George H. Pendleton
Stonewall Jackson
On July 4, 1876, United States President George H. Pendleton hosted Confederate States President Stonewall Jackson in Washington, D.C. The meeting, which was intended to foster pan-American unity on the centennial of the country's independence, was received extremely poorly in both nations. It has been called various names, the most immediate and lasting of these being The Great Disgrace. Other names include Pendleton's Folly, the Centennial Sully, the Centennial Betrayal, or simply the Atrocity. The event's widely negative reception led to deep political changes in both the Confederacy and the Union, leading this event to be known as a pivotal point in the history of the two nations and their relation with each other.
Background[]
After the Confederacy's victory in the Civil War and its subsequent independence from the United States, the two nations had minimal official contact with each other. The United States was bitter over their loss and weary of granting any more official recognition to the South than they had to. Most citizens preferred to simply put the Southern states out of their minds and move on. The Confederacy was also content with this, having fought a war to rid themselves of Yankee influence.
This policy slightly changed when George H. Pendleton was elected president in 1868. Pendleton, a traditional Jacksonian Democrat, was a supporter of slavery and firmly believed it would be best for the two nations to establish warm relations with each other now that their conflict was behind them. He saw no reason for continued hostility towards the South. They had won their independence, and that was it. Abolitionists and Radical Republicans disagreed, of course- they wanted nothing to do with the country built on the vile institution of slavery.
Joseph Lane, Minister to the Confederate States
Pendleton focused his first term on restoring normalcy to his own nation, leaving the Confederacy issue for the future. He did establish formal diplomatic relations with the Confederacy during this time. Joseph Lane was appointed the first United States Minister to the Confederate States. He was received with ambivalence by the Confederate government, although his keen support for the Confederacy and their slave holding warmed relations over time. Confederate presidents were not keen to grant any outsized influence to the Yankee ambassador, determined to assert their independence in all matters.
Pendleton won reelection in 1872 with over 60% of the popular vote and considered this to be a public mandate to accomplish his goals. He believed that the American public desired to move on from the scars of the war and reestablish mutually beneficial brotherhood with the country down South. In reality, while most Americans did want to move on, the way that they desired to do this was by ignoring the Confederacy's existence. Ideological conflicts and the bloodiness of the war led many Northerners to hold a deep resentment towards the South and their backwards society. Pendleton considered himself a man of the people but was unable to see this plain fact, possibly because he surrounded himself by pro-slavery Democrats that held similar views.
For his second term, Pendleton desired to win a diplomatic coup by securing an official visit by the Confederate president. He realized that the country's 100th anniversary was coming up soon and decided that this would be the perfect venue for the two nations to celebrate their shared heritage and begin to heal the old wounds between them.
Negotiations[]
Through Lane and others sympathetic to his idea, Pendleton opened secret negotiations with the new Confederate president Stonewall Jackson. The Confederate government received the offer with surprise and curiosity. It was quickly turned down, however, most of those in the administration not believing the environment was right to collaborate with the Union government in any respect. The proposal almost died there before word of it happened to make its way to the president himself. Jackson, who considered the rift between the two countries to be a tragedy, was interested.
The two presidents began a direct correspondence. Letters between the two were kept top secret and entrusted only to top diplomats of the two nations, to be delivered directly to the president. While Jackson was interested, he was not willing to visit the US without some sort of additional boon for his nation. The Confederacy had been struggling with slaves constantly escaping along the long border with the United States. Some Confederate politicians went so far as to demand war in order to force the US to enforce capture and return of these slaves. Jackson, however, was deeply opposed to more bloodshed between the nations and now saw the opportunity to solve this problem diplomatically.
Pendleton was receptive when he received the counter offer. To him, a white supremacist supporter of slavery, it was a win-win. He would keep former slaves from pouring into his country while also securing the diplomatic victory he was hoping for. In 1875, the president proposed a new fugitive slave law to Congress. He framed this as a bill that defended Northern self-interest by securing its border and avoiding the social strife that came with more newly freed Blacks entering the country. Border state Democrats were supportive of the measure, and the Democrat-dominated Congress passed the bill narrowly.
The politically disengaged public barely even knew about the law before it passed. When they received word, the majority of Northerners were outraged, especially those in the Northeast. The fugitive slave laws had been controversial even when the South was still part of the nation, and the one positive of the Confederacy's independence was supposed to be that the North was no longer beholden to their political demands. This new development seemed absolutely outrageous.
Pendleton dismissed most of the opposition to the law as being driven by hysterical Republicans who thankfully no longer had any influence on how the country was run. The harsh measures went into effect in 1876, enforcing Confederate property rights to slaves even in the Union and making it a federal crime for citizens to aid illegal entrants to the country in any form. Jackson, as promised, agreed to visit Washington D.C. for the centennial celebrations of July.
Both presidents were surprised at the furious reaction in their countries to this news. They had each thought that healing the wounds between them was a noble goal that most levelheaded citizens would be able to accept and support. What they instead saw was an American public that was entirely unwilling to warm up to the other side of the border.
The Visit[]
Planning for the visit continued despite the fierce opposition. President Pendleton optimistically believed that the furor would die down once the public saw the two presidents behaving amicably with each other, showing everyone that a Northerner and a Southerner could still get along. Jackson was no longer so sure, but he believed that he had to stick to his word.
For his own protection, Jackson's arrival in the United States was shrouded in secrecy. He arrived in Washington on July 3rd and soon met Pendleton for the first time in person, behind closed doors. The men reportedly shared their astonishment that more people didn't support their attempt at diplomacy. Jackson tried to share his anxieties over appearing in public, but Pendleton reassured him that all would be well.
The White House, pictured around the time of the infamous visit
Jackson was treated as an honored guest of the president with quality lodgings and amenities. The whole week had been planned to celebrate the American centennial, with grand parades, fairs, and events all around the city. The knowledge that he was there for his meeting dampened the mood, however. He wished to himself that he could be out enjoying the celebratory atmosphere without such feelings of animosity.
The official meeting was planned for the next day. Pendleton hosted Jackson at the White House and chatted about domestic issues in the two nations for about half an hour. A stage had been set up at the Capitol Building for both men to make an appearance and brief remarks celebrating the anniversary. However, Pendleton received word that an angry mob had gathered there and the mood was likely too hostile for the planned appearance to take place. Instead, he walked with Jackson onto the White House balcony, where the two waved to the assembled public before soon heading back inside.
Jackson increasingly feared for his safety and resolved to leave the country as soon as he could. He congratulated Pendleton on the centennial and passage of the fugitive slave law, thanked him for his hospitality and good intentions, and then departed on a secret route back over the border to Richmond.
Reception and Aftermath[]
In the Confederacy[]
Both Confederates and Northerners felt betrayed by their presidents. Confederates felt that Jackson was bowing to the North just ten years after the country had won its hard fought independence. Some even charged that he was dishonoring the memory of those he led to their deaths in battle fighting for that cause. Such attacks troubled and angered the president.
There were others who felt that Jackson wasn't being malicious, but merely incompetent. It was known that he was new to both politics and international diplomacy, and he negotiated the deal almost on his own, against the urging of several advisors. A narrative was created that the inexperienced Jackson had been swindled by the very experienced politician Pendleton.
Whatever the case was, opposition built against Jackson's administration. The Confederacy before this point had been politically peaceful and unified, lost in the myth of an idyllic agrarian republic. The meeting in Washington inflamed tensions and made obvious the political divisions that had always existed. Many of the military leaders of the war were former West Point graduates, leaders in the United States army who still felt comradery towards those in the Union army and the Northern people as a whole. These men wished to heal relations with the North. The political leaders, on the other hand, were the ones who had driven secession and the fierce defense of slavery. These men were committed to their ideals and their image of a free, independent Confederacy unbeholden to the whims of the North. Alexander H. Stephens was the leader of this faction and would go on to form the Southern Independence Party as a response to this event.
Alexander H. Stephens
The Southern Party, as it was soon renamed, became the first major political party in the Confederacy and aimed for a step away from the moderate policies of the general presidents to that point. Popular anger over the Washington meeting fueled his victory in the 1879 presidential election, changing the face of Confederate politics forever.
Jackson did not regret his personal role in planning the event and resented the attacks on his character and ability to be president. He, along with his predecessors in the presidency, arranged a movement to keep the Confederacy nonpartisan and help General James Longstreet win the presidency to succeed him. They failed in this, and the Confederate Party was soon created to oppose the policies of the Southern Party.
In the United States[]
The reaction was similarly vitriolic among the public in the North. What was different was the reasoning behind it. The positive side of the Union's loss in the war was supposed to be that the North was now free from the insidious influence of Southern slave power, free to choose its own path without political bullying. The sudden passage of the fugitive slave act and seemingly sudden warming of relations with the Confederacy took the public off guard and seemed to be a return of Southern infringement on their politics. Afraid that the ideology of slavery would continue to spread in their society, they reacted harshly to these events. The meeting had the opposite effect of what was intended- it actually reignited public passions about the Confederacy and drove the people to wish for more direct resistance. It seemed that the only way to truly rid themselves of the backwardness was to forcefully stamp it out. They had to prove their independence from the South by creating a free and prosperous republic that outshone Dixie in every possible way.
The opposition parties to the Democrats, the American and National parties, saw their support balloon in the wake of this meeting. They took full advantage in their campaign messaging, painting Pendleton as a traitor who was still beholden to slave power and acting against the interests of the nation he led. The Democratic Party suddenly hoped to distance itself from the president and nominated someone who was in many ways his opposite, Samuel J. Tilden.
Samuel J. Tilden
Those who weren't so angry at Pendleton still generally thought his actions to be extremely foolish and indicative of poor leadership. How could a man who advocated for people's democracy be so out of touch with the actual will and feelings of the people? Those on all sides of the political spectrum acknowledged this event as a spectacular failure. What should have been a celebratory day was instead marred by riots and hostility, what some believed to be a symbol of everything that was still wrong with America. Pendleton stubbornly refused to admit that he had made an error and in fact did not comment on the event publicly after it was over.
Public anger would fuel the rise of the opposition parties and their eventual ascension to the presidency as the National American Party. The legacy of the event put a dark stain on the Democratic Party for decades to come, as political opponents would accuse them of being controlled by the Confederates. It also contributed to the eventual rise of ideologically opposed factions in the party, one being opposed to social progress like Pendleton and one advocating for a leap into the future, led by the ideas of Tilden.
Legacy[]
Ultimately, the event intended to heal old wounds actually created far more of them. Tensions would steadily rise between the two countries as well as within them. They almost came to war again in 1893 and then fought again in both world wars, leading to levels of bloodshed previously unimaginable.
Pendleton's folly went down in history as one of the most foolish and damaging actions ever carried out by a United States president. He would eventually be cast as one of the worst presidents in American history when ranked by historians, for this failure and his other regressive policies. Some try to argue that Pendleton's attempts at reconciliation were well founded and good intentioned, potentially able to lead the two countries to prosperity and peace if the public had been receptive. Others wonder if the reconciliation simply happened too soon. If the tensions had been allowed to die down for a few more decades, peace and common causes could potentially have been found. However, the blame for not thinking to wait remains on Pendleton.
Jackson's reputation was less stained and he remained a beloved founder figure of the Confederacy, although remembered as an ineffective and inexperienced president who couldn't really rise to the role.
Modern scholarship has consistently studied the Great Disgrace as a turning point in American history. The topic has been covered in numerous books and articles such as Eric Foner's A Traitor in the White House.
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