Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 100

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 100

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The Kansas-Nebraska bill was enacted into law eventually with a provision for "squatter sovereignty" which effectually repealed the Missouri Compromise; and both North and South undertook to colonize Kansas in anticipation of the organization of the territorial govern- ment, each with the purpose of settling the slavery question in Kansas by a preponderance of voters. Kansas became a battlefield, as armed bands from Missouri invaded the new terri- tory and undertook to overturn the territorial government already established by settlers opposed to slavery. The matter was brought before the Rhode Island General Assembly in a message from the Governor transmitting resolutions and communications from other states. These were referred to a special committee, and the Assembly adopted resolutions reported by its committee, thus :

This General Assembly having their attention called to the subject of the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise; the difficulties in the territory of Kansas, the questions of the existence of slavery in the territories, and of its exclusion therefrom by positive laws, and of the future non-admission of any state into this union without a provision in its Constitution forever excluding slavery from such state; and other matters relating to the political topics of the day, by communications from the Legislatures of other states, and by a com- munication from his excellency the Governor of this state, and having considered the same, do Resolve, that the proviso admitting the state of Missouri into the union known as the Missouri Compromise, which was adopted to allay an alarming excitement which threatened to disturb the public peace and to produce a sec- tional collision resulting in civil war, and threatening a dissolution of the union, was made by the antagonistic

590

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

parties in good faith and with patriotic motives, and that its repeal by the Thirty-third Congress was a sig- nal violation of honor, of justice, and of plighted faith; that Congress, having authority to pass an act declar- ing that slavery shall not exist in the territories, is imperatively called upon to exercise that right without delay ; that the atrocious interference of citizens of Missouri, and others not resident in Kansas, with the organization of that territory, deserves the indignant rebuke of the legislature and people of every state, and that the state of Missouri is bound to disown all participation in these acts of violence and outrage without delay, or suffer the obloquy due from such flagrant violations of justice, law and right; that in the contest between liberty and slavery upon the soil of Kansas it is the duty of the free states to resist this new aggression of the slave power by all legal and constitutional means, and to speak through their Legislatures, and to act through their representatives in Congress in such manner as will secure the blessings of liberty to all the settlers upon that soil once deemed to be consecrated to freedom by an irrepealable law; that the con- duct of the present administration in remaining passive when the people of Kansas were overborne in their elections by an invasion of intruders from a neighboring state, and in again permitting these intruders to carry civil war to the homes of peaceful settlers, and in its denunciations of those settlers for standing on the defensive when their rights, their honors, and their lives were thus invaded and threatened, affords con- clusive evidence of its intention to make pretexts for forcing slavery into Kansas, in violation of the rights of its people, secured to them by the act organizing that territory ; and that such conduct deserves the repro- bation of all who love justice and hate oppression, and the hearty united opposition of all who prefer freedom to slavery : that our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use all honorable means for securing the civil and political rights of the people of Kansas, by endeavoring to procure the passage of laws which shall make void the enactments of the pretended legislature, set up and established by the horde of lawless invaders, and for quieting the present excitement and agitation through the country by the admission of the state of Kansas into the Union at the earliest opportunity with a Constitution prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude except for crime.

In a philippic entitled "The Crime Against Kansas," Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, addressed the United States Senate on March 19, 1856. In his speech Sumner referred to Senator Butler of South Carolina, as a Don Quixote whose Dulcinea was slavery, and to Senator Douglas of Illinois as a Sancho Panza, "Squire of Slavery," always willing to perform her "humiliating offices." Douglas, who was present, answered; Butler was not present. Two days later Preston S. Brooks, Representative from South Carolina, entered the Senate chamber, while the Senate was not in Session, and beat Sumner over the head with a cane, leaving him unconscious and covered with blood. The House of Representatives voted, 121-95, to expel Brooks, the motion failing the two-thirds majority necessary. Brooks resigned. The attack on Sumner evoked resolutions in the Rhode Island General Assembly, in part as follows: "That the recent assault committed on the person of a Senator from Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate chamber of the United States by a Representative from South Carolina is an outrage, the commission of which in a civilized community no prov- ocation can justify, and the enormity of which no excuse can palliate; and that the people have a right to claim of their Representatives that the authors and contrivers of an assault so brutal and so cowardly shall at once be expelled from the Congress of the nation; that the assault thus made on a Senator, for words spoken in debate, and the conduct of those political friends of the offenders who sought to prevent an investigation into the offence, show a delib- erate attempt to stifle freedom of speech in the national councils, and deserve the instant rebuke, and the uncompromising opposition of all who love their freedom and who wish to maintain ît ; that this outrage, in connection with the acts of violence just perpetrated in Kan- sas, admonish us that a determination exists on the part of those now wielding the power of the general government to crush the advocates and upholders of freedom and free territory by force, bloodshed and civil war; and that the perversion of the power delegated by a free people for the preservation of their freedom to purposes of injustice, tyranny and oppression, demands the union and active cooperation of all who deserve to enjoy the blessings of liberty,

591

STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

for the purpose of placing the government in the hands of those who will conduct it with due regard to the rights of freemen, and the liberties of the people." In Kansas the pro-slavery forces had drafted a state constitution called the LeCompton Constitution. Against the admis- sion of Kansas with this Constitution the Rhode Island General Assembly protested in Janu- ary, 1858, thus: "That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives be requested, to vote against the admission of Kansas into the union under the LeCompton Con- stitution." Significant of the union of all good Rhode Islanders in the war to save the union as foreshadowed were the facts that this resolution was presented by a Democrat, and that it was adopted unanimously. The South had become desperate in its effort to maintain an even balancing of free states and slave states in the Senate, as a means whereby to veto legis- lation hostile to slavery.

RISE OF A NEW PARTY-The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the drastic fugitive slave law of 1850, the warfare in Kansas, the attack on Sumner, and the Dred Scott decision (1857) contributed to strengthen the new political party rising from a combination of anti- slavery men of older parties-Liberty, Free Soil; Whigs who no longer could reconcile the aberrations of Clay and Webster, as these politicians pandered to expediency and compromised questions involving great principles, as the former sickened Lincoln by his willingness to abate opposition to slavery as the price of placating the South, and as the latter attempted to mollify public opinion by sustaining the fugitive slave law as constitutional ; and Democrats, too, who could not follow Pierce and Buchanan, and Douglas, as Douglas, in pursuit of his ambition to be President, yielded almost to every demand of Southern politicians. In Rhode Island the new party immediately supplanted the Know Nothing party, which had waxed strong on the disintegration of the Whigs. Governor Hoppin, once defeated and twice elected as a Whig with Know Nothing indorsement, was reelected in 1856 as candidate of the new Republican party with Know Nothing indorsement. The reduction of his majority from 8342 in 1855 to 2707 in 1856, is explained in large part by an increase of 4402 in the Demo- cratic vote, cast principally by Democrats who had not voted in 1855. Not all Democrats who opposed slavery had joined the Republican party; there were many anti-slavery Demo- crats who feared the aggressive Abolitionists in the new party were as dangerous to the peace of the nation as was the radical Southern group. The Republican party was in con- trol in Rhode Island, nevertheless. It gave John C. Fremont a handsome majority for Presi- dent in 1856. It sent James F. Simmons (1857) and Henry B. Anthony (1859) to the United States Senate. It was uniformly successful in the election of members of the national House of Representatives. If it failed on occasion to elect its candidates for general state offices by majorities, the failure was due to a lingering remnant of the Know Nothing party, calling itself American Republican, which occasionally interposed a third candidate; and the failure was corrected by the grand committee, which was controlled uniformly by the Repub- lican party. The apparent exceptions occurred in the period of transition in which the active Know Nothing organization established control of the weakening Whig organization, and the combined vote was deceptive. Thus, in 1855, the vote for Lieutenant Governor was Know Nothing 9733, Democrat 2705, Whig 1309; in 1856, it was American 7882, Democrat 7227, Republican 1306; in 1857, it was American Republican 3816, Democrat 5126, Republican 5781. In 1859, Jerome B. Kimball, candidate for Attorney General, received a majority of the votes cast by the people; it appeared, however, that he was not a qualified elector on election day. Charles Hart was elected by the General Assembly, qualified and resigned. The Assembly then chose Jerome B. Kimball as Attorney General.

STATE POLITICS-Two propositions to amend the Constitution-one, to permit the Gen- eral Assembly to regulate the compensation of members, which the Constitution had fixed at

592

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

one dollar per diem and eight cents per mile for travel; the other, to substitute an assessed and mandatory poll tax for the voluntary registry tax-failed of approval in the General Assembly in 1855. In the following year five propositions were presented, as follows: (I) To abolish the registry tax; (2) to establish a poll tax; (3) to require twenty-one years of residence to establish political rights for naturalized citizens; (4) to fix the compensation of assemblymen at two dollars per diem; and (5) to establish an educational qualification for suffrage. The fifth proposition was rejected by the Assembly immediately, and the third also by the Assembly elected in the spring of 1856. The remaining propositions, approved by two successive assemblies in the manner provided by the Constitution, were submitted to the people in the fall of 1856 at the election of presidential electors, and were rejected. Three years later a joint committee to consider amendments to the Constitution as to the desirability of holding a constitutional convention was appointed. Again in 1860 another joint committee was appointed "and instructed to report to this legislature what amendments to the Constitution of this state might be submitted to the people of this state at the next April election." Sen- ator Burges of the committee reported four propositions to amend the Constitution to the Senate-(1) To repeal the registry tax and establish a poll tax instead; (2) to provide a sal- ary for assemblymen, with deduction for non-attendance; (3) to make the Lieutenant Gov- ernor, instead of the Governor, the presiding officer in the Senate; (4) to restore to the General Assembly the function of ordering new trials in judicial courts. All four proposi- tions were rejected by the Assembly.

The fourth, to overturn the Supreme Court decision in Taylor vs. Place,¿ was related probably as much to the petition of Charles T. Hazard for reversal of a decision of the Supreme Court and for ordering a new trial. Hazard, respondent in a suit in equity for specific performance of a contract to sell land,* not only sought relief from the court's deci- sion against him, but accused the Supreme Court reporter of intentional and malicious inac- curacy in reporting the trial. Samuel Ames, the reporter, had been of counsel for the com- plainant in the suit against Hazard, and had been elected as Chief Justice following the resig- nation of Chief Justice Staples, 1856. Chief Justice Ames subsequently sued Thomas R. Haz- ard for libel,; basing the action upon alleged malicious defamation in publishing a scathing commentary upon the report of Ives vs. Hazard. The committee of the General Assembly to which the complaint against the reporter was referred, with the request of the Chief Justice for an investigation, reported that the reporter had not acted "in such manner as to subject him to the censure" of the Assembly. The Assembly dismissed the Hazard petition. The report against censure might be construed as resting upon the doctrine of distribution of powers, on the ground that the reporter, as an appointee of the Court, was not responsible to the General Assembly. The dismissal of the petition might rest on the same doctrine of judicial independence. The House of Representatives confirmed its confidence in the Chief Justice, however, by refusing to pass a bill that would require a separation of the offices of Chief Justice and reporter.

So early as 1770 a petition addressed to the General Assembly requested division of the town of Providence on the line of the river, the section west of the river to be called West- minster. The project in modified form was revived when Providence was chartered as a city, request being made that a separate town of Westminster, west of the junctions of Broad and High (now Broad and Weybosset), and of High and Westminster (now Weybosset and Westminster ) Streets, should be set off from the new city. The growth of the city normally was westward, because of the steep east side hills and the deep Seekonk River. The town cen- sus of 1825 showed 8729 persons living east and 7212 west of the river. Rivalry between east

$4 R. I. 324.

*Ives vs. Hazard, 4 R. I. 15.

+Ames vs. Hazard, 6 R. I. 335 ; Ames v8. Hazard, 8 R. I. 143.

593

STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

side and west side, along with a factional fight of Republicans and American Republicans, were issues in the city election of 1857. Thomas A. Doyle, afterward mayor of the city for eighteen years, bolted the caucus, and ran as an independent in four elections each of which failed for want of a majority. Doyle withdrew, and William M. Rodman was elected. The Democratic measures intended to aid the party in the city, enacted in 1853, had been repealed in 1854.§ The Republican Assembly in 1857 reenacted the statute of 1853 authorizing the election of aldermen in Providence by wards instead of on general ticket, and in 1858, follow- ing an advisory referendum in the city, amended the city charter to provide (1) for plurality instead of majority election; (2) for election of one alderman and four councilmen by the voters of each of seven wards; (3) for election on general ticket by the voters for the city of city clerk, city treasurer, city solicitor, collector of taxes, city marshall, harbor master, overseer of the poor, and superintendent of health. Under the admendment to the charter the city council was authorized to divide wards into districts for choosing councilmen, in its discre- tion. The school committee, which had been "packed" by the Democrats in 1853, and "packed" again by the Whigs in 1854, was changed again in 1859. The number of members remained forty-five, forty-two of whom were elected, six for each of seven wards, by the people, the other three being the Mayor, president of the common council and chairman of the council committee on education. The committee membership reached sixty-three with ten wards.

Not all of the political measures considered or enacted by the General Assembly were partisan in purpose or effect. Burrillville was set off from Glocester in 1806, and Fall River from Tiverton in 1856. In the final adjustment of the eastern boundary in 1862 Fall River was ceded to Massachusetts, and Rhode Island acquired the Massachusetts town of Paw- tucket,* lying east of the Seekonk and Blackstone Rivers, and part of the Massachusetts town of Seekonk, which became the Rhode Island town of East Providence. With the devel- opment of the practice of distributing powers, the General Assembly transferred to judicial courts a widening jurisdiction, relinquishing one after another functions which it had retained as courts were established and their jurisdictions defined. Thus in 1824 the Assembly created three courts of commissioners, one for Bristol and Newport Counties, one for Kent and Washington Counties, and one for Providence County, to conduct proceedings in insolvency. The statute of 1824 was repealed in 1826, and in 1827 jurisdiction in insolvency was conferred upon the Supreme Judicial Court. The insolvency act was revised from time to time; in 1832 the Assembly assumed jurisdiction to entertain appeals in insolvency petitions from the Supreme Judicial Court. The Supreme Judicial Court was reduced from five to three jus- tices in 1827, and increased to four justices after the adoption of the Constitution. In 1848 the Supreme and Common Pleas Courts were reorganized. The two side county judges in the latter were abolished, a justice of the Supreme Court constituting the panel except in capital cases. The assembly in 1847 transferred to probate courts jurisdiction to approve and order sales of real estate belonging to minors, and by giving the Supreme Court discretion to enter- tain petitions for divorce for separation for three (instead of five) years, relieved itself of divorce petitions. Article II of amendments to the Constitution, 1854, transferred the pardon- ing power to the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and divested the General Assembly of its status as a court of jail delivery.

The Assembly continued to entertain petitions for change of names, such as that of Wonderful Pike, who asked that he might be called William W. Pike, and for adoption of children, both later assigned to probate courts, and to legalize the acquisition of real estate by aliens, a function that ceased when the alien disability was removed by statute. Partly by transfer of jurisdiction and partly because the Supreme Court under the Constitution denied

§ Supra.'

*Rhode Island village of Pawtucket in North Providence annexed to Pawtucket, 1874.

R. I .-- 38

594

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

the right of the Assembly to entertain appeals from judicial courts* the calendar of private petitions to the General Assembly was reduced.

A complete revision of statute laws was made in 1857 by a commission consisting of Samuel Ames, Thomas A. Jenckes, Wingate Hayes, Benjamin T. Eames and Henry A. Howard, and the Public Laws of 1857, when adopted by the General Assembly, were arranged systematically by titles and chapters in the manner that still prevails. The revision of 1857 was painstakingly made, including rewriting entirely of many statutes, repeal of others, and the filling of gaps, which were disclosed by the orderly arrangment outlined by the commis- sion. It was a splendid piece of code writing. One of the most significant changes in the new statutes was a provision whereby land could be attached in an action to enforce the pay- ment of a debt incurred by the owner. Until 1857 a Rhode Island freeholder enjoyed, with other privileges, immunity of his land from attachment and sale on execution. He might be arrested for debt, and held in jail as a debtor, but his land remained with title unimpaired to pass by inheritance to his heirs, the debts dying with the freeholder who incurred them. After 1857 new statutes, as enacted, were numbered as chapters of the Public Laws; one of the immediate effects of the revision was a reduction, for a time, in the volume of new statu- tory law.

For better administration of state finances the office of the State Auditor was created in . 1856 as one provision of a general statute; and in the same year the General Assembly enacted the first annual appropriation bill for the support of state departments, an elementary budget. A new state valuation revealed $111,175,174 of property, in contrast with $9,500,000 in 1824. The valuation of Providence in the same period increased from $2,000,000 to $56,243,500. The amount and value of property owned by the state was also increasing. Following an affirmative referendum, 4433-502, a state prison was erected, 1838, at Great Point, on the shore of the cove, in Providence, near the present location of Rhode Island College of Educa- tion. Following the attack by Dorr on the arsenal in Providence, the arsenal property was sold, and a new arsenal was built on Benefit Street,t "nearer the centre of the city." The city of Providence was authorized in 1850 to open a reform school; later in the year provi- sion was made for commitments of juvenile offenders from places outside Providence to the Providence Reform School, the state paying for maintenance. The institution subsequently became a state reform school and as such was removed to Cranston, becoming the Sockanos- set School for Boys and the Oaklawn School for Girls. Provision for committing insane per- sons to Butler Hospital was made in 1851. The convict labor system in the prison was abol- ished in 1847. Otherwise a more humane attitude toward prisoners was indicated by exclud- ing the public from executions, 1833; abolishing corporal punishment for crime, 1841; and abolishing the death penalty, 1852. State property in five state houses and five county jails was maintained. The arsenal in Providence was used by courts while the General Assembly was in session in the State House; the latter was overtaxed. A proposition to rebuild the Providence State House at an expenditure of $20,000 was opposed in 1839. Later a plan for cooperation by the state and the city of Providence in erecting a building on a site in the cove in Providence for the accommodation of both-a State House and a City Hall under one roof -at a cost of $211,595 was reported to the General Assembly in August, 1850, following a conference of state and city officers, but no action was taken. Later in the same year the Providence State House was enlarged, a small addition costing $9,800. The agitation for a new State House was renewed in 1858, when a committee of the General Assembly was appointed to consider it. The people in a referendum voted decisively in 1860 against a propo- sition to erect a new State House in Providence, at a cost of $150,000. As a consequence for forty years afterward, until the opening of the new State House in Providence in 1900,

*Taylor vs. Place, 4 R. I. 324.

tThe building is still standing, but not on its original site. It was removed when the east side railway tunnel was built.

CHIEF JUSTICE SAMUEL AMES of Rhode Island

595

STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

accommodations for officers of new departments in state service must be rented outside the State House. The Secretary of State was directed, in 1852, to furnish a room for a state library, thus beginning the collection of federal and state publications and reference works that constitutes the present State Library.

The annual appropriation bill of 1860 affords a brief summary of state public service at the period, including a list of state officers and institutions or other undertakings, thus: Gen- eral officers-Governor, $1000; Lieutenant Governor, $250; Secretary of State, $1000; Attorney General, $1200; General Treasurer, $800; State Auditor, $1000; orders drawn by Governor, $500. General Assembly-per diem, mileage, clerks, officers, stationery and other expenses, $9500. Courts-Chief Justice, $2500 ; three Associate Justices, $1800 each ; Reporter of the Supreme Court decisions, $500; local courts, in Providence, $2600, Newport, $1000, Woonsocket, $700; clerks of courts, jurors, witnesses, officers and other judicial expenses, repairs on courthouses and jails, $7100. Education-Commissioner's salary, $1200; state support for town schools, $50,000; normal school, $3500. Railroad Commissioner, $500; Penal-Board of prisoners, fees of jailers, juvenile offenders, $13,000. Dependent-Insane poor, deaf, dumb, blind, idiotic, $12,000. Military, $7000. Printing, $4500. Indian tribe, $100. Miscellaneous, $15,000. The population increased fifty-three per cent. in ten years from 1840 to 1850, and nineteen per cent. in the next ten years, being 108,830 in 1840, 147,545 in 1850, and 174,620 in 1860. The population of Providence increased seventy-eight per cent. from 1840 to 1850, and twenty-five per cent. from 1850 to 1860. The extraordinary increases in state and city between 1840 and 1850 were due to immigration into and migra- tion within the state. In 1850, nearly one-sixth of the state population, 23,680, was foreign- born.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 100

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716