1858 St. Louis City Census
Wards Native-born Germany Ireland Others
1 13.0% 78.0% 4.5% 4.6%
2 10.8% 76.1% 7.0% 6.1%
3 33.5% 40.2% 16.2% 10.1%
4 38.8% 28.5% 20.1% 12.7%
5 61.4% 13.6% 16.0% 9.0%
6 67.1% 8.0% 15.9% 9.0%
7 40.7% 23.2% 26.7% 9.4%
8 34.8% 35.0% 24.0% 6.2%
9 41.4% 24.9% 28.0% 5.7%
10 37.4% 43.0% 12.7% 6.8%
Calculated from 1858 St. Louis city census as reported in Anzeiger des Westens, October 24, 1858.
 

Table 2. 1865 St. Louis Mayoral Election
Wards Thomas (Republican) Wright (Independent)
1 1,261 80.5% 305 19.5%
2 959 82.0% 210 18.0%
3 573 68.2% 267 31.8%
4 676 62.9% 399 37.1%
5 507 51.2% 484 48.8%
6 242 60.3% 159 39.7%
7 527 59.5% 359 40.5%
8 794 67.1% 390 32.9%
9 582 42.4% 792 57.6%
10 1,070 65.7% 558 34.3%
Totals: 7,191 64.7% 3,923 35.3%
Election data as reported in Westliche Post, April 5, 1865.
 

Table 3. Correlation Between German Nativity and 1865 Mayoral Election
Nativity Thomas Wright
Native-born -0.75 0.75
Germany 0.84 -0.84
Ireland -0.76 0.76
Others -0.25 0.25
Calculated from election data as reported in Westliche Post, April 5, 1865 and nativity data from Table 1.

 
      Although Germans in general were not ready to abandon the Republican Party in 1865, many of them were willing to criticize the actions of the Republican Party on religious grounds. One notable example was the debate over the new Missouri constitution, ratified in 1865, which received strong criticism from Catholic and freethinking Germans alike for its religious provisions. Some freethinkers objected to the fact that the constitution included any religious language at all, including the section in the preamble where the signers expressed their gratitude to "Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of nations."21 More upsetting to most was the provision requiring priests and ministers to take the same loyalty oath required of voters in order to preach or perform marriages.22 The Catholic Church was particularly active in combating this provision. After the constitution had been approved, the archbishop of St. Louis, Peter Richard Kenrick, wrote a letter to the Catholic clergy denouncing this oath which priests "can in no wise take without a sacrifice of ecclesiastical liberty" and expressing his hope that the government would not enforce this provision.23 Many Protestant denominations also registered protests against this oath, including the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists.24 The governor of Missouri, Thomas C. Fletcher, in contrast, denied that this oath was "an infringement of religious liberty secured to any person by the Constitution of the United States."25 10
      To express their displeasure with the new constitution and their disagreement with Governor Fletcher's position, the St. Louis Germans held protest meetings. One was held February 16, 1865, in Turner Hall. The vast majority of those involved in organizing the meeting were Germans, although a few speakers addressed the meeting in English. Those attending protested both the inclusion of religious language in the constitution and the description of Missouri as a Christian state, arguing that these things were threats to religious freedom and the separation of church and state. One prominent German radical, Emil Preetorius, argued that they must take action quickly if they wanted to protect freedom of religion in Missouri. They agreed to circulate a petition of protest and to meet again on February 19 to form a committee of fifty to present the petition to the convention.26 11
      Letters to the editor published in German-language papers at this time expressed similar sentiments. The prominent German leader Friedrich Münch wrote a letter to the editor of the Westliche Post in which he objected to the use of religious language in the constitution, including the preamble's attribution of the constitution itself to divine guidance. He warned that the convention should avoid bringing religion into civil matters.27 Conservative Germans expressed similar sentiments, as did the Neue Anzeiger des Westens article that mocked radical Germans for finally realizing that the politicians they had helped elect did not share their views on religion. In this correspondent's view, Charles Drake—the primary author of the new constitution—"has been all his life time a religious and political fanatic and has never concealed his hatred against the German 'infidels.'" The article argued that other Republican politicians, including B. Gratz Brown, were just as bad and were trying to establish the dominance of Puritan Christianity in Missouri.28 12
      On May 1, St. Louis radicals again called a meeting to plan their strategy for defeating the constitution in the June 6 elections.29 German radicals were central to the organization of this meeting, and the issue of opposing the constitution seems to have appealed not only to the political and economic elites in the German population, but to various artisans and lower-level white-collar workers as well. Of the 114 names signed to the call for this meeting, 40 were immigrants from one of the German states, and 43 others, while they could not be identified definitively, had common German names. This meeting also demonstrated that there was considerable cross-class appeal to the movement against the constitution. While twenty-nine of the forty Germans who could be identified had fairly high status jobs, including numerous doctors, lawyers, druggists, and owners of breweries and beer halls, the other eleven had more modest occupations, including clerks, tailors, cigar makers, and surveyors.30 13
      The meeting's participants drew up a list of resolutions presenting their objections to the new constitution. The resolutions expressed dissatisfaction with the constitution's provisions relating to religion and the oath that voters and professionals had to swear to prove their loyalty, which in their view punished people for crimes of which they had not been convicted in court. The resolutions concluded that the constitution was "blasphemous under the pretext of religion, tyrannical under the cloak of liberty, and reactionary under the plea of progress."31 14
      The debate over the constitution presented an unusual situation in that both radical and conservative Germans opposed it, although they hoped to see the document amended in different ways. The Post's editors warned radical Germans that they should not support the constitution simply because the conservatives opposed it, arguing that they had to oppose it as well to ensure that the constitution would be amended in a radical spirit.32 While the Post portrayed radical support of the constitution as an instinctive opposition to the conservatives' position, in reality many of the radicals who supported the constitution did so because of its provisions disfranchising rebels. Many, although not all, radicals held the disfranchisement of rebels to be essential to the safety of Missouri and feared that if the failure of the constitution delayed this provision, the rebels might be able to gain enough strength in the government to take over the state.33 15
      Charles Drake, the constitution's main author, was aware of this sentiment and attempted to use this argument to convince Germans to support the constitution. In a speech he delivered in Jefferson City, Drake argued that most Germans opposed the constitution for religious reasons. He maintained that "a majority of them are Infidels and those who are not Free Thinkers are chiefly Roman Catholics." He argued that the freethinkers did not like the fact that the constitution contained language that acknowledged "the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and disqualified a witness who did not recognize the Almighty," while the German Catholics did not like the fact that the constitution required priests to take the loyalty oath. However, he also maintained that the "leading Germans have already repented of their opposition" and would ultimately vote for the constitution in order to support the loyalty oath for voters because "Germans do not like the company of Copperheads."34 16
      Despite Drake's rhetoric, the election results ultimately demonstrated that the majority of the voters of St. Louis, including the German voters, were opposed to the Drake constitution. St. Louis as a whole rejected the constitution by a majority of nearly 5,500 (69 percent of the total vote cast). Every ward in the city cast a majority of its votes against the constitution as well, including the heavily German wards. (See Tables 4.)35 In the end, the Drake constitution was approved, despite its defeat in St. Louis, by a vote of 43,670 to 41,808. Many opponents attributed the victory to a combination of Drake's insistence on letting soldiers stationed in other states submit absentee ballots and the stringent voter registration provisions used to prevent former rebels from voting.36 17

Table 4. Election on 1865 Drake Constitution
Wards For % For Against % Against
1 366 29.7% 865 70.3%
2 319 30.6% 722 69.4%
3 321 32.6% 664 67.4%
4 385 25.4% 1,133 74.6%
5 492 21.1% 1,841 78.9%
6 270 32.8% 552 67.2%
7 329 30.5% 751 69.5%
8 599 39.9% 904 60.1%
9 469 22.6% 1,608 77.4%
10 914 49.9% 918 50.1%
Totals 4,464 31.0% 9,958 69.0%
Calculated from election results as reported in Westliche Post, June 8, 1865.

 
      Black suffrage also proved to be an issue that dissuaded some Germans from fully supporting the Republican Party and its agenda. This became particularly apparent in 1868, when the issue of black suffrage was put to the vote in Missouri. A number of issues regarding black suffrage had the potential to be of great interest to Germans, particularly working-class Germans. Both supporters and opponents of black suffrage frequently compared the abilities of black workers with white ones either to support or denigrate their ability to be self-supporting citizens. German conservatives were quite dismissive of the abilities of African American men to work hard enough to support themselves and their families. They maintained that as dependents, black men were incapable of participating in governing a republic, and thus, unworthy of the suffrage.37 German radicals, in contrast, provided examples portraying African Americans as industrious workers, including accounts of the freedpeople living near Alexandria, Virginia; in the Sea Islands of South Carolina; and in the British colonies in the Caribbean.38 They further argued that it was in the best interest of white workers to support black suffrage. They asserted that the vote would allow African Americans to demand changes in the society of the South that would allow them to become independent workers. This not only would eliminate the cheap labor competition that kept many immigrants out of the South, but also would turn the freedpeople into a vast new market for the products of northern artisans, resulting in higher wages and better living conditions for all workers.39 18
      In addition to concerns about the eligibility of black men to vote, some Germans also raised concerns about how they would vote if they were allowed to do so. German radicals dismissed such concerns as unworthy, maintaining that as free citizens, African American men self-evidently deserved the right to vote.40 German Democrats, on the other hand, sought to instill doubt in the minds of the electorate by insinuating that blacks might vote for nativist measures.41 For example, contributors to the Neue Anzeiger des Westens expressed concern that African Americans would support the most puritanical portion of the Republican Party and would align with that wing of the party on such issues as temperance, Sunday closing laws, and Bible reading in public schools.42 Even Germans who supported black suffrage occasionally made such connections, as did the Westliche Post article which argued that Puritan ideals would influence African Americans when they voted, due to the influence that Yankee missionaries had supposedly exerted on them.43 19
      Such changes would also have been particularly damaging to the cultural life of working-class Germans. Sunday was often the only day workers had free, meaning that if working-class German men and women wanted to attend a concert or the theater, they would likely have to do so on Sunday. Furthermore, taverns featured heavily in the culture of the German workers' movement, as they did for other ethnic groups. Taverns were very important to workers, both as places where they could get a meal during the day and as places to relax with family and friends in the evenings or on Sunday. In addition, taverns were often used as meeting places for labor and political organizations. In striking at taverns, puritanical Republicans thus struck directly at the heart of German working-class culture.44 20
      It is likely that these concerns about the measures African American voters might support, as well as a desire to reserve the suffrage for white men, were responsible for the overwhelming defeat of the 1868 measure to enfranchise black men.45 The Westliche Post, while celebrating the rest of the radical electoral victories, philosophically remarked that there are no roses without thorns and credited the Germans of St. Louis with the votes that this measure did get.46 The Anzeiger, while it had to face the defeat of its slate of candidates, celebrated the defeat of the black suffrage amendment, reporting that two-thirds of the population of St. Louis had voted against it and that the majorities actually had been largest in the most heavily German wards.47 21
      Although it is difficult to determine exactly who was voting for and against this measure, the Anzeiger was correct that many Germans did vote against the black suffrage amendment. All the wards of the city, including the heavily German first, second, third, eleventh, and twelfth wards, gave solid majorities against black suffrage, ranging from a low of 60.1 percent in ward four to a high of 78.5 percent in ward two. (See Tables 5.)48 Even more instructive is a comparison of the vote for president with the vote on the black suffrage amendment. In each ward there was a drop-off between the number of votes for Grant, the Republican presidential candidate, and the number of votes for the black suffrage amendment. Even though the amendment had received the endorsement of the Missouri Republican Party, not all Grant supporters were willing to vote for it. As had been the case in 1860 and 1864, the Republican presidential candidate once again received his strongest majorities in the German wards, ranging from 58.6 percent in ward twelve to 70.9 percent in ward one. The less heavily German wards towards the center of the city produced smaller votes for Grant, ranging from 41.2 percent to 51.5 percent of the votes cast in those wards. (See Tables 6.) However, the drop-off between Grant supporters and supporters of black suffrage was also greatest in the German wards. In wards one and two in particular, fewer people voted for black suffrage than voted for Grant—51.3 and 65.7 percent, respectively. (See Tables 7.) It appears that while the Germans of St. Louis were still generally voting Republican in 1868, they were less willing to support black enfranchisement than were other Republican voters.49 22

Table 5. 1868 Vote on Black Suffrage Amendment
Wards For Amendment Against Amendment
1 445 35.4% 811 64.6%
2 466 21.5% 1,697 78.5%
3 786 39.1% 1,225 60.9%
4 857 39.9% 1,289 60.1%
5 870 37.6% 1,443 62.4%
6 969 35.7% 1,745 64.3%
7 540 35.8% 970 64.2%
8 609 31.5% 1,323 68.5%
9 664 26.1% 1,880 73.9%
10 669 31.8% 1,438 68.2%
11 760 32.3% 1,590 67.7%
12 443 30.3% 1,018 69.7%
Totals 8,078 33.0% 16,429 67.0%
Election results as reported in Missouri Republican, November 5, 1868.
 

Table 6. 1868 Presidential Election
Wards Grant Seymour
1 919 70.9% 378 29.1%
2 1,358 66.0% 700 34.0%
3 1,471 70.6% 614 29.4%
4 1,187 51.2% 1,131 48.8%
5 1,168 50.5% 1,144 49.5%
6 1,261 44.2% 1,593 55.8%
7 811 51.5% 764 48.5%
8 1,012 50.2% 1,005 49.8%
9 1,247 45.8% 1,473 54.2%
10 839 41.2% 1,196 58.8%
11 1,560 63.5% 896 36.5%
12 883 58.6% 625 41.4%
Totals: 13,716 54.4% 11,519 45.6%
Election results as reported in Missouri Republican, November 5, 1868.
 

Table 7. Percent Decrease Between Vote for Grant and Vote for Black Suffrage Amendment
Wards Vote for Grant Vote for Black Suffrage Difference % Decrease
1 919 445 474 51.6%
2 1,358 466 892 65.7%
3 1,471 786 685 46.6%
4 1,187 857 330 27.8%
5 1,168 870 298 25.5%
6 1,261 969 292 23.2%
7 811 540 271 33.4%
8 1,012 609 403 39.8%
9 1,247 664 583 46.8%
10 839 669 170 20.3%
11 1,560 760 800 51.3%
12 883 443 440 49.8%
Calculated from election results as reported in Missouri Republican, November 5, 1868.

 
      The dispute over black suffrage, combined with the conflicts over the constitution and concerns about the economic and religious priorities of the Republican Party, began to undermine its support among St. Louis's German population. In 1870 the Republican Party in Missouri split into two factions over the issue of the reenfranchisement of rebels, with the Liberal Republicans, who supported reenfrachisement, nominating B. Gratz Brown for governor while the regular Republicans nominated Joseph McClurg. The vast majority of St. Louisans voted for Brown—he received nearly 78 percent of the total vote—but his support was even higher in the German wards on the south side of the city, where he received over 90 percent of the vote. (See Tables 8.) African Americans, recently enfranchised by the Fifteenth Amendment, generally supported McClurg. This caused further discord between the black and German populations, even with those who had previously been staunch supporters of black suffrage. During the ward meetings to nominate delegates to the Republican convention, there were complaints about the large number of African American men who attended. The Post's coverage of these meetings maintained that the African Americans had been purposefully organized by McClurg's supporters to defeat B. Gratz Brown's bid for governor. The Post complained that the African Americans and a small minority of whites were working together to overrule the great majority of whites, who preferred Brown.50 For once, the Anzeiger largely agreed with the Westliche Post's accounting of events, calling the African American leader J. Milton Turner a "black nativist" who supposedly had said that beer ruled the Germans, and that if McClurg would give them some, he would soon be just as loved as Brown was.51 23

Table 8. 1870 Gubernatorial Election
Wards Brown (Liberal Republican) McClurg (Republican)
1 776 90.9% 78 9.1%
2 1,210 94.5% 71 5.5%
3 1,343 92.5% 109 7.5%
4 1,312 77.8% 374 22.2%
5 1,286 74.0% 452 26.0%
6 1,662 76.0% 526 24.0%
7 1,003 71.5% 399 28.5%
8 1,029 64.5% 566 35.5%
9 1,211 75.4% 395 24.6%
10 1,022 74.6% 348 25.4%
11 1,239 71.9% 485 28.1%
12 807 81.3% 186 18.7%
Totals 13,900 77.7% 3,989 22.3%
Election results as reported in Missouri Republican, November 11, 1870.

 
      In 1872 many Liberal Republican voters, including many Germans, began supporting Democratic candidates. In the 1872 presidential election, the Democratic candidate, Horace Greeley, actually received small majorities over Grant in the first and second wards—53.7 percent and 51.5 percent, respectively—making this the first time that a Democratic presidential candidate had won these wards since the 1850s. (See Tables 9.) Although the Republicans' platform of opposition to slavery and support for the Union had won the support of the vast majority of St. Louis Germans during the Civil War, the party ultimately proved unable to deal with the economic, religious, and racial conflicts after the war, losing some of its staunchest German supporters to its political rivals. 24

Table 9. 1872 Presidential Election
Wards Grant Greeley
1 1,341 46.3% 1,555 53.7%
2 961 48.5% 1,020 51.5%
3 1,013 50.2% 1,004 49.8%
4 1,169 44.2% 1,473 55.8%
5 1,056 41.3% 1,503 58.7%
6 1,341 37.6% 2,226 62.4%
7 1,047 47.8% 1,143 52.2%
8 1,282 48.9% 1,340 51.1%
9 1,179 38.4% 1,892 61.6%
10 909 37.0% 1,546 63.0%
11 1,637 59.5% 1,116 40.5%
12 1,066 51.4% 1,008 48.6%
Totals 14,001 45.4% 16,826 54.6%
Election results as reported in Westliche Post, November 8, 1872.
 


NOTES

A version of this essay was presented at the 122nd American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 2008. The research for the essay was made possible by a State Historical Society of Missouri Richard S. Brownlee Fund grant and a University of Iowa Student Government Research Grant.

1.  A useful collection of articles examining Germans in Republican politics and the election of Lincoln is Frederick C. Luebke, Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln (Lincoln, NE, 1971). Other studies that examine the division of Germans between the Democratic and Republican Parties at this time include Bruce Levine, The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War (Urbana, IL, 1992); Susanne Martha Schick, "'For God, Mac, and Country': The Political Worlds of Midwestern Germans during the Civil War Era" ( PhD diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1994); and Walter D. Kamphoefner, "German-Americans and Civil War Politics: A Reconsideration of the Ethnocultural Thesis," Civil War History 37, no. 3 (September 1991): 232–46.

2.  Walter D. Kamphoefner, "St. Louis Germans and the Republican Party, 1848–1860," Mid-America 57, no. 2 (April 1975): 69–88.

3.  The German-language press of St. Louis provides numerous examples of support among both the German Republican leadership as well as ordinary Germans for emancipation and the enrollment of black soldiers. Examples of support for emancipation include Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), October 9, 1861; December 4, 1861; December 11, 1861; December 18, 1861; December 22, 1861; December 25, 1861; March 3 1862; April 23, 1862; October 1, 1862; and January 3, 1863; Westliche Post, March 11, 1862; January 29 1863; and February 23, 1863. Examples of support for black soldiers include Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), August 8, 1861 and April 23, 1862; Mississippi Blätter (Sunday ed. of Westliche Post), September 8, 1861 and December 15, 1861; Westliche Post, April 15, 1862; May 3, 1862; July 12, 1862; August 26, 1862; September 11, 1862; March 4, 1863; March 5, 1863; and March 21, 1863.

4.  For discussions of the labor movement in the wake of the Civil War, see David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862–1872 (1967; repr., Urbana, IL, 1981), and Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (1989; repr., Urbana, IL, 1997). For discussion of the participation of Germans in the American labor movement, see the studies in Hartmut Keil, ed., German Workers' Culture in the United States, 1850–1920 (Washington, DC, 1988), and Hartmut Keil and John B. Jentz, eds., German Workers in Industrial Chicago, 1850–1910: A Comparative Perspective (DeKalb, IL, 1983). The participation of the Germans in the labor movement in St. Louis is discussed in David Roediger, "'Not Only the Ruling Classes to Overcome, but also the So-Called Mob': Class, Skill, and Community in the St. Louis General Strike of 1877," Journal of Social History 19, no. 2 (Winter 1985): 230; David T. Burbank, Reign of the Rabble: The St. Louis General Strike of 1877 (New York, 1966), 17–21.

5.  Due to the lack of union records in this period, it is difficult to determine who was a member of a particular union. However, numerous trade unions advertised their monthly meetings in the German-language press and listed Germans serving as officers. During the late 1860s, such advertisements were particularly common in the Westliche Post. For example, in January 1865, various labor-related ads appeared on eleven different days: Westliche Post, January 1, 1865; January 3, 1865; January 4, 1865; January 5, 1865; January 6, 1865; January 7, 1865; January 11, 1865; January 13, 1865; January 15, 1865; January 22, 1865; and January 28, 1865. Labor advertisements became more common in the Neue Anzeiger des Westens after 1870. For example, Neue Anzeiger des Westens, May 1 1871; May 5, 1871; May 6, 1871; May 20, 1871; May 21, 1871; May 23, 1871; May 25, 1871; and May 30, 1871. Advertisements for the St. Louis Arbeiter-Verein appeared monthly in the Westliche Post and particularly in its Sunday edition, the Mississippi Blätter, during these years, generally during the first week of the month. Some examples include Mississippi Blätter, August 6, 1865; September 3, 1865; October 1, 1865; November 5, 1865; and December 3, 1865. Advertisements for the Deutscher und Böhmischer Arbeiter-Unterstützungs-Verein also occurred monthly in the same periodicals, generally in the third week of the month. Some examples include Mississippi Blätter, February 16, 1868; March 15, 1868; April 19, 1868; May 17, 1868; and June 21, 1868.

6.  For German involvement in the eight-hour movement, see Westliche Post, July 19, 1865, and November 5, 1865; St. Louis Daily Press, July 25, 1865; November 26, 1865; and June 14, 1866; and Neue Anzeiger des Westens, April 12, 1867; April 13, 1867; and May 2, 1867. For labor festivals, see Westliche Post, December 30, 1865, and May 23, 1868. For political activity, see Neue Anzeiger des Westens, March 19, 1865, and April 1, 1865; Westliche Post, April 2, 1865, and May 4, 1870; and St. Louis Daily Press, April 2, 1865, and April 3, 1865.

7.  The percentage of St. Louis's population that was African American was not nearly as high as that of many southern cities. The 1864 city census reported that there were 6,854 African Americans in St. Louis (6,285 free and 569 enslaved) out of a total population of 157,056. Although this was only 4.4 percent of the total population, it was more than twice the number present in 1860 (1,755 free and 1,542 enslaved). St. Louis county census as cited in Westliche Post, December 29, 1864; James Neal Primm, Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 1764–1980, 3rd ed. (St. Louis, MO, 1998), 178–79.

8.  The journeymen printers, represented by the St. Louis Typographical Union, went on strike at four major St. Louis newspapers—the Missouri Republican, the Missouri Democrat, the St. Louis Dispatch, and the Evening News—when employers demanded they lower their rates for setting type from sixty-five cents per thousand ems to fifty cents. The Typographical Union also founded its own newspaper, the St. Louis Daily Press. Missouri Republican, December 16, 1864; December 17, 1864; St. Louis Daily Dispatch, December 28, 1864; St. Louis Daily Press, December 17, 1864; December 27, 1864. At least a few Germans were involved with the strike. The Missouri Republican twice printed lists of names of various printers who were on strike and the wages they had received for setting type as a way of convincing the public that the printers were well paid and were being greedy in striking for higher wages. Although specific individuals cannot be identified, since the paper only printed their last names, several of them had surnames that were quite likely German, including Hauck, Greig, and Waltz. Missouri Republican, December 18, 1864; December 20, 1864.

9. St. Louis Daily Press, December 18, 1864.

10. Westliche Post, January 19, 1865.

11. Anzeiger des Westens, December 20, 1864.

12.  Some examples of articles supporting the labor movement are Westliche Post, November 4, 1857; June 13, 1860; June 6, 1862; and January 21, 1863. In addition to articles such as these, brief announcements and advertisements for meetings were very common, and several appear almost every month. During the last years of the war, such advertisements were particularly common. For example, in January 1865, different labor-related ads appeared on eleven different days: Westliche Post, January 1, 1865; January 3, 1865; January 4, 1865; January 5, 1865; January 6, 1865; January 7, 1865; January 11, 1865; January 13, 1865; January 15, 1865; January 22, 1865; and January 28, 1865.

13. Westliche Post, December 17, 1864.

14. St. Louis Daily Press, December 17, 1864.

15. Missouri Republican, April 3, 1865.

16. Neue Anzeiger des Westens, March 29, 1865; April 1, 1865; St. Louis Daily Press, March 30, 1865; April 2, 1865; April 3, 1865.

17. Westliche Post, April 2, 1865.

18. St. Louis Daily Press, April 3, 1865.

19.  Harvey Saalburg, "The Westliche Post of St. Louis: A Daily Newspaper for German-Americans, 1857–1938" (PhD diss., University of Missouri, 1967), 222.

20.  Calculations based on St. Louis city census as reported in Neue Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), October 24, 1858, and election results as reported in Westliche Post, April 5, 1865.

21. Journal of the Missouri State Convention Held at the City of St. Louis, January 6–April 10, 1865 (St. Louis: Missouri Democrat, 1865), 255.

22.  In addition to voters and clergy, the oath was required of jurors, public officials, lawyers, and teachers. Ibid., 258–60. Thomas S. Barclay, "The Test Oath for the Clergy in Missouri," Missouri Historical Review 18, no. 3 (April 1924): 345.

23.  Quoted in Howard K. Beale, The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866 (New York, 1971), 494.

24.  Louis S. Gerteis, Civil War St. Louis (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 316–20; Barclay, "Test Oath," 347–51.

25.  Quoted in Gerteis, Civil War St. Louis, 318.

26. Westliche Post, February 17, 1865; February 18 1865; Missouri Republican, February 19, 1865. Their petition was presented to the convention on February 21, but it received no response and apparently had little to no impact on the convention's proceedings. Journal of the Missouri State Convention, 1865, 103.

27. Westliche Post, as translated and reprinted in the Missouri Republican, April 27, 1865.

28. Neue Anzeiger des Westens, as translated and reprinted in the Missouri Republican, February 1, 1865.

29. Westliche Post, April 29, 1865; May 2, 1865.

30.  Ethnicity was determined by cross-referencing the list of names with the 1860 and 1870 manuscript censuses for St. Louis. Some signers could not be identified because they had very common names (e.g., Charles Meyer and Peter Weber), while others signed only with initials (e.g., F. A. H. Schneider and H. J. Fischer).

31. St. Louis Daily Press, May 2, 1865.

32. Westliche Post, as translated and reprinted in the Missouri Republican, May 11, 1865.

33.  David D. March, "The Campaign for the Ratification of the Constitution of 1865," Missouri Historical Review 47, no. 3 (April 1953): 223–24.

34.  Drake's speech was reprinted in the New York Tribune and subsequently reprinted in the Missouri Republican, June 21, 1865.

35.  Data calculated from election results as reported in Westliche Post, June 8, 1865; 1866 census of the city of St. Louis as reported in Neue Anzeiger des Westens, August 3, 1866.

36.  March, "Campaign," 226, 232.

37.  Some examples are Neue Anzeiger des Westens, January 7, 1865; October 31, 1865; March 3, 1866; October 11, 1867; and October 18, 1867; and Neue Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), January 16, 1868; January 30, 1868; February 6, 1868; May 7, 1868; August 20, 1868; September 10, 1868; and November 5, 1868.

38. Mississippi Blätter, July 23, 1865; Westliche Post, July 29, 1865; September 14, 1865.

39. Westliche Post, September 1, 1865; September 6, 1865; September 7, 1865; September 8, 1865; September 13, 1865; September 14, 1865.

40.  Examples of German radicals arguing that emancipation should self-evidently confer the right of suffrage to African American men include Westliche Post, March 25, 1865; March 28, 1865; Journal of the Missouri State Convention, 1865, 45–48.

41.  Although the Republicans did not come to power or stay in power due to their nativism, they did use nativist rhetoric as a tool to attract conservative voters often enough to be of great concern to many German voters. Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know-Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (New York, 1992), xii–xiv. Missouri's Republican Party was much less nativist than most, due to its origins in the free soil Bentonite wing of the Democratic Party, and was consequently able to appeal to German voters more effectively than in other regions. However, they were still very aware of national Republican rhetoric. For the situation in St. Louis, see Kamphoefner, "St. Louis Germans and the Republican Party," 74–76. For a study of German responses to Republican nativism in other parts of the country, see Schick, "'For God, Mac, and Country.'"

42. Neue Anzeiger des Westens, September 25, 1867; Neue Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), November 5, 1868.

43. Westliche Post, April 13, 1870.

44.  Studies examining the importance of taverns and Sunday activities to workers include Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (New York, 1983); Bruce Laurie, Working People of Philadelphia, 1800–1850 (Philadelphia, 1980), 53–66; Daniel T. Rogers, The Work Ethic and Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago, 1978), 94–124; and Ken Fones-Wolf, Trade Union Gospel: Christianity and Labor in Industrial Philadelphia, 1865–1915 (Philadelphia, 1989), 46–52. Studies examining German American workers' culture in particular include Keil, ed., German Workers' Culture in the United States, and the studies in Keil and Jentz, eds., German Workers in Industrial Chicago.

45.  The measure was defeated by a nine-thousand-vote majority in St. Louis County and by nearly twenty-thousand votes statewide. Margaret L. Dwight, "Black Suffrage in Missouri, 1865–1877" (PhD diss., University of Missouri, 1978), 96.

46. Westliche Post, November 5, 1868.

47. Neue Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), November 5, 1868; November 12, 1868.

48.  St. Louis's wards were redrawn in 1868 which, together with the unreliable nature of the 1870 Census, makes it somewhat difficult to determine exact ethnic breakdowns for each ward. The 1866 city census determined that wards one, two, and ten were heavily German (39.9%, 37.9%, and 31.3%, respectively). Comparison of the ward boundaries as listed in city directories demonstrates that wards one, two, and ten in 1866 closely correspond with wards one, two, three, eleven, and twelve in 1868. The 1866 city census as reported in Neue Anzeiger des Westens, August 3, 1866. Edwards' Annual Director to the Inhabitants, Institutions, Incorporated Companies, Manufacturing Establishments, Business, Business Firms, etc., etc., in the City of St. Louis for 1866 (St. Louis, MO,1866); Edwards' Annual Director to the Inhabitants, Institutions, Incorporated Companies, Manufacturing Establishments, Business, Business Firms, etc., etc., in the City of St. Louis for 1868 (St. Louis, MO, 1868).

49.  Election results as reported in Westliche Post, November 5, 1868. See also Neue Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), November 5, 1868, and November 12, 1868.

50. Westliche Post, August 26, 1870.

51. Neue Anzeiger des Westens (weekly edition), October 13, 1870.

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