Civil War was the thing Robert F. Stockton feared most. His family had put the Union together, and he had dedicated his life to defending it. He had southern sympathies and investments. His brother-in-law James Potter ran the affairs of his family’s southern plantations, and Robert’s commitment to constitutional purity and individual state abolition had people wondering whose side he would pick.
At the outset of hostilities, the Commodore wrote to New Jersey’s Governor Alden and stated his position. He had given his life in service to his country, and he was calling New Jersey to support the Union cause:
Union forces led by General U.S. Grant
“Every citizen should feel that any sacrifice which he is called upon to make in such a crisis is as nothing. I am ready to do all I can to maintain our own rights and to preserve peace.”
“I will hoist the Star Spangled Banner at Moreen, the former residence of one of the signora of the Declaration of Independence.”
That flag which, when a boy, I nailed to the masthead of. the frigate President; that flag whose honor I have maintained in more than one personal combat, that flag which I have carried, honored and respected in every clime, which I hoisted on Cape Mestrado, in Africa, and carried, through the Territory of California that identical flag which I bore across the Rio San Gabriel, and. over the plains of Mesa, and hoisted in triumph in the city of Los Angeles, in the face of a despotic foe, that flag which the immortal Washington, in the name of our country, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, planted, on the ramparts of Liberty.”
An aging Stockton in his 60s. Historical Society of Princeton
His third son, Robert F. Stockton Jr. who had been working as an executive with the Joint Companies was made Adjunct General to the Governor, a COO position for the state militia. He was tasked with calling up troops from New Jersey. The war would take four years and cost the lives of over 600,000 Americans.
Stockton’s life was further darkened by the death of his brother-in-law James, who had gone to Georgia at the outset of the war, and then three months later his beloved Harriett Maria on April 1, 1862. They were the last Potters of their generation, and the Georgia rice production would severely falter during the war.
As the war progressed, Robert’s name came up as a potential Naval Secretary. There is no evidence Lincoln ever considered it. The Commodore was made Major General of a unit of the New Jersey Militia to help his son raise troops for the defense of Gettysburg. General Robert E. Lee had advanced the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania as far as Harrisburg. The Commodore was never called to the field.
New Jersey, and the Stockton’s specifically were successful in getting volunteers for the cause. They only need 900 draftees after getting 10,000 enlistments. In New York, mostly Irish-American conscripts rioted when the draft was imposed. Hundreds were killed in four days of terror, with African Americans targeted.
The war proved Stockton wrong. He had argued over the past twenty years that a Constitutional amendment was the only way to eliminate slavery in the South. Lincoln issued two executive orders regarding the seizure of property, including humans in bondage from rebel states.
He then issued the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 which was triggered if the South did not surrender by January 1863. He positioned it brilliantly. The continued hostility of the South gave Lincoln the legal basis to free the slaves during the conflict.
The 13th Amendment solidified the proclamation as Constitutional Law. It criminalized slavery everywhere and it was ratified in December of 1865. It also helped Lincoln get re-elected in 1864. Running on a Union ticket with Democrat Andrew Johnson, Republicans wanted to ensure emancipation would be completed, and Lincoln urged voters not to change horses mid-stream. New Jersey was only one of 3 states he lost to Gen.George Mclellan, a NJ veteran of the Mexican war.
John Potter Stockton, Robert’s son had returned from Europe and was put up for US Senate by the State Legislature as a Democrat in March 1865. US Senators were not subject to popular vote until 1914.
Robert must have been proud that the tradition of Stocktons in the Senate had continued into a third generation and pleased that the Union was saved with the Confederate surrender. But President Lincoln was assassinated a few weeks later, on the same day the Union re-raised the Stars and Stripes at Fort Sumter.
VP Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennesee, took the presidency. and one of his first actions was to veto the Civil Rights Act. He felt that the bill gave unprecedented power to the Federal Government.
The act gave African Americans equivalency under the law, but there was no mechanism for enforcement or redress. It was part of the Reconstruction measures. Republicans wanted harsh laws to prevent Southerners from backsliding. They argued for liberal freedoms for former slaves and wanted to avoid mass migration of freed people to the North. Many Democrats argued against the measures as federal overreach.
J.P. Stockton indicated he would vote to block the override of the presidential veto of the Civil Rights Act. With his Nay vote, the 2/3 override would fail by one Senator. In retaliation, almost a year into his term, the Senate voted to remove him. They claimed NJ had only voted him in on a plurality rather than a majority, a clear prerogative of the State Legislature.
The removal vote was close, but John P. Stockton seemed to prevail with a tie. Then he recorded a vote for himself, which was not prevented by rule, but considered a faux pas. This gave a few of those who supported him on principle a reason to vote him out on a second removal ballot. The Civil Rights act veto was overridden, and Stockton was sent home.
The New Jersey Legislature was enraged at the shenanigans and refused to seat a new Senator for six months.
Getting his affairs in order, Stockton sold the Sea Girt farm and estate in July 1866 to Wilkes Barre Pa Coal baron Stephen L. Thurlow in exchange for 4,000 shares of Plymouth Coal. But he never updated his will after Maria died, and he had several outstanding mortgages on the Morven estate.
In October, shortly after Philadelphia Bank President Alexander Gilmore Cattell was seated in John Potter Stockton’s Senate seat, sad news came out of Morven.
Commodore Robert Field Stockton took ill with a bout of cholera morbus, a bacterial intestinal infection on October 7 and he died on October 11 at Morven.
The US lost one of its larger-than-life characters who played a huge role in pre-Civil War America.
Next, the complex legacy of the Commodore.