USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 97
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The tariff act of 1789, largely the work of James Madison, incorporated the principle of protection, but as a matter of fact was essentially a revenue measure, and with other national legislation of the period, was more favorable to commerce than to manufacturing. Rhode Island merchants recognized the value to them of national measures intended to foster an American merchant marine, and became vigorous supporters of the Constitution. Rhode
*Chapter XVIII.
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Island interests were predominantly commercial, because of the foreign trade established through the initiative of Rhode Island merchants. Under these circumstances, Rhode Island's first inclination in national politics was toward the Federalist party -- the party of Hamilton, Washington, Adams and Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina, the last of whom, partic- ularly, was vigorous in urging relief for New England after the Revolution. Rhode Island merchants opposed the embargo of 1807-1809, but Rhode Island manufacturers profited from it, in so far as they, with other American manufacturers, had exclusive access to home mar- kets. With the shifting in Rhode Island from commerce to manufacturing, which proceeded steadily after 1805, manufacturing became the dominating economic interest. The interrup- tion of commerce preceding and during the War of 1812 favored American manufacturing. The tariff act of April 27, 1816, increased duties generally, which, in the instance of cotton cloth, reached 25 per cent. The cotton manufacturers of Rhode Island, in 1815, had asked Congress for more protection ; three years later cotton and woolen manufacturers united in petitioning Congress to retain permanently the duties then in force. The Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industries was chartered in 1820, its purpose being the promotion of fairs and exhibits of the products of Rhode Island. The tariff of 1824, emphat- ically protective, was followed in 1828 by the "Tariff of Abominations," and the Nullifica- tion controversy. The Rhode Island General Assembly, in 1828, requested the delegation in Congress to "use all proper efforts to procure such increase of duties upon imports as may effectually afford protection both to the production and manufacture of wool, cotton, iron, hemp and flax." President Jackson was firm in his purpose to suppress Nullification, but the controversy was ended effectually by modification of the tariff in 1832, and by the enactment of a compromise tariff in 1833, with a scale of duties gradually decreasing. Rhode Island remained steadfast in urging retention of the high protective policy.
The General Assembly in January, 1832, resolved: "That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use their exertions to procure the passage of such acts as effectually to provide for the protection of national industry in relation to all articles of the growth or produce of the soil or mines, or of the manufactures of the United States, and especially to prevent the reduction of the duties on any kind of wool and woolen goods, and to increase the duties on every kind of woolen yarn imported into the United States." Aside from the clear exposition of the Rhode Island attitude, the resolution is inter- esting as indicating the Rhode Island interpretation of the relation of Congress to the States. The General Assembly "instructed" the Senators as the Assembly's own agents in Congress, and merely "requested" the Representatives of the people in the House of Representatives to act. The distinction was accurate until the Constitution of the United States was amended to provide for popular election of Senators .; In May, 1832, Rhode Island Congressmen were "instructed" and "requested" to oppose reduction of tariff duties, particularly on wool and manufactures of wool, because of large investments in the state.
Early in 1833 the General Assembly in resolutions declared that it viewed "with alarm and unqualified disapprobation" the proposal to abandon totally or partly, immediately or prospectively, the protective principle. The opposition was directed to Clay's compromise tariff, providing for gradual reduction of tariff rates. The resolutions voiced inability to per- ceive that a "surrender of a principle necessary for the independence and prosperity of the nation to menace of disunion or of lawless resistance proceeding from a minority can be less disastrous to the honor of the nation than surrender to actual and overpowering force." The Assembly declared protection to be a principle essential for the promotion of the welfare of manufacturing, labor and commerce; that a "vacillating policy" was disastrous; and that frequent alteration of tariff rates distracts and paralyzes industry. With the reorganization
+Article XVII.
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of national parties, protection had become a Whig policy, while revenue tariff rates were favored by the Democrats. Whereas Rhode Island had cast its electoral vote for Martin Van Buren for President in 1836, the popular vote being 2964 to 2710, William Henry Harrison carried Rhode Island in 1840, with 5278 votes for him and 3301 for President Van Buren.
William Sprague had already found the Democratic attitude on the tariff inconsistent with his interest in the textile industry in Rhode Island, and to him a sufficient reason for becoming a Whig. Other Rhode Islanders could rally to support Whig candidates for the same reason. Rhode Island was in favor of protection and prosperity, and of the Whigs so long as the latter supported a high protective tariff. The Assembly, in 1841, resolved "that the encouragement and protection of domestic industry do not require excessive duties, but only that the revenues necessary to defray the expenses of government be raised on such foreign articles as come into competition with similar articles grown or produced in our own country ; that discriminatory duties for the purpose of revenue will operate beneficially in the interests of all the states by increasing the home consumption of the great staples, and by diminishing their indebtedness abroad, as well as by giving employment to labor at home; and that all the states ought to unite in adopting the principle of raising the revenue necessary to defray the expenses of government from duties levied on such articles of foreign growth or manufactures as will best sustain the greater interests and occupations of the people." The resolution of 1841 was almost anomalous, in its concession to the revenue principle in tariff making. Early in 1842 the Assembly was more emphatic in its declaration that when Rhode Island ratified the Constitution of the United States it acted with full reliance that Congress would protect the state's best interests ; that Congress should consider protection of the "whole labor of the country," its first and paramount duty; that "free trade, in the present state of commercial relations throughout the world, is but an idle abstraction"; that the draining of specie is threatened by practices abroad; that it is as much the duty of Congress to protect the market from foreign labor as it is to protect the country from foreign aggression; that Congress should use the tariff as a weapon to compel reciprocity. The Whig Congress enacted a high protective tariff law in 1842, with duties averaging 33 per cent. ; the Democrats, in 1846, passed the Walker low tariff law ; duties were further reduced in 1857.
With the attitudes of national parties thus clearly defined, and Rhode Island prosperity dependent upon industries that asserted a need for protection, there need be little difficulty in determining which party would enlist the majority of freemen in Rhode Island under its banners. Rhode Island's preference for John Quincy Adams in 1824 and 1828 may be inter- preted as indicating attachment to the New England wing of the old Republican party, dis- rupted in the election of 1824, when the nomination of William H. Crawford in congressional caucus was disregarded. The New England solidarity was shattered in 1832: Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts supported Clay; Maine and New Hampshire, Jackson; and Vermont, Wirt, the candidate of the anti-Masonic party. In eight years from 1828 Jackson had built an organization sufficient to elect Van Buren in 1836. Except Vermont, which sup- ported Harrison; and Massachusetts, which alone gave its electoral votes for Webster, New England voted for Van Buren. President Jackson, in spite of opposition had won his way to esteem in the hearts of the people.
THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION -- The Rhode Island General Assembly in 1837 instructed the Rhode Island Senators in Congress to support Senator Benton's motion to expunge from the Senate records Senator Clay's resolution to censure the President for removing federal deposits from the Bank of the United States; and also to support R. M. Johnson for Vice President in the eelction in the Senate following the failure of the states to select a Vice Presi- dent by majority vote. The resolutions follow: "Whereas the following resolution, passed by
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the Senate of the United States, March 28, 1834, viz .: 'Resolved that the President in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue has assumed unto himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and law, but in derogation of both,' is an unfounded censure of the President of the United States; and whereas this Assembly are desirous of maintaining and reasserting the right to instruct the Senators of this state in the Senate of the United States; therefore, resolved that Nehemiah R. Knight and Asher Robbins, now Senators of this state in the Senate of the United States, be and they are hereby instructed to vote to expunge from the Journal of the Senate the aforesaid resolution of March 28, 1834, in such form and manner as the majority of the Senate shall deem proper; and be it also resolved that if the election of the Vice President of the United States shall devolve upon the Senate, said Senators are hereby further instructed to vote for Richard M. Johnson of the State of Kentucky for Vice President of the United States, in accordance with the voice of a majority of the freemen of the state manifested in the election of electors of President and Vice President of the United States in the election held in November last."
Rhode Island became Whig when the opposition to the Jackson Democratic party accom- plished an organization-became so thoroughly Whig that Governor, Congressman and the General Assembly were Whig, and the presidential vote was cast for Harrison in 1840, for Clay in 1844, and Taylor in 1848. But then the Whig party began to decline with the wan- ing strength of the brilliant men who had led it, and who, toward the end, had not the courage to grasp the issue presented in the slavery controversy. Clay and Webster died in 1852, only two years after their great antagonist, Calhoun. The Whig party was tottering to oblivion, and Pearce in 1852 carried Rhode Island along with every state except Maine and Massachu- setts, Kentucky and Tennessee, in the Democratic party's last victory but one for more than thirty years. Before discussing the position of Rhode Island in the slavery controversy we shall turn back for a time to politics within the state.
REVISION OF STATUTES AND NEW STATE CONSTITUTION-The Rhode Island criminal code was revised in 1838; aside from careful definitions of crimes, the most significant changes related to reduction in the number of capital offences, and in the severity of punish- ment generally. A revision of the general statutes, in progress as the Dorr movement reached its crisis, was delayed and completed after the Constitution of 1842 had been adopted and a new state government inaugurated .* The "Public Laws of the State of Rhode Island" as revised were enacted at the January session, 1844.
The Constitution opened with a Bill of Rights in twenty-three sections. Four classes of citizens were qualified for suffrage: (I) Adult male citizens of the United States owning real estate valued at $134 or renting for $7, located in the town or city of residence; (2) adult male citizens of the United States owning real estate of the same value elsewhere in Rhode Island, called "certificate voters," because qualifying by filing a certificate of ownership, to vote for general officers and members of the General Assembly; (3) registered adult male native citizens of the United States who paid a tax on property other than land assessed for $134; (4) registered adult male native citizens of the United States, who paid voluntarily a registry tax or rendered militia service, qualified to vote for civil officers and on questions in town or ward meetings, except for members of the city council in Providence and on questions of tax or expenditure of money. The powers of government were distributed. The legis- lative power was vested in a General Assembly consisting of a Senate and House of Repre- sentatives. The Senate included the Lieutenant Governor and one Senator from each town or city, the Governor presiding without vote except in case of equal division. The House was limited to seventy-two members, apportioned on the basis of population, except that no town
*Chapter XVIII.
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might elect less than one representative, and no town more than one-sixth of the total number. The General Assembly was directed to meet twice annually, at Newport in May for election and other business; at South Kingstown biennially, and at Bristol and East Green- wich alternately in the intermediate years, in October, with an adjournment from the October session annually at Providence. Thus Rhode Island retained five capitals, one in each county, until 1854; Article III of Amendments provided for an annual meeting at Newport on the last Tuesday in May, with an adjournment to be held annually at Providence. Article XI of Amendments, 1900, abolished the Newport meeting, providing for one session annually at Providence, beginning on the first Tuesday of January, and thus making Providence the only capital. The Governor had power, as he still has, to convene the General Assembly in extraordinary session. The Constitution abolished semi-annual elections of Representatives, by establishing one annual election on the first Wednesday of April. Until 1854 the list of persons voting in annual elections must be certified to the General Assembly. Elections were by majority vote, the grand committee having power to elect general officers from the highest two if no majority were returned. No person was eligible for office (except school com- mittee) unless he was a qualified elector ; persons holding federal office or serving under other governments were not eligible for office in Rhode Island. The Constitution established one Supreme Court, and authorized the General Assembly to erect courts of inferior jurisdic- tion, Supreme Court judges to be elected in grand committee on tenure to continue until removal by concurrent resolution of a majority of the members elected to each house, or until impeachment. The Constitution permitted impeachment of executive and judicial offi- cers by the House of Representatives, and trial by the Senate. Two-thirds of the House was necessary to impeach the Governor; in the Senate conviction in all cases must be by two- thirds majority of the members elected. The Constitution contained an article on "Educa- tion," provided for amendments, and set up the process for putting it into operation and organizing the new government under its provisions.
In the digest revision of the laws, 1844, the arrangement was topical rather than in the chronological order of enactment that had been followed in earlier codifications. Elections of United States Senators was in grand committee, and not in separate houses; and, to obviate repetition of the unpleasantness of 1816, when an expiring General Assembly undertook to forestall a new Assembly, Senators could "not be elected before the stated session of the Gen- eral Assembly next preceding the expiration of the term of service of the Senators for the time being."
For electing Representatives in Congress the state was divided into eastern and western districts, the eastern district including Newport County except Jamestown and New Shore- ham, all of Bristol County, and Cumberland, North Providence, Providence and Smithfield, of Providence County. The western district included all of Kent and Washington counties, Jamestown and New Shoreham of Newport County, and Burrillville, Cranston, Foster, Glo- cester, Johnston and Scituate of Providence County. Representatives in Congress were elected with state officers on the first Wednesday in April by majority vote, with provision for a second election of Congressmen by plurality vote if necessary. Presidential electors were chosen by the people every four years on the first Monday in November by plurality vote, with provision for filling vacancies, caused by tied votes, by the General Assembly in grand committee. The electors met in Bristol to cast the presidential vote, with power to fill vacancies in their own number occurring by declination or otherwise after election. The Supreme Court consisted of one chief and three associate justices, two being a quorum. For each county a court of common pleas, consisting of a justice of the Supreme Court as chief justice and two additional judges elected annually by the General Assembly, was erected. No judge of the Supreme or Common Pleas courts could be a member of the General Assembly.
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Justices of the peace were appointed also, with jurisdiction in criminal cases limited to offences punishable by fine not exceeding $20 or imprisonment not exceeding three months, and in civil cases limited to judgment in debt or damage to $20, and not involving questions of title to land. The statute of limitations established title to land by undisturbed possession, claiming title, for twenty years, with actions by persons under impediment limited to ten years; and barred actions generally after six years, except trespass and ejectment (four years), slander (two years), and covenant (twenty years). Town councils were consti- tuted courts of probate, with appeals to the Supreme Court; for Providence the munic- ipal court was constituted the probate court. The school statutes, then in process of revision and codification, as part of the survey conducted by Henry Barnard as State Agent for Public Schools, were for the most part omitted from the Digest of 1844. The General Assembly continued to grant pardons and liberate prisoners; to entertain special petitions for divorce ; to grant relief to poor debtors and insolvents additional to the procedure established in the statutes; to grant leave to sell property, a jurisdiction later confided to probate and other courts; to grant to aliens the right to acquire and hold real estate; to grant relief and to intervene in court procedure. The last continued until the Supreme Court asserted exclusive jurisdiction under the Constitution of judicial matters, and by decision in an actual case* restated the doctrine of the advisory opiniont with reference to Dorr, that the Assembly had no power to set aside its judgments.
EFFECT OF DORR MOVEMENT ON PARTIES-The Dorr movement,¿ until it reached the phase in which Dorr and his followers resorted to military measures, was not partisan in the sense of identification with either of the existing major parties-Democrat or Whig. Dorr, who had been a Whig as late as 1835, ran for Congress as a candidate of the Constitution party in 1837, and as a candidate of the Democratic party in 1839. Not all Democrats favored Dorr or participated in the Dorr movement; Samuel Y. Atwell, though believing thoroughly that Rhode Island's government needed changes, did not join Dorr. On the other hand, so good a Whig as William Sprague-successful Democratic candidate for Congress in 1835 and successful Whig candidate for Governor in 1838-voted in the plebiscite in favor of the People's Constitution. These three-Dorr, Atwell and Sprague-may serve to indicate the divorce of the Dorr movement from party politics that warrants study of it apart from poli- tics as a purely constitutional movement intended to test the validity of a principle in actual practice. Dorr's attack upon the arsenal, however, precipitated a new alignment of parties in Rhode Island. Over to the Whig repositories for the time being of power under the Charter government went a host of "patriots," rallying to the banner of "law and order" raised by Governor King and his associates. William Sprague, accused of deserting Dorr after voting for the People's Constitution, was prominent. James Fenner, sturdy Republican of the old school and presumably Democrat-his support of Jackson had aroused sufficient opposition to accomplish his defeat for reelection as Governor in 1831 after eleven years of service -- emerged from political retirement to become, as standard-bearer of the new coalition, under the name of "Law and Order" party, its candidate for Governor. Some who were still in doubt after the attack on the arsenal were confirmed in apprehension of danger to peace by the fiasco in arms at Acote's Hill. His more timid followers had deserted Dorr long before. There was, nevertheless, a sturdy remnant of the Democratic party, too steadfast to be swept by emotion into the hysteria that was fatal to Dorr's chance for ultimate success, and still alert to take advantage of opportunity to wrest control of the state government from the Whigs.
*Taylor vs. Place, 4 R. I. 324. +3 R. I. 299.
#Chapter XVIII.
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The key to the new situation lay in the attitude of the new voters enfranchised by the Constitution of 1842. Could the new voters be persuaded that they owned political citizen- ship to the party that had opposed the Whigs, there was a chance that the Democrats might ride back into control of the state government. The strategy suggested was worth trying; the Democrats resolved to make the best of the situation, and were almost successful. In a total vote of 16,520, almost twice the largest vote polled in a state election before 1843, Gov- ernor Fenner's majority was only 1694. The effort of the Democrats was not sustained, however; Governor Fenner was reelected with "scattering" opposition in 1844. He was defeated in 1845 by a majority of 149 on the issue of liberating Dorr from prison, because the "Law and Order" party had erred in severity and in the trial of Dorr had departed from prac- tices that appeal to the innate sense of justice of the common man. With Dorr out of prison the movement that had elected Governor Jackson in 1845 waned, and Governor Jackson, Democrat and "Liberation," polled 88 ballots fewer than Byron Diman in 1846. The latter, failing to attain a majority because of scattering votes, was elected as Governor by the Gen- eral Assembly. With that election the party names of "Law and Order" and "Liberation" were discarded.
The Whigs returned to power as the dominating party, electing Elisha Harris, 1847 and 1848, and Henry B. Anthony, 1849 and 1850. The latter was a young man in politics, whose service as editor of the "Providence Journal" supporting "law and order," once the Dorr movement had threatened violence, won him prestige. The Law and Order party carried both congressional districts in 1843, but lost the Western district in 1845, when ex-Governor Lemuel H. Arnold defeated Elisha R. Potter for reelection. The Eastern district was Whig in 1845, and thereafter until 1853, in spite of the Democratic upheaval in 1851. The Western district after 1845 alternated in electing Whig and Democrat.
There was, after the Dorr movement had spent itself, and the Law and Order party had served its purpose, another sifting and shifting of political alliances. Elisha R. Potter, elected as Congressman by the Law and Order party in 1845, and defeated in 1847 as candidate of the same party, was Democratic candidate for Governor in 1858 and 1859, and elected as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by a Republican General Assembly in 1868. Lemuel H. Arnold, who defeated Elisha R. Potter for Congress in 1845, ran for Congress as a Whig in 1847 and 1849. The extension of suffrage in 1852 had scarcely affected the balance of political power. It had not been revolutionary. Rhode Island emerged from the constitu- tional struggle with two strong state political parties as before, odds favoring the Whig party because the Whig national organization advocated the protective tariff policy, of which Henry Clay was the most brilliant exponent in his career in Congress. Withal the Democrats were so strong as to be able to contest an election vigorously ; in the years of contested elec- tions Whig resistance increased proportionately to Democratic effort, and the consequence was usually a heavier vote, with little change in majorities. A new party, Free Soil, entered the lists in 1846, with Edward Harris as its candidate for Governor, polling enough votes in that year to prevent an election of Governor by the people. A "License" party nominated can- didates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in 1847, and the Prohibition party nominated a candidate for Mayor in Providence.
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