If the Smithsonian Institution was more interested in promoting a patriotic version of U.S. history, would it put the Abolitionist Founding Fathers on display?

PGA Weblog ^ | 8/23/25

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That sure didn’t age well.

I think it’s aged very well considering you are groveling for obscure quotes from lunatics such as Baldwin. Typical of you Neo confederates.

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Henry Baldwin wasn’t any great legal thinker. He was an ambitious climber, who made a career in business and politics before becoming a judge. His half-brother, Abraham Baldwin, went south and became a big man in Georgia, founder of the state university, signer of the Constitution, and Senator. Another brother entered Ohio politics.
Henry Baldwin wasn’t a stodgy, snotty Yankee. Although he was a Yale man and of Puritan ancestry, his father was a blacksmith. Baldwin left Connecticut for Pennsylvania and would have been considered a man of the Middle States or even a Westerner.

Baldwin had been active in the American Colonization Society early on. Did that mean that he was anti-slavery, or in favor of white supremacy, or something else altogether. in the very same decision where he called the compromise on slavery the foundation of our political system he also called slavery abhorrent. He was on record in many decisions saying that slaves were property rather than people and was the only justice to dissent in the Amistad case. Even Roger Taney was willing to let the rebellious enslaved Africans go free, but Baldwin wasn’t.

The difference between what Alexander Stephens said and what Henry Baldwin wrote is significant. For Alexander Stephens, slavery was the cornerstone of society, even of civilization, and definitely of the new Confederate nation. For Baldwin, it wasn’t slavery itself, but the compromises on slavery that was the foundation, not of society or civilization, but of the union. Without the compromises the country would split apart.

It’s been common here for some to condemn opponents of slavery for being gradualist and making compromises and celebrate supporters of slavery as honest, steadfast, principled men. But no, those who opposed abolition accepted slavery, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes enthusiastically and tailored their views to fit the “peculiar institution.” If Baldwin had stuck by his earlier view that slavery was morally wrong, he would have been led to make compromises and concessions, and accept gradualist half-measures to change things, but he’d already made his moral compromise with slavery by accepting it whole.

It wasn’t only the union or the Constitution that Baldwin was concerned about. It was also his party and his own political career. He was appointed by his friend Andrew Jackson because he was a reliable vote for everything Jackson believed, and his own fate was tied with that of Jackson and his party — the Democrats. It might also be that he saw in slavery a way for people like himself and his half-brother to rise in the world.

Like secessionists Keitt, Wigfall, and Ruffin, Baldwin was very eccentric, perhaps insane. He was committed to an asylum for a year and didn’t participate in court decisions that year. For more:

https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/crazy-henry-baldwin-the-mentally-ill-supreme-court-justice/

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Thanks for the excellent summation.

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“He (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin) left scant impact on the law.”

I don't know if that statement is true but for the purpose of this post let's stipulate your statement is true: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin left scant impact on the law.

That is remarkable for you to say in the context of his declaration in Johnson v Thompkins that slavery was the “corner stone” of the United States Constitution.

I would have thought you might have suggested Baldwin was insane for such a finding and cite ten things to prove him wrong.

I am surprised you have not provided ten high sources of contemporaneous credibility that argued Supreme Court Justice Baldwin (a Connecticut-born opponent of slavery) had hijacked the anti-slavery U.S. Constitution and made it into a pro-slavery Constitution.

Did President Andrew Jackson rail against Baldwin for his “corner stone” declaration and demand his impeachment?

Did still-living former President John Quincy Adams rail against Baldwin and demand his impeachment or at least denounce the ruling?

Are there records showing subsequent presidents Martin Van Buren, William Harrison and John Tyler denounced Baldwin and his “corner stone” statement?

Do you know if Presidents Fillmore, Pierce, or Buchanan went on record as saying “Baldwin was wrong on the corner stone thing.”

President Lincoln was clear in his support of the Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution. What did Lincoln say about Baldwin's corner stone finding?

Probably nothing. Because as you say Baldwin's corner stone finding had scant impact on the existing law, the existing Constitution or existing public opinion. Baldwin's finding of the corner stone didn't cause a ripple because at the time it was accepted as true even if objectionable.

In fact, Baldwin expressed disgust with the existing slavery status quo as do I; I condemn slavery in the strongest possible terms.

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The “foundation” reference was pretty obscure. I don’t find references to it in books about the time. It wasn’t an actual legal principle, so much as a pragmatic counsel. Had Baldwin said or written what he did 20 years later, it might have provoked some reaction, but the issue of slavery was on the back burner then, and by the time it was the burning issue, he was already dead.

Somebody writing for the neo-Confederate Abbeville Institute’s website dug Baldwin’s foundation quote up as a source for Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone Speech” and ignored the real differences between the two metaphors. If Baldwin influenced Stephens, it would have been pretty trivial and Stephens would have missed Baldwin’s point.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/the-so-called-cornerstone-speech/

Did Baldwin really deplore slavery as much as he claimed? We’ll never know. Slavery was the abortion issue of the day: it was convenient for a Northern politician to profess to be personally opposed to slavery while also opposed to ever doing anything about it. Do we call such people anti-slavery or anti-abortion, or do we just call them opportunists who duck the issue? Whatever Baldwin thought about Indians and expelling them to west of the Mississippi, he didn’t think the court should to anything about that either.