Passionate Abolitionist and
Witness to the American Civil War
Passionate Abolitionist and
Witness to the American Civil War
This is our earliest example of finding a newspaper letter from Thomas Jackson. Although we know nothing about his education after his basic state schooling, it is clear that as an adult approaching middle age, he already is an eloquent communicator with a wide vocabulary and powerful clarity of meaning.
Berks and Schuylkill Journal, Oct. 26, 1844
For the B. & S. Journal.
Slander Refuted.
Mr. Richards,
Believing that your paper has always espoused the cause of truth and justice, and that its columns are ever open to the injured, you will oblige by giving us an opportunity to refute a most unprincipled slander. It is currently reported, (and has been published in a dishonorable way in the Jefferson Democrat) that we (or one of us) have said that “we would rather be hung in England than die a natural death in America” – “that we despised the boon of naturalization and held the institutions of the United States in contempt.”
We beg leave thus publicly to deny the whole of these assertions and prononnce [pronounce] them false, and we defy any person to produce any proof of the charges. We beg leave further to say that we lived in England until we arrived at manhood, and during all that time never heard a disrespectful word uttered against the United States. We and our whole family, have ever been in favor of free principles and republican government, and our father, who is now no more, suffered a long imprisonment, much hardship and persecution from the government of George the III of England, entirely for his love of liberty. He assisted largely in the escape of John Binns, now of Philadelphia, when on account of his exertion in the cause of liberty he was charged with high treason against the British government and was forced to leave the country.
We may be permitted to state here another circumstance. When about 20 years since our father was carrying on a large rope manufactory in England, a man called on him for work, stating that he was from Boston, in America, that his ship had sailed and left him, and that he was then on his way to Liverpool to get on board another, but was out of money and away from friends, but being a ropemaker was willing to work. Although at that time we were not in want of men, yet he gave him work as long as he pleased to stay, solely because he was an American. When a man is born and raised in a republic, it is naturally to be expected that he is a republican, even if only from mere circumstances. It would be strange if he were anything else, but when a man is born under a monarchy, sees only aristocratical institutions about him, and is bred up a subject to a king, if he becomes a republican it must be purely from principle, and his love of freedom, and not from accidental circumstances. And when such a man breaks up all old associations, severs the ties of kindred, and overcomes that affection which would bind us to our native land, crosses 3500 miles of ocean, and throws himself into a land of stangers [strangers], only, because that land is the land of enterprize and freedom it must be evident that such a man cannot be any less of a republican than if he had happend [happened] to have been born in a republic. And when he has spent 15 years of the prime of his life among you fulfilling to the utmost of his power all his duties to society and his fellow-men, wilfully injuring no one, we ask is it just, is it generous, is it honorable, to nurture a prejudice against him merely because he is an Englishman, and cannot conscientiously subscribe to all he may hear said against his native land. An intelligent Briton can have no cause for jealousy or ill-feeling against the United States, but on the contrary has every cause to be proud of the fact, that those portions of this vast continent, that were colonized by British are now the most prosperous commonwealths in the world. How then it can be believed that we can possibly have used the language, or entertained the views attributed to, we cannot understand. We leave to the good sense of our friends and all to whom we are known, the vindication of our character from the slanders so industriously circulated against us. We have always advocated what we conscientiously believe to be the best interests of the United States, viz: a Tariff high enough to fully protect all branches of domestic manufacture from foreign competition. Now if we were favorable to British interests we ought certainly to hold opinions exactly the reverse of these.
We may add that one if us is a naturalized citizen, has abjured all allegiance to any other country, and sworn fidelity to the constitution of the United States – and the other some time since declared his intention to become a citizen, in legal manner, has taken the preliminary oath and will soon have the full rights of a citizen.
THOMAS JACKSON,
EDWARD JACKSON.
The letter was probably written solely by Thomas Jackson who would have about 40 years of age at this time. He seems to have added his brother Edward’s name so he could say that “one of the two of us has already been naturalized.” Edward came over to America with TJ around 1830 and was naturalized in Reading in 1838.
Their brother Henry had also already been naturalized in Reading (in 1840). So Thomas could have added Henry and said “two of the three of us have been naturalized”. But possibly Henry was no longer living in Reading and was unavailable to consent.
Thomas Jackson was never naturalized in Reading. Possibly in Philadelphia. He clearly didn’t want his opponents to see the public records when he did it.
The letter is addressed to the Berks & Schuylkill Journal proprietor, lawyer John S. Richards. (Twenty-five years later Jackson would engage Richards as an attorney in his divorce case.) The Journal was a partisan whig paper. This weekly issue was the last one before the Polk-Clay presidential election.
“20 years since” means “20 years ago.”
Thomas Jackson endorses Henry Clay’s position – a high tariff to protect American manufacturers (of which Jackson was one). James K. Polk advocated a compromise – a tariff only high enough to fund the federal budget, but which would also afford some domestic protection.
One can always depend on one’s opponents to find one’s weak spot. In this case local democrats found out that Jackson was agitating whig politics but had never bothered to get his right to vote. They took it further, however, and spread rumors that Jackson’s first loyalty was still to England. (Only 30 years before this the two nations had been at war.)
Jackson refers to scurrilous remarks in the Jefferson Democrat; no issues from this period are known to survive. Other local papers – Reading Gazette and Reading Adler – take no notice of this flap.
He makes a tantalizing but vague reference to his father’s political imprisonment in England. Research has to date failed to identify where and when.
Jackson also mentions that his father helped the political prisoner John Binns leave England for the U.S. Binns was well-known in democratic circles in Reading.
Mentioning Binns bolstered Jackson’s case with his opponents. At the time Binns was living in Philadelphia, where he had been a leading newspaperman in the 1820’s, writing in an abusive partisan manner during bitter democratic factional feuding. He had been an ally of Reading’s Joseph Hiester, and when Hiester was governor of Pennsylvania, Hiester appointed him an alderman of Philadelphia. Binns wrote a memoir in 1854, but doesn’t mention Jackson’s father, or even say much about his departure to America.