USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > An oration on the annals of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations > Part 4
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In Natural Science, Dr. BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE, | of New- port, Professor in Rhode Island College and in Harvard Uni- versity, has an European fame. In 1800 (the year following its publication in England, and four years after its discovery by Dr. Jenner), he brought Vaccination to the United States, and applied it first in Rhode Island. Dr. SOLOMON DROWNE, T dis- tinguished for extensive researches in Botany and Materia Medica, of which sciences he was Professor in Brown Univer- sity, was one of the first to encourage the scientific study of Agriculture, and did much to develop a taste for floriculture and landscape-gardening throughout the State. AMOS ATWELL, the blacksmith, Colonel in the Revolutionary Army and Legis- lator, was the founder and first elected president of one of the earliest Mechanics' Associations. ** NICHOLAS BROWN, tt was the munificent encourager of learning. ISAAC SENTER, LEVI WHEATON, and USHER PARSONS have contributed, with WIL- LIAM HUNTER, the elder, to medical science.
* George William Curtis.
t Envoy Extraordinary to Ghent, with John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and J. A. Bayard. KNIGHT'S Hist. of England, vol. viii., p. 19.
# Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to Berlin .- Homes of the American Statesmen, pp. 449-469. " The most able representative," said the ven- erable Albert Gallatin to the Hon. John Russell Bartlett, " of the American Gov- ernment abroad, during the last forty years."
§ Minister to Brazil. | Arnold's Hist., R. I., vol. i., p. 523, note.
Biographical Memoir by the Rev. T. S. Drowne .- Sketches of R. I. Physi- cians, p. 25. New York during the American Revolution, p. 76.
** The Mechanics' Society's Rooms, and the Roger Williams Hall, stand on the site of Amos Atwell's house.
tt Brown University is indebted to him for the greater part of its buildings and endowments, and hence bears his name ;- an Institution, the Presidents and Professors of which have been an honor to learning, among whom may be men- tioned Manning, Maxey, Elton, Wayland, Caswell, Sears, etc .- Prof. Gammell's article in " Am. Journal of Education," June, 1857. Pres. Wayland's Commemo- rative Discourse, Nov. 3, 1841. Judge Pitman's Alumni Address, Sept. 5, 1843.
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Shall we step into the garden of Literature and Divinity ? Rhode Island points to WILLIAM G. GODDARD, as the elegant writer and belles lettres professor; who for years made the " Rhode Island American" newspaper, the model of good Eng- lish, and sound logic, and just criticism of men and things, to the Press of the United States. She points to WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING for all that is chaste in rhetoric, and earnest in ex- pression, and persuasive in eloquence. She tells us of TRISTAM BURGES, and ASHER ROBBINS, as masters of the classics. She rejoices in GEORGE BURGESS, Bishop of Maine, as poet and theologian ; and in THOMAS CHURCH BROWNELL,* Bishop of Connecticut, and Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.
Would you now emerge from the academic shades, and leave the flowers of thought, for the arena of stern War- Rhode Island turns to her son OLIVER HAZARD PERRY, the vic- tor of the British Fleet on Lake Erie, in 1813, just fifty years ago. His ships, when he, and the Rhode Island boys with him, arrived at the shores of the lake, were trees, growing in the primeval forest; but which their lusty arms and tried skill fashioned and equipped into vessels of war. His personal valor and calm judgment in quitting the disabled Lawrence, and rowing through fire and shot to the untouched Niagara, t and bearing down in. her, breaking the enemy's lines with double broadsides ; plucking victory, for the first time, from a fleet of " the proud Mistress of the Seas," has won for the name of Perry, continuously for half a century, the spontaneous praise of a thankful nation; who, in Congress assembled, adopted his children as the people's orphans, and enrolled him . among the country's heroes. His piety dictated the official an- nouncement to the Secretary of the Navy, that "It has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal
* A lineal descendant of Benjamin Church, the hero of King Philip's War. t This passage of Perry is portrayed in the magnificent painting by Powell, ordered by the State of Ohio, and now being finished in the city of New York.
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"victory over the enemies on this lake."* But the haste and ardor of the hour of battle, prompted him to indite, on a leaf of a memorandum book, resting on the top of his naval cap, a phrase like that of Caesar's, and shall live as long: " We have met the Enemy, and they are ours."
And in humbler rank, but with as heroic devotion, the Navy, in the second War of Independence, exulted in WIL- LIAM HENRY ALLEN, the valiant son of Rhode Island, whose death on the deck of the Argus, amidst the shouts of the victory he had helped to win, subdued the rejoicing of the nation.
In the war with Mexico, as colleague of General Scott, Chief of the Army, the Commander-in-chief of the Naval Forces was Commodore MATTHEW CALBRETH PERRY, born in Newport, and one of the most filial sons of Rhode Island. The crowning act of Commodore M. C. Perry, which has created an era in the world, and has made his name historic among the nations, is his opening of Japan. That sequestered people, for centuries, had embargoed all political communication and commercial in- tercourse, except with the Dutch on the small island of Desima, in the port of Nangasaki. But the acquisition of California made manifest a new route to China and the East, by ocean steamers. The islands of Japan, fixed midway in the route, and containing coals, rendered the opening of her ports a com- mercial necessity, besides promising fresh rewards to com- mercial enterprise.
The prudence and sagacity displayed in this great political success of recovering an EMPIRE to fellowship with the family of nations, while acknowledged by all men, is particularly demonstrated in the official letter published by Congress, and in the narrative of the expedition, written by Commodore Perry himself. The language of the narrative is remarkable for its Saxon strength and clearness. Its style is Addisonian in elegance and purity. It was my good fortune to read the
* Inauguration of the Perry Statue at Cleveland, O., Sept. 10, 1860. Perry's Dispatches, p. 87.
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manuscript in Commodore Perry's handwriting; and when I asked him, " why he had spoken of himself in the third per- son," he replied that " he could not endure the egotism of the I;" and when he found himself, in consequence, tempted to sup- press the truth of history, and when he reflected that his country- men had a right to know the facts exactly as they occurred, he resolved to write in the third person with just freedom, and to ask some friend to edit the volumes, as the quasi historian of the expedition. And in this aspect they are published to the world. Such was the modesty of the author, matched by his integrity as a man, his accomplishments as a writer, his bravery as an officer, his untiring industry as a public servant, his loyalty to the whole country, and his love to his native Rhode Island. One of the happiest hours of his useful life, was in receiving, after a long absence, the public approbation of the State, through her official organs, in the presence of his towns- men in Newport. And his last wish, expressed to me, was, to be buried by his father and mother and brother, in the old burial ground, to mingle his dust with his native soil He even chose his grave there. But New York, the com- mercial emporium, has claimed his body, and the country his fame. Yet Rhode Island will ever cherish his memory as her son.
And shall I refrain from naming, because he was my brother, a son of Rhode Island, JOHN ROGERS VINTON, who at Vera Cruz, after having advanced to the walls to repel any sally of the foe, and while commanding the trenches on the opening of the fire, on the first day of the siege, fell the foremost sacrifice on the altar of his country, in the triumphal march of the ariny from Vera Cruz to Mexico? By permission of the War De- partment, he spent many months in drilling the citizens of Rhode Island, after "The Dorr War," and was signally instru- mental in acquainting them with the military art, which they have so well put in practice during the present rebellion. His native State of Rhode Island honored his name in her Legisla- tive annals; procured his body, ordained a public funeral, and
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lodged his remains in the soil he loved so well and truly .* And had his life been spared to his country, General Scott has said, "John R. Vinton would have borne an early and promi- nent part in commanding the armies of the Union and Consti- tution."+
All these men grew up under the old charter and the Fœde- ral Constitution, inhaling the spirit which they inculcated of law and order, of conservative prudence and progressive ardor, of Loyalty and Patriotism. Like the Roman Matron, our dear mother leads forth her sons, proclaiming, "These are my Jewels." There are many others in her casket, but she reserves her wealth, as a prudent mother should. How many are here present, strayed or purloined for the benefit of New York, I will not say.
But considering the narrow bounds of our State, and its small population, I am bold to challenge the display of more shining lights, who have irradiated the pathway of our country's progress, in the various walks of Peace, among the Manufac- tures, the Fine Arts, the Sciences, the Literature, the Professions of Law and Medicine, the employments of Statesmanship and Diplomacy, the calling of Divinity, and the enterprises of Com - merce, or on the Arena of War by Sea and on Land, than Rhode Island has contributed to our country's advancing great- ness.
It is said, facetiously, in Rhode Island, that her people are less civilized the nearer you approach to Connecticut. But Connecticut retorts that she has observed the same phenomenon in her border population. As to Massachusetts, since they banished Roger Williams, and sent a force to seize him at Re- hoboth to carry him back to England, and he crossed the Seekonk River to escape them, the sons of Rhode Island are suspicious and jealous of much intercourse with them, except in the way of supplying them with just sentiments of tolera-
* Buried in Swan Point Cemetery, in June, 1847, beneath an appropriate monu- ment, surmounted by the unexploded shell with which he was struck.
t Sce NOTE V .- Letter of Ilon. Henry B. Anthony, U. S. Senator of R. I.
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1
tion. But, on the southern boundaries of the State, the sons of Rhode Island hold glad fellowship with the ocean, whose waves clap their hands all round its coast, and whether resting on its calm bosom, or lifted in its outstretched arms, the winds of Heaven are sure at last to bring them on the ocean into com- munion with the world. Rhode Island is small, but proud. " Which is larger, Delaware or Rhode Island ?" said a tall Hoosier to a Rhode Island lady ;* who replied, scanning him from hat to boots, "We do not, in Rhode Island, measure by the foot, but by the head." Rhode Island is small, but very important. An anecdote is current there,t interesting to the philosopher as a matter of fact, and illustrating how small agencies produce vast effects ; or how a Cranston man produced the war of 1812, with England. .
James Rhodes, of Providence, owned a farm in Cranston. His neighbor, Reuben Perry, owned a pig. The pig broke into Rhodes's "clover meadow," and did damage. Rhodes sent two boys to chase the pig, and the pig died from overheating. Perry sued Rhodes for the price of the pig, and employed James Bur- rill as his counsel. James Burrill gained the case, and Rhodes was mad, and vowed revenge on James Burrill. An election oc- curred in 1811, for Senator in the Congress which declared war with Great Britain ; James Burrill, a Foderalist, was a can- didate ; whom Rhodes procured Judge Mathewson, of Scitu- ate, a representative to the General Assembly, to oppose, although both Rhodes and Mathewson were of the same party with Bur- rill. Burrill was defeated by one vote. Jeremiah B. Howell, a democrat, who was elected, was in favor of the war ; and the war was declared by Congress by one vote in the Senate.# If Bur- rill had been elected to the United States Senate, there would have been no declaration of war. So the controversy of the Rhode Island pig produced the war with England.
"Tall oaks from little acorns grow, Large streams from little fountains flow."
* Mrs. Joseph L. Tillinghast.
t See NOTE VI .- Letter of George C. Arnold.
# See latter part of Note V.
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I might suggest further examples of Rhode Island influence on the country." Let your orator to-night not be charged with suppressing truth, or with exalting overmuch the civilization of Rhode Island.
The influence of the old Charter, we have seen, produced in- tense conservatism in the sons of Rhode Island. This disposi- tion was felt as an evil in the oft-defeated attempts to establish public schools. When a society of benevolent ladies, in Provi- dence set themselves to establish Schools in Foster and East Greenwich, they were much hindered by the suspicion of doing something dangerous to the freedom of the inhabitants. Pos- terity owes it chiefly to the zeal and pertinacity of JOSEPH L. TILLINGHAST and JOHN HOWLANDt for the system of public schools which now honors and elevates her people.
Dr. Hubbard, of Pomfret, Conn., used to illustrate the plain fare of the Rhode Islanders on the border, worthy of the hard living of our brethren of the secession army. Attending a pa- tient in Rhode Island, he stopped at the tavern in Chepachet, where he beheld against the wall a huge pile of what seemed boards. He asked the landlady what they were for, who replied that " they were cold johnnycakes for the Town Council, who were to meet there the next day." What would our city fathers say to such fare ?
Without doubt, an envious person might find other matters to blame or ridicule in Rhode Island ; but, so likewise, he would see the spots on the sun, or the flaw in the diamond. Charity, like the bee, sucks honey from every herb. Envy, like the spider, extracts venom from the sweetest flower.
Rhode Island ! there she stands ! with her history before the world, her sons and daughters by ber side. Her record, under the first Charter of human liberty, framed by men's hands, is her sufficient eulogium. She is not perfect. She is human. She claims no more.
* Rhode Island clam-bakes are growing into an institution. Perhaps I ought to add that John B, Chace was always great on advertisements, and the Corypheus of modern trumpeters of their wares.
+ Life and Recollections of John Howland, by E. M. Stone.
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We now enter the fourth period-when " that venerable Char- ter" expired, in 1843, and revived in the existing Constitution.
Few persons can comprehend that crisis. It was the first organized struggle of radical democracy with conservative de- mocracy, of mass meeting with constituted government, of an- archy with law and order. It was, therefore, a trial of the stability of constitutional freedom against the assaults of pas- sionate will.
The cardinal principle of political wisdom incorporated in the Charter of Rhode Island, was this : that "They who owned the soil of the State, should govern the State." Every voter possessed the freehold qualification of landed estate, worth, at least, $134, or was the eldest son of such freeholder. An inter- est in the soil was the pledge of attachment to the State. Even under the Constitution of 1843, no foreign-born citizen may vote, unless he owns land. The provision of landed property qualification in persons eligible for office, was universal and axiomatic in the first constitutions of the old thirteen States. It was a fundamental and unquestioned guarantee of sound legis- lation. A property qualification, personal or real, was deemed essential in both voters and officers by the fathers of the Re- public. Mr. Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," has named two things as ruinous to representative government, viz. : First, universal suffrage ; second, the facility of naturalization. The one admits foreigners, unfamiliar with free institutions, to vote, and to be elected to office ; the other gives scope to the machi- nations of demagogues.
Every State had amended its constitution, enlarging suffrage and breaking down the barriers against demagoguism, except Rhode Island. The new States came into the Union with con- stitutions more and more unlimited in provisions of suffrage. The huge wave of radical democracy had overspread the land, obliterating the conservative waymarks of the original republi- canism ; and Rhode Island was firm as her rocks, surrounded by the deluge of waters. Meanwhile the prodigious increase of her cotton manufactures had attracted a large foreign popula-
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· tion. Villages sprang up, towns grew in numbers and in wealth ; politicians began to harangue the populace. The pro- vision of primogeniture was a feature in the Charter unconge- nial with our American institutions, and the royal source of the Charter was a topic for prejudice and denunciation. At length a new political philosophy was broached-that suffrage was a natural right, and that a majority of the people (inconsistently excluding women and children), might, by vote in mass meet- ing, overturn and annihilate the existing government. This was anarchy, for the people of to-morrow might, with equal proprie- ty, overthrow the government of to-day.
In May, 1841, a mass meeting in Newport called a conven- tion to frame a "People's Constitution ;" and on this new doctrine the populace voted a spurious government, and framed a so-called Constitution in October, 1841. The Legislature of Rhode Island had already ordered a Convention to frame a law- ful Constitution, in November, 1841, which, on being submitted to the freeholders, was rejected in March, 1842. The old Rhode Island spirit was at last aroused to defeat the spurious govern- ment, and WAGER WEEDEN prudently declined being Governor under the People's Constitution, when THOMAS WILSON DORR* bravely took the lead. Dorr was a scholar, a gentleman, a phi- losopher; but a disappointed man. On the 3d of May, 1842, the spurious government was organized, with Dorr as Gov- ernor. Dorr's Legislature was suffered to convene in the new foundryt in Providence; and on the 15th day of its organiza- tion, it seized the guns of the Artillery Company, marched in open day along the streets, through throngs of silent citizens, to the " Alarm Post ;" and threatened to seize the State arsenal that night. That 18th of May, 1842, was a dark and dismal epoch of our history. This was the fearful crisis. But the citizens of Providence rushed to the arsenal. SULLIVAN DORR, the honored father of the chief of the insurgents, joined the loyal band of the defenders of the State. Old men and young
* Dan King's Life and Times of Dorr, pp. 63, 284-293.
+ At Eddy's Point, known as Fuller's Foundry, since destroyed by fire.
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men shut themselves in the arsenal, determined to defend it with their lives.
The faction of Dorr, the younger, dragged the artillery which they had stolen, to the arsenal plain, and put it in battery,-son against father. It was too fearful an experiment, and the insur- gents quailed. In the morning, therefore, they established themselves on Federal Hill, rent by conflicting counsels. The Legislature of the Charter had just adjourned in Newport. The Governor (King) sent messengers everywhere, and rallied the military forces of the towns. In Newport, at midnight, the bells tolled the tocsin. People rose from their beds and prayed. The young men hastily put on their soldiers' uniform and gath- ered together to go to battle. Mothers and sisters, in tears, em- braced them, and fathers grimly gave them their blessing. At dawn of day the steamboat took the Ancient and Honorable Ar- tillery Company, as it was supposed, to death. Every town, in like manner, responded to the summons of the Government, and sent their armed men to Providence. But here the woful lack of military science was made manifest. Who should command the forces; how to attack the enemy ; what to do and when to do it, were questions not readily answered. The foe was on Federal Hill, with artillery loaded with slugs from machine shops, posted at the head of a deep cut (now Atwell's Avenue), to defend the passage. WILLIAM BLODGET, late Colonel of the Providence Cadets, was chosen to command the troops. . He knew no artifices of strategy, nor comprehended the merit of flank movements ; but, taking counsel of his brave heart, he marched the little army, the Newport artillery at the head, in column, up the causeway, in face of the cannon's mouth .* One discharge would have dealt death to hundreds of those Rhode Islanders. The very intrepidity of that rash movement ap- palled the leaders of the insurgents. They dreaded to spill the first blood. But not so did some of their infuriated followers feel. William P. Dean (known as "one-arm Bill"), who held
* Providence Journal and Evening Chronicle, May 18 and 19, 1842. Also New York Journal of Commerce, vol. xxvi., No. 5431, May 20, 1842.
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the . lighted linstock, was pinioned, it is said, in the arms of Marshal Burrington Anthony, as he was about to fire ; and . then, in desperation, attempted to throw the burning fuse upon the cannon. That delay was propitious to the loyal cause, and fatal to the rebels. Colonel Blodget's column gained the hill, and seized the guns, and scattered the insurgents.
Dorr's Legislature was now fugitive, like his army. He left the State, and sought for allies from the notorious Empire Club, of New York. Meanwhile, the women of the insurgent party were furious .* They upbraided the men for cowardice ; they held secret meetings to provide cartridges for future use, and to devise methods for fresh attempts.
The loyal men of the State began in earnest to prepare for civil war. All the common occupations of life were suspended. The State was about to be invaded. The assistance of the Gen- eral Government, in Washington, was invoked. At length the storm burst. In the last week in June, 1842, Dorr returned with an armed escort, chiefly of the "Spartan Band," of New York-political scallawags-headed by Mike Walsh, attended by a Colonel Hopkins, keeper of the Pewter Mug, with the fre- quenters of that low porter-house; with which force he in- trenched himself at Acote's Hill, Chepachet. In this desperate effort Dorr was joined by other desperate men, armed with pikes, scythes, fowling-pieces, a battery of six cannon-in all, nearly 1,000 men, combined in foul conspiracy to overthrow, by force of arms, the regular government of Rhode Island.
The whole State, as one man, arose in martial guise. Rhode Island was a camp. Her arsenals had been filled; her men trained; her sentries were placed in the streets of Providence ; and the studies of the University were suspended; her wealth and her skill had been voluntarily subsidized, till she presented a front that dismayed the invaders. The whole number of the loyal forces, infantry, artillery, cavalry (two companies), and staff actually in service, is estimated at 3,800.
* Mrs. Catharine R. Williams, authoress of the Lives of Barton and Olney, has related to me, with professions of compunction, the violence of the insurgent. women.
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On Saturday, 25th June, a meeting* was held of the sons of Rhode Island resident in New York, at which it was resolved that all, who could, should proceed at once to Providence to aid in vindicating the honor and maintaining the laws of their na- tive State. Quite a number left that evening, and assembled on the following morning, with several of the citizens, at the City Hotel in Providence, and formed the Company of " Rhode Island Carbiniers," of which James N. Olney was Captain.
The sons of Rhode Island in other cities and towns, hastened home to offer themselves for the defence of the State, and were immediately enrolled among the forces.
The loyal troops marched on Chepachet, and the enemy fled away. The following announcement of victoryt was published by General William Gibbs McNeil, commander-in-chief in Providence :
" ORDERS No. 54. HEADQUARTERS, June 28th, 1842.
" The village of Chepachet and fort of the insurgents, were stormed at a quarter before eight o'clock this morning, and taken, with about one hundred prisoners, by Colonel William W. Brown. None killed ; none wounded. Dorr has fled.
By order of Major-General McNEIL.
ELISHA DYER, Jr., Adjt .- General."
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