American National Biography Online


Gilmer, John Adams (4 Nov. 1805-14 May 1868), state senator
and U.S. and Confederate congressman, was born in Guilford County,
North Carolina, the son of Robert Gilmer, a farmer and wheelwright,
and Anne Forbes. Both parents were of Scotch-Irish descent; their
families had come from Ireland to North Carolina via Pennsylvania.
His father and both grandfathers fought against the British in
the American Revolution. John Adams Gilmer's name reflected his
father's Federalist political predilections. Young Gilmer worked
on the family farm and attended a local subscription school a
few months during the winter. When he was nineteen, he enrolled
in the Reverend Eli W. Caruther's school in Greensboro, where
he excelled in classical languages and mathematics. For three
years afterward (1826-1829), he taught school in Laurel County,
South Carolina, to pay debts resulting from his education. In
1829 he returned to Greensboro to study law in the office of
Archibald D. Murphey. In 1832 he married Juliana Paisley; they
had six children, five of whom survived childhood. One son, John
Alexander Gilmer, became a Confederate lieutenant colonel and
superior court judge. Also in 1832 Gilmer was admitted to the
bar, and he gradually built a lucrative practice. He was listed
in the 1860 census as an agriculturalist and lawyer who owned
fifty-three slaves and property valued at $112,000.

Gilmer served as chairman of the Greensboro Town Board and as
county solicitor, then in 1846 he was elected as a Whig to represent
Guilford County in the North Carolina Senate. He held that position
for ten years. A man of moral and intellectual probity, he quickly
became a leader in the legislature. He spoke eloquently in support
of humanitarian reforms, such as the establishment of an asylum
for the insane. He promoted improvements in the public schools
and was especially active in planning state-sponsored internal
improvements. He was instrumental in routing the North Carolina
Railroad from Raleigh to Charlotte through Greensboro and became
a large stockholder in the corporation that built and operated the
railroad.

In 1856 Gilmer, who had joined the American or Know Nothing
party after the demise of Whiggery, ran for governor against
the incumbent Democrat Thomas Bragg. He stumped the state but
was badly beaten; however, his popularity actually rose. He was
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1857 and 1859.
Long concerned about the consequences of the slavery imbroglio,
Adams became a leader of the southern Unionists in Congress who
opposed antislavery and proslavery agitators. His vote against
the Lecompton constitution, which would have allowed slavery
in Kansas, alienated some North Carolinians, but the congressional
district he represented was uncommonly liberal on the slavery
issue because of Quaker and Wesley Methodist antislavery sentiment
therein. When the House Speakership was disputed in 1859-1860,
Gilmer was the candidate of the "South Americans," the Know Nothings
of the South, but he never polled more than thirty-six votes.
Because of his moderation on the slavery issue, southern Democrats
considered him little better than an abolitionist. He sought
to minimize the slavery issue during his unsuccessful campaign
for the Speakership, and consequently his reputation as a southern
Unionist was firmly established. In the election of 1860 Gilmer
joined other conservative men in the abortive attempt of the
Constitutional Unionists to preserve the Union.

The election of Abraham Lincoln presented Gilmer and Unionists
of all sections with vexing prospects. Even before South Carolina
seceded on 20 December 1860, steps were proposed to forestall
widespread disunion. On 10 December 1860 Gilmer wrote Lincoln
seeking a clarification of his views on slavery in hopes of reassuring
the South that the president-elect anticipated no interference
where slavery already existed. Lincoln declined to provide additional
clarification lest he appear to repent for the "crime" of gaining
election "and was anxious to apologize and beg forgiveness."
Instead he urged Gilmer and other southern supplicants to reconsider
their previous pronouncements on the slavery issue and clearly
reiterated his firm commitment to free soilism. Meanwhile, William
H. Seward and Thurlow Weed implored Lincoln to include a respected
Upper South Unionist in his cabinet as a means of strengthening
unionism in the slave states. Gilmer was prominent among those
suggested, and Lincoln invited him to Springfield to discuss
the national dilemma and a cabinet appointment. Without a prior
meeting of minds, Gilmer declined to visit Springfield, but he
continued to seek ways to preserve the Union. On 26 January 1861
he delivered a powerful speech in the U.S. House of Representatives
pleading for compromise. In February 1861, when North Carolina
voters considered the call for a convention to debate secession,
Gilmer sent thousands of copies of his speech to the state at
his own expense. His efforts helped temporarily stem the secessionist
tide. On 28 February 1861 North Carolinians narrowly defeated
the call for a convention. Gilmer also supported the Union by
embracing and promoting the Crittenden compromise. Its failure
increased his despair.

Throughout the weeks before and after Lincoln's inauguration,
Gilmer corresponded with Seward and encouraged the New Yorker
to pursue his conciliatory policy toward the South. Gilmer advised
the abandonment of Forts Sumter and Pickens, predicting prophetically
that a clash of arms would provoke secession in the Upper South.
All Gilmer's efforts failed, and after the firing on Fort Sumter
he faced the dilemma of all southern Unionists. As a delegate
to the North Carolina secession convention, with his son already
in Confederate uniform, he decided that his only option was to
join the majority who, after rejection of a proposal that separation
be based on the right of revolution, voted for disunion.

Gilmer took no active part in public affairs prior to his election
to the Confederate Congress in August 1863. By that juncture,
particularly in light of Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and
Vicksburg, the prospects for Confederate survival were dim. The
North Carolina delegation, including Gilmer, was strongly
antiadministration,
but he did not support his colleague James T. Leach's proposal
that the quest for independence be abandoned. Instead he agreed
with Governor Zebulon B. Vance that honor required North Carolina
to persist in the war effort so long as feasible. Gilmer opposed
the 1864 gubernatorial candidacy of William W. Holden, who ran
on the proposition that the state should seek a separate peace.
Gilmer did have hopes that the Hampton Roads conference on 3
February 1865 might result in peace with independence. When those
hopes were dashed, he proposed a dual government or "American
diet," in which separate United States and Confederate governments
would function independently but in a coordinated manner. This
idea gained little support. Late in the war Gilmer became identified
with those who wished to continue fighting to the bitter end,
when most North Carolinians favored a negotiated peace.

After the war Gilmer remained in Greensboro practicing law and
caring for his former slaves, whom he supplied with land, food,
farm implements, and medical care. He favored Andrew Johnson's
Reconstruction policies, received his presidential pardon late
in 1865, and attended the National Union, which met in Philadelphia
in August 1866. Subsequently his health deteriorated, and he
died in Greensboro.

Gilmer is little known to late twentieth-century scholars, but
it should be remembered that he worked valiantly to save the
Union. Perhaps all such efforts were doomed to failure. Had he
become a Lincoln cabinet member, the fears of the Upper South
might have been assuaged, and North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas,
and Virginia might have remained loyal to the United States.


Bibliography

No substantial collection of Gilmer papers exists, but two Gilmer
letters are in the North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh. Other
important letters are in Frederic Bancroft, The Life of Seward,
vol. 2 (1899; repr. 1967); The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,
vol. 4, ed. Roy B. Basler (1953); and The Papers of William A.
Graham, vol. 5, ed. J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton and Max R. Williams
(1973). Notable secondary accounts are Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant
Confederates . . . (1989); Marc W. Kruman, Parties and Politics
in North Carolina . . . (1983); Joseph Carlyle Sitterson, The
Secession Movement in North Carolina (1939); and Wilfred B. Yearns,
The Confederate Congress (1960).

Max R. Williams



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Citation:
Max R. Williams. "Gilmer, John Adams";
http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00415.html;
American National Biography Online Feb. 2003

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