make the District of Columbia a testing ground for social and political engineering that would result in significant gains for Washington’s black residents. Known as Radical Republicans, these legislators proposed racial policies for the District that were still illegal or politically anathema in their home states. Senator Charles Sumner (R-Mass.) was the most per sis tent congressional advocate for emancipating blacks in the nation’s capital and for providing black children with educational opportunities equal to and integrated with those of the District’s white children. The senator, brutally caned on the Senate floor in 1856 by Democratic congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina for antislavery remarks, continued to introduce progressive legislation for black rights in Washington until his death in 1874.
The most dramatic early demonstration of Radical Republican political clout was passage of the District of Columbia Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862, eight months before President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The new law, which provided compensation to slave owners for freeing their slaves, was joyously welcomed by Washington’s black residents but had been anticipated by many white Washingtonians with a mixture of apprehension and dread. Local politicians began to speak up in protest shortly after Senator Lot Morrill (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate District Committee, introduced the emancipation bill in February; no effort was made to seek the consent of local voters. Regardless of whether congressional Republicans were influenced by abolitionist pressure at home, were made aware of the new political conditions created by the war, or were influenced by the demands of their own consciences, they took a step that not only initiated a wider legislative war against slavery but also marked a decisive change in the practical relationship between the national government and the capital city in which it sat.1 Opposition within the local population to freeing the District’s slaves created friction that Shepherd would exploit for his own political gain.
Slavery had traditionally defined race relations in the nation’s capital. Washington’s black codes—applied to free as well as enslaved blacks—imposed fines for being on the street after 10:00 p.m. or engaging in card games, as well as six-month jail sentences for anyone arrested at a “nightly and disorderly” meeting.2 Two incidents in the recent past had heightened racial fears among Washington’s white residents. The first was an 1835 attempt by a slave on the life of Anna Maria Thornton, widow of the former architect of the Capitol, William Thornton. This incident triggered the Snow Riot, when a white mob assaulted a free black restaurateur, Beverly Snow, and led to a three-day-long attack on Washington’s black residents.3 The second incident, in 1848, was a bold escape attempt by seventy-six slaves on board the schooner Pearl, led by the ship’s abolitionist captain. Freedom for the escapees was short-lived, however, and they were brought back to jail for subsequent sale in the Deep South.4 In response, whites stiffened the black codes, aiming for constant surveillance of the black population.
During the war the District attracted escaped slaves from plantations in neighboring Mary land and Virginia as well as farther south; consequently, the number of so-called contraband blacks in the District of Columbia mounted steadily. The black population, which made up less than 20 percent of the total District population in 1860, grew dramatically by 1870, with blacks, now freedmen, constituting 33 percent of the total population of 131,700.5 Most contrabands were illiterate, having served mainly as plantation field hands. However, the District’s freedmen had established a self-conscious community that seized educational and commercial opportunities whenever they presented themselves. This resulted in a number of the city’s black residents becoming prosperous businessmen and property owners as the capital’s demands for goods and services skyrocketed during the war.6 After the war, blacks also were represented in government clerkships and had access to higher education at Howard University, which opened in 1867. Particularly after receiving the vote in 1867, they sought to translate these gains into increased liberty. The emancipation of the District’s slave population in 1862 proved a blessing to the Republican Party; in gratitude for their freedom, former slaves handed the Republicans a virtually solid voting block for more than ten years.
Other than his obsession with streamlining governance of the District of Columbia and making Congress own up to its responsibility to help pay the bills for the capital, the most vexing issue for Shepherd was the status and role of Washington’s black population. Like many of his white business and political associates, he opposed social equality for blacks in spite of his support for President Lincoln and for emancipation, once it became law in January 1863.7 During the spring of 1862 Shepherd voiced opinions about race questions on several occasions during Common Council debates, strongly opposing the black suffrage movement that was gaining ground among Radical Republicans in Congress. In early March he made his first official commentary on race. This occurred following resolutions by the Metropolitan Police Board that requested repeal of the Washington and Georgetown black codes restricting the movements of blacks after 10:00 p.m. Shepherd introduced an unsuccessful amendment for review of the ordinances, noting that he did not desire to stir up agitation on the subject or to offend any member of the board. Shepherd said that his resolution was not meant to anticipate repeal by the board but rather to show respect for the police.8 The intent of the amendment is not clear, although Shepherd’s proposal to review police ordinances might imply that he was raising a question of whether or not the police board had the authority to call for revision of the black codes, all of which were in any event repealed that spring.9 At the end of March he joined a 14–4 Common Council majority in passing a joint resolution with the Board of Aldermen opposing the congressional emancipation bill.10
In April, during a council debate on an education bill, Shepherd observed that he hoped that the discussion of the “negro question” was at an end, adding that he considered the subject a “hobby [horse]” that politicians ought not to ride in seeking office; he wished to see agitation on the subject ended.11 Shepherd made one of his most categorical statements on the black vote in 1864, in response to reports that he supported a congressional bill to provide the franchise for adult male residents of the District, regardless of race. The press reported that Shepherd
was opposed to the principle of allowing negroes to vote, in toto. A certain class of people were now trying to force the negroes to sit in the [horse] cars, with white people, but he . . . was not quite up to that standard. This negro-equality question was now being forced upon the people by the red-mouthed abolitionists in the United States. He . . . could not favor it, and yet he considered that his unionism was of a high standard. He was in favor of the President’s proclamation to free the slaves, but he was not in favor of putting them on an equality with white men.12
During his first term on the Common Council, Shepherd pushed hard but unsuccessfully to include a loyalty oath as a voting requirement. Failing this, he later proposed changing the Washington City charter to include such an oath. Shepherd linked his support for a loyalty oath with opposition to a congressional bill regarding residency requirements for Washington voters. During a congressional debate about the proposal to require only a six-month residency for Washington City voters, without regard to property owner ship, he objected, again unsuccessfully, on the grounds that it would be unjust to property holders to permit recent residents to influence elections.13 Furthermore, he argued that such a short residency requirement would also be unjust to property holders since “it would be abused by a class, such as teamsters, etc.,” who would take advantage of it for whiskey and money.14
Despite the failure of these initiatives, they strengthened Shepherd’s public image as a member of the Unconditional Union faction on the council and as a spokesman for property owners. He was a self-made businessman who had seen the disappearance of his father’s estate and subsequent family difficulties, and as a result he had developed firm views on the centrality of property as a qualification for political participation, a position on which he never wavered. Realizing that he was creating a political image that resonated with voters, Shepherd continued to stake out hard-line positions on loyalty to the Union, winning a third term on the Washington Common Council in 1863.
During this period Shepherd drew criticism from some
