USA > Indiana > The history of Indiana > Part 15
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The people necessarily took little part or interest in the territorial government during the period of the first grade. Had local self-government been imposed on the early settlers it would have been a grievous hardship. They were engaged in a struggle with the forest that demanded all their time and resources. The first grade was a military government pure and simple. It was extended to the people of Indiana as a favor and not imposed as a restriction. The people were given the right, by the act organizing the terri- tory, to assume the burdens of government as soon as they pleased, regardless of their numbers and the limitations set by the Ordinance of 1787.
It is not to be expected therefore, that any scien- tific theory of government was applied. The scanty population, composed of widely different groups, sepa- rated by hundreds of miles of wilderness, could not be united under one effective administration. Harri- son's early administration was a temporary rule to protect the pioneers until such time as they should be
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
able to assume the duties of self-government. There was no question of the prevalence of the New England plan or the Virginia plan of local government. A majority of the settlers of Indiana during its terri- torial days came immediately from the South, but it does not follow that they therefore reestablished south- ern institutions. It has been assumed by some writers that where the township is there the Puritan has been. The assumption is unwarranted. The township in some form has come wherever compact settlements of Englishmen have been made. And where these same people, in sparsely settled communities, have had no need for that expensive form of government they have established a county system. Expediency was the light that guided them. Officers have been chosen, and invested with power as social conditions made their services seem necessary.
§ 31 THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE
THE territorial legislature consisted of two houses, a House of Representatives and a Council. The first House of Representatives was composed of the follow- ing seven men elected by the voters of the counties : Jesse B. Thomas, of Dearborn ; Davis Floyd, of Clark; Benjamin Parke and John Johnson, of Knox; Dr. George Fisher, of Randolph; Shadrack Bond and William Biggs, of St. Clair county. These men nomi- nated ten candidates from whom President Jefferson was to select five to constitute the Council. Jefferson requested Governor Harrison to choose the members of the Council, and he selected Benjamin Chambers, founder of Lawrenceburg, from Dearborn; Samuel Gwathmey, one of the trustees of Jeffersonville, from Clark; John Rice Jones, of Knox; Pierre Menard, the best known of the Illinois fur traders, from Randolph. and John Hay, also a fur trader, from St. Clair.
There were several important questions before the
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THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE
people at this time. The slavery question, manhood suffrage, regulation of the salt wells, and a modification of the land laws. These were all subjects for congres- sional legislation. Benjamin Parke was selected by the legislature to represent the territory in Congress and instructed to urge favorable action on these sub- jects.
There was plenty of work confronting the new legislature which met July 29, 1805. The criminal law had to be reformed to meet local vices. The fron- tier has always been the rendezvous of criminals, and the scene of much crime. Horse stealing was the most common as well as the most aggravating crime. The impossibility of protecting horses from thieves, the rapidity with which the horses could be made away with, the difficulty of overtaking them, the absolute necessity of horses to the pioneer farmer, and the consequent ease with which they could be sold, have made them a tempting mark for the thief in all countries. The theft of a horse might prevent a farmer from planting a crop. A law was soon passed punishing the horsethief with two hun- dred lashes and imprisonment until the horse was paid for, for the first offense, and with death for the second.
There were some other forms of stealing that were common. Hogs and cattle ran at large. Hogs, espe- cially, were almost wild. Their owners paid little at- tention to them, further than to feed them during the last weeks of winter and mark the pigs at wean- ing time. The hog thief either marked the young pigs before the owner could, changed the mark after it was made, or killed the grown hogs regardless of marks. A fine of from $50 to $100 and twenty-five to thirty-nine lashes well laid on the bare back, was the penalty imposed by the legislature for this crime.
Society was rough and boisterous, and, in terri-
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
torial Indiana, church and tavern were the two con- gregating places. One of these was the resort of the orderly class, the other the resort of the disorderly. The two extremes of society were the border ruffian and the border preacher. They were uncompromising enemies. The circuit rider was just as game for a fight as the rowdy. His meetings were often disturbed by the neighborhood bravoes. Every new preacher in the neighborhood had to establish his reputation as a fighter with those characters who attempted to break up his meetings. It is to the credit of our earliest law-makers that they put the law on the side of the preachers, where its weight counted for order and decency. Disorderly conduct, especially profanity, was punishable by fine, and, if that was not promptly paid, the offender was jailed.
Gambling and drunkenness were the common things among the lawless element at the taverns, though these were often the prelude to more serious crime. The ordinary gambler carried on his trade by means of a greasy pack of cards and draw poker. The dandy played billiards. Both as a tax measure and a police regulation the legislature put the tavern under the supervision of the county common pleas jus- tices. The judges issued a license which cost the tav- ern keeper $12; and they also made out a schedule of rates which were certified by the county clerk and posted in the tavern lobby. If the tavern keeper or any one else kept a billiard table he was required to pay an annual fee of $50. This was bad legislation, for it necessitated the tavern keeper going into poli- tics, and made crime profitable to the taxpayer.
The courts, then much more than now, were hide- bound by precedents and technicalities. Juries, under the influence of eloquent lawyers, were disposed to do substantial justice, but there were plenty of petty- fogging shysters who took advantage of the technicali-
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SOCIAL CONDITIONS
ties and delays of the law to rob the unwary or evade justice. Under the slow process of the common law, and the tardy action of the regular courts, any one threatened with a suit could gather up his effects and leave the State before the law could lay hands on him. Evildoers could thus accomplish their purpose and leave the State, unrestrained. To remedy this a chan- cery court was provided for. It had power to enjoin a wrongdoer or issue a writ of ne exeat forbidding him to leave its jurisdiction. This court through lack of a judge proved useless. A statute of more value was one consolidating the common pleas, quarter session, orphans and probate courts into a single court called the county common pleas. The practice was simplified also at this time.
In the way of commercial development little was at- tempted. Each county court was required to get a set of standard weights and measures for the use of the people. A strict road law was enacted, requiring every man to work at least twelve days annually under super- visors appointed by the county courts. Millers were given the right of eminent domain in locating their dam sites. The toll of the miller was fixed by law, and he was required to grind "well and sufficiently and in turn." Sealed toll dishes and struck measures were required by law.
The law-makers had no consistent view of personal rights. On the one hand, they provided a way by which all persons imprisoned for debt might liberate themselves, and a way by which the accused might give bail, and a way by which orphans might be pro- tected and cared for. All these tended to better the condition of the unfortunate. On the other hand, they enacted a law permitting indentured apprenticeship of boys and girls till the ages of twenty-one and eighteen, respectively. Another law concerning the introduction of negroes was not substantially different from the
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
Virginia slave code, and finds no justification except in human slavery. It did little harm, few negroes ever being brought into the State, nevertheless it is the most infamous law ever placed on an Indiana statute book.
The meeting of the legislature brought out distinct- ly the various factions among the settlers. It was well understood from the language of the Ordinance of 1787 that the connection between Indiana and Illinois was only temporary. The Illinois settlements were all on
the Mississippi. Their market was New Orleans. There was no inducement for them to come to Vin- cennes except to attend court or perform other govern- mental duties. The level prairies of Illinois were cov- ered with water in winter, in summer none could be had, not even to drink. The trip by land or water was long and tiresome. The Illinois settlers were called upon to pay two-fifths of the expense of a government, which could neither protect their homes from the In- dians, nor their commerce from the Spanish buc- caneers.
There was dissatisfaction also in the Whitewater valley. Hardly had the first Indiana legislators re- turned home until a petition was in circulation asking Congress to reannex the "gore" to Ohio, where it had formerly belonged. Most of the settlers at that time traded at Cincinnati, and their sympathies were with the people of Ohio. Especially was the indenture law, enacted by the late Indiana legislature, distasteful to them. For these reasons, and on account of the great distance to, and inconvenient location of Vincennes, one hundred and five of the settlers joined in this petition to be taken from Indiana and attached to Ohio.11
The French inhabitants also protested against the new government. The levy of a territorial tax, espe- cially the poll tax, caused dissatisfaction everywhere.
11 American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 450.
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SLAVERY IN INDIANA
It lay at the bottom of the discontent in Illinois and on the Whitewater. The French citizens of Vincennes held a meeting August 16, 1807, passed resolutions de- nouncing the change to the second grade, and threat- ened with a boycott all those who had favored it.
The Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the Northwest territory. This law had been carried out by the government of that territory, but when Indiana territory was organized the sentiment of its people was not opposed so strongly to slavery. Neither the governor nor the courts maintained any straightfor- ward policy on the question. Slaves were held in all parts of Indiana territory. A majority of the people thought that the repeal of the section of the Ordinance forbidding slavery would largely increase immigration. With the purpose in mind of petitioning Congress to suspend this part of the Ordinance, a convention was held at Vincennes December 20, 1802. This conven- tion was called and presided over by Governor Harri- son, and seems to have been unanimous in its prayer for the suspension of the Ordinance, so far as it con- cerned slavery. A committee of the House of Repre- sentatives, of which John Randolph, a Virginia planter, owner of more than three hundred slaves, was chair- man, reported against the petition. He pointed out in his report that Ohio was settling up rapidly without slaves, and that slavery was a curse to any community.
Similar petitions were presented to Congress by the Indiana settlers, and by the legislature at various times, but Congress turned a deaf ear to their prayers. Failing in their petitions, the people next turned to the territorial government for aid in bringing in slaves. September 22, 1803, the governor and judges adopted a "Law Concerning Servants" from the Virginia slave code. This allowed masters, expecting to come to Indiana with their slaves, to make a contract with them for lifelong slavery. This contract was salable,
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
and by this means slaves were held, bought and sold in Indiana just as well as in Virginia.
A series of such acts disgraced our territorial legis- latures.12 With the separation of Indiana and Illinois and the growth of the settlements on the Ohio river, the anti-slavery sentiment gradually gained the upper hand. By 1810 the anti-slavery party was strong enough to repeal these pro-slavery laws.13 The leaders in the anti-slavery cause were mostly of south- ern birth. The census of 1810 showed two hundred and thirty-seven slaves in the State and the number, no doubt, never exceeded two hundred and fifty. While most of these were held in the vicinity of Vincennes, there were slaves in all parts of the State.14
Self government and struggles over the elections have always gone on hand in hand. Democracy is al- ways struggling for freer expression. The first repre- sentative assembly in Indiana regulated the election of members to the General Assembly. This merely ap- plied the old law then in force in the Northwest terri- tory. A high property qualification prevailed at that
12 Laws of Indiana Territory, 1805, 5-25.
13 Laws of Indiana Territory, 1810, 54. At the date of its repeal there were 237 slaves in the State. The institution of slavery never had any earnest supporters in Indiana, however, Yet in spite of this it was the cause of factional politics through- out the territorial era. Naturally those persons emigrating from the South were not bitter against slaveholders. The indenture law of 1805 was not an expression of the will of the people but rather a bit of sharp practice in the interest of a few politicians who no doubt were looking far into the future for political favors. Of these the "Dough face" representative from the Whitewater valley, Jesse B. Thomas, is a good example. No one will believe that he was representing Dearborn county when he was abetting pro-slavery measures in the Indiana General Assembly.
14 J. P. Dunn, Indiana. This is a monograph on the slavery struggle in Indiana. It is an excellent piece of work. Mr. Dunn has published a number of slavery papers in Publications of In- diana Historical Society, II.
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TERRITORIAL ELECTIONS
time throughout the United States. This same General Assembly appointed a committee of two, John Rice Jones and John Johnson, two Vincennes attorneys, to codify the laws. These men gave us our first election law-approved September 17, 1807.15
This law provided that elections for representa- tives, the only officers then elected by the people in the territory, should be held every two years on the first Monday of April. Polls were to be opened at ten o'clock a. m. by the sheriff and two justices of the com- mon pleas. Polls remained open two days, and if neces- sary three days. Two clerks kept the tally. If a man offered to vote, he was questioned by the judges as to his qualifications, and if permitted, he then named the man for whom he wished to vote, and his own name was written under that of his candidate. Voting was all done orally. Free male inhabitants, twenty- one years of age and possessed of fifty acres of land, could vote.
The election of a delegate to Congress was regu- lated by Congress. An act of February 27, 1809, per- mitted the people to elect the delegate at the same time they chose their representative and also gave the peo- ple the right to elect their own councillors. The same suffrage qualifications were prescribed as for the rep- resentatives. The election thus became a most im- portant affair.
A new law of Congress, March 3, 1811, gave the right to vote to all taxpaying men over twenty-one years of age who had been in the territory one year. Office holders appointed by the governor were not per- mitted to be candidates. The territorial legislature, fol- lowing the lead of Congress, prescribed the same quali- fications, took the control of elections out of the hands of the sheriff, who was the friend of the governor, and placed it in the hands of the common pleas justices.
15 Laus of Indiana Territory, 1807.
1
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
Polls were to be opened in each township, instead of each county, by inspectors appointed by the justices. Written ballots were to be used. This law was signed December 19, 1811.
All through this period, from 1804 to 1811, there was outspoken hostility toward the control of the elec- tions. The sheriff, who had immediate control, was appointed by the governor. The common pleas justices really controlled the sheriff, but, as the sheriff did the actual work, he got all the blame. The justices in turn were controlled largely by the tavern keepers whom they created. The influential politicians then were the sheriffs, justices and tavern keepers.
The founders of Indiana were quick to realize the close dependence of free institutions on widespread education. "Considering that a commonwealth, where the humblest citizen may be elected to the highest pub- lic office, and where the heaven-born prerogative of the right to elect, and to reject, is retained and secured to the citizens, the knowledge which is requisite for a magistrate and elector, should be widely diffused" ran the preamble to the charter of the Vincennes Univer- sity. This charter was granted by the Territorial As- sembly November 29, 1806. The new institution was placed in the hands of a board of twenty-three trustees, including all the public officers of the territory and pre- sided over by the governor.
The faculty was to consist of a president and four professors, who were to offer instruction in the Latin, Greek, French and English languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, ancient and modern history, moral philosophy, logic, rhetoric, and the law of nature and nations.
The trustees were required to provide instruction for the Indians, to establish a school for girls, as soon as funds would permit, to found a library, and to organ- ize and maintain a grammar school. ' They were
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BURR'S CONSPIRACY
further directed to raise the necessary funds by means of a lottery. Congress had previously, 1804, granted the territory a township of land for the use of the uni- versity. The secretary of the United States Treasury, Albert Gallatin, had located this in Gibson county. The General Assembly authorized the board of trustees to sell not more than 4,000 acres of this land, and lease or rent the remainder. The trustees asked permission of Congress to levy a small tax on salt for the benefit of the school, but the request was denied. This uni- versity continued until 1824. It had no adequate reve- nue and never flourished.16
Seminaries were chartered later at Salem, Corydon, Charlestown, Vevay and Vincennes. Literary societies were incorporated in many towns. A commendable spirit was shown, but, owing to the sparse population and the lack of funds, little real work was done in the way of public education.
§ 32 AARON BURR'S CONSPIRACY
DURING the summer and fall of 1806 the whole western country was thrown into excitement by the scheme of Col. Aaron Burr and Herrman Blanner- hassett. There had been a certain amount of disloyal sentiment among the settlers west of the mountains for many years. The only ground for it now, since the purchase of Louisiana, was the taxes paid to the na- tional government. It was pointed out to the people, by these plotters, that $400,000, the alleged tax paid each year, would go a long way toward building suit- able roads in the Ohio valley.
Burr recruited his expedition of forty or fifty men around Pittsburg and Beaver, Pennsylvania, and picked up arms and provisions on his way down the Ohio. Blannerhassett joined him at his island home just be- low Marietta. The whole enterprise was represented
16 American State Papers, Miscellaneous, 654.
-
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
in its earlier stages as a trading voyage, but in Ohio and Indiana it was said to be a colonizing company on its way to the Red river, where Burr and Blanner- hassett had purchased 800,000 acres of land. There is little doubt that Burr and Gen. James Wilkinson had planned a fillibustering, buccaneering attack on Mexico.
Maj. Davis Floyd and Robert A. New were Burr's agents at Jeffersonville. These men collected two boat loads of men to join the expedition, which left Jeffer- sonville December 16, 1806, in spite of the efforts of the territorial government to prevent it. The men were asked to bring guns and blankets and were promised eight dollars per month and a hundred acres of land on the Washita branch of the Red river. Mr. Burr succeeded in inducing a number of captains of produce boats to run their boats to Natchez, where he promised to buy both boat and produce.
The expedition proceeded on to Natchez, after meeting with some hindrance from the garrison at Fort Massac. At Natchez Burr was arrested and the expe .. dition broken up. Nothing came of it in Indiana more than a temporary wave of indignation.17 At a public meeting in Vincennes January 4, 1808, a resolution was adopted declaring Indiana had no sympathy with Burr. Floyd was indicted for treason, and upon con- viction, sentenced to three hours' imprisonment at Jeffersonville.18
§ 33 DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERRITORY
CAPTAIN THOMAS HUTCHINS of the English army, who was on the Wabash during the English occupation, 1764 to 1778, said there were about sixty families at
17 Tradition has it that many of Burr's soldiers settled in various parts of Indiana, hiding, as they believed, from the gov- ernment, which sought all of them as traitors. See Cockrum, A Pioneer History of Indiana, 471, 477; John C. Lazenby in Indiana Magazine of History, X, 259.
18 American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 524; William H. Safford, The Blannerhassett Papers.
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COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Vincennes. These were farmers and traders. He esti- mated the value of their fur trade at $25,000 annually. Corn, wheat, tobacco, and many kinds of fruits were common. Ouiatanon was a small post on the west side of the Wabash and contained a dozen families. The fur trade there totaled $40,000 annually, he estimated. Capt. George Crogan, as mentioned above, estimated the population of Vincennes at ninety families, and that of Ouiatanon at fourteen families. He was there in 1765.
When Gen. Josiah Harmar visited Vincennes in 1788 he estimated the number of houses at near 400. Many of these were mere hovels built of poles or bark. The number of people he placed at about 900 French and 400 Americans. Their ancient prosperity was gone. The coming of the Americans had ruined their trade. Many of the inhabitants had to be supported at public expense during the winters.
The census of 1800 showed Vincennes to have a population of 714, the neighborhood 819, or a total of 1,533 for the settlement. By this time quite a settle- ment had sprung up on Clark's Grant. The census of 1800 showed a population there of 919. The total population of Indiana Territory, 5,641, was about evenly divided between what is now Indiana and Illi- nois. When Indiana and Illinois were separated, 1809, the population was estimated at 28,000, of whom 11,000 were west of the Wabash and 17,000 east of it. In the election for delegate to Congress, May 22, 1809, after the separation, Jonathan Jennings received 428 votes, Thomas Randolph 402, and John Johnson 81, making a total vote in the territory of 911.
The census of 1810 gave the territory a population of 24,520. In an industrial way this census showed a beginning. One cotton mill, making $150 worth of cloth, had been erected. There were 1,380 spinning wheels ; 1,256 looms ; one nail machine, making 20,000
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
pounds of nails, worth $4,000; 18 tanneries, making $93,000 worth of leather; 28 distilleries, turning out annually 35,950 gallons of whiskey, worth $16,230; 3 powder mills, making 3,600 pounds of powder, worth $1,800; one wheat mill, 32 grist mills, and three horse mills, grinding 40,900 bushels of wheat; 14 saw-mills, cutting 390,000 feet of lumber, worth $3,900, and 50,000 pounds of maple sugar being made, worth $5,000.
Besides this there was made in the homes 54,977 yards of cotton cloth, 92,740 yards of flaxen goods, 61,- 503 yards of mixed, and 19,378 yards of woolen goods -a total product valued at $159,052.
Commerce was lively in the new settlements. The road from New Albany to Vincennes was thronged with settlers. A memorial was presented to Congress asking the United States to construct a post road from Dayton, Ohio, by way of the Falls to Vincennes. The purpose was to extend it onward to St. Louis. It would thus connect the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and furnish immigrants a way into the Mis- souri country. This was a forerunner of the National road. A company was organized to build a canal around the Falls of the Ohio. In 1805 it petitioned à Congress for a land grant of 25,000 acres. The Indian war stopped all this activity.
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