USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 21
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Burr, aided by his friends, purchased four hundred thousand aeres on the Washita, and with the sympathy and assistance of General Dayton, General Adair of Kentucky and General Jackson of Tennes- see, began the organization of a colony and filibustering expedition. In the summer of 1806, with his daughter, Theodosia, and two or three friends, Colonel Burr started down the Ohio again, expeeting never to return. In passing, he made little trips ashore, to enlist recruits and assistance. At Cannonsburg he was entertained by Colonel Morgan, who became alarmed by his talk and eaused a letter to be sent to President Jefferson, warning him that Burr was plotting to sednee the West from the United States. The president sent John Graham to investigate, but it was two months before the latter eould reach Ohio, and meanwhile Burr proceeded with his operations. At Marietta he put the militia regiment through some evolutions, and by this and his courtly grace at the ball that followed, won the general admiration. Many were willing to engage in his mysterious enter- prise against the Spanish, and the impression grew that the govern- ment was privy to it. Blennerhassett was already enlisted in the scheme by correspondence, and though no man was less fitted for such a project, he devoted himself to it, encouraged by his ambitious wife.
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Headquarters were made on the island; fifteen large boats, to carry five hundred men, were undertaken by the boat builders at Marietta, quantities of subsistence stores were purchased, and . men were enrolled, who were to come armed and accept pay in Washita land. Other boats were contracted for on the Cumberland river, and money to pay for them deposited with Andrew Jackson.
Blennerhassett's island was then the center of interest in Ohio. Burr traveled somewhat in the State, spreading the fame of his undertaking, one of the places he visited being the home of Senator Worthington. Though the latter was away, the adventurer was entertained by the ladies. To his kindness, according to the family tradition, Adena was indebted for its mossroses, yellow jasmine and sweet honeysuckle. In October, leaving the work at the island in the capable hands of Mrs. Blennerhassett, Burr went into Kentucky. Then trouble began. A Frankfort paper asserted that the old Span- ish conspiracies were being revived. Great excitement was aroused, and Burr was ealled before the grand jury. He was defended by Henry Clay, and triumphantly acquitted. Proceeding to Nashville, it was arranged that he should take a party down the Cumberland and at its mouth join Blennerhassett's flotilla.
Meanwhile General Wilkinson, commander of the American army on the Spanish frontier, had been brought to the point of a weighty decision, by the arrival of Burr's advance agent, bearing a cipher let- ter announcing the plan of taking possession of New Orleans and making it a base of an expedition against the Spanish colonial gov- ernment. The general, hitherto, to all appearances, an ally of Burr's, had to choose whether he should remain at the head of the United States army and preserve peace with his Spanish friends, or provoke war with the prospect of becoming second to Burr in a new empire that was yet a dream. He decided on the first course, took the position of the savior of America from treason, warned Jefferson of terrible events, retreated from the Spanish border to guard the Mississippi and New Orleans, and put the whole country in terror with the story that seven thousand armed men were descending the Mississippi. President Jefferson was willing to follow suit, and pur- sne Burr vindictively. Troops were called out. A bill suspending the writ of habeas corpus passed one house of Congress. General Eaton, another interesting character, came out with a story of what Burr had told him, that was the main foundation of the charge for treason. At the same time, it seems to be as well established as much of the history of the period that Wilkinson sent a demand to the viceroy of Mexico for pay for his services in averting an invasion of that country.
Graham, the president's agent, reached Marietta in the fall of 1806, made inquiries of Blennerhassett, warned him of danger, and had a conference with Governor Tiffin, which resulted in the latter
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sending a sceret message to the legislature, December 2d. The legis- lature passed an act intended to quell the conspiracy and the governor called out the sheriffs and militia along the Ohio. General Buell seized Blennerhassett's boats at Marietta, and on hearing that a body of Virginia militia was marching to the island, Blennerhassett, with about thirty companions, set out down the river in four boats, at night, leaving Mrs. Blennerhassett to follow. . Then the Virginia militia occupied the island, had a trial of a band of recruits that were intercepted, and who, of course, were discharged, and after that invaded the wine cellar and sacked the mansion. Burr and Blener- hassett met as agreed at the mouth of the Cumberland, and ignorant of Wilkinson's play of patriotism, dropped down the river to Missis- sippi. There they heard of the tremendous commotion that had been raised, and the troops that were looking for them. Burr was put under arrest. The grand jury returned a bill condemning his ene- mies and denouncing Wilkinson's conduet, but, being threatened with military proceedings, Burr fled toward Pensacola, was seized by Captain Gaines and carried to Richmond, Va. Blennerhassett suffered a similar fate, and every man who had talked to Burr in the West was under suspicion. Nearly all his friends were ruined, with a notable exception in Andrew Jackson, who dared to go to Rich- mond and denounce Jefferson for persecuting his friend. Theu fol- lowed the great treason trial at Richmond, before Chief Justice John Marshall, of which it is enough to say that after several months of oratory and legal profundity, the accusation of treason failed, and Burr and Blennerhassett were bound over for a trial at Chillicothe in January. 1808, for the misdemeanor of organizing an expedition against Spain, a trial that was never intended to be held and never was. A great feature at Richmond was the speech of William Wirt, attorney-general of the United States. That part of it describing the felicity of Blennerhassett's island and the dire result of the entry of Burr like the serpent into Eden, was a favorite piece in the school readers of the next generations, and as popular for declamation as Rienzi's address to the Romans. While Wirt was delivering it, Blen- nerhassett and his wife were planning to give further assistance to Burr. Blennerhassett returned to his island to find it laid waste, afterward went to Mississippi and embarked in cotton planting, and thrived until, having been seriously crippled by the failure of the Burr empire. the hard times attending the commercial troubles with Napoleon and Great Britain put an end to his prosperity. IIe died in poverty in England, and his wife passed away in similar circum- stances in America, while endeavoring to obtain justice from Con- gress. A great flood swept over the island, and finally, in 1811, a fire destroyed the famous mansion. As for Burr, he took refuge in Europe for a time, and then returning had revenge on "the Virginia dynasty" by planning the triumph of Jackson and Van Buren.
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"To look back upon the faree now, is like reading an account of the Massachusetts witchcraft," wrote Caleb Atwater in his history of Ohio. A considerable number of people in Ohio suffered in popular esteem for friendship to Burr. The eareers of General Dayton and Senator Smith were ended. Smith was acensed of treason before the United States senate. A vote to expel him failed by one vote, but he vielded to the unanimous demand of the legislature for his resigna- tion, in December, 1808. "Affidavits of conversations with Colonel Burr were gotten against him;" says Atwater, "many of these will- ing witnesses we knew, and would not believe them under oath then or at any other time during their lives." After he left office the prejudiee against Smith took the form of financial persecution and his property was seized. Ile abandoned the state, took refuge in Louisiana and died there in 1824.
Governor Tiffin in January, 1807, was elected to the United States senate, to sueeeed Senator Worthington, an honor for which Phile- mon Beecher received a ereditable support. George Tod, of Trum- bull county, a man of Connecticut birth, who had served as state senator, was elected to the supreme court, defeating Richard S. Thomas by one vote. At the election of governor in the same year, there was a memorable eontest between Return Jonathan Meigs and Nathaniel Massie, Marietta against Chillicothe, in which the older town seemed to win. The returns showed 6,050 for Meigs and 4,757 for Massic, and though the election was eontested, and many returns thrown out, neither of the revisions made could quite wipe out the Meigs majority. Both houses of the legislature sat .in joint convention for several days to hear a contest, instituted by the friends of Massie, on the ground that Meigs was disqualified to hold the office because he had been appointed to United States office in Lonis- iana (Missouri) and Michigan, though he contended that his legal residenee had remained at Marietta. By a vote of 24 to 20 he was ruled out as ineligible, and it was declared that there had been a fait- nre to eleet .* Thomas Kirker, speaker of the senate, who had beeome acting governor on the resignation of Tiffin, held the office from January, 1507, to December 12, 1808. Meigs was elceted to the supreme court.
The administration of Governor Kirker was marked by agitation for the removal of the capital from Chillicothe, the beginning of a famous attempt to restrict the power of the courts, and the ereation of a number of new counties. A minor feature, perhaps, was the enactment of a law compelling every male eitizen of military age to collect and turn over to his township elerk annually, one hundred
* It is stated by McDonald and other historians that General Massie was declared elected, and that he declined to accept the office because he had not received a majority. But the record is as above.
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squirrel sealps, or if deficient pay at the rate of three eents a sealp for the benefit of those who were better hunters. The fields as well as forests were overrun with these animals, as larger game disap- peared, and it was a fight for life on the part of the farmers.
The new counties created were: Knox from Fairfield, named in honor of Gen. Henry Knox, of the Revolution; Licking, also set off from Fairfield, with its county seat at Newark, a town founded in the refugee traet in 1801 by Gen. William C. Schenek, an officer under General Wayne, who was also a pioneer of the Miami valley; Delaware from Franklin, named from the great Indian nation ; Stark, including the historic country of Fort Laurens, with the county seat at Canton, laid out in 1806 by Bezaleel Wells, a city com- memorating in its name the great interest felt at that time in China ; Wayne, the "New Purchase" from the Indians; Tuscarawas, from Muskingum, including the old Moravian towns, with the county seat at New Philadelphia, platted in 1804; and Preble, separated from Montgomery and Butler, and named in honor of the gallant commo- dore who had recently bombarded Tripoli.
One of the prime necessities of the young State was money. The great difficulties of transportation rendered it impossible to bring enough specie into the State through export of products, if it had been practicable for the carly settlers to raise enough products to export. The recourse in this need was to local banks empowered to issue notes, which became the circulating medium. The first legis- lature, in April, 1803, in the charter of the Miami Exporting company, of Cincinnati, made provision for banking among the com- mercial functions of that concern, but the first bank proper to receive a charter was that at Marietta in 1808. In the same session of the assembly the founding of a State bank was favorably reported on by Mr. Worthington. The Bank of Chillicothe was chartered for ten years. The state was offered one-sixth of the shares. The great popular demand from these banks was the issue of paper money, but the law did not restrict the amount of it, or require its redemption in specie. Banks of the same sort were incorporated in 1808 at Steubenville and Chillicothe, and three others in 1812-13.
There was a sort of national currency also to be taken into account. The first United States bank, which was in reality a private eoneern, specially entrusted with the national finances and issue of paper money, was a result of the great Ohio Indian war of 1790-95. "To carry on war at that time, with such Indians as were then, at such a distance in the wilderness, was a severe trial upon the finanees of the federal treasury as well as upon the courage and discipline of the troops ; and General Hamilton, the head of the treasury, urged that with the aid of a national bank, the war would be better and more successfully conducted; and therefore that it was 'necessary' and inight be established as a means of exeenting a granted power, to-
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wit: the power of making war."" This national bank, the first Bank of the United States, flourished, with the eredit of successfully sustaining the Ohio war, until its charter expired in 1811.
In 1804-05 there had been a memorable attempt on the part of the leaders of the Jeffersonian party, suggested by Jefferson himself, to remove from the bench of the United States supreme court Judge Samuel Chase of Maryland, a Federalist who was so indiscreet as to remain an "offensive partisan." The Jeffersonians realized that without a freely exercised control of the judiciary, there remained a restriction upon the independence of the legislatures and states, and the removal of John Marshall from the commanding position of chief justice was earnestly desired. It was asserted by the Jeffer- sonians that for the supreme court to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional would be good ground for impeachment and removal from office. The first blow was struck at Chase, who was vulnerable in his indiscretions, and a momentous battle was waged, that might have changed the form of government and justified the fears of the Federalists in 1500. But Judge Chase was acquitted by the senate acting as a court. This is mentioned because the crisis was echoed in Ohio. The act of the legislature in 1805, defining the duties of justices of the peace, gave those officers jurisdiction of eases involv- ing over $20 and prohibited the recovering of costs in the common pleas court on judgments of from $20 to $50. These provisions were brought in question before the courts, as obnoxious to the seventh amendment of the United States constitution, which ordains that "in suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved," and also repugnant to a provision in the State constitution that "the right of trial by jury shall be inviolate." The court of common pleas of the Third circuit (of which Calvin Pease was president judge) and Judges Huntington and Tod, of the State supreme court, decided that the provisions of the law of 1505 referred to were unconstitu- tional and void, and thereupon the legislature ordered the impeach- ment of the judges.
Judge Huntington did not suffer in popular favor on account of this movement, and being selected in 1808 as the candidate opposed to the Chillicothe party, he was triumphantly elected, receiving 7,293 votes to 5,601 for Thomas Worthington and 3,397 for Thomas Kirker, for governor.+
Samuel Huntington, as has been noted, was of Connecticut birth. Ile was of Puritan stock and a graduate of Yale college. Coming west in 1800 he made his home at Cleveland and began the practice
* Thomas H. Benton, "Thirty Years' View."
t In this year Nathaniel Massie, Thomas McCune and Stephen Wood were chosen presidential electors, and they threw the vote of Ohio for James Madison.
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of law. He was elected to the constitutional convention and the state senate, became speaker of the senate and later judge of the supreme court, from which he was called to the chief magistracy. He was duly installed December 12, 1505, and the proceedings against him were dropped, and articles of impeachment* were reported against Judges Tod and Pease, for "high misdemeanor and wilful, corrupt and wicked disregard of the constitution," in declar- ing null and void an act of the legislature. They were tried before the senate. Judge Tod, in his answer, "asserted his right and duty to determine cases brought before him as judge, according to the con- vietions of his judgment, and vindicated the purity of his motives and the uprightness of his judicial conduct."; Nevertheless the senate voted in both cases fifteen to nine for finding the judges guilty, but fifteen being one less than the two-thirds vote required for con- vietion, the judges retained their places upon the bench. The names of the nine deserve remembrance. They were John Bigger of War- ren, Jacob Burton of Fairfield, John P. R. Bureau of Gallia (father- in-law of Sammel F. Vinton), Calvin Cone of Trumbull, Daniel C. Cooper of Montgomery,# Joseph Foos of Franklin, Lewis Kinney, Jr., of Columbiana, Henry Massie of Ross, and Elnathan Schofield. Among those who voted for conviction were ex-Governor Kirker and future-Governor MeArthur.
During the same session of the legislature an United States sen- ator was elected to succeed John Smith, and Return Jonathan Meigs was chosen by a decisive majority over Nathaniel Massie. William Creighton having resigned the office of secretary of state, Jeremiah MeLene, a Chillicothe pioneer and sheriff of Ross county, was elected over Joseph Titlin. MeLene held this office for twenty-three years snecessively. To succeed Huntington and Meigs in the supreme court, Thomas Seott and Thomas Morris were chosen.
Early in Huntington's administration there was danger of war with European powers, on account of the violation of neutral rights in the course of the Napoleonie wars. In March, 1-09, the Ohio militia officers, under orders from the president of the United States, were training picked bodies of men to go into the field, but presently the emergency passed, with the restoration of more amicable relations.
Exasperated by the failure to remove the judges that had dared to
* It was a common thing for the early legislatures to indulge in impeach- ment and trial of the various judges. Some prominent men were compelled to pass this ordeal, such as William W. Irwin, who was accused of refusing to meet with his judicial colleagues and speaking slightingly of the importance of his duties. After a solemn trial he was found guilty and removed from office.
* In defense of the judges a famous argument was made by Lewis Cass, a young lawyer of Marietta, whose father, Maj. Jonathan Cass. had been with the army in Wayne's campaign and was now farming near Zanesville. #Jonathan Dayton's agent in the Miami valley, and. it may be said, the real founder of the city of Dayton.
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annul acts of the legislature, the radical Jeffersonian party made a determined effort to gain greater control of the legislature in 1509. Edward Tiffin resigned from the United States senate, following the death of his wife," and was elected to the house from Ross county, and Dunean MeArthur was re-elected to the senate and made speaker by unanimous vote. Of the house Alexander Campbell, of Adams county, was speaker pro tempore until elected United States senator to succeed Tiffin, Richard S. Thompson being his main competitor for the honor. To succeed Thomas Gibson as auditor of state, Benja- min Hough was chosen. With all this change the majority in the legislature was not content as long as the obnoxious judges retained office. Consequently a new move was made, based on the ery that the publie officers had been in power long enough and should give place to new men. A resolution was passed, in January, 1810, called the "Sweeper resolution," providing that officers chosen to fill vacan- cies arising during the original terms in the judiciary should go out at the expiration of those terms.
By this legislation the judges of the supreme and common pleas courts were removed from office. Thomas Scott, William W. Irwin and Franeis Dunlavy were elected as a new supreme court, and John Thompson and Benjamin Ruggles were elected president judges of the Second and Third eireuits. Ruggles, born in Conneetient in 1753, had been a lawyer at Marietta since 1807, and now moved to St. Clairsville, where, after a career of great distinction he died in 1837. A full new set of associate judges was also provided for the counties. "Many of the counties had not been organized half seven years and the judges in not a few instances had not served two years," Mr. Atwater commented. "In some such cases, both sets of judges attempted to aet officially. The whole state was thrown into ntter confusion for a time, but finally one and all became convinced that the Sweeper Resolution was all wrong." It was also his opinion that "all the aets of this session were equally violent and unconstitutional, for 'madness ruled the hour.'" One of the measures was a resolu- tion to remove the seat of government temporarily to Zanesville. . 1 commission was appointed in February, 1810, composed of James Findlay, Joseph Darlinton and William MeFarland, to whom Wyllys
* Stanley Griswold, of Cuyahoga, was appointed ad interim. He was a Connecticut man who had been expelled from the ministry of his church for preaching Jeffersonian politics; had been secretary of Michigan territory. and from 1810 until his death was United States judge for the Northwest territory.
Alexander Campbell, born in Green Brier county, Va., in 1779, an orphan in boyhood, was reared in East Tennessee and Kentucky, studied medicine, came to Adams county as a doctor. in 1804, was thrice elected to the legisla- ture, and then to the United States senate, where he opposed slavery. the Mexican war and the United States bank. He rode his horse to and from Washington. After being senator he served several times in the legislature and was a Harrison elector in 1836.
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Silliman and Rezin Beall were subsequently added, to select a perma- nent seat of government.
Thus the administration of Governor Huntington passed, in a stormy manner. It should be remembered for the practical failure to put the judiciary under the dominion of the legislature and pre- vent the co-ordination of powers that are characteristic of American government, and for the beginning of the effort to move the capital, which revealed the growth of population away from the Ohio river region. Several new counties were also created. In 1909 Darke county, with the county seat at Greenville, founded by John Devor in 1808, was erected ( though not organized until 1817) ; the Fire- lands were named Huron county, and in January and February, 1810, the counties of Cuyahoga, Pickaway, Guernsey, Coshocton, Fayette, Clinton and Madison, were organized.
All this legislation revealed the progress of the state, and the cen- sns of 1810 showed that in seven years the population had increased from less than fifty thousand to 230,760. At the same time the total tax valuation of lands had risen from three million to nearly $10,000,000, and the state revenues had grown from $22,000 to nearly $86,000. The Insty seven-year-old had already far surpassed in population the original states of Delaware and Rhode Island and New Hampshire, and was not far behind Connectient, Georgia and New Jersey. Of the more newly admitted states Tennessee was not far behind, but Kentucky could still look down upon Ohio as some- thing of a wilderness.
At the State election of 1810 Return Jonathan Meigs was again a candidate and pitted against another Chillicothe man, the distin- guished Thomas Worthington. The campaign was spirited and exciting and Meigs was successful, despite the prestige of his oppo- ment, by a majority of over two thousand. He was duly inaugurated in December, 1810, without question of his citizenship. This ere- ating a vacancy in the United States senatorship, there was a warm contest for that honor and on the sixth ballot Worthington gained the one vote necessary to eleet, Samuel Huntington being his close opponent.
Governor Meigs was one of the ablest men of the early days of Ohio, worthy of the honor bestowed upon him. He was re-elected in 1812 by a majority of nearly four thousand over Thomas Seott, of Ross county.
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