USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 43
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 43
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 43
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GOVERNOR GILPIN's confident measures for the pres- ervation of peace and loyalty in the territory, with the boldness of his demands on the treasury, brought him into trouble. An audacious temperament is often the best possession of a man in emergencies. If any one refused to accept his drafts 1 they were told, "It is simply a question of whether you will take this evidence of indebtedness, or give up your goods with- out any such evidence ; for the articles we need we must and will have." Several hundred thousand dol- lars of the governor's orders 2 were on the market, and, as at first they were not recognized by the government,
1 A copy of one of these orders is preserved in Extracts from Early Records, MS., which is copied from the archives of the Historical Society of Colorado, and runs thus: 'Executive Department, Colorado Territory, Den- ver, Sept. 18, 1861. At sight pay to the order of Mrs Julia A. Ford thirty dollars, value received, and charge the same to the account of William Gil- pin, Governor of Colorado Territory. To the Secretary of the United States Treasury, Washington, D. C., Number 220.'
2 The whole appropriation for the expenses of Colorado for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1862, was $32,000. U. S. H. Ex. Doc., no. i. 44, 37th cong. 2d sess .; Cong. Clobe, 1860-1, ap. 340. The direct tax levied on the territory by congress for the same period was $22,905. Laws Rel. Direct Tax, 37th cong. Ist and 2d sess., 8.
(426)
427
GUBERNATORIAL CHANGES.
financial distress followed, and a strong faction clam- ored for Gilpin's removal. The record made by the Ist regiment justified his acts so far as to secure the payment of his drafts, but in the meantime much dis- satisfaction existed. Those who could not afford to hold, sold them at a loss to speculators ; and, though ultimately redeemed, the losers were naturally disaf- fected, and labored for the removal of the author of their misfortunes.3 He was succeeded in office April 19, 1862, by John Evans of Evanston, Illinois, who served the people acceptably for more than three years." Secretary Weld, an able young man, but of irregular habits, was removed to make way for Samuel H. Elbert, son-in-law of Evans. Weld died early; but Gilpin lived to see his acts justified.5 United States Marshal Townsend was removed in June 1862, and A. S. Hunt appointed in his place.
It will be remembered that the first legislature ad- journed, to meet again with the full complement of councilmen and representatives allowed by the organic act in June. But it was discovered that a blunder had been committed, as the two sessions would fall within the same fiscal year, while two appropriations would not ; and, by permission of congress,6 another adjournment was made to the 7th of July, when the assembly met at Colorado City, where, as I have
3 Byers' Hist. Colo, MS., 17, 23, 26; Elbert's Public Men and Measures, MS., 4-5; Gilpin's Pioneer of 1842, MS.
4 John Evans was of Quaker parents, born in Ohio in 1814. He studied medicine, and practised in Ill. and Ind. He was elected to the chair of the Rush medical college, then organizing in Chicago, and becaine one of the editors of the Northwestern Medical and Surgical Journal, besides being chairman of the committee on public schools of Chicago. He donated $25,000 for the endowment of a chair of mental and moral philosophy in the North- western university, the trustees naming the university town in his honor. and electing him president of the board. As a railroad projector and keen politician he was long conspicuous. His daughter Josephine married his sec- retary, S. H. Elbert, in 1865. Dying soon after, her father erected a chapel in Evans' Addition to Denver to her memory. Routt, Terr. and State, MS., 5; Pitkin's Political Views, MS., 9-10; Elbert, Public Men and Measures, MS., 7.
5 Weld was a Connecticut man. He went east, and was appointed lieut- col in a colored regiment, and died of fever in the south during the war. Elbert, Public Men and Measures, MS., 1.
6 Acts and Res., 351, 37, 2.
428
POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
already stated, it remained in session but four days be- fore returning to more comfortable quarters in Denver. Besides revising and perfecting the work of the first session, the legislature asked congress to increase the jurisdiction of the probate courts, and that the laws be printed in Spanish, for the benefit of the Mexican population. The postmaster-general was requested to provide for a tri weekly mail from the east, and from Denver to Boulder City ; the Union Pacific Railroad and Telegraph company was asked to locate its road through Colorado, and to select one of its board of directors from among its citizens, Evans being recom- mended. The secretary of the treasury was urged to put a United States mint in operation at an early day, by purchasing the private mint in Denver,7 which prayer was granted; and the secretary of the interior was solicited to treat with the Indians for lands, chiefly mineral, to which their title had not
been extinguished. A joint resolution was passed relating to the Colorado volunteers, commending them to the favorable notice of the president. The election law provided that the general election for delegate for congress, members of the council and assembly, and county officers, should be held on the first Tuesday in September; but as the appropriation for 1862-3 would be exhausted by the July session of 1862, the election of a legislature before 1863 was by joint resolution postponed to that year.
" According to the memorial, a private mint had been in successful opera- tion for more than two years when the petition was made. Byers relates that the private banking-house of Clark, Gruber, and Co., Denver, began coining $5, $10, and $20 gold pieces July 20, 1860; and Parsons and Co. also coined some at Hamilton at a later period. The $10's coined at Denver by Clark, Gruber, and Co. were 17 grains heavier than the coin of the U. S. mint Centennial State, MS., 1. The bill establishing a branch mint in Den- ver appropriated $75,000, and was approved April 21, 1862. Cong. Globe, 1861-2, ap. 349. In March 1863 a resolution was passed to purchase the lots and assaying house or houses of Clark, Gruber, and Co. The chamber of commerce of Denver, on May 8, 1861, adopted the following rates for gold dust as a circulating medium: Blue river gold, $20 per ounce; French gulch, Humbug gulch, Fairplay gulch, Nigger gulch, and McNulty gulch, $17 per ounce; Galifornia gulch, $16 per ounce. Central City adopted the rate of $17 per ounce for Clear creek gold dust, and $15 per ounce for Russell gulch dust. Best retorted gold, $15 per ounce; common retorted and dirty gold,
429
REPRESENTATION AND JUDICIARY.
In July the democratic party attempted to organize, holding a convention on the 10th, but did not become possessed of any power or coherency until after the close of the civil war. At the September election of 1862, Hiram P. Bennett was again chosen delegate to congress, the News summing up his services during one session as follows: A mail service and new post routes; post-offices throughout the settled portion of the territory; a land district and removal of the sur- veyor-general from Utah to Denver; & appropriations for surveys; military posts; a branch mint at Denver ; payment of the Gilpin war debts;' besides laboring for the passage of the Union Pacific railroad bill, and bills for various wagon-roads. With such a record his reelection was assured,1º and he resumed his seat, to retain it in the thirty-eighth congress. The amendments made to the organic act by congress in 1863, referring to the judiciary system, gave the jus- tices' courts jurisdiction in matters of controversy in- volving not more than three hundred dollars, and the probate courts jurisdiction in cases where the sum claimed did not exceed two thousand dollars; besides which the probate courts were given chancery as well as common law jurisdiction, with authority to redress all wrongs against the laws of the territory affecting persons or property. The same act modified the power of the governor, made absolute as to the ap- proval of laws by the organic act, the amendment
$12 per ounce. Before the establishment of these rates the price of all gold dust had been uniform at $18. Fraudulent gold dust and gold bricks were manufactured by counterfeiters in 1861. The bricks had one corner made of genuine metal, from which the sellers cut a chip which they offered for assay. One banker bought $20,000 worth of these counterfeit bricks.
8 Cong. Clobe, 1861-2, ap. 345. Colorado was consolidated with Idaho and Nevada in 1863-4.
9 The actual amount of the Gilpin drafts was $306,000, added to which was about $100,000 of debts where the drafts had been refused. Congress assumed the whole amount early in 1862. Rocky Mountain News, March 20, 1862.
10 There were three candidates in the field: Bennett representing the Douglas democracy, indifferent to the fate of the negro, but true to the union; Gilpin, supported by the abolitionists, and J. M. Francisco, Brecken- ridge democrat.
430
POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
permitting the legislature to pass an act by a two thirds vote over the governor's veto.11
On the 2d of November, 1861, a convention was held in Denver to memorialize congress for a home- stead law for the protection of squatters on the public domain, and the same rights allowed to the settlers of Oregon, including holding their claims as bounded by lines drawn by themselves instead of the government survey. To this proposition no answer was returned. But in June 1862 the right of preemption was ex- tended to the territory, with the appointment of a regis- ter and receiver, and the repeal of the graduation act. 13
There had been from the first a party in Colorado, though not constituting a majority, which desired a state government. The promoters of state organiza- tion in early territorial times are usually ambitious men, desirous of place and power, and Colorado offers no exception to the rule. In compliance with the de- mands of this portion of the electors of the territory, an effort was made at the third session of the thirty- seventh congress, 1862-3, to have an enabling act passed allowing Colorado to form a constitution, which was defeated. But in March 1864, by representing the population to be between fifty and sixty thousand,
11 Cong. Globe, 1862-3, ap. 200; Corbett's Legis. Manual, 51-4; Acts and Res., 88, 37, 3; S. Jour., 471, 487, 37, 3.
12 'An act to graduate and reduce the price of the public lands to actual settlers and cultivators.' An act approved in May constituted Colorado and Utah one surveying district, with the office of the sur-gen. at Denver. The appropriations for surveys was $10,000. No special land laws were enacted in favor of Colorado. The status of land titles was exceedingly simple, after the extinguishment of Indian rights, except in a few cases of Mexican grants; a Mexican.grant, like Indian territory, being of such indefinite dimensions as to invite a contest of wits, if not of weapons, in the settlement. Hallet's Courts, Laws, and Litigation, MS., 7-8. In 1873-4 a disturbance arose in Lake co. over the possession of some government land near the present site of Buena Vista. Elijah Gibbs was attacked by a mob calling themselves vigilants, and killed in self-defence one of their number, George Barrington. At another time he killed a man named Coon who belonged to an attacking party and had to escape, the friends of the men who were killed taking up the quarrel, which was carried on for several years, and in which 7 or 8 per- sons were killed, including Judge Dyer of Granite City, who was assassi- nated while trying one of the cases which grew out of it. Byers' Centennial State, MS., 32-3.
431
LOOKING TOWARD STATEHOOD.
or double what it really was, and by other devices, congress was induced to pass an enabling act, permit- ting the delegates elected by the people to meet on the first Monday in July to form a constitution, to be submitted to the people at an election to be held on the second Tuesday in October. The campaign was a stirring one, several newspapers being devoted to man- ufacturing a favorable public opinion; but the people, knowing there was an empty treasury, and not being desirous of replenishing it to the requirements of a state government, decided that it was inexpedient, and voted against it. 13
There was yet another reason why many rejected the constitution. The organic act of the territory, formed ere yet the civil war had burned its bill of rights so terribly into the conscience of the nation, provided that the right to vote at the first election should be extended to " every free white male citizen of the United States, including those recognized as citizens by the treaties of 1848 and 1853 with Mexico." The first legislature, in an act regulating elections, decreed that only citizens of the United States, per- sons of foreign birth who had declared their intention to become citizens, and persons of Indian blood who had been declared by treaty to be citizens, should be deemed qualified voters. On the 11th of March, 1864, this act was amended so as more plainly to exclude "a negro or mulatto," and the constitution perpetuated all the territorial laws.
13 The framers of this rejected constitution were W. A. H. Loveland, pres- ident of the convention, Samuel E. Browne, John Q. Charles, J. Bright Smith, James M. Cavanaugh, Richard Sopris, Joseph M. Brown, George T. Clark, John A. Koontz, D. H. Goodwin, A. C. Hunt, Charles A. Cook, G. W. Miller, David H. Nichols, P. M. Hinman, D. Pound, A. Lumry, W. E. Sisty, J. T. Herrick, Robert White, C. B. Patterson, John Locke, D. P. Wilson, Ed S. Perrin, Wm E. Darby, B. C. Waterman, Rodney French, A. J. Van Deren, H. F. Powell, F. H. Judd, C. W. Mather, B. F. Lake, George E. Randolph, W. S. Rockwell, O. J. Hollister, W. R. Gorsline, T. Whitcomb, G. B. Backus, T. C. Bergen, T. P. Boyd, H. H. DeMary, N. F. Cheeseman, C. Nachtrieb, H."Anderson, John McCannon, Thos Keys, W. J. Curtice, Alex. Hatch, A. DuBois, H. Henson, J. D. Parmelee, G. W. Lechner, H. B. Haskell, John T. Lynch, G. W. Coffin, J. E. Washburn, F. Merrill, J. L. Pritchard, G. W. Hawkins, C. C. Hawley, B. F. Pine, W. G. Reid. Corbett, Legis. Manual, 225-6.
·
432
POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
Though beaten, the state government party was not disheartened. A convention was called in 1865, in which eleven counties were represented out of sev- enteen ; a constitution was submitted to the people, which, without any law to sanction it, was adopted- another illustration of the vox populi vox dei saw. Gilpin was elected governor. The legislature assem- bled and made choice of two senators, John Evans and Jerome B. Chaffee, who proceeded to Washing- ton to urge the admission of Colorado under the con- stitution to which a majority of those who voted on the question had assented, if not a majority of all the voters in the territory. Nor did they urge their wishes in vain. Congress again consented to admit the state of Colorado to the union, as Governor Cum- mings affirmed, in the face of the principles for which the nation had been contending during four years of war, and in the face of their own legislation at the same session ;14 for the constitution still excluded per- sons of negro blood from participating in the elections, an example of the power which flaunts itself in the lobby of the national capital, though acting in this instance in the right direction as against that most monstrous of American absurdities, African voting. But President Johnson vetoed the bill.15 A similar bill was vetoed again in 1867-8, which failed by only one vote in the senate from being passed over his head. The matter was revived periodically for ten years. On the 3d of March, 1875, an enabling act was passed, authorizing the electors to vote, in July 1876, upon a constitution, to be formed in convention to be held at Denver before that time The period
14 H. Jour., 1865-6, 622, 657, 668, 672. On the Ist of Feb. 1865, Delegate Bennett had headed a written resolution of the territorial delegates, approv- ing the proposition to amend the federal constitution forever prohibiting slavery in the U. S. Cong. Globe, 1864-5, 596.
15 Byers' Centennial State, MS., 31. Elbert says that the ostensible reason for vetoing the bill was that the population was insufficient, but the real reason was that the two senators, Evans and Chaffee, would not pledge themselves to vote against Johnson's impeachment. Puh. Men and Measures, MS., 10-11. The reason which Johnson gave was that the proceedings were irregular. Cong. Globe, 1865-6, 210.
433
CONGRESSIONAL MEASURES.
was ripe for its acceptance; the political sea was calm; there was nothing in the new instrument at variance with the amendments to the federal constitution, and both congress and the people of the commonwealth were satisfied that Colorado was entitled to become a sovereign state,16 with boundaries as ample as in its territorial days.17
The constitution-makers of Colorado were, by this time, skilled artificers.18 It was a noble document, with those errors only which the course of events develops.19 An attempt was made for universal suffrage by introducing a clause making it obligatory upon the first legislature to pass a law conferring the elective franchise upon women, which was, however, to be submitted to a vote of the male citizens at the first election thereafter.
To return to the regular march of events under the territorial régime. Bennett's delegateship terminated with the thirty-eighth session of congress. With the exception of having secured the payment of the Gilpin drafts, and an appropriation for a branch mint, which was really no more than a United States assay-office,
16 The vote stood 15,443 for, to 4,039 against acceptance. Corbett, Legis. Manual, 119.
17 A joint resolution of the legislature of 1864 protests against the reduc- tion of territorial limits in accordance with the endeavors of the delegate from New Mexico in congress, and instructs the Colorado delegate to be especially watchful and oppose all such attempts. Gen. Laws Colo, 1864, 256. 18 Their names were J. C. Wilson president, H. P. H. Bromwell, Casamiro Barela, George Boyles, W. E. Beck, Byron L. Carr, William H. Cushman, W. M. Clark, A. D. Cooper, H. R. Crosby, Robert Douglas, L. C. Ellsworth, C. P. Elder, F. J. Elbert, W. B. Felton, J. M. Garcia, Daniel Hurd, John S. Hough, Lafayette Head, William H. James, William R. Kennedy, William L. Lee, Alvin Marsh, William H. Meyer, S. J. Plumb, George E. Pease, Robert A. Quillan, A. K. Yount, Wilbur F. Stone, W. C. Stover, H. C. Thatcher, Agapeta Vigil, W. W. Webster, G. G. White, E. T. Wells, P. P. Wilcox, J. S. Wheeler, J. W. Widderfield, Lewis C. Rockwell. Secretaries, W. W. Coulson, Herbert Stanley, and H. A. Terpenning. Corbett, Legis. Manual, 116-17.
19 See Pitkin, in Political Views, MS., 13. Only one article of the com- stitution could be amended at any one session, the sessions being biennial. One foolish provision in the constitution was the publication of the laws in Spanish and German. It would seem that the foreigners we import to gov- ern us might at least learn our language. Sessions were limited to forty days, and every bill was to be read three times before each house for the benefit of stupid members.
HIST. NEV. 28
434
POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
nothing had been done for Colorado beyond what the actual wants of the people demanded.20 Bennett was succeeded by Allen A. Bradford, who in 1862 was appointed associate justice in place of Pettis, serving in the second judicial district until elected to represent the territory in the thirty-ninth congress.21 He labored for the passage of a homestead law, for a mineral-land law, for increased pay for the supreme judges, and members of the legislature, and for payment of the mounted militia employed in opening communication through the Indian country in 1864, of which I shall speak hereafter. At the close of this congress the salaries of the judges were raised to $2,500.22 Previ- ously, and by the efforts of the Montana delegate chiefly, an act was passed appropriating the net pro- ceeds of the internal revenue of 1866-8 to the erection of penitentiaries in seven several territories, including Colorado. At the beginning of the fortieth congress an act amending the organic law of Colorado made the sessions of the legislative assembly biennial, the election for four years for councilmen, and two years for assemblymen, and the pay six instead of three dollars per diem.2
20 The appropriation for 1863, including $5,000 for a territorial prison, and $2,500 for a territorial library, aggregated $69,960. The appropriations for 1864-5 amounted to $54,700. This was exclusive of post-routes, which were of general use. The routes established in 1863-4 were from Denver to East Bannack, in Idaho; from Denver via Poncha pass and Conejos to Santa Fé; from Denver to Bijou basin; and from Golden City via Ralston creek, and Boulder city to Burlington. A wagon road was in process of construction in 1863-4 from the headwaters of Clear creek, through Middle park, and the valleys of Bear, Uintah, and Timpanogas river to Provo in Utah.
21 A. A. Bradford was born in Maine in 1815, went to Mo. in 1841, studied law and was made judge. In 1855 he removed to Nebraska, where he was a member of the legislative council in 1856-8, and came in 1859 to Central, settling finally at Pueblo. He was a man of many experiences, some of which I was fortunate enough to secure in a manuscript.
22 The organic act gave the governor $1,500 with $1,000 more as supt of Ind. aff., and gave the judges $1,800.
23 The appropriation for 1866 was $43,000 including $15,000 for survey- ing. The post-routes secured were from Georgetown to Argentine; from Gold Dirt to South Boulder; and from Denver via Mt Vernon and Idaho to Empire City. The appropriation for 1867 was $47,090. The post-routes opened were from Badito to Spanish peaks; Pueblo to Hermosillo; Pueblo to Carson City. via Rock Cañon Ridge and Frazier settlement to Jamestown; and from Eureka to Breckenridge via Argentine and Pera,
435
ELECTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.
In October 1865 President Johnson appointed Alexander Cummings governor of Colorado in place of Evans. Cummings was famous about 1862 as founder of the N. Y. Daily World, and notorious afterward for his peculations in a contract with the war department. The Coloradans disliked him, and made his administration unpopular by all the ways known to journalists and politicians, even to request- ing the president to remove him. It was not shrewd- ness or intelligence that he lacked, but the knowledge of how to inspire confidence by putting them to a beneficent use. He remained in office about a year and a half. In November, George M. Chilcott24 was elected representative to congress under the state constitution, which, as I have already stated, the president refused to recognize, lest congress should use the two senatorial and one representative vote of the new state against him in his impeachment trial. In the following August Chilcott was reelected, and took his seat as delegate, after some loss of time through having his election contested by A. C. Hunt. He secured the passage of a bill repealing the act which discriminated against the whole region west of Kansas and east of California by charging letter post- age on printed matter within those boundaries. He was also fortunate in securing important action con- cerning certain land-grants, and appropriations for the
public surveys. 25 He was succeeded in 1868 by A. A.
24 Chilcott was born in Pa, in 1828, moved in 1844 to Iowa, and was elected sheriff in 1853, and in 1856 to Neb. when he was sent to the legislature. The wave of migration caught him in 1859, and carried him to Colorado, where he arrived in May. He was a member of the constitutional convention of that year at Denver, returning to Omaha to spend the winter. In the autumn of 1860 he settled in what is now Pueblo co., engaging in farm work for a livelihood for two years, after which he took a claim for himself 12 miles east of Pueblo and brought out his family. He was elected to represent this region at the first two sessions of the territorial legislature, and was appointed by Pres. Lincoln register of the U. S. land office for the district of Colorado in 1863, which position he held until he was elected to congress. Republi- can in politics, Chilcott was an energetic, cheerful worker, with a fine phy- sique, and universally successful in his undertakings.
25 The appropriations for 1860 were greatly in excess of any before made, amounting for every purpose, excepting mails and Indian department, to $183,446.51, Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 5, 1868,
436
POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
Bradford, elected a second time, who introduced bills for grants of land to two railroad companies, for ap- propriations for public buildings in Colorado, for the settlement of the southern boundary of Colorado, and for increasing the pay of officers of the supreme courts of Colorado and New Mexico.
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