USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 95
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*The electors in 1792 and 1796 were two Federalists and two Republicans, but cast the state vote for Federalist candidates.
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eventually voted against Hamilton's plan for federal assumption of Revolutionary debts, after supporting the principle, because they considered the share assigned to Rhode Island inadequate compensation, quantitatively and relatively. The strong support that Rhode Island gave after 1790 to the government which it had opposed stubbornly theretofore may be explained as due in no small part to the improvement in economic conditions which followed . the ventures in foreign commerce made possible by the firm establishment of the new govern- ment under the Constitution, and the aggressive influence of the Browns and their associates, who had favored ratification and were Federalists before and after 1790. John Brown was elected to Congress as a Federalist in 1798.
Having ratified the Constitution of the United States, and the first ten amendments, the latter by action of the General Assembly, June 15, 1790, Rhode Island was generally con- tented with the Constitution as it had been amended, without further change, limitation or amplification. Except that the General Assembly ratified, in 1794, the eleventh amendment, which limited the jurisdiction assumed by the Supreme Court of the United States and repealed the doctrine of the decision in Chisholm vs. Georgia,t the General Assembly declared proposi- tions for amendments inexpedient, including (1) the Vermont proposal in 1800 that presiden- tial electors in casting their ballots designate their choice for president and vice-president, a measure subsequently, as the twelfth amendment, incorporated in the Constitution in 1804 after the Jefferson-Burr controversy ; (2) the Kentucky and Pennsylvania proposal, in 1806, to limit jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court to cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties made or which shall be made under their authority, cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, to cases to which the United States shall be a party and cases between two or more states; (3) a proposal, in 1809, to permit a state to remove a senator by vote of a majority of the whole number of its legislature, thus reducing the six- year term to a term at the will of the legislature; (4) a proposal, in 1810, to permit the Presi- dent to remove federal judges from office at the request of a majority of the House of Repre- sentatives and two-thirds of the Senate, as a substitute for removal by impeachment ; (5) a proposal, in 1815, to reduce the term of senators from six to four years; (6) a proposal, in 1816, repeated in 1817, that states be districted for electing Representatives in Congress and presidential electors; the Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana proposition (7), in 1820, that "Congress shall make no law to erect or incorporate any bank or monied institution except within the District of Columbia, and every bank or other monied institution which shall be established by the authority of Congress shall together with its branches and offices of dis- count and deposit, be confined to the District of Columbia; (8) Georgia's proposal, in 1824, "that no part of the Constitution of the United States ought to be construed or shall be con- strued to authorize the importation or ingress of any person of color into any one of the United States contrary to the laws of said state." In the same year, 1824, the General Assem- bly rejected as inexpedient Ohio's resolutions that the slavery problem was national rather than local or sectional, and that the United States ought to undertake measures for gradual elimination of slavery and for foreign colonization of slaves.
The General Assembly enacted the legislation that was necessary, or perhaps unneccesary from the point of view that the federal government in the exercise of its constitutional func- tions requires no consent from the states, to facilitate the readjustments incident to the new order. Rhode Island adopted the new federal currency in dollars, dimes and cents in 1798 as legal money of account to replace pounds, shillings and pence. The change taxed the ingenuity of printers not familiar with the decimal system of recording money accounts; some of them continued printing items stated in the new money in much the same way that they had printed old money accounts, except that having no standard dollar mark to replace
12 Dallas 419.
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STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
the symbol for pounds they used abbreviations, thus 3d. 25c. for $3.25 in modern practice. The lighthouse at Beaver Tail was transferred to the federal government by a resolution declaring the grant null and void by condition subsequent if the United States neglected to keep it lighted and in repair. For a while Rhode Island maintained a garrison at Fort Wash- ington, Newport, in spite of the obligation to provide for the common defence imposed upon Congress. The Governor was directed, in 1793, to proclaim Rhode Island's neutrality in the European war, agreeable to the President's proclamation of the neutrality of the United States. Without hesitation, the General Assembly, in 1794, intervened to force the release of impressed seamen,* a matter of international diplomacy that rested with the federal govern- ment. The activities of the State of Rhode Island in these instances were all for good meas- ure; in none was the authority of the federal government questioned or resisted. The Gen- eral Assembly adopted a resolution sustaining President Washington and the Senate in nego- tiating and ratifying the Jay treaty with England. Washington was popular in Rhode Island because of the people's appreciation of his services in the Revolution, in which Rhode Island had had an honorable part. His farewell address was published with the revision of the laws of Rhode Island in 1798, as an important state paper, worthy of preservation with the Charter of Rhode Island, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. When Washington died the General Assembly, in 1799, ordered two portraits of Washington, to be painted by Gilbert Stuart, one for each of the State Houses in Newport and Providence. For these $1200 was appropriated ; their value in the twentieth century may not be expressed in money. For the Washington Monument in the capital city Rhode Island sent in 1850 a block of native granite four feet long, two feet wide and twenty inches thick, on which are carved the name and arms of Rhode Island.
ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS-Rhode Island supported John Adams as President in the controversy that produced the alien and sedition laws. The General Assembly, in 1798, pro- posed an amendment to the Constitution of the United States that would effect exclusion from eligibility for federal office of all but native-born citizens of the United States. This measure, as were the alien and sedition laws, was suggested by alleged pernicious activity at the time by persons accused or suspected of being agents of European nations intent upon embroiling the United States in Europe's quarrels. Opposition to the alien and sedition laws, as violating natural human liberty and the rights of free speech and a free press, resulted in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, written, respectively, by Madison and Jefferson. In firm and frank resolutions adopted in 1799, the Rhode Island General Assembly refused to ratify the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, which maintained a right reserved by the states as parties to a compact to examine federal legislation with a view to determining its validity, as conforming to or violating the provisions of the compact. The Rhode Island resolutions were keenly logical as well, in their enunciation of principles and declaration (I) that the constitutional provision that "the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the laws of the United States" vests in the federal courts exclusively, and with the Supreme Court of the United States ulti- mately, the authority of deciding on the constitutionality of any act or law of the Congress of the United States ; (2) that for any state legislature to assume that authority would (a) blend together legislative and judicial powers in a manner in conflict with the American principle of separation, (b) hazard an interruption of the peace of the states by civil discord in the instance of diversity of opinion among the state legislatures, each state having under such circum- stances no resort for vindicating its own opinion but to the strength of its own arms, (c) sub- mit most important questions to less competent tribunals, and (d) impair a provision of the Constitution of the United States expressed in plain language; (3) that, "although for the above reasons this legislature in their public capacity do not feel themselves authorized to
*Chapter XVII.
R. I .- 36
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RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY
consider and decide on the constitutionality of the sedition and alien laws (so called), yet they are called upon by the exigencies of the occasion to declare that in their private opinion these laws are within the powers delegated to Congress, and promotive of the welfare of the United States." The Rhode Island resolutions, practically and substantially identical with reference to each of the sets of resolutions from Kentucky and Virginia, concluded with directions to the Governor to send the Rhode Island resolutions to the supreme executive of each of Kentucky and Virginia, and "at the same time express to him that this legislature cannot contemplate, without extreme concern and regret, the many evil and fatal consequences which may flow from the very unwarrantable resolutions" of the states of Kentucky and Virginia. Within ten years the Rhode Island Assembly, from being almost defiant in its unwillingness to call a convention to consider ratification or rejection of the Constitution of the United States, because of alleged and justifiable concern for the danger to Rhode Island independence and liberties involved in creating a superior central state, had become a most earnest supporter of the federal government in what was perhaps the latter's most flagrant invasion of human liberties. Another fifteen years would produce another attitude, a reversion to the position of 1790, and a studied opposition to the federal administration that approached secession, had the Hartford Convention resulted as some wished who planned it. Such are the vagaries that attend partisan politics.
THE REACTION IN RHODE ISLAND --- The General Assembly voiced the opinions, for the time being, of only a majority of the freemen; unanimity may not be assumed. Although a majority of the General Assembly expressed in resolutions approval of the Jay treaty with England, the American diplomat was hanged in effigy in Newport, following a public meeting called to express indignation at what was considered an abject surrender of American rights and principles. Newport sent Republican, instead of Federalist, Representatives to the Gen- eral Assembly in 1801. Thomas Tillinghast was elected to Congress November 4, 1797, in a by-election to fill a vacancy caused by resignation. He defeated James Burrill, Federalist can- didate, by a majority of fifty-three. The "Providence Gazette" attributed the defeat of Bur- rill to farmer opposition because Burrill was a lawyer. Running as a Republican in 1798 for election to the Sixth Congress, Tillinghast was defeated overwhelmingly, a result that may be explained as due in part to the fact that he ran alone in a field of three for two places, against John Brown and Christopher G. Champlin, Federalists. No doubt many of Tillinghast's friends when they voted cast a ballot for him and for one of his opponents, thus making each ballot one vote for and one vote against him. Tillinghast was elected as a Republican in 1800; his colleague, Joseph Stanton, Jr., failed to attain a majority in the first election, but was chosen in the by-election. Tillinghast was defeated in 1802, running as a Federalist. The political career of Tillinghast illustrates the difficulty of identifying parties and party affiliations fol- lowing the disintegration of the national Federalist party as an effective political organization after 1800. The Federalists were able to maintain an organization in New England center- ing on the Essex Junto; elsewhere the party had yielded to Republicanism, partly because of internal jealousy and the conflict between Hamilton and Adams that produced almost disaster in 1797, and the successful political revolution led by Jefferson, who sought to rescue the prin- ciples of the Declaration of Independence from sublimation by the Federalists. In Rhode Island the tide ran strongly for a while against the Federalists ; the latter had incurred unpopu- larity because of their general policies in opposition to democracy. They had become con- servative in their attitude toward trust in the people, and autocratic in their assumption of power for governmental agencies. Indeed, some prominent Federalists had not hesitated to denounce democracy openly in language that was reminiscent of Massachusetts Puritanism with its leaning toward Israel and Old Testament precedents, in which there was never a men- tion of democracy. The alien and sedition acts were suicidal, interpreted as they were as an assault upon human liberties. The Rhode Island General Assembly might hurl back anathema
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STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
upon the suggestions of nullification, and possibly, secession, in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, at the same time that popular opinion was crystallizing and reaching the only conclusion possible in Rhode Island-ubi quae sentias dicere licet-that democracy demanded free speech and a free press.
Elsewhere than in New England Jefferson, with all the astuteness of a master politician, was capitalizing Federalist blunders and building up the organization that would elect him President in 1801, and establish the Virginia hierarchy in power for a quarter of a century. In Rhode Island it was less Jefferson's popularity than a keen appreciation of principle that led to the retirement of ardent Federalists from position and power, thus to chasten them. Rhode Island was repeating the precedents of colonial days in removing from office those who presumed too much authority and forgot that civic tenure was short in Rhode Island. Withal, Jefferson, though never popular in Rhode Island, was less hated here than in Connecticut and Massachusetts. His success in achieving the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church in Virginia was not an offence in Rhode Island, where there was never an established church, as it was in Connecticut and Massachusetts, where the Congregational Church controlled the theocracies that continued into the nineteenth century. He was not denounced from Rhode Island pulpits as he was across the borders by ministers who feared that the example of Vir- ginia might become epidemic. Nor could Jefferson be called to account in Rhode Island for atheism or infidelity, of which he was accused elsewhere. Jacobin he might be, but that was not an offence in democratic Rhode Island. Jefferson's sympathy for France was probably not greater than Rhode Island's in view of friendship that had been cemented by close alliances in arms during the Revolution.
Rhode Island, as a commercial state, had not, however, failed to realize the strength of the Federalist party in carrying into effect a constructive policy for economic improvement ; Rhode Island was much less concerned with measures for destroying the Federalist party than it was with maintaining the prosperity that had already accrued from stabilization of internal affairs, and a reasonably firm internal policy. The state vote was cast for Adams and Pinckney* rather than against Jefferson and Burr, in 1801. When, following precedent, the President was toasted on July 4, 1801, the Providence toastmaster qualified the "health" by the expressed hope that Jefferson might be guided by the Constitution. In much the same spirit President Madison was not omitted from the toasts on Washington's Birthday, 1810. He was toasted thus: "The President, may the condemning shade of Washington admonish and reclaim him." Meanwhile a little of the old sectionalism had reappeared in Rhode Island ; Providence was Federalist, while Newport leaned to Republicanism. Rhode Island's presi- dential vote was cast for Jefferson and Clinton as Republicans in 1805; thereafter the tide turned, and in spite of the General Assembly's resolution in 1807 to request Jefferson to become a candidate for a third time, Rhode Island voted against Madison and Clinton in 1808, and Madison and Gerry in 1812, supporting in each instance the candidates of the "True American" party. By 1808 Rhode Island was represented in Congress by Senators and Rep- resentatives elected as Federalists or Federal Republicans. The presidential vote was cast for Monroe and Tompkins in 1817 and 1821 in the era of "good feelings," when all politicians were "Republicans," and for John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun in the election of 1824-1825, which, because there was no dominating party or political issue, became a personal popularity contest with Adams, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford and Andrew Jackson as rival candidates. In the thirty-five years from ratification, 1790, to the presidential campaign of 1824-1825, marking as it did the beginning of a new political era, Rhode Island had been almost consistently opposed to the Republican party of the period whenever and as long as there was concerted opposition. The state had participated by electing Republican Congress- men in the rebuke to unrestrained Federalism implied in the election of Jefferson in 1801; it
*Popular vote, 1941-1642.
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had gone back to Federalism thereafter, and during Madison's administration had maintained an opposition to the War of 1812.f
STATE AND NATIONAL PARTIES BECOME IDENTICAL-State parties meanwhile had become identical practically with national parties ; yet there was not in Rhode Island a failure to recog- nize that such identification is neither necessary nor inevitable. Arthur Fenner, who had been elected Governor in 1790, was continued in office nominally as a Federalist until his death in 1805. Accused of having voted in 1800 for Jefferson as President, Governor Fenner was opposed for election in 1802 by William Greene, Revolutionary War Governor. Gov- ernor Fenner was reelected in 1805, although at the time he was so close to death that there was little probability that he would return to active service. During a part of the preceding year the Lieutenant Governor had replaced the Governor under statutory authority. Both Governor and Lieutenant Governor died in 1805, and Henry Smith, first Senator, served as Governor from October, 1805, to May, 1806. Smith, Republican, as a candidate for election as Governor in 1806, was opposed by Peleg Arnold, Republican, and Richard Jackson, Jr., Federalist. The last named polled a plurality of the ballots, but not the majority required in Rhode Island elections. Under the Charter and following precedents for filling vacancies in the Senate while the Senators were called Assistants, power to elect a Governor, if the proxies failed, rested with the General Assembly. The House of Representatives, nevertheless, rejected a motion to declare Jackson elected, although it and he were Federalists, and the House had elected Elisha R. Potter, Federalist, as Speaker. Isaac Wilbour, elected as Lieutenant Gov- ernor, served as Governor without the title. The people failed to elect a Governor again in 1832, 1839, 1846, 1875, 1876, 1880, 1890, 1891; in these years, beginning in 1846, under the Constitution, the General Assembly elected a Governor. In 1893 the Senate and House failed to meet in grand committee to count the vote for Governor and other general officers, and those elected in 1892 held over. From 1894 the Governor and other general officers have been elected by plurality vote.
James Fenner, son of Governor Arthur Fenner, resigned from the United States Senate, to which he had been elected in 1804, and was elected as Governor in 1807 as the candidate of the Republicans against Seth Wheaton, Federalist. Governor Fenner was reelected with- out opposition in 1808, 1809 and 1810, and claimed as a party member by both Republicans and Federal Republicans. When in 1810 he denied that he was ever anything but a Republi- can, the Federalists began preparations for a contest in 1811, when William Jones, Federalist, was elected for the first of six successive terms. The Federalist opposition to Governor Fen- ner was confirmed and embittered when, in 1810, in grand committee, he voted for the Repub- lican candidate for Senator without withholding his ballot as presiding officer to break a possible tie. As it was, Jeremiah B. Howell defeated James Burrill, Jr., forty-two to forty- one, the Governor's vote being decisive. Howell, who was a State Senator, was criticised for voting for himself ; had he not done so, and had Governor Fenner refrained from voting, Burrill would have been elected, forty-one to forty. Had Howell not voted, the Governor's ballot, cast as a member of the grand committee, would have made the vote a tie, forty-one to forty-one. The journal of the grand committee recorded the vote forty-two to forty-one, with the note: "His excellency the Governor having voted in the first instance as one of the committee and not having the casting vote as presiding officer." The episode illustrated the nearly even strength of the Republicans and Federal Republicans in Rhode Island at the time ; they alternated in controlling the General Assembly.
The Federalists were reestablishing their power in New England. As noted, they elected their candidate for Governor in 18II, and attained control of the General Assembly. The majority of Governor Jones was only 172 in 7598, the largest vote polled in Rhode Island up to that time. The Republicans accused the Federalists of illegal practices in creating freemen
tChapter XVII.
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STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
in Providence; even before the election, James DeWolf of Bristol, presented a petition requesting better enforcement of the election law and calling attention to the propounding of 122 new freemen in Providence. Governor Jones was successful again in 1812 with 234 majority in a total of 8010 votes. He was elected without opposition in 1813, and without concerted opposition in 1814. Perhaps the explanation of the strength of Governor Jones is to be found not so much in Federalism as in dissatisfaction with President Madison's policy and in objection to the War of 1812. The personal popularity of Governor Jones as a Revo- lutionary hero with a brilliant war record counted much in his favor also, but his political fortunes waned with the repudiation of the Federalist party which followed the Hartford Convention .* Within a generation the Federalist party in New England had so completely reversed its attitude that in one of the resolutions adopted at Hartford it paraphrased the Ken- tucky and Virginia resolutions. Perhaps the explanation of the situation lies in the general rule that there are always only two major parties, whatever names they may bear, the "ins" and the "outs." The Kentucky and Virginia resolutions expressed the fear of the Republi- cans (outs) that the Federalists (ins) would exceed the powers granted to the federal government, and invoked a reserved right alleged to reside in the states to examine the con- stitutionality of federal legislation. The Federalists at Hartford (outs) asserted essentially the same suspicion of the Republicans (ins) of Madison's party. Governor Jones was reelected in 1815 with 784 majority over Peleg Arnold, and once more in 1816 with 332 majority over Nehemiah Knight. Knight defeated Jones in 1817; by sixty-eight majority and the redoubt- able Elisha R. Potter, formidable leader of country against town, and particularly against Providence, in 1818 by 616 majority.
James Burrill, Jr., defeated in 1810 as candidate for United States Senator by Governor's vote in grand committee, was once more a candidate in 1816. The Federalists controlled the General Assembly following the spring election and decided to choose a Senator in June, lest they lose control in the August elections. Burrill was elected as Senator June 21, 1816, for the term beginning March 4, 1817, unanimously, the Republicans not voting as a protest against alleged irregularity. The Federalists retained control of the Assembly after the August elections, and Burrill, resigning as Senator to quiet criticism, was elected as Senator on February 19, 1817. The second election was recorded as unanimous, the Republicans refraining from voting as before. James Burrill died December 25, 1820. He had been Attorney General, 1797-1813; Speaker of the House of Representatives, 1814; Chief Jus- tice of the Supreme Judicial Court, 1816-1817; and United States Senator, 1817-1820. While in Congress he achieved national reputation as a brilliant debater because of his participation in the discussion of the slavery issue related to abolition of the slave trade and the Missouri Compromise. He was succeeded as Senator by Nehemiah Knight, who resigned as Governor to accept election to the Senate, January 9, 1821. With James De Wolf, elected November 4, 1820, as Senator ; and Samuel Eddy and Job Durfee, in the House of Representatives, the Rhode Island delegation in Congress was all Republican. Senator Knight was reelected January 17, 1823, by one majority in grand committee over Elisha R. Potter, after the House had refused in November, 1822, to meet the Senate in grand committee to elect a Senator. As Governor Nehemiah Knight had been reelected without opposition after his victory over Elisha R. Potter in 1818. William C. Gibbs, nominated by the Republicans as successor to Governor Knight in 1821, was opposed by Samuel W. Bridgham, leading a remnant of the Federalist party, but won with a clear majority of 1000 votes in a total of 6602. Governor Gibbs was reelected without opposition in 1822 and 1823. He declined renomination in 1824,
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