One man's plan to eliminate slavery in Virginia

Charles James Faulkner, (July 6, 1806 - Nov. 1,1884) was a politician, statesman and lawyer from Virginia and West Virginia, who said slavery was an outdated holdover from Colonial times. (Library of Congress)

A plan to halt slavery in Virginia

November 3, 2007

By Steve French - Although in his day Charles James Faulkner was hailed nationally as an outstanding lawyer, statesman and diplomat, today he is barely remembered outside his hometown. His one-time fame has been eclipsed by the more flamboyant figures of the Civil War era.

Faulkner's moderate views never allowed him to become totally committed to the secession of his native state; consequently, he barely participated in the great struggle.

Faulkner, Scots-Irish in ancestry, was born in Martinsburg, Va., on July 2, 1806. His father, local merchant James Faulkner, raised his only child himself after the death of his wife, Sara, in 1808.

During the War of 1812, the elder Faulkner, an accomplished artilleryman, gained martial glory when on June 22, 1813, his command repulsed a British naval attack on Craney Island, near Norfolk. At the end of the conflict, Maj. Faulkner returned home to a hero's welcome. However, illnesses brought on by exposure during the war constantly plagued him. He died on April 11, 1817, leaving his young son four slaves to rent out and modest proceeds from the family business.

With this income and help from local guardians, 11-year-old Charles continued his schooling at Georgetown College. He graduated in 1822.

Anti-slavery plan

Faulkner's activities over the next few years are hard to trace, but around 1826 he began studying law in Winchester under the tutelage of Chancellor Tucker.

In 1829, Faulkner began practicing law in Martinsburg. That same year, however, his interests also turned to politics, and in April he ran for and won a seat representing Berkeley County in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Late in 1831, Faulkner became a member of a select committee investigating that summer's slave uprising in Southampton County. The committee would not only look into Nat Turner's bloody rebellion but also "determine whether legislation could guarantee against its recurrences and, if so, just what laws were needed."

During this period, the young legislator came up with a plan to eliminate slavery gradually in the state. After the first of the year, Faulkner offered his proposals. First, ship all free Negroes to Liberia and establish them in farming communities there at the state's expense. Second, slave children born in Virginia after July 1, 1840, would be free. Finally, he proposed compensating slave owners for their losses.

On Jan. 20, 1832, in an impassioned address in the House, young Faulkner, though a slave owner himself, thoroughly dissected the "peculiar institution."

In what many observers called his greatest speech, he said that slavery was an outdated holdover from Colonial times, emphasizing that it "converts the energy of the community into indolence — its power into imbecility — its efficiency into weakness." Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he ended by asking the delegates, "Adopt some sort of plan, or worse will follow."

In the North, the speech found a ready audience. Abolitionists hailed it, and thereafter, William Lloyd Garrison published it annually in his newspaper, the Liberator. The lawmakers, however, rejected Faulkner's plan. Later, explaining his motive during the debate, he said, "A single spirit pervades my whole argument — a love and devotion to the best interests of Virginia."

Family and politics

In 1833, Faulkner retired from the legislature (except for a brief stint in the state Senate in 1841) to devote more time to his growing law practice, real estate deals and worthwhile community projects. On Sept. 26, he married 16-year-old Mary Boyd in Martinsburg, at the bride's home, Boydville. When her father died in 1841, Mary inherited the estate, and the couple made it their home. There, they raised a family of seven children.

In 1848, Charles Faulkner, by now financially secure, returned to politics and again won a seat in the House of Delegates. Soon the Whig politico became involved in the problem of the lax enforcement of the federal fugitive slave law north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

As chairman of the committee studying the question, he offered six ideas, including the right for "owners to call on federal marshals for assistance." It was heartily approved by the legislature, and U.S. Sen. James M. Mason of Virginia later used these ideas in crafting the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 — an important and controversial part of the Compromise of 1850.

Envoy to France

Faulkner enjoyed great political success in the decade before the war. In the state Constitutional Convention of 1850, he gained enormous stature among western Virginians by successfully championing their cause of universal white male suffrage. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1851 as a pro-Union Independent, albeit with Whig backing, he went on to serve four full terms.

In July 1851, Faulkner broke ranks with the Whigs over their choice of Gen. Winfield Scott as the party's presidential nominee. Believing that Whig support of "Free Soil" would bring disunion, the fiery orator switched sides and brought his skills of persuasion to the aid of Democratic nominee and eventual winner Franklin Pierce.

Faulkner was active in the presidential election of 1856, helping James Buchanan win nomination at the party's Cincinnati convention and subsequently serving on the Democratic National Executive Committee during the Pennsylvanian's successful campaign.

In 1859, Alexander Boteler, an old political nemesis from Shepherdstown, stopped Faulkner in his bid for a fifth term, winning by a mere 169 votes. Boteler, who once had challenged the congressman to a duel, benefited from the feeling among some voters, especially in Loudoun County, that the incumbent had served long enough.

On Jan. 10, 1860, President Buchanan rewarded Faulkner for his loyalty by nominating him to replace the recently deceased John Y. Mason as American minister to France. Six days later, the Senate confirmed him, and he reached his new post in Paris by the middle of February.

From that time on, distance isolated Faulkner from an active role in the political turmoil caused by the presidential election of 1860. Afterward, when the cotton states began seceding, Secretary of State Jeremiah S. Black notified him to "watch for agents of the Confederacy and prevent their approach to the French government."

Throughout the coming months, Faulkner wrote to Black and later his successor, William Seward, urging compromise with the South rather than war.

'An outrage'

In mid-March 1861, President Lincoln replaced Faulkner with William Drayton, but Faulkner stayed on until the new ambassador reached Paris on May 12. After sending his family back home, Faulkner spent considerable time in the British Isles and France. Finally, on Aug. 9, he returned to Washington, hounded by spurious rumors of disloyalty.

After settling his accounts at the State Department, Faulkner was preparing to leave for Martinsburg when, on the morning of Aug. 12, Capt. W.W. Averell, acting under orders from Provost Marshall Gen. Andrew Porter, came to Faulkner's room at the Brown Hotel and arrested him.

In his memoirs, Averell remembered Faulkner reading Secretary of War Simon Cameron's order for his arrest. When finished, he said with a steady voice, "I protest against this order as an outrage upon my rights as a citizen of the United States. I have never by thought, word, or action been disloyal to this government. ... I protest against the arrest and the ignominy of being confined in a common jail."

Averell balked at putting Faulkner in jail and billeted him in a second-floor room of a house on New York Avenue then being rented by Maj. George Willard. He reported to Porter, and then both men went to see Cameron.

According to the captain, the general and the secretary instantly began arguing over whether Faulkner was a prisoner of state or war. "It was torrid while it lasted," Averell wrote, "and the upshot of it was that Mr. Faulkner was sent to prison at Fort Lafayette." He noted that some believed the arrest of the diplomat was Cameron's revenge "for the arrest and imprisonment of a personal friend of the secretary shortly after the Battle of Bull Run."

'Parole of honor'

Faulkner, ensconced in a cell at Fort Lafayette in New York harbor, wrote numerous letters to Secretary of State Seward and others demanding his release or a chance to defend himself against the bogus charges in court.

There also was some concern at the White House about Faulkner's plight. The president's friend Ward Hill Lamon recalled, "I know Mr. Lincoln disapproved of his arrest; he said there was no just grounds for it."

On Oct. 30, the Federals transferred Faulkner to Fort Warren in Boston. Soon he proposed traveling to Richmond under a "parole of honor" to negotiate a trade between himself and Alfred Ely, a New York congressman captured at the Battle of Manassas. Seward consented, and on Dec. 6, Faulkner left for the Confederate capital.

Upon his arrival in Richmond on the evening of Dec. 19, a jubilant throng of supporters greeted him at the depot and paraded him to City Hall. The next day, he met with President Jefferson Davis and arranged the exchange.

On Dec. 26, while passing through Winchester on his way home, Faulkner met Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. He queried the major general about accompanying him on a campaign but received no reply.

A few days later, however, a note from Jackson reached Boydville inviting Faulkner back to Winchester. Shortly thereafter, he met "Old Jack," who offered to make him a lieutenant colonel. Faulkner refused the generous offer, preferring to accompany the army as a private citizen.

Aide to Jackson

Faulkner caught up with Jackson's force on Jan. 2, 1862, on its way northward to attack the Union garrison at Bath (Berkeley Springs). For the next week, he remained with the army, suffering as all soldiers did from the intense cold and heavy snows that plagued the operation.

During the Jan. 5, bombardment of Hancock, Md., Faulkner provided some comic relief for the soldiers. The Rev. James Avirett remembered a Union cannon ball smashing into the snow near Jackson's staff, causing the former diplomat to "somewhat compromise the graces he had acquired at the French court." In poor health, he returned home before the Rebels marched west to Romney, Va.

About a year later, Jackson finally persuaded Faulkner to return to the army and serve as his chief of staff. Officially commissioned a lieutenant colonel, he mainly was responsible for writing battle reports the general had neglected.

On Jan. 2, 1863, Faulkner arrived at Jackson's headquarters at Moss Neck Manor, near Fredericksburg. He soon met resistance from staff officers who thought Maj. Sandie Pendleton had earned the job.

Commenting on the situation, Capt. Henry Kyd Douglas later wrote, "This was manifestly wrong. Colonel Faulkner had had no military experience whatever, and was not qualified for the place ... and had put upon him a duty which even his ability ... could not satisfactorily accomplish."

By other accounts, though, Faulkner did a commendable job and had the reports finished by the time of Jackson's death on May 10. Not long afterward, he resigned from the army. The rest of the war he remained a civilian and, fearing capture, seldom visited Martinsburg.

Gracious lady

Mrs. Faulkner stayed at home during all four years of the conflict. Numerous Union soldiers who camped on the grounds remembered her as a caring and gracious lady.

In the summer of 1863, Alexander Neil, an assistant surgeon in the 12th West Virginia Infantry, wrote in a letter home that "Mrs. F. is very kind to our soldiers, giving them, especially the sick, many nice things to eat and furnishing plenty of reading matter for the boys."

A Union officer, recalling the pleasant entertainment offered at Boydville, wrote, "Gen. Averell who could twang the light guitar; Gen. Sigel who could talk about music, Gen. Stahl, who could talk to the ladies about Paris, ... would 'smooth their wrinkled fronts' and caper nimbly into Mrs. Faulkner's parlor to enjoy the music, wit and wine dispensed there."

On July 17, 1864, however, Maj. Gen. David Hunter ordered Capt. Franklin Martindale of the 1st New York Cavalry to burn the "dwelling-house and outbuildings" of Andrew Hunter, located in Charlestown, and of Charles J. Faulkner.

An officer in the regiment later recalled, "Orders were given for the burning of the Faulkner residence in the belief that from here information and aid had been furnished to the enemy."

Although Martindale burned Hunter's house, he inexplicably spared Boydville. One story says Mrs. Faulkner telegraphed Lincoln and he promptly overruled the order. Another states that Mrs. Faulkner saved the house by proving to the captain that she owned it — not her husband.

A tribute

After the war, Faulkner returned to Martinsburg, which by then was in West Virginia. Although barred for a short time from practicing law, he wholeheartedly supported the new state and in 1871 successfully defended West Virginia's previous annexation of Berkeley and Jefferson counties in a lawsuit brought before the U.S. Supreme Court by Virginia to get them back.

In 1874, Faulkner returned to the House of Representatives, but he did not run for re-election two years later. Although his name came up occasionally as a candidate for the U.S. Senate or for governor, his days of high political office were over.

Faulkner died at Boydville on the morning of Nov. 1, 1884. Two days later, he was buried with full Masonic honors in the family plot in Old Norborne Cemetery adjacent to the estate. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 mourners attended the services.

On Nov. 8, the Martinsburg Independent published a tribute to the town's greatest son. In closing, the author penned a fitting epitaph: "No man in this community ever started life poorer, and no man has ever gone out of it with a larger meed of success and of honor than Charles James Faulkner."

Steve French teaches at Martinsburg South Middle School and is a frequent contributor to the Civil War page. He can be reached at sfrench52@yahoo.com.

http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071103/CIVILWAR/111030013/1011