USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 27
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The canal fund, created for the enterprise, embraced all lands, property and money devoted to the work, including over a million acres of government land afterward donated by Congress, which was sold, bringing two and a quarter million dollars to the fund. The first reliance was upon the proceeds of six per cent bonds, the first lot of which, $400,000, was sold in 1825 at two and a half per cent dis- count. In the following year bonds for $1,000,000 were taken by John Jacob Astor and others at a premium of $8,475. The next issue of $1,200,000 commanded a premium of over $70,000.
The tidings of the passage of the canal bill were received through- out the State with great rejoicing, and in the following month came the welcome news that on March 3d, the last day of Madison's admin- istration, it had been enacted by Congress that the great National road should be extended through the capitals of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. By the original plan this road would have run through Chillicothe to Cincinnati, but during the delay caused by hostile politics, settlement had been pushed so far inland that the location was diverted north- ward. East of Wheeling the road had been put in good repair, and great caravans of overland traffic had that Ohio river city as their terminus. The survey through Ohio had already been made. There was an old road between Zanesville and Columbus by way of Newark and Granville, and the people of those places made a great effort to have it followed by the new highway, but in vain, as the law required the straightest possible line. The road was located by Jonathan Knight and a young army officer, Joseph E. Johnston, in later years
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the formidable military antagonist of one of the sons of Judge Sherman. Hardly had the exultation subsided over the prospect of canals and roads, than preparation began for the welcoming of Gen- eral Lafayette. The distinguished Frenchman was received at Cin- cinnati in May, 1825, by Governor Morrow and his staff, in the presence of an enormous crowd of people, estimated at fifty thousand. Lafayette was amazed by the wonderful progress of the new state which had grown in the hostile and impenetrable wilderness of the Revolutionary period, when he was fighting with Washington for the independence of the Atlantic colonies. His secretary and chronicler relates that the general was so profoundly impressed by what he saw and the attentions he received that he pronounced Ohio the eighth wonder of the world.
On July 4, 1825, ground was broken at St. Clairsville for the con- struction of the National road to Columbus. The same day was selected for the formal beginning of work on the Ohio canal, at the summit level in Licking county. Governor Clinton," of New York, who had come by boat to Cleveland, and traveled thence by stage, accompanied by a distinguished party, raised the first spadeful of earth, and Thomas Ewing, the great Lancaster lawyer, not vet in pol- ities, made a memorable speech in the woods, amid great enthusiasm, though the crowd could not have heard a less powerful orator on account of the innumerable flies and mosquitoes and the incessant tramping and tail-swishing of the horses of the cavalry company around the stand. In the following months the boys from the farms worked faithfully on the "Roaring Canal," as they called it, at eight dollars a month, rainy days excepted. Eight dollars a month, in cash, was not to be neglected in those days. The north end of the canal, to Cleveland, was first completed, in 1827, and wheat along the line soon rose in value from 25 to 75 cents a bushel, and potatoes became a marketable product.
It has been noted that a commission to report a system of public education had been appointed in 1822, as well as a canal commission, and the legislature of 1824-25 was elected upon the school and canal issue combined. On February 5, 1825, the day following the passage of the canal act, the legislature passed an act to support public instruc- tion, requiring the establishment of schools in every township, for free tuition, and imposing a general tax of one-half mill on the dollar. The carly legislation on this subject down to 1821 had dealt with the school lands alone. "The general assembly had first attempted to
*"Clinton was induced to visit Ohio by a few over-zealous friends who promised a presidential boom, but we are assured by the correspondence of the day that the influence of 'Harry of the West' was so manifest every- where he went as to disturb the mind of the New York guest. He said many ugly things ahout Mr. Clay afterwards, and while he did not reach the presidential chair himself. he did defeat Mr. Clay in New York, and thereby broke the hearts of thousands."-W. H. Smith.
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lease the lands, and that plan failing, finally offered them for sale, and in some townships they were all sold. The last of the reserve lands were sold in 1>52: The portion of the whole State fund that belongs to the reserve is something more than a quarter million. These results seem small, but we must remember that the problem of handling school lands in great quantities was a new one, that Ohio was the first state to grapple with it, and that in those days wild lands were more plentiful than buyers."# All edneation previous to 1521 was purely voluntary, both in support and attendance. Settlers united voluntarily in building schoolhonses, and hiring teachers, and sometimes were incorporated for the purpose by the legislature. The main educational institutions of lower grade than colleges were the academies, private enterprises with more or less publie assistance, a pioneer of which was Burton academy in the Western reserve, founded in 1803. . In 1819 Ephraim Cutler had introduced a bill for the establishment and public support of common schools, but it failed to pass. In January, 1>21, an act was passed permitting the organ- ization of school districts in the townships, with anthority to levy taxes, provide houses and pay the tuition of poor children. But this lacked the essential element of a general system and attached the stigma of pauperism.
The free school system, as it is now known, had its origin in the investigations of the Atwater commission, and the bill prepared by Nathan Guilford, who had been elected to the senate from Cincinnati and made chairman of the joint committee on sehool legislation. Mainly to Cutler, AAtwater and Guilford, says Ryan, "Ohio owes her common sehool system. All subsequent legislation has been amendatory of the great idea that they developed and formulated in law." It was not, of course, fully developed. The tax levied was very small, and it was not until 1838 that the law makers ventured to impose taxation for school furniture and fuel. But the law of 1825 was all that the people would submit to at that time. As it was, there was much remonstrance and voluminous petitions to later legislatures for the suspension or repeal of the law. The friends of the system had met the strongly urged objection that taxation for the purpose of education was unconstitutional, by appeal to the words of the ordi- nance of 1787, declaring that "schools and the means of education shall be forever eneonraged," but many remained unconvinced, while there was a general objection to the expense. But the legislative com- mittee of 1826-27. to which remonstrances were referred. reported that the new system would become popular when it was tried,
* Some commentators are not so kind. A senator is on record as saying: "Members of the legislature got acts passed, under pretext of granting leases to themselves, relatives and political partisans, giving the lands away until there was nothing left." There was certainly grave incompetence, in com- parison with the success of Connecticut in founding her school fund upon the sale of the Western reserve.
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"because its features are stamped with an enlarged wisdom, a liberal and enlightened policy." In 1829 a new law increased the tax to three-fourths of a mill, and provided for school districts and a board of three school directors and a elerk and treasurer in each township, who were empowered to levy taxes. Ever since, the school system has become more deeply rooted in the fundamental structure of the com- monwealth. It has been developed until Ohio leads all the states in the provision made for general education, and within her bounds are expended one-tenth of all the money spent in the United States for public schools.
Beginning its career even with the free schools, Miami university, opened in 18244, under the presidency of Robert II. Bishop, became a famous center of learning. The other institution founded on land grants, Ohio university, at Athens, had graduated Thomas Ewing and John Hunter as its first class, in 1815, but did not have a full faculty until 1822. For thirty-five years it was under the presidency of W. II. MeGuffey, who published the school readers in use all over the west. Prof. Joseph Ray, of another institution at New Athens, wrote the arithmeties that were studied for many years, and Thomas W. Harvey, a leader of education in the Western Reserve, supplied an English grammar. But these belong to later years. In 1826, Bishop Philander Chase, prominent in the settlement of the town of Worthington, founded the town of Gambier and Kenyon college, names bestowed in honor of the Englishmen who mainly contributed to the endowment of the institution. The good bishop was the first president of the school. At the same time Western Reserve college# was founded at Hudson by a Presbyterian colony, and in 1830 there came to it as president Charles B. Storrs, whose son, Henry M. Storrs, was an eminent divine of later years.
At the election in 1826, Allen Trimble, on his third attempt, received as a candidate for governor, 71,475 votes out of the total of $4,600. ITis opponents, John Bigger, Alexander Campbell and Ben- jamin Tappan, obtained a little over 4,000 each. The governor thus signally honored has already been mentioned as a soldier, legislator and acting governor. During the period of public service now begun, he labored effectively for the improvement of the common school sys- tem, the encouragement of manufactures and reform of penitentiary methods. It is said of him that he was a man of strong religious feel- ing, strict integrity, and a shrewd and well-balanced mind. Ilis ability was so generally recognized that he had been seven times con- seentively elected speaker of the Ohio senate. i
* In 1882 it was removed to Cleveland, under an arrangement for endow- ment by Amasa Stone, receiving the name of his deceased son. Adelbert.
+ After four years' service as governor he retired from public life. but in 1846 was made the first president of the Ohio state board of agriculture. He was born in Augusta county, Va., November 24, 1783, and died at Hills- boro, February 3, 1870.
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The first great political event following the election of Governor Trimble was the choice of a United States senator. Senator Ruggles, in 1824, had been president of the congressional caucus that non- inated Crawford for president, and, as a conservative Jeffersonian, opposed Jackson, nominated by resolutions of the various legislatures. Crawford received no support in Ohio, and consequently Senator Rug- gles had a hard struggle for re-election. He was opposed by William W. Irwin and Wyllys Silliman, but, with the aid of some of his polit- ical enemies, obtained a majority of three on the twenty-fourth ballot. He was the first Ohioan three times snecessively elected to the senate, and there have been but two others. After the close of eighteen years in Congress he returned to his home at St. Clairsville, where he died in 1857.
At the presidential election of 1828 Ohio gave Andrew Jackson 67,597 votes and Adams 63,396. This indicated the final extinction of the old Republican or Jeffersonian, and Federalist or Hamiltonian parties. The majority in the election were known as "Jackson men," or Democratic-Republicans, afterward simply Democrats, while the opposition, led by Henry Clay, took the name of National Republi- cans and later were known as Whigs. In the same year, Governor Trimble was re-elected, but he did not receive the overwhelming majority of two years before, his margin over Jolin W. Campbell* being a little over 2,500 votes. U'pon the meeting of the legislature in December it became necessary to elect a successor to Senator Harri- son, who had resigned to accept appointment by President Adams as minister to the new republic of Colombia. The legislature was Jacksonian but its choice fell upon Judge Jacob Burnet, who was at last fitly honored with politieal office. Though one of the most important figures of Ohio, his early devotion to the Federalists had kept him from the high positions he was eminently adapted to occupy. In the senate he was a firm supporter of Clay and Daniel Webster in the stormy times of tariff discussion and South Carolina nullification. There, as in the supreme court of Ohio, he commanded admiration by his clearness of mind, depth of understanding, and power of sound reasoning.
As will be remembered, President Jackson surpassed any of his predecessors in removing officials for political reasons. John MeLean, who had held the office of postmaster-general since 1823, through Adams' administration, though avowedly a Jackson man, refused to undertake the work of removing the Clay postmasters, and consequently was offered a seat in the United States supreme court,
* John W. Campbell was an early settler of Adams county. of Virginian birth. He had served ten years in Congress, 1817-27, besides three terms in the legislature. After Jackson was inaugurated the president made him I'nited States district judge, an office he held until his death from cholera in 1833.
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which he occupied for many years with great ability and honor. Among those who suffered from the new policy, known in later years as "turning the rascals out," was General Harrison, who was promptly recalled from his post in South America. He retired to the old Symmes homestead at North Bend, and for a time was eramped by poverty, but his friends soon provided him with official employment. Ohio was compensated in the diplomatie field by the appointment of Ethan Allen Brown in 1830 as minister to Brazil.
Governor Trimble's administration may be taken as an important epoch in the great anti-slavery movement, manifested by petitions and memorials to the legislature. Ten years before, in 1820, the legis- lature, at the suggestion of Charles Hammond, had declared slavery a great moral and political evil, and about the same time there was organized in Ohio a branch of the American Colonization Society, which sought to solve the negro problem by exporting the colored peo- ple. Senator Morrow was president of this branch. The president- in-chief of the society, Bushrod Washington, memorialized the legis- lature in Governor Trimble's administration in behalf of the colony in Liberia. There was a petition from negroes regarding a proposed colony in Canada, and the Society of Friends asked the repeal of the Ohio Black Laws of 1807.
Long before this the abolition movement had started. Thomas Jefferson was deeply interested in putting an end to slavery, but when the cotton gin made negro labor more profitable, that early Southern movement died. The offensive African slave trade was stopped, but in its place appeared a domestie slave trade, a breeding of negroes in Virginia and Kentucky, for sale further south, that excited a new abolition crusade. The father of this was an Ohio man, Benjamin Lundy, born in New Jersey, of Quaker parents, in 1789. In boyhood, working as a saddler at Wheeling, he was distressed by the sight of gangs of slaves taken through there from the Virginia breeding fields to the southwest. When he married he made his home at St. Clairs- ville, and in 1815 formed the I'nion Humane society, devoted to agi- tation against slavery. Next, he sold all he had and joined Charles Osborne, another Quaker, in publishing The Philanthropist. During the Missouri agitation he was in that state writing on the evils of slavery for Northern journals, and in 1522, when he walked back to Ohio, he started another paper, The Genius of Universal Emaneipa- tion. Afterward he visited the Quakers in the Carolinas and Vir- ginias, organizing anti-slavery societies, and in 1828, after he had formed a hundred societies in all parts of the country, he visited Bos- ton and enlisted William Lloyd Garrison in the work. He was in no respeet a ranter or demagogue, but treated all men as brothers. Yet, at Baltimore, he was assaulted and nearly killed by a slave-broker. The Rev. John Rankin was another Ohio man on the skirmish line of the new war against slavery, whom Garrison acknowledged as a
I-16
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teacher and master. He was of the Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish breed, born in East Tennessee, and began preaching against slavery in Kentucky. From hatred of slavery he and nearly all his congre- gation moved across the Ohio, and he became the Presbyterian pastor at Ripley and founder of the Free Presbyterian church. He trav- eled and lectured and was often mobbed in Ohio. David Amen, of Brown county, father of a general and an admiral, published Ran- kin's arguments for the abolition of slavery, in 1826.
The Black Laws, to which there was objection in Ohio, were a set of statutes partly in force from the foundation of the State, but revised and amplified in 1807. They denied the negro the right of testifying in court or bringing a suit against a white man ; strictly forbid miscegenation, and no negro or mulatto was allowed to make his home in any county without giving bond for good behavior. Negroes who could not give bond were turned over to the poor-master, who sold their annual services to the highest bidder. There was also a system of registration, intended to aid in the discovery of runaway slaves from the South, and laws against harboring or concealing negroes. These laws were considered by the Friends and an inereas- ing number of other people, as a disgrace to the State, and legislature after legislature was petitioned to repeal them. They served a good purpose, however, by hokling in check the increase of negro popula- tion. The desire of the early settlers of Ohio was not to establish a refuge for runaway negroes, but to found a state in which there should be as few negroes as possible to compete with white labor.
As anti-slavery sentiment grew more pronounced, an effort was made to subdne it, in the interests of harmony in the nation, and also in the interests of business along the Ohio river. This was carried to the length of repression of free speech, more marked in the east than in Ohio, however. It became dangerous to refer to the "peculiar institution" that the South now defended as an essential part of her civilization. But many college students and college professors were irrepressible. Particularly in the Western Reserve was there a man- ifestation of a spirit of crusade against slavery. There, people seemed to feel more heavily than elsewhere the burden of the sins of the world. From the Western Reserve college students were in the habit of going out in vacations and lecturing the people on the evils of slavery, intemperance and violation of the seventh commandment, sometimes getting mobbed on the first count of the indictment, at least. The faculty of this college was broken up by the attempt to re- press slavery agitation in 1830-33, and a little later Lane theological seminary, at Walnut Ilills, near Cincinnati, opened in 1832 under the presidency of Dr. Lyman Beccher, suffered a similar misfortune.
Meanwhile a colony of Congregationalists, led by a half-blind and penniless preacher, Rev. John J. Shipherd, and Philo P. Stewart, lately a missionary to the Indians in Mississippi, settled in Lorain
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county in 1833, expressly to found a religious college, and the Oberlin Collegiate Institute was introduced to the world. This new school soon profited by the trouble at Lane seminary and gained some of its faculty and many of its students, and the announcement went out that negroes might enter Oberlin as students. In fact, the attendance of the colored youth was very small (one at first ), but the adoption of that policy toward the servile race made the school famous. In 1835 it was endowed by Arthur Tappan, brother of Senator Benjamin Tap- pan, who had remained in the east, and become president of the American Anti-Slavery society and founder of the American Tract society. Charles G. Finney was made professor of theology. The leetures of Dr. Theodore D. Well, one of the professors coming from Lane seminary, aroused two young lawyers, Joshua R. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade, to organize an anti-slavery society which began with four members, but if it had contained only those two, would have been the strongest in the world. Oberlin Institute beeame a univer- sity and was soon overrun with students, some of whom actually eamped in the woods. Oberlin is to be considered as a product of the great religious revival of 1830-32, and what was called the New School of theology, which concerned itself mainly with the personal responsibility and immediate duty of the individual. Finney, the most famous man of its faculty, varied his educational labors with excursions as an evangelist. preaching in his "big tent," which was the precursor of the tent preaching of later days. The university was a religions as well as anti-slavery center, and it was the forum of the free discussion of all new theories. The new flour and Graham bread were preached there, as well as Christian perfection and sanetifica- tion. The Adventists were free to send their ablest prophets to dis- euss the imminent coming of Christ, and the radical abolitionists, who were beginning to withdraw from political action and denounce the United States constitution as "a covenant with death and a league with hell," had freedom of speech but not much sympathy in this famous college town. It must not be inferred that the people of the Western Reserve were all Oberlin enthusiasts. Like other prophets, those at Oberlin experienced in a considerable degree the scorn of their conservative neighbors.
The progress of the anti-slavery movement was shown in 1>35 by the organization of the Ohio Anti-Slavery society, with headquarters at Cineinnati, and the strength of the opposition was manifested by the mobs of 1836, that sacked the publication office of Birney's"
* James Gillespie Birney, the head of the aholition movement for several years, was a Kentuckian, of Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish descent. He was active in politics in Kentucky and Alabama, but was occupied with philan- thropie schemes from his youth, and finally declared for immediate abolition of slavery. He then found it necessary to take refuge in Ohio, where he be- gan the publication of The Philanthropist, first in Clermont county and later in Cincinnati. This publication was continued by Pugh and Gamaliel Bailey, in spite of mobs, until 1844.
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Philanthropist, printed by Achilles Pugh, strewing the streets with type and dumping portions of the press in the river. Many of the mob were minded also to attack the office of Charles Hammond's Gazette. In the same year, when a state convention of anti-slavery men was held at the town of Granville, founded by Massachusetts people, the meeting was held in a barricaded building, and after adjournment the members were followed on the streets by a mob and pelted with rotten eggs.
It may be asked why people of Ohio should concern themselves so much about the industrial system south of the river as to arouse vio- lence and discord in their own homes ? Some have said on account of a meddling disposition and excess of self-righteousness on the part of some northern people, in face of the fact that the leading agitators came to Ohio from the South. But the philosopher would be extremely shallow who could trace the great battle over slavery to such a cause. The primary irritating cause of hostility was the run- away slave.
The histories of Florida and Texas are ample to illustrate the axiom that a slave country cannot live in peace with a neighboring state where slaves can find happier conditions. Ohio was not at this time the refuge of many slaves. It was the path traveled by slaves to Canada, where, under the law as laid down by Mansfield in 1772, the negro was free as soon as he stepped upon British soil. By the Ordi- nance of 1787, Ohio was denied the attributes of a sovereign state possessed by Canada. But many of her citizens aided the slaves to escape. Nothing else could be expected. In a community accus- tomed to personal freedom there will be men who eannot endure the sight of man hunters.
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