Edward Dickinson Baker - U.S. Senator

U.S. Senator

Baker took his seat in the Senate on December 5, 1860. His Oregon colleague, Senator Joseph Lane, disliked him so much that he refused to follow tradition and introduce Baker to the Senate, so Democratic Senator Milton Latham of California did it.

On December 31, Senator Judah Benjamin of Louisiana argued that Southern states had a constitutional right to secede and that other states would soon join South Carolina, which had seceded on December 20. Baker refuted Benjamin’s argument in a three-hour speech a day later. He acknowledged that he was opposed to interference with slave owners in slave states, but he was also opposed to secession and the extension of slavery into new territories and states. In March 1861, he indicated a willingness to compromise on some issues to prevent the breakup of the country.

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. Baker and former President Franklin Pierce faced backward in the presidential carriage as they rode from the White House to the Capitol, and Lincoln and outgoing President James Buchanan faced forward. On horseback at the head of their cavalry escort was the man who would figure prominently as Baker’s commander at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. Colonel Charles P. Stone was an up-and-coming Union officer who was responsible for security in Washington for the inauguration. Stone spurred his horse to excite other horses in the escort party because he believed the prancing horses would form a better protective barrier and protect the dignitaries in the carriage. Baker introduced Lincoln to the audience gathered on the east portico of the Capitol: “Fellow citizens, I introduce to you, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.”

Lincoln did not name Baker to his cabinet because his support in the Senate was so critical. If Baker had resigned his Senate seat, Oregon’s proslavery Democrat governor, John Whiteaker, would have appointed a proslavery Democrat to take his place.