USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 10
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"MANY CITIZENS. "June 9, 1854.
"Papers throughout the State, friendly. to the objects of the above call, please copy."
"The Sentinel copied and indorsed the call the next morning. The Madison Journal, all the Free Soil. two Democratic and all the Whig presses but one in the State followed suit. And this was the birthday of the Republican party of Wisconsin, of Ohio and Indiana; the last two named holling their State conventions on the same day. Illinois followed over a year later, and New York two years later."
Michigan was a few days ahead of Wisconsin in the organiza- tion of the new party, and in placing a ticket for the election vi . State officers in the field.
The mass meeting at Madison July 13 was a great success in all respects. The newspapers of Madison estimated the number of earnest men who gathered in front of the State House at 3.000. and at that time Madison had but one railroad, and that passed along outside more than a mile from the center of the town. But the people came from all directions and by every mode of convey- ance, on foot, on horseback, in carriages, and in the common lum- ber farm wagon that carried from ten to twenty persons. There
Pomango Wirran
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were old Liberty party men like the venerable John Walworth who regarded slavery as a great moral, rather than as a political ques- tion, and who had prayed until they had turned gray for the abolition of it. There were the hard-headed, but conscientious. old Hunker Democrats, strict constructionists of the Constitution. who knew that slavery was wrong, but being intrenched in the Constitution, they were unwilling to interfere with it in the States, but who said, with clenched fists: "I'll be darned if it shall go into the free territories!" There were the old silver grey Whigs from New York State, who had worshiped William H. Seward and had read Greeley's Tribune, but still opposed the abolition move- ment until now, and some of them had heard it proclaimed from the pulpit that slavery was a divine institution. There were the Free Soilers who did not bother much about the moral aspects of slavery, but believed the free territories ought to be kept free for free men. There were the Garrisonians who contended that . the Constitution of the United States "is a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell," because it sanctioned slavery. There were Free Traders and high Protectionists, all nioved by a com- mon impulse and inspired by one determination, and that single purpose was to forget past differences and hem in the infernal system of chattel slavery in the States, as Jefferson and the fathers intended it should be when they adopted the famous Ordinance of 1787, on the anniversary of the day on which they had assem- bled. There were Methodists who held with John Wesley that slavery was "the sum of all villainies." There was the Wesleyan Methodist who "trembled for his country when he remembered that God is just." as Jefferson once expressed it. There was the self-conceited Pharisee, whose argument on the slavery question always culminated with the usual question of the times-"Do you want your daughter to marry a nigger?" There was the slick okl hypocrite from Nantucket, whose ancestors had got rich in the African slave trade, and whose Sunday-school teacher had been . . engaged in that same wicked and inhuman traffic. Now there was to be a new dispensation. All the old issues were to be pooled. That typical American. that greater man than Washing- ton -- Abraham Lincoln -- had not yet become conspicuous in pub-
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lic affairs, nor had he said, as he did five years later: "I do not believe that this Union can long endure hali slave and half free"; but other men were thinking it, if they did not say it.
As the Puritans did everything "in the name of God," so the Rev. John Walworth, in calling the meeting to order, and after reading the call, suggested that it be opened with prayer and a patriotic song, which was done, and the first State Convention of Republicans was organized by the election of the following officers:
President-John Walworth of Green.
Vice-Presidents-S. Wakeley of Walworth. Albert Smith of Milwaukee. William Blake of Dodge. Charles Racser of Mani- towoc, J. T. Mills of Grant, Charles Halse of Sauk, W. W. Noyes of Columbia, J. O. Bartlett of Racine and N. W. Dean of Dane.
Secretaries-Horace Rublee of Dane, L. F. Frisby of Wash- ington.
Joseph A. Sleeper, a well-known lawyer of Rock, chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, reported the following platform, which was adopted with much enthusiasm:
"Resolved, That the repeated and long-continued encroach- ments of the slave power, culminating at last in the repeal of the law of freedom in all the hitherto unorganized territory of the Union, forces upon us the conviction that there is no escape from the alternative of freedom or slavery, as a political issue which is to determine whether the future administration of the government shall be devoted to the one or the other. .
"Resolved. That we accept this issue, forced upon us by the slave power, and in the defense of freedom will cooperate and be known as Republicans, pledged to the accomplishment of the fol- lowing purposes:
"To bring the administration of the government back to the control of first principles.
"To restore Nebraska and Kansas to the position of free terri- tories.
"To the repeal and entire abrogation of the Fugitive Slave Act.
"To restrict slavery to the States in which it exists.
"To prohibit the admission of any more slave States into the Union.
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"To exclude slavery from all the territories over which the gen- eral government has exclusive jurisdiction. And to resist the ac- quisition of any more territory unless the prohibition of slavery therein forever shall have been first provided for.
"Resolved, That in furtherance of these purposes we will use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to their accomplishment; and that we will support no man for office under the General or State Government, who is not posi- tively and fully committed to the support of these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a guaranty that he is reliable.
"Resolved, That we cordially invite all persons, whether of native or foreign birth, who are in favor of the objects expressed in the above resolutions, to unite with us in carrying them into effect.""
The like of that convention never met in Wisconsin before or since. There was but one thought, one intention, one desire, among all those present. and that was to organize and resist the encroachments of the slave oligarchy. The meeting continued long into the night, and speeches were made by L. P. Harvey, George B. Ely, M. H. Orton, H. S. Orton, J. A. Sleeper, James H. Paine, S. M. Booth, C. Clement, J. T. Mills and others. Gen. Rufus King said of it in The Sentinel the next day: "In num- bers, in character, and in spirit, it far surpassed any political con- vention that we have ever attended. It was in all respects a fitting commemoration of the birthday of ordinance of freedom, and gave glorious promise for the future of our noble State." The new organization was everywhere welcomed with enthusiasm, and it soon became compact and coherent. The old Whigs now seemed to realize that their party was defunet. and instead of bewailing its exit from the world the most of them promptly joined the new party, forgetting the things that were behind, and worked industri- ously for its success. Everybody seemed to be willing to make concessions for the new cause. Whig editors like Gen. Rufus King, David Atwood. Horace Rublee. Charles Holt, Hiram Bowen and others, who had been for years pouring hot shot into the ranks of the Abolitionists, Liberty party men, Free Soilers and
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Barnburners, were now hand in glove with Gen. James H. Paine, Warren Chase, Ichabod Codding. S. M. Booth and their associates. Old Democrats like David Noggle, C. Latham Sholes, Harlow S. Orton and thousands of other loyal men fell into the procession. William E. Cramer, of The Daily Wisconsin, looked with disap- proval upon the new movement, and still clung with the tenacity of a drowning man to the old pro-slavery party-breathing out threatenings and slaughter. But Mr. Cramer, like St. Paul on his way to Damascus, was soon to see a great light from heaven and become converted to the truth. Like Paul, when he did espouse the cause of freedom in 1856, he preached the gospel of liberty with zeal and enthusiasm. He has been at it now for over fifty years.
The State was soon organized by counties and congressional districts, local committees were appointed, Republican clubs were formed and all the necessary party machinery was set in motion. Thus began the party of freedom in Wisconsin, and many of the unselfish and patriotic men who stood by its cradle, and who gave it support and succor through all its trials, lived to see it triumph in State and Nation for many years and the great evil of the nine- teenth century that called it into existence totally eradicated from the body politic. The names of many brilliant and eminent men are inscribed on its rolls. They helped to make the brightest page ever written in American history. There were statesmen like Lin- coln, Chase, Seward, Sumner, Sherman, Blaine and Garfield; there were soldiers like Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Mead and Hooker; there were orators like Phillips, Carpenter, Butler, Evarts. Ingersoll and Andrews; there were poets like Whittier, Holmes. Longfellow and Julia Ward Howe; there were writers like Gree- ley, Mrs. Stowe, Garrison and James Russell Lowell; there were preachers like Henry Ward Beecher, E. H. Chapin. Theodore Parker, Robert Collyer, Theodore Cuyler and Thomas Starr King: there were martyrs like E. P. Lovejoy, John Brown and Abraham . Lincoln; there were Governors like Alexander W. Randall. John
Brough, John A. Dix, Oliver P. Morton, Richard Yates and John A. Andrews; there were lecturers like Mary A. Livermore. Anna E. Dickinson and Frederick Douglass; there were thou-
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1themen
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sands of noble women in every walk of life who not only gave their own sons to die on the battlefiekl. but, forgetting their own grief, gently nursed back to health the living skeletons that escaped from the hells of Libby and Andersonville. And there were loyal men to the number of hundreds of thousands who freely offered their lives that the nation might live. Then, while the great body of the Southern Democracy were fighting like demons in the South, and the Copperheads were hissing in the North, there came to the aid of the government a class of men from the Democratic party-good coming out of Nazareth-with- out whose help and counsel the nation would have perished for- evermore. Let this be written everywhere in letters of living light! Such men as Edwin M. Stanton, John A. Andrews, Simon Cameron, Jolm A. Logan, David Todd, Benjamin F. Butler, James T. Lewis, Matt H. Carpenter, Lucius Fairchild and others of that political faith, deserve to have their names embalmed in imper- ishable renown.
It has often been charged and it cannot be denied, that the or- ganization of the Republican party and the election of Abraham Lincoln brought on the war with the South; but it was in the same way that a man is responsible for bringing on a fight who resists the burglar that enters his house at midnight, with the intention of robbing and killing him.
The election of Charles Durkee to the Senate of the United States February 1, 1855, was one of the notable political events that occurred during Governor Barstow's administration. Mr. Durkee took the seat that had been occupied by Isaac P. Walker, whose term had expired, and who had fallen into disfavor with a large conservative element in his own party, as well as with the anti-slavery voters, on account of his action as Senator in voting for the admission of California without the Wilmot Proviso to pro- hibit slavery. As has already been stated in a previous chapter. Walker was pledged to vote against planting slavery into any of the territory acquired from Mexico before he was elected, and after he was elected he was so instructed by a joint resolution passed by the same Legislature that gave him his seat: but he failed to comply with that request. He was censured and asked
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to resign by the same Legislature that elected him, which was largely composed of men of his own political faith. Walker's excuse for disobeying instructions was that slavery would never go there because it would be unprofitable on account of the climate and an adverse public sentiment, and that to ingrait the Wilmot Proviso upon any act admitting States made out of territory acquired from Mexico would be a mere surplusage (see Note at end of Chapter), or as Daniel Webster put it more felicitously in his famous 7th of March speech, it would be merely "re-enacting the laws Of God!" Mr. Walker's position was strictly in accord with the wishes of the slavery propagandists, and quite at variance with the sentiment in Wisconsin.
When Charles Durkee was elected to the Senate he was no stranger to the people of Wisconsin. Nobody had to take him on trust. Though not a public speaker, he was a successful busi- ness man, public spirited and intelligent, and was thoroughly posted on public affairs. He was an original anti-slavery man, and had . been the candidate of his party for Governor and for delegate to ' Congress in territorial times. He had also served four years in Congress, from 1849 to 1853, the last time defeating a man so able and popular as William Pitt Lynde. His election was attended with considerable excitement. Many prominent politicians of all parties flocked to Madison to witness the proceedings and take a hand in the affair. The Republicans held their caucus on the evening of January 24, and nominated Durkee on the first formal ballot. The vote stood 37 for Durkee, 10 for Louis P. Harvey of Rock. afterwards Governor, and the rest scattering. The Demo- crats were not so harmonious. Their first caucus resulted in no choice, the vote standing 14 for Byron Kilbourn, 5 for E. G. Ryan. 4 for James Duane Doty and the rest scattering. In the joint convention there were 107 votes: necessary to a choice. 54: of which Charles Durkee had 54. Byron Kilbourn had 39, and the balance scattered among a dozen other distinguished gentlemen. The vote was close enough to make it interesting. How Jir. Durkee's election was regarded by the politicians may be inferred from the following extracts taken from the daily papers of that date :
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(From the Daily State Journal. Feb. 2. 1855.)
The Republicans may well feel elated at this victory. The will of the majority has triumphed in spite of the evasions and tricks of the opposition. A firm, reliable man has been elected. standing out boldly upon the issues of the day: a man whose position has never been doubtful, and whose election, as a triumph of free prin- ciple, is worth more to the cause of freedom, in this exigency, than the election of 1.000 timid, vacillating hybrids, styled anti- Nebraska Democrats.
(From the Daily Democrat, Feb. 2. 1855.)
Had the election of United States Senator been consigned to the people of this State instead of to the Legislature, Charles Dur .. kee is probably the last man of all whose names might be men- tioned in connection with the office who would have received a majority of the votes. He is unknown to the people of the State. During all the time he was in Congress we believe he never opened his mouth but once. * He never did anything.
* * In all his history, his name has been unknown to the people except as a candidate for office.
He has no intellectual ability above the commonest order-but is a kind-hearted, good-souled man, whom it would be easy to deceive, but impossible to corrupt.
(From the Daily Journal, Feb. 3. 1855.)
There is one especial cause for congratulation over the elec- tion of Mr. Durkee. He was the candidate of no railroad clique. No corrupt combination of all the immoralities of politics, with all the intrigues and selfishness of railroad operators, selected him as its candidate or urged his election. * * * A = number of candidates were backed by railroad influences, and none of them so strongly as Byron Kilbourn. It was upon them more than upon any political consideration that he based his hopes. He failed, as he deserved to, and we have elected a man who neither owns nor is owned by any railroad company, who is disinterested and who will not labor to promote the interests of one section of the State to the detriment of the others.
Note-Senator Walker did not have to wait long to find out that he was mistaken. The Legislature of New Mexico proceeded at its ses-
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sion in 1859 to do the very thing which he deemed so improbable and as mere "surplusage." Assuming the legal existence of slavery in that territory, in accordance with the Dred Scott decision, the Legislature proceeded to pass an act "To provide for the protection of property in slaves."
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CHAPTER XL.
BARSTOW AND THE BALANCE. tSee Note at end of Chapter.)
During the last year of Barstow's administration there was a widespread suspicion among the people of the State, especially among the Republicans, that there was corruption and :malfeas- ance in office at Madison, and that a general investigation into the management of the offices of the State Treasurer, Secretary of State and the Commissioners of the School and University Lands. would be a benefit to the public. Such a legislative investigation was had the next year, and the special committee's report showed that the suspicion of mismanagement was well grounded, especially as it related to the conduct of the State Treasurer. The commit- tee reported that "almost hopeless confusion was found in the books of the Treasurer and Land Commissioners; that State officers and clerk's had been allowed to freely take money out of the treasury in anticipation of their salaries, leaving only memorandum slips in the cash drawer stating the amount withdrawn; that the Treasurer. Edward H. Janssen, was a defaulter to the general fund to the extent of $31.318.54: that the State and University trust funds had been recklessly loaned out on insufficient security to the personal friends of the State officials, and that tens of thousands of these trust funds had been lost and squandered by these officials. The State Treasurer. Janssen, had trusted his assistant to manage the office, and while it was generally believed that he was himself an honest man, his incapacity for such a responsible office is clearly shown in the fact that he did not know what was going on in his own office. His defalcation still stands unsettled.
Janssen, a resident of Ozaukee county, was nominated to please the German element of the Democratic party, which at that time was very strong in the State. It is due to Governor Barstow to state that he was not held to be directly responsible (11) 121
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for the crookedness that had been going on, except that as the head of the administration he did not exercise that "eternal vigi- lance" which is not only the price of liberty, but it is the way of keeping officials honest who need watching. If he was not guilty of wrong doing himself. it was thought that he was not ignorant of what was going on.
These scandals did not prevent Barstow from being renom- inated for Governor at the close of his first term. He had full control of the machine, and the machine was all-powerful. The old regime, headed by Senator Henry Dodge, had been sent to the rear, and Barstow and his younger clique were in full con- mand of the Democratic forces. He was easily renominated, but his reelection was opposed by so many conservative Democrats that his success was doubtful from the start. At Barstow's first election the anti-slavery sentiment of the State was not solidly arrayed against him; the Republican party had not then been organized, while the Democratic party was compact and coherent. There were three candidates for Governor in the field -- Barstow, the regular Democratic nominee; Edward D. Holton, the people's candidate, representing the Free Soilers. Anti-Nebraska Demo- crats. Abolitionists and Prohibitionists, and Henry S. Baird. who had been nominated by that remnant of the old Whig party which could not be persuaded that it had been beaten for all time in the defeat of 1852 under Gen. Winfield Scott. The result of the vote in this three-cornered fight was Barstow, 30.405; Holton, 21,286; Baird, 3.304. At his second election all the hostile forces in and out of his own party were mustered against him. The Repub- licans were thoroughly organized and filled with the zeal and enthusiasm of new converts for what they considered a great moral. social and political question. The campaign was conducted with much spirit, the Republicans making violent attacks upon the extravagant methods pursued by the State officials, and the Janssen defalcation was kept constantly before the people. The result was close: Barstow's majority of 9.000 two years before bad almost entirely disappeared in his own case, though his colleagues on the ticket were all ahead of him. The returning board con- sisted that year of the Attorney-General, George B. Smith; the
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State Treasurer. Edward H. Janssen, and the Secretary of State, Alexander T. Gray, all Democrats, and all strong political and personal friends of William A. Barstow. They counted in the entire Democratie ticket. There was great excitement throughout the State, and charges of corruption and fraud were iresly made on both sides. Barstow's majority was declared to be 157, and this majority included some "supplemental" returns, which were irregular and suspected to be fraudulent. Mr. Coles Bashford, the Republican candidate for Governor, at once took steps to contest the election of Barstow, and to bring the matter to the attention of the Supreme Court. It was the first case in the United States where the court of last resort had been asked to go behind the returns, as declared by the State Board of Canvassers, and to pass upon the validity of said returns. It was the first case also in which a candidate for Governor, hokling a certificate of election from the officers appointed by law to declare the result, had been ousted after having taken the oath and been duly installed in office. Some of the most noted lawyers in the State were engaged in the . trial. Barstow's interests were represented by Jonathan E. Arnold. one of the famous attorneys of the day; Harlow S. Orton, after- wards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. and Matthew H. Car- penter, afterwards United States Senator. Bashford's side was ably represented by E. G. Ryan. T. O. Howe, A. W. Randall and James HI. Knowlton. Such an array of legal talent had never been brought together before to try a case in Wisconsin. Of Bashford's counsel only one was classed as a Democrat. E. G. Ryan: on the other side, all of them were Democrats. Of course there was much partisan feeling and prejudice upon both sides. Al- though Ryan, was a Democrat, he had no personal admiration for Barstow, as he belonged to the other older wing of his party. Besides, he had the faculty of making his client's case his own, and his zeal was not lacking on this occasion. It was Carpenter's first great case in the State, and he entered . upon it with all his fine ability. The court consisted of Edward V. Whiton, Chief Justice, one of the purest men who ever sat upon the bench: A. D. Smith, who had already made himself famous by his decision declaring the Fugitive Slave Law uncon-
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stitutional; and Orsamus Cole, who had made his mark as Con- gressman before being elevated to the Supreme Court. They were all men who have impressed their names ineradicably upon our history. Of all those who were engaged in that historic trial the only survivor is Judge Cole.
When the case was ready for trial Mr. Carpenter moved that it be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, and argued the motion with great skill, the chief point being that the three departments of the State government are equal and coordinate, and independent of each other, and that each department is judge of the election of its own members. Long and able arguments were submitted on both sides, and the court denied the motion and affirmed its jurisdiction. Then followed a fierce battle between the attorneys over legal technicalities lasting four days, when the court declared that it "will go behind the certificate of canvassers, and ascertain, if pos- sible, who was legally elected." Thus the two most important points were gained by the counsel of the claimant. Bashford, who had all along insisted that the count was fraudulent. either by mis- take or intent, and that he could prove it if the court would hear the evidence.
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