USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume IV > Part 9
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alone were responsible for. Their own debts, of course, had to be repudiated, and confederate scrip became worth about as much as paper money was at the close of the Revolutionary War,- valuable only for souvenirs and historical purposes. "There is no apparent reason why New Hampshire should come out of this war impoverished by her loyalty, and Georgia escape payment for her treason," the governor said. The legislature was ready to endorse that sentiment. Some thought that the State should, in like manner, assume the war debts of the towns and cities, but the reasons therefor were not equally cogent.
Touching upon agriculture the message of the governor shows that New Hampshire was raising more wheat, corn, rye and potatoes to the acre than some of the western States, but he does not tell how much more it cost to cultivate an acre among the rocky hills of New Hampshire than on the fertile prairies of the West. New Hampshire was then producing all the beef and mutton needed at home and some overplus to send abroad.
According to the report of the Bank Commissioners, of the forty-five banks organized under State laws, called banks of dis- count, fourteen had given up their charters and become National Banks, induced so to do principally by a heavy tax laid by Congress upon the issues of State banks after July 1, 1866. Many other banks in New Hampshire were preparing to follow their example. "Those banks going into national banking have sold their gold during the year," says the report. Of course they did and so eventually doubled the money which had heretofore been the basis of their circulation. These national banks could not be taxed by the State, and so the governor foresaw the end of the time- honored Literary Fund, used for the maintenance of public schools, and urged the legislature to provide for the schools in some other way. It was thought by some legislators that the taxing of sav- ings banks should be the substitute. There were then twenty-nine savings banks in the State, whose aggregate deposits amounted to nearly $8,000,000. No depositor had ever experienced a loss through the mismanagement or dishonesty of any officer of these institutions.
Attention was called to memorials for those who fell at Gettys- burg, of whom the bodies of only forty-nine New Hampshire men had been recognized, and of these the names of twenty-seven
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were known, only a small part of the men of New Hampshire that gave up their lives in that battle. Mention was made also of the regimental flags, that they might be carefully preserved and suitably displayed in the halls of the State House.
Governor Smyth congratulated the legislature on the victori- ous ending of civil strife and declared that its great purpose would not be attained till throughout the nation were established free schools, free churches and a free ballot. The assassination of President Lincoln, "the most wicked fruit of a barbarous system," was named in sorrow, for the first shock of anger and consterna- tion had subsided. The event should serve to strengthen the reso- lution to make universal freedom a synonym of universal suffrage.
"All must agree that the States which have been in rebellion should not hereafter be controlled by rebels and traitors; and as we do not propose to admit again into the Union the cause of all this evil, so let us extend to the loyal citizen, of whatever color, those rights justly earned by patience, devotion and firm, unwaver- ing faithfulness to the common cause. The weakness, dependence and ignorance of the race whose broken shackles have paved our way to victory are so many potent reasons why its condition should no longer be left uncertain or insecure. The question of negro suffrage is one of those defenses behind which the spirit of slavery will yet intrench itself, and by which it will seek to regain some fragment of the power it has justly lost. If we would have an enduring and prosperous peace, we shall level every obstruction, concede nothing to the prejudice of slavery, and give the freedman the right to assert that manhood peacefully at the ballot-box, which he has so nobly proved on the battle-field. Let no fears or apparent difficulties in the way deter us. There is no danger so great to a nation as the existence of a flagrant injustice in its midst, sanctioned and protected by its authority."
What to do with the freedmen in the South was the absorbing question of the hour. The newspapers were full of the subject. There was great fear of ignorant negro domination in the South. The "carpet-baggers" from the North were planning to get control of the votes of enfanchised negroes and thus get themselves elected to office, and they succeeded in part. Yet the Republican party felt that the right of suffrage was due to the negro and that the party could not hold national control without his vote. President
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Johnson had declared in a proclamation that the people of North Carolina had the right by legislative enactment to prescribe the qualifications of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold office, a power which all the States had always exercised. A reso- lution endorsing this position of the President was voted down in the House of Representatives in New Hampshire, yet the majority resolved,
That we have full confidence in the ability, integrity and patriotism of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States; and while, under the peculiar situation of the country, no one can anticipate the exigencies which may arise, believing that he will be fully equal to every emergency, we pledge to him and the government our united action and earnest support.
That, with proper safeguards to the protection of the ballot-box, the elective franchise should be based upon loyalty to the Constitution and Union, recognizing and affirming the equality of all men before the law; and that, in the reorganization of the rebellious States, both justice and safety require that ample provision be made for the protection of the freedmen.
Again Harry Bingham led the opposition in a report of the minority, who also desired to express their confidence in President Johnson, believing that he would be guided by the principles laid down in the following resolution :
That those States which have been in rebellion and have now sub- mitted to the Constitution and the Laws, ought to be permitted to resume their original rights as States in the Union; that punishments ought to be inflicted and pardons granted, according as one or the other will best serve to pave the way for the full and perfect restoration of all the States to their original rights and position in the Union; that any interference by Federal authority with matters and things by the Constitution subject exclusively to the control of the States, being illegal, is without any justi- fication whatever.
The minority report was rejected by a vote of 57 to 137, but both reports, doubtless, got into the newspapers and so had their proper weight in forming public opinion, which is about the only effect of "resolutions" offered in conventions and halls of legis- lation. Resolutions that things ought to be, do not always bring those things to pass. Sometimes they cater to public opinion already formed, when there is no purpose on the part of politicians to translate the resolutions into conduct. The nominal enfranchise- ment of the ignorant negro did not long make him a voter; when negroes, or any others, know enough and have property enough,
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WALTER HARRIMAN
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they will get their rights, and their votes will be sought by opposing parties.
The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified in the lower house of the legislature of 1866 by a vote of 207 to 112, after the usual minority report expressing alarm at the invasion of State rights.
During the last year of Governor Smyth's administration he succeeded in refunding the State debt at six per cent. interest and in paying off $254,313 of the debt. There then remained $3,747,776. In a valedictory address to the Senate and House he summed up the money cost of the Civil War to New Hampshire. The total expenditures for war purposes amounted to $6,852,628. Of this amount there were paid for bounties $2,389,025; for reim- bursement to towns of aid furnished families of soldiers $1,835,985. The general government had reimbursed the State, for war ex- penses, $897,122, much of which Governor Smyth had secured after repeated rejections. The expenses incurred by cities and towns of New Hampshire, on account of the war, amounted to $7,250,541, including United States bounties advanced to the extent of $965,012. Thus the State of New Hampshire, with a total valuation of $130,000,000, contributed $13,000,000, or one-tenth of her property to preserve the Union, and more than one-tenth of her entire population served in the army and navy, or more than half of her legal voters.
Another work of much value begun at this time was the publication of the Province Papers, under the auspices of the New Hampshire Historical Society and the editorship of the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bouton. That work has been continued down to the present time and is not yet finished, although more than thirty volumes of Province, State and Town Papers, Revolutionary Rolls, Town Charters, Probate Records, etc., have been printed.
The State election of 1867 resulted in the choice, by over three thousand majority, of General Walter Harriman as governor, of whom something has already been said in connection with the history of the Eleventh Regiment, of which he was colonel. His popularity was due to his gifts as an orator, and on the political stump he had no superiors in the State and was often called upon for service in other States. Serious charges were made against him by officers in his regiment, and the legislature was asked to
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appoint a committee to examine them and sift the evidence, but a substitute resolution was voted by a Republican majority :
That Col. Walter Harriman of the Eleventh Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers by his steadfast and determined adherence to his country, as above party, and by his valor and tried patriotism, whereby he has incurred that fierce partisan malignity which can find nothing too pure and sacred for its attack, has endeared himself to the hearts of the people of this State and deserves and will receive their confidence and respect. (Journal of the Senate and House, Special Session, p. 147.)
The charges against him were signed by some good men, and at this distance it; would seem that they deserved an impartial investigation, but party spirit made hasty decisions, and it may be that the charges were due to political malice. Governor Harriman had voted with the Democratic party up to the beginning of the war and was then known as a War-Democrat, which was equiva- lent to an Assistant-Republican and in most cases soon denoted an outright member of the dominant party. Governor Harriman had gained experience in politics by acting as a member of the legislature and as Secretary of State. He was easily re-elected governor in 1868.
His inaugural address is illuminating. Although the debt upon the State was between three and four millions of dollars, the people were not poor, for they had three times as much money in the savings banks as was needed to pay the debt. In fifty years the population had increased fourfold and the manufactures ten- fold. New Hampshire had one hundred and thirty distinct branches of manufacture in twenty-five hundred establishments, employing a capital of twenty-three millions of dollars. The number of persons working in these manufactories was 32,340 and the annual value of their products was $37,000,000. The governor urged the development of water power and the encouragement of manu- factures as a means of raising the price of farms and making agriculture more profitable. The legislature of 1866 had made it legal for banks to charge any rate of interest agreed upon, not exceeding seven and three-tenths per cent; the governor could not see why banks should be allowed to receive rates of interest which would be usury for an individual and recommended a change in the law. His advice was followed by the legislature.
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National affairs had but little attention. A resolution approv-
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ing the reconstruction policy of Congress was not carried, and the minority report contained something worth heeding. It was in part as follows :
Resolved, That the only sure relief of our country from its present difficulties is by forgiveness of past political offences, on the sole condition of submission and obedience to the paramount law of the land, and by a speedy restoration to the condition of a reunited people.
Resolved, That the burden of national debts should be equally borne by the property of the country; and that, therefore, the exemption from taxation of about one-third part of the entire wealth of the country, in the shape of government securities, is an outrage upon the rights of the people, in violation of every principle of justice, and hostile to the general welfare; it protects the rich bond-holder at the expense of the laboring masses, and compels the poor man to pay the deficit in taxes resulting from this unjust exemption.
Both reports were indefinitely postponed. The Republicans were not sure and united on the reconstruction policy, and the minority report must have appealed to some of them. President Andrew Johnson was asked to visit Concord, and so was Thaddeus Stevens, whom all good Democrats hated, but neither could come. The opposition of these two invited guests became marked the following year, when President Johnson was impeached "for high crimes and misdemeanors," implied in forcing the resignation of Secretary Stanton from his cabinet, and for intemperate and un- dignified speaking, while he was "swinging round the circle." It was the first time the politicians tried to imitate the policy of small republics and get rid of a president that had become dis- agreeable to his former friends. The whole country was excited. The trial was before the United States Senate, and Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, native of New Hampshire, presided. The two senators from New Hampshire voted for conviction, but two other senators, natives of the Granite State, Grimes of Iowa and Fes- senden of Maine, voted for acquittal, being better jurists than politicians. The most powerful arguments against Johnson and his policy were expressed in a sarcastic and humorous biography of the Tennessee tailor, written by Petroleum V. Nasby, nome de plume of Mr. Locke, editor of the Toledo Blade. As a campaign document of the presidential contest of 1868 it had no equal in pith, point and power. It disposed of President Johnson and the Democratic party more easily than "Cervantes smiled Spain's chiv-
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alry away" by means of Don Quixote. The election of President Grant and Vice-President Colfax in 1868 dispelled the political unrest of many minds, New Hampshire casting her electoral vote in favor of these Republican nominees. Later Andrew Johnson reappeared as United States senator from Tennessee, but his polit- ical influence was a negligible quantity. Nasby said of him, that he was somewhat thick as alderman and mayor, but when he attempted to roll himself out into President, Senate, House and Judiciary, he was rather thin in spots.
Onslow Stearns became governor in 1869 by a majority of 3,772 votes over his Democratic competitor, John Bedel. Governor Stearns was born in Billerica, Mass., August 30, 1810. The dis- trict school, the academy and farm-work engaged his close atten- tion till 1827, when he went to Boston to become a clerk. In 1830 he assisted a brother, in the engineering department, in the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. Later they con- tracted to build several railroads. Mr. Stearns became superin- tendent of the Nashua and Lowell Railroad in 1838 and served till 1845, when he was made manager of the Northern Railroad, be- coming its president in 1852 and retaining that office till his death. He superintended the building of the Northern Railroad and its branch from Franklin to Bristol. His ability in the construction and management of railroads was widely known and he refused several offered positions, accepting only for a year the presidency of the Old Colony and Newport Railroad in Massachusetts. His political career was begun as a Whig and ended as a Republican. He was a member of the State senate in 1862 and 1863, the last year serving as president of the senate. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1864. During his adminis- tration as governor, 1869-1870, the State debt was reduced nearly one-third and the tax nearly one-half. He reformed the manage- ment of the State prison, that before had been a drain upon State revenues, and made it self-supporting. He was the first Republican governor to nominate a Democrat, Hon. William S. Ladd, for Justice of the Supreme Court, holding that an opponent in politics might possibly interpret law honestly and impartially. He died at Concord, where his home had been for many years, December 29, 1878. His abilities and positions enabled him to accumulate riches easily, which he used with liberal hospitality and generous
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donations for the public good. Presidents Grant and Hayes were entertained at his home.
At the governor's suggestion the annual parades and encamp- ments of the militia were discontinued, thus saving ten thousand dollars to the State. The fifteenth amendment to the Constitu- tion of the United States, that the rights of citizens should not be denied or abridged "on account of race, color or previous con- dition of servitude," was ratified by the legislature. The vote in the House was 187 to 131. The design was, to secure equal political right to the freedmen in the South, but the southern States were at liberty to set up educational and property tests, or any other not included in the wording of the amendment, and soon they felt obliged to establish such tests as to practically elimi- nate the negro vote, thus nullifying the intention of the amendment. It has since been tacitly conceded by the Republican party that the wholesale enfranchisement of the negroes in the South was a political blunder and that a race of illiterates can not be safely entrusted with the ballot. The opposition to the fifteenth amend- ment on the part of Democrats in New Hampshire was voiced by their leader, Harry Bingham, though he was not a member of the legislature, when the amendment was under discussion. In an address made at Concord, January 5, 1870 he gave utterance to the following words, which now have to be interpreted in the light of the marvelous growth and improvement of the freedmen during the last half century :
One pillar after another of the Constitution is being battered down; states are abolished, put under military rule, reconstructed and then abolished again; courts are suspended, ignored, defied, summarily ousted from their jurisdictions. A radical, usurping, omnipotent Congress has seized all the powers of the government and tyrannizes with absolute sway over states and over the people. For the purpose of so degrading the masses of the people that they will tolerate Radical slavery, they have been put either on equality with or beneath the negro-an inferior race who do not possess the seeds of progress, and who are barbarous by nature. Because the Radical can control the negro, and make him carry ballots as his old master made him carry spades, he can be relied upon to vote the Radical ticket; therefore he is loyal and must be enfranchised. But because the white cannot be relied upon to vote the Radical ticket, therefore he is disloyal and must be disfranchised. To perpetuate Radical supremacy, the ignorant, savage negro is made the political master of the educated, civilized white man. To perpetuate Radical supremacy, the heathenism and cannibalism
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of Africa are exalted above the Christianity and civilization of Europe and America.
We are told by Radical philosophers, I believe, that the negro is inferior because he never had a chance to be otherwise. If you would know what the negro is, what his capabilities are as a governing power, what he would do if he had a chance, you must go to the shores of Guinea, and into the interior of Africa, where the negro has had all the chances there are- where he has held undisputed sway since the world began. There you will find the negro to-day what he always has been, what he always will be when left to himself, an unmitigated savage, living like the gorilla, the monkey and the wild animals by which he is surrounded, upon the spontaneous productions of the soil.1
This is only a re-echo of the estimate put upon the negro by southern slaveholders before the Civil War. A common argument against them,-and Mr. Bingham elsewhere repeats it,-was, that the negro race were under the curse of God, because somewhere in the Old Testament the words are found, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."2 It was im- possible then to convince those who found it convenient to use this argument, that the negro race of Africa were not descendants of that disrespectful son of the drunken Noah, and they would have it also that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children unto uncounted generations, notwithstanding the prophet Ezekiel contradicted that old saw in his day. But the negro is now beginning to size up the white man, allowing that sometimes even a man with a white skin may have a "black" heart, and dem- onstrating that many men with black skins have the hearts of heroes and the educated brains of poets, authors, teachers, preachers and orators. The American negro is getting a fair chance and is grasping his opportunity. He will take care of himself in the future, and of the children of his old master, too, if need be.
In the legislature of 1869 agitation began in New Hampshire for a moral reform, that has been growing ever since. Two peti- tions were presented, asking for an amendment to the Constitution, so that women might have the right to vote. One petition was presented by Nathaniel White and sixty others of Concord, and the other by Abby P. Ela and thirty others, women of Rochester. The petitioners had "leave to withdraw," but they have been coming back to this day and will persist, till the East follows the example
1 Memorial of Hon. Harry Bingham, pp. 204-5.
2 Genesis, IX : 25. Cf. Ez. XVIII : 20.
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of the West and gives equal suffrage to all who are worthy of it.
A curiosity of this time was a petition of Sarah Crosby and fourteen others to abolish the marriage laws of the state and the probate courts. The House resolved that it was inexpedient to legislate upon the subject.3
According to the census of 1870 the population of New Hampshire was 318,300, or less than it was ten years before by 7,773. Only Coos, Hillsborough and Merrimack counties had gained.
In 1871 a new party, called "Labor Reformers," made its appearance in New Hampshire and broke up the rule of the Re- publicans, which had been uninterrupted since 1855. Their candi- date was Lemuel P. Cooper, and he had only 760 votes, but that was enough, with the 314 votes cast for Albert G. Comins, to defeat the reverend and honorable James Pike of Newmarket, who had been prominent in ecclesiastical, military and political circles. He had 33,892 votes. James A. Weston, the Democratic candidate, had 34,799 votes, lacking 113 of the number necessary for a choice. There were fifty-eight scattering votes for a score of candidates. The election of a governor was thrown into the legislature where a coalition of the Democrats and Labor Reform- ers elected James A. Weston by a vote of 167 to 159 for James Pike. In return for aid received the Democrats voted for William H. Gove of Weare for Speaker of the House and Alvah Smith of Lempster, who had received only four votes at the polls, for mem- ber of the Senate. But Mr. Smith was a disappointment to the scheming politicians, for he would not vote as told, and hence the nominally dominant party could effect but very little in legisla- tion, the Senate being equally divided.
James Adams Weston was born in Manchester, August 27, 1827. He got education enough in common schools and academies to teach winter terms of school and become a civil engineer. At the age of nineteen he was assistant engineer of the Concord Railroad and superintended the laying of its second track, and in 1849 he was its chief engineer and so continued for many years. He was also engineer and manager of other railroads. In Man- chester he was the popular leader of the Democratic party and was elected mayor of that city in 1861, 1867, 1869, 1870 and 1874. He
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