USA > Indiana > Wayne County > Richmond > Memoirs of Wayne County and the city of Richmond, Indiana; from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Wayne County, Volume I Pt. 2 > Part 10
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"I will not stop to argue the right of secession. The whole question is summed up in this proposition: 'Are we one nation one people, or thirty-three nations, thirty-three independent and petty States?' The statement of the proposition furnishes the answer. If we are one nation, then no State has a right to secede. Secession can only be the result of successful revolution. I answer the question for you-and I know that my answer will find a re- sponse in every true American heart-that we are one people. one nation, undivided and indivisible."
Perhaps Morton's finest oratorical effort was his great speech on Reconstruction in the United States Senate, which is too long for insertion in this history, and whose character cannot be repre- sented by brief extracts.
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPIIY.
Wayne county has been fertile in works of history. George W. Julian, in 1884, published his "Political Recollections," a work of high literary quality and historic value, and although Mr. Julian
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was no longer a resident of the county when this book was issued, yet the period described was mainly that in which he dwelt in Cen- terville and represented the "Burnt District" in Congress. In 1892 he published his "Life of Joshua R. Giddings."
Arthur M. Reeves published in 1890 (Oxford, Clarendon Press) his "Finding of Wineland the Good," an account of the pre-Colum- bian discovery of America by the Norsemen. Professor John Fiske, in his "Discovery of America," says of it: "This beautiful quarto contains phototype plates of the original Icelandic vellums of the 'Hauks-bok' and the 'Flateyar-bok,' together with the texts carefully edited, an admirable English translation, and several chapters of critical discussion, decidedly better than anything that has gone before it. On reading it carefully, it seems to me the best book we have on the subject in English, or perhaps in any language."
In 1895, Dr. Oliver Woodson Nixon, an Earlham graduate, afterwards literary editor of the "Inter-Ocean," published a book entitled "How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon to the Union," and, in 1903, "Memories of a Forty-Niner." Mr. Nixon's literary work, however, was not done while he was a resident of Wayne county.
In 1887, William Dudley Foulke published "Slav and Saxon" (G. P. Putnams' Sons), a study of the growth and tendency of Russian civilization and its essential antagonism to the civilization of the English-speaking world. In 1898, a second revised edition was issued and, in 1904, the changes which took place in the Far East made a third edition necessary. In 1899 he published in two octavo volumes (Bobbs-Merrill Company), "The Life of Oliver P. Morton," the war governor and senator from Indiana, which con- tained a history of the State during the eventful period of the Civil war. Morton was undoubtedly the greatest of Indiana's sons, and the account of his struggles with the forces of secession in this State and the important part he afterward took in the reconstruc- tion measures while he was senator, form a dramatic story of great interest to those who care for the history of that period. The book was afterward used as an authority in Rhodes' "History of the United States." Theodore Roosevelt wrote to the author as follows: "I have been so much interested in it and so much im- prest by it that I feel that I must tell you so. What a rugged giant of a man he was! It seems to me that, of course always excepting Lincoln, he stands in the very front of the civilians who did most service during the Civil war. No cabinet minister and no other war
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governor had a task quite as hard as his, and at least no other war governor had a task as important."
In 1907, Mr. Foulke issued the "History of the Langobards," being a translation from the Latin of Paul the Deacon, a monk of the time of Charlemagne, with explanations and critical notes and an account of the sources of the history. This work had never before been rendered in English and it is one of the important his- torical monuments of the Middle Ages. Legends, sagas, and tradi- tions of a nomadic and half-savage people are incorporated in it with a quaint biography of the author, a simple-minded Benedictine, all too credulous of the strange stories he hears. This work was published by the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania.
Isaac Jenkinson published, in 1902, a well written volume (Cul- laton Printing Company) entitled, "Aaron Burr, His Personal and Political Relations With Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamil- ton," which exhibits the character of Jefferson in a much more un- favorable light than it appears in earlier histories.
Among the most important historical works produced in Wayne county are the "Letters of Cortez to Charles V," trans- lated and annotated, with a full biography of the Conqueror by Francis A. McNutt (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908). While this work appears from its introduction to have been written in Rome, the materials were collected and some of the work done while Mr. McNutt was a resident of Richmond, Ind., and a portion of his subsequent work, "Bartholomew de Las Casas," notably the ad- mirable preface, was actually written in Richmond. The letters of Cortez are well translated. One of them appears in English for the first time in Mr. McNutt's work, while in his "Las Casas" the description of the heroic efforts in behalf of human liberty made by this indomitable monk must awaken the admiration of all and throw a ray of sunlight over one of the darkest pages of human history, the treatment of the natives by the Spanish conquerors. These volumes are standard works of a high literary character and historical accuracy and have been received with commendation by the press.
Jesse S. Reeves, formerly assistant professor of history at Dartmouth College, and now professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, has published a number of important mon- ographs on historical subjects. The first of these was "The Inter- national Beginnings of the Congo Free State," in 1894. This was prepared as a dissertation for his Doctor's degree at Johns Hop-
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kins University and is published among the University studies. It is a work of value, not simply from a historical point of view but on account of the light shed upon vital questions of diplomacy and international law. In 1905 Mr. Reeves contributed another mono- graph to the same series, "The Napoleonic Exiles in America, a Study in Diplomatic History." This work describes in an inter- esting manner the emigration to our country of the proscribed sol- diers of the French empire after the fall of Napoleon; the plans to bring the Emperor himself to the United States which were thwarted by his irresolution at the last moment ; the coming of Jo- seph Bonaparte and many of the officers who had served in the Emperor's campaigns; the failure of the settlement upon the lands assigned to these officers and soldiers by the Government on the Tombigbee river, in Alabama, for the cultivation of "the vine and the olive"; the ridiculous conspiracy to place Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Mexico as King of Spain, a project in which Joseph himself apparently refused to co-operate; the subsequent estab- lishment by some of the refugees at a settlement in Texas, chris- tened "Champ d' Asile"; the misfortunes of the settlers and their abandonment of their pioneer town upon the approach of the Span- ish army, and the final dispersion of the refugees and the subse- quent return of many of them to France. This is a historical epi- sode little known in America, but celebrated in French literature in the poetry of Beranger and the fiction of Balzac.
But the most important work of Mr. Reeves, "American Di- plomacy Under Tyler and Polk," was published in 1907, by the Johns Hopkins Press, as part of the Albert Shaw lectures on Di- plomatic History. The work was confined in the main to the di- plomacy which settled four important territorial questions: The northeast boundary controversy, which finally resulted in the Ash- burton Treaty, determining the boundary between the State of Maine and the British possessions; the revolt and annexation of Texas; the northwest boundary question, including the joint occu- pation of Oregon and the Oregon Treaty, and the Mexican boun- dary question, which led to the war with Mexico and the annexa- tion of California and finally to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, establishing our Southern line. Many interesting matters are con- sidered, among them the policy of Andrew Jackson in regard to Texan annexation, Webster's opposition to this measure during Tyler's administration and the subsequent change when Upshar became Secretary of State. Mr. Reeves disagrees with the opinion so often expressed that the extension of slavery was the sole mo-
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tive of the acquisition of Texas, believing that, while this extension was an important factor in that policy, yet our expansion toward the south did not greatly differ from our earlier acquisitions of territory under Jefferson, and that it was the result of the general desire of the American people to enlarge their domains. The work is a valuable contribution to American history, though there are portions of it which reveal our tortuous policy toward Mexico in no creditable liglit.
William Bayard Hale, a native of Richmond, delivered a lec- ture on the "Making of the American Constitution, a Genesis of Nationality." before the examination school of the University of Oxford, Aug. 24, 1895. This was published the following year by the University Press in the form of a brochure. In this work Mr. Hale traces the steps in the formation of the American Constitu- tion and the features by which that instrument created a nation in place of of a confederacy, going so far as to maintain that the Federal Government is not one of merely enumerated powers. It was an eloquent plea for national unity. Speaking of the overthrow of the South in the Civil war, he said :
"The result could not have been otherwise. Armies far mightier, soldiers far braver,-no! that could not have been,-could never have been victorious for the Confederacy over the Nation. For a confederacy does not exist; it pretends to be no more than a convenient fiction. Arms in its service have no consecration like that of those vowed to the defense of a nation's life, and must ever remain unanointed with the secret power of victory. Battling, the Nation rose victorious from the fields of Gettysburg, Atlanta, and the Wilderness, and the American Constitution was made."
In 1908, Mr. Hale published a small volume entitled, "A Week in the White House with Theodore Roosevelt" (G. P. Putnam's Sons). While the bulk of this book is a graphic pen picture of daily events in the Executive mansion and of the President's treat- ment of his visitors and of public affairs, yet the final chapter has perhaps a permanent biographical or historical value in an imagin- ary characterization by Mr. Roosevelt of his own qualities, which comes in some particulars so close to life as to lead to the belief that it is not altogether imaginary. From the pen of one who had little previous knowledge of the man he describes, his impressions are in the main vivid and accurate, and the work may well consti- tute one of the sources from which the future history of Mr. Roose- velt's administration will be derived.
Besides the foregoing works of history and biography, we find.
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in Wayne county literature, auto-biographies in considerable num- ber, that for instance of Elijah Coffin, which appeared in 1860; that of Samuel K. Hoshour; that of Levi Coffin, which contained reminiscences of anti-slavery times and of the escape of negroes by way of the "Underground Railroad," of which Levi Coffin was perhaps the most important agent in this section of the country. None of these, however, were filled with more human interest than that of Allen Jay, published in 1911, whose simple and graphic ac- count of a Christian life is filled with a quaint charm which en- titles it to a distinct place in literature.
RELIGION.
Many works on religious subjects have emanated from Wayne county. For example, "Offices of the Holy Spirit," "Instructions to Christian Converts," "Holy Ghost Dispensation," and "Theology of Holiness," by Dr. Dougan Clark : "Outposts of Zion, with Lim- nings of Mission Life," by William Henry Goode; "The New Obe- dience," by William Bayard Hale; "The Morning Star," "Gathered Fragments of Talks to Young People," and "What is Truth," by Luke Woodard.
There are also productions in opposition to current theology of the time. For example, "The World's Sixteen Crucified Sa- viors," "Bible of Bibles," "Biography of Satan," and "Sixteen Sa- viors or None," by Kersey Graves.
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Rudolph G. Leeds, the editor of the Richmond "Palladium," published in 1911, first as a supplement to that paper and afterwards in book form, "The Equal Price Law," in which he sets forth in a very vivid manner the growth of the money power, now concen- trated in the hands of a few individuals, and traces its origin and progress principally to the better terms and prices obtained by those who deal in commodities in large quantities over those who deal in small quantities. He urges a law of equal price as the remedy for many of the evils occasioned by the consolidation of wealth.
FICTION.
Wayne county has had some representation in fiction, though not as complete perhaps as in poetry or history. In 1889, James
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Charles, a Wayne county man, born near Williamsburg, published at Richmond, under the pseudonym of Charles J. Wayne, "Caddo, or Cupid in the Gas Belt." It is a novel composed with little art, but representing fairly well the local sentiment in small communi- ties in this region, especially the anti-saloon sentiment and the reliance upon prayer and special providence, which so largely pre- vails in such communities. Nearly everybody in the story appears to be taken with typhoid fever, at one time or another, and the testi- mony in a murder case and in a prosecution for passing counterfeit money would seem to be quite inadequate to those who are ac- quainted with legal procedure; but the story has a good deal of human interest, and the character of Joshua Slathers is extremely well drawn. Like "Micky Free" in "Charles O'Malley," and like the chapter on "Em'ly" in Owen Wister's "Virginian," the story of Joshua's testimony is a shining episode. Joshua is indicted by a conspiracy of the saloon men for passing a counterfeit twenty-dol- lar bill after being warned that the bill was suspected. One Quig- ley was the attorney for the prosecution, greatly interested in convicting the defendant. Slathers testified in his own behalf and, when Quigley wanted to know why the bill was so badly bleached and stained, he responded :
"I'll tell ye 'bout that when I git to it, an' I'll be thar purty soon, ef you'll jest keep your shirt buttoned a bit, an' not git in too big a hurry."
"If the court please," said Quigley, "I have asked the witness a simple question bearing on the case and I demand that he shall answer it."
"Didn't I tell ye I was a goin' to answer it?" said Slathers; "you must be a gittin' excited, or hungry mebby." And taking a large red apple from his pocket and offering it to the attorney, he added: "Mebby that'll keep ye still while gentlemen be a talkin'."
"The witness will proceed with his evidence," said the Judge, gravely.
"Well, gentlemen, I got that twenty-dollar bill at Warren's bank 'bout the fust of August, an' I had it rolled up in a piece uv yaller paper, as I was a sayin' when Quigley bothered me. Well, a few days arter I got it, I started over to Joe Brookses to git a fine Durham calf he'd been a savin' for me. Thinks I to myself, I'll jest look through that bunch uv cattle afore I go over to the house, to see about the calf. So I walked 'round 'moung 'em, a admirin' their good pints, when all of a suddent the ole grandfather of the herd, he seemed to smell a mice, an' 'peared like he kinder guessed
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'at I were arter one uv his children; an' he begun to beller low like, an' pawed the sile up over his back, an' he looked mad an' vicious. So, thinks I to myself, mebby its me that's a maken' him feel so oncomfortable, so I lit out acrost the paster towards Mr. Brookses, kinder whistlin' low like as ef I didn't know the durned ole cuss was a follerin' me. So, thinks I to myself, ole cuss, I shan't be lonesome without you, an' ef you don't keer no more 'bout my company en what I do fer yourn, you'll go back to your neglected family an' leave me alone. But no, sir ; he had undertuck to see me outen that ere paster an' he wan't a agoin' to slight the job. So, thinks I to myself, 'I'll kinder stop whistlin' an' walk up a little brisker, an' mebby the ole cuss'll git lonesome an' go back. But jist then I looked back over my shoulder an' I see him a comin' in a kind of turkey trot, an' he wan't a stoppin' to paw no more sile over his back, so I knowed then jist what the ole feller were a specu- latin' on. The creek was more'n forty rods away, and tha'd been a big rain the night afore, an' I couldn't cross it without goin' more'n a quarter uv a mile below to the bridge ; but I seed a big ash stump a standin' right on the bank uv the creek, an' thinks I to myself, I'll jist run an' jump on top uv that stump an' stand' thar an' holler to Brooks to come with a hoss an' drive the ole cuss away. So out I lit like a quarter hoss fer that stump, an' the ole bull arter me full tilt, with his head down an' his tail up an' lookin' mader'n the devil, an' I seed he was a gainin' on me every jump he tuck, fer I 'low he'd figgered out that I were a aimin' fer that stump.
"It wuz a gittin' to be a lively tussel, which would git to that stump fust, me er the bull, but finally I come in jist 'bout the bull's length ahead, an' up I springs fer the top uv the stump. But, gosh, men, that stump wuz holler, an' I went right down in it an' the ole bull's head come whack up agin the stump, like a ole switch engine backin' up to a freight train. Purty soon he com- menced bellerin' in a deep, meller voice, an' a pawin' the sile up. over his back so high that I could see some uv the dirt a flyin' from whar I'd sot a squattin' in the stump. Thinks I to myself, ole fool, you kin jist amuse yerself out thar a pawin' an' a scrapin' an' a bellerin' all you dern please, but I'm going' to stay right here in this stump 'till this meetin's out.
"But by 'n' by the ole cuss got still, an' I thought he'd got tired an' gone back to the herd, so I riz up slow like to see whar he wuz, but Gee-whillicks! thar he wuz not five feet from the stump, an' afore I could eny more'n get down outen sight, Kerbim! he tuck the stump agin' an' I felt it give a little that time, fer the roots
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wuz considerable rotten. Jist then I heard sunthin' down in the bottom uv the stump a wizzin' an' a sizzin', an' thinks I to myself. thay's a rattlesnake in this ere stump, an' then 1 wuz skeered fer sartin. So I riz up an' thought I'd jump out on t'other side uy the stump frum whar the bull wuz. But, gosh, I couldn't, fer it wuz right on the bank uv the creek an' the water wuz ten foot deep. So I dropped back into the stump, and none too quick either, fer he knocked the dirt into my eyes that time. The sizzin' now got louder down in the stump about my feet, an' jist then sunthin' tuck me on the leg that felt ez hot ez fire. I begun cipherin' out which would be the most becomin' uv a good Republican, to stay thar in the stump an' be pizened to death by a snake, er come out an' hev my innards slung all over creation by that cussid ole bull. Jist then I got some more bites on my legs an' 'bout the gable end uv my trouses an' finally one on my finger. I jerked my hand up an' see'd it wuz nuthin' but a cussid little yaller jacket a stingin' it. Then I looked down an' see the hull bottom uv the stump wuz full uv yaller jackets, an' fer a minit er two I felt happy, fer I knowed it wasn't no durned pizin' snake a bitin' me. But the last whack the bull give the stump broke some more uv the roots loose an' stirred up all the little yaller devils in thar, an' got 'em so all-fired mad that thay was a dabbin' their stings into me all over. I knowed I couldn't stand it much longer the way things wuz a workin' an' I thought my time had 'bout come. I tried to think of some prayer suitable to the occasion, an' commenced, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' But, great Caesar! men, I couldn't pray fer cussin'. Then I thought uv the martyrs, uv Dan'l in the lion's den, uv Job kivvered all over with biles, an' uv Joseph tempted by Poti- pher's wife. But, holy Moses, thay wern't none uv them furriners in no sich a devil uv a fix ez I wuz thar in that lively stump kivered all over with yaller jackets an' the ole bull jist outside a layin' fer me.
"Live er die, thinks I to myself, I'm goin' right outen this stump, fer I can't stand the racket here no longer. An' bein' a purty good rider, thinks I to myself, I'll jist up an' put my feet on the sides uv the stump at the top, an' as the bull comes up I'll jump astraddle uv him, fer he can't hook me ez long ez I kin stick on his back. But jist as I wuz perched up thar fer the spring the ole cuss let fly at the stump so hard that he knocked it clear over into the creek, an' jist as the stump gave way I lit on the ole fool's back, with my face toward his tail, which I grabbed in my hand to kinder stiddy muself, an' that surprised him so much that he gin a big
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lunge right over the bank into the creek; an' with that, me an' the bull, yaller jackets an' all, went clar under the water, but as er come up I slipped off, but hilt on his tail, fer as he wuz the best swimmer, thinks I to myself, 'ole fool, you got me in here, an' now you kin jest tow me ashore.' But the water got shallerer toward the north side uv the creek, so when he got me to where I could wade out, I gin his tail a warm an' vigorous twist, which seemed to gin him more friendly feelin's toward me, fer as soon as he got out uv the creek he hurried on down to the bridge an' went back to the other cattle without 'nuther word about our little difficulty.
"I kin tell ye I wuz purty wet, an' that twenty-dollar bill wuz in my breeches pocket rolled up in a piece uv yaller paper, an' as Mr. Brooks wern't at home I didn't take the calf that day, an' hain't been back fer it yit, nor don't think now that I'd better take it, as I'm kinder disgusted with the breed. So the fust thing I done when I got home wuz to squeeze the water outen that twenty-dollar bill, an' then I laid it in the winder to dry, an' a part uv it dried in the sun an' the other part in the shadder uv the sash, an' that's what makes it look so streaked."
Mr. Charles tells us that his novel is taken from real life and that he has tried to give these pen pictures in the language of the characters presented, but however this may be, and if Mr. Charles had never written anything else, he would still be entitled to some place in literature for a story like this.
Two other books of a humorous character,-"Uncle Zeke and Aunt Liza" and "The Philosopher and the Mule"- from the pen of Henry C. Fox, Judge of the Circuit Court, are filled with sketchies of droll incidents and attained considerable popularity.
Other works of fiction are of a more serious nature. In 1890 Arthur M. Reeves, who was an Icelandic scholar, published a translation of "Lad and Lass," an Icelandic novel by Thoroddsen, which appeared in Copenhagen and in Iceland in 1850. It was a simple and very attractive story of the love of a shepherd boy and a shepherd girl, and portrays the primitive Icelandic cus- toms and surroundings in a very vivid manner. The book was published by Sampson Low, Marston Searle and Rivington, in London, and had considerable circulation.
A short sketch, entitled "Jan," quite introspective in character, showing the transformation through a family misfortune of a sel- fish ambitious youth into a self-sacrificing man, which had been written about 1884, was published at Chicago, in 1892, after Mr. Reeves' death.
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William Dudley Foulke published in 1900 (G. P. Putnam's Sons) "Maya, a Story of Yucatan," a country in which he had traveled, describing the career of Sandoval, a young Spaniard who had been wrecked on the coast of that region before its con- quest, and of his marriage to an Indian princess who had saved him from human sacrifice by presenting him to her people as a god. Part of the story is laid in the ruined city of Uxmal. Many weird scenes of tragedy and pathos are contained in this romance, which deals with a people that have now disappeared from the world and whose history lives only in ruins scattered over the peninsula. A second edition of the book was published the fol- lowing year. In 1911 Mr. Foulke published (Cosmopolitan Press, New York) "Maya, a Lyrical Drama," being a dramatization of the romance mentioned above.
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