USA > Indiana > Biographical and historical sketches of early Indiana > Part 25
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" ' Did you hear Owen speak?' asked one.
"'' Yes,' said the other, . I hearn him.'
.. . Now, ain't he a hoss?' was the next question.
... Well, yes ; they're both blooded nags : they make a very pretty race.'"
Seldom, indeed, were better blooded animals than Proffit and Owen entered for congressional sweepstakes.
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In 1840 Mr. Owen was placed on the Democratic ticket as an ·elector for his district. He made a general canvass of the State, 'and established a first-class reputation as a public speaker. His standing as a writer was already established.
In 1841 Mr. Owen was again a candidate for Congress, and this time was elected, defeating John W. Payne 602 votes. During the canvass he published an address to the electors of the district, in which he said :
" Many conscientious and excellent men were misled by the outcry raised against me in 1839. I appeal from their votes then to their second sober thought now. I claim for myself, as the good and noble Roger Williams did of yore, that right of private judgment and free speech, which is our country's proud- est boast, that every American citizen, be he citizen by birth or citizen by selection and preference, may demand at the hands of his fellow-citizens. To the greatest it has not been refused ; to the humblest it may not justly be denied. Jefferson claimed it when he asked your fathers' votes for the office of Chief Mag- istrate of the republic. I am equally entitled to its sacred shield, though I stand before you but one among the undistinguished hundreds who now aspire to a seat in the councils of the nation."
In Congress Mr. Owen became prominent at once. His speeches on the Oregon question, on the annexation of Texas, and upon the tariff, were among the ablest delivered upon these subjects. That upon the tariff was adopted by the Democratic congressional committee as their tract upon this subject. It was this speech that first attracted the author's attention to Mr. Owen. I was then a boy, and lived on the peninsula between Chesapeake and Delaware bays, where political tracts did not often come. But I got hold of this speech of Owen, and well I remember the impression it made upon me. John Weathered, who then represented the Third Maryland district in Congress, was a manufacturer of cotton and woolen goods. In a speech upon the tariff he attacked Mr. Owen and twitted him for hav- ing been born in a foreign land. He declared that if Mr. Owen should go back to his native land he would be commanded to appear before the British Queen to receive an order of Knight- hood for his services in her behalf in the American Congress.
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I have not Mr. Owen's speech in my possession, nor have I seen it for nearly forty years, but I well remember much that he said. He commenced by saying that on looking around the hall he saw but two pictures, those of Washington and Lafay- ette. Continuing, he said: "While the gentleman from Maryland was speaking, the picture of Lafayette seemed im- bued with life, and I expected to see its quivering lips cry out : · Take me hence! This is no place for one born in a foreign land.'" He closed his speech in almost these very words : " Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland is an American by chance; I am one by choice. I had no control over the - place of my birth ; could I have chosen the spot, it would have been in the Pocket of Indiana." Twice I asked Mr. Owen for a copy of this speech, and twice he promised me I should have. it. As I never received it, I presume he had no copy at his: command.
In 1845 Mr. Owen was re-elected to Congress, his majority over Wilson, his competitor, being 1,015. In this Congress he introduced a bill creating the Smithsonian Institute, and for many years afterwards he was one of its regents.
Mr. Owen's congressional career terminated in March, 1847, and from that time until 1850, he remained at home, devoting most of his time to study and literary work. In August, 1850, he was elected a delegate from Posey county to a convention called to make a new constitution for Indiana. At the organi- zation of the convention in October following he appeared and took his seat as a member. He was made chairman of the committee " on the rights and privileges of the inhabitants of the State ; " also, on the " committee on revision, arrangement and phraseology "-a most wise selection, for he was, by odds, the best writer of English in the convention.
Early in the session Mr. Owen proposed a section " prohibit- ing negroes and mulattoes from coming into the State; and prohibiting any negro or mulatto from purchasing or otherwise acquiring real estate hereafter." He was naturally the friend of the downtrodden and helpless, but he lived in Southern In- diana, which was then as thoroughly pro-slavery in sentiment as the State of Kentucky. In a speech made in favor of this section he said :
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" They can never obtain political rights here. They can never obtain social rights here. And for these reasons I think we ought not to have them amongst us. We ought not to have in our midst a race, daily increasing, who must, of necessity, remain disfranchised ; a class of people to be taxed without being represented, on whom burdens are imposed, and who have no voice in deciding what these burdens shall be."
Mr. Owen lived to see the negro have political rights in In- diana, and he did much to secure them to him. When making this speech he did not see with the eye of a seer.
A few days after the convention was organized, Mr. Owen offered the following resolution :
" Resolved, That the committee on rights and privileges of the inhabitants of the State inquire into the expediency of in- corporating in the bill of rights the following section : Women hereafter married in this State shall have the right to acquire and possess property to their sole use and disposal ; and laws shall be passed securing to them, under equitable conditions. all property, real and personal, whether owned by them before marriage or acquired afterward by purchase, gift, devise or descent ; and also providing for the registration of the wife's separate property."
The proposition was fiercely antagonized by nearly every lawyer in the convention. They declared that such a law would overturn organized society and break up the family relation. Mr. Owen combatted these assertions with power and earnest- .ness. In one of his speeches he said :
" It will be thirteen years next winter since I (then a member of the Legislature and of its committee to revise the laws) re- ported, from a seat just over the way, a change in the then ex- isting law of descent. At that time the widow of an intestate dying without children was entitled, under ordinary circum- stances, to dower in her husband's real estate and one-third of his personal property. The change proposed was to give her one-third of the real estate of her husband absolutely, and two- .thirds of his personal property, far too little, indeed ; but yet as
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great an innovation as Mr. Marshall, of Jefferson, and myself (we were the sub-committee to whom the law had been referred ) thought it probable we could carry."
It will thus be seen that Mr. Owen's public life commenced with an effort to confer upon married women the right to own and control their separate property, and it may be said that his legislative life ended with it. In the last Legislature in which he sat this was the subject that engrossed his mind, and this the object for which he worked. Throughout the published proceedings of the convention of 1850 are scattered many gems of oratory by Mr. Owen in advocacy of his favorite measure. On one occasion he eloquently said :
" I appeal to the successful settler, who has raised his cabin first in the wild woods, has gradually opened a flourishing farm, and at last has seen flow in upon him comfort and plenty. whether he, alone and unaided, built up his fortune and made comfortable his home? I ask him whether there was not one who saved while he accumulated ; whether, when his arm was busy without, her hand was idle within? I ask him whether his heart does not revolt at the idea that when he is carried to his long home his widow shall see snatched from her, by an in- human law, the very property her watchful care had mainly contributed to increase and keep together?"
In the convention Mr. Owen advocated the section in the constitution prohibiting the State from contracting debt, except for the purposes therein specified. He also favored a provision securing a homestead for all heads of families. His efforts were generally directed to protect the weak against the strong. Dur- ing the debate on the question of securing to married women the right to own and control property, Mr. Owen's views upon moral and religious questions were savagely attacked by Mr. Badger, a delegate from the county of Putnam. In his reply. Mr. Owen quoted Leigh Hunt's poem of "Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel." Abou Ben says :
"I pray thee, then, Write me as one who loves his fellow-men."
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" When there is a question in regard to my religious opin- ions," said Mr. Owen, "be my reply this : that I adopt and in- dorse the sentiment of Leigh Hunt's beautiful parable."
The convention refused, by a close vote, to engraft into the constitution Mr. Owen's section to secure property rights to women. Defeated but not vanquished, he afterward sought an election to the Legislature that he might secure by legislative enactment what he failed to do by constitutional provision. He was successful, and the women of Indiana are more indebted to him than to any other man-living or dead-for some of the most valuable of their legal rights. There were a few women in those days who appreciated Mr. Owen's labors in behalf of their sex, and among them was Sarah T. Bolton, a lady of great worth and talents, who still lives to grace her sex and honor the State. Knowing she was active in sustaining Mr. Owen in his contest for the rights of women, I addressed her a note asking for her recollection of the events connected with the presenta- tion of a silver pitcher to him by the women of Indiana. A few days afterward I received the following reply :
" LAUREL, September 16, 1882.
" William Wesley Woollen, Esq .:
" DEAR FRIEND-Your favor of the IIth inst. is before me. Mr. Owen's efforts in the constitutional convention to which you allude were to get recognition in the organic law of women's rights of personal property ; their rights of real estate were already secured. This measure excited a great deal of unprof- itable discussion. It hung on for weeks-months, I think-was laid on the table, taken up and discussed pro and con, and laid on the table again. Men did not scruple to stand up and say : ' If women had the rights proposed by this measure under con- sideration, they would go out into the market to buy and sell, instead of darning the stockings, sewing on the buttons, cook- ing dinner and washing the children's faces. In short, the pro- posed law would throw a firebrand into a thousand happy homes.'
"In the meantime I was writing articles setting forth the grievances resulting from women's status, as under the common
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law, and the necessity of reform, and scattering these articles through the newspapers over the State to make public opinion.
"At length the measure passed, but was reconsidered and voted down. Then we rallied the few women who were in favor of it, and went to the convention in a body to electioneer with the members. The measure was brought up and passed again, reconsidered the next day and again voted down. This, to the best of my recollection, was repeated five or six times be- fore it was finally lost.
"Then I wrote a circular setting forth Mr. Owen's efforts, and asking the women of the State to contribute one dollar each for the purpose of presenting to Mr. Owen a testimonial to show our appreciation of his endeavor on our behalf. Can- vassing the city of Indianapolis to get lady signers to this cir- cular, we got, I think, but four names-Mrs. Drake's and mine making six, and we obtained five more in different parts of the State. The women of Indiana, in answer to this circular, sent over one hundred dollars for the testimonial. With this money we procured one of the most elegant antique silver pitchers I have ever seen in any land, and had it engraved with a suita- ble inscription.
" Having obtained leave to use the hall of the House of Rep- resentatives on the occasion of the presentation, we decorated it with green garlands and fragrant flowers till it seemed a bower of beauty, and on the evening of the 28th of May, 1851, it was crowded and crammed with the elite of the city to see what had never occurred in Indianapolis before. Professor Larrabee, who had accepted our invitation to make the pre- sentation, acquitted himself admirably in a beautiful and grace- ful address. Mr. Owen's reply on receiving the pitcher was a grand, logical, exhaustive argument in favor of woman's rights.
" I am not a . woman's rights woman,' in the common accept- ation of the phrase. I have taken no part in the present cru- sade, but am proud of my action in that long-ago battle for the property rights of my sisters.
"' Mr. Owen, as you doubtless know, returned to the Legis- lature for the sole purpose of securing by statute the law he had tried to have incorporated in the new constitution, where it
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would not be subject to the action of every demagogue who chanced to have a little, brief legislative authority.
" Although the people of our State paid but little attention to the matter at that time it was taken up by the English news- papers. Mr. Owen's action in the convention, the spirit and bearing of the law equalizing the property rights of men and women, the testimonial in recognition of Mr. Owen's efforts, were all set forth and discussed in the London Times and the Evening Star, with the gracious comment: 'From this, we should judge that Indiana has attained the highest civilization of any State in the Union.'
" I have written this hastily, having no data with me, here among the hills.
Very respectfully, " SARAH T. BOLTON."
An Indianapolis paper of the 30th of May, 1851, gives the following account of the presentation of the pitcher to Mr. Owen :
" THE OWEN TESTIMONIAL.
" This interesting ceremony came off in the Representatives' Hall on Wednesday evening. The hall was thronged with la- dies, they occupying the bar exclusively long before 8 o'clock, the hour at which the presentation was to take place. The gen- tlemen were then admitted, filling up, almost to suffocation, the lobbies and galleries. Never before was there so large a crowd in that hall, and upwards of five hundred left, unable to get in.
" Hon. T. L. Smith was called upon to preside, and on taking the chair delivered a short and appropriate address. After mu- sic by Downie's Sax-horn Band, the silver pitcher was handed to Professor W. C. Larrabee, on behalf of the ladies, by Mrs. C. J. Allison. It is the finest specimen of silver plate we have ever seen, weighing forty-four ounces, and carved in the most beautiful manner.
" On presenting the testimonial, Professor Larrabee thus ad- dressed Mr. Owen :
"""' The women of Indiana, sir, deeply impressed with the evident injustice of the laws now in force regarding the prop- erty of married women and of widows, and ardently desiring that those laws may be so changed as to afford protection to the
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unfortunate of their sex, have delegated me to tender you their heartfelt gratitude for your efforts in their behalf in the late con- stitutional convention, and as a slight token of their high appre- ciation of the nobleness of soul, the integrity of character and the singleness of purpose that impelled you to advocate, un- selfishly and perseveringly, those invaluable and necessary rights, which custom, prejudice and inconsiderate legislation have hitherto withheld from them in regard to their power to possess property, and to be protected by the law of their country from the vicissitudes of life and the casualties of misfortune, they have commissioned me to present to you this piece of plate, on which I find the following inscription :
"' Presented to the Hon. Robert Dale Owen by the women of Indiana, in acknowledgment of his true and noble advocacy of their independent rights to property, in the constitutional convention of the State of Indiana, convened at Indianapolis, 1850.'"
Mr. Owen's speech on this occasion was unusually eloquent. even for him. He closed it as follows :
" In after days it may need some such memorial as the rich and graceful gift that now stands before me to remind a more enlightened generation that time was when the law took from wives their property, and from parents the right to convey what they would to a child. That exertions of mine may have con- tributed, in manner how humble soever, to remedy injustice thus flagrant, will be to me a pleasant thought in that hour, the last of earth's pilgrimage, when all things, good or evil, put on their true garb, and when the deeds of a past life standing forth. as before God's throne, they might, unmasked, unveiled, receive judgment from a heart soon to be stirred no more forever by the fears or the promptings of censure or of praise."
Robert Dale Owen did much for Indiana, but nothing of more importance than in equalizing the property rights of men and women. For this the women of the State owe him a monu- ment, and they should cause his remains to be brought to the Capital, and erect over them a shaft to commemorate his labors in their behalf. Will no one commence the work?
In an article like this it is impossible to narrate all that is
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worth remembering of a man so prominent as was Mr. Owen. At best, I can but skim the subject ; albeit, I will try to get the cream.
On the 24th of May, 1853, President Pierce appointed Mr. Owen Chargé d'Affaires to Naples, and on the 29th of the next June he was commissioned Minister Resident to the same country. He remained at Naples in the diplomatic service until Septem- ber 20, 1858, when he took leave and returned home. He re- mained in private life, engaged most of the time in literary work, until the breaking out of our civil war, when he was ap- pointed by Governor Morton an agent to purchase arms for the State. He performed this service with great intelligence and honesty. Subsequently, a committee of the Indiana legislature investigated his dealings in this matter, and found them all cor- rect. For this work he received no compensation and asked for none, being content with the satisfaction he enjoyed for doing that which he believed to be his duty.
Mr. Owen's facile pen was busy during the war writing tracts and newspaper articles in defense of the war and of President Lincoln and his administration. His writings did much to unify the people and to cause them to stand by the government in its war with the Confederacy.
Early in the war Mr. Owen advocated the emancipation of the slaves by presidential proclamation. On the 17th of.Sep- tember, 1862, he addressed a letter to the President upon this subject, and, in acknowledging its receipt, Mr. Lincoln thus spoke of its effect upon him: "Its perusal stirred me like a trumpet call." Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, wrote thus to Mr. Owen : " It will be a satisfaction to you to know that your letter to the President had more influence on him than any other document which reached him on the sub- ject ; I think I might say than all others put together. I speak of that which I know from personal conference with him." Mr. Owen considered this letter to President Lincoln the most use- ful service he ever rendered his country.
Mr. Lincoln had great confidence in Mr. Owen, and highly prized his services. He appointed him to revise the contracts for military supplies which were outstanding when Simon Cam- eron left the War Office.
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Mr. Owen served as chairman of the commission known as the " Freedman's Inquiry Commission," an organization created after the slaves were freed.
When the war was over and reconstruction had taken place, Mr. Owen went back to his study and his books. He wrote much in favor of spiritualism, which doctrine he had embraced many years before, when he was minister to the court of Naples. He also wrote his autobiography, a most charming book, which he called " Threading My Way." At this time he seems to have been greatly engrossed in the study of spiritualism, and his writings upon it are very voluminous. He gave a pretended spiritualistic medium-one Katie King-his fullest indorsement, going so far as to write a magazine article in her praise, but investigation proved her a fraud, and her manifestations shams. This cut Mr. Owen to the quick, for he was an honest man, hating frauds and shams with a healthy hatred. About this time his mind gave way, and it was believed that this sad afflic- tion came upon him on account of grief caused by his connec- tion with the Katie King swindle. But this was a mistake. His mental troubles were caused by disease and overwork. His son, Ernest Dale Owen, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, of New York, dated July 13, 1875, says :
" You may remember that my father, for some time, has been residing at Dansville, New York. While there he was very ill with a nervous fever, the most severe sickness he has suffered for years. When he was recovering from his attack, and while he was still so weak that he was unable even to sit up, he in- sisted, against the advice of physicians and friends, on com- mencing a book, which he had for some time had in contempla- tion, by dictating for others to write. As soon as he was at all able to sit up, he employed much of his time at this labor. The book-a treatise on theology-dealing as it did in some of the most abstruse propositions, required the intensest mental appli- cation. This, under the circumstances, proved more than the brain could bear, and so its powers broke down. This is the real cause of his malady."
His daughter, Rosamond Dale Owen, in a letter to the New York Post, thus speaks of the cause of her father's illness :
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" The cause of the calamity which has befallen us is simply an overworked brain. My father believed his strong Scotch constitution could, even in his old age, endure all things ; but richly endowed though he was with physical and mental vigor. he could not break God's laws of health with impunity, and we. his children, can not, with our love and care, shield him from the effects of his error."
Mr. Owen was received into the Indiana Hospital for the In- sane July 10, 1875, and left it restored to health October 14, of the same year. A few days before he left the institution he ad- dressed Dr. Everts, then its superintendent, a letter, from which I make the following extract :
" If a man wishes to be well spoken of by those who had hitherto slighted or reproved him, he had better either die or suffer a temporary civic death by confinement in a lunatic asy- lum. De mortuis nil nisi bonum-we speak with tender favor of the dead. This has been amply illustrated by the many newspaper notices of myself which have fallen under my ob- servation since an inmate of this institution. I trust that on en- tering the world again I shall give no cause for retraction of these good opinions of the press, so kindly volunteered while temporarily secluded."
Soon after leaving the Insane Hospital Mr. Owen took up his residence at a cottage on the banks of Lake George, and resumed his literary work. He was engaged to write a series of articles for Scribner's Monthly on his recollections of matters in the West, but soon after finishing the first one, he sickened and died. The end came on the morning of the 24th of June, 1877, at his cottage home. His funeral services were conducted by a Mr. Huntington, a Presbyterian minister, in the presence of the family and neighbors of the dead philanthropist. After the services were over a procession was formed, which marched around the lake shore to the cemetery near the village of Cald- well. Here the remains of Mr. Owen were deposited in the earth. One who was present at the burial thus describes the scene :
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" It was a scene for an artist. As the casket was being low- ered into the grave we looked up to take in a glimpse of the surroundings. In the company were persons representing va- rious conditions of life. Here was a believer, there an infidel, yonder several Christian neighbors, and beyond these a group of Indians, watching with wonder every movement. . The beau- tiful lake stretched out before us in full view ; upon its bosom was the new steamer, coming rapidly toward us ; the sun gilded the tops of the distant mountains, and its light reflected from a thousand wavelets. From the grave you can see his former home ; from his home you can behold some of the most pleasing aspects of nature ; from nature as she is here revealed you may, if pure in heart, see God !"
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