USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 13
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His party was rapidly increasing in strength and aggressiveness until the New England feeling against the embargo and the war of 1812 produced a reaction, and he failed of a majority in the election in 1813, getting 16,- 828 votes, to 16,532 for Martin Chittenden and 625 scattering. This sent the election to the Legislature where the vote was a tie, and where after a long struggle Chittenden was elected, and the Democrats claimed that the state "was stolen." The result turned on the vote of Colchester, which if counted would elect the three Democratic councilors and if rejected would elect the three Feder- alists. The House was Federalist and the Council Democratic. The House appointed a canvassing committee which rejected the Col- chester returns, on the ground that other Uni-
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ted States troops had voted there in company with those from this state in the national ser- vice who were allowed under the act of 1812 to vote in any town in the state where they might happen to be. There was violent dis- pute over the facts and also over the consti- tutional power to canvass the votes. The constitution made the House the judge of the election and qualifications of its members ; but it had no such power over the members of the Council nor was the latter body given any power to determine the election of its members. In other words the power rested expressly nowhere and the House assumed it. But for this returning board action the Democrats would have controlled the joint Assembly and re-elected Governor Galusha and Lieutenant-Governor Brigham ; as it was, that body was just a tie. The council pro- tested and insisted that the Colchester votes should be counted, that the Assembly refused a reading to the report. Finally the ballot- ing in the Legislature, greatly to the astonish- ment of the Democrats, showed 1 12 votes for Chittenden and III for Galusha, and the lat- ter was declared elected. Two days later the Democrats offered to show by the oaths of one hundred and twelve members that they had voted for Galusha, so that there was an error or fraud in the result as de- clared, and therefore they asked that the first vote be counted as naught, and another one taken. A long debate ensued, but before a conclusion was reached Chittenden and Chamberlain appeared in the House and council, took the oaths of office and Chittenden delivered his speech. The truth probably was as developed later, that one of the Democratic assemblymen was bribed to withhold his vote.
Notwithstanding this scaly victory, the feeling over the war ran so high that the Federalists won again in 1814 by a narrow margin. The popular vote was : Chittenden, 17,466 ; Galusha, 17,411 ; scattering, 451. But the Federalists had a stiff majority in the Legislature and elected Chittenden again by a vote of 123 to 94, and Chamberlain by a still larger majority. But the next year witnessed a merited revolution on both state and national lines. Galusha defeated Chit- tenden handsomely at the polls, 18,055 to 16,632. The next year the Federalists made Samuel Strong their candidate and were worse whipped, 17,262 to 13,888. In 1817 the Federalists tried Tichenor again for a candidate and were beaten almost two to one, 13,756 to 7,430. By 1819 there was no organized opposition to Galusha left, less than 3,000 votes being cast for various can- didates against him, and the bulk of these for other Democrats, W. C. Bradley and Dudley Chase.
GALUSHA.
Governor Galusha was well qualified to bring about such a state of affairs. A plain farmer without pretending to scholastic at- tainments, but with commanding native abilities, his thoroughly democratic man- ners and habits of thought appealed strongly to a constituency of yeomen. A resolute fighter and skillful campaigner, he had too generous a nature to be mean or vindictive and too philosophic a bent of mind to fail to see beyond personal interests and feelings to the larger forces involved in politics. Fervently patriotic, his voice and thought naturally headed the sweep of sentiment that followed the peace after the last war with Great Britain, while his comprehen- sive understanding and his humble, nay, even religious devotion of the best there was in him to the service of his fellowmen made him a most useful legislator and adminis- trator, though never very original or sug- gestful of new ideas.
It is impossible to read his inaugural addresses, eloquent with the intensity of sincerity, without comprehending in some measure the sources of his power. For in- stance, on his accession to power in 1809, after one of the most heated struggles, there was not a word of bitterness toward his ad- versaries, no epithet worse than "misguided" for the "spirit of discord and disunion" that had been so rampant in New England, no expression but of " gratitude to Heaven " that the " efforts of foreign emissaries and domestic traitors" had " failed to distract and divide us," and no hope worse than that " the talents, the wisdom and the ener- gies of the states" might now be united, and citizens soon "lay aside all party feel- ings and become united like a band of brothers."' The address was Jeffersonian, alike in the shrewdness with which it was phrased and the warmth of its faith in human good. He had a kindly word to say of the new state's prison as "an humane and bene- ficent institution," but he wanted a strict inquiry made into the expenditures for its erection. His message of 1812 urged the laying aside of all party prejudices and unit- ing of the whole people in the common cause. In 1815, after all the heated struggles of the past two years, the only lesson he had to draw was that "during the calm," since the return of peace to the country, "we ought, by an indissoluble union, to be pre- pared for any storm that may arise." He pictured the triumph of ruthless despotism in every part of the Old World, and besought the people solemnly to remember that " of all the nations of the earth " they " alone were left to support a government whose basis is equal liberty and whose sovereignty is the will of the people."
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Ilis message of 1817 alluded with satisfac- tion to the "wide and recent spiritual har. vest" in the state, in the shape of the great religious revival of that year, probably the only allusion of the kind ever made in any Governor's message. He hailed with joy the revolutionary movements in South America, and they stimulated for him beatific visions of the future of humanity. He urged, in 1819, legislation to free the bodies of debtors from arrest and imprisonment on debts of small amount, being "of opinion that more money is spent in the collection of such debts than is saved by the collection," and arguing that it would be a benefit to "dis- courage credit." He advised the chartering of agricultural societies throughout the state, by "experiments, proper researches, and cor. respondence," to improve agriculture. He was always an earnest supporter and presi- dent of both societies. He died Sept. 24, 1834, his last years, full of honor and con- tentment, having been passed in rural enjoy- ment at his Shaftsbury home. He was always profoundly religious in his methods of life, of thought and expression, but never joined any church, though he announced his intention of doing so at the age of sev- enty-nine, when he attended a protracted meeting at Manchester and took an active part in the exercises.
His first wife was Mary, daughter of Gov. Thomas Chittenden, and so sister of his strongest opponent in political life, and by her he had nine children - five sons and four daughters ; one of the former, Elon, became an eminent Baptist clergyman.
He rarely failed in his messages to urge the encouragement of manufactures, and in that of 1810 said : "I trust the time is not far distant when the citizens of these United States, instead of relying on foreign coun- tries for their clothing, will be able not only to supply their own wants, but to export every kind of cotton, if not woolen goods, and restore to the Union that portion of specie which has been drawn from us by the exclusive use of foreign manufactured goods."
Governor Galusha retired from office with expressions of affection from the Legis- lature and the people, second only to those which had been bestowed on Thomas Chit- tenden. He was a presidential elector in 1808, 1820 and 1824, and a member of the constitutional conventions of 1814 and 1822.
CHITTENDEN, MARTIN. - Second son of Gov. Thomas Chittenden, sixth Governor, and thirty years in the public service as judge, congressman and legislator, was born at Salisbury, Conn., March 12, 1769, and was liberally educated, graduating from Dart- mouth in 1789. He inherited much of
CHITTENDEN.
his father's aptitude for public affairs and many of his popular qualities, so that the very next year after his graduation in 1790, he was elected Jericho's representative and subsequently for eight years, and Williston's two years after he moved to that town. He was clerk of the Chit- tenden county court four years, judge ten years, judge of probate two years, and a delegate to the constitutional conventions of 1791 and 1793. He waselected a representative in Congress in 1803 and four times re-elected, until his elevation to the governorship in 1813. The circum- stances of that election and suspicions surrounding it have been fully explained in the sketch of Governor Galusha. Ver- mont was the one New England state that had sustained the declaration of war in 1812, had cast her electoral vote for Madison, and the revolution of 1813, though not accom- plished by the vote of the people, produced a deep sensation at the time, all the more aggravating because of the obvious unfair- ness and dishonesty that brought it about, unfairness in excluding the votes cast at Col- chester of the citizens who were defending the state-even though there were irregular- ities about it-and dishonesty somewhere, somehow in the final vote of the Legislature. His re-election in 1814 bore no such stigma, though it had to be reached through the Legislature, there being no choice by the people but a plurality for Governor Galusha and the patriotic side.
Governor Chittenden's administration was in the main in full sympathy with the anti- war element, though on the whole it may fairly be said to have been better in this respect than most of the New England ad- ministrations, and the Vermont sentiment was generally better than that of the sea- board states. His address, in 1813, argued that the "conquest of Canada of which so much has been said, if desirable at all," would be "poor compensation for the sacri- fices" that must be made, and in 1814 he reiterated his opinion that the war was "un- necessary, unwise and hopeless, in all its offensive operations." The minority of the House, 89 in the former year and 82 in the latter, under the lead of William A. Griswold, solemnly entered their protest on the journal
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against such sentiments, and against the replies which the House had by a partisan vote given to the Governor in echo of his words. Governor Chittenden took the ground in both messages, the contempti- ble one that was then general with New England executives, that the militia could not be ordered out of the state for the com- mon defense, or to "repel invasion" of any except the state's territory.
In November of that year, while a part of the 3d brigade of the 3d division of the state militia was about Plattsburg, "under the command and at the disposal of an officer of the United States, out of the jurisdiction or control of the executive of this state," Governor Chittenden issued a proclamation reciting this lugubrious situation, and the danger to "our own frontier," and com- manding the militia "forthwith to return " to their homes.
The order was received with hot indigna- tion by the troops, the messenger who brought it was marched by force out of camp, and the officers united in a reply to the Governor declaring that "an invitation or order to desert the standard of our country will never be obeyed by us, although it proceeds from the Governor and captain-general of Ver- mont." They told him flatly that the proc- lamation was, in their opinion, " a renewed instance of that spirit of disorganization and anarchy which is carried on by a faction, to overwhelm our country with ruin and dis- grace," and they told him that even the sol- diers of the line regarded it "with mingled emotions of pity and contempt for its author and as a striking monument of his folly." Prob- ably it was the most extraordinary military communication of its kind ever framed, and it was not altogether undeserved or without good effect ; for the next year when General Macomb wrote of the advance of the enemy again towards Plattsburg, and calling for "all the assistance in his power," Governor Chit- tenden promptly replied, that he would take "the most effectual measure to furnish such number of volunteers as may be induced to turn out." He insisted that he was not "authorized by the constitution or laws to order the militia out of the state," but could request them to go, and he " recommended " the officers to volunteer to go. The call was grandly responded to by the people, fathers, sons, and veterans of the Revolution, from all parts of the state, and the result was the glorious victory at Plattsburg.
Chittenden could not help feeling the in- spiration, and as the British army, notwith- standing the failure of Provost's campaign, was hovering on our frontier, the Governor issued a proclamation, Sept. 14, exhorting the people to defense. "The conflict has become a common, and not a party concern,"
SKINNER.
he said, "and the time has now arrived when all party distinctions and animosities
* ought to be laid aside ; that every heart may be stimulated, and every arm nerved for the protection of our common country, our liberty, our altars, and our firesides." And he "enjoined" upon all military officers to be in "a complete state of readiness to march at a moment's warning," and upon all selectmen and civil authorities to render all aid possible.
It was good talk at last, after victory had been seemingly won in the war, but it did not save Chittenden and his party from defeat and emphatic rebuke at the polls the next September. The party went to speedy ruin in the state and nation, and the Gov- ernor into a political eclipse from which he never emerged until his death, Sept. 5, 1840, at the age of seventy-one.
Still it is but just to the Governor to say that these positions into which the party passion of the time swept him, were not natural to him. His blood and breeding were patriotic, and his real feeling, that which finally burst partisan bonds, found expression in the last quoted proclamation. He was constitutionally moderate and tem- perate, and broadly intelligent in his views, but lacked in assertive strength, and was too apt to yield to the counsels of party leaders. In his personal relations he was kindly and winning, and leaving an impress of large capacity on all with whom he came into intercourse.
SKINNER, RICHARD. - The seventh Governor, con- gressman, judge, and speaker of the Assembly, was born at Litchfield,Conn., May 30, 1778, the son of Gen. Timothy Skin - ner ; received his legal education at the famous law school in that place, and came to Vermont in September, 1 799, settling at Manchester. The next year he was ap- pointed state's attorney for Bennington county and held the position until 1812, and was judge of probate for the last six years of this time. The next year, in 1813, he was elected to Congress, serving a single term, and then representing his town in the state Legislature, serving for two years and being the speaker in the last, 1818. He was also assistant judge of the Supreme Court in 1815
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VAN NESS.
and 1816, and in 1817 was elected chief justice but declined to accept. He was again state's attorney for his county in 1819. In 1820 in the era of "good feeling" he was elected Governor by nearly a nuanimous vote, 13,152 to 934 scattering. He was re- elected in 1821 with still greater unanimity, 12,434 to 163, and again in 1822, though the record of the vote cannot be found. He declined further re-election, but was the next fall chosen chief justice of the Supreme Court and served until 1829, when he retired from public life for good, and died May 23, 1853, from injuries received by being thrown from his carriage while crossing the Green Mountains.
The period of Governor Skinner's admin- istration was in the years of cessation from the great controversies of early politics, so that there was no chance for the exhibition of great qualities of leadership. His state papers had the clearness and force which are said to have characterized his, arguments as a lawyer, and were always severely practical in their scope. His inaugural address of 1 820 advanced some suggestions for the im- provement of our judicial system, especially on the chancery side and with regard to the probate courts, which afterward bore good fruit. He pointed out that the difficulties which had become so serious in the settle- ment of estates was due to a lack of clear apprehension, that our whole system of pro- bate law must be essentially different from that of England, whence we derived our common law. He expressed disapproval in this address in emphatic terms of the Mis- souri compromise, and of the failure of the last Legislature to instruct the state's delega- tion to vote against it. He also expressed the opinion, in his address in 1821, that there could "be no doubt of the wisdom and jus- tice" of a protective tariff policy.
He was president of the northeastern branch of the American Educational Society, and a member of the board of trustees of Middlebury College, which institution confer- red on him the degree of LL. D. -
In personal appearance he is described as of ordinary form and stature, eyes and com- plexion dark, and hair of the deepest black. "Intellectually," says Henry R. Minor, Man- chester's historian, "his qualities were of a kind which gain the respect and confidence of mankind rather than immediate admi- ration."
VAN NESS, CORNELIUS P .- The eighth Governor, was born at Kinderhook, N. Y., Jan. 26, 1782, son of Peter Van Ness, and of a wealthy and prominent Dutch family. Two of his brothers were distinguished in public life, Gen. John P. Van Ness, congress- man, and for years mayor of Washington,
and William P. Van Ness, United States dis- triet judge for New York. Judge W. W. Van Ness, the distinguished jurist and scholar, was a cousin.
The subject of this sketch did not receive a college education, though designed and prepared for it by his father, because he pre- ferred a com - mercial to a pro- fessional life. Ile soon changed his mind, however, and studied law in the office of his brother, where Martin Van Buren was a fellow - s tu dent. Being admitted to the bar, he practiced at Kinderhook for two years and then came to Vermont, first settling at St. Albans in 1806 and then at Burlington in 1809. He was appointed United States district attorney for this state in 1810 and this was the begin- ning of a public career in the state and Federal field that lasted for more than thirty years.
He rapidly rose in the confidence of the Madison administration and in 1813 was appointed collector of customs at Burling- ton, at that time the most important position of the kind in the county, especially so be- cause of the necessity the administration had found of getting around its restriction policy, by admitting importations of goods from Montreal under the legal fiction that they were goods from neutrals. Mr. Van Ness handled this delicate duty, both as district attorney and collector, with tact and skill. He held the latter position until the close of the war and then was appointed one of the commissioners under the treaty of Ghent to settle the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions, a task to which he gave a large part of his time for several years, but without coming to an agree- ment with the British commissioners.
He was Burlington's representative in the Legislature from 1818 to 1820, chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1821-'22, and in 1823 was elected Governor, being twice re- elected, in 1824 and 1825, until he declined further service.
He was at this time at the height of his popularity and influence. Nearly twenty years of practice had brought him to rank with the half-dozen leading lawyers of the state, in an era that has not been surpassed for brilliant ability at the bar. He had for a decade been supreme in wielding the
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VAN NESS.
federal patronage of the state as well as that of state affairs while Governor. His ad- ministration in the latter office had been most acceptable ; first elected with only 1,431 votes cast against him, his re-election in 1824 was almost as unanimous-with only 1,962 votes cast for the opposing candidate, Joel Doolittle, besides 346 scattering-and in 1825 it was so strongly so that no record is preserved of the vote. He had done the honors for the state during Lafayette's visit in a manner of which everybody was proud. The favors he had had to distribute with the genuine good-fellowship and kindliness as well as shrewd discernment and knowledge of men which he had shown, had attracted to him a strong following of devoted friends. He was in thorough sympathy with the Democratic development upon which our institutions had entered, and he had to some extent led and directed it. And his wealth, with the generous hospitality he dispensed, and the social leadership he and his ac- complished wife had wielded in the most cultivated circles, seemed to make him strong in the only remaining direction where strength was needed.
But all this prestige was shattered at a single blow, which sent him in mortification into political exile. He desired to crown his career with a term in the Senate, and even before he left the executive chair, laid his plans to succeed Horatio Seymour whose term was to expire, and who, it was generally understood, would not seek a re-election ; but the latter was finally persuaded to do so. It was at the time of a reformation of party lines, and when the feeling was most ran- corous between the adherents of Adams and Jackson ; antagonisms that for years had been smouldering against Van Ness burst forth ; men whom he had disappointed in giving out offices entered the field actively against him, while the disposition of Ver- monters, which has exhibited itself from the beginning, to retain senators in long service, was a large factor, adding much to the strength which his talents and conciliating manners gave Mr. Seymour. It was the most exciting personal fight the state ever had, and few in the country have ever equalled it. Where it was supposed at first Governor Van Ness would be irresistible, the result was left doubtful at the polls and the fight was taken to the Legislature where at length Seymour won by a small majority.
Governor Van Ness attributed his defeat to the influence of the Adams administration, and issued a manifesto to the people declar- ing hostility to Adams, and himself went to work actively to pay off scores by organizing Jackson support in the state. He was in- volved, as a consequence of the manifesto, in a number of controversies with men who
had long been in his confidence and friend- ship, and before the election of 1828 his old power had been pretty generally broken and the state cast its vote for Adams by a strong majority.
Shortly after Jackson's inauguration, how- ever, he was appointed minister to Spain and continued to occupy this position for about ten years. He returned to the country and state in 1840 and made a determined effort to carry Vermont for his old friend Van Buren, but of course with even less results than in the campaign of 1828, and the next spring he shook the dust of Vermont from his feet, and took up his home in New York City. He was after this for a year and a half, in 1844-'45, collector of the port of New York by appointment of President Tyler. This was his last political position. The death of his brother, General Van Ness, at Washing- ton, in 1846, devolved the care of the latter's estate on him and he spent much of his time in Washington until his death, Dec. 15, 1852, which occurred at Philadelphia while he was journeying between New York and the Cap- itol.
G. B. Sawyer in an obituary sketch of Governor Van Ness in the New York Even- ing Post just after his death, thus summed up his character : "Governor Van Ness neither felt nor affected love for literature ; troubled himself little with theoretical speculations or with abstract principles, except as connected with the kindred sciences of law and politics, which few men more thoroughly studied and understood ; this concentration of mind and effort was the secret and the source of his success. Without imagination, using lan- guage plain, but expressing always the pre- cise idea he wished to convey, disregarding decoration, his reasoning, compacted link within link, glowed with the fire of earnest- ness and conviction-or rather his speech was a torrent of impassioned argument, as clear as it was rapid, capable of sweeping away juries and assemblies, and of moving from their moorings the anchored caution and gravity of the bench."
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