USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 98
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DECLINE OF WHIGS AND VICTORY OF DEMOCRATS-The national Whig party was approaching dissolution with the turn of the half-century in 1850. It had already won its last election. The nomination of General Winfield Scott in 1852 was a desperate expedient to capitalize military achievement and repeat the party successes with Harrison and Taylor. The Whig party in Rhode Island had become either negligent because of overconfidence or decadent as it approached extinction ; it was no longer militant and unified. The grand com-
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mittee, in 1851, on the eighth ballot elected Charles James as United States Senator, when a coalition of Democrats and bolting Whigs triumphed by superior strategy over the divided Whigs, whose overwhelming control of the Assembly made them scornful of Democrats. Senator James subsequently admitted that he was a Democrat. The Democrats did not con- test the reelection of Governor Anthony in 1850, but they had given such attention to regis- tration in anticipation of the election of 1851 that they were able to elect Philip Allen as Governor, Judge William Beach Lawrence as Lieutenant Governor, and with them a state ticket of general officers and a majority of the Senate. The Whigs barely controlled the House, but the Democrats had a majority in grand committee, and elected their candidates for state offices. From the Eastern congressional district the returns indicated that 2958 electors had voted for George C. King as candidate for the Thirty-first Congress, erroneously, and 505 for King as candidate for the Thirty-second Congress. Both sets of ballots were counted for King, making his total vote 3463 to 3239 for Welcome B. Sayles, Democrat. The grand committee declared King, a Whig, elected. Governor Allen was a graduate of Brown University, and was wealthy because of a successful career as manufacturer and financier. Lieutenant Governor Lawrence, after achieving prominence and wealth as a lawyer in New York, had established first a summer and later a permanent residence at Newport. He was subsequently distinguished as an international lawyer and as a writer of history and on inter- national law.
The wealth of Allen and Lawrence precipitated a storm of accusations by the defeated and chagrined Whigs, who had really been beaten in the preelection registration, that the Democratic party had won the election through wholesale bribery. Whether the accusations were warranted or not, the Democrats, on achieving control of the state government under- took an extensive program of political measures purposing "reform" and the consolidation of Democratic victory. Dorr had not been forgotten; the Democrats in grand committee had cast their votes for him for United States Senator in 1846; in 1851 Dorr and others who had participated in the constitutional movement were restored to complete political rights.
The first secret ballot law was enacted, on Democratic initiative, in 1851. It required the voter to place a written or printed list of the persons he wished to vote for in a sealed enve- lope of uniform design, to be furnished by the Secretary of State; the ballot was not to be signed and must not carry the name of the voter except as a candidate for office; the envelope must be sealed and without distinguishing mark. Envelopes containing more than one ballot were rejected in the count. The ballot law provided for keeping a check list of names; the number of ballots cast and counted must correspond with the list. To assure an abundance of envelopes, the supply at polling places must be six times the number of names listed. A statute enacted in January, 1854, penalized as bribery offering an inducement to refrain from voting, the only certain method, after the secret ballot law was passed, of controlling an elector. Democrats claimed advantage from the secret ballot law in succeeding elections, in 1852 and 1853; one of the earliest measures enacted by the General Assembly in 1854, after the Democrats had lost control, was one which made the use of the envelope optional with the voter. The Democrats succeeded also in obtaining legislation extending the time for pay- ing registry taxes to within three days of election; the favorable or unfavorable effect of such measures upon the fortunes of parties is a matter for debate; the advantage or disad- vantage lies, according to the point of view, in associating with or disassociating from elec- tion the matter of qualifying. The election legislation of the year required town clerks to keep public books for registration of electors, regulated the process of canvassing voting lists, and required that the polls be kept open all day in elections of state general officers and mem- bers of the General Assembly, Representatives in Congress, and presidential electors.
Governor Allen led the Democrats to victory again in 1852, only Judge Lawrence failing
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of reelection. He had spoken freely in opposition to prohibition, and Schuyler Fisher, Pro- hibitionist, who ran as third candidate, polled enough votes to prevent an election by major- ity; as it was Samuel G. Arnold, who also opposed Judge Lawrence, polled 8829 votes to 8093 for Judge Lawrence, lacking 95 votes of a majority. The procedure in grand committee was characteristic of the political strategy of the period. When the vote for Lieutenant Gov- ernor was announced, a motion was made to proceed to elect the Lieutenant Governor in grand committee. Immediately a motion to adjourn was made and lost, 27-43. Next a motion that the grand committee "rise" was lost, 29-42. A second motion to adjourn was lost, 29-42. A motion to lay the motion to elect on the table was lost, 27-42, before the motion to proceed was carried, 57-43. The grand committee elected Samuel G. Arnold, who was also the dis- tinguished historian of Rhode Island as a colony and independent state to 1790, as Lieutenant Governor, 57-40, with two votes scattering. The prohibition issue, on which Judge Law- rence's political career in Rhode Island had been wrecked, had been before the House of Rep- resentatives early in 1852, the House rejecting a prohibitory law, 31-37. Later in the year a prohibitory law was passed, subject to repeal by the people in a referendum; the referendum resulted favorably to prohibition by a close vote, 8228 for repeal and 9280 against repeal.
The Democrats elected, in 1852, presidential electors favorable to Franklin Pierce, the last New England President until Calvin Coolidge. On February 1, 1853, the Senate, then controlled by the Democrats, refused to join the House of Representatives in grand committee to elect a United States Senator. The grand committee, in May, 1853, elected Governor Philip Allen as United States Senator unanimously. The four Rhode Island Congressmen were then Democrats. With Governor Allen, in 1853, the Democrats elected a complete state ticket and a majority in both branches of the General Assembly, including a complete delega- tion from Providence, which the year before had sent Americus Vespucius Potter as its first Democratic Representative in the Assembly.
THE DEMOCRATIC PROGRAM -- The Democrats lost no time in carrying forward their pro- gram. Returning to the issues of 1842, the General Assembly in May, 1853, ordered a refer- endum on calling a constitutional convention, delegates to be elected on the same day that the question was voted. The vote was 4570 for and 6282 against a constitutional convention. The General Assembly, in October, ordered a second referendum on the question of calling a convention to discuss a limited program for revision of the Constitution, the subjects being (I) abolition of the registry tax; (2) extension of the time for registration to a day nearer election ; (3) the districting of cities and large towns for electing Representatives in the Gen- eral Assembly. Again the referendum was unfavorable, the vote being 3778 for and 7618 against holding a convention. The Assembly next proposed nine amendments to the Consti- tution in the manner provided in the Constitution of 1842, as follows: (I) To abolish the registry tax; (2) to permit registration up to 20 days before election; (3) to abolish the requirement that lists of voters be certified to the General Assembly; (4) to vest the pardon- ing power in the Governor by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; (5) to abolish the property qualification for voting for members of the city council in Providence; (6) to permit amendment of the Constitution by approval of two successive General Assemblies, and majority vote, instead of sixty per cent. of the voters; (7) to permit a person qualified as an elector, and leaving the state, on return within six years to qualify on six months residence ; (8) to change the date of the state election to the fourth Tuesday in March; (9) to provide for one session of the General Assembly annually at Newport on the last Tuesday in May, with adjournment to Providence. The next General Assembly, June, 1854, approved of the nine proposed amendments the first four and the ninth, and submitted them to the referen- dum. Of the five three were approved, becoming articles I, II and III of amendments to the
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Constitution, thus: (1) To abolish the requirement that lists of voters be certified to the General Assembly; (2) to vest the pardoning power in the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate ;* (3) to provide for one annual session of the General Assembly at Newport, with adjournment to Providence. On the proposition to abolish the registry tax the vote was 3303 for and 2222 against ; a change of 12 votes would have carried the amend- ment. On the proposition to close registration 20 days before election the vote was 2964 for and 2512 against ; 312 votes for were needed to make sixty per cent. Propositions 5 and 6 were not recommended by the committee of the General Assembly of 1854; propositions 7 and 8 were rejected by the General Assembly. Among other measures in its political program enacted by the Democratic General Assembly of 1853 were the following :
I. Extending suffrage in Providence to permit registry voters to participate in the elec- tion of Mayor, and granting the Mayor the veto power. Under this statute Walter R. Dan- forth was elected as first Democratic Mayor of Providence. The General Assembly of 1854 repealed the act so far as it extended suffrage.
2. Establishing a seventh ward in Providence by division of the Sixth Ward, and pro- viding for the election of Alderman, one for and in each ward. The act made it possible for the Democrats to elect one or more Aldermen. The provision for electing Aldermen by wards was repealed in 1854.
3. A resolution that the registry tax ought to be abolished. This measure failed in the referendum as a proposed amendment to the Constitution lacking a dozen votes of the three- fifths required.
4. An act requiring the assessors of taxes in towns and cities to assess for personal property to an amount not less than $200, any person not assessed who presented "a certificate under his signature and by him sworn" to, that he is worth at least the sum of $200. The act would permit any person desiring to qualify for complete suffrage to do so, and not make his qualification conditional upon the willingness of the assessors to levy a tax .; Incidentally it would practically abolish the difference between registry voters at one dollar per year, and personal property voters at the stated tax on $200. In Providence, in 1854, the effect was to qualify a new class of voters for members of the city council. The act was effectually repealed in January, 1855, by an act giving to the city council the power to regulate the assessing of taxes by ordinance ; and by a general tax law passed at the same session.
5. An act repealing the conviction of Dorr for treason and ordering the record of con- viction expunged. The Supreme Court, on the request of the following General Assembly, rendered an advisory opinion, in which the Court asserted that the repealing and expunging act was unconstitutional .¿ The General Assembly ordered the opinion of the Supreme Court spread upon the legislative journal.
6. A resolution expunging a resolution of censure of Democratic members of the Gen- eral Assembly, who, in 1844, asked Congress to investigate political affairs in Rhode Island. The expunging resolution followed the style of Benton's famous resolution expunging censure of President Jackson from the record of the United States Senate.
7. An act reorganizing the school committee of Providence. The Providence school committee up to 1828 was an auxiliary of the town council, which was the actually controlling administrative agency. A school committee elected by the freemen was established under the general school act of 1828, serving as a body independent of the council. The city charter took from the freemen the right to elect their school committee. The new school committee of 1853 consisted of the existing school committee plus members elected by the people enough
*Pardon does not include restoration of civil rights without action of Assembly. 4. R. I. 583. +See Lennon v8. Board of Canvassers. 29 R. I. 329, 456.
#3 R. I. 299.
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to divest the city council of control. The thirty members included two from each of seven wards elected by the people, fourteen members chosen by the city council, the Mayor and the President of the common council. Half the members, that is, the Mayor and the members chosen in ward meetings would be popularly elected. The General Assembly elected in 1854 undertook, in 1855, to restore the school committee to city council control, again by increas- ing the membership. Of forty-five members twenty-one were elected by the people, three from each of seven wards; twenty were chosen by the city council; the Mayor, president of the common council and chairman of the committee on education served ex-officiis. The Mayor was no longer elected by suffrage of registry voters.
8. An act requiring the opening and closing of the polls at stated hours, and keeping the polls open on election day long enough to accommodate voters who worked the long hours common in 1853; and another directing the election by the voters of wardens and clerks for elective meetings.
In its legislative program the extraordinary General Assembly had found ways and means by which restrictions in the Constitution of 1842 might be modified by statute and prac- tice; in its general political program it had anticipated many of the measures which later would become issues in post bellum politics. The House of Representatives in September, 1853, voted to remove the judges of the Supreme Court by declaring their seats vacant, as provided by section 4 of article X of the Constitution; the measures was abandoned because of opposition in the Senate.
Not all of the Assembly's activities were political; among the measures enacted into law in 1853-1854 were (1) an act forbidding banks to issue fractional paper currency; (2) an act allowing actions for damages on the death of a person killed by the negligent or wrong- ful act of a common carrier, to be maintained for the benefit of immediate relatives having a pecuniary interest in the life of the deceased; (3) an act establishing the procedure in courts in which constitutional questions were raised; (4) an act forbidding the employment of any child under fifteen years of age more than nine months in any calendar year and unless the child had attended school three months in the preceding year; (5) an act permitting public visitation by school committees of schools or asylums claiming tax exemption ; (6) a resolu- tion for construction, as a joint state enterprise by the thirteen original states, of a suitable monument to American Independence, at Philadelphia. The General Assembly chartered the usual number of corporations, and appointed committees to investigate alleged discrimination practiced by the Stonington Railroad, and to inspect the Providence Reform School. In addi- tion it adopted a resolution stating Rhode Island's position on the Nebraska bill, and ordering the printing of a charge to the grand jury by Judge Staples, in which the latter reviewed the history of the criminal law of Rhode Island. Newport became a city, for the second time, in May, 1853, when the freemen accepted a charter. The Democratic General Assembly of 1853 was militant, as it marked floodtide of a movement which had been sustained for three years. The Democratic party went down to defeat in the election of 1854.
RHODE ISLAND ANTICIPATED PEACE TREATIES SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS-With the purpose of preserving unity in the discussion of a significant political movement we have passed over a resolution adopted by the Rhode Island General Assembly in the spring of 1853 in which Rhode Island, as in reference to so many other things and on so many other occasions, attained a position far in advance of the times and prophetic of what was to be. The Rhode Island Peace Society had been incorporated in 1825, "for the purpose of suppressing by every lawful and justifiable means which God has graciously put in their hands a spirit of war and a danger of aggression and conquest, and by cherishing and encouraging a spirit of peace among indi- viduals and Christian and civilized nations." Little more than a quarter of a century later,
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when war was threatened in almost every quarter of the globe-with England watching Napoleon III in France and fighting the Kaffirs in South Africa; with all of Europe agog because of insurrection in Milan; with United States diplomacy difficult because of affairs in Mexico and Hayti, and a subtle propaganda aimed at annexation of more territory, possibly Cuba and Mexico --- the "Providence Journal," on January 29, 1853, anticipated President Wilson's famous "open covenants openly arrived at" by declaring in an editorial: "It would be an example of real progress to exhibit to the world, if this great republic would break away from concealments and entanglements of diplomacy, and communicate directly and openly with foreign powers." Six days later the House of Representatives adopted a reso- lution reported out from the committee to which it had been referred early in the session after introduction by request of the Rhode Island Peace Society.
The resolution anticipated the arbitration of the Alabama Claims, the Hague Tribunal, the long series of arbitration treaties negotiated by William J. Bryan as Secretary of State in President Wilson's first Cabinet, President Wilson's own plan for a world court of arbitra- tion for justiciable questions before recourse to war, and the Kellogg treaties to outlaw war. Rhode Island, in 1853, unfolded for the world a plan for universal peace in the following resolutions : "Whereas, appeals to the sword for the determination of national controversies are always productive of immense evils, and whereas the spirit and enterprise of the age, but more especially the genius of our own government, the habits of our people and the highest permanent prosperity of our republic, as well as the claims of humanity, the dictates of enlightened reason, and the principles of our holy religion, all require the adoption of every possible measure consistent with national honor, and the security of our rights, to prevent as far as possible the recurrence of war hereafter; therefore, resolved, that in the judgment of this General Assembly, it is desirable for the government of these United States, whenever practicable, to secure in its treaties with other nations a provision for referring to the deci- sions of umpires all future misunderstandings that cannot be satisfactorily adjusted by ami- cable negotiations, in the first instance, before a resort to hostilities shall be had."
THE KNOW NOTHING INTERVAL SHORT IN RHODE ISLAND-The Democrats became a minority party in the state election of 1854. Besides losing, through his election to the United States Senate, an inspiring leader in the person of Philip Allen, their aggressive program of political measures, outlining changes that were momentous, if not revolutionary, had alienated a group of conservatives. The Whig newspapers, moreover, had conducted a subtle and effective propaganda against extension of suffrage, in which they had not hesitated to appeal to racial and religious prejudice. Elsewhere than in Rhode Island this had appeared much earlier. In a letter to Timothy Pickering, then Secretary of State, Rufus King, who was in England after the Irish rebellion of 1798, expressed apprehension that Irish rebels might emigrate to the United States. Irish came to swell the number who had come before, includ- ing among the latter the parents of General John Sullivan-father from Tipperary and mother from Cork. Rhode Island loved John Sullivan so well for his services in the state during the Revolution and at the battle of Rhode Island that a tablet to his memory has been erected in the State House at Providence.
Federalists other than Pickering and King shared the latter's uneasiness, which was heightened when the American Society of United Irishmen, a secret organization pledged to promote the independence of Ireland, was found usually, as its members became naturalized citizens of the United States, supporting Republicans first, and Democrats later, against Fed- eralists and Whigs. Had other motives been wanting, the alien and sedition laws and Fed- eralist opposition to extension of suffrage were sufficient reasons. Irish came to Rhode Island, attracted by opportunities for employment ; by contemporaries they were reported as
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having done their part in the building of fortifications in and around Providence during the War of 1812. Because of industrial development, and later the construction of roads, the Blackstone canal, and railways, there was steady immigration, accelerated somewhat also by economic conditions in Ireland following the famine years of 1826 and 1848. There was not in Rhode Island, as in Connecticut, and particularly in Massachusetts, following the inflam- matory sermons of Lyman Beecher against foreigners and Catholics, the bitter and violent opposition that displayed itself in rioting, mob violence, and the sacking of the Ursuline Con- vent at Charlestown. The Rhode Island suffrage laws in the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury were not, because of stringent restriction to freemen landholders, such as to occasion serious apprehension that the Irish might become a significant factor in politics or govern- ment. The suffrage laws excluded all who were not freemen and landholders, and landholders who were not freemen as well as freemen who were not landholders. Yet Benjamin Hazard, in concluding his report in 1829 in opposition to an extension of suffrage, denounced the sign- ers of a petition, which had been referred to his committee, as "foreigners," and warned his colleagues in the General Assembly against "Irish and negroes." Some who did not look with favor on any of the three constitutional movements that culminated in 1842 capitalized prejudices against "low Irish and niggers." Neither the Landholders' nor the People's Con- stitution enfranchised negroes; the referendum in connection with the adoption of the Con- stitution of 1842 eliminated discrimination against negroes because of color.
The "Providence Journal," of November 19, 1835, under the caption, "A Cargo of Priests," said: "The 'New York Journal of Commerce' says: 'The brig 'Poultney,' which arrived on Monday, had seven cabin passengers, all of them Catholic priests. A large pro- portion of the vessels which arrive from Europe bring more or less of these agents of spir- itual and political despotism. Possibly some 'Black O'Connell' may be found among them, to talk loud of liberty. We dare say there are many George Thompsons to preach the refor- mation of morals among us.'" The "New York Journal of Commerce" was one of the most bigoted newspapers of the period. The references were to Daniel O'Connell and the revolu- tionary readjustment of Irish-English relations accomplished by him through sheer force of public opinion without violence; and to George Thompson, an English evangelist, who had become an outspoken and radical Abolitionist.
The "Journal" for itself at the same time, August 3, 1835, refused to indorse a proposi- tion that no foreign-born citizen should be considered eligible for public office, saying: "There are certainly many foreigners in our country who duly appreciate the blessings of our free institutions and who would make any sacrifice to support them," adding, however: "By the interference and example of foreigners we have seen riots and bloodshed at an election, all labor suspended in our towns and cities by strikes for high wages, the 'ten-hour system'
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