USA > Indiana > Indiana, a redemption from slavery > Part 27
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
Although the committee would not concede that a moral wrong like slavery could be justified by any theory of expediency, they maintained that policy alone should prevent the admission of slaves to the Territory. It was desirable to obtain population, but the non-slaveholding states were far more thickly populated than those where slavery was tolerated, and consequently the greatest emi- gration must be expected from them, unless it were pre- vented by the admission of slavery. It was desirable that the population should be enterprising and indus- trious, but it had been demonstrated that "the hand of freedom can best lay the foundation to raise the fabric
372
INDIANA.
of public prosperity." The experience of the country was before them. " The old states north of Maryland, without one single precious commodity, exporting nothing but bulky articles, present everywhere the spectacle of industry and animation. The style of their agriculture is superior ; their mills, bridges, roads, canals, their manufactories, are in point of number without a parallel in the Southern States, and they, besides other parts of the world, export to those states manufactured com- modities to a large amount annually." The State of Ohio was an instance directly in point both as to the number and the character of the settlers. "Our eyes witness growing into importance, where but a little while before Indian hordes and savage beasts roamed without control, farms, villages, towns, multiplying with a rapid- ity unprecedented in the history of new settlements; the same cause will produce the same effects. . . . The in- dustrious will flock where industry is honorable and honored."
As to the pernicious effects of slavery on the manners and morals of the whites, the committee carried Mr. Jefferson's argument 1 to its full development, in a series of pictures of those horrors of slavery which, when con- stantly seen, must necessarily blunt the moral percep- tions and crush the finer instincts of humanity ; but carried beyond their purpose by the force of the argu- ment they ask : " At the very moment that the progress of reason and general benevolence is consigning slavery to its merited destination ; that England, sordid Eng- land, is blushing at the practice ; that all good men of the Southern States repeat in one common response 'I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just ; '
1 Notes on Virginia, Query 18.
373
THE HARMONY OF DISCORD.
must the Territory of Indiana take a retrograde step into barbarism and assimilate itself with Algiers and Morocco ?" As to the political effects on the people, the committee argued that the power and influence of the wealthy slaveholder would increase until he domi- nated his humble neighbor who held no slaves, and thereby the true principles of republican government must give place to the relation which we know was pro- duced between the planters and the " poor white trash " of the South. "The lord of three or four hundred negroes will not easily forgive ; and the mechanic and laboring man will seldom venture a vote contrary to the will of such an influential being."
Passing from local considerations, the committee urged that the permission of slavery by Congress would be an act of injustice to the Northern States which neither reason nor policy could justify. "The negro-holders can emigrate with their slaves into the extensive Missis- sippi Territory, the Territory of Orleans, and the more extensive Louisiana. By opening to them the Territory of Indiana, a kind of monopoly of the United States land is granted to them, and the Middle and Eastern States as well as enemies of slavery from the South are effectually precluded from forming settlements in any of the territories of the United States. . . The national legislature cannot with justice make such an unequal distribution (if they may be allowed the expression) of the lands with the disposal of which they are entrusted for the benefit of all, but especially of those states whose overflowing population renders emigration necessary." Rising still higher, the committee recognized the national necessity of keeping free soil and free institutions at least on an equal footing of strength with slavery. It
374
INDIANA.
was not altogether a new thought. The controversy on the details of abolition of the slave-trade had already gone far towards developing the North and South ani- mosities; and John Randolph had predicted in the final debate on that subject that if ever the Union were dis- rupted, it would break on the line between freedom and slavery. Slavery extends, say our committee, " from the line of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River to the Floridas, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. By the purchase of Louisiana, where it was found existing, it may spread to our indefinite extent North and West, so that it may be said to have received a most alarming extension, and is calculated to excite the most serious fears. By admitting it to Indiana, that is to say open- ing to it the vast tract of country lying between the State of Ohio, the river of that name, the Lakes, and the Mississippi, the comparative importance of the Middle and Eastern States, the real strength of the Union, is greatly reduced, and the dangers threatening the inter- nal tranquillity of the United States proportionably in- creased."
For the reasons which they had thus placed before the House, the committee said they were "of opinion that slavery cannot and ought not to be admitted into this Territory ; that it is inexpedient to petition Congress for a modification of that part of the Ordinance relative to slavery ; and that the act of the legislature of Indiana for the introduction of negroes and mulattoes into the said Territory ought to be repealed, for which purpose they have herewith reported a bill." They also pro- posed that a copy of their report, together with a copy of one of the petitions upon which it was founded, be for- warded to the Speaker of the national House of Repre-
375
THE HARMONY OF DISCORD.
sentatives, with a request that he lay it before Con- gress.1
The report carried that little legislative body beyond the power of debate or objection. It was at once re- solved, without division, that the House concur in the report. The bill which the committee had reported for the repeal of the indenture law was then taken up, hurried through three readings, passed, signed, and sent to the Council, all before the House adjourned for the morning. This is a most extraordinary record ; for this bill would have abolished the indenture system both in Illinois and in Indiana, and yet it passed without dissent a house which on all previous declarations of opinion had stood five to one for slavery. Moreover, it is cer- tain that the political life of a majority of the members would have ended if this bill had become a law. Three of them were from Illinois, with pro-slavery constituents ; two were from Knox, with pro-slavery constituents, and one of these was himself a slaveholder. And yet it was not surprising that the report should have had a great temporary effect. Coming from a man who, as they all knew, had theretofore advocated the introduction of slavery ; deftly introducing the well-known quotation from Mr. Jefferson, who was then the autocrat of public opinion as well as of political movements ; and placing before the hearers in clear, strong terms those argu- ments, and those only, which could not be answered or evaded ; it swept away every foundation of the pro- slavery party except the selfish motive of personal inter- est. On that unsightly but firm base the pro-slavery men reconstructed their shattered fabric as soon as they regained their senses. Five days later the same bill
1 Western Sun, December 17, 1808.
376
INDIANA.
was defeated in the council without division. Jones, Bond, and Fisher, the only members present, although they had disagreed on every proposition of a political nature thus far presented to them, had too much regard for their political future in Illinois to repeal the inden- ture law; and so it was saved as a rich legacy to our sister state by these three men.1 The Representatives also regained their political discretion in a few days, and passed an additional law for the police of slaves, by which any one who permitted slaves or servants of color to assemble on his premises, " for the purpose of dancing or revelling," was finable in twenty dollars, while the revelers were made subject to thirty-nine stripes on the bare back.2
After the 19th of October there was nothing to hinder the combination on Thomas, for delegate to Congress, by the eastern counties and the Illinois country. He had declared openly for division, and had given the strongest private assurances that he would labor for division in Congress. It was openly charged at the time that he had said to the Illinois representatives that " if they would not take his word he would give his bond," and that John Rice Jones had actually required him to give a written guaranty to secure the division.ยช It is not strange that Jones, himself a candidate for the office, should have put him to this test, and it is recorded as a fact by Illinois historians that a bond was required and given.4 On the 26th the legislature proceeded to the election of the congressional representative. Thomas received six votes, Michael Jones three, and Shadrach
1 Western Sun, December 17, 1808; February 4, 1809.
2 Laws of 1808, p. 21. 3 Western Sun, November 5, 1808.
4 Ford's Illinois, p. 30; Davidson and Stuve's Illinois, p. 242.
377
THE HARMONY OF DISCORD.
Bond one. The vote for Bond, who was not a candi- date, was probably cast by Johnston, as aside from it there was a strict party vote.1 Thomas at once re- signed as Speaker of the House, and was succeeded by Johnston, who served till the 26th, when the Assembly was prorogued.
The Harrison party felt their first defeat very deeply, and threw the greater part of the blame upon Thomas, who, it was claimed, had made most solemn pledges prior to his election that he would not in any way sup- port a division of the Territory.2 So exasperated were they that they held an indignation meeting at Vincennes and burned him in effigy. At Kaskaskia appeared a more serious outgrowth of the bitter political feeling - the murder of Rice Jones by Dr. Dunlap. It was asserted by the anti-Harrison faction that this was due to the machinations of the opposers of division,8 but it was evidently a personal matter. In the late campaign Jones had spoken slightingly of Shadrach Bond, for which Bond challenged him. They met, but before fir- ing a reconciliation was effected by William Morrison, who was acting as second to Jones. After Jones had gone to Vincennes, Dr. Dunlap, who was Bond's second, made public reflections on his courage, and a bitter newspaper controversy ensued. On December 7, Dun- lap shot and killed Jones on the street at Kaskaskia. His friends pretended that lie acted in self-defense, but he fled from justice, and witnesses declared it a cold- blooded murder.4
1 Western Sun, October 29, December 24, 1808.
2 Ibid., May 13, 1809.
8 Edwards's Illinois, p. 29.
4 Western Sun, August 27, September 10, 1808, April 29, 1809; Executive Journal, December 12, 1808.
378
INDIANA.
We must now turn again to Congress, whither John Rice Jones, as President of the Council, had forwarded the report of Johnston, the resolution of the House adopt- ing the same, and one of the anti-slavery petitions on which it was based. He also forwarded certain resolu- tions which had been adopted by the Council on the last day of the session, asking that the councilors and the delegate to Congress be made elective by the people, and that the term of office of the former be reduced to four years. These were presented to the House on November 18.1 On December 2, a petition from the grand jury of St. Clair County for the division of the Territory was presented ; and on the 13th all of these were referred to a committee composed of Thomas of Indiana, Kenan of North Carolina, Bassett of Virginia, Taggart of Massachusetts, and Smilie of Pennsylvania. On the 15th were received statistics and depositions as to the number of inhabitants of the Illinois country, and on the 16th a petition from Knox County against divi- sion. These were referred to the same committee. The pro-slavery people, divided in factions, stunned by the action of the legislature, and certain that, if the consent of Congress to the introduction of slavery could not be obtained by Parke it would not be obtained by Thomas, sent in no petition.
Thomas had little opposition to contend against, and he remained true to his latest pledges. On December 31 he reported for the committee in favor of the divi- sion of the Territory. He dwelt on the inconveniences arising to the people, and the enervation produced in the government, by the scattered locations of the settle- ments. He said that a large majority of the people of 1 Annals 2d Sess. 10th Cong., p. 501.
379
THE HARMONY OF DISCORD.
the Territory favored division, and that the only objec- tion urged against it was the increased expense which would result to the national government from the es- tablishment of a separate government. As to this he claimed that the increased value of public lands on ac- count of the establishment would far exceed its cost. From the evidence before them, the committee estimated the number of inhabitants of the Illinois country at 11,000, and those east of the Wabash at 17,000. From comparison with the census of 1810 it is apparent that both of these estimates were very nearly correct.1 An act for the division of the Territory was passed through both houses without difficulty, and approved on Febru- ary 3, 1809.
Thomas also secured the passage of an act in con- formity with the resolutions of the Council, making the councilors and the delegate to Congress elective by the people, and reducing the terms of the former to four years. The qualifications for electors for these offices were made the same as those of electors for territorial representatives. This act also put the power of apportion- ment of representatives in the hands of the Assembly, with a proviso that until there should be six thousand free, white, male adults in the Territory the maximum number of representatives should be twelve and the minimum nine.2 For himself Thomas secured an ap- pointment as one of the judges of the territorial court of Illinois, and after the close of the session of Congress he removed to the new territory, where he afterwards became prominent in politics, and was one of the first
1 Annals 2d Sess. 10th Cong., p. 971 ; Am. State Papers : Misc., vol. i. p. 945.
2 Act of February 27, 1809; Annals 2d Sess. 10th Cong., p. 1821.
380
INDIANA.
senators from the state. John Rice Jones also left us at this time. He went first to Illinois, and thence, in 1810, to Missouri, where he took his usual active part in poli- tics. He was a member of the constitutional convention of that state in 1819, and was elected by the first state legislature one of the judges of the state supreme court, which position he held with credit to himself dur- ing the remainder of his life.
The division act reduced Indiana Territory to the present dimensions of the State, with the exception that our boundaries were carried ten miles to the north by the enabling act of April 19, 1816, and with the further exception that it seems to have been the intention of Congress in 1809 to have the north and south line be- tween Indiana and Illinois extend from Lake Michigan to Vincennes, instead of stopping at the Wabash as after- wards provided. We gained territory by both changes. It should be borne in mind, however, that the practical extent of the Territory was less than one third of the State, the remainder being still in possession of the In- dians. Two large additional extinctions of Indian title were made on September 30, 1809, by the treaty of Fort Wayne, with the Miamis, Eel Rivers, Delawares, and Pottawattamies, which was negotiated by General Harri- son. The greater tract adjoined the Vincennes cession, and was bounded on the north by a line drawn from the mouth of Big Raccoon Creek, on the Wabash, to a point on the East Fork of White River about ten miles above Brownstown. This was commonly called " the ten o'clock line," because the direction was explained to the Indians as towards the point where the sun was at ten o'clock. The common tale about this indefinite description being given for the purpose of cheating the
381
THE HARMONY OF DISCORD.
Indians is fictitious. The treaty provided that the line should be so run that the tract would be thirty miles wide at its narrowest point, and this formed the basis for its survey. The other tract was twelve miles in width, lying west of and parallel to the Greenville treaty line. It was commonly known as "the twelve mile pur- chase." By a treaty of December 9, with the Kicka- poos, the Indian title to the strip of Indiana west of the Wabash and below the Vermillion was extinguished. The territory opened by these purchases was about 3,000,000 acres. There was no further purchase of lands within our boundaries from the Indians until after the organization of the state.
These purchases of 1809 were the ones which brought on the troubles with Tecumthe. His position was that no tribe of the Northwestern Confederacy could sell any land without the consent of all the tribes.) With him the question was as with us would be the query, Can a state sell any portion of its territory to a foreign power without the consent of the United States ? In abstract justice the question could be answered only by an ex- amination of the compact between the tribes ; but for practical purposes it was only necessary for the national executive to decide on what theory we should proceed. When Tecumthe was informed by General Harrison that the President must decide the question, and that he probably would not adopt his view, he replied : " As the great chief is to determine the matter, I hope the Great Spirit will put sense enough into his head to induce him to direct you to give up this land. It is true he is so far off he will not be injured by the war. He may sit still in his town, and drink his wine, while you and I will have to fight it out." The President, however, ad- hered to the theory that the title was in the separate
382
INDIANA.
tribes, and that their relinquishments could not be re- voked by all or any part of the confederacy. For the Indians was left submission or war, and that the latter resulted was a natural consequence.
At the time of the division agriculture was the chief vocation of the people of Indiana, but manufacturing was quite well developed in its rudimentary forms. In 1810, when the population had increased about forty per cent., and the business of the Territory proportionately, Indiana had 33 grist-mills, 14 saw-mills, 3 horse-mills, 18 tanneries, 28 distilleries, 3 powder-mills, 1,256 looms, and 1,356 spinning-wheels. The value of the manufac- tures for that year was about $200,000, more than three fourths of which was in home-made fabrics of wool, cot- ton, hemp, and flax, produced by the busy fingers of the pioneer women. New Orleans was the only market for goods exported from the Ohio Valley, the shipments down the river being made in barges and flatboats. Steamboats were as yet unknown on the western waters. A boat was built on the Upper Ohio in the winter of 1804-5, by Captain Mckeever, and sent down the river to obtain her machinery, but she did not return.1 The first steamboat on the Ohio was built at Pittsburgh in 1811, by Nicholas J. Roosevelt, who ran her to New Orleans in October of that year, making the trip in fourteen days.2 During the next five years two or three small boats were in use on the Ohio, but steam naviga- tion did not become of practical importance until after 1817. No steamboat ascended the Wabash until the summer of 1823.8
In a political way the separation from Illinois had an
1 Liberty Hall, June 25, 1805.
2 Preble's Hist. Steam Nav., pp. 66-71.
3 Western Sun, May 10, 1823.
383
THE HARMONY OF DISCORD.
effect far more important than the mere reduction of territorial extent. It took out of our politics altogether the anti-Harrison faction of the pro-slavery party ; and also greatly weakened the Harrison faction, which had been very strong in Randolph - in fact had controlled that county until the last special election. This left the anti-slavery party on a footing of numerical equality with the opposition, if not in the majority ; and at the same time the suffrage act made the governmental condi- tion of the Territory far more favorable to a successful contest by that party than ever before. From a form of government in which the governor was everything and the people nothing, the Territory had in eight years ad- vanced to a form of government more nearly republican than anything contemplated by the Ordinance for the territorial period. Suffrage had been liberally extended ; the power of apportionment for legislators had been given to the General Assembly ; and the danger of con- trol of the legislature by the executive had been reduced to its lowest possibilities by making the council and the delegate to Congress elective by the people. The gov- ernor still held an absolute veto, the right of prorogation, and the appointment of officers ; but the use of these was closely watched, and the appearance of arbitrary action was at once resented. The only veto ventured by Gov- ernor Harrison that was considered objectionable was that of a bill for the removal of the capital from Knox County, in 1811, and this was complained of at the next session of Congress as an act of tyranny.1 On the whole it may be said that from 1808 the Territory of Indiana was governed by the people ; and to judge of the wisdom of their action we must proceed with the narrative of events.
1 Annals 12th Congress, p. 846.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ARISTOCRATS AND THE PEOPLE.
THE division of the Territory necessarily changed the features of political strife in both sections, though the heat of party feeling, the animosities and attachments of partisan organizations, remained for a time. In Illinois. the opposing factions were almost ready to fly at each other's throats, and it was not due to any lack of hatred and prejudice that they failed to carry their old quarrels into the new government. The anti-Harrison faction had secured division, but they had failed to reap the fruits that they had expected, for Ninian Edwards of Kentucky was appointed governor, and he was an en- tirely new factor in their local politics. Attempts were made to involve him in the factional fight, but he firmly declined to have any connection with it, and remonstrated with both parties on their unpatriotic partisanship. He afterwards said : " I determined to risk the whole com- bined opposition of both parties rather than yield myself up to the control or enlist under the banners of either." 1 Under his influence the old controversies soon fell out of sight, and party lines were drawn on new questions. One of the marked results of the new alignment was the election of Shadrach Bond as the first representative in Congress when Illinois passed to the second grade, in 1812, although he had clung to the Knox County party 1 Edwards's Illinois, pp. 29-33.
385
THE ARISTOCRATS AND THE PEOPLE.
to the last, without regard to the wishes of the great majority of the people of Illinois.
The fact of division, however, was not immediately known ; and east of the Wabash, at least, was not antici- pated, for political affairs went on there for two months after the approval of the division act just as if no divi- sion had been made. By the election law of 1807, an election for representatives to the General Assembly was to occur on the first Monday in April, 1809,1 in accord- ance with which candidates appeared and made their campaigns during the months of February and March, and the election was actually held on April 3.2 Al- thougli this election was of no effect whatever, we have occasion to note its features in Knox County, where there occurred a visible change of front on the slavery question. The petitions presented to the last legislature had revealed an anti-slavery strength that Knox County people had not dreamed of, and the politicians of dis- cernment recognized them as a warning to stand from under. Moreover, the leaders of the Harrison party in Knox were satisfied that the only possibility of prevent- ing division was through a combination of the Knox County representatives with the anti-slavery representa- tives of Dearborn and Clark, against the Illinois delega- tion ; and therefore they were not desirous of stirring up any additional strife as to slavery.
There were five candidates in Knox, of whom two were to be elected. Of these John Johnson and Dennis Sullivan made no special exposition of their views, nor
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.