Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 84

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 84

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President Tyler's attitude continued to be exactly as it was stated; though much was made of his promise to perform his duty, however painful, should occasion actually arise, he was firm in insisting through the critical period of spring and summer, 1842, that he was not justified in undertaking armed military intervention unless and until there were actual insurrection and actual hostilities in Rhode Island with which the state authorities were unable to contend. Nevertheless, the garrison at Fort Adams was strengthened; on May 2, two companies of artillery from Fort Columbus, II officers and 172 men, increased the gar- rison from 10 officers and 109 men to 21 officers and 281 men, or from 119 to 302. Two com- panies were withdrawn, June 17, and one company of mounted artillery added, June 20, making the garrison then 190 men. The garrison numbered 269 on July 2, including four companies of artillery, two of which were mounted. With the organization of the Charter government in May the General Assembly adopted resolutions requesting aid from the Pres- ident, as follows :

Whereas, a portion of the people of this state, for the purpose of subverting the laws and existing gov- ernment thereof, have framed a pretended constitution, and for the same unlawful purposes have met in law- less assemblages, and elected officers for the future government of this state; and whereas the persons so elected, in violation of law, but in conformity to the said pretended constitution, have, on the third of May instant, organized themselves into executive and legislative departments of government, and, under oath, assumed the duties and exercise of said powers ; and, whereas, in order to prevent the due execution of the laws a strong military force was called out, and did array themselves to protect the said unlawful organiza- tion of government, and to set at defiance the due enforcement of law; therefore, resolved by the General Assembly, that there now exists in this state an insurrection against the laws and established authority thereof ; and that, in pursuance of the Constitution and laws of the United States, a requisition be, and here and hereby is made by this legislature upon the President of the United States, forthwith to interpose the authority and power of the United States to suppress such insurrectionary and lawless assemblages, to sup- port the existing government and laws, and protect the state from domestic violence.

A copy of these resolutions was sent to the President with Richard K. Randolph, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Elisha R. Potter, a Senator, as representatives of Rhode Island.

PRESIDENT TYLER'S GOOD ADVICE-President Tyler's reply was to the effect that he had information that the alleged "lawless assemblages" had dispersed. In a "private and confi- dential" letter to Governor King the President advised :

I deprecate the use of force except in the last resort; and I am persuaded that measures of conciliation will at once operate to produce quiet. I am well advised, if the General Assembly would authorize you to

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announce a general amnesty and pardon for the past, without making any exception, upon the condition of a return to allegiance, and follow it up by a call for a new convention upon somewhat liberal principles, that all difficulty would at once cease. And why should not this be done? A government never loses anything by mildness to its own citizens; more especially when the consequences of the opposite course may be the shedding of blood. In your case the one-half of your people are involved in the consequences of recent pro- ceedings. Why urge matters to an extremity? If you succeed by the bayonet, you succeed against your own fellow-citizens and by the shedding of kindred blood; whereas, by taking the opposite course, you will have shown a paternal care for the lives of your people. My own opinion is that the adoption of the above meas- ures will give you peace, and insure you harmony. A resort to force, on the contrary, will engender, for years to come, feelings of animosity. I have said that I speak advisedly. Try the experiment; and if it fail, then your justification in using force becomes complete.

Governor King replied on May 12, expressing satisfaction that the President's views were "so much in conformity with" his own, and stating that he anticipated the ordering of a convention by the June session, and the declaration of amnesty. Senator Potter, writing to the President on May 15, suggested that the Assembly was perfectly willing to call a con- vention "upon a liberal basis as to the right of voting for the delegates," but that there was an unwillingness to "concede while the people's party continued their threats."

As a matter of fact, both the Charter government and the Dorr organization were engaged in preparation for resort to conflict in arms should the occasion arise. The Charter govern- ment had recourse to the familiar practice of appointing a council to advise and assist the Governor, precedents for which were found in Revolutionary and colonial wars. The council consisted of Richard K. Randolph, James Farmer, Edward Carrington, Lemuel H. Arnold, Nathan F. Dixon, Peleg Wilbour and Byron Diman; six Whigs and one Democrat, the last Governor James Fenner. Dorr himself had left the state after the adjournment of the peo- ple's General Assembly-a tactical error, as events proceeded, that might be construed as abandonment of the de facto advantage gained by organizing his government on the day appointed. In compliance with the Assembly's resolution that the President and Congress be advised of the inauguration of the people's government, and that commissioners be sent with the notice to discuss the matter with the President, Dorr had appointed Dutee J. Pearce and Burrington Anthony. On the advice of friends, Dorr also went to Washington, but failed to convince President Tyler, and withdrew with the conviction that no aid for the people's gov- ernment could be anticipated from the Executive. In a proclamation addressed to the people on his return to Rhode Island, on May 16, Dorr accused the President of interference, as intimating "an intentional resorting to the forces of the United States to check the movements of the people of this state in support of their republican constitution recently adopted." "From a decision which conflicts with the right of sovereignty inherent in the people of this state, and with the principles which lie at the foundation of a democratic republic, an appeal has been taken to the people of the country," the proclamation continued. "They understand our cause; they sympathize in the injuries which have been inflicted upon us; they disapprove the course which the national Executive has adopted toward this state, and they assure us of their disposition and intention to interpose a barrier between the supporters of the People's Constitution and the hired soldiery of the United States. . . . As your representative I have been everywhere received with the utmost kindness and cordiality. To the people of the city of New York, who have extended to us the hand of a generous fraternity, it is impossible to overrate our obligation at this most important crisis. It has become my duty to say, that, so soon as a soldier of the United States shall be set in motion, by whatever direction, to act against the people of this state, in aid of the Charter government, I shall call for that aid to oppose all such force which, I am fully authorized to say, will be immediately and most cheerfully tendered to the service of the people of Rhode Island from the city of New York

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and from other places. The contest will then become national, and our state the battleground of American fredom." Dorr was in desperate straits after the conference in Washington had convinced him not only that he could expect no aid from the President or Congress, but that the military forces of the United States would be used against him should he open hostilities. His reception in New York city on his return from Washington cheered him, however.

Dorr was especially bitter toward President Tyler ; in an address to the people of Rhode Island in August, 1843, Dorr accused the President of intimidating the representatives of the people. Referring to the proposition before the people's General Assembly in May, 1842, to take possession of public property, he declared :

But what principally operated upon the minds of the members, as I suppose, to deter them from promptitude of action, was the apprehension of an armed intervention by the national Executive, and the desire to avoid a collision. On this subject I cannot avoid dwelling somewhat at large, as its importance demands. Through the effect thus produced, the action of John Tyler, casually occupying the place of Presi- dent, was the principal cause of the overthrow of the government and constitution of the people of Rhode Island ; and he has thus dealt a blow at the institutions of his country, for which, when his other acts are forgotten, he will be remembered. It is seldom that, in a country boasting of a free government, it is in the power of an individual thus to wrong and afflict the people of a whole political community, and to impress himself with such marks of odium upon its annals. President Tyler, by the advice and instigation of his secretaries, Webster and Spencer, has inflicted an injury upon our people not easily to be repaired, and under circumstances which show him to be a deliberate aggressor. No case had occurred, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, to authorize any intervention on his part in the local affairs of a sovereign state.

Dorr accused President Tyler of being misled by the delegation from Governor King to believe that the "Charter party of Rhode Island was the party of the President's political friends." Daniel Webster also was criticised by Dorr.

If President Tyler had offended Dorr and his followers by the promise to use the military forces of the United States to suppress actual hostilities in the process of actual insurrection. he had not endeared himself to the followers of Governor King by his steadfast refusal to send troops into Rhode Island until there was a demonstration of positive necessity, while his "private" advice to the Governor, kindly given in the letter of May 9, to call a "convention upon somewhat liberal principles," did not please the Bourbon adherents of the old order. The alleged interference of the President in the affairs of Rhode Island was subsequently investigated thoroughly by Congress.#

WEAKNESS OF CHARTER GOVERNMENT-The appeal of Governor King and the Charter General Assembly to the President, with its patent admission of almost helplessness in the crisis of the suffrage movement, becomes less inexplicable than otherwise if viewed in proper perspective and in its historical setting. First, it should be noted, that the Rhode Island militia of 1842, with its elaborate organization in brigades, regiments and companies, and galaxy of field, staff and line officers, all elected annually in grand committee of the General Assembly, was not the soldierly, well-drilled and disciplined, splendidly armed, neatly uni- formed body of the National Guard of the twentieth century, so much as a loosely organized civic rather than military force of yeomanry, in which every able-bodied man was enrolled. The militia of the period was scarcely a dependable force under any circumstances. In the single instance of serious rioting in Rhode Island earlier than 1842 the Governor had called out certain independent military companies rather than the militia. The rioting, which occurred in 1831 in Providence, was such that it is credited with having been the fact that induced the freemen of Providence to accept a city charter after having rejected it previ-

#Vide infra.

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ously. "On the night of September 21, 1831," wrote Staples, "a number of sailors visited Olney's Lane for the purpose of having a row with the blacks inhabiting there. After mak- ing a great noise there and throwing stones, a gun was fired from one of the houses. The greater part of the persons in the lane then retreated to the west end of it, and five sailors who had not been engaged in any of the previous transactions went up the lane. A black man on the steps of his house presented a gun, and told them to keep their distance. They in turn proposed taking his gun. This they did not attempt, but pursuing their walk a little further, they stopped. Here they were ordered by the black man to 'clear out,' or he would fire at them. This they dared him to do. He did fire, and one of their number was instantly killed. The first company, who were still at the foot of the lane, then returned, tore down two houses and broke the windows of the rest. During the next day there was great excitement. The sheriff of the county with other peace officers were in Olney's Lane early in the evening. As the mob increased in numbers and in violence of language, they were ordered to disperse, and seven taken into custody. Subsequently others were arrested, who were rescued from the officers. The sheriff then requested military aid of the Governor of the State, and at midnight the First Light Infantry marched to his assistance. The mob, not intimidated by their pres- ence, assaulted them with stones. Finding that they could effect nothing without firing upon them, the soldiers left the lane, followed by the mob, who then returned to their work, and demolished six more houses in the lane and one near Smith Street, not separating until between three and four in the morning. On the morning of the twenty-third, an attack on the jail being expected, the sheriff required military aid, and the Governor issued his orders to the Light Dragoons, the Artillery, the Cadets, the Volunteers and the First Light Infantry to be in arms at six o'clock in the evening. The mob appeared only in small force, and did little mischief. The military were dismissed until the next evening. On the evening of the twenty- fourth there was a great collection of persons on Smith Street and its vicinity. Soon they commenced pulling down houses. Upon this, finding it impossible to disperse or stay them, the sheriff called again on the Governor, and the military were again assembled. During their march to Smith Street they were assailed with stones. They marched up Smith Street and took post on the hill. Here both the Governor and the sheriff remonstrated with the mob, and endeavored to induce them to separate, informing them that the muskets of the military were loaded with ball cartridge. This being ineffectual, the riot act was read, and they were required by a peace officer to disperse. The mob continued to throw stones at the houses and soldiers. The sheriff then attempted to disperse them by marching the dragoons and infantry among them, but without success. He then ordered the military to fire, and four persons fell mortally wounded on Smith Street, just east of Smith's bridge. The mob immediately dis- persed and peace was restored."* The episode was significant as it demonstrated the strength of uncurbed lawlessness, and the weakness of the military, particularly in dealing with fellow- inhabitants.

The riot of 1831 had not been forgotten ten years later. Assuming that the balloting on constitutions in 1841 and 1842 indicated, as it probably did, a fairly even division of opinion, favorable to and opposed to Dorr and his program, a summons for the militia scarcely could be expected to rally more than half the force to the colors of Governor King, while it might also, as assuredly, drive the other half to the colors of Governor Dorr, thus dividing the state immediately into two hostile camps of armed men. Both Governors were escorted to their inaugurations in 1842 by armed military companies, Governor King in accord with the imme- morial custom of a military parade in Newport on election day, and Governor Dorr because the occasion was fitting, and the procession would have been vastly less impressive without

*Another version pictures the mob as consisting of good citizens who had determined to destroy two dens of iniquity ; Olney's Lane was a place of bad repute.

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Erected 1721 at the junction of the present Westminster and Cranston Streets, Here Thomas Wilson Dorr and the General Assembly elected with him met on the morning set for inauguration before marching to the State House. Instead of going to the State House a meeting was held in a hall in Providence, and the company dispersed. There- upon the Governor, under the Charter, called out the Militia, and the military phase of the Dorr War began. The age of the picture is Indicated by the dress of the men, the type of street light, and the horses and carriages.

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SECOND REVOLUTION IN RHODE ISLAND

soldiers. The militia was not a strong arm that could be used to quell the Dorr movement, and Governor King and his associates understood the situation thoroughly. Governor King faced a similar predicament should he attempt to enforce the Algerine Act. In accepting nomination and election to office under the People's Constitution Governor Dorr and other general officers and members of the General Assembly, besides all wardens, moderators and clerks who assisted in conducting the election, had violated the provisions of the statute in such manner as to justify issuing warrants for their arrest; but Governor King did not ven- ture to order arrests. Indeed, the first arrest under the Algerine Act was made on the second day of the Dorr Assembly. With the latter dissolved, with the display of weakness in order- ing a request for possession of public property rather than the taking of it, with Dorr absent from the state in the two weeks in which want of action and direction tended to disintegration of his forces, Dorr was weaker and the Charter government much stronger. There was reason for doubting the de facto as well as the de lege standing of the Dorr government. Sev- eral prominent Dorrites had been arrested; many who had accepted election to office under the People's Constitution had resigned. "The revolution is in a state of suspended animation," said the "Journal"; "Governor Dorr has hid or run away. Pearce is missing. Sheriff Anthony has absquatulated. The Secretary of State's office is over the line, and their head- quarters nobody knows of. Their General Assembly has evaporated." The "Journal" had already begun to treat the Dorr movement with derision and in the jocular fashion which it maintained for years afterward with reference to the "insurrection."

INSURRECTION IN ARMS-Governor Dorr returned to Providence on May 16. He had been in Washington, and on his return had stopped in New York. There he had been warmly greeted and lavishly entertained. On May 14 he addressed "the Democrats of New York at Tammany Hall." He received assurances that, should he need assistance, particularly in resisting federal intervention, it would be made available. He had also been assured that his followers in Rhode Island were still steadfast and devoted. A mass meeting in Providence, to which Dutee J. Pearce and Burrington Anthony reported after their unsuccessful mission in Washington, adopted resolutions attesting their continued support. He reached Stoning- ton on May 15, and came thence to Rhode Island on a special train, on which 200 men had journeyed to the Connecticut town to meet and escort him to Rhode Island. In Providence he was welcomed by a crowd of people and escorted by a long procession to his headquarters, at Burrington Anthony's house on Atwell's Avenue. Dorr at the time carried a sword. He addressed a mass meeting of his sympathizers, discussing the issues involved in the constitu- tional movement, and assuring them that if necessary they would receive the assistance that had been promised in New York. Late in the afternoon of May 17 a detachment of armed men from Dorr's headquarters demanded and carried off without resistance from the town house lot two ancient English fieldpieces that were in the custody of the Artillery Company of Providence. The guns had been surrendered by Burgoyne at Saratoga, and loaned by Washington to Rhode Island to replace cannon sent to him. The fieldpieces were carried up Federal Hill, and placed with three other small cannon to guard the steep approach from the centre of the city. In the haste attending "capture" of the cannon the Dorrites neglected to carry off shot and balls for ammunition ; these had been removed when another detachment appeared.

ATTACK ON ARSENAL -- Dorr's next military movement was anticipated by Governor King and his advisers. Dorr and his followers needed arms and ammunition, for themselves and for others who might join them, and the logic of the situation suggested capture of the state arsenal, with its stores of muskets and ammunition, and arms of various sorts. The arsenal was located on Cranston Street, at Dexter Training Ground, and could be reached

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from Dorr's headquarters by a short march along the brow of the high ground west of the center of the city on the highway then known as Love's Lane, but later called Knight Street. The Governor issued an urgent request for a citizens' guard for the arsenal, and on the night of May 17 the arsenal was carefully guarded by a well-organized body of determined men, armed and surrounded by abundant stores of ammunition. The building was of stone, and could be defended even against artillery fire from the cannon of the period.

In anticipation of a rising in the city to accompany the expected attack on the arsenal, militia and independent military companies were summoned from other parts of the state, and a steamboat was sent to Newport to move the Newport Artillery with its cannon to Providence. The rising of the people did not take place; there was no serious movement of reinforcements toward Dorr's headquarters, in spite of the firing of signal guns. Dorr's armed forces probably did not exceed 250 men, including a detachment from Woonsocket, when the movement toward the arsenal began at midnight on May 17. Dorr's force was reduced by desertion in the darkness of a moonless night during which a heavy fog prevailed. The posse defending the arsenal numbered probably 200, with the advantage of fighting behind stone walls, and abundant arms and ammunition. Dorr's demand for surrender of the arsenal met curt refusal, and preparations were made to force entrance by demolishing the heavy doors of the arsenal by artillery fire. Burgoyne's cannon were wheeled into position and trained upon the doors. The attempt to fire them proved futile. It was learned later that in the haste of preparation for the assault upon the arsenal the cleaning of the touch-holes had been neglected, and that these were clogged and tightly corked by melted powder and dust, so that a spark could not pass through them to fire the charges within the barrels. In the excite- ment of the moment Dorr believed that the cannon had been spiked by a traitor in his own ranks. Following the failure of the artillery Dorr's "army" evaporated rapidly because of desertion under cover of darkness. At daylight less than fifty men remained, and these, unmolested by the guard at the arsenal, followed Dorr back to headquarters. At eight o'clock in the morning Dorr received a letter from friends in the city, who advised him that all the officers of his government and members of the General Assembly had resigned, and that further continuance of the "war" was futile and unreasonable. At the time preparations for surrounding Dorr's headquarters were underway, and the Newport Artillery had already placed cannon on ground higher than that occupied by Dorr, from which his position could be cleared by range firing. Dorr left for Woonsocket so rapidly that detachments of mounted men dispatched in pursuit after news of the departure reached Charter headquarters, returned after unsuccessful search. The small force at Dorr's headquarters agreed to disperse if the Newport Artillery were withdrawn, but moved, when the way was clear, from its exposed position to a hill to the north, on which breastworks were thrown up and cannon planted. That position was abandoned on May 19, and Burgoyne's cannon were recovered by the Artillery Company. There was no further disturbance in Providence; fortunately no blood had been shed. The failure of Burgoyne's cannon at the critical moment, no doubt, had pre- vented loss of life that would have been inevitable had the assaulting party advanced, and the defending party returned fire from its strongly entrenched position.

Dorr's own account of the attack on the arsenal follows:

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 84

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