History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 170

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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"After the mob violence encountered in Chicago, Mr. Douglas announced his intention to speak at several points in the State, there being an election for Congress- men and Statt Treasurer then pending. Everywhere throughout the northern part of the State he was greeted upon his arrival by every possible indignity that could be offered, short of personal violence. Burning effigies, effigies suspended by ropes, banners with all the vulgar mottoes and inscriptions that passion and prejudice could suggest, were displayed at various points. Wherever he attempted to speak, the noisy demonstrations which had proved so successful in Chi- cago were attempted, but in no place did they succeed in preventing his being heard. At Galena, Freeport, Waukegan. Woodstock, and other points in the very heart of the abolition and Know-nothing portion of the State, he bearded the lion in his den, and soon rode on the topmost wave of public favor once more."

Later, when Douglas in the highest magnificence of his intellectual stature, rose up in indignant and uncom- promising protest against the enormities that had grown out of his Kansas bill, and, apostatizing from his former apostasy, again stood for freedom, he came again to be the idol of the city, which now holds his sacred dust, and mourns his untimely death at a time when it seemed that the fires of true patriotism were just breaking in a white heat from his great soul.

From the date of Douglas's rebuff, Chicago never ceased to be on the extreme verge of anti-slavery excitement, and became the center of the Western move- ment which resulted in making Kansas a free State.

May 31, 1856, that most wonderful combination of everything good and bad which has ever been put in human forin-James H. Lane, of Kansas-addressed the whole city in Court Square. His address was the culmination of the anti-slavery sentiment which then broke out in deeds.

An echo comes from Kansas of those early times. In the history of that State published in 1883, is an account of what Chicago did for the struggling settlers of that State in their extreme distress. The account is as follows:

One of the earliest and most enthusiastic Kansas meetings held was at Chicago, Saturday evening, May 31, in court-house square. The Kansas speakers were Colonel James H. Lane and Mr. Hinman, "fresh from the smoking ruins of Lawrence." The Chicago Daily Tribune, June 2, gave a two-column report of the meet-

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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

ing under such head-lines, as these: "Illinois Alive and Awake!" "T'en Thousand Freemen in Council! " " Two Thousand Okl Hunkers on Hand!" " Fifteen Thousand Dollars Subscribed for Kansas !! "

Hon. Norman Judd presided, and made the opening speech. He was followed by Francis A. Hoffman, J. C. Vaughn, in an eloquent speech, presented the claims of Kansas for immediate relief, and offered the following resolutions :

" Resolved, That the people of Illinois will aid the freedom of Kansas.

" Resolved. That they will send a colony of five hundred actual settlers to that Territory, and provision them for one year .* " Resolved, That these settlers will invade no man's rights, but will maintain their own.

" Resolved, That we recommend the adoption of a similar policy to the people of all of the States of the Union, ready and willing to aid; and also, a thorough concert and co-operation among them, through committees of correspondence, on this subject.

" Resolved, That an executive committee of seven, viz., I. C. Vaughn, Mark Skinner, George W. Dole, I. N. Arnold, N. B. Judd and E. 1. Tinkham, be appointed with full powers to carry into execution these resolutions.

" Resolved, That Tuthill King, R. M. Hongh, C. B. Waite. J. H. Dunham, Dr. Gibbs, J. T. Ryerson and W. B. Egan be a finance committee to raise and distribute material aid."

Following the reading of the resolutions, they were seconded by Peter Page, and passed amidst the most enthusiastic and prolonged cheering.

Next Hon. W. B. Egan, one of the most eloquent Irish orators of the city, spoke to his Irish fellow-citi- zens, rousing them to the highest pitch of excitement.

The president then introduced Colonel James M. Lane, of Kansas. As he rose up and came forward, he was greeted with an outburst of applause from the crowd that continued for some minutes, during which time he stood statne-like, with mouth firm set, gazing with those wondrous eyes down into the very heart of the excited throng. Before the applause had subsided sufficiently for his voice to be heard, the fascinating spell of his presence had already seized upon the whole vast audience, and for the next hour he controlled its every emotion-moving to tears, to anger, to laughter, to scorn, to the wildest enthusiasm, at his will. No man of his time possessed such magnetic power over a vast miscellaneous assembly of men as he. With two possible exceptions Patrick Henry and S. S. Prentiss), no American orator ever equaled him in effective stump-speaking, or in the irresistible power by which he held his audiences in absolute control. On that night he was at his best. It was doubtless the ablest and most effective oratorical effort of his life. No full report of it was given at the time. One of the hun- dreds of young men made Kansas-crazy by the speech, and who forthwith left all and followed him to Kansas, thus wrote of it twenty years after:+

" He was fresh from the scenes of dispute in the belligerent Territory. He made a characteristic speech, teeming with invective extravagance, impetuosity, de- nunciation, and eloquence. The grass on the prairie is swayed no more easily by the winds than was this vast assemblage by the utterances of this speaker. They saw the contenting factions in the Territory

through his glasses. The Pro-slavery party appeared like demons and assassins: the Free-state party hike heroes and martyrs. He infused them with his war- like spirit and enthusiastic ardor for the practical champions of the freedom. Their response to his appeals for succor for the struggling freemen was im- mediate and decisive."

It is doubtful if the writer of the above, or any other of the ten thousand hearers of that night, can recall : single sentence of his speech. The emotions aroused were so overwhelming as to entirely obliterate from memory the spoken words. A few broken extracts are preserved below. He began:

" I have been sent by the people of Kansas to plead their cause before the people of the North, Most per- sons have a very erroneous idea of the people of Kansas. They think they are mostly from Massachusetts. They are really more than nine-tenths from the Northwestern States, There are more men from Ohio, Illinois and Indiana than from all New England and New York combined.

Speaking of the President, he said :

"Of Franklin Pierce I have a right to talk as I please, having made more than one hundred speeches advocating his election, and having also, as one of the electors of Indiana, cast the electoral vote of that State for him. Frank was, in part, the creature of my own hands; and a pretty job they made of it. The one pre- eminent wish of mine now is that Frank may be hurled from the White House; and that the nine memorials sent him from the outraged citizens of Kansas detailing their wrongs, may be dragged out of his iron box."

Of the climate of Kansas, he said:

" Kansas is the Italy of America. The corn and the vine grow there so gloriously that they seem to be glad and to thank the farmers for planting them. It is a climate like that of Illinois, hut milder. Invalids, in- stead of going to Italy, when the country became known, would go to Kansas, to gather new life beneath its fair sky and balmy airs. 'The wild grapes of Kansas are as large and luscious as those that grow in the vine- yards of Southern France."

He alluded to Colonel W. H. Bissell, then the Re- publican candidate for Governor of Illinois, as follows :

" It is true I was side by side with your gallant and noble Bissell at Buena Vista and in Congress. 1 wish 1 conld describe to you the scene on the morning pre- ceding that glorious battle. On a ridge stood Clay, . Bissell, McKee, Hardin and myself. Before us were twenty thousand armed enemies. It was a beautiful morning, and the sun shone bright upon the polished lances and muskets of the enemy, and their banners waved proudly in the breeze. In our rear the lofty mountains reached skyward, and their bases swarmed with enemies ready to rob the dead and murder the wounded when the battle was over. Around us stond five ragged regiments of volunteers, two from Illinois. two from Indiana, and one from Kentucky; they were bone of your bone. blood of your blood, and it was only when you were near enough to look into their eyes that you could see the d -- 1 was in them. It did not then occur to them that I should be indicted for treason be- cause I loved liberty better than slavery."

He then gave a warm and glowing tribute to Colonel Bissell, his brother-in-arms.

Then followed a most vivid and awful narrative of the outrages perpetrated upon the free-State men by the Missouri ruffians; so vivid that the Ossawatomic murders seemed but merited retaliation, and most sweet revenge to his excited hearers.

. The plan here adopted of sending in emigrants, provisioned for one year, as well as that subsequently adopted of arming them for self - defense, did not originate at this meeting. It was a Southern niea, first conceived early in March, by Major Buford, of South Carolina, adopted by most wathern E.mi- grant Aid wcieties in the south, and practically carried out before a company was ever raised, provisioned or armed by any Northern organization. harly in April, Buford's " regiment," as it was called, was in hances, Other parties, armed and " provisioned for a year " mnomnally so-the promises were tut ful- filled) rame in during the first half of May from other Southern States. More than half of the military pose organized for the sacking of Lawrence had re- rently arrived from the south, armed and promised " provision for a year." " on the sworn allegiance to the slave puwers.

t Colonel s. S. Pronty.

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POLITICAL HISTORY.

" The Missourians [said he] poured over the border in thousands, with bowie knives in their boots, their belts bristling with revolvers, their guns upon their shoulders, and three gallons of whisky per vote in their wagons. When asked where they came from their reply was, 'From Missouri ;' when asked, . What are you here for?' their reply was, ' Come to vote.' If any one should go there and attempt to deny these things, or apologize for them, the Missourians would spit upon him. They claim to own Kansas, to have a right to vote there and to make its laws, and to say what its in- stitutions shall be."

Colonel Lane held up the volume of the statutes of Kansas; then proceeded to read from it, commenting as he read :

"The Legislature first passed acts virtually repeal- ing the larger portion of the Constitution of the United States, and then repealed, as coolly as one would take a chew of tobacco, provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Of this bill I have a right to speak-God forgive me for so enormous and dreadful a political sin-I voted for the bill. I thought the people were to have the right to form their own institutions, and went to Kansas to organize the Democratic party there, and make the State Democratic, but the Missouri invaders poured in-the baliot boxes were desecrated-the bogus Legislature was elected by armed mobs-you know the rest.

" The pro-slavery fragment of the Democratic party talk much about Know-nothingismn. It is their song day and night. Well, these Kansas law-makers have gone to work and repealed at once the clause in the Nebraska bill that gave the right to foreigners to vote in Kansas on declaring their intention to become citizens, and made it requisite for them to have lived in the Territory five years, and to take the final oath; and at the same time they made all Indians who adopted the habits of white men voters at once. And what was the distinguishing habit of white men? Why, it was understood to be drinking whisky. All that was necessary to naturalize a Kansas Indian was to get him drunk. What Know- nothing lodge ever went so far in their nativism as this? -made foreigners in the Territory wait five years to become citizens, and enfranchised the drunken, thieving Indians at once, one and all !

"The pro-slavery fragment of the Democratic party also delights in the term .nigger-worshiper,' to desig- nate Free-state men. I will show you that these Pro- slavery men are, of all nigger-worshipers, the most abject. According to the Kansas code [Colonel Lane read from the book, giving page and section], if a per- son kidnaps a white child the utmost penalty is six months in jail-if a nigger baby, the penalty is death. Who worships niggers, and slave nigger babies at that ? To kidnap a white child into slavery-six months in jail-to kidnap a nigger into freedom-death !"

He concluded his scathing review of the infamous code as follows :

" Is there an Illinoisan who says enforce these mon- strou- iniquities called laws ? Show me the man ! The people of Kansas never will obey them. They are be- ing butchered, and one and all will die first ! As for myself. I am going back to Kansas, where there is an indictment pending against me for high treason. Were the rope about my neck. I would say that as to the Kansas code it shall not be enforced-never :- NEVEK !"

Following. he argued, elaborately and conclusively, the right of Kansas to come into the Union as a free State " now." He closed his speech with a detailed at- count of the murders and outrages perpetrated upon the free-State settlers, given with a masterly power of

tragic delineation which brought each particular horror, blood-red and distinct, before the eyes of the excited throng. He knew of fourteen cases of tar and feather- ing-" the most awful and humiliating outrage ever in- flicted on man." He told of Dow, shot dead while holding up his hands as a sign of his defenselessness; lying, like a dead dog, in the road all the long day, until in the evening his friends found his body, dabbled in his life blood, and bore it away; Barber, unarmed, shot on the highway, brought dead to Lawrence, where his frantic wife, a childless widow, 'mid shrieks of anguish, kissed the pallid lips that to her were silent evermore ; Brown, stabbed, pounded, hacked with a hatchet, bleed- ing and dying, kicked into the presence of his wife, where in agony he breathed out his life-she, now a maniac."

A voice from the crowd called, "Who was Brown ?" Lane continued :

" Brown was as gallant a spirit as ever went to his God! And a Democrat at that-not one of the Pro- slavery fragment. though. For the blood of free men shed on the soil of Kansas-for the blood now flowing in the streets of Lawrence-for every drop which has been shed since the people asked to be admitted as a State, the Administration is responsible. Before God" and this people I arraign Frank Pierce as a murderer !

"In conclusion I have only this to say: The people of Kansas have undying faith in the justice of their cause-in the eternal life of the truths maintained-and they ask the people of Illinois to do for them that which seems to them just."

The Chicago Tribune, in its report of the meeting, June 2, says:

"We regret we can only give a meager outline of the eloquent and telling effort of Colonel Lane. He was listened to with the deepest interest and attention by the vast throng, and as he detailed the series of infamous outrages inflicted upon the freemen of Kansas, the people were breathless with mortification and anger, or wild with enthusiasm to avenge those wrongs. During Colonel Lane's address, he was often interrupted by the wildest applause, or by deep groans for Pierce, Douglas, Atchison, and the dough-faces and ruffians who had oppressed Kansas; and by cheers for Sumner, Robinson, and other noble men, who have dared and suffered for liberty. * * * Language is inadequate to give the reader a conception of the effect of the recital of that tale of woe which men from Kan- sas had to tell; the flashing eyes, the rigid muscles, and the frowning brows told a story to the looker-on that types cannot repeat. From the fact that the immense crowd kept their feet from eight till twelve o'clock, that even then they were unwilling the speakers should cease, or that the contributions should stop; from the fact that workingmen, who have only the wages of the day for the purchase of the day's bread, emptied the contents of their pockets into the general fund: that sailors threw in their earnings; that widows sent up their savings; that boys contributed their pence; that those who had no money gave what they had to spare; that those who had nothing to give offered to go as set- tlers and do their duty to Freedom on that now conse- crated soil: that every bold declaration for liberty, every allusion to the Revolution of 1776, and to the possibility that the battles of that period were to be fought over again in Kansas, were received as those things most to be desired-something of the tone and temper of the meeting may be imagined. * *

* The effect of the meeting will be felt in deeds. Be the consequences what they may, the men of Illinois are resolved to act.

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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

* Take it with its attending circumstances-the shortness of the notice, the character of the assembled multitude, and the work which was accomplished-it was the most remarkable meeting ever held in the State. · We believe it will inaugurate a new era in Illinois. We believe it is the precursor of the liberation of Kansas from the hand of the oppressor, and of an all-pervading political revolution at home.

" About half-past twelve, Sunday having come, the meeting unwilling adjourned, and the crowd reluctantly went home. At a later hour, the Star Spangled Banner and the Marseillaise, sung by bands of men whose hearts were full of the spirit or these magnificent hymns, were the only evidences of the event that we have en- deavored to describe."

The subscriptions in money, given by upward of two hundred different persons and firms, in sums ranging in amount from $500 down to ten cents-the latter sum being given by a boy, all he had-amounted to over $15,000. In addition were given the following utensils and supplies, for the use and comfort of the emigrants. The names of the donors and explanatory notes are given, as reported:

F. R. Gardiner, six rifles, three with double barrels, sure at each pop.

Major Van Horn, one sixteen shooter.

C. W. Davenport, one six-shooter, and ten pounds of balls.

An editor and a lawyer, four Sharpe's rides and themselves.

D. G. Park, one can of dry powder.

C. H. Whitney, one revolver.

J. M. Isaacks, one Sharpe's rifle.

G. M. Jerome, Iowa City, one rifle.

A. S. Clarke, one Sharpe's rifle.

J. A. Barney, one rifle.

H. A. Blakesley, one rifle.

W. H. Clark, one double-barreled rifle and ȘIo. . J. A. Graves, one Sharpe's rifle.

Frank Hanson, one double-barreled gun and $25. A German, one pair of pistols.

J. H. Hughes, one Colt's revolver.

F. M. Chapman, one horse.

Urhlaub & Sattler, three revolvers.

This meeting, although not the first of a like charac- . ter held in the Northwest during that spring, was re- markable as being the first great outburst of enthu- siasm, which, breaking local bounds, spread to every town and hamlet from the Mississippi to the Atlantic coast. It was the " little cloud no larger than a man's hand" which forthwith spread over the whole heavens, and out of it came money, and arms, and ammunition, and a ceaseless tide of emigrants and troops of armed men-all setting Kansasward. Out of it came " Lane's Army of the North," in the imagination of the frightened pro-slavery Kansans and Missourians, "a mighty host, terrible with banners," coming, in uncertain but irresis- tible force, by a route indefinitely defined as from the North, to sweep as with the besom of destruction, the Territory clean of the Territorial laws, and every man who had advocated their enforcement. The army proved neither so numerous in numbers nor so terrible in its vengeful visitations on the pro-slavery settlers, as to justify their fearful apprehensions: nevertheless, its heralded approach inspired the free-State settlers with renewed courage, opened a new path of immigration into the Territory, and proved one of the many great moral forces which brought victory and peace at last.

The exciting campaigns of 1858-60 will furnish a fit beginning, in the succeeding volume, to the exciting

period of the Rebellion, and the succeeding years of peace, during which the Republican party held undis- puted sway in Chicago, and throughout the Nation.

LOCAL POLITICS.

At the municipal elections, party lines were not always strictly drawn. Through the long uninterrupted predominence of the Democratic party, several Whig mayors were elected, and, in one case a Know-nothing, much.to the surprise of both parties. Below is given the names and political affiliations of the mayors of Chicago, from 1837 to 1858 :

1837, William B. Ogden, Democrat.

1838, Buekner S. Morris, Whig.

1839, Benjamin W. Raymond, Whig

1840, Alexander Loyd, Democrat.

1841, Francis C. Sherman, Democrat.

1842, Benjamin W. Raymond, Demoerat.

1843, Augustus Garrett, Democrat.

1844, Augustus Garrett, Democrat.

1844. Alson S. Sherman. *

1845, Augustus Garrett, Democrat.

1846, John P. Chapin, Whig.

1847, James Curtiss, Democrat.

1848, James H. Woodworth, Democrat.

1849, James H. Woodworth. Democrat.

1850. James Curtiss, Democrat.

1851, Walter S. Gurnee, Democrat.

1852, Walter S. Gurnee, Democrat.

1853, Charles M. Gray, Democrat.

1854, Isaac L. Milliken, Democrat.

1855. Dr. Levi 1). Boone, formerly a Democrat, elected on the Know-nothing ticket.

1856, Thomas Dyer, Democrat.

1857, John Wentworth, Republican-Fusionist (50 styled , received five thousand nine hundred and thirty- three votes, against four thousand one hundred and thirty-two votes cast for Carver.

There were few local excitements of sufficient im- portance to be historic. In 1840 the papers noted at the general election, great excitement and many arrests -no bloodshed.

The most notable local political disturbance occurred during the administration of Mayor Boone, the successful Know-nothing candidate. High license for saloons eame in that year to intensify the local excitement.

Under the peculiar stress brought upon Dr. Boone and his administration, through the prejudice of foreign voters, and the high license law that was started at that time, he found himself confronted by a mob quite early in his administration. The story was told years after in the Chicago Times, August 5, 1877, as quoted be- low :

"The riot occurred in 1855, nearly the middle period between the beginning and now. Chronologically it is the great ' divide,' at least for the present, but by and by time will lengthen the hither end out of all proportion. and when the last old settler departs, who

** * Was there all the while At the battle of the Nile,'

this now-famous time would live only in history. But hold : not even there, unless the Sunday Times rescues it from oblivion, which it now proposes doing.

" The records of that affair are now only to be found in the memories of participants. All other data were destroyed by the great fire. By and by these partici- pants will all have disappeared, and then what is left will

$ 1 he first mann und eles tion y is declared invalid, one of the judge . never having bern naturalidad. At the second ik cuon sherman was declared elected.

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LOCAL POLITICS.

be merely, ' What I used to hear my father tell abou. that affair '-exceedingly unreliable stuff, after passing through one, and, perhaps, even two defective memories.

" Just now reminiscenses of that old time ruction, in view of the new, still partly on hand, cannot fail to be read with interest, and it is important that the data should now be gathered while the leading participants are still with unimpaired memories among the living. Dr. 1 .. D. Boone was the Mayor of that period. ' In Mayor Boone's time ' is a remark very common among old settlers. It was one of the hottest and most un- reasoning political periods in the history of the country. Passion ran high on all sides. The temperance ques- tion was alive ; the Catholic question almost precipitated a religious war, and Know-nothingism hung on the outer wall a banner inscribed, 'Put none but Americans on guard.' Each one of these questions was well cal- culated to rouse the very worst passions, and under this stimulus sprang up a generation of b'hoys that, until the war of the Rebellion, were the terror of all large Amer- ican cities.

" Venerable Dr. Boone, who now in his mellow old age enjoys a glass of beer when mixed with Thomas's orchestra music, as well as the next man, was the Know- nothing or American party candidate for mayor, and was elected. This event took place in March, 1855. During the preceding winter the Legislature had passed a stringent temperance law, to be subinitted to the people for ratification or rejection. Mayor Boone believed-and for this he had apparently the best of reason-that the act would be ratified by a large major- ity, and appreciating that an abrupt passage from unlimited beer to no beer would be a trial that no well- regulated Teuton could -undergo with equanimity, he determined, as a measure for the good of the community to smooth the way by degrees, and thus effect the transition by such easy stages that, metaphorically speaking, the Nord Seite wouldl pass the Rubicon with no more discomfort than it now experiences in crossing the river by way of the LaSalle-street tunnel.

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 170

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340