USA > Ohio > Ohio's progressive sons; a history of the state; sketches of those who have helped to build up the commonwealth > Part 9
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enabling act of admitting Ohio into the Union, the north boundary proposed by Congress was the east and west line through the south extreme of Lake Michigan, mentioned in the ordinance of 1787. On Mitchell's map, which then was the government standard, this extreme of Lake Michigan was laid down as in latitude 42 degrees and 20 minutes north. But the east and west line was not fixed as the boundary. On the contrary, liberty was expressly preserved by Congress in the act to annex the territory north of it to Ohio, or dispose of it in any other manner conforming with the ordinance. In the meantime it was to be a part of Indiana Territory. The convention which framed the constitution of Ohio had information which led them to insert in the constitution a provision that in case Lake Michi-
ON THE MAHONING RIVER WARREN, OHIO
gan should be found to extend so far south, that this east and west line intersected Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Maumee River, or bay, then, with the assent of Congress, the north boundary of Ohio should be in a line to be drawn from the south extremity of Lake Michigan to the north cape at the mouth of the Maumee. The constitution was accepted by Congress, and upon it Ohio became a State, but as the country was occupied by Indians, no attention was then given to the boundary. In January, 1805, Michigan Territory was set apart from Indiana Territory, and the east and west line through the head of Lake Michigan was the dividing line. But when Indiana was admitted as a State, in 1816, her north boundary was established ten miles north of the Michigan line, and the north boundary of Illinois, when
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admitted in 1818, was established more than fifty miles north of the line through the head of Lake Michigan. The act, moreover, declared that the residne of Michigan Territory north of Indiana was to remain subject to the disposal of Congress. This was decisive that the east and west line referred to in the ordinance was not considered by Congress as restricting the north boundary of the three States in question ; secondly, that the territory of Michigan was still at the disposal of Congress for the purpose contemplated, if not pledged in the Ohio Enabling Act and Constitution.
Repeated applications were made to Congress by the Ohio Legislature to definitely settle the boundary and various surveys were executed. By act of Congress, in May, 1812, the Surveyor General was directed to cause a survey of the east and west line as soon as the Indians would permit it, and to report a plat showing where it intercepted Lake Erie. Mr.
RESERVOIR IN EDEN PARK CINCINNATI, O.
Harris, a deputy, was sent to survey this line in 1817, but, unduly magnifying his office, he proceeded to run the "north boundary line of Ohio." as he styled it, on the course from the North Cape of Maumee Bay to the head of Lake Michigan. This was called the "Harris line." But since it was not in compliance with the order of Congress, another deputy, John A. Fulton, executed the survey in 1818. and ascertained that the line in question if extended due east, crossed the Maumee some miles above Toledo, and intercepted the shore of Lake Erie considerably cast and south of the Maumee Bay. This was the "Fulton line," so called. Another survey, ordered by Congress in July, 1832, was executed by Captain A. Talcott, of the engineers. By astronomical observations, as well as by surveys made with great accuracy in 1832 and 1834, he ascertained that the south extreme of Lake Michigan was in latitude 41 degrees 37 minutes and 7 seconds north, and that this line extended due east,
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VIEWS OF CINCINNATI
crossed the Maumee River and intersected Lake Erie very nearly as reported by Fulton. He found, also, that the most southerly bend in Lake Erie, near Huron, is in latitude 41 degrees and 23 minutes north, and the middle of the lake, between this and Point Pelee, opposite, is 41 degrees, 38 minutes and 21 seconds north. Thus the north boundary of Ohio extended literally as proposed in the Enabling Act, would cut off not only Toledo and the north range of townships in Lucas, Fulton and Williams Counties, but, passing south of the boundary line between the United States and Canada, would take off a part of Ashtabula, all of Lake and portions of Geauga and Cuyahoga Counties. Obviously, therefore, her right to have the consent of Congress to the change stipulated in the constitution was unmis-
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ENTRANCE TO EDEN PARK CINCINNATI
takable, notwithstanding the dictum of John Quincy Adams. But it is equally obvious that without the consent of Congress the right was imperfect. The question stood simply between the United States and Ohio, and upon that footing; and there was no doubt that Congress, upon receiving Captain Talcott's report would consent. Before this could be accomplished there was a rupture, in December, 1834. The legislative council of Michigan, with the same lofty idea of its functions as that held by Mr. Harris, the surveyor, instructed its active Gov- ernor, Stevens Thompson Mason, an ardent young Virginian, to appoint commissioners to treat in behalf of Michigan with the three States, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, for an adjust- ment and final settlement of their north boundaries. Governor Lucas, of Ohio, to whom
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this was formally communicated by Mason, instead of referring it to the President as an act of foolish arrogance, made a similar blunder, and sent the papers to the General Assembly of Ohio, then in session, with a message, advising that prompt and effective measures be taken for extending the jurisdiction of Ohio up to the "boundary specified in her constitution." The Legislature, sharing in the same spirit, passed laws accordingly, on the 23d of February, 1835, with a preamble not only hurling defiance at Michigan, but giving the United States to understand, that it "ill becomes a million of freemen to humbly petition, year after year, for what justly belongs to them and is completely within their own control." Michigan, however, had not waited for this fulmination of the Ohio Assembly. Her fiery young Gov- ernor no sooner saw the message of Governor Lucas than he ordered out General Brown and the militia to resist the Buckeye invasion. The Council passed a law prohibiting the exercise, or abetting, of any foreign jurisdiction within the limits of Michigan, under peril
CENTRAL VIADUCT CLEVELAND
of fine or imprisonment. A party of Ohio commissioners, resurveying and marking the "Harris line" in April, were routed and the surveyors and assistants captured by General Brown and committed to jail. The Judge and officers of an Ohio court appointed to be held at Toledo, on the Ist of September, were likewise arrested by an armed force. The Pres- ident, General Jackson, in a spirit somewhat new to his character, was gently remonstrat- ing with both parties all through the summer. Governor Mason, by an act of disrespect, however, aroused his more natural mood, and was summarily dismissed from office. The tempest in the teapot, the so-called "Toledo war" gradually subsided. Congress met, and by an act passed on the 13th of June. 1836, confirmed the boundary which Ohio had claimed. and admitted Michigan as a State. upon the express stipulation that she yield the point of dissension. Michigan was, however, reimbursed for the loss of a little strip of land, by get- ting the northern part of the peninsula.
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From 1803 until 1826, real estate only was taxed for State purposes. The lands were divided into three qualities and taxed respectively in 1803, 60 cents for each hundred acres of the first, 40 cents for the second and 20 cents for the third, the whole quantity taxed being 7,069,629 acres, and the total amount of the tax $22,923.09. A similar classifica- tion, in 1825, gave 13,025,073 acres, with the rates raised to $1.50, $1.1212 and 75 cents on each hundred acres. The total amount taxed was $200,405.25. In that year the change was made to the manner of taxation in realty and personalty that continued until 1849, and placed on the grand duplicate lands and town lots, buildings, houses, cattle, pleasure carriages and merchants' and brokers' capital, to which was added, under the act of the 14th of March, 1831, money loaned at interest and manufacturers' capital. Under the last mentioned act, and that of 1825, which took effect on the Ist of March, 1826, the taxes on the duplicate had gradually increased from $392,783, in 1826, to $1,755,539, in 1840. Of this last amount taxes were collected on realty valued at $85,287,261, and upon personalty valued at $27,038,895, or a total value of taxable property of $112,326,156.
The first territorial delegate elected to the Sixth Congress in 1799, was General W. H. Harrison. After serving during one session, he resigned in 1800 to accept the office of Terri- torial Governor of Indiana, and William McMillan, of Hamilton County, was elected to the vacant seat. For the Seventh Congress Paul Fearing, of Washington County, was the delegate elected in 1801. He served the term, and in 1803, the territory having become a State, Thomas Worthington, of Ross County, subsequently elected Governor, and John Smith, of Hamilton County, were elected Senators, and Jeremiah Morrow, of Warren County, also subsequently elected Governor, was elected the Representative. These Senators served until the close of the Ninth Congress, when Edward Tiffin resigned his office of Governor, to which he had been re-elected, to take his seat in the Senate, to succeed Worthington, whose term had expired. John Smith resigned after being re-elected, and Return J. Meigs, Jr., subsequently elected Governor, was elected to his seat. For the Eleventh Congress several changes took place in the Senate, and no less than five different Senators occupied the seats representing Ohio, from CEDAR POINT LIGHT HOUSE LAKE ERIE 1809 to the 4th of March, 181I, while but two were returned during the Twelfth Congress, from 1811 to 1813. During all the time from 1803 to the 3d of March, 1813, inclusive, Jeremiah Morrow served as the only Representative to Congress. In 1813 the State was divided into Congressional Districts, and an election returned nine Rep- resentatives for six districts, all of whom served in the Thirteenth Congress. In 1823, another arrangement of districts made fourteen with one member from each to the Eighteenth Con-
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gress. This condition continued for ten years, when, in 1833, the State was divided into nineteen districts, and as many Representatives served in the Twenty-third Congress. Beyond this the districts were not increased until 1843, when a new arrangement added two more to the number, and this continued until 1863. when the addition was stricken out and so remained until 1873. when twenty was fixed as the Ohio ratio. The last redistriction was made in 1883. since when twenty-one members represent the State of Ohio in Congress.
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As early as 1831, applications were made to the Legislature for railroad charters, and, on the 5th of June, 1832, the first charter, that of the "Cincinnati, Sandusky and Cleveland Railroad," was granted. On the 9th of March, 1855, a charter was granted for the "Sandusky, Mansfield and Newark Railroad." On the TIth of March, 1836, one for the "Little Miami" and three days later one for the "Cleveland, Columbus and Cin- cinnati Railroads." The Little Miami Railroad was surveyed in 1837, and work commenced on it in 1840. Work was begun on the others about the same time, but not for several years afterwards were any of them, beyond a few miles, in operation.
The conduct of the United States bank officers had succeeded in greatly exasperating those of the various State banks, not only in Ohio, but in all the other States, and in December, 1832, MEMORIAL HALL IRONTON, O. President Jackson recommended Con- gress to authorize the removal of the Government money from the United States bank, and to sell such stock of the bank as was owned by the Government. This Congress refused to do, and when the session ended, the President, who had nursed this refusal as a private grievance, took the responsibility of ordering the Secretary of the Treas- ury, Mr. Duane, to withdraw the public funds from the United States bank and deposit them, about ten million dollars, with certain State banks. The Secretary refused, and the President at once removed him from office, and put in his place Roger B. Tancy, then the Attorney General, and subsequently Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He obeyed the order of the President. Beginning in October, 1833, in the course of nine months the whole amount was removed. During those months the operation produced great public excitement and much commercial distress. When it began, the United States bank had outstanding loans of over $60,000,000, and so entangled was the business of the bank with that of the whole country that by the calling in of this money to fulfill the demands of the Government,
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it paralyzed the business of the country. Strange to say, instead of having any intelligent idea of this fact as a mater of cause and effect, General Jackson saw in it proof positive that the bank was a dangerous institution and refused in the most obstinate manner to listen favorably to any petition for the modification of the measure he had instituted, or for relief on the application of merchants and manufacturers who waited upon him. His only reply was, in substance, that the government had no power to apply any remedy, or give relief. The banks had occasioned all the evils which existed, and those who had traded on bor- rowed capital ought to have become bankrupt. They had no one to blame but themselves.
But the relief denied by the President directly, was, through his operation, furnished indirectly, yet without his consent and, for some time without his knowledge. The condi- tion was not made that the money, which was placed in the State banks, should be kept idle, and the banks, finding themselves loaded with millions, used these millions in a business way, and loaned freely to those offering ample security. In this manner, the very object that President Jackson labored to frustrate was brought about more effectively than if he had not taken any action pertaining to it. Through the freedom with which the favored banks loaned the public money, speculation was stimulated, the credit system expanded beyond precedent, trade, for a short time paralyzed, recovered and even exceeded its previous energy, prices went up, luxuries abounded, and, as was the condition thirty years after- wards, nobody seemed to perceive the undercurrent of extravagance that was wasting the foundations of the Nation's real prosperity, putting them in condition to collapse and crumble before the first pressure of the storm that shortly after broke out with fury. The Bank of Eng- land began contracting its loans in the spring of 1836, and in July of that year the United States Treasury Department issued what was known as the "Specie Circular," directing all collectors of the public revenue to receive nothing but coin. Ameri- can houses in London became bank- CITY WATERWORKS TOLEDO, O. rupt with millions of liabilities, and. in 1837, every bank in the United States suspended specie payment. The United States bank, which, when the countenance of the Government had been removed from it, had been chartered by the State of Pennsyl- vania, in the hope of becoming one of those to which part of the Government money would be removed, but which was by the President denied, fell into hopeless ruin, and carried down with it the credit of the State of Pennsylvania, and the fortunes of thousands of her citizens, and others who held her bonds.
Up to the very last hour of his administration President Jackson persisted in the policy of his "Specie Circular," offensive though it was generally regarded, and as the very last act of his term of office, vetoed a bill passed by both Houses for its repeal, and to prevent its
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passage over his veto, held it over the adjournment, and then dated his message, returning it with his vet. "March 3, 1837, a quarter before 12 p.m."
Van Buren, President Jackson's successor, was elected by a large majority, and, having organized a Cabinet that gave great satis- faction, called an extraordinary session of Congress, to meet on the 4th of September, 1837. In his message he proposed the establishment of a Treasury of the Govern- ment, independent of all banks and bankers. This proposition was vigorously opposed throughout the entire session of forty- three days, and, as a compromise of the terms of the "Specie Circular," an issue of $10,000,000 in Treasury notes was author- ized. Not until 1840 did the subject of an independent treasury, faithfully adhered to by President Van Buren, meet with such favor that a law authorizing the organiza- tion of subtreasuries in the then three principal cities of the United States was enacted, and the revenue of the Govern- ment thereupon removed to them.
BATHING BEACH IN GORDON PARK CLEVELAND, OHIO
The peaceful relations between the United States and England which had existed for many years were in 1837 and 1838 disturbed by events connected with a revolutionary movement that broke out in Canada, the avowed object being to achieve the independence of those provinces. In this effort the people of the border States sympathized and gave the insurgents all possible aid. Individuals and organized companies went across the border and joined the insurgents, while refugees from the action of the law in Canada were received and protected by the border State people. The agitation and the outbreak occurred simultaneously in Upper and Lower Canada, then so called. but there being little homogenity of feeling between the peoples of the two provinces, the scheme of revolution was ineffective. The active sympathy of the people of the border States irritated England, and President Van Buren, having issued a proclamation, warning Americans not to violate neutrality and international laws, sent a General to the Northern frontier to preserve order. The revolution, however, progressed until 1838. In the upper province, the insurrectionists, led by a man named William Mckenzie, found themselves supported by, among others, a regiment of volunteers from Ohio, of which Lucius V. Bierce, of Akron, was elected Colonel. This regiment had a severe engagement with the Canada militia, but it fought its way through Windsor and finally escaped to Detroit.
In December, 1839, William Henry Harrison, of Hamilton County, Ohio, had been nominated by the National Whig Convention, held at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for the highest office in the United States, and in the year following he was elected to the Presi- dency, after a most strenuous and exciting campaign. Ohio had given her first President to the Union, to be followed by many others.
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CHAPTER VI
Trying Times of Civil War
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Before the War of the Rebellion .- Anti-Slavery and Pro- Slavery Sentiments .- Loyal to the Union .- Patriotism of Ohio after President Lincoln's Call to Arms .- Participation of Ohio in the War .- Siege of Cincinnati. Morgan's Raid through Ohio .- End of the Civil War.
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IFTY YEARS had now elapsed since the settlement of Ohio had begun in earnest. The State had been successful in opening hundreds of miles of canals between the waters of her northern and southern boundaries, and by the operation of which the products of her soil had been doubled in the price they had previously commanded. Several railroads had been chartered, and were in course of construction, and now, one of her sons, who had conquered the enemies of her peace, had been elected the Nation's Chief Magistrate! But the chair of the President of the United States was again soon to be vacated. Although General Harrison, when elected, was apparently as vigorous in mind and body as any man of his age-then sixty-eight years-his death occurred on the thirtieth day after his inauguration, and, on the 25th of April, 1841, John Tyler, the Vice President, became Presi- dent of the United States. In the years following the prosperity of Ohio greatly increased. Her canals were highly advantageous to her agricul- turists and manufacturers. The attention of her capitalists had been directed to the construction of railroads. Her Legislature had encour- aged the investigation of her mineral resources, and discovered that underlying much of her territory was a vast amount of mineral wealth. By the aid of portions of this wealth her manufactures greatly increased, and although at this time six free States, west and north of her, had been added to the Union, her population and resources caused her to rank as the principal State west of the Allegheny Mountains. Politically, however, she was ill at ease. Her population, originally comprising slave and free State emigrants, had, while increasing, preserved their likes and dislikes on the question of perpetuating slavery ; and with the elec- tion in 1844 of the successor to John Tyler from a slave-holding State, the question of the gradual extinction or the perpetuation of human slavery more and more engaged the public mind. The admission of a slave State, in 1821, by an infraction of a previous agreement (called the Wilmot proviso), that no more slave States north of the 36th parallel should be organized, and the discussions at that time which preceded the adoption of the Missouri compromise, so called, that then prohibited the extension of slave-holding territory west of Missouri and north of the southern boundary of that State, had plainly indicated the aggres- sive character of the slave holders. While many looked forward to the ultimate extinction of slavery, and rejoiced in having eliminated that evil from their own territory, others were equally as ardent in the upholding of that system. These feelings of such opposite character were not confined to political, but as well entered into civil and religious engagements, and separated peoples of the same denominational faith, into churches North and churches South. "Old School Presbyterians" became a name and style of recognition in contradiction to "New School Presbyterians." The Methodist Episcopal Church, North, held nothing in common with the same church, South. All free States were spoken of as the "North," and their people regarded as strangers, if not enemies. The Old Testament Genesis was, by panderers to Southern sentiment, made to authorize slavery as a God-ordained institution ; ponderous volumes were circulated among the Southern people to establish this view, and the Southern pulpits rang, and the Southern press was burdened
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weekly with denunciations of those who did not fall down and worship this divinely estab- lished object. AAfter the passage of the Missouri compromise, for twenty-five years no ques- tion had arisen to conflict with its requirements. But the admission of Texas, as a State made from foreign territory, being naturally followed, in 1846, by the Mexican War, under the proclamation of President Polk, awakened in Ohio, in common with the other free States, the feeling that once more were the slave-holding States invoking the intervention of the general Government for an extension of slave territory, and which intervention, the free States were in duty bound to resist. Very reluctantly, therefore, and sparingly, did Ohio respond to the call of the President for troops to fight the enemy in Mexico. Several escaped slaves had been arrested in Ohio, and Mr. Chase, subsequently Governor of Ohio, and United States Senator, had volunteered his services in their defense, and in doing so construed the con- stitution in a manner calculated to startle those people who had regarded slavery as entirely secure under its provisions. The public mind was fast becoming ripe for that opposition to the slave power that culminated in the political convention at Buffalo, in 1848, and the nomination of Van Buren and Adams for the offices, respectively, of President and Vice President. In con- sequence of the prominent part he had taken in directing in Ohio the storm of opposition to slavery, Mr. Chase was elected United States Senator, and at once put in better position to meet the aggressive advances of the slave power. As the reward for his success in the war with Mexico, General Zachary Taylor was, in 1848, elected President, but he lived only as many months as General Harrison did weeks. after his inauguration. The Vice President, William Fillmore, became President, and the Southern Congressmen lost no time in winning him to their interests. Several laws were passed in Congress which were very offensive to the people of the free States.
In accordance with the expressed will of the people as recorded in the act of the General Assembly of Ohio. 1849-1850, an election was held in the latter year for members of a con- stitutional convention, which met in the hall of the House of Representatives, on the 6th of May, and which framed the present constitution of Ohio. Some changes were made in that organic law, one of these being the election of a Lieutenant Governor. Another constitu- tional convention met in Columbus in May, 1873. The constitution reported by this conven- tion failed of adoption when it was submited to the vote of the people, and the constitution of 1851 was undisturbed in its position as the organic law of the State of Ohio-except for such amendments as had been made from time to time. Iu January, 1854, Stephen A. Doug- las introduced, by bill from his seat in the Senate, the territorial recognition of Kansas and Nebraska, and the privilege of their inhabitants to decide for themselves whether they should be slave or free States. Such a proposition being a plain infraction of the Missouri compromise, startled the free State Senators, and a rancorous controversy in and out of Con- gress and the repeal of the Missouri compromise was the result. The first battle ground for freedom was Kansas. On the enactment into a law of the bill of Senator Douglas, President Pierce appointed A. H. Reeder Governor of the territory. Then the race began toward that territory between free and slave State emigrants. Combinations of Southern emigrants under various names, startled by the organization of the "Emigrant Aid Society" of Massa- chusetts, which had been formed immediately on the passage of the "Squatter Sovereignty Bill." by Senator Douglas, had gone into Missouri and there increased their numbers with resident Missourians, who pledged themselves by oath to remove by force from Kansas those who should be sent there by the "Emigrant Aid Society." Governor Reeder arrived in the autumn of 1854, and immediately issued his proclamation for an election of a Territorial Legislature, and with that election the war of supremacy between free and slave labor began.
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