A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume II, Part 81

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Indiana > A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume II > Part 81

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In support of this amendment he said : " It is admit- ted that this is a donation." And again : "The money in the Treasury of the United States, which we are asked by this bill to donate to this institution, comes from three or four different sources. It comes from the tariff duties, which the negro helps pay as well as the white; from internal revenue from whisky and tobacco, which he pays, as well as others do, if he uses these articles ; from the proceeds of the sales of public lands,

rIth Dist.]

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF INDIANA.

which belong to him in common with other citizens ; from whatever source the money is derived, it is the money alike of the whole people." On the 5th of March, 1872, he succeeded in having passed an amend- ment to the bill appropriating money to Indians, pro- hibiting any agent or attorney from receiving any part of said money for any services or pretended services to them, and making such receipt a misdemeanor, punish- able by a fine of not less than an amount double the sum so received. On the 6th of March, 1872, he offered an amendment, which was adopted, to the bill granting privileges for depot grounds to the Central Pacific Rail- road on the island of Yerba Buena, in the bay of San Francisco, California, securing to any and all other roads that might desire depot grounds on said island the same privileges granted to the Central Pacific Railroad Com- pany, the intention being to prevent an exclusive mo- nopoly by the latter company of this island. He steadily opposed granting public lands to railroad companies and selling lands to speculators, and he as uniformly fa- vored the grant of public lands to actual settlers only, and without cost to them. The General's services as chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs were so highly appreciated by the House and the committee that, when he was kept from the chairmanship by reason of his seat in the Forty-third Congress being contested until after the committee was appointed, the committee asked, and the House unanimously granted, the request, authorizing the Speaker to add him to the committee, thus increasing its membership to thirteen. This was a high testimonial to the value of his services, especially as coming with unanimity from his political friends and opponents. February 1, 1873, General Shanks reported from the Committee on Indian Affairs a bill that had been introduced by him in the House, and which was passed, to secure a more efficient administration of the Indian office, requiring full records to be kept of all documents and transactions of agents and other em- ployés connected with Indian matters, the same to be duly and promptly reported to the Indian Bureau. Feb- ruary 4, 1873, he reported a bill, which became a law, protecting Indians and Indian tribes from exorbitant contracts made with them by attorneys and others, re- quiring a certificate from the Secretary of the Interior, and also from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ap- proving the contract as not exorbitant, indorsed on the contract in writing, thus perfected, filed in the Interior department. January 23, 1873, he procured in the House the adoption of a provision in the act for the admission of Colorado as a state, securing to the Ute and other Indian tribes, whose reservations were situated in the said ter- ritory, the full possession of their lands, as provided in their treaty stipulations. The cause of the difficulty with the Modoc Indians, a small tribe residing in Southern Oregon, by which General Canby and more

than one hundred officers and men lost their lives, de- manded an explanation, and on the 3d of February, 1873, he introduced the following resolution of inquiry :

" Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, instructed to inform the House, at his ear- liest convenience, of the cause of the difficulty with the Modoc Indians.

Before a reply to this resolution was received a move was made in the House to appoint a commission of three army officers to ascertain the losses sustained by citizens of Southern Oregon and Northern California by reason of Indian depredations in 1872 and 1873. General Shanks opposed this proposal, as it was improper to let the officers of the army that had been so severely pun- ished by the Indians pass upon the question of damages committed by the latter. He charged that the settlers had murdered five Modoc prisoners of war before Gen- eral Canby was killed by them. He said :

"Mr. Chairman, we have heard of wrongs being done to white settlers, which I deplore as much as any other man can; but I wish to call the attention of the House and the country to a provocation as terrible as ever struck the heart of mortal man. Some years ago- I believe in 1847, though I am not certain as to the exact date-this Captain Jack, who has become a char- acter of national notoriety, if not of national fame, had a father, who, though he may have been an Indian, was as near perhaps to Jack as the father of the gentleman from Oregon is to him, or mine to me. A man, Wright, and some other citizens, had some difficulty with the Indians. The provocation was charged to be murders committed by Indians prior to that time, which mur- ders, however, the Indians charged upon whites. Be that as it may, I now come to the statement I desire to make. This man Wright-Ben Wright, I believe he is called-had charge of some troops, then perhaps impro- vised for the occasion. Wright invited Jack's father, who was then chief of the Modocs, to come to the camp of the former, which invitation was accepted ; and with him came forty of the leading men of his tribe. Wright, after thus inviting Jack's father, the chief of the tribe, and the other Indians, under a flag of truce to his camp, laid a plan to poison the men thus invited. He poisoned the beef which he invited them to his table to eat, poisoned it with strychnine, that he might kill the very men whom he had invited under a flag of truce to his camp. But a rumor reached the ears of the Indians that it would not be safe to eat Wright's beef, and in consequence they did not partake of it. And what did Wright then do? These gentlemen, whom the member from Oregon [Mr. Nesmith] eulogizes so much, what did they do? Why, sir, under that flag of truce, they shot down the chief of the tribe and forty of its mem- bers. Jack himself, then a mere child, saw the murder of his father and the sacrifice of his people under the flag of truce. Recognizing the atrocity of the crime that was committed on his father and his tribe, from that day he was no longer the friend of the white man. Mr. Meacham, who was present at the murder of Gen- eral Canby, and was himself wounded, told me that from the very spot of this murder Chief Jack could plainly view the very place at which his father and forty of his tribe were shot under a flag of truce."

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF INDIANA.

[11th Dist.

The enacting clause of the proposed bill was struck out, and it did not pass. He opposed the several at- tempts made to organize the Indian territory lying south of Kansas into a territorial government. He desired it made the asylum of the remnants of Indian tribes, when driven out of their old homes by the advancing settle- ments and shrewder management of a heartless Christian civilization, which has manifested more avarice than humanity. He holds that under the treaties with these people they should be protected from encroachments on their lands, which the five civilized tribes there hold by patent deed from the government ; and he believes, both from observation and information, that the object of this movement is to seize and wrest from them their grounds by the force of overpowering numbers, thus un- justly depriving them of lands which they have pur- chased of the government and paid for, and for which they hold deeds over the seal of the nation. On the 20th of January, 1874, General Shanks introduced a bill to organize a United States court in the Indian Territory, in conformity with the provision of the treaty of 1866, to take the jurisdiction in that territory now held by a similar court at Little Rock, Arkansas. On the same day he introduced a bill, the second one, to provide for a survey for a ship canal from the southern part of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, at or near the mouth of the Ohio, at Cairo, Illinois. . On the 16th of February, 1874, he introduced a bill to divide the state of Indiana into two United States judicial districts, the court for the second district to be held at Fort Wayne. He be- lieved that the Indians were citizens of the United States ; that they could not be aliens, being born in the United States; nor could they be a foreign power when existing as tribes within our national limits; that trea- ties made with them as foreign powers were a solemn mockery as treaties, but that as contracts they were binding in good faith, though they should have been made in pursuance of a law of Congress, and not by the Executive, to be only confirmed by the Senate, but binding on the government, because it got value re- ceived for the treaty stipulations. We are strong; they are weak; and we owe it to ourselves to abide by our agreements with them. And they are, beyond ques- tion, citizens of the United States, by the terms of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitu- tion. Speaking in the House, in 1874, in support of a bill in relation to contracts made with the Indians, he said: "In drawing this bill, I drew it in such a way as distinctly to avoid the question of the validity of con- tracts. I drew it only in reference to the character of these contracts, to prevent them being either exorbitant or fraudulent ; and I did so because I believed that the Indians of this country, under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the Constitution, are citizens of the United States." And so believing them, on the 24th

of February, 1874, he introduced a bill in the House, granting homesteads to Indians as well as to other cit- izens; and on the same day he introduced a resolution instructing the Committee on Indian Affairs to investi- gate and report to the Ilouse the status of the Indians within the limits of the United States and territories as to citizenship under the Constitution. On the 23d of March, 1874, he introduced a bill in the House, con- ferring exclusive jurisdiction on the United States Courts over Indian reservations. April 6, 1874, he introduced a bill making Indians competent witnesses before the United States Courts, and repealing all conflicting laws on that subject. On the 18th of June, 1874, he intro- duced a bill providing for the appointment of a com- mission to investigate the status of the negroes and their descendants who had been slaves to the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and of free negroes and their descendants who had resided with these nations of Indians in the Indian Territory, with the view to secure to them equi table interests in the lands and moneys of these Indians. He, having been duly appointed by the President, as provided in the bill, thoroughly investigated the subject in person and reported the facts, and recommended that the government provide by law such recognition of the rights of these colored people as justice demanded. Having severely condemned the practice in the Indian Department of paying white claimants out of Indian tribal funds, on ex parte showing for damages done, if done at all, by individual Indians, and having succeeded in securing the repeal of the law of 1802, under which this practice had grown up, and which had impover- ished many Indian tribes and wasted their energies, throwing them on the charities of the government and subjecting them to the ill-will of the people, on the 13th of June, 1874, he introduced the following resolution :

" Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, instructed to report to the House early at its next session a detailed statement of the amounts of money paid out of the various funds belonging to In- dians, on claims for depredations committed by Indians, with the names of the claimants, the amounts of the claims and the amounts allowed and paid, and the dates of payment."

The resolution was not answered. He is strongly opposed to polygamy, and in his travels through the territory of Utah, in visiting the Indian tribes therein, he had noticed the coarse vulgarity of the men and the sadness and despondency of the women. He saw among these people but few cheerful female faces. The cheer- ful women exhibited the levity of carelessness, while the better class of women wore the saddest counte- nances, and the men highest in the Church were most sensual and disgusting in appearance. On the 11th of December, 1873, he presented to the House a petition of three hundred citizens of Alta, Utah Territory, set- ting forth their grievances, and asking relief from the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF INDIANA.

11th Dist.]

despotism and wrongs of Mormon theocracy. On the 6th of May, 1874, General Shanks addressed the House in favor of making the Centennial Exhibition a national and not a local affair. He claimed for it a nationality, and that the expense of it should be defrayed by the nation ; that the invitation extended by the President to other nations and peoples implied a welcome to the world in the name of our national sovereignty; and in opposition to the original plan of making it only the act of the state of Pennsylvania and of its leading city, in which the Declaration of Independence was first an- nounced. To provide a substitute for the practice of filing private claims, for money or property, against the government before Congress, where they can not be safely considered, but where great injustice may be done either to the claimants or the government, on the 22d of February, 1875, he introduced the following reso- lution :

" Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary is hereby instructed to report to the House a bill providing for local jurisdiction in the United States Courts of all claims against the government held by any citizen thereof, and prohibiting the filing or consideration of such claims before Congress."

His experience was that bills of this class are gener- ally passed in the hurry and confusion of business at the close of a session, when due consideration can not be given them. When the bill to secure civil rights to all persons, under the Constitution and its amendments, was under consideration in the House, it was persist- ently opposed by the Democratic members of the House of Representatives. General Shanks offered as a pre- amble to the bill the very words of the fundamental principles announced in the first plank of the Demo- cratic platform of 1872 :

" Whereas, We recognize as essential to all just gov- ernment the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of the government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, re- ligious or political ; and it being the appropriate object of all legislation to enact laws in strict conformity with great fundamental principles; therefore," etc.

His amendment, and the Civil Rights bill itself, gave rise to an angry and dilatory debate, lasting several days, and leading ultimately to a continuous session of four days, causing what was known as the dead-lock. The General made twenty - five unsuccessful efforts to secure the adoption of his preamble ; but he finally ob- tained a vote on it, and it was carried by a vote of two hundred and eighteen to twenty-six. He claimed that the preamble was obviously germain to the bill; and as it embodied eminently just principles, adopted by the Democracy itself in national convention assembled, the General, with characteristic determination, insisted upon ils adoption ; his motto being, "Do right, and let the consequences take care of themselves." On the 10th

of February, 1868, he opposed the revival of lapsed railroad land grants; and in support of giving the benefit of such lands in the Southern states to the colored people, recently set free, he said :

" Mr. Speaker, in the brief time allowed me I wish to call the attention of the House to the fact that there never has been a time before at which four millions of poor people have been turned out on society. There never before has been a time when four millions of people, men, women, and children, by a single act, have become outcasts on the country. Prior to this time these people were unable to own lands, because the ac- cursed doctrine of slave-holders is that all property of the slave, as well as the slave himself, belongs to the master. They have only been for the short space of two years allowed to buy and own lands at all. Here, then, are four millions of people seeking homes, and asking them at the hands of the government, and it is of the utmost importance that we keep open the avenues by which we may enable them to procure lands for them- selves. Every human being should have a home. It is a cold, bleak, desolate thing to say, 'I have no home.' Every nation is weakened when its citizens have no home."

He introduced a measure to provide for planting and cultivating trees in national cemeteries. He opposed the transfer of lands by the agency of a treaty with In- dians, or from the Indians to individuals or corpora- tions, believing that the treaty-making power could not dispose of title to lands-that power vesting under the Constitution solely in Congress-and holding that in the extinguishment of Indian title, by treaty or other con- tract, the lands fall directly to the United States, and come under the exclusive control of Congress. Among the various matters that came before Congress for its action during his ten years' service in that body, General Shanks gave his earnest support to the laws authorizing the issue of treasury notes, commonly called "green- backs," and to make and maintain them as legal tender. He advocated bills authorizing the issue of bonds, on which to raise money to carry on the war to suppress the Rebellion ; all measures for raising volunteers for the army, whites, colored, and Indian. Ile voted for and supported laws providing for drafting men into the service needed; to raise the pay of soldiers ; advocated laws passed for paying pensions to wounded and dis- eased soldiers. He actively supported in Congress, in his political canvassing, and when on duty in the army, the proclamation of President Lincoln abolishing slavery, January 1, 1863 ; the law of April 16, 1862, abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia ; the various laws granting bounty and extra pay to soldiers ; the laws enacted for the collection of income and other taxes to carry on the war, and then the reduction of taxes after peace was declared ; to investigate every and any depart- ment of the government, when there was reasonable ground for believing that either neglect or fraud at- tached to any officer or employé in government service.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF INDIANA.

[LIth Dist.

He zealously advocated measures having for their ob- ject the adoption, by Congress and by the people, of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Constitutional amendments ; the act to enforce the right of all citizens to vote in pursuance of said amendments, May 27, 1870. He favored measures designed to recruit our armies by colored soldiers ; he opposed all rebel cotton claims; he opposed pardoning rebels, at least until they should in writing ask for remission of sins; he advocated the con- fiscation of the property of armed rebels, or of those actively favoring rebellion, to the public use ; the repeal of the fugitive slave law ; all measures adopted by Con- gress for the reconstruction of the states in rebellion, after its close ; favored the freeing of the slaves of rebels, as a measure of confiscation. And at all times and on all occasions, as a member of Congress, as a private individual, and as a soldier on duty, he favored the maintenance of the Union of the states, at every haz- ard, at every sacrifice, and to the utmost limit of its resources in men and means; believing that a severance of the nation by a force organized in armed rebellion to perpetuate human slavery was an utter and uncondi- tional overthrow of republican government, not only in America, but elsewhere, and would go far in effect to place a monarch on a throne in all governments on earth. He favored and voted for the bill passed March 3, 1873, to adjust fees and salaries of the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Departments of the government, which act, by the repeal of the laws allowing stationery, mile- age, the franking privilege, and other perquisites to members and Senators, was a large saving to the gov- ernment, as more explicitly shown by the following ex- tract from the report of the Judiciary Committee of the House (made February 7, 1873, under resolution of the House, passed January 27, 1873), directing this committee "to investigate and examine into the pay and emolu- ments of the several officers of the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative Departments of the United States gov- ernment," etc., etc .:

Increase of President's salary, . $25,000 00 Increase of Cabinet Ministers' salary, 14,000 00

Increase of salary of Judges of United States Supreme Court, .

18,500 00

Increase of salaries of Senators, members, and delegates,

972,000 00

Total increase, . $1, 029, 500 00 Saving to the government, according to the official statement of the Postmaster- general, per annum, by the abolition of the franking privilege, . . $2,543,327 72

Saving to the government by the aboli- tion of mileage, stationery, postage, and newspaper account (estimated), . 200,000 00

$2,743,327 72

Total increase,

1,029,500 00

Total net saving .

$1,713,827 72

There was a considerable saving, not included in the above estimate, in the matter of large boxes to each member, Senator, and delegate, with flowers, roots, etc., all of which were excluded in the readjustment of salaries made by the law in question. He favored all measures for improving the falls of the Ohio, and thus facilitating the commerce of that stream ; the appoint- ment of a commission to examine and report all facts connected with the proposal to secure San Domingo as a desirable point for furnishing coal and other supplies for our commercial marine, and for hospital and sim- ilar purposes for the accommodation of our seamen ; the law to increase the number of the Judges of the Su- preme Court of the United States, in order to protect the nation from what he believed to be the danger of a political decision of that tribunal against the validity of the " greenback " or treasury notes during the war. He supported the act of July 14, 1870, to refund one billion of dollars of the national bonded debt at a lower rate of interest, the new bonds not to be disposed of at less than par; the act to compel railroad companies having land grants to keep their lands in market at not above a maximum price of two dollars and fifty cents per acre, and to provide for the reversion of the lands to the government in default of the conditions of the grant being complied with; favored the repeal of inter- nal revenue taxes, except on spirits and tobacco, they being luxuries and not necessities; supported the act giv- ing the net proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several states, as a permanent common-school fund ; an act to appoint a commission to fully examine and consider the question of railroads as a channel of commerce between the states, with a view to the adjustment of all matters connected with the subject; advocated the act for the admission of women to practice law in the United States Courts. He opposed the so-called civil service reform, in so far as related to the appointment of a permanent committee to pass upon the qualification of applicants for office, believing, as he did, that the heads of depart- ments could make better selection of employés for their several services, and one on all accounts preferable in advancing the interests of the government ; and for the further reason that really meritorious and well qualified applicants would not have to wait for places, while per- sons of inferior ability might secure position under the proposed arrangement. General Shanks was elected, October, 1878, for two years to the House of Repre- sentatives of the State of Indiana, and was made a member of the Judiciary Committee, a position he held in the same body twenty-five years ago, and in which he has taken a leading and active part on all important measures, and, as always, bringing to the discharge of his duties his accustomed industry, zeal, and energy. The General's career from boyhood has been one of con- tinued action, and few persons have lived a life of more

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF INDIANA.

11th Dist.]

incessant labor or have had a more varied experience, or have been crowned with more generous success. In 1848 he took an active part in the establishment of a high school of education for instruction of youth irre- spective of race or sex. In its behalf he gave an ear- nest and efficient support, in means and in counsel, both as an individual and as an officer. The institution is known as Liber College and is situated a few miles south of the county seat of Jay County, Indiana. It has been a success, and reflects honor on the enterprise of the public-spirited citizens who aided in its location. About the year 1851 he spent nearly all his means in an unsuccessful attempt to have constructed a railroad through his county, but at a later date he was enabled, by his greater experience and more general personal acquaintance, to contribute materially in aid of securing the location and building of two railroads, now in suc- cessful operation, through the place of his residence. He is an active member of the Masonic Order, to which he is closely attached, and before which, at different times, he has delivered able and well received addresses. Both as chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, and under appointment of the Interior Depart- ment, he has spent much of his time among the Indian tribes of the United States, from New Mexico and Texas to British Columbia, both civilized and wild. Of the former, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles, are the best types; while of the latter, the Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, Cheyennes, Arrapa- hoes, Sioux, Bannocks, Osages, Shoshones, Modocs, Crows, Utes, Piutes, Cayuse, Nez-Perces, Spokones, Kickapoes, Okinekones, Cœur de Lion, Lakes, and Me- thows are the best representatives, and include all the more savage and dangerous tribes within the United States. He entered upon his duties in this behalf with a singleness of purpose to learn by personal inspection the actual condition, the rights and the wrongs, of this much-abused race. It is more than doubtful whether there is in the United States any person more practically acquainted than General Shanks with the Indian service in all its details; better versed in its abuses, and more intimately conversant with the civilized devices for many years employed for swindling, and practicing wrong and inhumanity upon, these uncivilized wards of an intelligent and Christian nation, by bad officials and persons. By his personal presence on the ground and the certain knowledge thereby acquired, while armed with adequate powers, he has been able to ferret out, expose, and redress acts of refined cruelty and injustice perpetrated by trusted agents of the government, under the protection of rings of organized villainy, and by individuals-acts that would have reflected dishonor even in a barbarous age. His many successful efforts in securing to the red men their homes, moneys, and supplies, and in protecting them from the false repre-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume II, Part 81

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1006

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1006