USA > Minnesota > Goodhue County > History of Goodhue county, including a sketch of the territory and state of Minnesota > Part 12
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The removal of the Land Office to Stillwater, was only effected after much delay and difficulty, as a remonstrance had been made by the members of the Wisconsin Legisla- ture, and to Senator Walker, against its being removed out of the limits of the State. This obstacle was eventually surmounted by the establishment of an additional Land District in Wisconsin, the location of which office has been made at Willow River. A weekly mail has been granted us by the Postmaster General, at my earnest and repeated solicitation. I was aided in obtaining this grant by the gentlemen composing the Iowa and Wisconsin delegations.
I offered a resolution in the House, which was adopted, to instruct the Committee on Post Office to inquire iuto the expediency of establishing a post route from Fort Snelling to Fort Gains, also to instruct the Committee on Indian Affairs to inquire into the expediency of extending the laws of the United States over the Northwest tribes, so as to make all amenable to the proper tribunals, and thereby put a stop to the murders and other crimes habitually perpetrated among them. I also drew up a bill which was pre- sented in the Senate by Hon. Robert Smith, appropriating $12,000 for the construction of a road from the St. Louis River of Lake Superior, to St. Paul and to Point Douglass, via the Marine Mills and Stillwater.
There was not sufficient time to push these measures through Congress at this short session; but they will doubtless be effected next winter, as I do not apprehend any difficulty will be thrown in the way of their passage. Much business appertaining to individuals and to private claims have also been entrusted to me, and I have given it as great a share of my attention as other and more important duties would permit.
Having been furnished with a power of attorney, signed by a large number of Sioux mixed bloods, to dispose of their lands at Lake Pepin, I waited upon the Secretary of War and Commissioner of Indian Affairs, repeatedly, with a hope of procuring their concurrence in the furtherance of this object. It was finally decided by the former, that as a change of administration was so soon to take place, it would not be proper for him to enter into any negotiations with me; and he likewise objected, that, as many of the signatures were in the same handwriting, and only witnessed by two persons, that the letter of attorney would not be considered valid in law. I then made the attempt to procure an item to be appended to the general appropriation bill, for a sufficient sum to
* The following circular, of which a copy is on file among the papers of the Historical Society, was placed on the desk of each member of the House, in order to aid the motion referred to.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Saturday, Feb. 17, 1849.
Sir :- It is not probable that the bill for the organization of Minnesota Territory, will be reached in the order of business before the Committee of the Whole. As a failure of this bill would be a most serious calamity to that territory, I take the liberty to appeal to your kind feelings in their behalf, to sustain me in a motion I shall make on Monday to suspend the rules, that the bill may be taken up and passed. It is not probable that any debate will take place upon it. I am, Sir, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
H. H. SIBLEY.
8
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defray the expenses of making a treaty with the owners of Lake Pepin tract, and for negotiating a general treaty with the Sioux Indians. * * * * * *
In the first place, I assert as a proposition which cannot be contradicted, that your delegate would not have been admitted to a seat if he had appeared there as elected by a party, and that his defeat would have involved the failure of the Minnesota bill, and necessarily of other important projects which were committed solely to his care. I do not make this declaration in any self-gratulation or conceit. There are others among you, who, with the same advantages and the same means, would have performed as much as I have done. But I refer to the fact to illustrate the wisdom of your deter- nation to draw no party lines at the late election. Chosen by the people, without regard to the distinctions of Whig or Democrat, my course here has been shaped in exact accordance with that determination. My rule was to keep my ears open and my mouth shut, whenever questions were discussed of a party character, or other matters not appertaining in any way to my own region of country.
You are all aware that I appeared before the people as a candidate opposed to drawing party lines. I believed then, and, believe now, that no such distinction should be made in a territory, the delegate of which has no vote, and whose policy is to make himself popular with all parties. When the time comes, be it sooner or later, that we shall have a population sufficient to justify us in looking forward to our admission into the Union at an early day, then, in my view, will be the proper period to mould the political com- plexion of the State. My own opinions on points of national policy, are as distinct and well defined as those of any other man. Minnesota now occupies no unenviable position. The government granted us, secures us all in the full possession of privileges almost, if not fully equal to those enjoyed by the people of the States. With a legislative council elected from among our own citizens, our own judicial tribunals, with a large appropria- tion for the construction of public buildings, and for a public library, with ample provi- sion for defraying the expenses of the territorial government, and with the right of representation in the halls of Congress, surely we can have no cause of complaint so far as our political situation is concerned. It is for ourselves, by a wise, careful, and prac- tical legislation, and by the improving of the advantages we possess, to keep inviolate the public faitl, and to hasten the time when the star of Minnesota, which now but twinkles in the political firmament, shall shine brilliantly in the constellation of our con- federated States.
In an address before the first annual banquet of the "Old Settlers' Association of Minnesota," June 1, 1858, Gov. Sibley referred to the difficulties attending the organization of the Territory, as follows :
" I desire that none of you shall ever experience more doubt or distress of mind than I felt, when, as a delegate elect from the Territory of Wisconsin, I took the route to Washington city, in 1848, with a view to secure a seat in the House of Representatives, and the subsequent passage of an act for the establishment of Minnesota. I was then an utter stranger to all except two or three of the public men of the country. It so happened that I fell in with some members of Congress, who were also on their way to the federal city, and among others was Hon. John Wentworth, commonly called 'Long John.' He manifested much interest in my mission, but advised me by no means to attempt to be admitted to a seat as a delegate, but rather to act as a lobby member, and by so doing, the passage of the Minnesota bill would, in his opinion, be facilitated Mr. Wentworth was a good friend of our territory, and aided much in achieving the final favorable result, but I differed with him in opinion, when he gave me the counsel I have mentioned; and you all know that after severe struggles and considerable delay, I was allowed a seat as the delegate to Congress from Wisconsin Territory. The bill to organize Minnesota first passed the Senate and was sent to the House, the Senate being then, as now, Democratic, and the House of Representatives being composed of a
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majority of Whigs. 'The latter amended the bill so as to take effect on the 10th of March, instead of from the day of its passage, as fixed in the bill as it passed the Senate. Mr. Polk's administration was about to go out and that of Gen. Taylor to succeed it. The Senate desired to give the appointment of the officers of the new territory to Mr. Polk, while the House was as persistent in its own amendment, which would give the officers to the new administration. Thus the bill was suspended between the two bodies, and would probably be killed. The people of Minnesota should regard the De- partment of the Interior with peculiar interest, for the creation of that new division of the public service carried with it our bill, in the manner following :
"The bill for the formation of a new department, called the 'Home' or 'Interior' Department, passed the House; and towards the close of the session its fate was to be decided in the Senate. Several of the Democratic Senators, although not decided in their opposition, cared little whether a measure which bestowed upon the incoming administration a large additional amount of patronage, would be successful or not. It was while laboring under great apprehensions lest the Minnesota bill should be defeated that I chanced to find myself in the Senate. I expressed my fears to several of the Demo- cratic Senators, who were my personal friends, and they, to the number of five or six, authorized me to say to the Whig leaders in the House, that unless that body receded, from its amendment, and thus permitted Minnesota to be organized, they would cast their votes against the bill for the formation of the Interior Department. I hastened back to the House, called together several of the prominent Whig members, and informed them of the state of affairs, satisfied that the votes of the senators I named would turn the whole scale for or against a measure they particularly desired should succeed. They went to work in the House, and produced so great a change in a short time, that a motion to recede from their amendment to the Senate bill was adopted the same evening, by a majority of some thirty or forty ; and into our infant Territory was breathed the breath of life."
Speech of Hon. H. H. Sibley, of Minnesota, before the Committee on Elections of the House of Representatives, December 22, 1848.
Mr. Chairman :- Having been elected by the people of Wisconsin Territory to repre- sent their interests as a delegate in the Congress of the United States, I should consider myself as recreant to the trust reposed in me by those who have honored me with their confidence, if I did not take every proper means to secure my seat, and be thus placed in a position where I may render some service to my constituents. No question has been or cau be raised, with regard to the legality of the election. The certificate of the act- ing governor is prima facie evidence of that fact. It remains then only to show, if pos- sible, that the residuum of Wisconsin Territory, after the admission of the State, remained in the possession of the same rights and immunities which were secured to the people of the whole territory by the organic law. In doing this I shall be as brief as the nature of the case will admit, but being convinced that a favorable report from your honorable committee is vitally important, I must be permitted to present all the facts bearing upon the case, and sustain by such arguments as I may, based upon the facts, the position assumed by those who sent me here.
The honorable gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Boyden,) at your previous meet- ing, attempted to show that the act for the admission of the State of Wisconsin was ipso facto a repeal of the organic law of the territory.
To support this proposition, he supposed a case in which all the population of a terri- tory should be included within the limits of a State, except a few individuals, or one man, who might elect one of their number or himself, as a delegate to Congress, and be entitled to admission, upon the principle assumed in the present case. Mr. Chairman, I meet this fairly by another supposition, by no means so improbable. It was seriously
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contemplated, by a respectable portion of the people, to ask Congress to make the Wis- consin River the northern boundary of the State of that name. If this had been done, some fifteen or twenty thousand inhabitants would have been left in precisely the same situation in which the present population of Wisconsin Territory now find themselves. Would Congress have refused under such circumstances to receive a delegate elected by the people, according to the provisions of the organic law? The case supposed is an extreme one. Congress has full power to prevent any abuse of such privileges. But when a large portion of a territory is left without the boundaries of a State, and no pro- vision is made for the repealing or modifying the organic law, does not that very fact, taken in connection with the obligation of a government to afford to all its citizens the protection of law, make it perfectly clear that the residuum remains under the full opera- tion of the same organic law? To suppose otherwise would be to maintain that a gov- ernment has the right at pleasure to deprive its citizens of all civil rights, a hypothesis repugnant to the spirit of our institutions and of the age.
The imprescriptible, inalienable birthright of the subject is laid down as one of the national rights of citizenship, of which none can be deprived without their consent. (Payley's Phil. B. VI, chap. 3, Judge Iredell in Talcot v. Janson, 3 Dall., Rep. 133.) Vat- tell, in his Law of Nations, B. 1, chap. 2, thus lays down the rule : " If a nation is obliged to preserve itself, it is no less obliged carefully to preserve all its members." And, again : " The body of a nation cannot then abandon a province, a town, or even a single individual, who is a part of it, unless compelled to do it by necessity, or indis- pensably obliged to do it for the strongest reasons, founded on the public safety."
Having thus shown that the point of international law, as received by all civilized countries, is clearly in our favor, I will merely quote a paragraph of the ordinance of 1787, as applicable to the country northwest of the Ohio River. This guarantees to all the inhabitants of that region, the possession of " the benefits of habeas corpus, and trial by jury, of a proportionate representation in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. We are a part and parcel of the people to whom were secured these blessings, and a decision which would deprive us of the right to be represented on the floor of Congress, would virtually annul all those guarantees, and reduce society into its original elements.
I come now, Mr. Chairman, to the precedents cited in support of my claim, and which the gentleman from North Carolina so strongly objects, inasmuch as, in his opinion, they do not cover the present case. They are those of Paul Fearing and George W. Jones. It is admitted that the former, elected as delegate from the northwest territory, appeared and took his seat months after the passage of the act of Congress admitting Ohio into the Union, and before any other new territorial organization had been effected. So far, then, Ohio had a perfect right to send a representative and senators to Congress. That she did not do so, affects in no manner the merits of the question. She only declined, for good and sufficient reasons, to exercise her undoubted right. During this state of things, Mr. Fearing was in his seat, not as the representative of the sovereign State of Ohio, but of the residuum of the northwest territory. This is a fact beyond contradiction or dispute. If Ohio had sent her representatives, they would have been admitted without question. But it is said that Mr. Fearing's right to a seat was not formally passed upon by the House. But we know that the committee on elections reported favorably in his case, and the fact that he retained his station until the end of the session, is good evidence that the House concurred with the committee in opinion.
In the case of Hon. George W. Jones, now a United States Senator from Iowa, the circumstances, although not precisely similar, are sufficiently so in point to give them authority as a precedent. Mr. Jones was elected the delegate from the Territory of Michigan, and the State had previously formed a constitution and sent its senators and representatives here to demand admission. True, the act of Congress admitting the State not having been yet passed, they were not formally received ; but it is nevertheless equally true that Mr. Jones was elected by the people residing out of the limits of the
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State, and that he represented the interests of the residuum only. The inhabitants of the State of Michigan took no part in the election of that gentleman. Surely one or the other of the above cited cases must be allowed to be an exact precedent, if both are not to be so considered.
Mr. Chairman, the onus probandi must rest upon those who deny the existence of a distinct territorial government in Wisconsin Territory. The fact that the organic law gave to that territory certain privileges, among which was the right to elect a delegate to Congress, is undeniable, and it is equally certain that no subsequent action of that body abrogated any portion of that law, or divested the people of any of these privileges. The conclusion is not to be controverted, that a law of Congress creating a temporary government over a portion of the territory of the United States, must continue in force, unless repealed by the same legislative authority. The division of a territory is not the destruction thereof. That portion formed into a State, and admitted as such, has com- menced a new political existence; but the residnum not being in anywise affected thereby, remained under the operation of the old law. The sphere in which each moves is well defined, and there can be no collision between them. The very act of establishing the territorial government of Wisconsin, provides that Congress shall have the right to divide it into two or more territories at any time thereafter, if such a step should be deemed expedient or necessary. It did so virtually by the act admitting Wisconsin into the Union.
The honorable gentleman from North Carolina has fallen into a grievous error, when he asserts that during the first grade of territorial government, that in which the legis- lative power was vested in the governor and judges, the government has not granted them a delegate in Congress ; for Michigan was entitled to and represented by a delegate years before a legislative council was vouchsafed to her. This can be ascertained by a reference to the journals of Congress. But, sir, I do not conceive this question to have any bearing upon the case before you. The people of Wisconsin Territory are not present by their representative to argue any question of abstract right, but to appeal to this committee to protect them in the enjoyment of those immunities which are secured to them by the solemn sanctions of law. The government of the United States, when it invited its citizens to emigrate to the Territory of Wisconsin by the formation of a temporary government, must have intended to act in good faith towards them, by con- tinuing over them the provisions of the organic law. Sixteen thousand acres of land have been purchased, for the most part by bona fide settlers, the proceeds of which have gone into your treasury. Taxed equally with other inhabitants of this Union for the support of the general government, they are certainly entitled to equal privileges.
Sir, it is a fact that the inhabitants of the region I have the honor to represent, have always heretofore, since the establishment of a territorial government for Wisconsin, participated in the election of a delegate, and have enjoyed all the rights and immunities secured to them by the organic law. It is equally a fact, that they have a full county organization, and form part of a judicial circuit. Congress was by no means ignorant of the existing state of things when the State of Wisconsin was admitted, for there were lying at that time upon the tables of both Houses, petitions signed by hundreds of citizens living north and west of the St. Croix River, praying that they might not be included within the limits of the State, but suffered to enjoy the benefits of the terri- torial government. The region north and west of Wisconsin contains an area of more than 20,000 square miles, with a population nearly, if not quite, 6000 souls. Can a prop- osition be seriously entertained to disfranchise and outlaw the people? Sir, if it is determined that the territory I have come here to represent has no claim to such repre- sentation on the floor of Congress, then will one branch of the law-making power have sanctioned a principle which will scatter all the restraints of law in that region to the winds. For either the territorial organization is perfect and complete, or it has been entirely abrogated and annulled. The same authority which provides for the election of a delegate, gives the power to choose other officers. All must stand or fall together.
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If we have no organization, as is contended by the honorable gentlemen from North Carolina, then have our judicial and ministerial officers rendered themselves liable to future punishment for a usurpation of power. If a malefactor has been apprehended, or a debtor arrested, the officers serving the writ will be visited hereafter with an action for false imprisonment. Our beautiful country will become a place of refuge for depraved and desperate characters from the neighboring States. The vast and varied agri- cultural and commercial interests of the country will be involved in ruin, and all security for life and property will vanish. But, sir, I do not believe that this committee will consent to give a decision involving such a train of evils, and such utter absurdities. Not a single good reason can be assigned for perpetrating so gross an outrage upon several thousand citizens of the United States, as to divest them, at one fell stroke, of all those blessings of a legal jurisdiction which they have hitherto enjoyed, and that without any consent or agency of their own.
Sir, there are certain fixed principles of law which cannot be annulled by sophistry, or destroyed by any system of special pleading. By these eternal and immutable maxims, are the duties of government and their citizens or subjects defined, and their mutual and reciprocal obligations are not to be laid aside or dispensed with by either. The action of all popular government must be of a beneficial character to the governed. The one must protect, the other obey. The former is charged with the duty of throwing around its citizens the safeguards of law, while they on their part are bound to uphold the majesty of that law. Circumstances of extreme danger alone can for a moment absolve either from these imperative obligations. Whence then is derived the power of this government to cast aside any portion of its citizens at will? Sir, when disfranchise- ment is visited by despotic governments upon their people, it is to mete out to them the severest punishment which can be inflicted upon a community for political offences short of actual extermination.
Sir, the case now before you for your action does certainly present some novel fea- -tures. It is the first time since the foundation of this government that several thousand citizens of the United States have been found supplicating and pleading, by their repre- sentative, that they may not be deprived by Congress of all civil government, and thrust from its doors by a forced and constructive interpretation of a law of the land, which does not in fact bear even remotely upon the question. Sir, the wants and wishes of those who sent me here have now no advocatie on the floor of Congress. These people have emigrated to the remote region they now inhabit under many disadvantages.
They have not been attracted thither by the glitter of inexhaustible gold mines, but with the same spirit which has actuated all our pioneers of civilization. They have gone there to labor with the axe, the anvil, and the plough. They have elected a delegate, with the full assurance that they had a right to do so, and he presents himself here for admission. Sir, was this a questiou in which the consequences would be confined to me personally, the honorable members of this House would not find me here, day after day, wearying their patience by long appeals and explanations. But believing as I do, before God, that my case, and the question whether there is any law in the Territory of Wisconsin, are intimately and indissolubly blended together, I trust that the House of Representatives will, by its decision of the claim before it, establish the principle, which shall be as a landmark in all coming time, that citizens of this mighty republic, upon whom the rights and immunities of a civil government have been once bestowed by an act of Congress, shall not be deprived of those without fault or agency of their own, unless under circumstances of grave and imperious necessity, involving the safety and well-being of the whole country.
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