PBA Galleries

3 pp.

To [E.W.] Jackson, [American Sons of Temperance]: “…The condition of our country is most deplorable and what the end will be would require a prophet to know. In regard to our Order, I cannot see why this omnipresent negro question should be introduced. I wish those who love the negro so well as to desire their company in the Division room [of the Sons of Temperance] would 'secede' from the order at once and find their congenial spirits else where. I have no patience with all this miserable parade of bastard philanthropy. I hoped the negro was disposed of at the Boston session…and after that action any subordinate division that would admit a negro should have its charter taken away at once. You perceive I am frank and decided in the expression of my views. I am for the Union… and enforcement of the laws at whatever cost…” Written weeks before the start of the Civil War by this prominent Ohio lawyer and politician, Cary’s virulent opposition to Black membership in the elitist Sons of Temperance fraternal order – to which “colored” divisions were not admitted until after Emancipation - was ironic considering that Cary was also a fervent abolitionist and Lincoln supporter. Elected to Congress during Reconstruction as an independent Republican, he was the only member of his party to vote against Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. He later switched to the Greenback Party and was its 1876 candidate for Vice President of the United States.