USA > Indiana > Indiana, a redemption from slavery > Part 31
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1 Conv. Journal, p. 41. The brackets are mine.
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ery nor involuntary servitude ; and excepting them was a virtual admission that the slave indentures partook of their nature, whereas the position of the anti-slavery men had been that there was not, and could not be, anything of the essence of legal contract in the formali- ties of the indenture system.
After due consideration, the committee decided to stand by the words of the Ordinance and strike out the portions included above in brackets, and so they reported to the convention.1 This report was concurred in, and the section went into the Constitution in these words : "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude in this state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed. Nor shall any indenture of any negro or mu- latto hereafter made and executed out of the bounds of this state be of any validity within the state." 2 The latter clause of the section was intended to prevent the introduction of any servitude similar to slavery which might exist or be created in a slave state. For exam- ple, if Kentucky had enacted a manumission law by which, when a master gave a slave freedom, the slave, in consideration of the grant of freedom, or some other consideration provided by the law, might enter into a voluntary contract of service for life or for a term of years, an Indiana legislature could have provided for the enforcement of such agreement within this state, if not prohibited by the Constitution. Obviously the only certain way to prevent any collusion, pretense, or mis- conception in the matter, either by the legislature or the courts, was to bar the enforcement of any foreign con-
1 Conv. Journal, p. 53.
2 Const. of 1816, Art. 11, Sec. 7.
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tract of indenture of negroes ; and the convention made assurance doubly sure by doing so. In addition to these provisions, two clauses that affected the status of slavery were inserted without any opposition in the bill of rights, or first article of the Constitution. The first was the opening section : " That the general, great and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recog- nized and unalterably established, WE DECLARE, That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights ; among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, and of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." The other was the 24th section : " To guard against any en- croachments on the rights herein retained, we declare that everything in this article is excepted out of the gen- eral powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolable." The convention concluded its work and adjourned on June 29, 1816, and the Constitution ac- cordingly bears that date. The State was admitted into the Union by resolution of December 11, 1816; and the State government was actually commenced on No- vember 7, 1816.1
Naturally the interest of the people was absorbed in the convention. It was the great event of the period. But more than all else they were anxious to know just what would be done in regard to slavery. An estimable lady of Lawrenceburgh, who preserves her faculties un- impaired at the advanced age of eighty-five years, informs me that she remembers clearly the day when the news of the final action reached that place, and that the mes- sage which passed from mouth to mouth was, "She has
1 Annals 14th Cong. 2d Sess., p. 1348; Ex. Journal.
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come in free ! She has come in free!" Other matters were not of so much importance, and there was a quiet faith that they had been properly cared for. And yet after all this controversy, and all the care of the conven- tion, the slavery question was not yet definitely settled. As to the effect of the Constitution on future importa- tions there was no question, but as to its effect on pre- existent slavery and servitude there remained a wide divergence of opinion. In the eastern counties it was generally considered that slaves and servants were eman- cipated, and masters acted on that theory, though still feeling themselves charged with the care of keeping their old servitors from want. One master told his negro man and woman that they were free, and might do what- ever they liked. If they desired it, he would give them a cabin and bit of land and they might take care of themselves ; or, if they preferred, they might continue to live with him, and he would give them a wage allow- ance and care for them. After a protracted consideration of the subject they concluded to remain. Another mas- ter made a similar proposal to his negro woman, but she replied, " No, damn you ! I'll go to Cincinnati and soon be as rich as any of you." And sure enough she did locate at Cincinnati, opened a little eating-house, and ac- quired a competence. This difference of sentiment was due only to the spirit of the negroes, for they were all treated kindly.
In the western counties a few masters removed their slaves from the State, and some of these were afterwards released by the courts of Southern States, as we have seen. The great majority, however, simply continued to hold their slaves in Indiana. The idea which commonly obtained was that the Constitution could have no effect
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on preexisting slavery ; that the property in slaves was a vested right, secured by the Ordinance, and could not be impaired. Even the courts in that section proceeded on this theory. The first case in which the question was involved came to trial on October 5, 1816, before David Raymond, president judge of the first circuit.1 It was a replevin suit brought against Thomas Jones by Mason Pecongar alias The Owl, an Indian who had adopted civilized life and settled near Vincennes, for the recovery of a colored girl and a cross-cut saw. The jury found for the plaintiff as to the girl, but a new trial was granted and the case was continued. It was settled out of court, for no further mention of it occurs in the rec- ords.2 In 1817, Bob and Anthony, held as slaves by Luke Decker, Jr., brought suit for their freedom in Orange County. They were sons of Dinah, a female slave brought by Luke Decker, Sr., from Virginia, prior to 1787. They gained their freedom, but not until the case had been fought for five years in various courts, and after the question involved had been decided by the Su- preme Court in another case, which we will examine presently.
The masters of indented negroes in this section also held to their servants, probably from an enlargement of that quality of the mind which gives one a vague sense
1 This was the old circuit court, organized under the law of 1814. Under the Constitution of 1816 there were three circuit courts, each composed of a president and two associate judges, the former elected by the legislature and the latter by the people. The president judge could hold court alone, and the two associates could sit in the absence of the president. The Supreme Court was composed of three judges appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate.
2 Knox County Records ; Hist. Knox Co., p. 186.
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of ownership in anything he has once owned. In fact many of them were not sufficiently versed in the intri- cacies of the law to perceive any distinction between their cases and those of the ancient inhabitants. If this point of vested rights was of any importance, they had their slaves before the adoption of the Constitution as well as the older settlers. Of course there was under- stood to be a reservation of rights to the ancient inhab- itants by the Ordinance, but what did that amount to ? The property of a freeborn American less sacred than that of a Frenchman ? Perish the thought ! This was the line of argument of the statesman from "Egypt " with the lucus a non lucendo name, Mr. John Grammar, who said in the Illinois legislature, on a proposition to emancipate indented slaves : "I will show that are prop- osition is unconstitutionable, inlegal, and fornenst the compact. Don't every one know, or leastwise had ought to know, that the Congress that sot at Post Vinsan gar- nisheed to the old French inhabitants the right to hold their niggers, and haint I got as much rights as any Frenchman in this state? Answer me that, sir." 1
It must be confessed, too, that no very strict regard was paid to the rights of indented negroes. An illustra- tive instance is recorded by Sol Smith, the great theatri- cal pioneer of the Mississippi valley, who was even more famous and popular in his day than his namesake Sol Smith Russell is now. In 1819 he served for a time as an apprentice at Vincennes, and in describing his ex- perience there he thus refers to his master's wife : "This lady had been 'raised ' in Kentucky, and having been in the habit of commanding slaves, and the laws of Indi- ana not permitting her to own any of those convenient
1 Washburne's Sketch of Edward Coles, p. 71.
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appendages to a household, she made use of her husband's apprentices in place of them. She had one negro - his name was Thompson - who had been brought from Ken- tucky under indentures. He was to be free at the age of twenty-one, and he was now at least thirty-five ! Mrs. - made him believe he was but fourteen, and that he had yet seven years to serve. Thompson used to ask us boys in the office if we didn't think he was fif- teen years of age. Of course we could not encourage him in such abolitional ideas. So he served on in blessed ignorance, and whether he has yet arrived at the desired age of twenty-one I am not informed." 1 There may be some slight exaggeration in this, for Sol Smith was not a man to let a story be spoiled for lack of a little color ; but in its general tenor it would have applied to many cases in Indiana. The negroes were ignorant, and there were few persons who were willing to incur the enmity of their neighbors by interfering in their behalf. Hence there arose, as G. W. Johnston had reported in 1808, "the most flagitious abuse " of the indenture system.
It should be borne in mind that there was nothing secret or clandestine about slaveholding in the western counties. It was the common opinion that the Consti- tution had no effect on preëxistent slavery. Indented negroes and other slaves were advertised and sold pub- licly,2 and it is hardly necessary to say that this would not have occurred, for lack of purchasers, if there had been any serious question as to the titles to them. The custom continued with so little interruption that in the census of 1820 there were still reported one hundred
1 Theatrical Management in the West and South, etc., p. 20.
2 Western Sun, October 12, 1816; February 8, 1817; Septem- ber 6, 1817; June 27, 1819; October 16, 1819.
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and ninety slaves in Indiana, -only forty-seven less than there were in 1810. One hundred and eighteen of these were held in Knox County, thirty in Gibson, eleven in Posey, ten in Vanderburgh, and the remainder scat- tered in Owen, Perry, Pike, Scott, Sullivan, Spencer, and Warrick. In the other twenty-four counties no slaves were reported.
But now there was gathered at Vincennes a little group of men who did not adhere to the Knox County idea, and were not influenced by local bias. The most active of these was John W. Osborn, a son of Captain . Samuel Osborn of the British navy, born in 1794. He was a native of New Brunswick, but came to the United States and joined the American army in the war of 1812, because he was convinced of the justice of the American cause. He came to Vincennes in 1819, edited the "Western Sun " for about a year, and remained there for some time afterward, settling up his business. In later years he was widely known as one of the most influential men in every work of progress in Indiana. He established the first newspaper at Terre Haute in 1823, and edited it until 1829, when he began farming on account of bad health. In 1834, he left the farm, went to Greencastle, and founded "The Ploughboy," one of the most popular newspapers of its day. He sent out with it, gratis, an eight-page sheet in pamphlet form called " The Temperance Advocate," which was the first temperance paper published in the West. He was the prime mover in the establishment of Asbury (now De Pauw) University, and was one of its first trustees. In 1838 he began publishing the "Indiana Farmer " at Indianapolis. At the breaking out of the civil war he went to Sullivan, and established "The Stars and
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Stripes," an aggressive war paper. He died in 1866, after a long life of usefulness, devoted chiefly to temper- ance, education, and opposition to slavery. Among his associates was Amory Kinney, afterwards a distinguished lawyer, who then resided at Washington but practiced at Vincennes. He was born in Vermont in 1791. He studied law in western New York with Samuel Nelson, afterwards a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and was admitted to practice at Vincennes in 1819. Another confrère was Moses Tabbs, a Mary- lander, and a son-in-law of that distinguished signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He came to Vincennes, and was admitted to the bar in 1818. A fourth member of the group was Colonel George McDonald, the preceptor and father-in- law of Judge Blackford. He was a New Jersey lawyer, well advanced in years, who had entered the practice at Vincennes in December, 1819. These gentlemen were desirous of testing the constitutionality of slavery in In- diana, and they soon found an opportunity.
At this time the principal inn of Vincennes was kept by Colonel Hyacinthe Lasselle. It was a famous old tavern, situated on the corner of Second and Perry streets, a large two-story frame building with great porches extending along the street sides. It was here that Governor Posey lived while at Vincennes, and here that all the great banquets of early times were held. Lasselle was a member of a family which is inseparably connected with the history of the Wabash from a very early day. He was born at Kekionga in 1777. His father, Colonel James Lasselle, was a trader and Indian agent there until the attack of La Balme in 1780-1781. In the confusion of the fight he and his family fled from
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the trading-house, which stood on the bank of the St. Joseph's, and made their way across the point to the Maumee, where they found a canoe, and all safely es- caped down the river, except Marie Anne, a child of seven years, who fell overboard and was drowned. They went first to Detroit, thence to Montreal, and thence to Pointe Claire, where they remained under rather adverse circumstances, Colonel Lasselle having become so dissi- pated that the care of the family fell on his wife. She, however, was a woman of character and energy,1 and succeeded in giving her children creditable training. Thrown on his own resources at an early age, Hyacinthe went in 1793 to Detroit, where his older brothers, Francis and James, were engaged in trade. He re- mained with them until Fort Wayne was built, when he went into business for himself at that point. In 1797 he moved over to the Wabash, and for seven years traded among the Indians there, at Godfroy's village, near the Missisinewa, at the mixed village of Chepaille,2 and at the Piankeshaw village at the mouth of the Little Ver- million. ( In 1804 he arrived at Vincennes, and a year later was married there to Julie Frances Busseron, a daughter of the Major Francis Busseron who rendered good service to Clark in the great campaign that gave the Northwest to the United States.
In the course of his wanderings Lasselle had gathered quite a number of slaves, the greater part of whom had been captured by the Indians from the Americans and purchased by the French traders. Several of them came to him from his uncle Antoine Lasselle, the French trader who was captured just after Wayne's battle at
1 Her maiden name was Therese Berthelet.
2 Often written Chepoy. It stood on the site of Williamsport.
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the Maumee and tried as a spy.1 Among these was a bright mulatto girl, the daughter of a negress that had been taken by the Indians in 1779, who was named Polly. She was neat, polite, and intelligent, and having been reared as a house-servant was regarded rather as a member of the family than as a slave. By the tradi- tional account, this was the indirect cause of her being selected for the test case. It is said Lasselle told all his slaves that they might consider themselves free, after the adoption of the Constitution, and that all except Polly availed themselves of the opportunity, though most of them tired of eking out a precarious existence by doing odd jobs in the neighborhood, and came back to the flesh-pots and comfortable quarters of the hotel. They certainly clung to him long after the slavery ques- tion was finally determined, for in 1833, when he re- moved to Logansport, three families of them followed him there. It is also said that the proceedings to deter- mine Polly's status were brought with Lasselle's consent,
1 I have never seen the true cause of his acquittal in print. His prospects were not flattering until, during the trial, he gave the Masonic signal of distress. Major Hamtramck, the presiding judge, who was a member of the fraternity, then threw his in- fluence in Lasselle's favor, and he was acquitted on the ground that he was taken under arms. The acquittal was just, though the ground on which it was based verged on the ridiculous. Las- selle had no thought of acting as a spy. He had gone into the action with the Indians in Indian dress. He was too corpulent to keep up with his dusky comrades when they scampered through the fallen timber before Wayne's bayonets, and therefore crawled under a log to wait until night gave him a chance to escape. Un- Inckily for him, the American camp was pitched close to his hiding-place and he was discovered by some soldiers who were carrying water. His being "under arms" consisted in the fact that he had kept his rifle with him.
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and that all the expenses of the defense were borne by several slaveholders who did not wish to have a prece- dent established by default. It is a singular fact that there is no mention of the case whatever in the Vin- cennes paper, either during its pendency or after the decision of the Supreme Court; and this shows that there was no warmth of feeling on the subject, and goes to confirm the tradition that the case was the result of a quiet, friendly agreement.
At any rate, habeas corpus proceedings were instituted by the gentlemen mentioned, the three attorneys, Kin- ney, Tabbs, and McDonald, giving their services without charge. McDonald died before the case was decided by the Supreme Court. Jacob Call, a Kentuckian, who was for some time judge of the Knox Circuit Court, and once a representative in Congress, was employed for the defense. Lasselle answered that Polly was his slave by purchase, the issue of a woman bought of the Indians prior to the treaty of Greenville. The lower court de- cided that she was his slave. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, and the question was presented there with an elaborate discussion of the law and history relat- ing to it. On one side it was contended that slavery was excluded from the Territory by the Ordinance, and from the State by the Constitution. On the other it was maintained that the Ordinance not only did not prohibit the slavery that existed at the time of its adoption, but that also it expressly preserved it, and that the slave property guaranteed by it could not be divested by the Constitution. The court (Judges James Scott, Jesse L. Holman, and Isaac Blackford) took a middle ground. They held that the Virginia deed of cession and the Ordinance were immaterial; that the question must be
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decided by the provisions of the Constitution. Said they : "That legislative authority, uncontrolled by any constitutional provision, could emancipate slaves, will hardly be denied. This has been done in several of the states, and no doubt has been entertained either of the power of the legislature to enact such a statute, or of the binding force and efficacy of the law when enacted. By the power of a statute, an estate may be made to cease in the same manner as if the party possessing it were dead. A man may, by statute, be made an heir, who could not otherwise be one. . . . It must be ad- mitted that a convention, chosen for the express purpose, and vested with full power to form a Constitution, which is to define, limit, and control the powers of the legisla- ture, as well as the other branches of the government, must possess powers at least equal, if not paramount, to those of any ordinary legislative body. From these posi- tions it clearly follows that it was within the legitimate powers of the convention, in forming our Constitution, to prohibit the existence of slavery in the State of In- diana." They then review the provisions of the Consti- tution above set forth, and add : "It is evident that, by these provisions, the framers of our Constitution intended a total and entire prohibition of slavery in this state ; and we can conceive of no form of words in which that intention could have been more clearly expressed." 1
It was accordingly held that Polly was free.
The decision was not satisfactory to the persons in- terested in the defense. They determined to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the papers for the appeal were prepared. They lie before me now. The bond bears the prim sign-manual of Las-
1 State v. Lasselle, 1 Blackf. 60.
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selle, the wild scrawl of Francis Vigo, the schoolboy flourish of Robert Buntin, and the bold signature of Christian Graeter. The blanks are prepared for signa- ture by Judge Scott, but the papers were not presented to him. It is said that Lasselle, after considering the matter, refused to let the case go farther. At any rate he took possession of the incomplete appeal papers and filed them with his private papers, where they were found after his death. In accordance with the wishes of Polly, he furnished her with clothing and money and sent her to St. Louis, where she had relatives. There was no ill- feeling between them. Polly prospered in her new home, and afterwards returned to visit her old master's family.
This decision of course brought the slavery question to an absolute end, so far as any basis of legal right was concerned. There was no longer any excuse whatever for holding a negro in involuntary servitude in Indiana except pure ignorance. It is a fact, however, that ne- groes were actually held as slaves for many years after- wards. A local census of Vincennes, taken by order of the Board of Trustees in 1830, shows thirty-two slaves then held at that point, twelve males and twenty females, four more than there were in all Indiana in 1800!' The national census of the same year makes no mention of these, but lists three slaves in Indiana, a girl in Orange County, a girl in Decatur, and a woman in Warrick. The national census of 1840 also credits Indiana with three slaves, a girl in Putnam County, and a man and a girl in Rush. This is the last record of this extraordi- nary continuance of actual slavery in a state where slavery could not exist. These cases were simply violations of
1 Cauthorn's Vincennes, p. 23.
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a plain law, and, aside from being reflections on the characters of the communities that tolerated them, are of no historical importance.
3
And now we have come to our journey's end. We have traced the slavery of Indiana through its origin, its development, and its extermination. If the writer has done his work properly, the reader now realizes that the slavery of Indiana, small as was its actual extent, was the chief agency in the moulding of our infant growth. It made political parties that otherwise would never have existed. It put men in office who but for it might have lived in obscurity. It excluded men from office who but for it would have been on our lists of public men. It put laws on our statute books, and erased them. It put articles in our first Constitution. It was the tap-root of our political growth, -the great central matter of controversy to which all other questions were subordinate. It drew broad party lines here when na- tional party lines were practically blotted out ; and when those lines were drawn, leaders of the dominant party were excused for offenses that would otherwise have ended their political careers, while leaders of the oppo- sition suffered for the merest trifles. In short, it made a quarter of a century of our political history, and, at the end of that time, left the people of Indiana more strongly opposed to the institution of slavery than they ever could have been without it. It had some effect, too, in the councils of the nation, long after it had been dis- posed of; for when in the debate on the California bill, in June, 1850, the question arose as to slavery in the ter- ritory acquired from Mexico, the refusals of Congress to admit slavery to Indiana served as precedents against it.1
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