USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
St. Clair had already declined to be a candidate for governor of the state, and he soon made publie his reply to Secretary Madison, in which he asserted that "the violent, hasty and unprecedented intrusion of the legislature of the United States into the internal concerns of the Northwest territory was at least indecorous and ineon- sistent with its public duty," and that, "degraded as our country is,
167
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE.
and abject as too many of her sons have become," some remained to fitly characterize the separation of Wayne county. To Madison he said : "Be pleased, sir, to accept my thanks for the peculiar delicacy you observed in committing the delivery of your letter, furnishing him with a copy of it, to Mr. Byrd, against whom there are now in your hands to be laid before the president complaints of neglect and refusal to perform official duty."
There is little in the subject matter of these old disputes to interest the reader of today. It cannot be comprehended why, on the merits of the case, there should be serions opposition to forming a state with the wide bounds given it, and the exclusion of the Michigan part of Wayne county seems clearly according to the plan of division estab- lished by the ordinance. But all this is essential to a picture of life in Ohio at that day. The bare outlines have been given. The details might be sketched in by anyone familiar with polities today, for politics in every age is essentially the same.
With the advent of the Republican party in power, headed by Thomas Worthington, the Federalists retired from all official bur- dens. "We were proscribed," says Judge Burnet, "and as soon as the plans of our competitors were consummated, we submitted to our destiny with good grace, and withdrew from all participation in the polities of the day." Conscious of the worthy record of their party in founding the Union, they bore with such grace as they could the popular cry that they were aristocrats, opposed to the liberties of the people.
General St. Clair passed from the field of public affairs, after four- teen years at the head of government in the Northwest. His latter years were full of misfortune. He was soon compelled to give up his old home in Pennsylvania. He had lost all his modest wealth in the publie service, and when Congress tardily granted him a pen- sion, his creditors waited for it at the door of the treasury. During the last days of his life he shared with his daughter Louisa the shelter of a log house, on one of the Pennsylvania highways of western travel. Despite his poverty he never abandoned the insignia of an officer of the Revolution and a gentleman of the Federal party, the black coat and knee breeches, the long hair done up in a queue and powdered. No one met him in his humble abode without admiration of his courtly and distinguished manner.
CHAPTER VIII.
FIRS YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
GOVERNORS: EDWARD TIFFIN, 1803-1807-THOMAS KIRKER, 1807-1808-SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, 1808-1810-RETURN JON- ATHAN MEIGS, 1810-1812.
HIE principle of life in the West and in Ohio, emphatically, is self-rule, said one of the ablest writers of the State, nearly seventy years ago." "Nowhere had this principle, as the central one of the social and political body called a state or people, been seen fully acting until Ohio was settled. In the old world self-rule, political and social, nnembarrassed by feudal or servile habits of life, has not been seen to this day; and in all our Atlantic states more or less of the feudal spirit was ever found before the Revolution, nor are all its marks gone yet; and through the whole South the servile element prevented the full opera- tion of the principle of self-rule. No man that governs others as a lord, ean be, socially speaking, what he is who governs none but himself. Other faculties, other wishes, other views, are brought out in the hereditary lord, than those which come forth in the merely independent man. In Ohio, then, was first founded a nearly true democratie community; here men were from the first socially equal compared with the older states; here were none of those many habits which first arose in feudal times-the habit of looking up to some family or place, or following the opinions of the man springing from that family, or holding that place, or going on in certain beaten tracks of thought, action and feeling-all these things were not ; and the slight political differences made by the ordi- nances left no permanent mark. So that I do not doubt that Ohio, when she became a state, was the truest democraey which had vet existed."
The year 1803 began a new era in the history of America. The admission of the State of Ohio gave promise of four more in the Northwest consecrated as she was to self-rule and social independence,
* Address of James H. Perkins, before the Ohio Historical Society, 1837.
169
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
and the purchase of Louisiana province a few months later vastly increased the space for the building of similar commonwealths. In this new country the lovers of liberty sought new homes, sparing the ancient order of things to slowly pass away in the South and East.
The notions of the pioneers of Ohio, who have so thoroughly con- quered that it can hardly be realized that any other form of society ever existed in America, unless one study certain survivals of ancient conditions in the South, were shown to some extent in the constitu- tion and laws of Ohio, framed in 1802 and succeeding years .* It is true that the constitutional convention, which convened November 1, 1802, and signed the new instrument on the 29th of the same month, refused to submit its work to popular vote. But this excep- tion was on behalf of the tyranny of politics, to which the American people willingly submit. Jeffersonian senators, representatives and electors were urgently needed, and the risk of delay could not be endured. But it appears that the action of the convention had the popular approval; and the castern division of the Northwest terri- tory became the constitutional State of Ohio November 29, 1802.
In the distribution of powers of government among the legislative, judicial and executive departments, this first constitution is notable for the restriction of the powers of the governor. "The governor is a name almost withont meaning. He may appoint one or two offi- cers ; in certain contingencies he may exercise one or two unimportant powers ; it is his duty to make out commissions, and he enjoys the petty prerogative of pardon and reprieve ; and this is all." ; The gov- ernor was to be elected every two years, and one man could not hold the office more than four years in six. The legislature, on the other hand, had not only the exclusive right of making laws, but the appointment of all the judges, all the civil officers in immediate con- nection with the government, and the chief military officers, and could define at pleasure the jurisdiction of the courts. The terms of the state officers, secretary, treasurer and anditor, to be elected by the legislature, were restricted to three years. But the judges, also chosen by the legislature, were permitted to serve seven years. The legislators themselves were kept close to popular touch, the general assembly meeting every year, with representatives elected as often and senators every two years. The bill of rights declared the com- plete authority of the people to alter, reform or abolish their govern- ment ; provided against unwarrantable seizure and search ; asserted the right of the citizen to speak, write or print as he thinks proper on any subject ; restricted imprisonment for debt, prohibited poll taxes, and reserved the right of the citizen to carry arms.
*"The constitution of Ohio shows the democratical opinions prevalent on the western frontier. It reduced the executive power almost to a nonentity," says J. C. Hamilton in his biography of the great Federalist.
+ Salmon P. Chase, 1833.
170
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The judicial system adopted and maintained for many years under this constitution was well enough adapted to a state of nine counties, but became expensive and inconvenient as the population increased. The supreme court, of three judges at first, was a sort of peripatetic court, being required to sit once a year in each county. The next lower court was the court of common pleas, for which the State was divided in three circuits, a president judge in each circuit, and two or three associate judges in each county. Besides, there were to be justices of the peace in each county, important officers under this sys- tem. "The judicial department has power enough," commented Judge Chase in 1833, "but it is not, perhaps, sufficiently secured in the independent and unbiased exercise of that power."
"Two other features of the constitution deserve particular notice. The first is the total absence of property qualifications for office and for voters ; the poorest, equally with the rich, may elect and be elected to any office in the state. The second is the immediate responsibility of every agent in the government to the people; most of the officers, the right of appointing whom is not vested by the constitution in some particular person or body, being elective by the people, and the constant tendeney of things being to make them all so."
There was an effort made in the constitutional convention to coun- tenance slavery in the new state. More strongly, the same movement was seen in Indiana in the same year, a petition being sent to Con- gress for the abrogation of the sixth article of the ordinance of 1787, on which John Randolph, of Virginia, reported that the territory should continue to submit to the "sagacious and benevolent restraint" of that charter. In the Ohio convention, John W. Brown, member of the committee on bill of rights, offered a declaration that no person shall be held in slavery after thirty-five years of age, if a male, or twenty-five years if a female, and urged its adoption as recommended by some of the wisest statesmen of the country. But an article was proposed forbidding slavery in the words of the ordinance, and going further to prohibit the holding of slaves under pretense of indenture of apprenticeship, after they were of legal age, and annulling all indentures of negroes and mulattoes made thereafter outside the state, or in the state, if the term exceeded one year, except in case of apprenticeships. This prevailed in the committee by a vote of five to four, and it was saved in the convention by the change of one vote."
The rejection of the Brown resolution and the prohibition of the indenture system, it is to be noted, did not involve a elose vote on the permission of slavery, unqualifiedly, as might be inferred from the discussion of this subject in Professor Hinsdale's "Old Northwest."
* Address of Prof. E. B. Andrews, who ascribes the article to Ephraim Cutler. Thomas Worthington is also credited with the clause forbidding negro apprenticeship.
171
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
The majority in the convention against such a proposition was decided. But some delegates were evidently in favor of allowing negroes to be held as slaves during the early part of their lives, or as long as the master pleased if the legal form of indenture were observed. The strength of the sentiment against slavery was shown by the proposition to confer manhood suffrage upon the males of the three hundred colored people already in the State, and there was ani- mated discussion of the subject. After the article was adopted defin- ing the eleetors as "white male inhabitants," ete., a proviso was actually passed extending the suffrage to the male negroes and mulat- toes then residing in the territory, if they should make a record of citizenship within six months. Not so many were in favor of giving the descendants of these negro pioneers the same privilege, and a resolution to that effeet was lost by one vote. But there is no excep- tion to white suffrage in the constitution of 1802. When the final vote came, there was a motion to strike out the negro suffrage proviso, and it was carried by the vote of President Tiffin, the house being evenly divided. His vote was so east, no doubt, because the position taken regarding the negro raee by the proviso was extremely advanced and was likely to arouse violent criticism. The proviso would extend the suffrage to only a few score men, and its importance did not seem to outweigh the need of avoiding unnecessary opposition to the hastily framed and hastily adopted constitution, and the dan- ger of rejection by Congress.
As to the conditions proposed by Congress, the convention asked modification so that the proceeds of the sale of section sixteen in every township should go to the state for the use of public schools, also for the same purpose one thirty-sixth of the Virginia military lands, the United States military tract, and the Connecticut reserve ; also that three of the five per cent of land proceeds should be expended on roads in Ohio.
The convention made a temporary apportionment of representa- tives and senators, provided for a general election of officers January 11, 1803, and continued the territorial officers in the exercise of their duties until the new officers were installed. But the issuing of writs for an election was put in the hands of the president of the eonven- tion. The territorial laws "not inconsistent with the constitution," were also continued in foree until the State legislature should make other enaetments.
The preamble of the constitution declared that "We, the people of the Eastern Division of the Territory of the United States North- west of the River Ohio . do ordain and establish the fol- lowing Constitution or form of government ; and do mutually agree with each other to form ourselves into a free and independent state, by the name of the State of Ohio." It asserted "the right of admnis- sion as a member of the Union," as consistent with the constitution
172
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of the United States, the ordinance of 1757, and the act of Congress enabling them "to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states."
It can hardly he doubted that in the opinion of the majority in Congress Ohio passed from the condition of a territory, subject to the arbitrary will of Congress, into the charmed upper region of " inde- pendent and sovereign states," when the constitution was adopted. But when did the state enter the Union ? Evidently Congress had doubts, for, in the winter following, a committee was directed to report what legislation was necessary, if any, for admitting the State of Ohio into the Union, and extending the laws of the United States over the state. This committee reported a bill, which was enacted, and approved February 19, 1803, entitled "An act to provide for the execution of the laws of the United States within the State of Ohio," extending the laws of the United States over the new state, and establishing a federal district court, to hold its first session at Chillicothe in June. This act was doubtless intended to cover all the legislation necessary to recognize Ohio as a member of the Union. On March 3, 1803, another act was approved, granting the modifica- tions asked by the state convention in the conditions of the enabling act, and then certainly "the compaet was completed," in the words of Judge Chase, under which senators and representatives of the State might take seats in Congress. Perhaps, if they had been elected, they might have been seated before, as there had been ques- . tion of the right of Mr. Fearing to continue in Congress.
In brief, it may be said that there was no act of Congress which, in so many words, admitted Ohio to the Union, and from this it might be inferred that the State was already in the Union. But the laws of the United States, hitherto partly withheld, were extended over it February 19, 1803, and this date has the strongest claim to be re- garded as the epoch of admission."
At the election, held in January, 1803, Dr. Edward Tiffin was elected governor without opposition, receiving 4,565 votes. His early career has already been mentioned. Ile was an eloquent and impassioned speaker, as well as a man of many winning characteris- ties. Having joined the Methodist church in 1790, while in the Shenandoah valley, he had been made a lay preacher by Francis Asbury, and he frequently filled the frontier pulpit, and read the service at times in St. Paul's Episcopal church at Chillicothe. He was the one man of his party in Ohio most likely to meet the general
* A statement of the theory that upon the meeting of the legislature, March 1, 1803, the territorial government on that day ceased, and Ohio became a state in the Union, may be found in Mr. Rufus King's "Ohio." The fact that the United States paid the territorial judges up to that day is cited as "'an authoritative decision of the subject."
173
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
approval of the powers at Washington and the people of the State, . whom he had served as speaker of the Territorial legislature and president of the constitutional convention.
When the legislature met March 1, 1803, Nathaniel Massie was elected speaker of the senate, and Michael Baldwin speaker of the house. A few days later Thomas Worthington was elected United States senator for the short term, and William Creighton secretary of state. All these were men of Ross county, which was in supreme control. Thomas Gibson was made auditor of state, and William MeFarland treasurer, and as United States senator for the full term John Smith, of Hamilton county, was selected. As judges of the supreme court, the choice fell upon Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., of Marietta, Samuel Huntington, of Cleveland, and William Sprigg. Calvin Pease was elected president judge of the court of common pleas for the First cirenit, Wyllys Silliman# for the Second, and Franeis Dunlavy for the Third. Charles Willing Byrd was not neg- lected either. President Jefferson made him the first United States district judge of Ohio.
The two senators were second to none under the new regime in power and influence. Worthington was the real power at the head of affairs. He was then thirty-four years old, a young man, but of great energy and ardent temperament. A native of the Shenandoah valley, he brought with him to Virginia probably the most aristocratic establishment the state then possessed. But, like Jefferson in aris- tocratie conditions, he was also like him in democratic sentiment. After he took his seat in the United States senate in the fall of 1803, he soon gained recognition as a man of brain and energy : not a great orator, but a worker, and his work was for the good of the Northwest. In 1807 he was the author of a resolution calling on Secretary Galla- tin to report a plan for applying the resources of Congress to such public improvements, as highways and canals, that deserved the aid of the national government. Jefferson called him "the truest, brav- est patriot since the days of old Rome;" Van Buren alluded to him as "the illustrious founder of the commonwealth of Ohio," and Sal- mon P. Chase has characterized him as "the father of internal im- provements, of the great National road and of the Erie canal." The Rev. John Smith also made a worthy senator, and he was a man of real native force and ability. On June 11th, following the first legis- lature, Jeremiah Morrow was elected as the first representative in Congress, beginning for that gentleman a memorable career in public
* Wyllys Silliman, was horn in Connecticut in 1777, edited a Federalist newspaper in western Virginia in 1800-01, and coming to Ohio married a sister of Lewis Cass, and was the first lawyer at Zanesville, where he was register of the land office, 1805-11. During part of President Jackson's sec- ond term he was solicitor of the United States treasury. He was one of the most eloquent men of his day.
174
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
life. For a long time he was one of the most popular men in Ohio. He, also, was of the type of man to give Ohio credit in the halls of Congress.
The officials thus named continued in service practically all the time of the administration of Governor Tiffin, who was re-elected in 1805, receiving 4,783 votes, with none in opposition. Jeremiah Morrow was re-elected to Congress four times, serving until 1813, and State Treasurer MeFarland was kept in his position for four- teen years.
Of the legislatures of Governor Tiffin's administration something may be said of general interest. The first duty before them was to adapt the old territorial laws to the new constitution. The new judi- cial system was to some extent regulated by the first legislature, and the county administration duties of the old quarter sessions court were transferred to associate justices of the court of common pleas. These three men in each county were entrusted with the establishing of highways, erecting public buildings, granting licenses, etc. But the first legislature did not attempt much. Eight new counties were created : Butler, named in honor of Richard Butler, a gallant officer who lost his life in St. Clair's campaign, a county of which the nucleus was Hamilton, that had grown up about the site of Fort Ham- ilton ; Columbiana (a name formed from Columbian as Indiana is formed from Indian), a county including the old adventure ground of the Poes and others of the earliest settlers, where Rev. Lewis Kin- ney had founded New Lisbon in 1802; Franklin, of which the seat was Franklinton, laid out by Lucas Sullivant, a Kentucky surveyor, in 1797, with another important settlement at Worthington, an Epis- copalian colony founded in 1803 by the Seioto company of Granby, Conn., of which the leading spirit was Col. James Kilbourn *; Gallia, a county on the Ohio river with the French settlement, Gallipolis, as its capital ; Greene, named in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, inelud- ing no town at its beginning, though Xenia was laid off by Joseph C. Vance, on the land of John Paul, a few months later ; Montgomery, commemorating Gen. Richard Montgomery, who fell at Quebec, with the seat of government at Dayton, founded several years before, as previously noted ; and Seioto, including the mouth of that river and the French grant. Montgomery, Greene and Franklin were extended in jurisdiction to the north boundary of the State, including all the Indian country, formerly part of Wayne county, except a strip south of the Connecticut reserve.
In the second legislature, of December, 1803, the first session pro- vided for by the general provisions of the constitution, further
* James Kilbourn, while in Ohio in 1802, selecting a site for the settle- ment, made a map of the State very popular with the pioneers. Informa- tion regarding the Indian country was given him by Fitch, his father-in-law, inventor of the steamboat, who had been a prisoner in that region.
175
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
important steps were taken in the system of government. Then incorporation of civil townships for local government was first pro- vided for and boards of commissioners were established in each county. A law was passed to encourage immigration, according aliens the same proprietary rights as native citizens. The three per cent fund from the national government was divided, to be applied in various parts of the state, under different boards of commissioners, an unwise measure, for after the expenditure of several hundred thou- sand dollars, during thirty years, "the beneficial effects were hardly anywhere visible." The revenue system was revised at this session, but the main reliance for taxation continued to be the lands, a consid- erable part of which was in the hands of non-residents of the State. One-third of the taxes levied by the legislature were to go to the county treasuries, for local expenses, in addition to which county commissioners and township trustees were authorized to levy taxes for certain purposes, a system not so favorable to local independence as latterly prevails.
The next session, 1804, undertook to revise the whole system of laws. All the laws of the Territorial governor and judges and legis- lature were repealed, with some few exceptions, and in place a new and tolerably complete system of statute law was enacted. It is not practicable to follow up the legislative enactments, but this brief mention of early legislation will serve to call attention to the impor- tant work of the founders of the state." Other counties set off from the older ones during Tiffin's administration were Muskingum, with Zanesville as the county seat, January 7, 1804; Highland, February 18, 1803; Athens and Champaign, February 20, 1805; Geauga, December 31, 1805; Miami, January 16, 1807; Portage, February 10, 1507.
The second legislature (December, 1803) organized a militia sys- tem, dividing the state into distriets, each of which should muster a military division. Of the first division, in the southwest, John S. Gano was made major-general and Daniel Symmes quartermaster- general ; of the Second division, Nathaniel Massie major-general and David Bradford, quartermaster-general; of the Third division, on the upper Ohio, Joseph Buell major-general and Samuel Carpenter quartermaster-general; of the Fourth division, in the northeast, Elijah Wadsworth major-general and Briee Viers quartermaster- general. Before this, there had been a war alarm, and a call for Ohio volunteers. The sale of Louisiana to the United States by Napoleon had aroused much indignation in Spain, the whole trans- action being, in fact, an outrage upon that country, if one stop to
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.