USA > Indiana > Public men of Indiana : a political history from 1860 to 1890, v. 1 > Part 5
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Isaac P. Gray, who got into the Democratic party three years later and went from one prominent po- sition to another in that party with the swiftness of the deer that clears the hedge, was the leader of the Cumback forces. It being the right of the leg- islature to call upon the executive to produce doc- uments for legislative uses when their production "would not be incompatible with public interests," Hughes availed himself of his privilege of intro- ducing a resolution calling for the production of this correspondence. Gray and other of Cumbaek's supporters opposed its production upon the grounds that the letter was a harmless private communication of a confidential and personal ehar-
acter, while Hughes urged that it should be pro- duced so as to vindieate Cumback if Baker had placed a wrong construction on the letter that he had written, and his motion finally prevailed and the letter and the answer to it were produced, and a sufficient number of Republican members con- curred in Governor Baker's contention that the proposition made to him was "corrupt and inde- cent," and Cumback was defeated and Daniel D. Pratt, who had been elected to congress at the pre- ceding eleetion, was then elected senator. Pratt was a powerful man mentally and physically, was much over six feet in height, and carried a weight of over three hundred pounds on a massive frame, and had such a powerful voice that no request to speak louder ever came from the audiences he ad- dressed, was a pioneer lawyer of Logansport of such great ability that it was a fortunate client who
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could secure his services. He was courteous in manner, kind in disposition, and highly honored and revered by all his fellow citizens. No one had more legal contests with him than his highly re- spected friend, Nathan O. Ross, whom he defeated as the Democratic nominee for congress in 1868. Pratt was succeeded in the senate by Joseph E. McDonald, who was the Democratic caucus nomi- nee elected by the legislature in 1875.
Pratt's election to the senate caused his resigna- tion as a member of congress from what was then the 9th district, and a special election was called to fill the vacancy. James N. Tyner, of Peru, was nominated by the Republicans. The Democrats made no nomination. but a few friends of Samuel A. Hall, editor of the Logansport Pharos, got to- gether and agreed upon a plan to have him make the race, and arranged that the Democrats of the district should absent themselves from the polls until the afternon of the day of election and then go and vote for him. In devising this scheme they had overlooked the fact that the election officials would nearly all be Republicans and would have it in their power to keep the polls open until their voters could be brought in after the discovery of the scheme, and if need be, could count their can- didate in if he failed to receive a sufficient number of votes. Whether Tyner actually received a ma- jority did not become known, or a subject of in- vestigation. He got the certificate of election and filled out Pratt's unexpired term and was nomi- nated for re-election at the regular election of
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1870. His opponent was Judge Thomas C. White- side, of Wabash County, who ran as an Indepen- dent candidate and received most of the Demo- cratic votes, but Tyner was elected and again elected in 1872, and in the congress of 1873 voted for what was known as the salary grab bill referred to elsewhere. He was popular with his party, and his personal followers could control the district in making nominations so well was his machine or- ganized.
Theophilus C. Philips, editor of the Howard Tribune, published at Kokomo, and Daniel R. Bearss, a wealthy and influential citizen of Peru, were his managers and as shrewd politicians and observers of the drifts of public opinion, foresaw his defeat for re-election in 1874, if he should again be nominated, and decided to select as the candi- date for that election some one who would give way for Tyner again after the storm of indignation about the salary grab had subsided, and they se- lected James L. Evans, a miller and prominent citizen, but not an office seeker, of Hamilton Coun- ty, who was elected and at the end of his first term, they reminded him of the deal that was made whereby he was to retire and allow Tyner the race in 1876, but "Uncle Jim," as he was called, disa- vowed any such arrangement and was nominated and elected for the second term and was considered by his colleagues as a man of excellent judgment and a good member. This ended Tyner's congres- sional career, but he was taken care of by appoint- ment to a Federal position in the postoffice depart-
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ment at Washington, and was for a short time postmaster general and for a long time assistant attorney general for that department. Evans was not a candidate for a third term and threw his sup- port in the convention of 1878 to his friend, Colo- nel Thomas H. Bringhurst, of Logansport.
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CHAPTER VI
T THE fifteenth amendment to the Federal Con- stitution, that logically followed the thirteenth, and conferred upon negroes the right to vote was proposed to the several states by congress on the 27th day of February, 1869, and came before the Indiana legislature for adoption or rejection a few days later. It was one of the peculiar incidents in the vicissitudes of politics that Colonel Isaac P. Gray, then a member of the state senate, who led the forces of Cumback in his race for senator at that session, and was afterwards elected, first as lieutenant governor and next as governor, by the Democrats, led the fight for the adoption of the fifteenth amendment and locked the doors of the state senate, and pocketed the key, to prevent the breaking of a quorum by the Democrats who op- posed it, and openly boasted of his act and triumph. Another interesting fact and instance of the failure of political designs was that instead of its ratification increasing the number of Repub- lican votes at the succeeding election of 1870 it had the contrary effect, and because of its ratifi- cation the Democrats carried the state. Colonel Norman Eddy, of South Bend, headed the ticket as candidate for secretary of state and was elected,
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as were all other Democratic candidates, including four supreme judges, and the legislature was also democratic.
Prejudice against the negro race was so deep- seated and long existing that both their freedom and right to vote was long and vigorously opposed. This prejudice was manifested in many ways, and years, both before, during and after the war that resulted in their freedom, it was reflected in party platforms, in campaign speeches and on campaign banners in 1868. Many ex-Union soldiers were heard to declare that President Lincoln's emanci- pation proclamation would have caused mutiny in the army if he had issued it sooner than he did, as many of his party friends, among them Gover- nor Morton, urged him to do, and that they never would have enlisted as soldiers to free the negro. Companies of these ex-soldiers became members of an organization calling themselves "White Boys in Blue" and marched in the campaign proces- sions of 1868, and to offset the influence of this organization and to belittle the army service of its members the Republican campaign managers found it necessary to organize companies called "Fighting Boys in Blue," campaign badges bear- ing the words "No Nigger in Mine," were con- spicuous in that campaign, sometimes being prominently worn by the fair sex.
The prejudice against the negro raee was grounded in the fear that the northern states would be overrun by slaves if they should be freed, a prediction generally made during the war, but not
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afterwards verified, except that in the years 1917 and 1918 approximately one hundred thousand colored people were brought to the city of Chicago and residences for them found in the best residence districts of the city by a method of depreciation of the value of the elegant homes they desired to oc- cupy, a thing easily brought about by finding one house or apartment in a block and filling it with colored occupants, which so alarmed property own- ers of the neighborhood that they became so panic- stricken that they offered their homes for sale for almost nothing and abandoned them, and the col- ored people thus were able to occupy palaces in- stead of the "negro quarters" where they had lived before. This condition prevailed to such an extent that large sections of the best residential parts of the city became and still are occupied al- most exclusively by colored people, and their votes, combined with others that the then and now mayor of that city has been able to control, have kept his political machine in such excellent order that the great Chicago Tribune is now attempting to dismantle it, and is bewailing and condemning what it terms as the voting power of the "brunette dis- tricts" as it calls them. The losses of homes of values, running up into the millions, have as a con- sequence of these negro colonizations been suffered by their owners, as well as great mental anguish and distress occasioned by their being compelled to abandon their homes. The writer's lost residence of the value of ten thousand dollars stands in the center of one of these "brunette districts," bound-
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ed on the south by Washington park and on the east by Drexel boulevard, but he disclaims any prejudice against the negro race or the fortunate colored occupants of his old family home because of this fact. The Republican party, when it was organized, and in the years that followed, rapidly gained accessions to its membership in Indiana from the ranks of the Democratic party, because of the domination of Southern Democrats and their determination that slavery should be extended into new states and territories. As was truly said by Jefferson, in his allusions to the Southerners, when he deleted part of his indictment against the King of Great Britain, "their reflections were not yet matured to a full abhorrence of the slave traffic," and its horrors were so slow in appreciation in the Northern States that only the most radical faction of the Republican party and none of the Demo- crats moved to destroy it until its destruction came about as an incident of the Civil War.
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. O. P. MORTON
CHAPTER VII
A MONG the former prominent Democrats who joined the Republican party in Indiana were Alvin P. Hovey, Oliver P. Morton and Albert G. Porter, each of whom became governor, and Mor- ton also, became United States senator and a great leader of the Republican party in that body. Morton was serving as a circuit judge at the time he renounced the Democratic party that had elected him, and in 1856 was nominated as the Re- publican candidate for governor, but was defeated by Governor Ashel P. Willard. On the ticket with him was Conrad Baker, for lieutenant governor, who had been selected by the Republican State Central Committee to take the place of Nathan Kimball, who had declined it. In 1860 Morton was selected as lieutenant governor and elected as already mentioned. It has not become a matter of public record that any very prominent Republi- can became a Democratic governor unless Isaac P. Gray may be given that distinction.
The writer well remembers the appearance of Governor Morton in May, 1864, when at Camp Morton, in Indianapolis, he addressed a regiment of Union soldiers, to which the writer's only brother belonged, on its departure for the front.
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He was then indeed a commanding figure in every sense, about five feet, ten inches in height, stoutly built, but not obese, with heavy coal black hair and chin whiskers, with determined jaws, slow but impressive and convincing in his words that were articulated distinctly and with a meaning that was well expressed. He told them of the daring duties they were going forward to perform and explained the causes of the war for the Union and the neces- sity for its vigorous prosecution, expressed his deep regret that the emergency called for them to make the sacrifices they were required to make and as- sured them of the great honor and rewards that would be bestowed upon them. Their faces ex- pressed their admiration of him, and their cheers their devotion to him.
He was justly called Indiana's great war gov- ernor. He was surrounded with and overcame the greatest difficulties in maintaining the loyalty of the state in furnishing its quotas of Union soldiers required. The growth of opposition to the war, as already mentioned, had become so vigorous that the general election of 1862 was a positive protest against the policies of the Federal administration. The Indiana legislature of 1863 refused to make the appropriations of money to carry on the war that Governor Morton asked for, but nevertheless made what its members deemed sufficient appro- priations for that purpose. The leaders in the house of Indiana representatives in the state legis- lature of that year were Jason B. Brown of Jack- son County, and Marcus A. O. Packard, of Mar-
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shall County, both men of positive characteristics, and stood high as lawyers in their respective lo- calities, and had no superiors in point of ability in the legislative assembly. Their determined oppo- sition to Morton's dictation was only intensified by the Indianapolis Journal's attempt to hold them up to public ridicule and in branding them as disloyal, a charge that they vigorously resented. The Act of Congress providing for the organiza- tion of national banks, as a means of sustaining the government, went into effect in 1864, and Packard found it more agreeable to organize the First Na- tional Bank of Plymouth and give his attention to banking and his law practice than to continue his activities in politics, and it is a curious fact that Morton and Jason Brown became so warmly at- tached to each other afterwards that Brown, though elected to the state senate as a Democrat in 1866, complimented Morton by voting for him for Uni- ted States senator in 1867. And upon Morton's recommendation he was appointed as secretary of the Territory of Wyoming and served in that po- sition for a short time.
He again became a state senator serving in the sessions of 1881 and 1883, and later served three terms in congress and died at Seymour in 1898.
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CHAPTER VIII
B ECAUSE of the failure of the legislature of 1863 to give to Governor Morton's adminis- tration the appropriations he regarded as vital to an energetic prosecution of the war he found it necessary to call on his close personal advisers to aid him in obtaining the funds he desired for that purpose. He had no hesitaney in calling on Dem- ocrats to both fight the war and to finance it. Wil- liam H. English was a prominent war Democrat, a name given to one class of Democrats to distin- guish them from another calling themselves "Peace" Democrats, the latter being called by malicious Republicans as "rebels" or "copper- heads." John C. New was a Republican, and had been chairman of the finance committee in the state senate of 1863. English and New were as- sociated as financiers. Morton called them into con- ference with him, and it was through their influ- ence and personal guaranties that the banking house of Winslow Lanier and Company of New York advanced all the funds that Morton re- quired, except a fractional part, that was provided by William Riley Mckean. a banker of Terre Haute, and the next legislature made provision for the reimbursement or repayment to Winslow
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Lanier & Co. and MeKean of the sums they had advanced that were treated as loans to the state. Mr. Lanier was a native of Madison, Indiana. More about William H. English and John C. New will appear in future pages.
Various causes existed for the opposition to the war. Prominent among these was the fact that in the first battles the Confederates by reason of bet- ter preparation were victorious. The discourage- ments of loyal Northern people that followed, com- bined with the attitude of Southern sympathizers, created great doubts about the success of the Northern army, and the rivalries and jealousies of its commanders had a tendency to encourage these doubts. The reasons for which the war had been declared caused many disputes, many claiming that the restoration of the Union was the pretext, while the freedom of the slaves was the real cause. Another cause of opposition grew out of the fact that many soldiers were in their opinion harshly treated by the officers over them, they not having anticipated the rigors of military discipline nor the hardships of soldier life when they enlisted, and there were many desertions. Another cause was that a class of politicians claimed that the war was an exclusive partisan enterprise and were too free in attributing disloyalty to members of the opposite party. Still another cause was in the fact that many prominent men of the State, who had in the beginning been active in encouraging enlist- ments and organizing regiments, expected to be- come officers of them but were disappointed.
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These various causes and others contributed to the necessity for drafts to fill quotas in many coun- ties. The draft law that had been passed by con- gress had made provisions whereby the person drafted could be excused from service by either hiring a substitute or paying a sum of money that would enable the payment of a bounty by the gov- ernment to encourage an enlistment in place of the man drafted. It was claimed that this had the effect to compel the poor men of the country to fight the battles and to allow the rich to escape danger. It was also charged in some instances that the drafting boards were partial in the mat- ter of exemptions and some were accused of ac- cepting bribes. There was so much opposition to the draft that enrolling officers were menaced with threats and shot at from ambush, and mobs were organized in some parts of the country to so resist that it seemed for a time as if the attempts to draft would have to be abandoned. So difficult was it to fill quotas by draft that many counties paid large bounties out of their treasuries to induce en- listments. This led to a system of "bounty jump- ing." Men would enlist, get the bounty, and then desert and repeat the performance in another county.
So frequent were these acts and desertions that the military authorities determined upon a public example of the consequences of desertion by con- vening a court martial for the trial and conviction of deserters and fixed their punishment at death.
On one occasion five deserters were convicted at
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the same time and senteneed to be publicly shot to death on the parade grounds near Camp Mor- ton. At the hour fixed when they were to be shot by a firing squad of soldiers they were seated on the pine coffins that they were to be buried in and at the command their lives were terminated. It was published that one of these composed and re- quested the publication of the following lines that were often heard gleefully sung afterwards:
"Farewell, my dear Mary Ann, You must do the best you can; I am going to the other shore Where I'll never jump the bounty anymore."
The several elements of opposition to the war early in 1863 crystallized into the formation of secret organizations to oppose it, called first, "Sons of Liberty," and next, "Knights of the Golden Circle," both of which were finally broken up by military authorities or were abandoned. Readers of our Colonial history will recall that the name, "Sons of Liberty," was adopted by Colonists, who revolted against British rule. The appropriation of this name by the organized opponents of the Civil War in itself justified their being called "rebels," because their ancestors in name were in fact in rebellion against Great Britain. These In- diana "rebels" came to know each other when they met outside of their lodges by the tokens they wore which were made by molding breast pins to the large copper cents that were then in circulation. On the crown of the heads that were engraved on
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these copper coins was the word "Liberty." The observers of these tokens not knowing or caring anything about the origin or significance of the name "Sons of Liberty," preferred to look upon the wearers as the companions of the copperhead snake, hence the name, "Copperheads," was ap- plied to them. Butternut breastpins were another emblem of Southern admiration that were worn. They were made by severing into two parts the conically shaped nuts that grew on white walnut trees in parts of Indiana, the interior cells of which revealed a resemblance of two hearts sepa- rated from each other and claimed to mean a northern and southern Union. These were often snatched from the wearers and caused many fist fights.
The name "Knights of the Golden Circle," can be traced to a pro-slavery organization that pro- posed a slave-holding Confederacy about the time that the war with Mexico was declared that would be included in a circle containing all the slave states, California, Cuba, Mexico and Texas. It was this organization, and slave owners generally, that began their advocacy of the right and their purposes of seceding from the Union and kept it up until they attempted to make their purposes successful, by adopting ordinances of secession in Southern states and firing on the American flag at Fort Sumter.
These organizations in Indiana, as was disclosed by members who had joined them, had secret lodges with rites and ceremonies in the initiation of their
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members that bound them together by oaths and other obligations, and that required them as part of their work in contemplation that of assisting in the release of captured Confederate soldiers, who were prisoners of war at Camp Morton in In- dianapolis, and Camp Douglas in Illinois. To ef- fect their purposes they had drilled their members and educated them in the use of guns and other weapons that they kept concealed in their lodges and other places. The purposes and plans of these oath-bound, treasonable organizations hav- ing been confided to, or became known to, leading democrats who had no sympathy with them, they were exposed from that source.
There had been strong suspicions that some Democratic leaders throughout the state were identified with these organizations, and these sus- picions were confirmed by declarations made by Michael C. Kerr, of New Albany, who in the spring of 1864 was a candidate for the nomina- tion for congress on the Democratie ticket. On the evening of the day preceding the assembling of the convention that was to make the nomination, he called his supporters together and announced to them his intention of withdrawing from the race, because he was in possession of knowledge that a conspiracy existed against the government of the state and that the conspirators were Democrats, and that he felt it his duty to go to Indianapolis and lay the facts before Governor Morton, which he did, and Morton and the military agencies at his command upon the basis of the information
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that he furnished, were enabled to break up these oath-bound, treasonable organizations. A condi- tion bordering on anarchy was prevailing in parts of the State and particularly in Southern Indiana, when Kerr decided to contribute all of his power to destroy its sources. The information he had furnished led to the arrest of Lambdin P. Milli- gan, of Huntington, on the 5th day of October, 1864, under the General Order No. 38, that Gen- eral Burnside had previously issued.
After making this exposure by Kerr his friends insisted upon his accepting their nomination for congress, as a war Democrat, and he was elected that year and for a number of succeeding terms.
Milligan was found guilty by the military com- mission that tried him, of five charges: First, conspiracy against the government of the United States; second, affording aid and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States; third, inciting insurrection; fourth, disloyal practices; fifth, violation of the laws of war, and he was sen- tenced to death.
He applied to the United States District Court at Indianapolis for a writ of habeas corpus, in his petition setting forth that he was not in the mili- tary service of the United States or subject to ar- rest or trial by the military authorities, and that the military commission was without jurisdiction to hear or determine as to his guilt or innocence of the charges against him. The right to the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended in districts where a state of war existed. It was his conten-
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tion, and that of his counsel, that this suspension did not apply to the State of Indiana as a state of war did not exist in it. The Federal Court, to which he applied, certified to a division of opinion by the judges that had the effect to transfer his petition to the Supreme Court of the United States, and to suspend the execution of the death sentence, but he was remanded to the jail in which he was confined to await the final decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, and while the case was pending, an application for his par- don was made to President Johnson, who refused to grant it, and in time the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Judge David Davis, who had been appointed supreme judge by President Lin- coln, decided that the military tribunal was with- out jurisdiction and he was released.
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