Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074

USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 6

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"Mr. Speaker: I was the first man to drive a wagon across Big Creek, the boundary of the proposed new county, and the first permanent white settler

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

within its limits. I was born, sir, in Link-horn county, North Carolina. I lived for many years in Link-horn county in old Kaintuck. I wish to live the remain- der of my days in Link-horn county, in Missouri, and I move, therefore, that the blank in the bill be filled with the name Link-horn."

The motion was carried without a dissenting vote, and the clerk wrote in the blank space. "L-i-n-c-o-1-n."

The Most Popular Sport.

The shooting match, according to the Franklin Intelligencer, held first place among Missouri sports. It was extolled as more than sport. "In a republic where regular soldiers are held in such indifferent estimation that they abandon the hope of uniform good treatment, it is important that every citizen prepare himself for the high destiny of self defense." The Intelligencer continued :

"Shooting matches on almost every Saturday evening tend to perfect our riflemen in the use of their hair-splitting weapons. Many of these guns are so unpromising in ap- pearance that one of them might be mistaken for a crowbar tied to a handspike; but when in the hands of a marksman, its value is ascertained. At our shooting match a beef is divided in five parts, and the hide and tallow is termed the fifth quarter. This last is the most valuable and it is for the fifth quarter that the most skillful marksmen contend. The shots are generally so thickly planted about the centre of the target as to require great scrutiny in determining the conquerors,-the 'fifth quarter winner,' 'second choice,' etc. When this is known great exultation is not unusual, but the winners sometimes betray a little vanity in bestowing encomiums on their rifles; and there are few who are not polite enough to attribute their success to the excellence of arms. If the gunsmith be present, he is not a little flattered by the acknowledgment of his skill. Many of the most distinguished guns acquire names of the most fearful import, by which they are known in sporting circles and small bets are sometimes made on 'Blacksnake,' 'Cross Bunter,' 'Hair Splitter,' 'Blood Letter,' and 'Panther Cooler.' In short there are very few of our rifles that would not put to shame the arrow that sent a messenger 'to Philip's eye.' I am likewise disposed to believe that if 'Natty Bumpo' himself were to attend one of our shooting matches 'for beef' he might stake his last ninepence to no purpose."

Current Events, One Hundred Years Ago.

One hundred years ago Missourians made cloth from wild nettles and called it hodden gray. They made their own gunpowder. They boiled their salt and sold it in St. Louis and other towns for one dollar a bushel. A large pot heaping full of hard boiled eggs was the most prominent dish on the table at a wedding supper. A bridegroom was so everjoyed at the conclusion of his marriage cere- mony, that, before anybody could kiss the bride, he gathered her in his arms and whirled her around and around, shouting, "I've got her ! I've got her!"

In the summer of 1820, Daniel Boone, who had braved the perils of the border for four score years had a "spell of fever" at Flanders Callaway's. When he was able to travel he went to Nathan Boone's, on Femme Osage. One day there was a dish of sweet potatoes on the table. The hero of a thousand encoun- ters with "injuns and varmints" ate too heartily. The fever came back. Daniel Boone died on the 26th of September, in his 86th year.

In 1821, Missouri had 70,647 people. Of these 59,092 were white, sixty of them being bound; 11,555, negroes, of whom 321 were free.

Textbooks in Missouri schools of this period were "Introduction to the

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

English Reader," "The English Reader," "The Moral Instructor," "Walker's Dictionary," "Smiley's Arithmetic." The Instructor abounded in the sayings of Benjamin Franklin. Ink was made from maple bark and copperas. Quills from the goose furnished the pens which were made by the schoolmaster. The teaching of manners was considered one of the most important branches, par- ticularly by the settlers who had come from Virginia.

Kentuckians could be distinguished from Tennesseans by their clothes. The latter wore brown jeans coats and striped cotton trousers, while the Kentuckians had full blue jeans suits.

The trouble with the buckskin clothing which some men wore was that when wet it would shrink. Many a Missouri settler, who had been wading or who had been caught in a rain storm, found it necessary to slip out of the cabin door before daylight and, tying the bottoms of his trousers to the side of the house or to a sapling, to get a tight hold of the breeches end and pull until he had stretched the legs to normal length.

Four-horse stages were put on the road from St. Louis to Franklin in 1820. The fare was $10.50. Before that introduction of modern transportation the travel had been by horseback.

Rivalry between the new towns of the Missouri valley became acute. A writer in the Intelligencer comparing Columbia and Boonville to the advantage of the former said: "Has Boonville, the seat of justice of Cooper, more inhabi- tants? It has but 116, and Columbia, the permanent seat of justice for Boone, has 130."

Even Thomas H. Benton had to change his early conception of Missouri. When he was a newspaper man, in 1820, he wrote for his Enquirer: "After you get forty or fifty miles from the Mississippi, arid plains set in, and the country is uninhabitable except upon the borders of the rivers and creeks."

SIGNING THE TREATY

Monroe, Marbois and Livingston executing at Paris the Louisiana Purchase, April 30, 1803. A life size bronze group by Karl Bitter in the arch of the Jefferson Memorial.

CHAPTER II

THE TRAVAIL OF STATEHOOD

A Masterful Petition for Statchood-Barton's Work-Slavery's Balance of Power-The Free States' Restriction-Gradual Emancipation Proposed-Missourians' Indignant Pro- tests-Memorial of the Baptist Churches-Grand Jurors in All of the Countics Appeal for Constitutional Rights-New Boundaries Rejected-Immigration Not Stopped-Dis- union Threatened-Thomas Jefferson's Forebodings-Maine and Missouri-Henry Clay's Championship of Missouri-The Compromise-Randolph's Opposition-The "Doughfaces"-Legislative Legerdemain-President Monroe's Cabinct Advice-North- ern Congressmen Denounced by Anti-Slavery Constituents-A Hitherto Unpublished Letter Explains the Compromise-Jefferson on Diffusion of Slavery-Missouri's First "Extra"-The Formal Ratification-Salutes Fired and Houses Illuminated-"Gross and Barefaced Usurpation" Resented-Statehood De Facto in September, 1820-Fourth of July Defiance-Another Hold Up Foreshadowed-The Clause to Exclude Free Negroes -Benton Advises Watchful Waiting-Missouri's Electoral Votc-An Unsuccessful Scheme to Dodge the Missouri Question-Randolph Shut Out Again-Senator Cock- rell's Scarch of the Records-The "Clay Formula"-A Ridiculous "Solemn Public Act" -Frederick W. Lehmann's Forceful Comments-Recognition of Statchood in 1820- Territorial Government Suspended-Governor McNair on Self Government-President Monroe's Proclamation Declaring Admission to the Union "Complete."

That the Congress of the United States have no right to control the provisions of a state constitution, except to preserve its republican character.

That the people of this territory have a right to meet in convention by their own authority, and to form a constitution and state government, whenever they shall deem it expedient to do so, and that a second determination on the part of Congress to refuse them admission, upon an equal footing with the original states, will make it expedient to exercise that right .- Benton resolutions adopted unanimously at mass meeting of Missourians in St. Louis, 1819, Alexander McNair presiding; David Barton, secretary.

Bear in mind, fellow citizens, that the question now before you is not whether slavery shall be per- mitted or prohibited in the future State of Missouri, but whether we will meanly abandon our rights and suffer any earthly power to dictate the terms of our constitution .- The Missouri Gazette in 1819.

But the agony is over and Missouri is born into the Union, not a seven months' baby but a man child; his birth no secret in the family, but a proud and glorious event, proclaimed to the nation with the firing of cannon, the ringing of bells and illumination of towns and cities .- St. Louis Enquirer, March 29, 1820. Benton was the editorial writer.

The admission of the said State of Missouri into this Union is declared to be complete .- Proclamation of President Monroe, August 10, 1821.

In the fall of 1817, men of weight in St. Louis went up and down Rue Prin- cipal and American street with a paper. There was no lack of signatures. The paper was "a petition from sundry inhabitants of the Territory of Missouri praying that said Territory may be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original states." Old Franklin, St. Charles, Herculaneum, Ste. Gene- vieve, Cape Girardeau, all of the population centers, added names.

It was high time for Missourians to act. Across the river, Illinois, some

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

thousands less in population, was seeking statehood. Seven states had been added to the Thirteen. Missouri was growing faster than any of them. Rev. Dr. John Mason Peck came with that wonderful flow of immigration across the Mississippi. He wrote of it in his Memoir :

"The 'new comers,' like a mountain torrent, poured into the country faster than it was possible to provide corn for bread stuff. Some families came in the spring of 1815; but in the winter, spring, summer and autumn of 1816, they came like an avalanche. It seemed as though Kentucky and Tennessee were breaking up and moving to the 'Far West.' Caravan after caravan passed over the prairies of Illinois, crossing the 'great river' at St. Louis, all bound to the Boone's Lick. The stream of immigration had not lessened in 1817. Many families came from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, and not a few from the Middle states, while a sprinkling found their way to the extreme West from Yankeedom and Yorkdom. Following in the wake of this exodus to the middle section of Missouri was a terrific excitement about getting land. My first visit in 1818 was at this crisis; and I could not call at a cabin in the country without being accosted : 'Got a New Madrid claim?' 'Are you one of these land speculators, stranger?'"

Petitions for Statehood.

On the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1818, the peti- tions of the "sundry inhabitants of the Territory of Missouri" were presented to Congress. The Annals of Congress make but brief mention of this act, mo- mentous in the history of Missouri. A copy of the petitions, which were identi- cal, is given, in entirety, by Shoemaker, the painstaking author of "Missouri's Struggle for Statehood." The memorial was a masterly composition, dignified, concise, forceful. It is well worth reading by this generation of Missourians. It set forth :

"That your petitioners live within that part of the Territory of Missouri which lies between the latitude 36 degrees, 30 minutes south and 40 degrees north, and between the Mississippi river to the East and the Osage boundary line to the West. They pray that they may be admitted to the Union of the states within these limits.

"They conceive that their numbers entitle them to the benefits and the rank of state government. Taking the progressive increase during former years, as a basis of the cal- culation, they estimate their present numbers at upwards of 40,000 souls. Tennessee, Ohio, and the Mississippi state were admitted with smaller numbers, and the Treaty of Cession guarantees this great privilege to your petitioners as soon as it can be granted under the principles of the Federal Constitution. They have passed eight years in the first grade of territorial government, five in the second; they have evinced their attach- ment to the honour and integrity of the Union during the late war, and they, with deference, urge their right to become a member of the great Republic.

"They forbear to dilate upon the evils of the territorial government, but will barely name, among the grievances of this condition-

"I. That they have no vote in your honorable body, and yet are subject to the in- direct taxes imposed by you.

"2. That the veto of the territorial executive is absolute upon the acts of the ter- ritorial legislature.

"3. That the superior court is constructed on principles unheard of in any other system of jurisprudence, having primary cognizance of almost every controversy, civil and criminal, and subject to correction by no other tribunal.

"4. That the powers of the territorial legislature are limited in the passage of laws of local nature, owing to the paramount authority of Congress to legislate upon the same subject.

"The boundaries which they solicit for the future state, they believe to be the most

THE TRAVAIL OF STATEHOOD

reasonable and proper that can be devised. The southern limit will be an extension of the line that divides Virginia and North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. The northern will correspond nearly with the north limit of the territory of Illinois and with the Indian boundary line, near the mouth of the River Des Moines. A front of three and one-half degrees upon the Mississippi will be left to the South, to form the territory of Arkansas, with the River Arkansas traversing its center. A front three and one-half degrees more, upon a medium depth of two hundred miles, with the Missouri River in the center, will form the State of Missouri. Another front of equal extent, embracing the great River St. Pierre, will remain above, to form another state, at some future day.

"The boundaries, as solicited, will include all the country to the north and west to which the Indian title has been extinguished.

"They will include the body of the population.

"They will make the Missouri River the center, and not the boundary of the state.

"Your petitioners deprecate the idea of making the civil divisions of the states to correspond with the natural divisions of the country. Such divisions will promote that tendency to separate, which it is the policy of the Union to counteract.

"The above described boundaries are adapted to the localities of the country.

"The woodland districts are found towards the great rivers. The interior is com- posed of vast regions of naked and sterile plains, stretching to the Shining Mountains. The states must have large fronts upon the Mississippi, to prevent themselves from being carried into these deserts-

"Besides, the country north and south of the Missouri is necessary each to the other, the former possessing a rich soil destitute of minerals, the latter abounding in mines of lead and iron, and thinly sprinkled with spots of ground fit for cultivation.

"Your petitioners hope that their voice may have some weight in the division of their own country, and in the formation of their state boundaries; and that statesmen, ignorant of its localities, may not undertake to cut up their ferritory with fanciful divisions which may look handsome on paper, but must be ruinous in effect.

"And your petitioners will pray, &c."

The Bartons had much to do with this statehood movement. It is a good guess that the admirable form of the petition was the handiwork of David Barton.

The Balance of Slavery Power.

That same month, January, 1818, a petition was received from Illinois. Before the end of the year Congress had passed the necessary legislation, the convention had met at Kaskaskia to frame a constitution and Illinois was, in December, 1818, a state. But Missouri waited,-waited from January 8, 1818. to March 6, 1820, for the first formal answer to her prayer. In the meantime a game of national politics went on. Alabama put in a plea for admission. It was granted.

When the Union was formed there were seven free and six slave states. After that the policy was to admit a slave state and a free state alternately. Thus was preserved a kind of balance of power. Missouri's petition upset it. Senate and House wrangled long.

Representative Tallmadge of New York offered a resolution to make Mis- souri a free state. The provisions were that no more slaves should be taken into Missouri: that all children born of slaves then in Missouri should be free at twenty-five years of age. This would gradually abolish slavery in Missouri and make a free state. The House adopted the resolution. The Senate refused to concur. Arkansas Territory was created, but nothing more was done. The session ended with Missouri still waiting.

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

Tallmadge and Taylor were two northern members of Congress who led the fight to make Missouri come in as a free state. At the Fourth of July celebration in St. Louis, Missourians paid their respects to these two statesmen in this toast :

"Messrs. Tallmadge and Taylor-Politically insane,-May the next Con- gress appoint them a dark room, a straight waistcoat and a thin water gruel diet."

The toast was drunk and the newspaper report says it was "followed by nineteen cheers and the band played Yankee Doodle."

Week after week the one-horse mail brought the news of the heated debate and the deadlock. Along the Mississippi and up the Missouri resentment spread. The prominent men of the Boone's Lick country gathered at Franklin when the first steamboat arrived. To celebrate the event a banquet was given. It was turned into an indignation meeting. One after another the speakers arose and proposed sentiments in condemnation of Congress. Duff Green, who later became the editor of the administration organ at Washington, led off with : "The Union-it is dear to us but liberty is dearer."

Others followed, the expressions encouraged by the vigorous applause which greeted them :

By Dr. James H. Benson-"The Territory of Missouri-May she emerge from her present degraded condition."

By Stephen Rector-"May the Missourians defend their rights, if necessary, even at the expense of blood, against the unprecedented restriction which was attempted to be imposed on them by the Congress of the United States." 1

By Dr. Dawson-"The next Congress-May they be men consistent in their construction of the Constitution; and when they admit new states into the Union, be actuated less by a spirit of compromise, than the just rights of the people."

By N. Patton, Jr .- "The Missouri Territory-Its future prosperity and greatness cannot be checked by the caprice of a few men in Congress, while it possesses a soil of inexhaustible fertility, abundant resources, and a body of intelligent, enterprising, independent freemen."

By Maj. J. D. Wilcox-"The citizens of Missouri-May they never become a member of the Union, under the restriction relative to slavery."

Missourians' Protests.

The St. Louis grand jury put forth a declaration "that the late attempt by the Congress of the United States to restrict us in the free exercise of rights in the formation of a constitution and form of state government for ourselves is an unconstitutional and unwarrantable usurpation of power over our inalienable rights and privileges as a free people."

The Missouri Gazette, which had inclined to the emancipation side, was out- spoken in condemning Congress: "It has been reserved for the House of Representatives of the present Congress to commit the most gross and barefaced usurpation that has yet been committed. They have engrafted on the bill for our admission into the Union a provision that 'the state constitution shall pro- hibit the further introducing of slavery; and that all children born of slaves shall be free at the age of five and twenty years.' Bear in mind, fellow citizens, that the question now before you is not whether slavery shall be permitted or

THE TRAVAIL OF STATEHOOD

prohibited in the future State of Missouri, but whether we will meanly abandon our rights and suffer any earthly power to dictate the terms of our constitu- tion."

The grand jury of Jefferson county returned to the court a protest against the action of Congress which said: "We have beheld with equal surprise and regret the attempt made in the last Congress to dictate to the people of Missouri an article in their constitution prohibiting further introduction of slavery into their state, or debar them from the rights of state sovereignty if they would not submit to such restriction. That slavery is an evil we do not pretend to deny, but, on the contrary, would most cheerfully join in any measure to abolish it, provided those means were not likely to produce greater evils to the people than the one complained of ; but we hold the power of regulating this, or applying a remedy to this evil, to belong to the states and not to Congress. The Constitution of the United States which creates Congress gives to it all its powers, and limits those of the states; and although that Constitution empowers Congress to admit new states into the Union, yet it neither does, by express grant nor necessary implication, authorize that body to make the whole or any part of the constitution of such state."

The Baptists' Memorial.

One of the most notable protests against the action of Congress came from delegates of "the several Baptist churches of Christ, composing the Mount Pleasant Association." These delegates addressed a long memorial to Congress which was printed in eastern newspapers. The memorial was signed by Ed- ward Turner, moderator, and George Stapleton, clerk. The memorial set forth :

"That, as a people, the Baptists have always been republican, they have been among the first to mark, and to raise their voice against oppression, and ever ready to defend their rights, with their fortunes and their lives; in this they are supported as well by the principles which organized the revolution, and secured our independence as a nation, as by those recognized in our bill of rights, and that Constitution which as citizens we are bound to support.

"Viewing the Constitution of the United States, as the result of the united experience of statesmen and patriots of the revolution, and as the sacred palladium of our religious as well as civil liberty, we cannot without the most awful apprehensions look on any at- tempt to violate its provisions, and believing that a vote of a majority of the last Congress restricting the good people of this territory in the formation of their constitution for a state government to be in direct opposition thereto; we would enter our most solemn protest against the principle endeavored to be supported thereby."

The twenty-one members of the grand jury of Montgomery county signed their names to their protest, at the July, 1819, term against the action of Con- gress :

"They believe the restrictions attempted to be imposed upon the people of Missouri territory in the formation of a state constitution unlawful, unconsti- tutional and oppressive. They cannot admit the right of any power whatever to impose restrictions on them in the form or substance of a state constitution.

"They hope those restrictions will never more be attempted; and if they should they hope by the assistance of the genius of '76, and the interposition of Divine Providence, to find means to protect their rights."

Vol. 1-8

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

The Voice of St. Charles.

The grand jurors of St. Charles county returned this extraordinary docu- ment to court :

"We, the undersigned grand jurors, from the body of the county of St. Charles, Missouri Territory, and summoned to attend the sitting of the circuit court for the county aforesaid, beg leave to present to the honorable court, that we deem it our privi- lege and duty to take notice of all the grievances of a public nature; that amongst the various duties assigned us, we do present that the Congress of the United States, at the last session, in attempting to restrict the people of Missouri, in the exercise and enjoy- ment of their rights as American freemen, in the formation of their state constitution, assumed an unconstitutional power, having the direct tendency to usurp the privileges of our state sovereignties : privileges guaranteed by the declaration of American rights, the Constitution of the United States, the treaty of cession and the blood of our fathers who achieved our independence. That it is a restriction heretofore without precedent or parallel, as it regards the admission of territories into the Union of the states, and if persisted in by those members of Congress, who at the last session proved themselves opposed to the growth and prosperity of our happy land and luxuriant country, will be, in our opinion, a direct attack and infringement on the sacred rights of state sovereignty and independence, and the tocsin of alarm to all friends of the Union under our repub- lican form of government. Although we much deplore any existing political differences of opinion with the majority in the House of Representatives of the last Congress, who introduced and supported the restriction, yet we consider it our bounden duty as freemen, and as republican members of the great American family, to take a dignified stand against any assumption or usurpation of our rights from whatever quarter it may come and to support the Constitution of the United States as the anchor of our political hope."

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939 Publication date: 1921 Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074