A lonely opposition: James A. Bayard, Jr. and the American Civil War

Few families in United States history have impacted the course of political events like the Bayard family of Delaware. Five members of the family served in the United States Senate from 1804 to 1929, while the eldest of the clan, James A. Bayard, Sr. and his grandson, Thomas F. Bayard, Sr., gained national recognition for their role in United States foreign policy: however, the other three members of the family, Richard Henry Bayard, James A. Bayard, Jr., and Thomas F. Bayard, Jr., have received little scholarly attention. Of the three, James A. Bayard, Jr. played the most important role in the U.S. Senate, and this project centers on his public and private positions from 1860 to 1865.;James Bayard, Jr. was a prominent Democrat in the antebellum period and participated in many of the most important debates of the 1850s and 1860s. The Delaware Legislature elected Bayard to the United States Senate in 1851, and he would serve continuously until 1864 when he resigned after arguing against Charles Sumner's "Iron Clad Oath." He returned to the Senate in 1867 to till the seat vacated by the death of his successor, George Reed Riddle, and retired in 1869. Bayard delivered several important speeches in the 1850s against the doctrine of popular sovereignty, including a well reasoned and argued speech in support of the Lecompton Constitution and indirectly of states' rights. Yet, his most important contribution to United States history was his opposition to the Lincoln administration and Republican Party during the Civil War and Reconstruction.;When Delaware remained in the Union, Bayard became an influential roadblock for the Democratic Party. He denounced the suppression of civil liberties, voted against Republican measures to reconstruct the North in a Republican image, and upheld what he considered to be the Constitution of the Founders. He privately hoped during the Secession Winter that Delaware would call a convention and secede from the Union. My objective is to resuscitate Bayard's political legacy and his importance in American history and to illustrate that opposition to the Republican Party during the War, at least in Bayard's case, was grounded in Constitutional theory.