USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 42
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diers. The father of Judge Wilshire shared the perils and the honors of the battle of New Orleans. From Kentucky he moved to the frontier settlements of Illinois, where he died in 1835, leaving a widow and three children. The mother and children then moved to Rock Island county, in northern Illi- nois - then in " the far west "- where but meager educational facilities were to be had. But the heroic and self-sacrificing mother embraced every agency to enable her son to tide over the misfortune, and in this way supplied the necessity for academy and college. No seat of learning bears his name on its roster, but self-reliance and a noble resolve made him mas-
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ter of a good education. In 1852 he was seized with the prevalent gold fever, and went to California, where he experi- enced the varied fortunes of the gold hunter. He remained on the Pacific coast two years, and returned to the old homestead in 1855, richer in the acquisition of more experience than money.
In 1859 he commenced the study of law under the direction of an able local lawyer. In the summer of 1862 he recruited a company for the Federal service, which was incorporated in the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Illinois infantry, of which he was commissioned as major. After two years' service in the army he resigned, and, after the conflict ended, located in Little Rock, where he was enrolled in the State and Federal courts. In the fall of that year he was associated in prac- tice with the late Chief Justice English. In July, 1867, he was commissioned as solicitor-general of the State of Arkansas. In July, 1868, he was honored with the appointment of chief justice of the State, which position he resigned early in 1871, and resumed the practice of his profession at Little Rock. At the general election of 1872 he was a candidate, in the third district, for a seat in the forty-third congress, being opposed in that contest by Hon. T. M. Gunter of Fayetteville. The board of canvassers refused to award a certificate of elec- tion to either, and both applied to congress for recognition and admission, and the committee on elections decided that, on the prima facie showing, Judge Wilshire was entitled to the seat, but, on final hearing, Gunter was seated, about the close of the forty-third congress. Both again, in the fall of 1876, contested for a seat in the forty-fourth congress, and Judge Wilshire was elected because of the eminent and great service he rendered the State in the Brooks-Baxter war. In all of his relations, both public and private, in Arkansas Judge Wilshire has been eminently conservative, and has never in any way tarnished his good name by joining the crew of adventurers who were intent on spoliation and public plunder. In the hour of the people's greatest need he was in a position to aid them greatly, as the only conservative representative they had in congress, and it was cheerfully and ably accorded. But for him, in all probability the arch-conspirators to overthrow the State gov- ernment in 1874 would have succeeded.
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The author is aware that the friends of other eminent and good men claim for them the chief instrumentality in thwart- ing the conspirators, and reducing their treason to a miserable fiasco. But, delicate as the question is, where so many good men crowd to the front, the author is decidedly of the opinion (founded on evidences from public and private sources before him) that no one man contributed so much as Judge Wilshire to that overthrow. The conspirators acted with perfect con- cert and unanimity. As soon as the oath of office was admin- istered to Brooks by the chief justice, the wires flashed the news to the conspirators at the Washington end of the line ; and on the same day (15th April, 1874) Powell Clayton, Stephen W. Dorsey, O. P. Snyder, Asa Hodges and W. J. Hines (all the Arkansas delegation in congress, except Judge Wilshire) indited and signed a telegram to Brooks, congratu- lating him on his success in obtaining possession of the execu- tive office. That night one of their number presented the tele- gram to Judge Wilshire for his signature, and was refused, for reasons stated in his protest to the president. That night he prepared the following protest and delivered it to the president in person early on the next day; and when he arrived at the executive office he found that the delegation above named had preceded him, and had urged the recognition of Brooks as gov- ernor, under the assurance that it was unanimously desired by the delegation. When the protest was presented at the re- quest of Judge Wilshire, the whole question was referred to the attorney-general for his opinion. This action proved the salvation of the Baxter government. The following is the pro- test referred to :
WASHINGTON, D. C., April 16, 1874.
SIR - It was with feelings of the most profound regret that I learned last night, by private dispatches, that the slumbering insurrectionary feelings of the defeated reform element of Arkansas had again broken loose to disturb the peace, quiet and good order that has prevailed there for the last six or eight months, as you have doubtless been advised ere this. Joseph Brooks, under a decision of an inferior court of the State, directly in opposition to the decision of the supreme court
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upon the same identical question, has, I am informed, taken the oath of office, and with an armed body of men, previously and secretly organized for the purpose, forcibly ejected Gov. Elisha Baxter from the executive rooms at the capitol at Little Rock, forcibly breaking open the State armory and seized the arins of the State, placing them in the hands of his supporters. I am advised that your excellency has been, or will be, called upon to interpose with the military of the United States to maintain this usurpation and violence. I, therefore, as one of the representatives from that State, desire to submit to your excellency the following statement of the case for your consideration:
First. Under the constitution of the State of Arkansas, the right to the occupancy of the office of governor and the execu- tive State officers can be contested and determined only by the general assembly.
Second. The constitution of the State of Arkansas confers upon the senate, in the presence of the house of representa- tives, the power and duty of canvassing the vote and deter- mining therefrom, at each general election at which a governor and other executive officers are to be elected, who of the sev- eral candidates therefor was elected.
Third. On the 6th day of January, 1873, on the assembling of the general assembly of Arkansas, the senate of that State, in the presence of the house of representatives, did canvass the vote for governor cast at the election held November 5, 1872, and declared that the Hon. Elisha Baxter had received a ma- jority of about four thousand over Joseph Brooks, and there- fore declared Elisha Baxter duly elected ; whereupon Governor Baxter immediately, in the presence of the general assembly, took the oath of office and entered upon the duties of that office, which duties he has continued to perform ever since.
Fourth. Joseph Brooks brought suit in the circuit court of Pulaski county, Arkansas, for the recovery of the office of governor about one year ago ; and about the same time, on his relation, the attorney-general moved in the supreme court of that State for a writ of quo warranto against Governor Baxter, upon which motion, after an exhaustive argument by the ablest counsel in the State, and a deliberation of several
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months, that court solemnly declared that neither that court or any other tribunal in the State had jurisdiction to try and determine the contest of an election for the office of governor, upon the distinct grounds that the general assembly of the State, under the constitution, had the sole power to try and determine such a contest.
Fifth. In a suit brought in the circuit court of Pulaski county, by James R. Berry against Stephen Wheeler, for the office of auditor of the State during last year, in which the counsel for Mr. Wheeler, the incumbent of that office, applied to the supreme court for a writ of prohibition, restraining the circuit court from further taking cognizance of the cause, and at the present term of the supreme court, the rule for the writ was made absolute, the court holding that the circuit court had no jurisdiction, the constitution conferring that power on the general assembly alone in such cases.
All of these facts will be found by reference to the constitu- tion of Arkansas (§ 19, art. 6), the journals of the last session of the general assembly, and the decisions of the supreme court of Arkansas, in the cases of The State v. Elisha Baxter, and James R. Berry v. Stephen Wheeler, at the present term of the court. From which the conclusion is irresistible that the courts of the State have no jurisdiction in the premises ; and the present governor, Elisha Baxter, having been declared by the senate, in the manner prescribed by the constitution, duly elected as the governor of that State, until the general assem- bly shall, in the exercise of its constitutional power, otherwise declare, he must be regarded as the rightful governor.
· All of which is, in the interest of peace, good order, and the prosperity of the people of the State of Arkansas, respectfully submitted.
(Signed)
W. W. WILSHIRE, Representative Third District, Arkansas.
His Excellency,
U. S. GRANT, President of the United States.
All the legal questions involved in this protest were found by George H. Williams, attorney-general of the United States, to be correctly stated by Judge Wilshire ; and on the 15th of
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May, 1874, he so advised the president in an able opinion. In this connection it must be stated that able and exhaustive ar- guments were filed with the attorney-general by Pike and Johnson, and Judge U. M. Rose, as well as by Judge Wilshire and Governor Lowe in behalf of the Baxter side of the con- troversy. On the day this opinion was delivered to the presi- dent, he issued his proclamation, from which the following extracts are copied : " Whereas, certain turbulent and disor- derly persons, pretending that Elisha Baxter, the present ex- ecutive of Arkansas, was not elected, have combined together with force and arms to resist his authority as such executive, and other authorities of said State ; and Whereas, Elisha Baxter has been declared duly elected by the general assembly of said State, as provided in the constitution thereof, and has for a long period been exercising the functions of said office, into which he was inducted according to the constitution and law's of said State, and ought by its citizens to be considered as the lawful executive thereof." * * "Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, president of the United States, do hereby make proclamation, and command all turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse and retire," etc. And thereupon the con- spirators did retire, covered with the odium their acts inspired. For the conspicuous part Judge Wilshire took in bringing about this result, the legislature of Arkansas, then in session, passed the following complimentary joint resolution :
A Joint Resolution of Thanks to Hon. W. W. Wilshire.
Be it resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Ar- kansas: First. That this general assembly tenders its sincere thanks to the Hon. W. W. Wilshire, representative in congress from the third congressional district of the State of Arkansas, for the firm, manly and patriotic course he has taken at Washington, to maintain and uphold the lawful government of the State of Arkansas, and to bring to a happy termination our recently ex- isting troubles.
Second. That the senate be requested to concur herein, and that a certified copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the Hon. W. W. Wilshire Approved May 29, 1874.
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The failure of the conspirators to overthrow the Baxter gov- ernment did not convince them of the futility of further ef- fort in that direction. After the adoption of the constitution of 1874, and the peaceable and eminently satisfactory organi- zation of what was then termed, in the political literature of the day, " the Garland government," these vampires and ene- mies to the spirit and genius of our free institutions, flooded the north with bloody-shirt falsehoods and inflammatory ap- peals against what they termed the unrepentant rebel, to in- fluence the president and the dominant party in congress to overthrow the Garland government and reinstate them in power. The basis of their claim was founded in the assump- tion that the constitution of 1874 is a gross fraud and unau- thorized limitation on the assumed rights of republican adven- turers in Arkansas; that that organic instrument so antago- nized the disfranchising constitution of 1868 as to cut off and destroy radical ascendency in Arkansas; that the people or- dained the constitution of 1874 in utter disregard of the as- sumed rights of the odious oligarchy established by the consti- tution of 1868.
That Governor Garland and every officer under him were revolutionists, usurpers and traitors to the laws and institutions of Arkansas. That Governor Baxter had joined in the con- spiracy and had made a peaceful success of the revolution by surrendering the State government to Garland and his co-con- spirators. In consequence of which one V. V. Smith, in virtue of his office as lieutenant-governor under the Baxter govern- ment, had, in virtue of the latter's political demise before his term expired, become the legitimate governor of Arkansas. The conspirators to overthrow the Garland government forti- fied themselves with the legal opinion of T. D. W. Yonley (who had been chief justice under the Murphy government and attorney-general under the Hadley government) as to the soundness of their conclusions. He advised Mr. Smith that he was the legitimate governor of Arkansas, that the Garland government was a usurpation and a political bastard. As a legal production, the document is remarkable for very great research. All that is wanting in wisdom is amply compensated for in length and laborious effort. It is a valuable document, and
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ought to be preserved in the archives of the State, because it so happily illustrates the easy and complacent facility with which radical leaders satisfied conscientious misgivings about legal questions when the rights of rebels were involved.
On the 13th of November, 1874, after the receipt of this legal solution of the political problem, Smith issued a procla- mation to the people of Arkansas as their governor, informing them that Baxter had abdicated, and one Garland had usurped the office of governor during his absence. But he kindly assured the people that he would not resort to arms to oust "Mr. Garland" unless "the president recognizes me as the governor of the State."
On the same day he made his formal call on the president, asked the national government to assure Arkansas in a repub- lican form of government, and for aid to put down the Gar- land rebellion. When Smith made this demand on the presi- dent to put down the rebellion against him, Powell Clayton wired Dorsey, who was then in Washington, as follows: "If the president has any doubts about the correctness of Governor Smith's representations, of his case against Garland and the revolutionists, I request him to telegraph the congressional committee, who are possessed of official information after an investigation of nearly eight months." On the next day Dorsey, of "Star Route fame," fell into line, and addressed the president in the interest of "Governor V. V. Smith," and urged the speedy suppression "of the revolutionary govern- ment under Garland." Six days after (20th November, 1S7+), Powell Clayton and O. P. Snyder from Little Rock sent the . following telegram to the president :
To U. S. GRANT, President United States, Washington, D. C .:
The republicans. of the State regard the government of 1868 as the lawful one, and Garland's as revolutionary. They consider the recognition of Governor Smith as being not only demanded by law, but necessary for their protection. They confidently rely on you to afford the aid necessary to re-estab- lish the legitimate"government, which, when donc, they are amply able to maintain without further assistance. Messrs.
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Hines and Hodges are absent from the State, but concur with us in these views.
POWELL CLAYTON. O. P. SNYDER.
This means, Arkansas once more under radical dominion, the people will be trampled under foot by a second edition of Powell Clayton's shameless, murderous, and lawless militia.
We will now retrace our steps and go back a few months in the chronological order of events, and bear in mind the logical, lucid and unclouded opinion of the attorney-general, unqualifiedly sustaining Baxter's as the lawful government of Arkansas, and the prompt action of the president sustaining and immediately acting on the opinion of his constitutional adviser, on the 15th of May, 1874, suppressing the Brooks rebellion. In this connection the following telegram from the president to Governor Baxter, dated Washington, April 22, 1874, becomes interestingly pertinent :
Hon. ELISHA BAXTER, Little Rock, Ark .:
I hereby approve any adjustment, peaceably, of the pending difficulty in Arkansas, by means of the legislative assembly, the courts, or otherwise, and I will give all the assistance and protection I can, under the constitution and laws of the United States, to such modes of adjustment. I hope the military forces of both sides will now disband.
U. S. GRANT, President.
All this clearly indicates that the president would lend no official sanction to the lawless and revolutionary schemes of Clayton, Dorsey and company, to regain illegitimate power in Arkansas. And no lawyer or statesman in the United States ever before doubted the right of the people of the several States to change, alter or modify their organic laws, so long as they did not infringe the higher Federal law guaranteeing a republican form of government to the States. But the lovers of spoliation, plunder and power, by defaming the good people of Arkansas, seduced the president from his lofty allegiance to constitutional methods, and influenced him to make an abortive
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and painful record in the following message to the senate, re- lating to the Arkansas complications, founded on the attempt of those irresponsible adventurers to undo what the president himself had done in recognition of the Baxter government. On the 8th of February, 1875, the president transmitted to the senate the following message :
To the Senate of the United States :
Herewith I have the honor to send, in accordance with the res- olution of the senate of the third instant, all the information in my possession, not heretofore furnished, relating to affairs in the State of Arkansas. I will venture to express the opinion that all the testimony shows that in the election of 1872 Joseph Brooks was lawfully elected governor of that State; that he has been unlawfully deprived of the possession of his office since that time; that in 1874 the constitution of the State was, by violence, intimidation and revolutionary proceedings, over- thrown, and a new constitution adopted, and a new State gov- ernment established. These proceedings, if permitted to stand, practically ignore all rights of minorities in all the States; also what is there to prevent each of the States recently re-admitted to Federal relations on certain conditions, changing their con- stitution and violating their pledges if this action in Arkansas is acquiesced in ? I respectfully submit whether a precedent so dangerous to the stability of State government, if not to the national government, also, should be recognized by congress. I earnestly ask that congress will take definite action in this matter, to relieve the executive from acting upon questions which should be decided by the legislative branch of the gov- ernment.
U. S. GRANT.
Congress wisely foresaw far more destructive revolution in the suggestions and recommendation of the president, if ap- proved by legislative sanction, than in forty Baxter and Gar- land governments.
The foregoing summary of events is necessary to a compre- hensive understanding of the relation then sustained by Judge Wilshire to the politics and the interests of his adopted State. . He was then, as he has ever been, a conservative republican,
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and was then elected to the forty-fourth congress by the aid of a large democratic vote, for the noble aid given in striking the chains from disfranchised freemen. On the 24th of November, 1874, he laid before the attorney-general of the United States an able argument in opposition to the views of the president, and in doing so antagonized, as he had previously done, the republican delegation in congress from Arkansas. He success- fully maintained the right of the people to change or modify their organic laws as often as they pleased, when acting within the circumference of constitutional sanction. Smith, the pre- tender, was from Lafayette county; he was president of the senate, and as such signed the act of the 18th of May, 1874, providing for the constitutional convention of that year, and was himself a member of that convention. When he stultified himself by denouncing Garland as an usurper, and proclaiming himself governor, he had some misgivings of the result, which led him to some obscure retreat where the officers could not find him to execute process Thus ended the miserable fiasco headed by Clayton and Dorsey, and, to the great relief of the people, forever retired them from the public offices and high trusts they had so much abused, and the people of Arkansas will ever remember with gratitude the noble exertions in the interest of law and justice performed, during that transition era, by Judge Wilshire. He declined the nomination for a seat in the forty-fifth congress, preferring to resume the prac- tice of his profession, in which he is now engaged in Washing- ton city ; but he still claims Arkansas as his home. Judge Wilshire is a man of pleasant address and engaging manners, and soon wins the confidence of all with whom he comes in contact.
WILLIAM G. WHIPPLE, LITTLE ROCK.
William G. Whipple is a lineal descendant of William Whip- ple, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who represented New Hampshire in the continental congress of 1775, and is nearly related to William Whipple, the promi- nent lawyer of Rhode Island, who was associated with Daniel Webster in the Dorr rebellion and other cases before the supreme court of the United States. He was born in Hartford
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WILLIAM G. WHIPPLE.
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county, Connecticut, August 4, 1834, and was classically edu- cated at the Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, where he graduated with distinguished merit in 1852. He also graduated at the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connec- ticut, in 1857. In 1858 he graduated at the Albany Law School. In January, 1859, he began and continued the prac- tice of his profession in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, until Septem- ber, 1868, when he removed to Little Rock, where he has con- tinned to reside and practice law. He was, by President Grant" during his first administration, nominated and confirmed by the senate as United States district attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas, and discharged the duties of that office success- fully and satisfactorily for three years. In 1881 he was candi- date for mayor of Little Rock, but his opponent was declared elected by three majority. Although a republican in politics, he was, in the spring of 1887, the non-partisan choice of the people for mayor of Little Rock, and was elected without opposi- tion. His administration of that office marks a rapid advance- men in the improvement and prosperity of the city.
HON. EDWARD PENN WATSON, BENTONVILLE.
Hon. E. P. Watson was born in Van Buren, Crawford county, Arkansas, 31st August, 1848, and by his mother's side is a lineal descendant from the celebrated William Penn. His ancestors in both lines were soldiers in the Revolutionary war, the war of 1812 and frontier Indian wars. He received a good English education at the college in Fayetteville, and then read law with Major W. D. Reagan, and was admitted to the bar in 1869. He located at Harrison, in Boone county, and in 1871 was elected to the legislature from that county. In the fall of 1872 he moved to Bentonville, and in 1877 the electors of Benton county sent him to the legislature. In 1879 he was elected to the State senate from the twenty-fourth district, com- posed of the counties of Benton and Madison. In 1874 he was appointed major of State militia, and in 1884 colonel of the same organization. Colonel Watson is a close, logical reasoner, and all who know, assign him a high place in his profession.
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