USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 42
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Gen. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, who became governor in Janu- ary, 1868, was born at Delaware, Ohio, in 1522, son of one of the immigrants of 1817 from the frozen east. Largely through his own exertions he was educated at Kenyon college and Harvard law school, and he practiced at Marietta and Fremont before making his home at Cincinnati in 1849. When the war began he was elected captain of a company organized in the Literary elub of that city, and his mil- itary career, thus begun, was marked by rapid advancement, until he commanded a brigade and was honored with the brevet of major- general for gallantry in Sheridan's valley campaign. Before he came home he was elected to Congress by the Cincinnati district. He was a man of clean life and sound judgment, an able and honest law- ver, who was called to high political honors because his record and personal bearing commanded the confidence of good people. One who will read the public papers of the governors of Ohio will recog- nize in those of Hayes the characteristics that reveal the man of quiet strength, directness of purpose, and an evident superiority of nature without the slightest tinge of effort to excel.
The proposed amendments to the United States constitution, which were intended to perpetuate the results of the war, were the subject of much political contention. The Thirteenth, abolishing slavery, was adopted in 1865, and in 1867 the legislature ratified the Four- teenth amendment, which defined citizenship in the United States, without regard to color, disfranchised the most prominent partici- pants in the rebellion and forbade the payment of the "rebel debt," but, at the beginning of the administration of Governor Haves, it was proposed by the majority of the legislature to rescind the approval of the latter amendment. A resolution was passed for that purpose, and presented to Congress, also resolutions protesting against the reconstruction laws. To further strengthen the attitude of the State as opposed to negro suffrage, a law was passed in the
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same session (1868), disqualifying men from voting who had a "vis- ible admixture" of African blood.
In the national political campaign that followed, the Democrats of Ohio declared for payment of the United States five-twenty bonds in paper money, but the main issue was reconstruction and negro suffrage. On this subject Mr. Hayes declared: "In my judgment, Ohio will never consent that the whites of the South, a large major- ity of whom were lately in rebellion, shall exercise in the government. of the nation as much political power, man for man, as the same num- ber of white citizens of Ohio, and be allowed, in addition thereto, thirty members of Congress and of the electoral college, for colored people deprived of every political privilege." His party, in Ohio, in March, urged the nomination of General Grant for president and Benjamin F. Wade for vice-president. In May many Ohio soldiers gathered at Chicago in a national sokliers' convention that urged the nomination of Grant, and immediately afterward the Republican national convention, meeting in the same city, nominated the Gen- eral by unanimous vote. For vice-president Senator Wade was the leading candidate for four ballots, but the honor went to Colfax, of Indiana. For the Democratic nomination Chief-Justice Chase was urged, and though he was one of the original Abolitionists, there was a considerable sentiment for him on the platform of "universal suf- frage and universal amnesty," which he announced in a letter to the chairman of the Democratie national committee. It was recalled, as has already been noted in this work, that he had maintained state sovereignty, but not as a justification of secession. In 1869 he deliv- ered the famous opinion of the United States supreme court that the secession ordinances were never of any force in law, that the seceding states were never out of the Union, and that "the constitution, in all of its provisions, looks to an indissoluble union, composed of inde- struetible states." In the Democratie convention, held at New York, he received a few votes, but the leading candidate was George H. Pendleton, of Cincinnati. He maintained this lead until the fif- teenth ballot, and eame near a majority, but failed to hold his gains, and the convention turned to General Hancock, and Hendricks of Indiana, and finally to Horatio Seymour, of New York, who was nominated unanimously on motion of General MeCook, leading the Ohio delegation.
The political campaign that followed was more like a military campaign than any heretofore known in the country, nearly every Republican county having a brigade of marching clubs. In October the Republicans carried Ohio by 17,000 and in November the Grant electors were given a majority of over 40,000. General Grant was eleeted-the first man of Ohio birth to occupy the presidential chair-and when inaugurated in 1569 he called to his eabinet Gor- ernor Cox as secretary of the interior.
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The State legislature, however, continued to have a Democratie majority, and there was no immediate change in the attitude of Ohio toward the constitutional amendments. At the session of 1-69 the Fifteenth amendment, declaring that the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servi- tude, was rejected by a party vote. Governor Hayes was re-nomi- nated soon after the legislature adjourned, and the Democratic party put forward against him General Rosecrans. The latter declining the nomination, George II. Pendleton was chosen as a candidate. 1 convention at Mansfield, favoring the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor, also named a ticket, which received only a few hundred votes. General Hayes was re-elected by a major- ity of 7,500, and a narrow majority was obtained by his party in the legislature. This legislature, meeting in January, 1870, repealed all the laws restricting the suffrage to white citizens, and ratified the Fifteenth amendment.
In 1869 the Cincinnati fairs, that had ceased during the war, were revived by the exposition of the Wool Growers' association of the Northwest, and in the following year an association, through the efforts of Alfred T. Goshorn and others, made the first Cincinnati Industrial exposition, which in 1870 occupied the spacious building erected for the National Saengerfest, and afterward was housed in the great Music Hall, built by popular subscription, which, with its immense organ, one of the largest in the world, was for a time the most famous "attraction" in the West.
Under an act of the legislature creating that office, John Strong Newberry, son of one of the settlers of the Western Reserve, was appointed state geologist in 1869. He had gained fame by explora- tions in the far west, as well as in the administration of the sanitary commission in 1861-65. Under his management a thorough inves- tigation was made of the geology and mineral resources of the State. the fruits of which are preserved in nine volumes of reports and a geological map of Ohio which are hardly surpassed in thorough- ness by any similar works in the world.
The credit for this work is mainly due to Edward Orton, who was assistant geologist from the beginning, and chief from 1882. He was a native of New York, but partly educated at the Lane theologi- cal seminary, and from 1865 was in educational work in Ohio. He was made president of Antioch college in 1872, and first president of the State university at Columbus in 1-73. ITis geologieal work in Ohio and other states gave him national fame.
The census of 1870 showed a population of 2,665,260, an increase in ten years of a third of a million despite the losses and deterrent influences of war.
In 1870 the legislature chartered the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical college, to receive an endowment by Congress of land
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serip for 630,000 acres, which yielded a fund of something over half a million dollars. The college was located at Columbus, and opened in 1873, and since then has received the name of Ohio State univer- sity. It shares with the Ohio university (at Athens) and Miami university, the appropriations of the legislature for higher education. As each of these institutions was founded by the bounty of the national government, Ohio must confess a shortcoming in this field, as compared with such younger states as Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota, or even with Indiana and Illinois, whose state univer- sities are not so conspicnous as the others. But the people of Ohio have all the time supported a large number of small colleges, and while the pride of the professional teacher and the patriotic admira- tion of big institutions are not gratified, the small colleges have not failed to turn ont big men and noble women.
In his second inaugural address Governor Hayes made the char- acteristic expression : "The law should touch the rights, the business and the feelings of the citizen at as few points as is consistent with the preservation of order and the maintenance of justice. If every department of government is kept within its own sphere and every officer performs faithfully his duty without magnifying his office, harmony, efficiency and economy will prevail." Ile recommended the restoration to communities of the right to vote aid to railroads, the reform of the eivil service and the appointment of judges by the governor and legislature as things that should be considered in the proposed revision of the constitution. The constitution of 1851 authorized the people to vote in 1871 on the holding of a constitu- tional convention, and the vote resulted in favor of the same.
In the State campaign of 1871 the Democratic party adopted a platform, based on the Dayton platform, written by Clement L. Val- landigham, which was called the "New Departure," and, in the words of Vallandigham, "buried out of sight all that is of the dead past, namely, the right of secession, slavery, inequality before the law and political inequality," and waived all questions as to the means of reconstruction, reconstruction having been accomplished and all the states restored to Congress, but reinsisted on the principle of "strict construction, as proclaimed by the Democratic fathers." Vallan- digham's "New Departure," interesting as a projection of old-school Democracy into the present era, also urged the rapid payment of the public debt, advocated "a strictly revenne tariff," and declared that "specie is the basis of all sound currency," and specie payments should be resumed as soon as possible without hardship. But his party refused to adopt the specie plank of Vallandigham's platform and advocated the receipt of customs and payment of bonds in paper.
The opposing parties again presented. for the honor of chief execu- tive, two men distinguished in war. The Republicans named Gen. Edward Follenshee Noyes, born in Massachusetts in 1633, who had
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obtained his education in a printing office and Dartmouth college and the Cincinnati law school, and when a young lawyer in Cincinnati had gone into the war in 1861 as major of the Thirty-ninth regiment. He won promotion to colonel, lost a leg in the Atlanta campaign, and was honored with the brevet rank of general. He was one of the most popular publie speakers of Ohio. In opposition the Demo- erats named Gen. George Wythe MeCook, one of the first Ohio brig- adier-generals in 1861, whose earlier career has already been noticed. He had long before been the attorney-general of Ohio, and in war was one of the most active supporters of the government. During the campaign ill health compelled him to abandon the eanvass. Gen- eral Noyes received a plurality of over 20,000, and began his term as governor in January, 1872. This was soon followed by the third election of Senator John Sherman. Gen. George W. Morgan was the candidate of the Democrats, who had a large vote, and part of the Republican strength went to General Cox, cansing an exeiting eon- test.
An event of 1871 which attracted much attention was the burning of the Central lunatic asylum at Columbus, and in 1872 the North- ern asylum was partly destroyed in the same way, and five lives lost in the work of checking the flames.
The national politieal events of 1872 centered largely about Ohio. The first national convention of the year was of the Labor Reform party, which met at Columbus, and adopted a platform that advo- cated national paper money interchangeable for government bonds, and the abolition of bank notes, also urging government control of railroads. On May 1st a national convention opposed to the re-elee- tion of President Grant met at Cineinnati, and nominated Horace Greeley ; Salmon P. Chase receiving some votes for nomination for president and General Cox for vice-president. General Cox and Judge Jacob Brinkerhoff afterward led in a schism from the Greeley ticket and put in nomination William S. Groesbeek, of Cineinnati, for presi- dent. The main part of the Republicans of Ohio adhered to General Grant, and urged the nomination of Governor Dennison for vice- president, but Henry Wilson was chosen. The Democratic party. following Vallandigham's "new departure," accepted Mr. Greeley as its candidate for president, on a platform advocating, as Greeley said : "equal rights, regardless of ereed or elime or color." Another Democratic convention nominated Charles O'Connor, of New York. Ohio gave, in round numbers, 2-2,000 votes to Grant and 244,000 to Greeley.
In his first communication to the legislature Governor Noves alluded to the excellent financial condition of the State, the debt hav- ing been reduced to about eight million dollars. He pointed with gratification to the completion in the past year of 272 miles of new railroad, and the partial construction of 322 miles, and the granting
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of charters for 4,000 miles of other lines, but with apprehension said, "We hope it will nowhere prove the evidence of recklessness."
The progress of railroad building greatly encouraged the rapid development of the manufacture of iron and steel. Cleveland, which in 1870 had but eight rolling mills, in 1872 had fourteen, and Ohio stood fourth among the states in the production of iron rails for the new railroads. The general tendeney was shown by the incorpora- tion of over four hundred new companies for various purposes in 1872 with a nominal capital of nearly one hundred and forty mil- lions. At the same time the annual product of the manufactories already established in the State was estimated at three hundred mil- lions.
The railroad building in Ohio during this period was a sample of what was going on throughout the West, eausing the investment of seventeen hundred million dollars in five years. The money had been obtained by the sale of bonds in the East and in Europe, and railroad promoters were borrowing money for new projects in advance of the sale of bonds. It soon became apparent that the money, so easily obtained, was being wasted, and there was a sudden tightening of the strings of eredit, so that failures began in the sum- mer of 1873, of those concerns based on credit, or deeply involved in airy ventures. Then on September 18th, Jay Cooke, with some four millions of deposits in his bank and fifteen millions of Northern Pacific paper, went to the wall, the notorious Jim Fisk failed, and there followed a "run" that forced the suspension of some of the most famous and trusted New York banks. The frightful depression of stocks and the blow dealt to eredit and speculative enterprises wrought considerable temporary harm in Ohio, but as Governor Noves said in his message of 1874: "Our agricultural, manufac- turing and mining industries have been unusually prosperous during the past twelve months, and the elose of the year has aggregated fair returns to investments in business enterprises of every description." In 1873 only five new railroad lines were projeeted in Ohio, but in spite of the depression 245 miles were constructed, including the Baltimore & Ohio extension to Chicago.
A notable feature of railroad enterprise, despite the panic, was the building of the Cincinnati Southern, begun in December, 1873, by the city of Cincinnati, which issned bonds to pay for the work. The earlier bonds bore over seven per cent interest, and the latest four per cent, and as about $15,000,000 of these bonds remained unpaid in 1900, the burden of debt has been great upon the city. The South- ern road was opened to Somerset, Ky., in July, 1877, and to Chatta- nooga in 1879. It is of historical interest that the movement for such a road was begun in 1835, forty years before the work was well under way. The enterprise is one of which the city is proud, and it
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has been of great value in promoting that southern commerce that is of vital importance to Cincinnati.
Governor Noyes was renominated in 1873, and the Democrats, having tried, with poor success, the latter day heroes as candidates for governor, called upon William Allen, who for many years had been in retirement at Fruit Hill, the okdl Chillicothe mansion of Gen- eral MeArthur. The Cincinnati Commercial, in anticipation of his candidacy, concocted the ditty, "Come, rise up, William Allen, And go along with me, And I will make you governor, Of this fair coun -. tree !" He vielded, upon the solicitation of his uncle, Senator Thur- man, and his candidacy was hailed with delight by the old-school Democrats, and with humorous sallies by the opposition. The veteran politician of Andrew Jackson's time-besides Thurman the only one remaining as an example of the ancient Chillicothe statesmen, all- powerful in their day-went into the canvass with vigor, and his pow- erful voice was heard in every part of the State. His opponents put the ablest orators of the Union in the campaign against him, but the romance of his candidacy appealed to the people, and the "Sage of Fruit Hill" was elected by a plurality of $17 votes in a total of nearly 450,000. At the same time a legislature was chosen that re-elected Allen G. Thurman to the United States senate. There was also a Prohibition party ticket in the field, headed by G. T. Stewart, and a Fusion party ticket, that declared both the leading parties helpless to check "the tendency to utter demoralization of politics," headed by Isaac Collins, and these had about 10,000 votes each.
The constitutional convention organized at Columbus May 14, 1673, adjourned August 8th, reassembled at Cincinnati in December, and agreed upon a new constitution May 14, 1874. At first, it was presided over by Morrison Remick Waite, a native of Connecticut and graduate of Yale college, who had come west to study law under Samuel L. Young, of Mamnee City. Since 1550 he had been a prominent lawyer at Toledo, had served once in the Ohio senate, and made an unsuccessful attempt to defeat James M. Ashley for Con- gress in 1862. In 1871 he was counsel of the United States in the famous international court at Geneva, Switzerland, but overshad- owed by his associates, William M. Evarts and Caleb Cushing. Soon after the assembling of the convention he was appointed chief-justice of the United States to succeed Salmon P. Chase, who died May 7, 1-73. As Judge Waite was comparatively unknown outside of Ohio, his appointment was criticised, but in the course of his service as chief justice, which extended until his death in 1588, he justified the high opinion of his merits entertained by Judge Thurman and other Ohioans. He was succeeded as president of the convention by Rufus King, of Cincinnati, son of Gen. Edward King, of that city ( whose wife was a daughter of Governor Worthington ), and grandson of the Rufus King of Massachusetts who was an eminent statesman in the
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days of the ordinance of 1787. The vice-president of the conven- tion was the veteran Lewis D. Campbell, and among its members were Gen. J. W. Reilly, George Hoadley, Richard MI. Bishop, William H. West, Thomas Ewing, Jr., and other able men. It is likely that the constitution they prepared would have been of great value to the State. It provided for biennial state elections, salaries for legislators, a qualified veto power for the governor, and a radical reform of the judicial system, and in many other respects introduced changes. But when it was submitted to the people in 1874 it was rejected by an adverse vote of more than two to one. The proposi- tions of minority representation and railroad aid by municipalities were even more overwhelmingly disapproved, and the only close vote was on the proposition to levy license fees upon the liquor traffic, which was rejected by seven thousand majority.
The regulation or prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating liquors was at this time, and had been since 1841, engaging the earnest atten- tion of many people. In the closing days of 1873 a new form of the movement against the saloons was developed under the guidance of Dio Lewis, a noted leeturer on health reform and temperance. It Hillsboro, December 23d, the lecturer urged the women to attempt to suppress the wholly unrestrained sale of intoxicants in their town, and, on the next day, seventy women marched from the church at which they met to the saloons and drugstores that dealt in liquor, most of which soon yielded to persuasion. The daughter of Gov- ernor Trimble set the example of prayer, which was continued day after day, in front of or in the places visited. At Washington Court House, a movement of the same kind immediately followed. There, on the third day of visitation and praver, one of the saloon- keepers yielded, making a present of his stock of liquor to the women, who rolled the barrels into the street and burned them. Following his example eleven of the thirteen saloons in the town went out of business.
The "Crusade," as it was called, rapidly spread over southern Ohio, and thence into various parts of the United States. About a month later it was reported that in twenty-five towns in Ohio over a hundred saloons had been closed, and twenty-two drugstores pledged not to sell intoxicants. It was no uncommon thing to see a group of the best women of a town in a saloon, praying and singing sacred hymns, or, if they had been refused admission, elustered about the ontside of some disorderly place, sometimes on their knees in the snow and mud. But the enthusiasm of the initial movement, that brought women out in midwinter, was lost in time, and it was dem- onstrated that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. In the cities, where such a strong sentiment against the saloons and unauthorized places of sale could not be created, no effeet was pro- duced, except riots that put the women in danger, and, in Cincinnati,
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brought forty-three of them to the ignominy of confinement at the police station. In a few months the "erusade" had ceased, and the former conditions were pretty generally re-established. But, in con- ventions at Cincinnati and Springfield, the Ohio Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed, and the national organization of that society was established in the same year. This society, growing out of the Crusade, has had great influence in the promotion of temper- ance on both sides of the Atlantic.
Among the notable laws of the Allen administration were those changing the control of the benevolent and penal institutions, giving rise to the long continued dispute regarding "non-partisan" and "bi- partisan" management. Another that became important in politics was the "Geghan bill," permitting sectarian instruction in the penal and reformatory institutions.
In 1875 occurred at Xenia the first meeting of the Ohio state grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, an organization of farmers founded in Ohio in 1872.
Governor Allen, in his message, urged the old-fashioned policies of economy, retrenchment, and payment of debt. He rebuked the previous legislatures for temporarily invading the sinking and school funds to meet emergencies. In brief, he bore himself with the dig- nity and expressed the sentiments of a man desirons of promoting the essentials of good government. In 1875 he was renominated for governor, and gave all his power to win success for his party, which had esponsed the cause of inflation of the paper money and opposi- tion to the resumption of specie payments. Conspicuous in the cam- paign as his ally was Sanmel F. Cary, of Cincinnati, who was the most famous man of the West in the oratorieal field in support of the proposition to issue paper money without any promise to pay. Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated a third time for governor by the Republicans, and he was bold enough to declare unqualifiedly in favor of resumption of specie payments by the United States treasury, a policy depending almost entirely in Congress upon the energy and determination of John Sherman. The campaign was very closely contested, with a spirit of bitterness, but Hayes won by a plurality over Allen of 4,450 in a total vote of nearly 600,000, and had a small majority over all, Odell, the Prohibition candidate, receiving but 2,593 votes. This victory made Governor Haves a candidate for the presidency of the United States.
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