USA > Illinois > The centennial of the state of Illinois. Report of the Centennial Commission > Part 20
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50 Journal of Congress, IV. ING.
" Culler. Lite, Journals, and Corrispondente of, July 23, 26, 1787.
5. St. Clair Papers, 1. 7: He ords of the Ohio Company, 1, 19n.
" Jauin is of Congress, TV. 754-5.
0 Jam. . M. Varmin, born in Massachusetts, 1749, Edunted from Rhode Island Coll ge (Brown Utaversity), m Hd), began the prace of liw, 1771. berame colon 1 n. Bhale Island regiment, Kas, breiter sont. 1 !! Conti- mental army. 1777, member of Congress, 1751-82, 1756-7, a lafler and director of the Ohio Company, appointed a judge in the Supreme Court of NorthWest Territory, 1757-9.
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by Congress,61. It was a goverment in its personnel of great bond- lords, as colonizing enterprises in American History had generally been.
The first immigrants of the Ohio Company who arrived in the Spring of 1788 were in advance of the arrival of St. Clair, and had to provide in a measure for their own civil affairs. The Board of Directors of the Ohio Company sor up a temporary local village organization in June. 1788, for the interim until the regularly con- stituted authorities should arrive. The Board itself acted as a local Board of Police in Marietta. It organized the inhabitants into local militia, and minutely regulated the local affairs of the busy community. A minister and a teacher were engaged, and the expenses borne by the company's revenues.62 But the period of extra-legal proprietary government soon passed.
Early in July one of Harmar's military harpes, driven by twelve vars.men, met Governor St. Clair at Pittsburg and bore him to the headquarters of the western army, located at Fort Harmar, across the Muskingum from Marietta. Soldiers and civilians wore duly impressed by the solemnity of the first act in the drama of actually establishing Civil Government in the Northwest. The fifteenth day of July 1788, was set for the formal opening. What seemed appropriate ceremonies took place at the bower erected for the occasion in the clearing which was becoming the site of Mari- etta. After the formalities of the occasion St. Clair described the temporary government which he was to establish for the infancy of the territory. 63
The Ordinance of 1487 entrusted the Governor with the duty of laying out the territory into counties and townships, and ap- pointing the necessary officials for local administration. The exe- cution of this duty together with the exigencies of Indian Affairs made his office to a considerable extent an itinerant on . A procla- mation of July 22, 1785, formed the region east of the line of the Cuyahoga, the Tuscarawas, and the Scioto Rivers into a county with the name of Washington. The offices well known in the
6 Journals of Congress, IV. 790, 809.
@ The John May Papers, Western Ro Five Historical Society Reports, Vol. 97, pp. 71. 1n1-112 : Ib cords of the O. 10 Con.pany, I, 0); 11, 6, 7, 29. 30-51. @ St. Clair Papers, 11, 53-56
ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
Pennsylvania county system were created, and the appointments m .. de."! The progress of the Miami Company between the Little Miami and the Big Miami Rivers led to the organization of Hamil- ton county in January, 1290. The middle settlement of the com- pany, christened Cincinnati and made the headquarters of the west- ern aniny, became the county seat."" St. Clair proceded from Cin- cinnati on a tour of organization. At Clarksville, a small settle- inent forming on George Roger. Clark's tract, St. Clair tarried to make a beginning of local government, appointing a justice of the peace and the officers of the militia.66 The French settlers farther west had petitioned for relief from their political anarchy. St. Clair undertook to meet their wishes. His party arrived in Kas- kaskia in February, 1790. He found the task before him a cota- plicated one. The settlement of land claims proved to be a ditli- cult problem, and delayed hin many months. In the end Con- gress gave every head of a family in the westem villages, whether Trench or American, who was living in the region in 1183, 100 acres of land. Every man enlisted in the militia in 1ยบ also re- ceived 100 acres of land." The poor, gentle folk of the French villages were not easily converted into an American political com- munity. But the usual procedure was gone through. The region from the Ohio River northward along the Mississippi as far as the junction of the Little Mackinaw Creek with the linois River was joined together into St. Clair County, and the usual appointments from the local population made.66 St. Clair had intended to re- turn by Vincennes, and there to organize a fourth county, but Indian matters demanded his presence among the settlements on the upper Ohio. He accordingly sent Secretary Sargent to Vin- connes to carry out that part of his program. The Wabash settle- ment received the county form of government, and the name of Knox, the Secretary of War. In the period of preliminary of- ganization St. Clair used the executive proclamation freely, and encroached on the powers of the Legislative Council. Against this
64 St. Clair Papeis. 11. 7%-9.
(5 Thrid, II, 129.
0167. II, Jin: caleb Atwater, History of Ohio. p. 130.
ET American State Nagers, Public Lands, II. 124 ; C. W. Alvord, Cahokia Reconils, Hlinpis Historical Collections, 11, exl. 6 St. Clair Paper. 1. 16 ; 11, 12%.
J
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tendency President Washington warned him, and in characteristic stilted phrases advised circumspection in conduct in order to avoid a ground of clamor against publie characters. 69
The three judges appointed by Congress constituted a Supreme Court. Judge Varnum died in 1989, and General Parsons in 1290. President Washington appointed George Turner70 and Rufus Put- man to fill the vacancies.71 The judges seldom sat together in a joint court. In practice each one held court where he was residing, with an occasional session in an outlying settlement. Symines and Putman were the active directors of the two dominant land com- panies of the Northwest. Every land dispute that arose was con- nected with some act of one or the other of them. This meant that a judge of the Supreme Court was frequently sitting in judg- ment over his acts. St. Clair recommended an amendment to the Ordinance to require the presence of two or more judges in each session of the court, and to grant the privilege of appeal to the Federal Courts.32 The immediate result was to widen the breach which had already opened between the judges and the Governor in making laws.
The Ordinance joined the Governor and Judges in a Legis- lative Council whose function was "to adopt and publish * * such laws of the original States * as may be necessary
% which shall be in force unless disapproved by Congress." The process of making laws was irregular and simple in the early period. The Legislative Council adopted Jaws until 1195 by infounal conference or correspondence. In only two cases were there more than two judges joined with the Gover- nor in the passage of a law. There does not appear to have been any regular time or place, or indeed any neting at all for the purpose of making laws. The Governor and the Judges acted as occasion
Washington to St. Clair, January 2. 1791. St. Clair Papers, 11, 198. 10 George Turner, from Virginia was appointed in 1789. Little is known of his life. He removed to the F'ar Welt in 1790, and resigned from the territorial court, in 1797.
11 In 1789 the Congress of the United States re-enacted the Ordinance of 17ST. modified so as to -tre ttx power to appoint officers of the territory to the President with the Senate as required by the Constitution.
- St. Clair Papers, 11. 33 -- 1, 549-10.
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ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
arose. 55 The members of this Legislative Council different from the beginning over the meaning of the classe of the ordinance which defined the law-maling power of them-elves. The clause began with the phrase "the governor and judges, or a majority of them shall," etc. St. Clair contended that the clause meant that the governor's assent was necessary to all laws. The true mean- ing, he said, was that "the governor and judges, or a majority of them, provided the governo: be one of that majority, shall," etc. The judges held to the equality of the four members of the Legis- lative Council. The Governor's view in effect gave him an abso- lute veto, and this at a time when the executive veto wa- relatively uncommon in the older states. This was only one of several con- troversies over the interpretation of the Ordinance of 1787. A clause of the Ordinance had authorized the Legislative Council to "adopt and publish in the di Friet such laws of the original States as may be necessary and best suited to the circumstances which laws shall be in force % unless disan- proved by Congress." The judges assumed that the clause might be liberally construel, and accordingly chose laws of the original States, modifying them to suit the circumstances of the frontier. St. Clair took the view that the law limited their power to the adoption without modification of laws of the States.
The issue ha- generally been made to illustrate the jealous care of St. Clair for the powers of the executive and reflect certain of his unpleasant traits of character. A- a matter of fact his case is a strong one. He did not accuse his opponents of any ulterior motives. He conceded that the judges weto by legal training better qualified to make laws if laws were to be made by the Coun- cil than he was, but he contended that their procedure was a form of loose construction not warranted by the Ordinance, that their function was to select laws made by the democratic legislatures of the States, and that otherwise the liberties of the proph of the 1 St. Clair Papers, II. 171. 16in, 275n, 31In. The Ordinances of 1758. 1790, and 1721, were puihelped in Philadelphia in 1732 wy Francis C Alds and John Swat. as "Inis . salen the Terutory of the United States North- west of the Olmo Biver." Then of 179: were point ged mpter thesame tit's by the s. me podesers in 170%. The nuts of 170% tatt published in 1796 at Cincinnati 1; War Glasset and are commonly W. Wns . Na ... code Those ct Itas wer published et Cincinnati in if's by E .mund Free- man, and ale called the Freeman code.
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Northwest would be endangered. On the one hand the junge. made the law-giving body of the territory a small group of four men, in which group the promoters of the land companies were dominant ; on the other the Governor made the eastern state legis- latures the law-making body, leaving the Legislative Council of the territory to choose from the codes of the East. On St. Chur's side was the argument that the basis of legislation in the ultimate analysis was the representative assembly; on the side of the judges the defense thai laws made for older eastern communities were seldom adapted to frontier conditions. Congress accepted St. Clair's view of the situation. It ruled that his assont was neces- sary to every law. and also withheld its approval from the laws which had departed in phraseology from the acts of the original States. Ilowever as the judges decided that the more withholding of approval from territorial acts did not annul them, and continued to be guided in their courts by the laws which Congress had ro- fused to approve, and as an attempt in Congress to expresly de- clare such lavs null and void failed of passage. the legal situation in the Northwest was for a time confusion confounded. 74
If St. Clair was the nominal victor in the controversy over logi. lative procedure, he lost in the other over judicial procolure. On May 8, 1792, Congress for a second time amended the Ordi- hance of 1787." The Judges of the Supreme Court were author- ized to hold court separately, and the recommendation of St. Clair rejected. The amendment also empowered the Governor and Judges as the Legislative Council to repeal laws as well as enact them. 76
The laws of the period followed the well worn paths of Ameri- can legislation for the frontier. The first act of the law makers reflected the social conditions of the time and place. All men from 16 years to 50 years of age were to be enrolled in militia companies. furnish their own arms and hold a weekly muster each Sunday morning at ten o'clock at a place near the house of worship. St. Clair advised the enrollment of all new-comers as they arrive 1."
" From 1792 to 1725. St. Clair Papers, II, 61, 67, 78n1, 233, 343-4: Burnet, Notes of the Northwest, p. 417.
:5 See note 71.
10 Annals of Congress, III, 1395 ; Laws of the United States. 1707, 11, 126. " St. Clair Papers, 11, 61.
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ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
He had undoubtedly gotten the idea of continuous enrollnent from the measures which the Directors of the Ohio Company took in the brief interim in 1188 before his arrival in the Northwest. They had appointed an officer whose duty it was to keep a census of the settlers. Travellers or immigrants were put under obligation to report to this officer within 24 hours after arrival.78 Nothing so simple and sensible and yet so likely to be irksome to the individ- nalists could survive the air of license of the frontier. Few of the territorial laws have any special historical interest. today. The creation of courts of justice, the definition of crime, the authoriza- tion of court houses, jails, pillories, whipping posts and stocks for the several communities were signs of the westward march of the old civilization.
The development of Civil Government in the Northwest Terri- tory was impeded by the Indian wars. During the closing scenes of the Confederation the Indian conflict was put off by more and more lavish gifts." The territorial authorities awaited anxiously the inauguration of the stronger National Government in 1989. The problem of the Indian of the Northwest was bequeathed to ilie administration of President Washington.80 But the vigorous, com- pact settlements of the Ohio Company and the Miami Company in the Ohio Valley in 1788 and 1789 alarmed the more warlike tribes and consolidated the bokder warriors into a party of action before the new Federal Government was ready to meet the situation.51 St. Clair and Harmar battled with the hopeless task with the small and badly organized forces given them. St. Clair outlined a plan of campaign which called for a force nearly twice the number Harmar had, to be officered by regular army officers, instead of State militia officers, and which should advance in three or four divisions from the Ohio River posts.62 The Secretary of War thought a plan of such magnitude "would not be compatible with the public view or the public finance,"$3 and advised a small puni-
15 The John May Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Reports, Vol. 97. D. 147. St. Clair Papers, II. 40. 47, 50, 90. 101.
cripts. 84 Cuth r. Life. Journal, and Correspondence of Manasseh Cutler, I, 389 ; Harmar to Knox, June 9, 1759, in Goodman Transcripts.
" Harmar to Knox, June 14, 1788, October 13, 17SS, in Goodman Trans- ! 64 St. Clair Papers, II, 90, 91.
$3 St. Clair Papers, II, 193.
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tive expedition. It is apparent that the western leaders had one problem in mind. the Secretary of War another. There were two real problems. The historical question is how much by way of sacrifice the citizens of the new republic would have made for the western territory. The Secretary of War doubted the wisdom of making the call which the western authorities deemed needful. HIarmar's expedition in October, 1290, was the attempt of the terri- torial authorities to carry out the wishes of the Department of War. ITarmar led the western army, re-enforced by a small body of short term militia, from Cincinnati through the almost pathless forests to the headwaters of the Wabash and the Mamnec Rivers. burned the Indian villages and destroyed their standing erops. The immediate objeet of the expedition was accomplished, but at such a cost in the loss of life from counter Indian attacks that it was a moral defeat.8* The risk of a punitive campaign 150 miles into the Indian country was repeated in 1791. The better mili- tary opinion in the Northwest had advised against such an expedi- tion.85 The conditions were altogether against success. St. Clair had been given the chief command. It is doubtful whether St. Clair showed the proper aggressive leadership. Certain it is that. factors beyond his control made defeat inevitable. The militia arrived too late for effective cooperation. A large part of them were entirely without military experience, and therefore worse than useless. The commissariat grossly mismanaged its affairs. The only conclusion of interest to historical students is that the re- sponsibility for the disastrous campaign should properly be dis- tributed among the authorities concerned.
Sueh expeditions as Harmar's in 1990 and St. Clair's in 1291 ouly embolded and infuriated the Indians. For the three years which followed, the frontier settlements were thrown into a state of siege. Settlements receded, and Civil Government was almost para- lyzed. This condition endured until General Wayne had taken over the military command, and slowly and painstakingly con-
84 HJarmar. October 21. 1790, November 4, 1790, in Goodman Transcripts ; American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I. 101-5, 121-2; Burnet. Notes on the Northwest. pp. 120-S.
" The opinions of Harmir and St. Clair already citel: that of General Rufus Putnam, St. Clair Piners, II, 805; of Judge John C. Symime-, lila- t .rical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Quarterly, V. 93.
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quered the ob-tacle his predecessors had not been given either the time or the resources to overcome. The Battle of Fallen Tim- ber ended an era in Northwestern History. Bat Jay's treaty, which withdrew the British from Detroit and placed an American garrison there, was an equally vital factor. The Indians doubly discouraged by defeat and by the apparent desertion of the British entered into the Treaty of Greenville in 1995. By that a great section of the Northwest Territory-more than half of what was to be Ohio --- was finally freed from the Indian barrier to settlement and civil government.
The crisis in the history of the Northwest territory passed in 1795. The last of the several barriers to the development of an orderly colonial or territorial system had been overcome. The original backwood-men were from this time returning as settlers, either on the lands of Congress or of one of the land companies. in competition with adventurers from the seaboard. The Ordi- nance of 1786 by which the Indian trade was limited to licensed American traders was superseded in 1296 by the statute which took over the Indian trade as a government monopoly. The Federal Government for a time maintained trading posts in the North- west, employed managers and clerks at the stores, and purchased goods for the trade. The adventure of the Goverment in a field ordinarily reserved for private enterprise was devised for the pro- toction of the Indians. It was never very popular in Congress or out of Congress, and soon ran its course. $6
The informal processes of government which had marked the history of the Northwest through nearly seven years gave way to more formal ones. Emergency low-making by executive procla- mation ceased. Law-making by Judges of the Supreme Court who were at the same time landlords of the territory likewise ceased. The Legislative Council formally organized as a legislative body at Cincinnati, May 29, 1295, and remained in continuous session until August 25. A general code of laws, selected as the Ordi- maner prescribed from the statutes of the original States, was adopted and published. A period of government by borrowed legis- lation succeeded. The theory was as follows: if the people of the
1 Annals of Contrees, V, 152, 170, 230, 241, 904, 939.
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OFFICIAL CELEBRATIONS
territories were not yet able to make their own laws, the next best thing would he to employ the laws of communities which were democratically organized. The laws of 1795 were abpost all bor- rowed from Pennsylvania. A second session of the Legislative Council sat in 1998, and a second code was drafted." The laws of 1198 were drawn rather evenly from the codes of the Siates. The larger number was adopted from Kentucky. rather naturally for its front'er conditions were more cio ely akin to those of the Northwest territory. The opportunity to adopt laws from Ken- tueky after its admission into the Union made it easier to reconcile the role of the Ordinance with the practical conditions of a fron- tier, the judgment of the judges as to practical legislation with the political instinet of the Governor.">
The further progress in the organization of Civil Government in the Northwest was along the paths prescribed by the Ordinance of 178%. The critical period of the first phase of organization had passed. The records of the Northwest Territory showed in 1998 a population of 5,000 males. St. Clair made the fact known as was his duty under the Ordinance. A representative assembly was duly chosen and assembled at Cincinnati in September, 1290. Delegates from the nine counties which by this time formed the Territory of the Northwest constitutedl the popular element in the Legislature, and five Councillors the second branch." The event inaugurated the second step toward the creation of full republican government. The final step came a- a matter of course as por- tions of the territory reached the mark in population set for state- hood. The overcoming of one barrier after another to Civil Gor- ernment in the Northwest, and the progress from one stage to an- other as outlined in the Ordinance of 1287 were events which put into operation the American Colonial or Territorial System. In
87 Laws of the Territory of the Uried States Northwest of the Obx. Cincinnati. 17 6. St. Chur- Pipers, 1. 312, 3 3. II, 354. Wilhem Maxwell. publisher of this code, was the owner and publisher of the "animal of the Northwest." the first inwsp prof the territory. It begen appe arias at Cin- cinnati ir fiat, Apl contiden for three year .. " I'm- of the Tenrings of the United states Northwest of the Ohio River, Comprati. 17!
435 Fr .. .. in jecia- 1 the Dentist of the reward" from Willen MIX- Well in 11'6, and changed it - same to ""I mir's Journal." He entire to publish his newspaper in eindph it until be removed to Chintcotte where he sold it to the publishers of the Sciuto Gazette. St Clair Papers, 11, 5-1.
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ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
them the United States finally mastered the problem with which the British Government began to grapple in its Proclamation of 1163.90 But the British Proclamation. because it said in effect "thus far shalt thou go," and because its authors accompanied it by a scheme of imperial taxation, and failed to relieve the situa- tion by compensating constructive measures of imperial organiza- tion, led straight to the Revolution. The American colonial policy after a short period of restraint opened the national domain to occupation, assured the colonizers self-government, and their politi- cal organizations equality with the original States in a National Union. Those who formulated! the American System found ways of carrying out the promises in spite of formidable obstacles.
n Cf. C. W. Alvord, The Mi. sissippi Valley in British Politics.
THE RANDOLPH COUNTY CELEBRATION
OBSERVANCE IN MEMORY OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE STATE HELD AT CHESTER AND AT THE PIONEER CEMETERY, OVERLOOKING THE SITE OF HISTORIC KASKASKIA, JULY 4, 1918.
The pilgrimage of Governor Frank O. Lowden, other State officers, and the Illinois Centennial Commission to Kaskaskia on July 4, stands out as one of the striking features of the Centennial celebration. The day was crowded with interest, and all who at- tended felt well repaid for the time spent in this observance in honor of the first capital of the State.
The official party consisting of Governor Lowden, Auditor Andrew Russel, Dr. Otto b. Schmidt and other officials and guests left Springfield in a special Pullman car early on the morning of July 4, and arrived in Chester at noon. Under the direction of the Randolph County Centennial Committee, elaborate arrange- ments had been made for the celebration in Chester. A parade was held during the morning. a mass meeting during the afternoon and "The Masque of Illinois" was given in the evening.
At 1:30 o'clock the official party went to the mass meeting in the high school grounds. At this meeting which was presided over by Judge A. E. Crisler, Hugh S. Magill, Jr., director of the Cen- tennial celebration, read the Declaration of Independence; Wallace Rice, pageant writer of the Centennial Commission, read his origi- nal poem, "The Freeing of Illinois," and Governor Lowden spoke. Fifteen thousand people were present and this enormous crowd, the largest ever seen in Chester, was thrilled by the Governor's patriotic and inspiring address. Mr. William A. Meese delivered an historical address entitled, "Illinois and Randolph County."
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