James Black
James Black was a prominent figure in the American temperance movement, known for founding the Prohibition Party and being its first presidential candidate. Born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1825, he was educated in law and established a successful practice before dedicating himself to the temperance cause after a personal experience with alcohol. His work with organizations like the Washingtonians and the Sons of Temperance laid the groundwork for his later political activities.
Black played a crucial role in promoting the "Maine Law," the first statewide prohibition legislation in the United States, and he actively organized candidates for local offices who supported temperance. He presided over the Prohibition Party's first national convention in 1872, where he was nominated for president, advocating for not only prohibition but also federal income tax and woman suffrage. Although he received only a small number of votes, Black's efforts kept the prohibition issue at the forefront of public discourse.
In addition to his political endeavors, Black was an author and amassed a significant collection of temperance literature, contributing to historical knowledge of the movement through his writings. He passed away in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at the age of seventy, leaving a legacy as a leading advocate for temperance in American politics.
Subject Terms
James Black
- James Black
- Born: September 23, 1823
- Died: Decem-ber 16, 1893
Founder of the Prohibition party and its first presidential candidate, was born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of John Black and Jane (Egbert) Black. His father was a prominent engineer.
Black was educated at Lewisburg Academy (1841-43) and then studied law both in Lewisburg and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Admitted to the bar in 1846, he established a flourishing practice in Lancaster, which he soon gave up in favor of the burgeoning temperance movement. He had for several years been a member of the Washingtonians, a national organization founded in 1840 whose members were pledged to total abstinence from liquor. Black’s views on liquor derived from an incident in his youth, when he became drunk; he found the experience so revolting that he vowed some day to help eradicate drunkenness.
In 1846 Black helped organize the Conestoga division of the Sons of Temperance. He also helped popularize the “Maine Law” as the best means of wiping out the liquor trade. The law, passed by the Maine legislature in 1851, was the first statewide prohibition legislation in the country. Soon Black began organizing prohibition candidates for local offices. In 1852 he chaired a Lancaster County meeting that nominated a slate pledged to temperance, and in 1854 two of the candidates were elected to the state legislature.
Meanwhile, Black had also become a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars, an international organization (modeled on the Masonic society but including both men and women) that was the most dynamic antiliquor association in the decade after the Civil War. Between 1859 and 1869 the Templars increased their American membership eightfold, to 400,-000. Black organized the Lancaster Lodge of Good Templars (1858); was elected Grand Worthy Chief Templar for the state (1860), a position he held for three years; and, as Right Worthy Grand Councillor, drafted a petition to President Abraham Lincoln urging an end to the whiskey ration for soldiers.
After the war, Black succeeded in combining the Sons of Temperance and the Pennsylvania Good Templars into one organization, of which he was elected president. He now had constructed a substantial political base. In 1869 he presided over a Chicago convention called by the Oswego (New York) Good Templars, who wanted to create a national political party devoted to prohibition. Black helped organize this Prohibition party and wrote its first platform.
At the party’s first national convention, in 1872, Black was nominated for the presidency. His platform called not only for a prohibition amendment to the Constitution, but for such other reforms as a federal income tax and woman suffrage. In the election he received only 5,608 votes, but his campaign kept the prohibition issue alive in the popular mind. For the next six years Black chaired the party’s national committee and participated in framing its platforms.
After 1880 Black gradually withdrew from public life and devoted himself to his books and writing. He owned the largest collection of temperance publications in the world (it now reposes in the New York Public Library). During his remaining years he wrote A Brief History of Prohibition (1880) and a History of the Prohibition Party (1885). In 1878 he had published Is There A Necessity for a Prohibition Party?
Black died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at the age of seventy. He was survived by his wife, Eliza (Murray) Black, of Lewisburg, whom he had married in 1845, and by two of their six children, Mary (Black) Schofield and William Murray Black. He had been a leading member of the Lancaster Methodist church.
Although Black’s Prohibition party never won a national election, it was the only major politically focused temperance organization in the United States until the formation of the National Anti-Saloon League in 1895.
Information on Black’s life must be assembled from a few short sketches. The best is in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography vol. 19 (1926); the account in The Dictionary of American Biography (1929) is also useful.