ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY 1619-1895 FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE AGE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS I •· ': (. I_: . : • I; 1" Editor in Chief Paul Finkelman --------~ -------- VOLUME 1 A-E OXFORD UNIVERSITY. PRESS 2006 196 BLAINE, JAMES G. compromiser, explained the political inexpediency of such [See also Cleveland, Grover; Douglass, Frederick; a stance and managed to keep Douglass pacified as a nom- Garfield, James A.; Gherardi, Bancroft; Grant, Ulysses S.; inal supporter. The two spoke on the same stage at the Re- Haiti; Haitian Revolutions; Harrison, Benjamin; Hyppo- publican National Convention in Cincinnati in 1876. Four lite, Louis Modestin Florvil; Race, Theories of; Racism; years later, both men supported James Garfield for presi- Reconstruction; and Republican Party.] dent. Garfield rewarded Blaine with the office of secretary . BIBLIOGRAPHY of state, and though he had promised the post of United Muzzey, David S. James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days. New States marshal for the ·District of Columbia to Douglass, York: Dodd, Mead, 1935. he tried to renege to avoid stirring racial animosity. Doug- Spetter, Alan B. and Homer E. Socolofsky. The Presidency of Ben- lass appealed to Blaine for help, Blaine spoke to Garfield jamin Harrison. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987. Tyler, Alice F. The Foreign Policy of James G. Blaine. Minneapolis: on Douglass's behalf, and Douglass got the job. Moreover, University of Minnesota Press, 1927. Blaine solicited the advice of Douglass in making other Volwiler, Albert T. The Correspondence Between Benjamin Harrison federal appointments of African Americans. and James G. Blaine, 1882-1893. Philadelphia: American Philo- Although their positions on the race issue differed, sophical Society, 1940. Douglass backed Blaine in the campaign of 1884 out of -THOMAS ADAMS UPCHURCH loyalty to the Republican Party. Douglass urged Blaine to take a stance in support of civil rights, but Blaine re- fused. Thus, the only issue that really separated the Re- BLANCHARD, JONATHAN (b. 19 January 1811; d. publicans from the Democrats in the election was the 14 May 1892), educator and social reformer. Jonathan tariff. When the Republican ticket lost, Douglass blamed Blan~hard would become an heir of the principles of the the defeat on Blaine's refusal to stand apart from the De- evangelical postmillennial Christianity exemplified in mocrats on the issue of race, which had always been the America's Benevolent Empire of theearly 1800s, wherein party's bread and butter. Douglass said Blaine had thus activists sought to reform American society through edu- defeated himself. Blaine accepted the criticism in good cation and religious missions. Blanchard was born the faith, and the two men continued their professional po- eleventh of fifteen children, near Rockingham, Vermont, litical relationship, aware that they might need each to Polly Lovell and the farmer Jonathan Blanchard Sr. The other in the future. young Jonathan was able to take advantage of a variety Harrison's election in 1888 saw both Blaine and Doug- of educational opportunities, eventually graduating from lass rewarded with government jobs. With Blaine serving Middlebury College, after which he .enrolled in Andover as the secretary of state and Douglass as a minister to Theological Seminary. Haiti, the two interacted regularly, exchanging at least Blanchard left Andover in September 1836, because it nine letters from 1889 to 1891, before Douglass resigned failed to stand against slavery, and became an aboli- his post. Blaine and Harrison wanted to secure a naval tionist lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. He base on Haiti from the regime of Louis Modestin Florvil was one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "Seventy," preach- Hyppolite, who had recently taken power there. Contem- ing the "sin of slavery" throughout Pennsylvania with the porary reports held that Blaine had charged Douglass with hopes that the consciences of slaveholders would be arranging the deal for the base, but Douglass denied that pierced over their treatment of those whom Blanchard, he was assigned that duty. Historical accounts of the Hai- echoing the words of Jesus, lamented as the "least of tian affair have consequently differed. Whatever the cir- these my brethren." cumstances, about a year after Douglass assumed his post, In late 1837 Blanchard enrolled in the Lane Theo- Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi was appointed to work logical Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, heeding Lyman with Douglass to secure the base. Gherardi, an outspoken Beecher's Plea for the West to capture this region for racist, did not like Douglass, considered him a weak ne- Protestant Christianity. After graduation Blanchard was gotiator at a time when an intimidating presence would ordained by Beecher and Calvin Stowe and became the have proven more effective, and demanded his replace- pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church, which was ment. Douglass urged Blaine to have Gherardi cease his formed as a result of a slavery-related schism at Cincin- intimidation tactics, saying the Haitians' fear of American nati's First Presbyterian Church. In this capacity Blan- imperialism was already acute enough without such bel- chard continued his abolitionist involvement and served licosity. The white naval officer got the better of the ar- as a delegate from the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society to gument, however, and Douglass resigned. The Harrison the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1843, administration never did acquire the base, and Blaine and where he was elected a vice president. For four days in Douglass never had the opportunity to work together October 1845 he debated the sinfulness of slavery with the again. nationally known Reverend Nathan L. Rice. BLUCKE, STEPHEN 197 Blanchard later became the president of Knox College, America's premier sin: racism. In rare moments, his pri- in Galesburg, Illinois, remaining a champion of aboli- vate correspondence exhibits the use of the racist label tionist thought. In 1850 he rebuked the senator Stephen "darkies." Sadly, this speaks as much about the endemism A. Douglas in a massive open letter for aiding passage of of American racism as it does about Blanchard. Over time the Compromise of 1850, with its Fugitive Slave Law. Blanchard's strong character and unflinching efforts for Later, he openly opposed Douglas for the popular sover- equality and reform put him at odds with many. His shift eignty views he espoused in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, in focus from significant social problems to peripheral which revived the possibility of slavery in the territories, ones caused the biographer Clyde S. Kilby to call him a brought about the weakening of the Whig Party, and, in "minority of one." Though marginalized by his tempera- the end, fostered the Republican Party. Blanchard's chal- ment, Blanchard maintained correspondence with his for- lenges to Douglas culminated in a public debate in mer abolitionist associates for many years. Knoxville, Illinois, on 13 October 1854. The following year Blanchard was lecturing against slavery throughout Ken- [See also American Anti-Slavery Society; Antislavery tucky, traveling with John Fee, the founder of Berea Col- Movement; Brown, John; Civil Rights Act of 1875; Civil lege, and Cassius M. Clay, a Yale graduate and nephew of War; Clay, Cassius M.; Clay, Henry; Compromise of 1850; the statesman Henry Clay. After Knox College, Blanchard Douglas, Stephen A.; Douglass, Frederick, Fugitive Slave assumed the presidency of the struggling Wheaton Col- Law of 1850; Know-Nothing Party; Lane Theological Sem- lege in Wheaton, Illinois, fashioning it into a strong and inary; Racism; Smith, Gerrit; Supreme Court; and Weld, vital reform institution. He restructured the trustee board Theodore Dwight.] and named Owen Lovejoy, the brother of the abolitionist BIBLIOGRAPHY martyr Elijah P. Lovejoy, to a seat. Blanchard, Jonathan, and Nathan L. Rice. A Debate on Slavery, Held After the Civil War Blanchard shifted his focus from an- in the City of Cincinnati, on the First, Second, Third, and Sixth Days tislavery work to antisecretism. In an April 1869 letter to of October, 1845, upon the Question: Is Slave-holding in Itself Sin- ful, and the Relation between Master and Slave, a Sinful Relation? the abolitionist Gerrit Smith, Blanchard expressed his be- New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. lief that the curse of secret societies was deeper than slav- Fischer, Raymond P. Four Hazardous Journeys of the Reverend ery, believing that Freemasonry played a role in advanc- Jonathan Blanchard, Founder of Wheaton College. Wheaton, IL: ing slavery and fostering the Civil War. Tyndale House, 1987. Written by a grandson, this work looks at Like many others, Blanchard sought to draw Frederick four events from Blanchard's life and utilizes materials from fam- ily records previously unavailable to other biographers. Douglass into joining forces with his causes, which for Kilby, Clyde S. Minority of One: The Biography of Jonathan Blanchard. Blanchard was the ensnarement and captivity of former Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959. From a sympathetic perspec- slaves into the ranks of Masonry and the like. Blanchard tive, this is the only critical biography available. sought the assistance of Douglass by asking him to serve Taylor, Richard S. "Seeking the Kingdom: A Study in the Career of as his vice presidential running mate on the 1884 ticket Jonathan Blanchard, 1811-1892." PhD diss., Northern lllinois Uni- versity, 1977. of the third-party anti-Masonic American Party (as dis- -DAVID B. MALONE tinguished from the earlier Know-Nothing Party). Blan- chard met with Douglass numerous times in efforts to persuade him; in the end Douglass unyieldingly told Blan- chard not to put his name on the ticket. BLUCKE, STEPHEN (b. c. 1752; d. c. 1795), black Loy- However, the rebuff did not diminish Blanchard's re- alist leader. Born free in Barbados, Stephen Blucke moved spect for Douglass or his involvement with him, nor did to New York City sometime before 1770. There Blucke it preclude Douglass from speaking at a later American married Margaret Coventry, who was his elder by nine Party convention. As was the practice of the day, Blan- years. She claimed to have purchased her own freedom chard's newspaper, the Christian Cynosure, republished in 1769, from Mrs. Coventry's family in New York City, materials that were available in other venues, such as as well as that of a six-year-old girl, Isabel Gibbons, who other newspapers or correspondence. Blanchard reprint- was probably her daughter. Blucke joined the Church of ed Douglass's thoughts on the Supreme Court's decisions England, which gave him some prominence in the black on the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (in 1883) and on John community of New York City and in rural New Jersey. He Brown (in 1887). Blanchard even gave favorable press to chose to remain loyal to the English cause at the outbreak Douglass's 1884 interracial marriage to Helen Pitts, stat- of the American Revolution and gained a patron in ing, "God had made of one blood all nations of men." Stephen Skinner, a wealthy Loyalist. Stephen Blucke be- Blanchard was a jeremiad to his culture as he forged a came a commander of the Black Pioneers, an informal Christian vision of human equality. However, despite all black military organization that provided logistical sup- of his progressiveness, Blanchard still exhibited stains of port to the British army.