USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 59
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
" Before I proceed to make an analysis of these laws, which I hold were never legally enacted, were never fit to be made, nor fit to be obeyed by a free people, let me say a few words in regard to the man- ner in which they have been administered and enforced. We have heard of murder after murder in Kansas-murders of men for the singular crime of preferring freedom to slavery; but you have not heard of one single attempt by any court in that Territory to indict any one of those murderers. The bodies of Jones, of Dow, of Bar- ber, and others, murdered in cold blood, are moldering away and join- ing the silent dust ; while one of the murderers this very day holds a territorial office in Kansas, and another of them holds an office of influence and rank under the authority of the General Government ; while neither the Territorial nor the General Government inquire into the crimes they have committed, or the justification for their brothers' blood that stains their hands.
" Now, if you will turn to the concluding portion of this 'code of laws,' you will find oue hundred and forty pages of it, over one-sixth of the whole, devoted to corporations, shingled in profusion over the whole Territory, granting charters for railroads, insurance companies, toll-bridges, ferries, universities, mining companies, plank roads, and, in fact, all kind of charters that are of value to their recipients, and more, indeed, than will be needed there for many years. No less than four or five hundred persons (not counting one hundred territorial road commissioners), have been thus incorporated, and have been made the recipients of the bounty of that legislation of Kansas, making a great portion, if not all of them, interested advocates to snstain the legality of those laws now in dispute before the American people. I need scarcely add that the name of nearly every citizen of Kansas who has been conspicuous in the recent bloody scenes in that Territory on the side of slavery, can be found among the favored grantecs ; and all of them know that, if that Legislature is proved to be illegal and fraudulent, their grants become valueless.
" I do not hesitate to brand that charge of Judge Lecompt, under which Governor Robinson was indicted for treason, and is now under confinement and refused bail, as grossly, palpably unjust, and wholly unauthorized by the Constitution. To concede his argument, that to resist, or ' to form the purpose of resisting,' the territorial laws is treas- on against the United States because Congress authorized a Legisla- ture to pass laws, leads you irresistibly to the additional position, that to resist the orders of the country boards created by that Legislature is also treason, for these boards are but one further remove from the fountain-head of power. And thus, sir, ' the extreme medicine of the
607
SCHUYLER COLFAX.
Constitution would become its daily bread, ' and the man who even objected to the opening of a road through his premises, would be sub- ject to the pains and penalties of treason. No, sir, that charge is only another link in the chain of tyranny, which the pro-slavery rulers of that Territory are cneoiling around its people. And when the defend- ers of these proceedings ask us to trust to the impartiality of courts, I answer them by pointing to this charge, and also to the judicial deerees of the Territory, by authority of which numbers of faithful citizens of the United States have been indicted, imprisoned and harassed, by authority of which the town of Lawrence was sacked and bombarded, by authority of which printing-presses were destroyed, without legal notice to their owners, and costly buildings cannonaded and consumed without giving the slightest opportunity to their proprietors to be heard in opposition to these deerees ; all part and parcel of the plot to drive out the friends of freedom from the Territory, so that slavery might take unresisted possession of its villages and plains.
" It might have been supposed that, one of those rights dear to all American freeman-the trial of an impartial jury-would have been left for the people of Kansas unimpaired. But when the invaders and conquerors of Kansas, in their border-ruffian Legislature, struck down all the rights of freemen, they did not even leave them this, with which they might possibly have had some chance of justice, even against the hostility of Presidents, the tyranny of Governors, and the hatred of judges. No jurors, sir, are drawn by lot in the Territory. But the first section of the act concerning jurors(see page 377) enacts that 'all courts, before whom jurors are required, may order the marshal, sheriff or other officer, to summon a sufficient number of jurors.'
" The whole matter is left to the discretion of these officers; and Marshal Donaldson or 'Sheriff Jones' pack juries with just such men as they prefer, and whom they know will be their willing instruments. For a free-State man to hope for justice from such a jury charged by such a judge as Lecompt, would be to ask that the miracle by which the three Israelites passed through the fiery furnace of their persecu- tors unscathed, should be daily re-enacted in the jurisprudence of Kan- sas. Nay, more, sir, to make assurance doubly sure, the same law in regard to jurors excludes all but pro-slavery men from the jury-box in all cases relating directly or indirectly to slavery.
" The President of the United States has declared, in his special message to Congress, in his proclamation, and in his orders to Gov- ernor Shannon and Col. Sumner, through his Secretary of State and Secretary of War, that this code of territorial laws is to be enforced by the full exercise of his power. IIe has, of course, read them, and
608
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
knows of their provisions, He must know that they trample even on the organic law, which his official signature breathed into life. He must know that they trample on the Constitution of the United States, which he and we have sworn to support. Reading them as he has, he could have chosen rather to support the law of Congress, and the national Constitution ; but he preferred to declare publicly his inten- tion of assisting, with all his power and authority, the enforcement of this code, which repudiates both.
" As I look, sir, to the smiling valleys and fertile plains of Kansas, and witness there the sorrowful scenes of civil war, in which, when forbearance at last ceased to be a virtue, the free-State men of the Territory felt it necessary, deserted as they were by their Government, to defend their lives, their families, their property, and their hearth- stones, the language of one of the noblest statesmen of the age, uttered six years ago at the other end of this Capitol, rises before my mind. I allude to the great statesman of Kentucky, Henry Clay. And while the party which, while he lived, lit the torch of slander at every avenue of his private life, and libeled him before the American people by every epithet that renders man infamous, as a gambler, debauehee, traitor, and enemy of his country, are now engaged in shedding ficti- tious tears over his grave, and appealing to his old supporters to aid by their votes in shielding them from the indignation of an uprisen people, I ask them to read this language of his, which comes to us as from his tomb to-day. With the change of but a single geographieal word in the place of ' Mexico,' how prophetically does it apply to the very scenes and issues of this year! And who can doubt with what party he would stand in the coming campaign, if he were restored to us from the damps of the grave, when they read the following, which fell from his lips in 1850, and with which, thanking the House for its attention, I conclude my remarks.
"' But if, unhappily, we should be involved in war, in civil war, between the two parties of this confederacy, in which the effort upon the one side should be to restrain the introduction of slavery into the new Territories, and upon the other side to force its introduction there, what a spectacle should we present to the astonishment of mankind, in an effort not to propagate rights, but-I must say it, though I trust it will be understood to be said with no design to excite feeling-a war to propagate wrongs in the Territories thus acquired from Mex- ieo! It would be a war in which we should have no sympathies, no good wishes-in which all mankind would be against us; for, from the commencement of the Revolution we have constantly reproached our British ancestors for the introduction of slavery into the country.""
-
609
ANDREW KENNEDY.
ANDREW KENNEDY.
IN the year 1824, there lived at Connersville a good-looking, good- natured, fat-faced journeyman blacksmith, by the name of Andrew Kennedy, just out of his apprenticeship, with a very ordinary Eng- lish education, but possessing a strong, vigorous mind. Ile soon abandoned his anvil forever, and commenced the study of law, obtained license, and located permanently at Muncie. Time passed on, and Mr. Kennedy became a good lawyer, a prominent member of the State Senate, and finally a representative in Congress, where he sustained himself with high credit to himself as an able debater. After serv- ing his term in Congress, Mr. Kennedy, in the bloom of his life, returned home, came to Indianapolis, there took the small-pox, and after lingering a short time, died, and was carried to the cemetery wrapped in the clothes of the bed in which he died, and interred at midnight by the driver of the hearse and the sexton of the cemetery, -no other persons being willing to risk tbe contagion-both of which caught the disease from his body, died the next week, and lie near his remains. Such was the melancholy end of young Kennedy. Ile was a strong Democrat, warmly opposed to the Whig party. I give an extract from one of his speeches in Congress, which will be read with interest by his many friends :
" MR. CHAIRMAN :- The main proposition is, simply, in what shape can we best raise the necessary funds to supply the immediate demands of the Government ? The proposition now before us is, to borrow ; and my objection to it is, that it does not provide the means and mode for the payment of the interest by some permanent fund, which will save the paper from depreciation, or the necessity of its sale below par value. If you will provide and set apart a permanent fund for this purpose, you will have no need of the amendment now pending; which is to authorize the sale of stocks at what they will bring in the market, without reference to the amount of money received for them.
" Mr. Chairman, I have seen too much of the depression of State credit, and the causes that led to it, not to know that as long as you borrow money to pay the interest on money borrowed, the stocks will depreciate, be they State or national. What has ruined the credit of the States but the suicidal course of borrowing money without pro- viding a fund for the payment of interest ? And do gentlemen sup- pose that the national credit will not inevitably take the same road, while we pursue the same course? No, sir, although I dislike, as I most cordially do, the measures of the Whig party, yet, as men, I
39
610
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
like them too well to attempt to make them responsible for more than their just deserts. And Heaven knows that is enough ; for the load of responsibility which they have, by their desperation, justly brought upon their shoulders, is sufficient to make a giant stagger. What, then, was the remote cause of our present difficulties, as connected with this single question of the ways and means? I answer, first, the high protective tariff of 1828, by which the Treasury was filled to overflowing,-and that too, at the expense of the sweat of the poor man's brow ; drawn from him by a species of indirect taxation, the operation of which he could not see until he was overwhelmed in poverty and ruin. This inordinate revenue begot a spirit of extrava- gance in the Government, which, in turn, spread itself into every branch of business throughout the entire country, until, by this means, every thing had a factitious and unsubstantial value. This was au evil in itself, but it went on begetting others, until, in 1832, this artificial and factitious system began to press upon some sections of the country so hard that the muttering thunder of distress and discontent made itself heard and listened to even in the halls of our national legislature.
" Let us look for a few moments at the fruits of this victory. The extra session came-a session that will be remembered for the evil it wrought as long as one stone of this Capitol is found upon another. What did this session produce, called, as it was avowed, for the pur- poses of finance ? Here you then were, gentlemen, with a clear, tri- . umphant, and undisputed majority in both branches of the Legisla- ture ; called to relieve the financial embarrassments of the country. What did you effect? One would have supposed that the first and all-absorbing object would have been-a permanent and thorough revision of the tariff, such as would in future have placed the Govern- ment out of the reach of these despicable expedients of borrowing ! borrowing ! from month to month, and from year to year. One would have supposed that to supply the Treasury would have been the first object. Was this done ? No. Strange to tell, the first act of a Con- gress called to fill an exhausted treasury, was to rob it of its last shilling ! And, at that time, such was the horror of the Whig party at even the thought of disturbing the Compromise Act, that they would not even pass this, their favorite measure of distribution, without pro- viding in the act itself, that if duties were raised on any one article above the amount contained in the Compromise Act, from thence for- ward the distribution should cease. Of this course of the majority, and their acts, I complain, and bitterly too-not because of any effect they will have upon me, other than as a citizen of this Union ; but
611
THOMAS SMITH.
because, by this aet, you have humbled my pride as a citizen of one of the States. You have made me witness what I had fondly hoped my destiny had not doomed me to-to see the States of this eonfed- eraey meekly and tamcly leaning, with a few honorable exceptions, upon the General Government for support ! Sir, it is too humiliating to dwell upon. But the gentleman on my left (Mr. Howard, of Mieh- igan), says the States needed the money. Need the money ! Well, did not the General Government need the money too? and that from your own showing ! And pray, what good have you done the States ? Is it not perfectly notorious that from the day of the passage of the distribution bill, your State stoeks commeneed and continued a rapid decline in value until many of them are now seareely worth the paper upon which they are printed ? Nor need any man be surprised, for rest assured, there is but one step from a loss of self-respeet, to base dishonor. And what man would trust the son who, instead of being engaged in honest industry to procure the means of paying his debts, was found fumbling in his father's breeches pocket, to rob him of his last ' levy ;' and that, too, when the old man had scarcely money enough to buy himself a plug of tobacco! Away with these despiea- ble shifts to sustain credit, State or national. No man with capital, who does not need a guardian, will ever trust you, while these are the principles you avow and practice."
THOMAS SMITH.
IN the winter of the year 1818, one evening I went to a little school-house in Rising Sun, to a debating society. I met there a number of the young men of the place, among them the subject of this sketch, a young tanner in his apprenticeship ; his face smooth, eye and hair dark, forehead high, face narrow, countenance smiling and pleasant, below the commou hight, spare person. I heard him that night, and then said, " That young man will yet be known in the State." Time rolled on, Thomas Smith married a daughter of Judge John Watts, settled in Versailles, Ripley county. Was soon after a member of the Senate of the State, among the most able of the hody. Soon after he was elected to Congress, and again re-elected, and served his constituents with decided ability in that body of distin- guished men. His manner, as a debater, was plain, straightforward, emphatie, impressive. He was heard with attention, wherever he spoke. Ile was a strong Democrat, and a prominent leader of that party, until the Missouri Compromise line was effaced by the Nebraska and Kansas bill, when he took sides with the Republicans, and pre-
612
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
sided over their convention, at Indianapolis. He maintained the integrity of the Compromise Acts, and placed himself firmly upon the principles of the non-extension of slavery, over territory that was ever free. Thomas Smith is still living in fine health, in Ripley county.
DANIEL MACE.
I TAKE pleasure in numbering among my early friends of Indiana, Daniel Mace, of the Wabash. Mr. Mace was for many years one of the prominent men from that region of country in our State Legisla- ture, perhaps no member of his age held a higher position. He stood many years among the first of the Democratic party in Congress. As a speaker, he was plain, effective, practical, sometimes eloquent. He holds that slavery is sectional, confined to the States, whose constitu- tions tolerated it, and to the Territories wherein it subsisted, prior to the treaty of peace with Mexico, south of the parallel of 36° 40', known as the Missouri Compromise line, and that freedom is national.
He thereforefore strongly resisted the repcal of the Missouri Com- promise Act, by the Kansas and Nebraska bill, in Congress ; and on his return from Congress, he took open ground on the Republican side of the Senatorial contest between James Buchanan and John C. Fremont. Mr. Mace is about the common size of men, broad face, high forehead, dark hair and eyes, well made. Hc is still in the sum- mer of life, practicing his profession at Lafayette.
JOHN W. DAVIS.
THE House of Representatives of the State had met for the first time in the new capitol, the Speaker had been elected, announced that the first business was the election of chief Clerk, and directed the members to prepare their ballots. I noticed a large, fine-looking man near me, pencil in hand, ready to keep tally, as the ballots were counted by the tellers. The vote was soon received, and the counting commenced; the gentleman turned to the wall, and as the name of John W. Davis was announced, he placed a long pencil-mark on the wall. The count closed, and the tally stood, John W. Davis, 11; somebody else had received the rest of the one hundred votes cast. I saw his disappointment marked visibly in his face ; he stood alone. I stepped up to him, with a smiling countenance, " You are yet to be a great man." "What do you mean ?" " I mean that you got eleven votes for Clerk, precisely the number that I got at Corydon, for the same office." Mr. Davis laughed, and we soon became acquainted.
613
WILLIAM S. ARCHER, ETC.
My prediction was afterward verified to the letter ; he soon made his appearance in our State Legislature, was elected Speaker of the House over Harbin II. Moore ; was soon after returned to Congress from his district, re-elected, chosen Speaker by the vote of his party, and was acknowledged to be one of the very best presiding officers of that body, since the Speakership of Henry Clay. He has served his coun- try as Commissioner to China, and as Governor of Oregon ; since he voluntarily left the councils of the nation. Last session he was a a member of our State Legislature. Few men in this, or any other State, have held so many prominent positions, or discharged their duties with greater ability. In person, Mr. Davis is large and com- manding, complexion light, features prominent, forehead capacious, mouth wide, teeth projecting, hair and eyes light. The last time I saw him he looked like living many years.
WILLIAM S. ARCHER.
THE subject of this sketch, William S. Archer, now no more, was justly ranked among Virginia's talented sons. I became intimately acquainted with him during the twentieth Congress in the House of Representatives, where he formed a star of no small magnitude in the brilliant galaxy of Virginian statesmen in that body. Mr. Archer was the colleague of William C. Rives, and stood with that distinguished statesman, in the first ranks of intellect in the Senate. In person, Mr. Archer was tall and spare, full six feet high, head large, brain full and capacious, hair black, eyes dark, brows heavy, chest narrow, voice shrill and weak, delivery slow, distinct, cool, deliberate; emphatic, a finished scholar. He was, in every sense of the word, a courteous gentleman, and was always heard by the Senate with interest. Ile never spoke to or for the galleries, or for out- siders.
JOHN BELL.
AMONG the eminent men of the United States stands the subject of this sketch. It was my good fortune to meet him in the twentieth Congress with James K. Polk as his colleague. To say that John Bell ranked high among the distinguished men who composed that Congress, would be doing no more than justice to him. To say that he stood among the very first men in the body, would only satisfy my judgment. In person, he was tall and commanding, full six feet,
614
EARLY INDIANA TRIALS.
well made, straight as an arrow, large head, erect, high forehead, dark hair and eyes, full chest, wide mouth, prominent features. As a speaker, Mr. Bell may be classed with the first,-clear, strong, rapid, impassioned. ITis eloquence was neither of the eold Eastern, nor declamatory Southern character, but rather of the style of the West. Mr. Bell was one of the Cabinet that threw up his commission when Mr. Tyler left the Whig party. Ile has since distinguished himself as one of the Senators from Tennessee. The last time I saw him, his head was white, his countenance careworn, and his step faltering. He will soon follow his illustrious colleague.
KENNETH RAYNER.
ONE of the most prominent men of the South, for many years in Congress, was the subject of this sketch, Kenneth Rayner, of North Carolina. His mind was of a high order ; as a debater, he had few equals. He was strong, forcible, pointed ; always rising with the occasion, and equal to the occasion. I had the pleasure of a familiar personal acquaintance with him. He was a social gentleman in pri- vate circles. In person, Mr. Rayner was about the common hight, strong, thick-set, dark hair and eyes, large round head, full chest, common features. Like Senators Mangum and Graham, he was a firm Whig, the devoted friend of Henry Clay, and warmly attached to his policy. Upon the desertion of Mr. Tyler of the Whig party, Mr. Rayner was unanimously placed on the committee of five from the Whigs of the House, as the only member from the South, to act with the committee of three of the Senate, upon the resolutions of Mr. Mangum of his State, in relation to Mr. Tyler. The committee on the part of the Whigs of the Senate, was composed of Mr. Berrien, of Georgia ; Mr. Tallmadge, of New York ; and myself. On the part of the Whigs of the House, Mr. Everett, of Vermont ; Mr. Mason, of Ohio; Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland; Mr. John C. Clark, of New York; and Mr. Rayner, of North Carolina. The resolutions under which the committee acted, were as follows :
" 1. That it is expedient for the Whigs of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, to publish an address to the peo- ple of the United States, containing a succinct exposition of the prom- inent proceedings of the extra session of Congress, of the measures that have been adopted and those in which they have failed, and the causes of such failures, together with such other matters as may exhibit truly the condition of the Whig party and Whig prospects.
" 2. That a committee of three on the part of the Senate, and five
615
ROBERT C. WINTHROP, ETC.
on the part of the House, be appointed to prepare such address, and submit it to a meeting of the Whigs on Monday morning next, the 13th inst., at half past 8 o'clock." The committee unanimously reported a manifesto, dissolving all connection with John Tyler, and repudiating every responsibility on the part of the Whigs, for his administration. The report was concurred in, by the entire members of the Whig party, at the subsequent meeting, as I have stated in another sketch. The manifesto was attacked in the House with great bitterness by Mr. Wise, Mr. Cushing and Mr. Proffit, the special friends of Mr. Tyler.
ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
THE late Speaker of the House of Representatives, Robert C. Win- throp, deservedly stood among the very first men in the House, and of his age, in the nation. A close personal acquaintance with him, during an entire session of Congress when we boarded together, placed him in my mind, upon high grounds; not only as a pleasant, social gentlemen ; but as a man of a very high order of talents. His persou was tall, his manners graceful and easy, his elocution finent, his style vigorous and impressive. His eloquence was of the Everett, rather than of the Webster character, though he seemed to have studied both these great models of oratory. Mr. Winthrop maintained a high standing in his native Massachusetts for many years before he entered Congress, which he not only sustained in that body, but added greatly to his fame, when brought into competition with other distinguished men. He was what is called, an old-line Whig of the school of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster. He was a devoted friend to both these dis- tingnished statesmen, and upheld by his voice and vote, their highest pretensions.
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.