USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 1 > Part 37
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Encouraged by their success in the congressional election in the previous August, the Whigs held a state convention in January, 1838, and nominated William Sprague1 and Joseph Childs for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. The Democrats renominated Francis and Thurston. Sprague was elected by 381 majority in a total vote of 7,587. In August, certain Providence Whigs favorable to the claims of Tristam Burges as a candidate for United States senator, made nominations for representatives in opposition to the regular Whig ticket, but they were unable to defeat the latter. On November 3, Nathan F. Dixon of Westerly was elected United States senator by a vote of 54 to 26 for Benjamin B. Thurston.
Sprague and Childs were opposed in 1839 by Nathaniel Bullock, of Bristol, and Thurston, the Democratic candidates, and by Tristam Burges, who was brought forward by certain dissatisfied Whigs. Burges's candidacy prevented an election, although he received but 457 votes. Mr. Sprague lacked 179 of a majority, and, as Lieutenant- Governor Childs also failed of an election the state again found itself without an executive head. Seven of the ten senators had been chosen and, as no further elections could be held under the latest change in the election law, Samuel W. King, the first senator, acted as Governor during the year. There was a difference of opinion, however, as to the authority of the general assembly in the matter, and heated discussions took place regarding the right of the general assembly in grand com- mittee to fill the vacancies. A new license law was passed this year. Among its features were the prohibition of Sunday sales, and of sales to habitual drunkards. An act was also passed authorizing school committees to assess parents of pupils to sustain public schools in towns which failed to make adequate provisions for the purpose. From the first annual report concerning the public schools, issued this year by the secretary of state, it is learned that Providence, New-
1 Anti-Masonry was now a dying issue, but the acceptance of this nomination by their leading champion called for some explanation, and, according to the political gossip of the day in Democratic circles, Mr. Sprague excused himself for his previous affiliation upon the ground that his father (recently deceased) had compelled him to antagonize the Masons.
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port and Bristol had been provided for some time with convenient public school houses, and that eight other towns had taken measures to erect school buildings.
As, according to the election law then prevailing, the loss of one of the six senators, from death or other cause, would have left the state without a government, the assembly at the June session passed an act, empowering the speaker of the house, in case of such vacancy, to issue a warrant for a new election, which should be decided by a plurality vote. As a large number of freemen of Providence had petitioned for a repeal of the city charter, an act was passed submitting the question of repeal to the freemen of the city, but requiring a three-fifths vote to secure the change. The special election under this act was held on the last Wednesday of March, when the repeal party was decisively de- feated, they polling only 221 votes to 628 against repeal. At the same election the frecmen decided by a vote of more than two to one in favor of establishing a high school.
In August, Messrs. Cranston and Tillinghast were re-elected to Congress by about 400 plurality over Benjamin B. Thurston and Thomas W. Dorr, the Democratic candidates. Mr. Dorr, who, up to within a year or two, had been quite prominent in the Whig party, was now opposed to it, as he found the Democratic policy in state poli- tics more favorable to the suffrage movement. Petitions published in New York papers, asking the national government to establish a repub- lican form of government in Rhode Island, caused considerable indig- nation among the Whigs, and a state convention was held in South Kingstown in November, to protest against outside interference in Rhode Island affairs.
Samuel Ward King, who, as the first senator, had performed the duties of Governor throughout 1839, was nominated for that office by the Whigs in 1840, and Byron Diman of Bristol received the nomina- tion for Lieutenant-Governor. The Democrats placed the name of ex-Governor Francis at the head of their ticket, with that of Nathaniel Bullock of Bristol for the second place. Francis declined the nomina- tion, and Thomas F. Carpenter, a Providence lawyer, was nominated in his place. The Whigs taunted the Democrats with the fact that over half of the nominees on their prox, including the two chief ones, were of Federal antecedents, and some of them even defenders of the Hartford convention. The vote was the largest that had been polled since 1818, and King was elected by a majority of 1,311. His vote- 4,797-was the largest that had ever been given a candidate in the history of the state, and the 3,418 which Carpenter received would ordinarily have been a large one for even the winning party. This was really the last contested election under the charter, as the Demo- crats made no nominations the next year, and made little effort to elect their ticket in 1842, as a large proportion of them did not acknowledge
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the validity of the charter government after the adoption of the Peo- ple's constitution.
Several important acts were passed at the January session in 1840. Among them were a new militia law ; an act condemnatory of lotteries ; one providing for free vaccination, at the option of the town councils, every fifth year; an act allowing school committees to set apart $10 every year for the establishment of school libraries; and a law forbid- ding the employment in factories of children under the age of twelve years, unless they could show proof of having attended school at least three months during the preceding twelve months. The resolution regarding lotteries recited their evil effects. and declared that no more ought to be granted, and that the sale of lottery tickets for enterprises outside of the state should be prohibited. An act was passed requiring October sessions of the general assembly, not then held by law at South Kingstown, to be held alternately at Bristol and East Greenwich, and that the adjournments from the October sessions should be held in Providence. A proposition to build an addition to the State House at Providence encountered the determined opposition of many of the country members, who feared that it would take $20,000 to satisfy the "fine notions" of the people of Providence.
The general assembly met in grand committee on October 29, 1840, and elected James F. Simmons of Johnston, United States senator in place of Nehemiah R. Knight, whose term would expire on March 4, 1841, and who had been in the senate since March 4, 1820. Mr. Sim- mons had been a representative from his town for several years, and was one of the leading Whigs of the state. He received 53 votes to 24 for Samuel Y. Atwell of Glocester, the Democratic candidate, and 2 for Tristam Burges.
Rhode Island had given its electoral votes for Van Buren in 1836, but this year, with the same candidates confronting each other, the defeat of the Democratic ticket was a foregone conclusion. The Dem- ocratic attitude on the tariff question was making the state solid for the Whigs, and the strength of the latter was increased by the log cabin and hard cider appendages to the Whig campaign, which, much to the Democratic disgust and dismay, were prominent features of the contest in the state. The vote was: Harrison, 5,278; Van Buren, 3,301. The Whig state and congressional tickets were elected without opposition in April, 1841. The time for the congressional election had been changed at the previous January session from August to April.
Resolutions in favor of the sale of the public lands, and the division of the proceeds among the states; in favor of the re-establishment of the United States bank ; and in opposition to the sub-treasury scheme, passed the assembly at the January session in 1841. The vote in the house on the first proposition was unanimous, on the second 39 to 23, and on the third 40 to 20. The debates over these measures, between
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ex-Senator Robbins-now a representative from Newport-and Sen- ator-eleet Simmons, on the one side, and Samuel Y. Atwell, an able Demoeratie lawyer from Gloeester, attraeted considerable attention. A warm debate also took place at this session over a proposed aet to exempt debtors for sums of less than $20 from imprisonment from debt. It was finally rejected by the house. The assembly altered the lieense law again this year. The lieense fees, one-fifth of the proceeds of which was to go to the state, were inereased. Sales were forbidden on Sunday, to intoxicated persons, habitual drunkards or minors, and no debts ineurred for quantities of liquor less than one quart were to be recoverable by law.
An aet was passed at the June session for the "relief of married women in certain eases". It provided that a married woman, not living with her husband, coming into the state and residing here for two years, eould transaet business the same as a single woman, without in- terferenee from her husband ; that he could not take her ehildren from her, unless she was proved to be immoral or otherwise unfit to have their management; and that if the husband and wife should become reeoneiled, and live together, his control of her property and financial affairs should date only from his renewal of his marital rights. An attempt was made to repeal eertain portions of the law at the October session, and it was charged in the course of the diseussion which en- sued that the degree of emaneipation aeeorded unfortunate wives by the legislation was enacted for the express benefit of one Madame Hautreville, whose father's money had been an influential factor in seeuring the legislation. This insinuation against the integrity of the promoters of the aet was indignantly denied, and was afterwards with- drawn. The repeal bill failed of passage, the vote standing 24 to 41.
Benjamin Hazard of Newport, who had been a eonspieuous factor in Rhode Island legislation for many years, died on Mareh 10, 1841. He was a graduate of Brown University, was first eleeted to the house in August, 1809, and was re-elected successively sixty-one times. The August previous to his death he addressed a letter to his fellow towns- men deelining again to be a candidate on aeeount of ill-health.
CHAPTER XX.
THE DORR WAR AND ITS RESULTS.
The question of a new constitution, or rather the formation of a written constitution to take the place of the charter granted by King Charles II, in 1663, had been agitated now for about fifty years, and matters were fast approaching a crisis. The advocates of the reform, though actuated by various motives, were chiefly confined to three classes-the non-freeholders, those who believed that the freehold qualification for votes was in a measure rendered nugatory by fraudulent practices ; and the people of Providence and other fast- growing towns which were inadequately represented in the general assembly under the charter,1 and for which there was no redress. The suffrage was limited by the terms of the charter to citizens otherwise qualified who were owners of a certain amount of real estate, and to the oldest sons of such freeholders. The minimum value of the real estate required to constitute the owner a freeholder had varied, at different times, but since 1798 it had been $134. In the old farming towns under the freehold system, the number of freeholders was prac- tically stationary, but in Providence and the large villages it had become the practice to divide small tracts of land into house lots, so- called, and these lots were conveyed to individuals who would vote as the grantor desired ; the grantor retaining the grantee's note for a sum above the actual worth of the land for his security, and which could be used as a voucher to prove to the assessors of taxes that the lot was of a value sufficient to constitute the alleged owner a freeholder. The extent to which this system of fraud was carried in 1840 so irritated
1 By the provisions of the charter Newport, then the largest of the four towns, was to have six deputies (representatives) ; Providence, Portsmouth and War- wick, four each; while each new town was to have two. The relative import- ance of the towns had greatly changed since the seventeenth century, and the injustice of the charter representative provisions was becoming more and more apparent with the increased growth of the factory towns, and of Providence, the great centre of the cotton manufacturing interest. Providence had 23,172 inhabitants in 1840, and Smithfield, which had increased its population by more than 40 per cent. since 1830, had 9,534, while Newport, which had three times her representation, had only 8,333, and Portsmouth, with four members to Smithfield's two, had only 1,706 souls, and was actually retrograding in popula- tion. Other fast-growing towns were Cumberland, with 5,225 inhabitants, War- wick, with 6,726, North Providence, with 4,207, and Bristol, with 3,490.
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the frecholders, or a large portion of them, that they preferred giving up their frechold privileges directly by an enlargement of the suffrage, rather than to be defrauded in this manner.
The genuine landholding electors were generally substantial, well-to- do people, and their leaders, the men who became governors, senators and members of assembly, belonged chiefly to old and wealthy families, and "lived in roomy, substantial colonial houses, where they dispensed a liberal hospitality in the midst of the memorials of an aneestry of which they were as proud as any feudal nobles". These leaders gen- erally opposed the enlargement of the suffrage as an innovation which would place the substantial, conservative citizens and their property at the merey of an "irresponsible rabble". They had therefore, as a elass, constantly opposed all movements in the direction of an enlarge- ment of the suffrage.
But the growth of the state incident to the great growth of its man- ufacturing industries had largely increased the number of non-free- holders who would have been qualified to vote in almost any other state in the Union. Besides the factory elass, there were large numbers of mechanies, tradesmen and their employees, people engaged in transpor- tation, and laborers generally. And besides all these elasses, there were the younger sons of the freeholders themselves. These men were disfranchised by the aeeident of birth, and many of them joined in the growing suffrage movement.
In the fall of 1840, the subject of a written constitution, securing an extension of the suffrage, and a more equal representation, with other reforms, was again agitated in the state, and an organization, called the Rhode Island Suffrage Association was established in Providence. Similar associations were formed in other towns, and frequent meet- ings were held in the cause. The declaration of principles by the association was based upon the assertion that all men were created free and equal, and that the possession of property should create no politi- eal advantage. It maintained the right of the people to meet by delegates and form a constitution, without regard to the absence of any such authority for such proceedings in the terms of the charter. This theory of the suffrage party was forcibly expressed in the famous question of a suffrage orator, "If the sovereignty don't reside in the people, where the - - does it reside ?"1
In November, 1840, a paper, devoted to the suffrage eause, was established in Providence. It was ealled the "New Age", and was non-partisan in polities. The Providence Herald, the leading Demo- eratie paper in the state, which had opposed suffrage extension twelve
1 The Suffragists did not recognize the fact that sovereignty resides in the people, not as individuals or as a group of individuals, but only as a body politic. As Cooley says in his Constitutional Limitations: "As a practical fact, the sovereignty is vested in those persons who are permitted by the Constitution of the State to exercise the elective franchise."
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THE DORR WAR AND ITS RESULTS.
years before, now joined in the movement; while the Providence Journal, which had advocated the cause most ably nearly a score of years before, was now for some time non-committal, and admitted communications upon both sides of the question. When the crisis arrived, however, it was a potential and an uncompromising champion of the charter government.
At the January session in 1841, a memorial was received from the large and populous town of Smithfield, praying the general assembly to take the subject of the extreme inequality of the existing representa- tion from the several towns under consideration, and "in such manner as seems most practicable and just to correct the evil complained of". At the same session, printed petitions, bearing the names of Elisha Dillingham and about 580 others, were presented, praying for the abrogation of the charter and the establishment of a constitution, and asking especially for an extension of suffrage to a greater portion of the white male citizens of the state. This latter petition was laid on the table, but the Smithfield memorial was referred to a select com- mittee of the house, of which ex-Senator Robbins was chairman. The committee reported in favor of adopting measures for calling a consti- tutional convention, and, after considerable discussion, resolutions were adopted asking the freemen at the August town or ward meetings to elect delegates, equal in number to the representation of the several municipalities in the general assembly, to attend a convention to be holden at Providence on the first Monday of November, 1841, to frame a new constitution, either in whole or in part, and if in part, to take into "especial consideration the expediency of equalizing the represen- tation of the towns in the house of representatives". The resolution passed by a vote of 37 to 16, and it is a significant fact that the Provi- dence Whig delegation voted solidly against it.
This convention, like all previous ones, was to be elected by the "freemen", or qualified electors only, and was regarded by the suffragists as a mere expedient to deceive the advocates of the reform without yielding them any advantages. Determined, therefore, to take independent action, the suffragists called a mass meeting of the friends of extended suffrage to meet in Providence, April 17, 1841. The day was ushered in by the ringing of church bells. A great pro- cession, headed by butchers in white frocks, marched with bands and banners to Federal Hill and participated in a barbecue, the main features of which were a roasted ox, calf and hog, a loaf of bread ten feet long and two feet wide, and several barrels of beer. The proces- sion, which was declared to have numbered over three thousand male adults, after the feasting repaired to the State House, and listened to suffrage speeches. Large parades were infrequent sixty years ago, and this one attracted a great deal of attention. Among the mottoes borne by the marchers were "Worth makes the man, but sand and 22-1
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gravel make the voter!" and "Virtue, patriotism and intelligence, versus $134 worth of dirt!" Speeches were made at the State House by cx-Congressman Dutee J. Pearce, Samuel Y. Atwell and General Martin Stoddard. On May 5 another great suffrage meeting was held in Newport.
The meeting at Newport in May had adjourned to meet at Provi- denec on July 5, which was to be observed as Independence Day, the 4th being Sunday. This meeting was attended by young men from every town in the state, and was one of the largest assemblages of people that had ever been held in Rhode Island up to that time. A long procession, in which were two of the independent military organi- zations of the state, escorted the speakers to the Dexter Training Ground, upon which the meeting was organized. Many freeholders were present and partieipated, although a majority of the existing voters did not countenance it. Resolutions were adopted ordering the calling of a convention to frame a constitution, and the unanimous vote of the meeting pledged its members to sustain and earry into effeet such a constitution, if adopted, "by all necessary means." On July 24, 1841, the state committee issued a eall for the election of delegates to a convention to meet in Providence, October 4. Every male Amer- ican eitizen, twenty-one years old, who had resided one year in the state, was entitled to vote, and the delegates were apportioned strictly on the basis of population. On August 28 delegates were elected under this call from nearly every town in the state. Three days later, at the regular town meetings, delegates were elected to the convention ealled by the general assembly, and which was termed the "Land- holders' Convention," to distinguish it from that ealled by the suffrage party.
The People's convention eonvencd at the State House in Providenee, on October 4, and lasted from Monday till Saturday. The ruling spirit in the convention was Thomas W. Dorr, who had begun his publie efforts in behalf of the suffrage eause in the general assembly in 1834, and who, as a member of the convention ealled that year, had unavailingly attempted to seeure an expression from it favorable to the reform. Under Mr. Dorr's leadership a constitution was adopted which granted many of the reforms advocated by the suffragists, but which, owing to the varied interests and opinions of the delegates from the several towns, did not come up to the standard of exeellence con- tended for by the most radical participators in the movement. Many of the features of the charter were retained, while an effort was made to bring them into harmony with modern ideas. A strong effort was made to include negroes among those entitled to the suffrage, but, although it received the support of Mr. Dorr, it failed of suecess.
The Landholders' convention met at the State House on November 1, and although many of its delegates had become eonvineed that some
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THE DORR WAR AND ITS RESULTS.
eoneession to the demands of the people had become necessary, the majority were determined to eling fast to the old order. A eonstitu- tion was drafted which retained the freehold qualification, and whose only substantial improvement was an equalization of the representa- tion. After framing the constitution the convention adjourned until February to get the sense of the people regarding their work. Mr. Dorr and Mr. Atwell were elected delegates to both the People's and Landholders' conventions. Mr. Atwell, while professing to believe in the legality of the people's movement, did not partieipate in their convention, but attended and took a prominent part in the one ealled by the assembly. Mr. Dorr, on the other hand attended both eonven- tions. He made several abortive attempts in that of the landholders to seeure an endorsement of the aetion of the popular convention, and failing in that, to persuade the convention to accept the reforms for which the suffragists were eontending. Ex-Congressman Dutee J. Pearee was a leading member of the People's convention, and, after Dorr, was held in the greatest detestation by the eharter party.
The People's convention met by adjournment on November 18, 1841, and direeted its constitution to be submitted to the votes of the people enfranchised under it, on December 27, 28 and 29. On these days, accordingly, the vote was taken. Each voter was required to state in writing on his ballot whether he was or was not a qualified voter under the existing laws. By this method the exaet standing of every voter was aseertained, a faet that was clearly shown in the investigations that were subsequently held by both state and national governments. On January 12, 1842, the People's convention met again, eounted the votes, and announeed that 13,944 had been east for the constitution and only 52 against it. An analysis of the vote showed that 4,960 of the total had been east by freemen, and 8,984 by non-freemen. The committee which drew up the returns elaimed that the total number of people in the state qualified to vote by an enlarged suffrage was 23,142, of which 13,944 was a large majority. The exaet number of freemen in the state was not known, but it was generally believed that the 4,960 constituted an actual majority of the legal voters of the state. Thus it was claimed by the suffrage advocates that the People's constitution represented the wishes of both the restrieted and enlarged electorates. The entire movement was of course in contravention of the provisions of the charter, and utterly without legal sanction. This faet, it is true, was admitted by the participants in it, but they eontended that the people by whose authority or with whose eonsent-either expressed or taeit-all governments existed, always possessed the right to ehange their form of government at will.
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