£-7 CORNELL UNIVERSITY - LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE, INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE DATE DUE /^ Ptt-fr Ht^ ^^^rr^ _fr iisnH87rt F r Ifl ft^^jO^'gOAF ii GAYLORD yi ' Mi u — r PRINTED :N U.S.A. JAN 2 6 DEC^5Ue' "-ibrary 3 1924 024 821 070 THESE ESSAYS ARE DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORS, HIS FORMER PUPILS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, TO FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER ON THE OCCASION OF HIS PRESIDENCY OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, 1909 — 1910 INTRODUCTION Spontaneous movements are hard to explain. Per- haps they need no explanation. Certainly a volume of essays on American history which in a large sense has written itself out of the love and respect of the authors for the scholar and friend to whom it is dedicated, needs but little by way of introduction to this generation of American students of history. To all others it preserves and trans- mits, by its very existence, that part of a scholar's work which is hardest to measure and record — his power to kindle his spirit and his love of scholarship in other men. Beyond the measure usually allotted to men of his own rank in scholarship and productive power, Professor Turner has manifested this most precious gift of the gods to the teachers of men. The office of president of the American Historical Association is a recognition by the larger constituency of American scholars in his chosen field of the permanent contributions of Professor Turner to the literature of that discipline. It has seemed to the narrower circle of those who, as students, have felt the stimulation of his personality, who have tasted at first hand of the fruits of his learning, and under his guidance have learned the methods of the craft, that there could be no tnore proper occasion than his presidency of this society and no more fitting form than this volume for acknowledging their obligations to him in whose workshop they learned the methods by which historical truth is sought. Speaking for the many students of Professor Turner who are now interested in fields allied to history or in historical work other than American, and by reason of a self-denying ordinance are not contributors to this vi Introduction volume, the editor takes this occasion to acknowledge on behalf of the represented to those who represent, their appreciation of the zeal and thoroughness with which the contributors have done their work in the short time assigned them. They have made the volume possible and have reduced editorial work to the minimum. A like word should be said for the publishers and for the many friends of Professor Turner whose advice and assistance have helped to give form to this volume. In their special fields these essays, it seems to one whose pleasure it was to be their first reader, are each a perma- nent contribution either in substance, point of view, or interpretation, to the literature of American history. If this is in a measurable degree the judgment of less preju-, diced readers, then they will be, in full measure, such a tribute as his former students would offer to Frederick Jackson Turner, teacher, scholar, and friend. Guy Stanton Ford. CONTENTS PAGE I. SOME ACTIVITIES OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 3 Lois Kimball Mathews, Associate Professor of His- tory, Wellesley College II. OREGON PIONEERS AND AMERICAN DIPLOMACY . 35 Joseph Schafee, Professor of History, University of Oregon IIL SOME PROBLEMS OF THE NORTHWEST IN 1779 . . 57 James Alton James, Professor of History, North- western University IV. KANSAS . . 85 Carl Lotus Becker, Professor of European History, University of Kansas V. FEDERALISM AND THE WEST 113 Homer C. Hockett, Associate Professor of American History, dliio State University VI. INDEPENDENT PARTIES IN THE WESTERN STATES, 1873-1876 137 Solon Justus Buck, Research Assistant in History, University of Illinois VIL VIRGINIA AND THE PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION, 1840-1844 165 Charles Henry Ambler, Vaughan Professor of His- tory and Political Science, Randolph-Macon College VIIL THE SOUTHERN WHIGS, 1834-1854 . .203 Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Professor of History and Political Science,' Tulane University IX. THE BEGINNINGS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN DIPLO- MACY 231 William Spence Robertson, Assistant Professor of History, University of Illinois X. SOME NOTES ON THE STUDY OF SOUTH AMERICAN HISTORY 269 Paul Samuel Reinsch, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin vii ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY SOME ACTIVITIES OF THE CONGREGA- TIONAL CHURCH WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI ' Three institutions have been characteristic of the New England settler, wherever he has made his home, — the Congregational Church, the public school or the academy with its culminating point in the Congregational college, and the town-meeting. The first of these institutions had its inception in what might be called a second " Prot- estant Revolt," since it grew up as the expression of a widespread demand for more liberty in creed and ritual than an increasingly conservative established church of England permitted. Born in England, the Congrega- tional Church grew to its full stature on New England soil, uncramped by the swaddling bands of an ecclesiastical and political system which viewed conformity and uni- formity as necessities of the body politic, and variation from the type of either as anarchy and ruin. Founded upon a Calvinistic basis, the sermon the center of the service, an educated ministry speaking to an educated peo- ple was a necessity of the existence and of the growth of the Congregational Church. Hence the public school be- came an indispensable accompaniment of that church, thus providing that enlightened constituency which could alone ' See also Mathews, L. K., The Expansion of New England (Boston, 1909). The material for this essay was obtained in the Congregational Library, housed in the Congregational House of Boston. There is a large mass of correspondence which must be investigated at the headquarters of the American Home Missionary Society in New York City, as well as sim- ilar material in the headquarters of missionary organizations of other denominations, especially the Presbyterian, before the study can be com- pleted. 4 L. K. Mathews maintain its principles and hold fast to an unwavering con- viction of the truth of its dogmas. Beyond the school must come the college, which should provide the additional training for the educated man who was not only to min- ister to each of these groups of people, but also to convince those outside his field, whether of his own race or some other, of the rightness of that creed in which he himself so fervently and profoundly believed. Among such a people, with such a ministry, democracy was the only ten- able political theory and practice; and out of a conviction of its necessity and the right of possessing it, together with the accident, as it were, of remoteness and isolation from a larger body politic, developed its expression in the town-meeting. Though these three institutions are found in their original form only in New England itself, their variations have been in a way immaterial in the face of the fact that their fundamental principles have been repeat- edly used in new communities, though the superstructure erected upon these foundations has been no exact copy of the original form. Indeed, a superficial glance perceives no vital connection between local government in the Rocky Mountain states and that in Massachusetts; or between a state university of the Mississippi Valley and the de- nominational college such as Yale or Wellesley originally was. But although the more obvious characteristics may have been well-nigh obliterated in making the newer in- stitution fit more plastic communities and ideals which may be broader but are certainly less definite, the type viewed in the large is the same. The Congregational col- lege, for example, ceases to fit men almost exclusively for the ministry or the missionary field, and sends out both men and women to take a prominent place in their com- munities as Christian citizens. It ceases to call itself sec- tarian if it may thereby increase its constituency and spread its influence farther. It may be turned over by its trustees Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 5 to the state for a university supported by legislative ap- propriation. It may decide that in order to share the ad- vantages of a pension fund which will provide its poorly paid faculty with dignified poverty in their old age, it can dispense with its essentially sectarian views as to the church affiliations of its trustees, president, and faculty, and pro- claim itself broadly Christian and not at all denomina- tional. In spite of all these changes or any of them, its New England origin remains, and it is with this New England origin of church and school that the present study concerns itself. All through the colonial period the missionary spirit of the Congregational Church had expressed itself in found- ing towns, churches, and schools. Just before the Revolu- tion, in 1774, the Congregational churches of Connecticut, in their General Association, voted to send missionaries to the latest settlements in Vermont and New York, whither Connecticut pioneers had been thronging.^ But the stir- ring events of the next quarter-century prevented any large contributions of either money or men to the movement. It was only when the Revolutionary War had become a matter of past history, when the new national government had been set upon its feet, and when the peril from foreign aggression had apparently been overcome, that the mis- sionary spirit was born anew. Stayed only temporarily by the conflict between the colonies and the mother-coun- try, the tide of emigration to the frontier had flowed out in unprecedentedly great floods after 1783. Into the western parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, into the three northern New England states, into central and western New York and Pennsylvania, into the Appa- lachian valleys, into the back-country of Virginia, the Caro- linas, and Georgia, and over Into the new Northwest and ' Walker, Williston, A History of the Congregational Church in the United States, pp. 311, 312. 6 L. K. Mathews Southwest Territories, — in every direction the outposts of civilization were advanced far beyond the frontiers of 1775. Settlers went singly, in families, and in colonies. The differentiation between seaboard and back-country had meantime become clearly marked; and the new gov- ernments, both state and federal, had concerned them- selves largely with questions of adjustment of representa- tion and taxation, and with internal improvements in the matter of roads, bridges, ferries, and even canals. Yet the back-country often felt itself misunderstood and unap- preciated, and pleaded its poverty as an excuse and a cause for the discontent it loudly voiced. On the other hand, to the older communities the rural districts seemed rude and uncivilized, uneducated and godless; and out of this poverty on the one hand, and comparative plenty on the other, was born anew the missionary spirit which had stirred New England since the beginning. This time it was directed, not alone toward the education and con- version of the Indian, but toward the education and con- version of their own brethren on the frontier, where scarcity of money, coupled with a declining sense of their necessity, had delayed the formation of schools and churches, and thus retarded the development of that peculiar kind of Christian civilization which the older parts of New England had developed. The movement found expression almost simultaneously all over New Eng- land, though Connecticut in 1798 led the way. In that year the General Association of Congregational Churches in that state organized itself as a Missionary Society, " to Christianize the Heathen in North America, and to sup- port and promote Christian knowledge in the new settle- ments within the United States." ^ To stimulate interest in these home missions an official organ, known as the Con- ' Ibid., p. 312. It concerned itself less with the conversion of the Indian and more with the new settlements. c^ongregational Church West of the Mississippi 7 necticut Evangelical Magazine, was established in 1800, and in 1802 the society received a charter from the Con- necticut legislature.* A similar society, known as the Congregational Missionary Society in the Counties of Berkshire and Columbia, had in 1798 been formed to take care of poor churches in western Massachusetts and eastern New York. In 1799 the Massachusetts Mis- sionary Society was founded on the same lines as that in Connecticut, and four years later established Its Massa- chusetts Missionary Magazine.'^ Then followed similar societies in New Hampshire (1801), Maine (1807), and Vermont (1807), but these confined their work almost wholly to the large opportunity which lay at their hand in their own newer communities.® So great was the zeal for the work that other local societies were formed outside the large state ones; — as the one In 1802 in Hampshire County of Massachusetts, the PIscataqua Missionary Society of eastern New Hampshire (1804), and the Evangelical Missionary Society of Worcester and Mid- dlesex counties of Massachusetts (1807).'^ Some of these organizations sent missionaries as far west as New York and Ohio, besides helping weak churches near home. These were the beginnings of the home missionary move- ment of the Congregational Church. The great work done east of the Mississippi River must, however, be passed over in order to trace a few phases of its labors beyond that great artery. * lUd. ' Ibid., p. 313. ' Clark, J. B., Leaiening the Nation, p. 31. Missionary societies made up exclusively of women had their inception in these years. The Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes, the Female Cent Institution of New Hampshire (1804), by which its members pledged a cent a week for missions; and many other "cent associations" all through New Eng- land were pioneer societies. See Walker, p. 313. ' lUd. 8 L. K. Mathews With the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 enormous tracts of land with few or no inhabitants save native Indians were added to the territory of the United States. The area of settled territory consisted of a few towns, scarcely more than trading-posts, scattered up the west bank of the Mississippi with long distances between them, or lying a few miles from the mouths of the larger tributaries of that river. The settlers were for the most part French, though there were here and there such wan- derers as Moses Austin, a native of Durham, Connecticut, who had gone in 1799 to the region which became Mis- souri. The expeditions of Lewis and Clark, and of Pike, made better known the possibilities of the newly acquired region, and settlers from those states and territories bor- dering on the Mississippi began to make their way to the trading-posts and settlements already in existence. Soon the missionaries who were laboring to build up churches in Illinois and the neighboring states made tours of in- vestigation across the river, while the home missionary so- cieties in New England sometimes sent special messengers to bring back reports of the number of settlers and their needs. The Missionary Societies of Connecticut and Massachusetts together sent Rev. Samuel J. Mills and Rev. John F. Schermerhorn on a tour which occupied the years 1812 and 18 13, and covered a long strip of terri- tory lying along the western bank of the Mississippi. They reported that the settlements In Missouri were scat- tered, confined almost wholly to the banks of rivers, and contained perhaps 20,000 souls, of whom two^fifths were Americans, the rest French. They found a few Baptists, a few Methodist preachers, and a hundred or more fam- ilies which had been Congregationalists or Presbyterians, many of them Connecticut-born.^ Moses Austin's colony was then at Mine au Breton, near the present town of ° Report of Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, pp. 32, 33. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 9 Potosi (Missouri), and Mr. Austin himself sent for Mr. Mills to preach in the settlement. Other pioneer mis- sionaries of these early days were Rev. Salmon Giddings, whose work was done from 18 15 to 1827 in Missouri; Rev. Ehas Cornelius, Jr., in 18 17-18 18 in Louisiana;® Rev. H. Hull, in 18 19-1820 in Louisiana; Rev. John Mat- thews, in 1819-1823 in Missouri; and Rev. Timothy Flint, whose experiences from 18 15 tO' 1818 in Ohio and Missouri he detailed at length in his Recollections.^" One of the most faithful workers was Rev. C. S. Robinson, bom in 1 79 1 in Granville, Massachusetts, a graduate of Williams College and of Andover Theological Seminary, who went to St. Charles (Missouri) as a missionary and preached there until his death.^^ Rev. Salmon Giddings, mentioned above, in 1 8 1 7 gathered nine families ( includ- ing five from Massachusetts and one from Connecticut) into the first Presbyterian church in St. Louis.^^ ' See Edwards, B. B., Memoir of the Rev. Elias Cornelius (2d edition, 1834), especially pp. 95-104, 108, 109. He paved the way for the founding of the first Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, though he was a Con- gregationalist. ^° All these were sent out by the Missionary Society of Connecticut. A complete list of their missionaries from the founding of the society till its union with the American Home Missionary Society in 1880, is given in the Annual Report of the Directors of the Missionary Society of Connecticut (1S80). Many of these reports consist so largely of financial statistics that they have little value for historical purposes. For Rev. Timothy Flint, see his Recollections of the Last Ten Years in the Mississippi Val- ley, and his History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley. " See " Memoir of Rev. C. S. Robinson " in The American Pastor's Journal, i Sept., 1829. " Roy, J. E., " Congregationalism in the Northwest," in Dunning, A. E., Congregationalism in America, p. 425- This is but one of many in- stances where Presbyterian churches were made up of a Congregational pastor and members. The one Connecticut family in Rev. Salmon Gid- dings' church mentioned in the text was that of the parents of Stephen Hempstead, second governor of the State of Iowa. See Roy, J. E., as above, and Shambaugh, B., Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of Iowa, I., p. 423. 10 L. K. Mathews But the tide of emigration between 1800 and 1840 was flowing most strongly into the sections known earher as the " Northwest Territory " and the " Southwest Territory." Moreover, it proceeded for the most part along the paral- lels of latitude running out from the most densely pop- ulated of the older states, though all streams mingled and crossed one another on both sides of the Ohio River." Missionary effort would naturally be directed in large measure to those quarters where the opportunity seemed greatest; by far the greater part of money and men was used east of the Mississippi. The Missouri compromise diverted the streams of pioneers from the southern states to the lands across the Mississippi and south of Iowa ; but even there the population was still concentrated for the most part along the rivers, nor had it as yet proceeded far inland. It was still an unsettled, shifting population also ; the colony which Rev. S. J. Mills had found at Mine au Breton had moved in 18 19 to Texas, and had begun its dramatic life there. That the Congregational Church made little history in the far west until after 1830 is at- tributable not only to the conditions controlling emigra- tion from New England and New York as a whole, but to two other important factors: — in the north, the church had become in the newer parts of the country in large measure absorbed by the Presbyterian Church through the " Plan of Union " ; in the south it was unpopular, because of its strong antipathy to slavery. About 1822 a keen realization of these facts, together with the menace of the rising Unitarian agitation, led to new activity on the part of the Congregational Church both in and out of New England.^* The founding In 1826 of the American Home " See maps of New England settlement in Mathews, L. K., Expansion of Neiv England. " Professor Walker's view is that this denominational awakening came first in the West, where the Presbyterian Church had grown very strong, Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 1 1 Missionary Society, a general organization of the whole church, was significant of this new vigor; while it did not in any sense supersede the state organizations, it attempted to work on a larger scale and to unify all missionary effort. One of the most interesting and important manifesta- tions of this " denominational awakening " was a move- ment for " lay emigration," as it was called. Rev. Asa Turner, the father of Congregational home missions in Iowa, felt strongly the need of Christian laymen on the frontier. Born in Templeton, Massachusetts, of " mi- gratory stock," ^^ he was educated at Amherst Academy, Yale College, and Yale Theological Seminary. Before he left New England to begin his first Illinois pastorate at Quincy, he urged that groups of families should accompany home missionaries to their new fields, to help in church, public school, and Sunday school, " fixing the character of towns, . . . spreading the moral power of New England, and effectually aiding to save the West." ^® He wrote to a friend in 1830: " It is of vast importance to settle a min- ister in each county as soon as possible. . . . This is the object : to place one missionary in every county, and six or eight pious families . . . without any loss to New Eng- land. ... I mean to bring on a colony with me." " And he did take about twenty people west with him in 1833. Rev. Aratus Kent, a missionary in the lead-mining region about Galena, Illinois, had the same idea. He, too, wrote in 1830: "A half dozen families of the right stamp, in company with the missionary, in many cases would render his labors doubly efficient. . . . Every new missionary then should have his little colony selected to accompany and later in New England. If this is true, it is like many other frontier movements which have reacted upon an older, less volatile, and more complacent community. "Magoun, G. F., Asa Turner and His Times, p. i6. "Ibid., p. 116. " Quoted in ibid., p. 117. 12 L. K. Mathews him, or pledged to follow and settle around him." " Other home missionaries undoubtedly held similar views." One of the best illustrations of the practical working of this idea of " lay emigration " — ^which was, after all, only a later phase of the colony plan which New England pioneers had followed from time to time since 1620 ^" — is found in the settlement of Denmark, Lee County, Iowa. Rev. Asa Turner lectured in New Ipswich, New Hamp- shire, on " The Advantages of Western Farming," and! the need of Christian laymen on the frontier." So im- pressed was his audience that a committee was sent ahead (1836) to locate claims, and selected the site of Denmark. Families from New Ipswich and Lyndeborough in New Hampshire, Hartford and Enosburgh in Vermont, with one from Damariscotta in Maine, laid out the town, and when, in 1838, the Congregational church of thirty-two members was formed, its pastor was Rev. Asa Turner. Within a short time every New England state but one was represented in the town, and it became a center of New England influence. One of their historians says: "... They acted like a well-ordered family, Father Turner at the head. They met in church meetings to determine on the policy to be followed, no matter whether it was the candidate to be voted for at the election, or the charity to be given to the many applicants they had." " Their school and church meetings were at first held in the same building, but in 1843 an academy was opened, and " The Home Missionary [Magazine], October, 1830, pp. 117, 118. ^' Magoun, G. F., Asa Turner and His Times, p. 117. The subject of lay emigration has not been investigated, so far as the author knows. It seems quite probable that one would find a number of towns whose foundations were laid in this way. ^° See Mathews, L. K., Expansion of New England, for a number of these colonies which moved as organized churches. " Adams, E., The loiua Band, p. 192. Also Magoun, G. F., sup. cit., pp. 184, 185. " Hawkins, T., in the Iowa Historical Record, July, 1892, p. 329. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 13 already they dreamed of a college. Davenport secured a better location for the latter, and In 1 848 Iowa College, a Congregational outpost of higher education, was estab- lished there.^" From this transplanted New England colony sprang the great work of the Congregational Church in Iowa. In the spring of 1843 there was read to students of Andover Theological Seminary a letter from Deacon Houston of Denmark, urging that ministers be sent to the frontier. Then followed the formation of that group of Andover men known as " The Iowa Band," pledged to home mis- sionary work in Iowa Territory. Of the twelve who pledged themselves thus, nine were from New England, two from New York, and one from Illinois.^* Of the nine who actually went, seven were from New England, one from New York, and one from Illinois.^'* They met at Albany in October (1843), went by railroad to Buffalo, by steamboat to Chicago, and across Illinois in emigrant wagons loaded with supplies. At the Mississippi River they divided, one party striking across to Davenport, then to Burlington, and on to Denmark, the other proceeding directly to Burlington. From Denmark they went to the various small settlements which called them,^^ but through- out their lives tried tO' meet once a year to renew their friendship. Other Congregational missionaries preceded and fol- '° Walker, W., History of the Congregational Church in the U. S., p. 374- " This last was Rev. Edwin B. Turner. He came from Monticello, Illinois, a town settled largely by New Englanders, and had been edu- cated at Illinois College, itself a child of Yale College. '"' Their historian was of their number — ^Rev. Ephraim Adams, author of The loiaa hand (revised edition, 1902). Constant use has been made of it for the facts given in the text above. The last survivor of the band, Rev. William Salter, died only a few days ago (August, 1910). "" In the appendix of the revised edition (1902) of The lonua Band, there is a map of their churches. 14 L. K. Mathews lowed the " Iowa Band " : Rev. A. B. Hitchcock of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, who preached from 1841 to 1843 i" Davenport; Rev. Oliver Emerson, Jr., of Lynn- field, Massachusetts, but graduated at Waterville College in Maine, who went in 1841 to Iowa; Rev. Reuben Gay- lord of Norfolk, Connecticut, who preached in Iowa from 1844 until he went in 1855 as the first Congregational min- ister to Nebraska ; Rev. Julius A. Reed, of East Windsor, Connecticut, who conducted a private school in Natchez, Mississippi, from 1831 to 1833, and went to Iowa in 1844; and Rev. J. C. Holbrook of Brattleboro, Vermont, who settled in 1 845 in Dubuque.^^ It is no matter for wonder that in 1870 the Congregational churches in Iowa num- bered 189, with about 10,000 members, and 181 ministers. Twenty years later there were over 30,000 members in more than 300 churches.^* The large New England ele- ment in the state might account partially for these large numbers; but the far-reaching influence of the "Iowa Band," of other Congregational home missionaries, and of Iowa College cannot be emphasized too strongly. The idea of a Congregational college was, as has been shown, in the minds of the Denmark settlers; the school had be- gun in struggling fashion in 1848 in Davenport; but the first aid which set it on its feet came from the east in 1853, — a gift of $5,080, from Deacon P. W. Carter of Waterbury, Connecticut.^^ The Davenport site not proving a wise choice, the college was moved in 1859 to its present site, Grinnell. This town was itself of New England origin, planned by and named for Josiah B. Grin- nell, who was born in 1821 in New Haven, Vermont. Mr. Grinnell was forced to forego his plan for entering the ministry, and determined to devote his life to further- " See Magoun, G. F., Asa Turner and His Times, pp. 199-217. " Adams, E., The lotua Band, pp. 78, 100. "' Ibid., p. no. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 15 ing Christian interests as a layman might. Falling under the influence of Horace Greeley, he decided to go west, and advertised in both the New York Tribune and the New York Independent for " correspondence with parties desirous of educational facilities, and of temperance and Congregational affinities, who wished to settle on some Western railroad, or one projected." '" In an article in the Independent he put forth a plea for emigration in colonies. " Organized emigration," he said, " becomes a Christian duty, if a new home is sought." ^^ The town of Grinnell was settled in 1853, and six years later became the permanent home of Iowa (now Grinnell) College.^^ Meanwhile settlement was progressing not only in the eastern half of Iowa, but on the Missouri slope in the west. In 1 848 a colony from Oberlin, Ohio, led by Dea- con George A. Gaston, who had served his apprenticeship from 1840 to 1845 ^s a missionary of the American Board among some Missouri River Indians, settled in what be- came the town of Tabor.^^ Near this colony in 1849 settled a few Congregational families who had left Illinois to go to California. They made a camp and then a town on the banks of the Missouri opposite the mouth of the Big Platte River.^* Here they formed a church of ten members, a sister church to the one of eight members in Tabor. The Tabor colony desired also to found a col- lege, and as early as 1852 consecrated ground for that pur- pose. In 1858 another party, thirty-eight in number, '" Grinnell, J. B., Men and Events of Forty years, p. 87. "Ibid., p. 89. " Mr. Grinnell maintains in his memoirs that it was not a bona fide colony, since all the land entries were in his name, and he himself took the risks. But to all intents and purposes it was as real a Congregational colony as was Denmark. Mr. Grinnell himself speaks of it as a colony. See Men and Events of Forty Years, pp. 94, 109. '* Dunning, Congregationalisis in loisa, p. 376. " The settlement was called Civil Bend, but its post office now is Gas- ton. See Adams, E., The Iowa Band, pp. 146, 147. 1 6 L. K. Mathews came from Oberlin, and the same year the Tabor Literary Institute was incorporated, the germ of the later Tabor College. It was in Tabor that John Brown spent some time preparing for his work in Kansas ; and two members of the " Yale Dakota Band," missionaries to Dakota in 1 88 1, came from this little colony.'^ While Iowa was passing through the pioneer stage other fields were opening to missionaries. In Missouri the Pres- byterian Church had been more popular than the Congre- gational because of the uncompromising attitude of the lat- ter toward slavery. The larger part of the Missourians were southerners, but here and there were little groups of settlers whose New England birth made them adhere to the faith of their childhood. Nathan Trumbull and his wife from Monson, Massachusetts, Colonel Cyrus Russell and his wife, with their nine children, from Somers, Con- necticut, and Augustus Pease and his wife, neighbors of Colonel Russell in New England, — all these had made their way in 1837-8, when the Iron Mountain excitement was at its height, to Arcadia (now Ironton) in Missouri.^' In 1 84 1 these families formed a Congregational church; but there was not another in the state until Rev. Truman M. Post, " father of Missouri Congregationalism," gath- ered one together in 1852 in St. Louis.^^ Dr. Post was born in Middlebury, Vermont, was graduated at Middle- bury College, and also taught there. He then became a professor in Illinois College, and was pastor of the Con- gregational church in Jacksonville until 1847, when he went to St. Louis to become pastor of the Third Presby- terian church. He was determined, however, to form a '" Dunning, A. E., Congregationalists in America, pp. 376, 377. It is obvious that the paragraphs above are but the beginning of a study of New England in Iowa. " Punchard, G., History of Congregationalism, V., p. 153. " There were New England Congregationalists in Missouri long before this, but they aEEliated with the Presbyterians. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 17 Congregational church, and did so in 1 85 2. He continued as pastor of that church until his death, thirty-four years later. In 1859 he went to Hannibal, 150 miles away, to preach the sermon at the first service in the Congregational church there/^ But the growth of Congregationalism in Missouri was slow until after 1865. More than one reason might be assigned for the difficulty missionaries found in holding congregations together. In 1850 one missionary deplored the fact that " the churches had be- gun to feel the drain of emigration to Oregon and Cali- fornia." 3» During the same decades that part of Minnesota which bordered on the Mississippi Riyer was being taken up by settlers from the states near by, from New England, and from the Middle States. The Indians were still in pos- session of the largest part of the territory, as they were of the Dakotas and Montana. In 1835 ^^^ American Board sent missionaries to the Indians around Fort Snel- ling; but for the next fifteen years the Presbyterians held the field. By 185 1, however, enough Congregationalists had made homes in that region for the formation of a Congregational church, — to-day the " First Church " of Minneapolis. So rapidly did the denominational mission- aries make headway that the Congregational churches in Minnesota in 1858 numbered thirty. Rev. Richard Hall, who had gone to the territory in 1850, wrote seven years later that the population had grown greatly since his ar- rival, especially the New England element, which he con- sidered " unquestionably . . . destined to constitute the main staple of the population. ... It promises, indeed, to predominate here in a more marked and decisive manner " For references to Dr. Post's work see Magoun, G. F., Asa Turner and His Times, p. no; Walker, W., History of the Congregational Church in the United States, p. 377. "Hill, T., in Thirtieth Annual Report (1856) of the American Home Missionary Society, p. 77. i8 L. K. Mathews than in any Western state yet formed." He added that already the territory was called " the New England of the West."" In the decade between 1850 and i860 the population jumped from 6,000 to 172,000. The fact that there were as yet no railroads kept settlements close to the rivers ; — one can almost locate them by the spread of the Congregational missionary churches, of which in i860 there were forty-three. The largest ones were located in St. Anthony (now Minneapolis), Excelsior, Winona, Fari- bault, Northfield, Lake City, Spring Valley, Owatonna, Austin, Glencoe, Zumbrota, Wabasha and St. Paul.*^ From that decade dates the great strength of Congrega- tionalism in Minnesota, which became, with Iowa, its greatest stronghold in the western Mississippi Valley. In yet another quarter was the tide of emigration flow- ing after 1835, — into the little known country lying north of California. Interest in that section was aroused among New Englanders when Captain Robert Gray, of Tiverton, Rhode Island, sailing in command of a Boston ship, had in 1792 discovered the mouth of the Columbia River.*^ The expedition of Lewis and Clark had stimulated the interest already awakened ; but the remoteness of the Ore- gon country, the difficulty of making a way over the plains and mountains which lay between the settled area along the Mississippi River and that distant territory, together with the hostile attitude maintained by the fur-trading companies toward settlements, had effectually prevented emigration into the region. In 1835 the American Board sent out Dr. Marcus Whitman, a missionary physician, and Rev. Henry H. Spalding, with their wives. They arrived in Oregon in 1836, and were followed in 1838 by " Hall, R., in Annual Report (1857) of the American Home Missionary Society, pp. 84, 85. " Hadden, A., Congregationalism in Minnesota, p. li. *^ For Jefferson's early interest in this region see Sparks, J., Life of John Ledyard, p. 153 ff. (ed. of 1828). A^uiigreganonai unurcn West of the Mississippi 19 Rev. Gushing Eels, who formed at Oregon City in 1844 the first permanent Congregational church. Four years later a " General Association of Congregational Churches " in Oregon was formed, and in the same year Tualatin Academy was founded by the church missionaries. In 1853 the first institution for higher education in this sec- tion opened its classes — Pacific University at Forest Grove.** The attitude of the General Association toward the work it had to do is best illustrated by a resolution passed in 1866: " Resolved, That the idea and practice of our fathers, that edu- cation is the handmaid of religion, and that the school and college should go hand-in-hand with the church, should be a living, prac- tical idea with us in Oregon, while laying foundations here." " The Congregational missionaries had been working nearly a quarter of century — since Oregon had become unques- tionably a part of the United States — to make those New England ideas realities in their field. All parts of the country felt the drain upon their pop- ulation when, in 1848, gold was discovered in California. By all the old trails, — the Santa Fe, the Salt Lake, and even by the Oregon trail, as well as by water to the Isthmus or around the Horn, — emigrants poured into the territory so recently wrested from Mexico. The treaty of 1848 had given the overland approaches to the Pacific Coast entirely and without question into the hands of the United States, and the Mormon settlements in Utah, while not always friendly to emigrants, nevertheless afforded a half- way station that made the coast seem more accessible. But it needed an extraordinary reason to direct the tide of " Walker, W., History of the Congregational Church in the United States, p. 378. " Punchard, G., History of Congregationalism, V., pp. 403, 4C4, citing Minutes of the General Association . . . of Oregon, 1866, p. 7. 20 L. K. Mathews emigration strongly to California while good and cheap land was still plentiful in regions nearer the settled area to the east, and this reason the gold discoveries sup- plied. Even before the rush from the east had begun, Rev. Timothy D. Hunt, a Yale graduate, had reached San Francisco; but it was of the new arrivals that in 1849 he formed the first Congregational church in California. The same year the second church of the denomination was gathered in Sacramento. In 1850 Rev. Mr. Blakeslee, also a missionary, tried to interest people in the establish- ment of a Congregational college near San Jose; but the removal of the capital to Sacramento put an end tO' his plan for the moment." Rev. Tyler Thacher, a New Eng- land Congregationalist, reached California in the latter part of 185 1, and located at Marysville, intending to open a private school and also preach in the neighborhood. His school was not a success, but he continued to preach on Sundays and work on his ranch during the week.*° In 1853 seven home missionaries and their families came to San Francisco, among whom was Henry Durant of Byfield, Massachusetts, the seat of Dummer Academy. He began at once tO' work for an academy and a college, and was aided by both Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Contra Costa Academy was opened, with Mr. Durant as principal. It grew into the College of California, then be- came the state university, with Mr. Durant its first presi- dent.*' These were the foundation-stones of higher edu- cation in northern California; not for nearly forty years was Pomona College founded to represent the efforts of Congregationalism for higher education in southern Cali- fornia. When the " gold rush " to California began, there was " Punchard, G., History of Congregationalism, V., pp. 386, 387. *• Ibid., p. 379. " Ibid., pp. 383, 383. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 21 but little settlement beyond the Missouri River, save for a few towns (really only trading-posts) along its western bank. Within the next few years settlers straggled into what are now the states of Kansas and Nebraska, but they were mostly from Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In March, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill became a law, and at once work began on organized lines by both north- ern and southern sympathizers to gain these new territories for their own cause. During 1854-55 ten companies (about 1,500 persons in all) were sent out by the Massa- chusetts association alone. One of the largest went to Lawrence, Kansas, where, on September 23, 1854, Rev. Mr. Lum, a Congregational minister, preached the first sermon in the town, and the next month organized the first Congregational church in Kansas.*^ On March i, 1855, a colony was organized in Hampden County, Massa- chusetts, and started almost immediately for Kansas. They had intended to go tO' Lawrence, but changed their minds and founded a town called Hampden in the Neosho Val- ley, near the present town of Burlington. Their minister preached his first sermon April 29, 1855; but town and church had a precarious existence until 1865, when Burling- ton became the county seat, whereupon most of the Hamp- den colony moved there, and their first town died." Other towns had a different history; there were enough of them containing Congregational churches to form a General Association in 1855.°" The Maine Missionary Society put " Ibid., v., p. 346. Walker, W., History of the Congregational Church in the United States, p. 391. "Andreas, A. T., History of the State of Kansas, pp. 647, 663. °°The eight towns -whose churches formed the association were Osawa- tomie, Zeandale, Topeka, Council City (Burlingarae), Hampden, Lawrence, Manhattan, Kanwaka. See Punchard, sup. cit., V., p. 348. Some figures as to the birthplace of Kansans from New England are found in an article by Wilder, D. W., in Kansas Hist. Coll., IX., pp. 507, 508, note on p. 508. 22 L. K. Mathews forth an earnest plea in 1856 for extra funds to carry on church work in all parts of the country, but especially in Kansas. " Our Home Missionary work," says the re- port,^^ " may be regarded as embracing the whole land. In what part of it are not the sons and daughters of Maine to be found? The portion of its annual receipts which this Society shall deposit in the Treasury in New York, for the benefit of the mighty West, will go to the support of missionaries from Maine, in preaching the Gospel to hear- ers from Maine. In the Territory of Kansas there are emigrants from Maine . . . ready to do their part . . . on the side of order, law, and liberty." So imperative did the need for missionaries seem that four young men (two from New Hampshire and two from Michigan), stu- dents in Andover Theological Seminary, organized in 1856 a " Kansas Band," similar In purpose to the " Iowa Band " mentioned above. ^^ They, as well as other missionaries, preached to Congregational churches not made up exclu- sively of New Englanders ; but their most cordial welcome was in such towns as Manhattan; Hartford, named for Hartford in Connecticut by one of its founders, Harvey D. Rice; Burlington, named for Burlington, Vermont; and Lawrence, named for A. A. Lawrence of Boston.^' Man- "' "Trustees' Report," in Annual Report (No. 30) of the American Home Missionary Society, 1856, p. 61. "^ Clark, Leavening the Nation, p. 109. Two other significant steps were taken by the Congregational Church in 1852 and in 1854. In the former year a convention naet in Albany, N. Y., to which came 463 pastors and lay representatives from seventeen states, to consider the condition and needs of the church as a whole. Among other requests one was made for $50,000 to erect " meeting-houses " in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Il- linois, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. See Walker, W., sup. cit., pp. 382, 383. In 1854 a convention of lay and clerical delegates represent- ing the Congregational churches of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Iowa, met in Chicago and organized the Chicago Theolog- ical Seminary to train up ministers for service in those states and other portions of the west. See ibid., p. 389. °' For names of Kansas towns and their origin, see Calver, W. R., in Kansas Hist. Coll., VIL, pp. 476, 479, 480. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 23 hattan had a literary society, a circulating library, a weekly debating society, and an association for establishing a col- lege almost as soon as the town was settled. In 1859 the cornerstone of their " Blue Mont College " was laid; in 1863, when it was turned over to the state for an agri- cultural college, its first president was Joseph Denison, born in Bernardston, Massachusetts."* The first steps towards founding a college under the auspices of the General Association of Congregational Churches in Kansas were taken in 1857. But a year of drought, the disturbed conditions preceding the Civil War, followed by the five years of conflict, prevented further action until 1865, when Lincoln College opened its doors in Topeka. A gift of $25,000 from Deacon Ichabod Washburn of Worcester, Massachusetts, led in 1868 to a change in its name; and Washburn College has ever since been sup- ported especially by Congregationalists of Massachusetts and Connecticut.^" New England settlers began to leave for Nebraska in July and August, 1854. In 1855 Rev. Reuben Gaylord, who had been for seventeen years a home missionary in Iowa, went to Omaha to see what were the spiritual needs of that region. He preached on Sunday, and after the service was asked by a Mr. Richardson, a native of Ver- mont, who had been a lieutenant-governor in Michigan, to stay as pastor of a Congregational church if one could be formed. The following May Mr. Gaylord returned to Omaha and began his ministry with a church of eight mem- " Humphrey, J., in Kansas Hist. Coll., IV., p. 392; also see Walters, J. D., in ibid., VII., p. 169 and note. Isaac T. Goodnow, superintendent of public instruction in Kansas from 1863 to 1867, a native of Whitting- ham, Vermont, was one of the founders of Blue Mont College and of the State Agricultural College. See Columbian History of Education in Kansas (Topeka, 1893), p. 7- " Dunning, A. E., Congregationalists in America, p. 375. 24 L. K. Mathews bers — the first Congregational society in Nebraska/* Dur- ing the remaining months of the year he established four more, at Bellevue, Florence, Fort Calhoun, and Fontanelle. The Fontanelle church of twenty-four members was made up of colonists from Quincy, Illinois, who in platting their town the previous year had set oif a tract of one hun- dred acres for a college. As some of the leading mem- bers of the colony were Baptists, it was at first intended to represent that denomination ; but later the site was offered to the Congregationalists, who then founded " Nebraska University." At least three other towns wanted a college, but the American Home Missionary Society determined to encourage but one college for their denomination in Nebraska, and frowned down other plans. When the one college was moved to Crete in 1873, it became Doane Col- lege, as it is to-day." Although the Civil War checked the flow of emigration to the west, it did not stop it.^* The discovery of gold in the Bannack and neighboring regions in the early sixties drew settlers from Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia by way of the Missouri River and its upper tributaries, or through Utah, to make the first settlements in Montana and Idaho. The early capital of Montana was first named Varina, for the wife of Jefferson Davis, and then Virginia City. New England emigrants and pioneers from the middle west came in during the later years of the war, and " the ' cause,' while waning after Vicksburg and Get- " Punchard, sup. cit., V., p. 358. °' lUd., v., pp. 364, 365, 366. Later still Gates College had a precarious existence at Neligh, but has now become merely an academy. °° Nor did it quench missionary zeal even temporarily. In 1861 the trustees of the Maine Missionary Society reported to the American Home Missionary Society that they were interested in sending missionaries to " the sons of Maine on Puget Sound [who were] . . . calling upon min- isters from the East — their fatherland — to come over and help them." See Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the American Home Missionary So- ciety (1861), p. 65. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 25 tysburg, was still triumphant in the gulches of Montana." °" Though southern influence was strongest in Montana as in Idaho till many years later, a trace of New England in- fluence may here and there be found ; such as the naming of Billings, Montana, for Frederick Billings of Vermont, after he had given $10,000 to build the first church in the town. South of Montana, in Colorado, one finds a different history. There in 1863, at Central City, the first Congre- gational church within its borders was founded, with one deacon from Worcester and another from Cambridgeport in Massachusetts, while a third came from Norridgewock in Maine. The Denver church was organized in 1864, as was the one in Boulder; the one in Colorado^ Springs dates its history from 1874, with the founding also of Colorado College."" But emigration to the west during the Civil War, great as its volume was, was the exception, not the rule ; "^ and it was but natural that when the conflict ended there should come at once a tremendous outpouring of popula- tion into sparsely settled or entirely unoccupied lands. Foreign immigration took place at an unheard-of rate, and Germans and Scandinavians by hundreds of families made their way to the farming communities of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and even to Montana. The native-born Americans, who main- tained an Influence out of proportion to their numbers, "" Crooker, J. H., in the Neiu England Magazine, February, 1900, pp. 741, 742, 744. Also Clark, Lea'vening the Nation, p. 148. '" Clark, Leavening the Nation, pp. 156, 157. Also Dunning, Congrega- tionalists in America, p. 379. The town had been founded by General William J. Palmer and a colony in 1871. For General Palmer's ideas see Wray, H. R., " A Unique Western City," in the Pioneer Edition of the El Paso County [Colorado] Democrat, December, 1908. " For emigration and immigration during the Civil War, see Fite, E. D., Social and Industrial Conditions in the North During the Civil War, espe- cially chapters I. and II. 26 L. K. Mathews turned more easily to manufacturing, railroad-building, cattle-raising, and mining, leaving the foreigners to fill in the stratum of agricultural laborers, depleted as this class was by the drain of Americans into the more skilled in- dustries. Minnesota, whose population of 250,000 in 1865 grew to 400,000 in 1870, was a goal for both kinds of pioneers. It continued, however, to develop along the lines of New England tradition which had been in evidence before i860. New Congregational churches were established every year after 1863, and in 1866 the first movement was made toward founding a college. In 1867 a preparatory school was opened at Northfield, long a New England town and a stronghold of Congregational principles; in 1870-71 the college department was organized and named for William Carleton of Massachusetts, who gave it $50,000.°^ By 1880 there were 130 Congregational churches in the state; 80 new ones were planted during the next ten years; and in 1890, of the twenty-five cities in the state having a pop- ulation of 2,000 or over, all but five had Congregational chu,rches.*' The centers of Congregational influence — and they were all in their early days centers of New Eng- land influence — were Winona, with two churches of that denomination; Duluth, with three; St. Paul, with eight, and ten missions; and Minneapolis, with sixteen, and twelve missions.®* Turning again to Missouri, it was not until after 1864 that Congregationalism found much favor outside the im- mediate circle of Dr. Post's influence; yet by 1870 Han- nibal, which had had a Congregational church since 1859, " Hadden, A., Congregationalism in Minnesota, pp. ii, 12. "Ibid., p. la. These five were Albert Lea, Moorhead, Hastijigs, Red Wing, and St. Peter. " Ibid., p. 12. Dr. Hadden gives a valuable map showing the location of Congregational churches in 1890 in ibid., p. 17, with a key on pp. 14, IS, 16. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 27 had become a center of sixteen churches, all founded within six years.*= The founding of Drury College at Springfield in 1873 '^ 'was a sign of the increasing strength of the de- nomination. Iowa continued to be a stronghold of Congregational- ism, and of home missionary zeal. One of its workers wrote in 1872: " "We hope and pray that our churches may prove to be centers of such spiritual life and power, that we may merit the application which we now scarcely dare accept for ourselves — the Massachusetts of the West." As has been said, emigrants were making their way into the Dakotas, hitherto an Indian stronghold. The first settlers entered by the southeastern comer, and there made their homes. They were mostly from Maine, but were closely followed by families from Wisconsin, and afterward by those from all the New England states. Among the earliest arrivals was Rev. Joseph Ward, bom in Perry, New York, in 1838, of New England parentage."* He went to southeastern Dakota as a home missionary, or- ganized in 1868 a Congregational church at Yankton, and laid his plans at once for a college. When in 1881 " he saw his dream realized, he became the president of the new Yankton College, and for eight years had his hand " Punchard, sup. cit, V., p. 162. " Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 378. Besides its own academy, Drury College has maintained a close connection with three other academies in Arkansas and Missouri. " Pickett, J. W., in Forty-sixth Annual Report of the American Home Missionary Society (1872). " Clark, Leavening the Nation, p. 129. Dr. Clark says: "Perry was it- self a colony from the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. . . . His [Ward's] parents had emigrated from Massachusetts to the far west of central New York, at an early day ; . . ■ and their son turned his steps toward the newer West." Ibid. "A "Yale Dakota Band" went out in 1881, but I have not investigated its personnel or its work. 28 L. K. Mathews at its helm. It was to Dr. Ward and the New England element that much of the distinct character of southeastern Dakota was due. In northern Dakota the first Congrega- tional church was not established until 1881.'"' West of the crest of the Rocky Mountains there were in 1864 but twenty-six Congregational churches. In 1897 California had 184, Washington 106, and Oregon 51.^^ The Seattle church, first of the denomination in Washing- ton, was founded in 1870; the Reno church, first in Ne- vada, in 1 871; the Salt Lake City church, first in Utah, in 1874; while the pioneer churches in Arizona at Prescott and in New Mexico at Albuquerque were founded in 1880.''^ In 1882 aid was asked for the Albuquerque church, which was reported also as being without a pastor.^' Montana and Idaho had no Congregational churches until 1882; and Wyoming had but one — in Cheyenne — from 1869 until 1884." In 1890 a group of young-men just graduated from Yale Divinity School formed a " Yale Washington Band," like the Iowa, the Kansas, and sim- ilar groups of missionaries. One of their number. Rev. S. B. L. Penrose, became later the president of Whit- man College.'^'' The antipathy of the south toward the Congregational church has been mentioned. In all the southern states there were in 1866 but twelve churches of that denomina- tion. In 1894 there were 441, of which 130 were mainly negro.''* The work among the freedmen was of course '° It was in Fargo, on the Minnesota border. See Walker, W., sup. cit., P- 391- " Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 407. " Walker, W., sup. cit., p. 391. '° Second Annual Report of the Neia West Education Commission, May, 1882, p. 22. '* Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 407. '" Clark, Leavening the Nation, pp. 209, 210. " Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 408. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 29 very great, as has been also that among the " mountain whites " ; but many of these 311 churches have on their roll of members many New Englanders who have moved into the south since 1865, because of the great business op- portunities which an industrially reconstructed South have opened. With the building of railroads and telegraph lines, with the growth of factories nearer the fields of cot- ton production, with the greatly diversified industrial life of the cities, the old lines of migration have ceased to draw New Englanders exclusively Into the north and northwest, but have made possible a crossing and re-crossing of the lines of both northern and southern settlement. The greater wealth of individual families, moreover, has pro- duced the " winter colonies " in Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, and it is to this ele- ment — ^people who go to the South for but a portion of the year — that many Congregational churches as well as those of other creeds look for their support. The same condi- tion is found in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, as we shall see in a brief survey of the educational work done in the last fifty years by the Congregational Church and its societies. Besides giving their support to public schools in the towns they have helped to build, New England Congrega- tionalists have, especially since their " denominational awakening" about 1822, taken keen interest in sectarian education. The foundations were often laid, as has been shown, by the establishment of an academy. Typical cases are two schools in Utah and New Mexico." In the winter of 1877-78 President Edward P. Tenney and Rev. Charles R. Bliss of Colorado College, met in the Congre- " The account which follows is taken from a manuscript entitled, " A Fragment of History," by Rev. Charles R. Bliss, in the Congregational Library, Congregational House, Boston, under Nein West Education Com- mission Papers. 30 L. K. Mathews gational House in Boston, and there laid plans for estab- lishing during the following summer two academies. These were to be situated at Salt Lake City and at Santa Fe, for the following objects: — " Primarily to benefit the people of those territories, and secondarily to build up feeders to Colorado College." The type of each school was that " of the old New England academy." Colorado College sent a principal to each city, and in September, 1878, the schools were opened. In 1879 another of the same group was opened in Albuquerque, in 1 8 8 1 another in Trinidad, and a few years later a fifth in Las Vegas. At the same time there was a preparatory school in Col- orado Springs, as a department of Colorado College. In Iowa as late as 1883 the demand for such schools was set forth in the following words : " One academy, like the New England grammar school, in every county is a growing necessity. For example, Denmark Academy, in Lee County, has promoted the higher education of more per- sons than all the colleges in Iowa." '* But throughout the country west of the Mississippi River the prevailing sys- tem of education, beginning with the elementary school, continuing in the free high school, and ending in the state university, all supported by general taxation and under state or local control, has led to a partial abandoning of the academy idea. The policy in recent years has been to disband the sectarian preparatory schools as soon as public high schools became competent to do the work, excepting where the academy was needed as a " feeder " for the denominational college." The large funds at the disposal of the state universities, moreover, have often put " Howe, S. S., Annals of loiua, April, 1883, p. 55. " For instance, the academies at Albuquerque and Las Vegas were dis- banded in 1896. The Presbyterians have often had an academy in the same town, doing the same work; and the unnecessary expense entailed upon the educational societies of the Congregational Church has also been a potent factor in closing the academies. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 31 the denominational college at a great disadvantage in the matter of equipment, and funds have been put at the dis- posal of the colleges that would formerly have been used for academies. The Congregational colleges throughout the west have been almost without exception missionary enterprises at the beginning, and many have continued to be dependent upon the gifts of eastern Congregationalists. A list of these colleges, with the dates of their founding, is significant not only of the history of the denomination, but also of the story of advancing population.*" DATE OF LOCATION ESTABLISH- MENT Iowa (now Grinnell) College. .Grinnell, Iowa 1859 Washburn College Topeka, Kansas 1865 Carleton College Northfield, Minnesota 1867 Doane College "' Crete, Nebraska 1873 Drury College Springfield, Missouri 1873 Colorado College Colorado Springs, Colorado. 1874 Yankton College Yankton, South Dakota. ... 188 1 Gates College '" Neligh, Nebraska. 1881 Whitman College Walla Walla, Washington— 1883 Rollins College Winter Park, Florida 1885 Fargo College. . . ; Fargo, North Dakota 1887 Redfield College Redfield, South Dakota 1888 Pomona College Claremont, California 1889 Lake Charles College" Lake Charles, Louisiana 1890 Northland College Ashland, Wisconsin 1906 "The list is taken from Walker, W., History of the Congregational Church in the United States, p. 391, and Dunning, Congregationalists in America, pp. 378-39I' " Named for Col. Thomas Doane, of Charlestown, Mass., a member of the same church as Wm. Carleton, for whom Carleton College was named. " Now only an academy. " Given up in 1901 or 1902. The only woman's college beyond the Mississippi is Mills College, near Oakland, California, founded by Dr. Mills and his wife, the latter a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary. 32 L. K. Mathews As the denominational college has come to be for both men and women a training-school in Christian citizenship, and as the requirements for entrance to the ministry have become higher, the theological seminary or " divinity school " has become differentiated from the college, and is sometimes a separate institution. Of these schools but one lies beyond the Mississippi River — ^the Pacific Theological Seminary, opened in 1869 in Oakland, Cali- fornia. Never a large institution, it has, however, been an important factor in setting and maintaining on the Pacific Coast a high standard of preaching, of ministerial work, and of missionary enterprise. Some tentative conclusions appear from the brief study given above: 1. The Congregational Church has sometimes accom- panied, sometimes followed settlement ; it has almost never preceded it. It has made its way most quickly and easily in communities where there have been found together the four most typical New England institutions, — the church, the preparatory school (public or private) , the college, and the town-meeting. All four are, as was said at the begin- ning of this study, part of one political, social, and rehgious system. Therefore the Congregational Church has be- come most influential where there has settled the greatest number of persons with New England background. 2. The peculiarity in the organization of the Congrega- tional Church — the absolute independence of each group of members — has made it difficult for the denomination to maintain itself except in churches of some size. This ac- counts for the colony idea, the necessity for " lay emigra- Dr. and Mrs. Mills had been missionaries in the Hawaiian Islands, and returned to the United States after many years' service to " do for the far West what Mount Holyoke Seminary does for the East." (See Dunning, sup. cit., p. 385). Mills Seminary, now Mills College, has always had Congregational affiliations. Congregational Church West of the Mississippi 33 tion," which would result in transplanting a group of fam- ilies with their minister at their head. In farming com- munities or in small towns the Presbyterians gained ground, and finally in some parts of the country supplanted the Congregationalists entirely. The rise of the Congrega- tional missionary societies was in large part due to a gen- eral desire to prevent Presbyterianism from growing, and at the same time to help small and isolated churches. 3. The conservatism of the Church has made it cling to its original ideas — especially to the belief in the religious education of young men and young women, and to the in- herent democracy of its organization and practice. Hence the necessity for the denominational college and the de- nominational preparatory school, both to be planted in the midst of Congregational communities, 4. With all its conservatism, the ideals of the Congrega- tional Church are shifting with the changing ideals of our country. For ten years the American people have been growing more sensitive to the presence in their midst of social, political, and industrial wrongs, and they have be- come more and more determined to right those wrongs. The Church has felt this moral awakening, and In response to it has broadened its creeds. Increased Its work on the philanthropic and humanitarian sides, and sought to " democratize " its membership by sweeping all classes into its fold. The denominational college has broadened its scope as a part of the same movement. 5. The history of the Congregational Church is bound up inseparably with the history of the whole country, and cannot be studied apart from the large movements which have affected the United States from ocean to ocean. Any impetus to emigration Into the west has carried New Englanders and the Congregational Church with it; any check to the movement towards the frontier has held them both back. Small groups set here and there as they have 34 L. K. Mathews been in the past and are to-day, they are, nevertheless. In- tegral parts of the large group, the American people, and they can only be understood when they are studied in their relations to that larger group. Lois Kimball Mathews. OREGON PIONEERS AND AMERICAN DIPLOMACY The settlement of diplomatic questions, if such a settle-, ment is to be permanent and satisfactory, must be upon the basis of facts whose logic cannot be denied by the nations most interested. It is upon these facts that national con- victions ultimately depend irrespective of whether or not they influence or dominate the course and conclusion of the diplomatic negotiations over boundary disputes. In the formation of public opinion on the merits of such ter- ritorial controversies, possession is not only nine points of the law — it is the law. It is then a happy conjunction when the negotiations are between the diplomats of gov- ernments which are quickly and fully responsive to public opinion. The natural opportunism of diplomacy is made to square with the facts in the case, and the results of treaties are consequently more likely to make for peace and a permanent solution. Some of the principles just stated are exceptionally well illustrated in the history of the negotiations between the United States and England over the question of the Ore- gon boundary. The issue in that instance, first formally raised in 1815, was discussed by representatives of the two powers in the years 18 18, 1824, 1826, and again in 1842, always without success beyond the bare adoption of a mode for postponing safely its final determination. This failure is not chargeable to incompetency or dereliction on the part of the negotiators on either side, but simply to the state of facts as regards the relations of the parties to each other and to the territory in question. 35 36 J. Schafer In 1818 the Oregon boundary question was associated with that of the boundary from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. The United States was especially concerned about the latter question, while Great Britain was very willing to leave the former open for subsequent discussion/ Each party had its views as to what would be a satisfactory boundary from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and these views failed to coincide, but neither party was ready toi insist on a final partition at the time, and doubtless each hoped to reap some advantage from de- lay. The opportune moment had not arrived. Similarly, on the later occasions, 1824, 1826, and 1842, the negotia- tions ostensibly begun in the expectation that the pending dispute might be terminated, were in each case hopeless from their inception because it was well understood that neither party was ready to yield anything toward closing the gap between their rival claims. Discussion, under the circumstances, was little more than a pompous mode of marking time. George Canning, in 1824, had laid down the principles which would govern England in the case, definitely an- nouncing that no boundary other than the Columbia River could be accepted.^ To this policy the British govern- ' See report of British Negotiators, Board of Trade, October ao, 1818, to viscount Castlereagh, in Public Record Office, F. O. America, No. 138, " it appeared to us impossible, at the present moment, permanently to define any boundary in that quarter [west of the Rocky Mountains]. Un- der these circumstances we thought it most advisable to accede to an article which will appear in the inclosed protocol in the hope that by thus leaving the country in question open to the trade of both nations for a limited period we substantially secured to Great Britain every present advantage which could have flowed from its actual possession ; and the arrangement appeared also to us to remove all prospect of immediate collision without precluding any further discussion for a definitive settle- ment. " F. O. America, No. igi. Canning to the British plenipotentiaries May 31, 1824. Their proposal was to extend the boundary by the forty- Oregon Pioneers 37 ment adhered with a doggedness sufficiently characteristic, until the final stage of the negotiations of the period 1842 to 1846, when, with seeming inconsistency, they agreed to accept with slight modifications the offer our gov- ernment had made as early as 18 18, namely, to run the boundary along the forty-ninth parallel to the sea. The year 1 846 was therefore apparently the opportune time for effecting the boundary settlement, and it would be possible to explain pretty fully, on the basis of circumstances as they operated on the one nation and on the other, why this was true. In the present paper, however, we shall content our- selves with an effort to trace with some detail the influence upon the negotiations of one noteworthy fact — the for- ward movement of American pioneer farmers into the Oregon territory during the period of debate over the boundary. But a preliminary word is required upon the allied topic of the influence of the Oregon fur-trade in determining the earlier attitude of the respective claimants to the ques- tion of delimiting the territory. The region of country watered by the Columbia and its far-spreading tributaries remained during a full third of the nineteenth century a fur-traders' preserve. The magnificent enterprise of John Jacob Astor in the years 18 10 to 18 14, by which it was hoped to bring it definitely under American control, was brought to a disastrous ending through the stress of war, and so the British Northwest Company, from Canada, was left from the latter date in almost undisturbed possession of the trade from Alaska to California. At the periods of the earlier negotiations these British interests dominated the region.^ Canning, in 1824, called attention to that ninth parallel from the Rockies to the northeasternmost branch of the Columbia, thence down that river to the sea. • See a forthcoming article by the writer to appear in the American His- torical Rewew for January, 19", under the title, "The British Attitude Toward the Oregon Question, 1815 to 1846." 38 J. Schafer fact as " a circumstance of no small moment." * There is evidence to show that in their original assertion of na- tional rights over the Columbia region in 1815 to 18 17, the British government acted in response to stimuli applied by the Northwest Company," and the statement of Can- ning quoted above testifies to the interest the government manifested in the fur company's occupation of the territory as late as 1824/ It was in part to guard the privilege of that company's trade, by way of the Columbia, with the interior, that Canning was so insistent on holding the Co- lumbia as the boundary from the point at which the forty- ninth parallel crosses the river to its mouth/ When we discover, as we do, that the same argument for that boundary was reiterated at each successive negotiation, and that even in the final treaty of June, 1846, — though the more northerly boundary was conceded by Britain, — the right of her subjects trading in the country to navigate the river throughout its course was insisted on, we begin to understand how significant to that government was the fact that their subjects were actually in the territory, and were making a commercial use of it/ 'Letter of May 31, 1824. F. O. America, No. IQI. ' See letter of Simon M'Gillivray, a chief partner of the Northwest Company, to Mr. Bagot, British minister at V7ashington, dated New York, November 15, 1817, together with its enclosure. jF. O. America, No. 123. M'Gillivray affirms that it was his company that induced the government to send a warship to the Columbia during the war in order to oust the Astor party, the Northwest Company being prepared at that time to engage in the trade of the Oregon country. ° It was now the Hudson's Bay Company in fact, although Canning in- advertently calls them the " Associated Merchants," a name signifying the Northwest Company. ' See his instructions. May 31, 1824, to the British plenipotentiaries. F. O. America, No. 191. ° In 1826 the British negotiators were governed by Canning's instruc- tions of 1824. In 1842 Lord Ashburton, on opening the negotiation at Washington, promptly informed Mr. Webster that he " could make no ar- rangement in the matter which did not give us the joint use of the northern Oregon Pioneers 39 The American government, no less than the British, was spurred to activity by the fur-trading interest. ' It was probably Astor's representations that put the government on Its guard against the possible loss of Astoria at the peace of i8i4,» and it was the inHuence of the Astor partners, in a measure at least, that incited John Floyd of Virginia to inaugurate the congressional agitation for taking pos- session of the Columbia and for creating in that region an Oregon Territory, an agitation which was fundamental in the history of American expansion to the Pacific." And when the Astor influence subsided, there were not wanting other American trading interests to make their desires relative to Oregon known at the nation's capital." The beginnings of the pioneer movement Into the Ore- gon country need not be discussed here, but they are well known to fall within the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. Following closely in the footsteps of the mis- branch of the Columbia River." Ashburton to Aberdeen, April 25, 1842. F. O. America, No. sjg. Aberdeen himself often expressed these views. * See Astor to Jefferson, October 18, 1813, in MSS. Jefferson Papers, in Washington. Also Gallatin, Writings, II., p. 505. Monroe, as Secretary of State, first called official attention to Astoria in a dispatch to the American peace commissioners March 23, 1814. Am. State Papers, F. R., III., p. 731. " Floyd made a report to the House of Representatives, January 25, 1821, of which Professor E. G. Bourne wrote: "This pioneer report, urging the occupation of the Pacific Northwest, in its expression and embodiment of the ideas and impulses that were to shape the progress of events, bears the same relation to Oregon that Richard Hakluyt's famous Dis- course on Western Planting bears to the foundation of the English col- onies in America" (Qtly. Ore. Hist. Soc, VI., p. 263). The report is re- printed in the Quarterly, VIII., 51 ff. ^' See letter of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette to the secretary of war, dated at St. Louis, October 29, 1830. These men, representing the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, demanded the abrogation of the treaty of joint- occupation of i8i8 respecting Oregon, and the opening of the region to the American traders. The letter is reprinted in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, V., pp. 395-398. See also the Journals and Let- ters of Nathanael J. Wyeth, published by the Oregon Historical Society. 40 J. Schafer sionary enterprise directed toward the Indians of the region the movement quickly assumed an independent character, and by the year 1 843 had gained considerable momentum.^* Coming thus late in the history of the negotiation, we would expect to discern its influence in a marked form only in the final stage of the controversy. Therefore, despite oft-repeated American prophecies of such an event,^' it is not surprising to find the British government for the first time taking account of the possibility of an American pioneer occupation of the Oregon country during the nego- tiation of 1843. Lord Ashburton, writing from Wash- ington to Lord Aberdeen after the opening of that negotia- tion, expressed his conviction that the Americans were chiefly interested in securing a good harbor on the Pacific, not in acquiring the country for purposes of settlement. " At present," said he, " they have few if any settlers there, and as they have located the great body of Indian tribes which they have forced back from the countries east of the Mississippi, on the headwaters of the Missouri towards the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, It will not be easy for their western settlements to spread in the usual manner In that direction for many years to come." " Had Lord Ashburton been aware that at the very mo- ment of writing the above prediction, a company of more than one hundred emigrants was setting out from the Mis- souri frontier for Oregon, he would perhaps have modi- fied this opinion. The Indians In fact offered no serious obstacle to the movement of Americans from the more settled districts to the western slope ; and though the lands " See Schafer, Joseph, A History of the Pacific Northwest, Chapters X., XI., and XII. " See Floyd's report, iSzi, sup. cit., note 12. J. Q. Adams, instructing Richard Rush in 1823 about a proposal for an Oregon treaty with Britain, spoke of the high probability that the United States would one day plant a colony in Oregon. Am. State Papers, F. R., V., p. 792. '* Ashburton to Aberdeen, April 25, 1842. F. O. America, No. 37Q. Oregon Pioneers 41 they roamed over were almost inconceivably extensive, yet a trail was soon worn across its entire breadth — spite of the enormous physical difficulties the country presented — over which wagons bearing pioneer families could readily pass from the lower Missouri to the lower Columbia." The " Oregon fever," as it was called in the west, was beginning to rage along the border," and each successive year was destined to witness an augmentation of the parties assembling for the all-summer journey to the Pacific. However, it is hardly to be wondered at that Ashbur- ton was unacquainted with the conditions producing the movement toward Oregon from the western border of the United States. In truth, the resident British ministers of this period, Mr. H. S. Fox and Mr. Richard Pakenham, who might be expected to have more complete information than a special envoy remaining but for a few busy weeks, never became fully aware of what the spring emigrations to the far west really meant, and Pakenham insisted al- most to the last on minimizing their importance.^' For- ^° The emigration of 1842 started with -wagons, which at Fort Hall were exchanged for pack animals. But the great emigration of 1843, nearly 1000 persons, opened a road all the way to the Columbia. "A gentleman writing from Iowa Territory, March 4, 1843, says: " Just now Oregon is the pioneer's land of promise. Hundreds are al- ready prepared to start thither with the spring, while hundreds of others are anxiously awaiting the action of Congress in reference to that coun- try, as a signal for their departure. Some have already been to view the country and have returned with a flattering tale of the inducements it holds out. They have painted it to their neighbors in the brightest colors ; these have told it to others ; the Oregon fever has broken out, and is now raging like any other contagion." In National Intelligencer, April 18, 1843. " Pakenham to Aberdeen, September 28, 1844. F. O. America, No. 408, suggesting a further term of joint-occupation, says: "For, let the Amer- icans say what they like, it is impossible that emigration can take place on a large scale from the United States to the Oregon Territory, until the population in the Western states becomes far more densely packed than it is at present, and in the meantime I think that our position in that part of the world would be at least as comfortable as it is at present." 42 J. Schafer tunately for both parties, the British government was able to secure from the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company from their own military and naval officers data which en- abled them to estimate the real significance of the pioneer movement as a local factor in determining the destiny of the Oregon country. In November, 1841, Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories in America, vis- ited the Columbia and the Willamette — as well as the Puget Sound country, California, Hawaii, and Alaska — and wrote to the London office a detailed description of conditions there at that time.^* Simpson found in the Wil- lamette Valley a flourishing community of French and American settlers, the latter, under the leadership of the Methodist Mission," giving direction to affairs. British subjects, were as yet the more numerous party, but the American section of the community showed a " strong feel- ing of nationality," and they were already threatening trade rivalry and entering upon a struggle with the Com- pany for the possession of the valuable water privilege at Willamette Falls.^" We do not know the precise time at which the govern- ment was put in possession of Sittipson's information,^^ but Sir Robert Peel, the premier, may have been aware of the conditions he described as early as July, 1842. At all " See Letters of Sir George Simpson, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV., pp. 73-79; also p. 86 ff. '■" The Methodists established the first of the Oregon missions in the Willamette Valley in 1834, the leader being Rev. Jason Lee. By the time of Simpson's visit these missions had developed into a virtual colony. " See Am. Hist. Rev., XIV., p. 80; also p. 83. °' His semi-official dispatch dated Woahoo, March 10, 1842, was deliv- ered to Lord Aberdeen by Sir John H. Pelley, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, in person prior to the 27th of August, 1842. Doubtless the substance of Simpson's other letters was communicated orally at the same time. See Pelley to Aberdeen, January 23, 1843. Am. Hist. Rev., XIV., p. 71. Oregon Pioneers 43 events, Edward Everett, the American minister at Lon- don, writing to Mr. Webster on the first day of August, reported a conversation recently held with Peel in regard to the progress of the Ashburton-Webster negotiations, in the course of which Peel remarked " he was sorry to perceive that there was little prospect of agreeing as to the boundary west of the Rocky Mountains; — but that now was the time to adjust it, before the settlement of the country increased the difficulty of an arrangement." " We know that Simpson's letters were all fully before the cab- inet by January, 1843, and that Simpson sought personal interviews with leading British statesmen at the same time.^" It is, therefore, certain that when the British government offered to reopen the discussion of the Oregon question after the conclusion of the treaty of Washington^* they did so with some knowledge of the local situation on the Columbia. This knowledge doubtless contributed to pro- duce the keen appreciation which they showed of the various movements in Congress for stimulating emigra- tion into Oregon and for erecting an American territory there."'* "^ No. 19. Everett to Webster, August i, 1842. By the Britannia, August 4, 1842. Copied from Archives of the Am. Embassy, London, Vol. VII. This may possibly have been merely a reflection of the difficulties encountered in connection with the northeastern boundary on account of the settlement of the country by British and Americans. '"Letters of Sir George Simpson, Am. Hist. Re'v.,'XlV., pp. 71-73. Pelley writes Aberdeen January 23, 1843, inclosing significant extracts from all of Simpson's letters. He says Sir George is in London, and he asks that he (Pelley), accompanied by Simpson, may be granted an interview with Aberdeen. '* See Aberdeen to Fox, October r8, 1842, instructing him to propose to the United States to reopen the Oregon negotiation, and his letter to Fox of August 18, 1843, again instructing him to prepare to reopen the question. Correspondence relative to the Oregon Territory (London, 1846), pp. 3, 5. '" When the Linn bill for those purposes was introduced in the United States Senate, early in the year 1843, Lord Aberdeen wrote to Mr. Fox in- 44 J. Schafer In the negotiation which was opened in Washington be- tween Mr. Calhoun, secretary of state, and Mr. Richard Pakenham — afterward Sir Richard — in August, 1 844, the subject of the emigration of pioneers into Oregon was brought forward publicly by way of enforcing the Amer- ican argument. Calhoun had expressed the view while a senator in Congress during the discussion of the Linn bill, January 24, 1843, that the Oregon question, if left to it- self, would be settled by the process of emigration into that country. " Time," said Mr. Calhoun on that occasion, " is acting for us ; and, if we shall have the wisdom to trust its operation, it will assert and maintain our right with resistless force, without costing a cent of money or a drop of blood. There is often, in the affairs of government, more efficiency and wisdom In non-action, than in action. All we want to effect our object In this case is ' a wise and masterly inactivity.' Our population is rolling towards the shores of the Pacific, with an Impetus greater than what we realize. ... It will soon — far sooner than anticipated — reach the Rocky Mountains, and be ready to pour Into the Oregon Territory, when it will come into our possession without resistance, or struggle; or If there should be re- sistance. It would be Ineffectual. We would then be as much stronger there, comparatively, than Great Britain, as she is now stronger than we are; and it would then be as idle in her to attempt to assert and maintain her ex- structing him to protest against its enactment into law. The idea was to dissuade the president from signing it, should Congress send it up to him. Aberdeen to Fox, February 3, 1843. F. O. America, No. sgo. When Fox asked Webster whether Tyler could be relied upon to veto the bill, Webster replied: "What the President will do or will not do, in any given case, no one can venture to guess, for he is a man whose conduct is determined by no intelligible motive or principle." Aberdeen wrote to Pakenham October 7, 1843, saying the Oregon ques- tion " is growing daily in importance and demands the attention of the governments of both countries." Lord Aberdeen MSS., at the Red House, Ascot, in care of Lord Stanmore. Oregon Pioneers 45 elusive claim to the territory against us, as It would now be in us to attempt it against her.='* These opinions of the South Carolina senator became significant when, a little more than a year later, he was appointed by Mr. Tyler secretary of state to succeed Mr. Upshur, and Mr, Pakenham was careful to make his gov- ernment aware of them." When the negotiation opened after many delays, the informal discussion soon developed that Mr. Calhoun was disposed to emphasize strongly the fact that population was already pushing into Oregon from the American frontier. Just before Calhoun presented his formal statement respecting the American claims, Paken- ham wrote to Aberdeen: " My idea is that in the paper which he is about to produce, great stress will be laid on the fresh interest which' the United States have acquired in the question by the introduction of an American pop- ulation into the disputed Territory. . . . This circum- stance he will, I dare say, appeal to as strengthening the American claim on the ground of contiguity.^* The state- ment, when it came, did not in any way disappoint these ex- pectations, for in it Calhoun, wrote: "Our well-founded claim, grounded on contiguity, has greatly strengthened during the same period [since 18 18] by the rapid advance of our population towards the territory: its great increase " Cong. Globe, 1st Sess., 27th Cong., XII., p. 139. " See Pakenham to Aberdeen, June 27, 1844. F. O. America, No. 406. He incloses a copy of Calhoun's speeches, refers to that on the Linn bill, and summarizes Calhoun's argument in favor of leaving the settlement of the Oregon question "to time.'' Calhoun, he says, has often repeated to him (Pakenham) in conversation the same argument. '° No. 17. Pakenham to Aberdeen, August 29, 1844. F. O. America, No. 407. This letter, dovrn to the paragraph here partly quoted, is printed in Correspondence Relating to the Oregon Territory, p. 11. The printed portion concludes: "It nov? remains to be seen what new arguments he is prepared to bring forward, either to give strength to the claim of this country, as originally presented, or to invalidate that of Great Britain." 46 J. Schafer especially in the Valley of the Mississippi, as well as the greatly increased facility of passing to the territory by more accessible routes; and the far stronger and rapidly swelling tide of population that has recently commenced flowing into it, — an emigration estimated at not less than i,ooo during the past, and 1,500 during the present year, has flowed into it. . . . There can be no doubt, now, that the operation of the same causes which impelled our pop- ulation westward from the shores of the Atlantic across the Alleghany to the Valley of the Mississippi will impel them onward with accumulating force across the Rocky Moun- tains into the Valley of the Columbia, and that the whole region drained by it is destined to be peopled by us.^' We see, therefore, that at this point the pioneer move- ment into Oregon gave a decided turn to the negotia- tion, introducing what Calhoun regarded as a vital new argument for the American claim. And, while it is true that the British negotiator^ as in duty bound, contested Calhoun's argument, insisting that emigration of Amer- icans into Oregon after the adoption of the joint-occupa- tion agreement could not afi^ect the question of their ter- ritorial right,^" yet emigration was precisely one of those facts which have a practical effect irrespective of laws or of treaties. On the one hand it made it impossible that any material concession as to the boundary should come from the American government, and, on the other, it would tend to convince Great Britain of the importance of a prompt settlement of the dispute. The effect upon the American government is sufllciently revealed by the attitude of Calhoun just cited, the declara- tion of a similar faith by President Tyler,^^ and the threat- " Inclosure in Pakenham's No. 17, Correspondence Relati've to Oregon Territory, pp. 13-19, especially pages 18 and 19. °° No. 17. Pakenham's statement of the British case. Ibid., p. 20. " See his letter to Calhoun, October 7, 1845, where he says he "re- Oregon Pioneers 47 ened advance to more aggressive positions on the part of President Polk after an election which turned in some measure on the question of our title to " the whole of Ore- gon " — a title boisterously asserted in many western com- munities where the Oregon country was coming to be re- garded as a " land of promise " by the pioneering class." Pakenham saw very clearly that the government of the United States could never be induced to accept a boundary less favorable than the forty-ninth parallel extended west- ward to the Pacific, except as to the slight modification at the western end, and this view he impressed upon his gov- ernment by frequent repetitions."^ He noted, meantime, the proposals of the American government to facilitate emigration into Oregon,^* and finally was under the neces- sity of reporting that the House of Representatives had passed, by a vote of 140 to 59, the Atchison bill, " For Or- ganizing a territorial government in the Oregon Terri- tory, and for other purposes," which he thought had as its " undisguised object and purport — to subject the Terri- tory in question completely and exclusively to the jurisdic- tion of the United States." ^^ opened the Oregon negotiation, not because he -wished to do so — for he preferred to permit emigration to settle the question — but because both Great Britain and the American west insisted on it. Correspondence of John C. Calhoun. Am. Hist. Ass'n Rept., 1899, II., p. 1059. " The declaration concerning " the re-occupation of Oregon " in the Democratic platform of 1844 is traceable to the resolutions of an Oregon convention held at Cincinnati in July, 1843, and attended by delegates from most of the states and territories of the Mississippi Valley. The purpose of the convention was to make the government aware of western feeling relative to Oregon. See account of the convention in the Ohio Statesman, the numbers for July, 1843. " See his No. 99, August 29, 1844, F. O. America, No. 4.0^, No. 106, and September 28, 1844, ibid., No. 408, in which he says, "I am afraid there is no chance whatever of inducing him [Calhoun] or any other American negotiator to accept the line of the Columbia River as a frontier." Also his No. 140 of December 29, 1844, ibid., No. 409, and other dispatches. "* See his No. 134, F. O. America, No. 409. " See his No. 140, December 29, 1844, ibid., and his dispatch of February 48 J. Schafer The relentless attitude of the western members of Con- gress was well known to the British cabinet early in the year 1845/' ^nd produced a feeling of uneasiness which was not disguised in their intimate private communica- tions. On the twenty-third of February, Sir Robert Peel requested Lord Aberdeen to prepare a circular memoran- dum on American relations, especially the Oregon question, for the benefit of the cabinet. In the course of this letter on the subject Peel said: " You [Lord A.] seem confident that we have the upper hand on the Columbia — that the settlers connected with the Hudson's Bay Company are actually stronger than the settlers, the subjects of the United States, are at present. Have you carefully ascer- tained this fact? If our subjects are the stronger at this present time, may not their superiority be speedily weak- ened or destroyed by the accession of fresh strength to the Americans? " ^^ In the same letter Peel suggested the ad- visability of sending a frigate to the Columbia and estab- lishing a small garrison in that region, a proceeding which looked quite as warlike as anything the Americans were proposing in Congress, but which he, of course, could justify as defensive in case the Atchison bill should become law. The immediate effect of Peel's letter to Aberdeen was to set on foot an investigation into contemporary con- ditions in Oregon. Aberdeen appealed to Governor Pel- ley of the Hudson's Bay Company, and received the latest information respecting the Oregon settlements in the form of an excerpt from Simpson's report to the Company dated from Red River in the month of June preceding. Simp- 4, 1845, ibid., No. 424. (referring to his No. 9), in which he gives the vote on the Atchison bill and some account of the amendments to it. " An outline of the Atchison bill as originally presented to the House was sent home by Pakenham, December 29, 1844. The bill as passed February 3, 1845, embodied several amendments calculated to render it less obnoxious to Great Britain. " From private papers of Lord Aberdeen. Oregon Pioneers 49 son notices the large influx of American settlers in 1843, speaks of the progress of a movement for a provisional government among them, and concludes : " American in- fluence, I am sorry to find, predominates very much, as, out of a population of about 3,000 souls, not more than one- third are British subjects." ^' Though the Senate did not finally accept the Atchison bill, President Polk's inaugural declaration that he re- garded the American claim to the whole of Oregon as " clear and unquestionable " was assumed by the British government to justify precautionary measures. They ordered a warship to the Oregon coast " to give a feeling of security " to British subjects there — and a feeling of a different sort to the Americans^* — and a little later ar- ranged for a military reconnoissance of the country with a view to a possible armed conflict for its possession.** The British frigate America, anchored in De Fuca's Strait August 31, 1845. Her captain was Sir John Gordon, brother of Lord Aberdeen, and she carried as one of her younger officers Lieutenant William Peel, a son of the British premier, Sir Robert Peel. Captain Gordon de- tached Lieutenant Peel and Captain Parke " to examine and procure information of the present state of the New American settlement on the Willamette." While other objects were Included in the captain's instructions, this quotation seems to indicate what was uppermost in his mlnd.*^ " This correspondence, dated February 25 and February 26, 1845, is in F. O. America, No. 439. " See Lord Aberdeen's letter to the Admiralty on March 3, 1845. F. O. America, No. 440. "See "Documents Relative to Warre and Vavasour's Military Recon- noissance in Oregon, 1845-6." Edited by Joseph Schafer. Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, X., pp. 1-99. " See Gordon's letter to Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the H. B. Co. at Vancouver, dated Port Discovery (Puget Sd.) ad Sept., 1845, so J. Schafer During Captain Gordon's stay of one month in the Puget Sound country, he collected information from three different sources, in addition to his personal observations, on the state of the Oregon country and its settlements. McLoughlin wrote him a long and detailed letter. James Douglas (afterward Sir James), who was McLoughlin's principal associate in the management of the Hudson's Bay Company's business west of the Rockies, visited Gor- don and had much conversation with him, while Peel and Parke inspected the Willamette settlements — as well as the Cowlitz Farms and Fort Vancouver — and presented to their captain a formal report covering their observations and conclusions. McLoughlin's letter, written from Vancouver on the fifteenth of September,*^ testifies to the state of uneasiness created among the British subjects in Oregon by the rapid influx of American settlers and their assumption of prac- tical political control over the country itself. He speaks of the generally peaceable character of the Americans, but mentions his difficulty with the Methodist Mission over land claims,*^ the attempt of an American named William- a copy of which was transmitted by the Admiralty to the Foreign Office, February lo, 1846. After stating that he has sent an officer for the pur- pose here described, Captain Gordon says: "I therefore must beg of you in furtherance of this object that you will give him all the assistance in your power, in order that I may transmit a full report to Her Majesty's Government, who are much interested in the question of the Boundary of the North American United States, and determined to insist upon a just and equitable settlement of the Oregon Question." He has been com- manded "to assure all British subjects of firm protection," and to prevent encroachment on the part of Americans. "f. O. America, No. 459. *' A Mr. Waller, mission representative at Willamette Falls, had set up a claim adverse to McLoughlin to land, including the water-power, and McLoughlin found it necessary to buy out Waller for a substantial sum, paying him " five hundred dollars in cash, five acres of land, twelve build- ing lots, and two lots for a church to the Methodist Mission." See on Oregon Pioneers 51 son to oust the Hudson's Bay Company from a portion of their lands at Vancouver upon which WilHamson proposed to establish his own claim, and one or two minor differences with Americans. McLoughlin also traces the history of the movement for a provisional government which began to take shape among the American settlers in 1842. He explains why the Canadians — ^British subjects — living in the Willamette Valley, who declined at first to join in that movement, allowed themselves finally to be won over. They felt that with the growth of population some settled form of government became imperative. Lastly, he ex- plains and defends the action of himself and associates, the representatives of the Company, in themselves joining the provisional government as It was reorganized a few weeks before the arrival of the British ship In Oregon waters. They did It to protect the Company's large prop- erty Interests In Oregon, and to contribute to the general peace and prosperity which would be jeopardized If the local division Into- a British and American jurisdiction should be perpetuated.** McLoughlin concludes the sali- ent part of his letter with the prediction "that, unless active measures are taken by [the British] government, for the protection and encouragement of British Influence — this country will pass into their [American] hands, as the overwhelming number of Americans who are from year to year coming to the country will give an American tone and character to the institutions which It will be Impossible afterward to eradicate. " We have lately received Intelligence from the Interior that a large party of American citizens are on the route the origin of this claim Simpson's Letters. Am. Hist. Rev., XIV., pp. 82, and note. " Some of these points are more flatly stated by McLoughlin in a letter to his Company, dated August 30, 1845, and transmitted to the Foreign Office almost contemporaneously vpith the above letter. See F. O. America, No. 459- 52 J. Schafer to this country, having about five hundred wagons in their train, with numerous herds of cattle." What Gordon learned in personal conferences with Douglas must have been much to the same effect, for he concluded from this and other testimony that " the Hud- son's Bay Company are very anxious for a settlement of the [Oregon] question. . . . " " The views of Lieutenant Peel, so far as these were written, are found in his report to Captain Gordon, made on his return to the Straits of Fuca, September 27, and in a letter addressed to Mr. Pakenham at Washington on the second of January, 1846. He was then on board ship in the Gulf of Mexico, bound for England, whither he had been dispatched by Gordon for the purpose of conveying all of the information collected in Oregon to the govern- ment with the least possible delay and in the fullest manner. He reached London probably on the ninth of February. Of course his oral report to his father, the premier, and to Lord Aberdeen, would be much more exhaustive than his written statements.*" Lieutenant Peel showed himself to be cognizant of all the general facts stated by McLoughlin — in addition to the detailed knowledge of local conditions which his survey of the country afforded — and of some things that Mc- " Ibid., Captain Gordon's letter to the Admiralty, dated, At Sea, 19th October, 1845, and transmitted to the Foreign Office February 10, 1846. *' Gordon detached Peel at the Sandwich Islands October 22, sending him in an American vessel for Mazatlan " with all the official reports . . . and with a full account of the actual state of the Oregon country and California.'' He thought it of " serious consequence " to put this in- formation in the government's hands as soon as possible. "By sending Lieutenant Peel direct I trust they will have all possible information inside of three months, and as I directed this officer to visit the new American settlement on the Willamette, the information he would be able to give their Lordships will, I think, be of infinite service. . . ." Captain Gordon to Admiral Seymore, Honolulu, October 22, 1845. F. O. America, No. 45p. Oregon Pioneers 53 Loughlin does not mention. In particular, he notes in the report to Captain Gordon that the Oregon settlers, through their new government, had recently sent a memorial to Congress " shewing the dangers and difficulties to which this country is exposed, and praying the government of the United States to extend their jurisdiction over them."*^ And in his letter to Pakenham he expresses the fear that : "The American settlements on the Willamette, running south, and those on the Sacramento, running north, will . . . very soon unite. Their junction will render the possession of Port San Francisco to the Americans inev- itable. . . . " *' Gordon personally observed that " the head of Puget Sound [had been] lately taken possession of by an American party," and that the country south of the Straits of Fuca was of little value. He appeared to be perfectly reconciled to the idea of settling the boundary at the forty-ninth parallel, but insisted, as did Peel also, that the Straits of Fuca must be left open to the British in common with the Americans, a qualification which would be not at all unfamiliar to Lord Aberdeen.*® We thus see that in the year 1845 the British govern- ment caused to be made a virtual survey of conditions in Oregon, with special reference to the strength of the American pioneer element which had found lodgment in *' Ibid. Captain Gordon was anxious that Peel might reach London with his report before this Memorial could be received at Washington. See his letter to Admiral Seymore. "Letter dated from "The Steamship Trent, January 2, 1846, between Vera Cruz and the Havana." F. O. America, No. 459. " Ibid. Gordon's letter to the Admiralty, dated October 19, 1845. See also Lieutenant Peel's letter to Pakenham. Sir George Simpson had insisted on this point as early as March, 1845. See his " Memorandum," printed in Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, X., p. 13 ff; and Lord Aber- deen himself stated it, probably as a result of Everett's suggestion, in a private letter to Pakenham, dated March 4, 1844. Everett suggested to Aberdeen such a modification of the forty-ninth parallel boundary as early as November 29, 1843. See his dispatch No. 69 of December 2, 1843. 54 J- Schafer the country. And the result was overwhelmingly to prove that all of Oregon south of the Columbia was already fully occupied by the Americans, who had organized a govern- ment which was rapidly effacing local opposition from British subjects; that Americans were beginning to settle north of the Columbia as high up as Puget's Sound; and that the annual immigrations from the Missouri were in- creasing at a rapid rate, presaging a more complete and more obstinate adverse possession of the territory in dis- pute. These facts, brought fully to the attention of the gov- ernment early in February, 1846, by the return of Lieuten- ant Peel as the bearer of dispatches from the Pacific, con- stituted a new background on which to project the Oregon question. What effect it may have produced in detail, upon the later course of the negotiations, we cannot in the nature of the case determine,"" nor is it necessary to do so in order to warrant the conviction that we have in the pioneer movement one of the prime conditions affecting this boundary dispute. The private remarks of Sir Rob- ert Peel, quoted above,"^ are a sufficient indication of the significance ascribed to the movement by the British cab- inet, while Captain Gordon's report discloses the effect al- ready produced upon the Hudson's Bay Company, repre- °° We know that, while Lord Aberdeen as Secretary of State for For- eign Affairs was personally ready at a much earlier time to accept the boundary of the forty-ninth parallel, with modifications, yet there seem to have been serious obstacles in the way of the British government proposing or even acceding to such a compromise. They persistently suggested arbitration by some friendly power. Their last proposal of that sort was formally rejected by the United States February 4, 1846, news of the rejection being received at the Foreign Office, March 3. Thereafter, as soon as conditions at Washington appeared favorable, Aberdeen himself proposed the settlement on the forty-ninth parallel, which was accepted. See on these topics, the author's paper on " The British Attitude Toward the Oregon Question." Am. Hist. Ren., sup. cit. " Page 43- Oregon Pioneers 55 senting the chief British interest in the country itself. The detailed knowledge of conditions in Oregon interpreted to the British, as nothing else could, the attitude of the Amer- ican people on this question — the government's adamantine stand against concession," the impatience, not to say in- solence, of Congress, and the widespread disposition through the country, and especially in the west, to force the issue even at the hazard of war. Had it been possible ^ for the British government to remain ignorant of the con- ditions generating this peculiar national psychology, it is conceivable they might have chosen war instead of con- cession, but these conditions fixed the " irreducible mini- mum " they would have to yield in order to secure a peace- ful settlement. In other words, it was the Oregon pioneer who, fulfilling by his arduous trail-making across the con- tinent in the forties earlier prophesies of American expan- sion to the Pacific, vindicated his government's pretensions to the forty-ninth parallel boundary on the ground of con- tiguity, and actually prepared the triumph technically won by American diplomacy. Joseph Schafer. "'Except on minor points, particularly in running the line around Van- couver's Island instead of across it. SOME PROBLEMS OF THE NORTHWEST IN 1779 The occupation of the northwest by George Rogers Clark and his band of frontiersmen established a claim for the United States to the transmontane territory which the later negotiations of Franklin, Adams, and Jay made effective ; but the brilliant diplomacy of these agents might have proved fruitless had the Virginia troops failed in maintaining their position on the distant frontier. Throughout the year following that of the occupation this appeared to the leaders an almost hopeless task on ac- count of the many difficulties confronting them. The sol- diers who had followed Clark so gallantly into the wilder- ness were, like all frontier militia, satisfied with the ac- complishment of their immediate task, and now demanded the right of returning to their homes. The pleadings of their leader persuaded only about eighty to remain to secure the results of their enterprise. Colonel Clark was obhged to replace this loss by enlisting the volatile and, in his opinion, untrustworthy French of the villages into the companies of the Illinois battalion. With this small and untried band he prepared to hold the whole territory of the northwest against the forces which the British could muster from Canada. It had not been expected that the Virginians would thus be isolated, for the Continental Congress had planned to capture Detroit by a force sent out from Fort Pitt. Un- fortunately, the successful peace with the Indians as a preliminary to this expedition was followed by the futile acts of General Mcintosh, the leader of this expedition, 57 58 J. A. James who proved himself unfitted to cope with the conditions of frontier warfare. This failure and the critical situation in the east caused General Washington to abandon, tem- porarily, active operations in the west on the part of the United States. Thus the British officers of Canada were left a clear field to send their war bands to harry the whole border at will, and also to give their undivided attention to the reconquest of the Illinois country. Clark, who had throughout the fall of 1778 impatiently awaited the news of the capture of Detroit by the Amer- icans, first heard of General Mcintosh's abandonment of that undertaking in December; and almost at the same time he learned that the British had begun the first movement to reconquer the northwest by sending a force of six hundred regulars, French militia, and Indians, under Lieu- tenant-Governor Hamilton of Detroit, in his direction. By January 29, 1779, the floating rumors of the capture of Vincennes by Hamilton, which had reached Clark, were confirmed by Francis Vigo, a Spanish trader, who had recently come from that post. It is probable that Clark, when he set out, February 5, on the desperate undertaking to risk all in a single battle for the recapture of Vincennes, contemplated, in the event of a victory, the capture of Detroit.^ His authority for such an undertaking was complete, for, by the order of Governor Henry of Virginia, the area of his activities had been extended beyond that defined in his original instruc- tions, so as to include the " Enemy's Settlements above or across," as he might think proper.^ He knew that with Detroit in his possession, the whole northwest would be under his control. He was informed that the British gar- ' Clark letter to Mason, November 19, 1779. Printed in English, W. H., Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, Vol. I., p. 42s. ' Draper MSS., 48 J 7. Patrick Henry to Clark, January 15, 1778. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 59 rison at that post, few in numbers, without adequate stores, and subject to still greater distresses with the cutting ofE of the supplies from the lUinois country, might be over- come with ease.^ This desperate situation was expressed in a communication from Colonel Bolton to General Hald- imand at Niagara as follows : " Captain Lernoult acquaints me that Detroit is capable in peace- able times to supply the garrison with provisions but at this time the inhabitants are so much employed in Convoys and probably will continue so that they have not been able to thrash last years corn, and the great number of cattle furnished for Gov. Hamilton's Expedition as well as for Detroit with what have been consumed by Indians have reduced the numbers so much that a pair of oxen cannot be purchased for less than 1000 Livres and then reckoned a cheap bargain, Flour is 6o Livres a hundred and every article very dear." Moreover, Clark had won the friendship of the French by his liberal government. " I made it a point," he wrote, " to guard the happiness and tranquility of the inhabitants, supposing that their happy change, reaching the ears of their Brothers and Countrymen on the Lakes and about Detroit, would be paving my way to that place and a good effect on the Indians. I soon found that it had the desired effect for the greatest part of the French Gent, and Traders among the Indians declared for us many let- ters of congratulations were sent from Detroit to the Gent, of the Ilhnois, which gave me much pleasure." * The news of the French alliance was skillfully used to still further excite their enthusiasm for the American cause. With like purpose, the report was circulated that the Canadian French had been invited by Count D'Estaing to take up arms in behalf of the Americans, that he had prom- ised them his support, and that Spain was about to de- • Draper MSS., 14 S 128. Patrick Henry to the Virginia delegates in Congress, November 16, 1778. * Clark-Mason Letter in English, sup. cit. 6o J. A. James clare hostilities against Great Britain.' Oliver Pollock, agent for Virginia in New Orleans, had already con- tributed largely to Clark's success through the secret aid granted him by the Spanish governor, Galvez. The Span- ish lieutenant-governor at St. Louis likewise favored the Americans and proposed to send Spanish troops to the as- sistance of the Americans in the event of an attack upon them.* The Sauk, Fox, Miami, and other tribes of In- dians, terrorized at the name of Clark, had bound them- selves by treaties and promises to maintain peaceable re- lations in the future. On February 25, 1779, Clark concluded his bold march from the distant Illinois country by the recapture of Vin- cennes together with Colonel Hamilton and his mixed troop of British, French, and Indians. It is with that event that this study begins. Interesting as it would be to recount the details of that military venture, they would contribute no essential to the effort to trace Clark and his associates as they faced the problems which arose after this striking achievement. TTie first great undertaking was to be the expedition against Detroit, " in the execution of which," as Clark later expressed it, " my very soul was wrapt." ^ Despite the seeming certainty of success, Clark did not neglect the practical means for stimulating the cupidity of his fol- lowers and their desire for the new venture. The goods brought from Detroit by Hamilton, likewise those seized from British traders, were divided among Clark's soldiers. They were thereby aroused to the undertaking of some new expedition, and their thoughts turned towards De- troit. Enthusiasm for the enterprise on the part of the people " Draper MSS., 48 J ^9. Patrick Henry to Clark, December 15, 1778. • Draper MSS., 14 S 62. Clark to Governor Henry, September i6, 1778. ' Clark to Jefferson, October i, 1781. Draper, Trip i860, VI., p. 73. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 61 of Vincennes was enhanced on the return of Captain Helm with the spoils of his expedition. February 26, accom- panied by fifty men, the majority of them French militia- men,* Helm had ascended the Wabash to intercept a party of British sent by Hamilton to bring on the stores left at Ouiattanon, one hundred and twenty miles up the Wabash. Besides making prisoners of forty men, Captain Helm had captured seven boats loaded with provisions and Indian goods, amounting to fifty thousand dollars. These spoils were divided among his followers. With almost as many prisoners as there were men to guard them, Clark sent off Hamilton, seven of his principal officers, and eighteen other prisoners, to the Falls of the Ohio under guard of Captain Williams, Lieutenant Rog- ers, and twenty-five men. From thence they were to be taken to Williamsburg. Again he showed excellent judg- ment in his treatment of the French volunteers who had ac- companied the British troops. Instead of sending them to Virginia, as they had been led to expect, there to be held during the course of the war, they were discharged on taking the oath of neutrality." A few of them joined Clark's forces. Those returning to Detroit were provided with boats, arms, and provisions. The boats were to be sold upon arrival at their destination, and the money there- from was to be divided. This act, well calculated to pro- mote Clark's interests among the French at Detroit, was successful.^" " I after this," wrote Clark, " had spies, dis- guised as traders, constant to and from Detroit I learned they answered every purpose that I could have wished for, by prejudicing their friends in favor of America." That the Americans would triumph, was a wish openly expressed, ' Bowman's Journal, Library of Congress, " Letters to Washington, 1779." Fol. 91-102. • ///. Hist. Coil's, I., p. 436- " Clark-Mason Letter in English, sup. cit. 62 J. A. James and children in the streets with cups of water were wont to drink success to Clark." Clark fully counted on the capture of Detroit. He assured the paroled prisoners that he would be there nearly as soon as they, and sent by them a copy of the alliance between France and the United States." " I learned by your letter to Governor Hamilton," he wrote Captain Lernoult, who was in charge at that post, " that you were very busy making new works ; I am glad to hear it; as it saves the Americans some ex- penses in building." ^' General gloom pervaded the garrisons at Detroit and Michilmackinac when it was learned that Hamilton had been captured, and that two subordinate expeditions of Langlade and Gautier had likewise failed. Langlade, who had advanced as far as " Milwakee " on his way to assist Hamilton in an attack on the Illinois posts, was forced to return to Mackinac when his Indian followers re- fused to proceed further.^* Gautier, also under orders from Hamilton to join him early in the spring, advanced with 200 Indians over the Fox-Wisconsin course down the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Rock River. Learn- ing of Hamilton's capture, he had no alternative but to make his way back to Green Bay.^^ In anticipation of an attacking party of Americans ex- pected from Pittsburgh the British ordered a new fort built at Detroit, and carpenters were sent to repair the ves- sels.^" Urgent request was made that large re-enforce- " Draper MSS., 49 J 47. ^' Bowman's Journal, Library of Congress, " Letters to Washington, 1779." Fol. 91-102. ^' Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Coil's, X., p. 308. For the letter and General Haldimand's comments on its impertinence, see Draper MSS., 58 J 37, 38. " Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Coil's, IX., pp. 380, 381. He found the In- dians about " Milwakee " loyal to the Americans. By July, 1779, most of the Indians of southern Wisconsin favored the Americans. " Wis. Hist. Coil's, XL, pp. 136, 127. " Draper MSS., 49 J 20, 25. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 63 ments should be sent from Niagara for the corrfpletion of the fort and for protection against Clark, who was daily- expected/' Presuming on the weakness of the garrison, the French refused to assist in the project. Spades, shov- els, and other tools necessary for carrying on the work were lacking. Provisions were scarce, owing to the large quantities consumed on the expedition to Vincennes. The Indians tributaiy tO' Detroit were panic-stricken, and de- manded that detachments of troops with cannon should be sent to them at once as they were not able to contend, un- aided, with the enemy. " So situated," wrote General Haldimand, " it will require great judgment and temper to preserve the Indians in our interest after so glaring and recent a proof of our want of strength or want of con- duct. If we lose the Indians a valuable fur-trade will be lost to Great Britain." " .British commanding officers in the northwest were dis- heartened. Even before the capture of Hamilton, the fears of the officials at Detroit were so much excited that they demanded his return." " The loss of Governor Ham- ilton is a most feeling one to me," said Captain Lernoult in a dispatch from Detroit, " I find the burthen heavy without assistance. It requires, I confess, superior abil- ities, and [a] better constitution. I beg leave to repeat to you the necessity of a re-enforcement being sent as the consequences may be fatal." ^^ His position was made still more trying through the burning of the Angelica, a boat being sent from Niagara with supplies for his rellef.^^ " Draper MSS., 58 J 9. " General Haldimand to Lord George Germaine. ///. Hist. Coil's, I., p. 445. " Letters captured on the expedition of Lieutenant Helm, February 6. "Draper MSS., 58 J 9-12. R. L. Lernoult to Lieutenant Bolton, March 26, 1779. " Draper MSS., 49 J 42. 64 J. A. James DePeyster was convinced that Mackinac, defended, as it was, by an inadequate garrison poorly provisioned, would be doomed the moment Detroit surrendered, al- though a single man should not be sent against it.^'' Mysti- fied by the report, purposely sent out by Clark, that he contemplated an advance on the post at Mackinac also, effort was made to render it defensible.^' Clark was fully aware of the effects of his victory. " This stroke," he said, " will nearly put an end to the Indian war. Had I but men enough to take advantage of the present confusion of the Indian nations, I could silence the whole in two months." "^ " Never was a per- son more mortified than I was at this time," he wrote a few months later, " to see so fair an opportunity to push a victory; Detroit lost for want of a few men." ^' Clark's regrets over his want of men are explained by the fact that when the excitement incident to the capture of the fort at Vincennes was over, many of his men succumbed to the efforts of the campaign. Sickness among them increased, and their recovery was retarded owing to the unusually stormy days at the beginning of March. Despite these conditions, Clark did not at this time doubt the ultimate success of his plans to take Detroit, for in addition tO' his own men and the French militia, he ''^ DePeyster to Haldimaad, May 13, 1779. Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Coil's, IX., pp. 380, 387. "III. Hist. Coil's, I., p. 436. DePeyster to Haldimand, May 13, 1779. " The Canadians who want to return to this post have leave on taking the oaths not to serve against the United States. Clarke assures them that he will be here nearly as soon as themselves. I don't care how soon Mr. Clarke appears, provided he comes by Lake Michigan and the Indians prove stanch and above all that the Canadians do not follow the example of their brethren at the Illinois, who have joined the Rebels to a man." " Draper MSS., 58 J 4. Clark to Colonel Harrison, speaker of the Vir- ginia House of Delegates, March 10, 1779. This letter was captured by a party of Hurons and carried to Detroit. ''"Letter to Mason, November 19, 1779. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 65 counted on from two to three hundred men from Kentucky. He was further encouraged by a messenger from WiUiams- burg, who arrived at Vincennes three days after the capit- ulation of that post with the good news that five hun- dred men were to be sent at once from Virginia.^* To avail himself of these re-enforcements and collect the necessary supplies, the forward movement was deferred until June. Meanwhile he took up the problems of the territory al- ready secured. The Indians first claimed his attention. No man better understood how to win savage favor. He awaited the coming of the chiefs, although he had not invited them to treat with him. In attendance upon their councils, he gave due regard to Indian ceremony, strength- ened the chain of friendship by smoking the sacred pipe and exchanging belts, and when treaties were renewed, pro- vided tafia and the provisions with which the Indians were wont to make merry at such times.^'^ In dealing with the Indians who had refused the ad- vances of the British he " extolled them to the skies for their manly behavior and fidelity." He very cleverly dis- abused them of the thought which had been implanted by Hamilton, that in the event of a victory by the Virginians the lands of friends and foes alike would be taken. " I made a very long speech to them in the Indian manner," said Clark, " told them that we were so far from having any design on their Lands, that I looked upon it that we were on their land where the Fort stood that we claimed no land in their Country; that the first man that offered to take their Lands by violence must strike the tomahawk in my head ; that it was only necessary that I should be in their Country during the war and keep a Fort in it to drive off the English, who had deslgn[s] against all peo- " Dispatch from Governor Henry in Draper MSS., 58 J 4. "Clark-Mason Letter. 66 J, A. James pie ; after that I might go to some place where I could get Land to support me." '^^ In conference with the Chippewa and other Indians who had accompanied Hamilton and came toi sue for mercy, Clark was the complete master, for, he said, " Nothing destroys our interest among the Savages so soon as waver- ing sentiments or speeches that show the least fear. I consequently had observed one steady line of conduct among them. Mr. Hamilton, who was almost deified among them, being captured by me, was sufficient con- firmation to the Indians of everything I had formerly said to them, and gave the greatest weight to- the speeches I in- tended to send them; expecting that I should shortly be able to fulfil my threats with a body of troops sufficient to penetrate into any part of their Country ; and by Reducing Detroit bring them to my feet.^" The messages sent the Indians tributary to Detroit were well calculated to neutralize any effort which might be made on the part of the English to stir them up for new expeditions. Whether they chose the peace-belt or the war-belt, they were told, was of little consequence for the Big Knives' greatest glory was in war, and they were in search of enemies since the English were no longer able to contend against them. Those nations which did not lay down their arms at once were threatened with ex- termination.^" Preparatory to his return to Kaskaskia with the remain- ing prisoners, Clark carefully arranged for a satisfactory government at Vincennes by appointing the faithful Cap- °° Clark-Mason Letter. The Indians presented Clark with a body of land two and one-half leagues square (July i6, 1779). The preceding June 9, private land grants were declared null and void by the Virginia House of Delegates. Fa. State Papers, I., p. 320. ^' Clark-Mason Letter. '° Clark-Mason Letter. Clark was thus able to secure the neutrality of between three and four thousand warriors. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 67 tain Helm to take control of all civil matters and act as superintendent of Indian affairs. Moses Henry was made Indian agent. The garrison of forty picked men was left in command of Lieutenant Richard Brashears, assisted by Lieutenants Bailey and Chaplin. Letters were sent John Bowman, then county lieutenant in Kentucky, urging him to begin collecting men and provisions for the proposed march on Detroit. No victorious army ever returned with spirits more elated than the eighty men who, on March 20, accompanied Clark on the trail back to Kaskaskia. Within a year the authority of Virginia over the region stretching from the Ohio to the Ilhnois and 140 miles up the Wabash had been established by conquest. The danger that the frontier settlements would be cut off by savages under the leadership of British agents was greatly lessened. These results had been accomplished against odds that would have completely overcome men not already inured to^ the harsh conditions incident to life on the frontier. No as- sistance had been rendered by the Virginia authorities, and for nearly a year Clark had not even received, as he ex- pressed it, " a scrape of a pen" from Governor Henry." The six boats pushed off down the Wabash amidst the re- joicing of the people who had assembled to wish them a " good and safe passage." A few of those who lingered to watch the boats until they were lost to view fully com- prehended the results which had been attained. Their thought was expressed by one of their number as follows : " Although a handful in comparison to other armies, they have done themselves and the cause they were fighting for, credit and honor, and deserve a place in History for future ages; that their posterity may know the difficulty their forefathers had gone through for their liberty and freedom. Particularly the back " Letter of Clark to Patrick Henry, April 29, 1779. 68 J. A. James settlers of Virginia may bless the day they sent out such a Com- mander, and officers, men etc., etc., I say, to root out that nest of Vipers, that was every day ravaging on their vi'omen and children ; which I hope will soon be at an end, as the leaders of these murderers are taken and sent to Congress." ^^ When the boats reached Kaskaskia, " Great Joy " was manifested by the garrison, then commanded by Captain Robert George, who had recently returned with sixty men from New Orleans.^^ The villagers, too, were not less gratified at the return of Clark, for he was the one Amer- ican who had gained and continued to hold their love and confidence. The problems and disappointments Clark was forced to meet with during the succeeding three months were among the most trying of his whole career. Upon arrival he found the people excited over the recent conduct of a party of Delaware warriors. Learning also of depreda- tions committed at Vincennes by another party, Clark, by way of warning to the other tribes, ordered a ruthless war against the marauders. In the attacks on their vil- lages which followed, no mercy was shown except tO' the women and children. The Indians soon sued for peace. Without money for the support of his army Clark had begun after the capture of Kaskaskia to issue bills of credit on Virginia in exchange for provisions. These were satis- factory to the merchants and traders, for they were re- ceived and paid at their face value in silver by Oliver Pol- lock, agent for the state at New Orleans.^* In a letter of July 1 8, Clark said to Pollock: "I have succeeded agreeable to my wishes, and am necessitated to draw bills '"Bowman's Journal. "Draper MSS., 48 J 33. " The first money Clark received from Virginia was in January, 1778, when iiaoo in state currency was sent to him. Clark, Accounts Against Virginia. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 69 on the state and have reason to believe they will be ac- cepted by you, the answering of which will be acknowl- edged by his Excelly. the Governor of Virginia." Large batteaux rowed with twenty-four oars, loaded with goods sent by Pollock, under the protection of the Spanish flag, slipped past Natchez, then under the control of the Brit- ish, and in from eighty-five to ninety days arrived at St. Louis or the Illinois posts. Full credit was given by Clark to Pollock for this assistance, by which he was able to hold the Illinois country. " The invoice Mr. Pollock rendered upon all occasions in paying those bills," Clark declared, " I considered at the time and now to be one of the happy circumstances that enabled me to Keep Possession of that Country." ^° During September, 1778, goods were sent by Pollock to Clark, amounting to seven thousand two hundred dollars. The following January five hundred pounds of powder and some swivels were received by Clark from the same source. By February 5, 1779, bills were drawn on Pollock by Clark amounting to forty-eight thousand dollars. Of this amount, ten thousand dollars were paid by Pollock after he had disposed of his own remaining slaves at a great disadvantage.'* By July, 1779, however. Pollock had so far exhausted his credit that in meeting an order from Governor Henry for goods amounting to ten thousand dollars, he was forced to mortgage a part of his lands. He had at that time paid bills drawn on the state amounting to thirty- three thousand dollars. The flour and meal which had been promised him had not been forwarded. " Being al- ready drained of every shilling I could raise for the use of yours and the rest of the United States," he wrote, " I "Certificate signed by Clark, July 2, 1785. Copy in Calendar of Oliver Pollock Letters and Papers in the Department of State, Bureau of Indexes and Archives, CXV., Miscellaneous Letters, January-April, 1791. "Papers of the Continental Congress, Pollock Papers, L., I., pp. 1-14. 70 J. A. James went first to the Governor of this place, and then to every merchant in it, but could not prevail upon any of them to supply said goods, giving for their reason the few goods they had were imported, would in all probability become double the value of what they were just now, particularly at this juncture, as war between Spain and Great Britain was daily expected, and the little probability there was of getting paid from your quarter in any reasonable time, by depending only on the Letter of Credit and Mr. Lindsay's contract. In fine finding it impracticable to obtain any by that means, and at same time being fearful of the bad consequences that might attend your being disappointed in those goods, I have voluntarily by mortgaging part of my property for the payment at the latter end of this year, purchased the greater part of them from a Mr. Salo- mon; you have therefore invoice and bill of loading amounting to 10,029 dollars i Rial." ^^ Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of the bills drawn by Clark were under protest at New Orleans.'* They were issued in favor of a number of the inhabitants of Illinois. These drafts had been received by the French merchants and traders In preference to the Continental money, which had recently appeared in the west In small quantities.^' While borrowing money on his own credit. Pollock, in order to encourage the shipment of arms, Indian goods, rum, sugar, etc., to the Illinois country, and In order to encourage down cargoes. In exchange, made up of deer- skins, beaver, otter, and flour while at the same time keeping up the credit of the continental currency, con- tinued until July, 1779, to pay " Bateauxmen and Traders " Draper MSB., 419 J 60. Pollock to Henry, July fj, 1779. " Fully one-half of these represented the expense incident to the fitting out of the expedition against St. Vincents. Clark's Accounts Against Vir- ginia. " Clark to Pollock, June 12, 1779. Copy in Virginia State Library, Clark Papers, bundle I. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 71 silver dollars for Paper Currency Dollar for Dol- lar." « Continental currency had been used but little in the west previous to the expedition against Vincennes. The con- fidence of the people in the government, together with the efforts of Pollock, sustained this money at par when it had so far depreciated in the east as to be worth only twelve cents on the dollar.*^ Traders from the east be- came aware of this situation, and rushed to this region, where goods might be procured with the " continentals " at their face value. They brought with them such large sums and distributed the money so liberally in trade that the inhabitants became alarmed and refused to receive it. On returning to Kaskaskia, Clark was not surprised to learn that his credit at New Orleans was exhausted. " I am sorry to learn," he wrote Pollock, " you have not been supplied with funds as expected your protesting my late bills has not surprised me. As I expected it being sur- rounded by enemies Mr. Hamilton and his savages being obligated for my own safety to lay in Considerable Stores I was obliged to take every step I possibly could to pro- cure them unwilling to use force." He was confronted also with the problems growing out of a depreciated money, of which he says in writing Governor Henry: " There is one circumstance very distressing, that of our own moneys being discredited, to all intents and purposes, by the great numbers of traders who come here in my absence, each out- bidding the other, giving prices unknown in this country by five hundred per cent., by which the people conceived it to be of no value, and both French and Spaniards refused to take a far- thing of it." *2 *° Papers of the Continental Congress, Letters and Papers of Olwer Pol- lock, Vol. L., I., pp. 1-44- " Orderly Book of William Shannon, February lo, 1783. Virginia State Library. "Letter of Clark to Henry, April 29, 1779. 72 J. A. James To the great joy of Clark he was informed that his friend, John Todd, had been appointed by Governor Henry to take charge of civil affairs in the Illinois country. His undivided attention might thus be given to " military reflections."** December 9, 1778, a bill passed the Vir- ginia legislature establishing the County of Illinois, which was to include the inhabitants of Virginia north of the Ohio River.** This type of government had been brought into general usage by Virginia in her western expansion.** The act providing for the County of Illinois was to re- main in force for a year, and " thence to the end of the next session of the Assembly, and no longer." *' The establishment of some temporary form of government was thought to be expedient, for, as stated in the act, " from their remote situation, it may at this time be difficult if not impracticable to govern them by the present laws of this cornmonwealth, until proper information, by inter- course with their fellow citizens, on the east side of the Ohio, shall have familiarized them to the same." The chief executive officer was the county lieutenant or com- mander-in-chief, who was appointed by the governor and council. He was to appoint at his discretion, deputy com- mandants, militia officers, and commissaries. The civil officers, with whom the inhabitants were familiar, and whose duties were to administer the laws already in force, were to be chosen by the citizens of the different districts. Officers with new duties were to be maintained by the state. Pardoning power was vested in the county lieuten- ant in all criminal cases, murder and treason excepted. In these cases he was empowered to stay execution until such time as the will of the governor, or, in case of treason, of " Clark-Mason Letter. English, sup. cit., I., p. 411 ff. '* Hening, Statutes, IX., p. 553. See discussion in ///. Hist. Collections, II., pp. 1., n. " Filson Club Publications, VI., p. 43. " Act of Incorporation, in Hening, Statutes, IX., p. 553. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 73 the assembly, should be ascertained.*' Provision was made for the protection of the inhabitants in all their religious, civil, and property rights. The instructions issued by Governor Henry and the council, December 12, 1778, to Todd and to Clark, who was to retain the command of all Virginia troops in the County of Illinois, showed a grasp of the situation. They were to co-operate in using their best efforts to cultivate and conciliate the affections of the French and Indians. The rights of the inhabitants were to be secured against any infractions by the troops, and any person attempting to violate the property of the Indians, especially in their lands, was to be punished. All Indian raids on Kentucky were to be prevented. The friendship of the Spaniards was to be maintained. As head of the civil department, Todd was to have command of the militia, " who are not to be under the command of the military until ordered out by the civil authority and act in conjunction with them." ** He was directed on " all Accations (sic) to inculcate on the people the value of liberty and the Difference between the State of free Citizens of the Commonwealth and that Slavery to which Illinois was destined. A free and equal representation may be expected by them in a little Time, together with all the improvements in Jurisprudence and police which the other parties of the State enjoy." Todd reached Kaskaskia early in May, 1779. His coming was hailed with joy by the inhabitants who, having experienced some of the harshness incident to military control, were enthusiastic for a change, no matter what the new form of government might be. The county lieu- tenant was well fitted to fill his office acceptably. Be- sides receiving a good general education, he had studied and practised law for a time. Unable to resist the call "Hening, Statutes, IX., pp. 117, 552-5; V., pp. 489, 491. " ///. Hist. Collections, V., p. 60. 74 J- A. James of the frontier, he enlisted for service in Dunmore's War, and in 1775, when but twenty-five years of age, Todd went to Kentuclcy, where he was selected as one of the representatives to form a constitutional government for the settlement of Transylvania. In 1777 he was elected dele- gate to the Virginia House of Burgesses from the County of Kentucky.** The Intimate friendship existing between Todd and Clark, and their known ability and bravery, promised a successful solution of the problems with which they were confronted. May 12 was a notable day among the villagers of Kaskaskia, for on that day they assembled at the door of their church upon the call of Clark to hear the proclama- tion of the new government, and participate in the election of judges. The address prepared by Clark, who acted as presiding officer of the meeting, was well suited to the occasion.^" " From your first declaration of attachment for the American cause," he said, ".until the glorious cap- ture of post St. Vincent, I had doubted your sincerity, but in that critical time, I proved your faithfulness, I was so touched with the zeal that you have shown that my desire is to make you happy and to prove to you the sincere af- fection I have for the welfare and advancement of this colony in general, and of each individual in particular. The young men of this colony have returned from Post St. Vincent covered with laurels, which I hope they will con- tinue to wear. Although there are a few who did not have anything to do with this glorious action, I do not esteem them less, hoping they will take revenge if the oc- casion presents itself, who, during my absence, have with great care done their duty as guardians of this fort." He promised, as soon as it was within his power, that they *" Filson Club Publications, VI., p. 43. "" Translated and read by Jean Girault, who was Clark's interpreter. It is printed in ///. Hist. Collections., V., p. 80. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 75 should become partakers in the liberty enjoyed by Amer- icans, and that a regiment of regular troops was to be sent for their protection. They were assured that the new government was one of such " kindliness " that they would bless the day they had chosen to favor the American cause. In presenting Colonel Todd he referred to him as his good friend, and the only person in the state whom he desired to have take charge of that post. He spoke of the great importance of their meeting for the purpose of selecting the most capable and enlightened persons, to judge their differences, and urged that only those most worthy of the offices should be chosen. The brief response made by Todd was likewise full of promise for the success of the new government, which was to serve as guardian of their rights as citizens of a free and independent state. Elections of judges for the district courts at Cahokia and Vincennes took place shortly after- wards, and resulted, as at Kaskaskia, in the selection of Frenchmen." On May 21, 1779, the commission for the court at Kaskaskia was issued by Todd. He had previ- ously appointed a sheriff and state's attorney. The court named its own clerk. One week earlier (May 14) military commissions were made out. A number of the men given officer's commis- sions had been elected judges, and were thus expected to assume the duties of both offices." Within a few days, Todd was called on to hear a re- cital of the grievances of the French inhabitants which had been formulated by the Kaskaskia justices. He was in- formed that a number of the oxen, cows, and other ani- mals belonging to the petitioners had been taken and killed "The court of Kaskaskia consisted of nine members; Cahokia, seven, and Vincennes, nine. ///. Hist. Collections, II., p. 56; V., p. 85 et. seq. '^ Five of the judges at Cahokia were also given military commissions. Mason, Chapters from Illinois History, p. 260. 76 J. A. James by the soldiers ; that liquor was being sold to Indians, and trade carried on with slaves without the consent of their masters. Both kinds of traffic, they complained, were contrary to French custom." Licenses for carrying on trade were issued by Todd. Fearful lest there would be a repetition of the abuses un- der the Virginia land law, as practised in Kentucky, and that adventurers and speculators would get possession of the rich bottom lands, he decreed that no new settlements should be made on the flat lands " unless in manner and form as heretofore made by the French inhabitants." " No problem proved more trying for Todd and Clark than the effects produced by depreciated currency. Com- plications were greater on account of counterfeit money. By the close of April, the price of provisions was three times what it had been two months previously, and Clark was enabled to support his soldiers only by the assistance of a number of the merchants.^^ While in Kentucky Todd learned that the issues of currency bearing the dates April 20, 1777, and April 11, 1778, had been ordered to be paid into the Continental loan offices by the first of June, 1779, otherwise they would then become worthless. He hoped that the time would be extended for the Illinois holders. Upon his arrival at Kaskaskia, Todd found that the paper money had depreciated, so that it was worth only one-fifth of its face value in specie.^" On June 1 1 he addressed the court in the following letter, the evident purpose of which was his desire to sustain public credit : " The only method that America has to support the present war is by her credit. That credit at present is her bills emitted "'///. Hist. Collections. II., Virginia ser., I., LXVII., LXVIII., V., p. 88. °' Chicago Hist. Society Collections, IV., p. 301. " Clark's letter to Patrick Henry, April 29, 1779. °° From five to six. Journal of Virginia House of Delegates, May, 1783, p. 134. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 77 from the difEerent Treasuries by which she engages to pay the Bearer at a certain time gold and silver in Exchange. There is no friend to American Independence who has any judgment but soon expects to see it equal to Gold and Silver. Some disaffected persons and designing speculators discredit it through Enmity or Interest; the ignorant multitude have not sagacity enough to ex- amine into this matter, and merely from its uncommon quantity and in proportion to it arises the complaint of its want of Credit." " To stay depreciation Todd proposed to retire a portion of the bills through exchanging them for land certificates. Twenty-one thousand acres of land in the vicinity of Ca- hokia were set aside on which it was planned toi borrow thirty-three thousand dollars in Virginia and United States treasury notes. The lender might demand within two years his proportion of the land or a sum in gold or silver equal to the original loan, with five per cent annual inter- est. Land or money might be given at the option of the state. Large sums of money were exchanged for these certificates, but the project could not be carried further. It was, however, the capture of Detroit which was up- permost in the minds of the two leaders, and preparations were rapidly made for the expedition, which promised com- plete success. ^^ In this they were following the orders ex- plicitly given by Governor Henry. " The inhabitants of Illinois," so read the instructions to Todd, " must not ex- pect safety and settled peace while their and our enemies have footing at Detroit and can interrupt and stop the Trade of the Mississippi. If the English have not the strength or courage to come to war against us themselves, their practice has been and will be tO' hire the savages to commit murder and depredations. Illinois must expect to pay in these a large price for her freedom, unless the Eng- " Chicago Hist. Society Collections, IV., p. Z97. " Clark-Mason Letter. 78 J. A. James lish can be expelled from Detroit. The means of effecting this will not perhaps be found in yours or Col. Clark's power. But the French inhabiting the neighborhood of that place, it is presumed, may be brought to see it done with indifference or, perhaps, join in the enterprise with pleasure. This is but conjecture. When you are on the spot you and Col. Clark may discover its fallacy or reality." Captain Linctot, a trader of great influence with the In- dians, who had recently joined the Americans, was sent up the Illinois with a company of forty men to secure the neutrality of the Indians,^* and at the same time cover the design of the main expedition against Detroit.*" He re- ported, on his return, having gone as far as " Wea "; that peace and quietness was general.'^ Great enthusiasm was manifested on the part of offi- cers, troops, and the French militia. Not only were the villagers ready to enlist, even the old men volunteering their services. They gave further evidence of their zeal by proffering boat-loads of flour, cattle, and horses."'' The arrival of Colonel John Montgomery from Vir- ginia with one hundred and fifty men, about one-third the number expected, was a keen disappointment to Clark. But he did not lose confidence, for he had been promised three hundred Kentuckians by Colonel John Bowman, their county lieutenant. On July I, 1779, Clark, with a party of horsemen, reached Vincennes, the place of rendezvous. Here he was joined by the remainder of the Illinois troops with the exception of a company of mounted men dispatched un- der Captain Linctot to reconnoiter and tO' obtain permis- " Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Collections, IX., p. 389. '° Clark-Mason Letter. " Draper MSS., 49 J 45. Joseph Bowman to Clark, May 25, 1779. "^ Draper MSS., 49 J 49. Bowman to Clark, June 3, 1779. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 79 sion of the Wea and Miami for Clark to pass through their country on his way to Detroit. Before leaving Kaskaskia Clark learned that Colonel John Bowman had led the Kentucky forces against Chllli- cothe, a Shawnee town, and was fearful of the effect on his Detroit plans. This expedition consisted of two hundred and ninety-six men.^^ The Indians fortified themselves so strongly in a few log cabins that the whites were repulsed. The greater part of the town was burned and Bowman retreated with a large amount of plunder. Clark had now to experience some of the adverse re- sults of his earlier success. Influenced by his victories, im- migrants in large numbers had entered Kentucky during the spring.** Some returned to the older settlements for their families, and the others were scattered over such a large area that it seemed impossible to Bowman to secure the number of men he had promised , Clark by the time ap- pointed, and especially since the militia were so disheart- ened by the campaign against the Shawnee that only the most tried amongst them were ready to enter upon a new enterprise. The arrival of only thirty Kentucky volunteers was a severe blow to Clark.°° The capture of Detroit with his available force of about three hundred and fifty, even though its fortifications were incomplete and its garrison numbered but a hundred men, was at the time, he thought, out of the question. Most of his men were barefoot,®* and Vincennes was able to supply scarcely enough provisions for its own inhabitants, and could not, therefore, furnish food for several hundred men on a campaign of uncertain " Draper MSS., 49 J 52. •* Draper MSS., 4q J 89, go. °° " But now came the sorest blow we had yet received." Draper MSS., 47 J I S. Clark's Memoir. " Orderly Book of the Conductor General. Fort Patrick Henry, July 26, 1779. Virginia State Library. 8o J. A. James length. All commerce with Detroit had ceased, and sup- plies could be gotten by the way of the Mississippi only with great difficulty, owing to the attachment of the southern Indians to the British. Although abandoned, the influence of the preparations for the expedition proved of great significance. Threat- enings from Vincennes led the British officials at Detroit to give up their plans for the recapture of that post." A summer campaign against Pittsburgh, with a force of reg- ulars and Indians, was likewise abandoned. Instead of taking the field for an offensive campaign in 1779, the British at Detroit and Mackinac were engaged in con- sidering defensive operations and in re-enforcing these posts with all possible dispatch.** Even after large ex- penditures by the British for rum and presents for the warriors, and food for the old men, women, and children, disaffection among the Indians became constantly more open."' They and their French neighbors were frightened over the report that an alliance between the French, Span- ish, Germans, and Americans had been formed with the object of driving the English out of America.'"' " Draper MSS., 49 J 41, and ibid., I H 104. "Draper MSS., sS J 37. Haldimand to Clinton, May 31, 1779. "^ Draper MSS., 58 J. 3Q. Also Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Collections, IX., p. 411. '"Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Collections, IX., p. 417. "Fear acts stronger on them than all arguments can be made use of to convince them of enemy's ill designs against their lands." Brehm to Haldimand, May 28, 1779. Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Collections, IX., p. 411. In a letter of DePeyster, at Mackinac, to Haldimand, June i, 1779, he excused the in- creased expenditures as follows: "As the Indians are growing very im- portunate since they hear that the French are assisting the Rebels. The Canadians are a great disservice to the Government, but the Indians are perfect free masons when intrusted with a secret by a Canadian, most of them being much connected by marriage." Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Collections, IX., p. 382. Only the Menominee and Sioux remained true to the British.. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 81 Despite their apparent demoralization the British showed signs of activity. Lieutenant Bennett was sent from Mackinac (May 29) with a force of twenty soldiers, sixty traders, and two hundred Indians for the purpose of intercepting Linctot or to " distress the Rebels " in any other way." Captain Langlade was directed to levy the Indians at LaFourche and " Milwakee," and join Bennett at " Chicagou." '^ Indian scouts sent out by Bennett from St. Joseph's were frightened by reports obtained from other Indians and soon returned. Their fears quickly brought about a general panic. " We have not," wrote Bennett, " twenty Indians in our camp who are not preparing for leaving us, I believe you will join with me when I say they are a set of treacherous poltroons." ^* The return to Mackinac was begun shortly afterwards.''* In like manner, a force of six hundred, chiefly Indians, led by Captain McKee, was sent from Mackinac. Forget- ting his boast that he would place a pair of handcuffs on every rebel officer left in the country, McKee retreated from St. Joseph's upon hearing the report that Clark was marching towards Detroit.''" Early in June, Captain Henry Bird collected some two hundred Indians at the Mingo town. The account brought in by runners of the attack which had been made by Colonel Bowman on the Shawnee town produced a panic among his followers. Some of the savages deserted in order to protect their villages against the American advance which was momentarily expected. Still more of them were anxious to sue for peace.''* " Ibid., IX., p. 390- " Wis. Hist. Collections, XVIII., pp. 375. 376- " Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Collections, IX., pp. 392-396- ff^"- Hist. Col- lections, XVIII., pp. 394-396- '* Wis. Hist. Collections. XVIII., pp. 397-40i. '"■ Draper MSS., 49 J 73. Mich. Pioneer Collections, IX., p. 417. " Mich. Pioneer Collections, X., pp. 336, 337. Captain Bird to Captain 82 J. A. James By August I, all was confusion at Detroit, for the mes- sages brought by couriers promised the coming of Clark with an army of two thousand Americans and French Cre- oles.''' " Every effort is making to strengthen and complete our new Fort," so wrote an officer who demanded that re-enforcements should be sent, " as we are not equal to oppose the passage of such numbers to this place. Our ditch and glacee will be in a very good state the end of this week. An abatis afterwards to be thrown round the bar- racks will be ready at the same time. I wish to God I could say the same of our well ; it is now upwards of 60 feet below the level of the river, and no appearance of water. Could we only rely on the inhabitants, or had they either the inclination or the resolution to defend their town, there would be nothing to apprehend on that head as we might then take the field." Clark, as we have seen, had now definitely abandoned his purpose of an immediate movement against Detroit, but he continued to make preparations by collecting supplies for a campaign against that post in the spring. Clark him- self reached the Falls of the Ohio, August 26, and there began the establishment of his headquarters. Colonel Montgomery was left in charge of the Illinois battalion.'* These events ended American activity in the northwest in 1779. In contrast with Clark's bold and successful dash against Vincennes, with which the year had opened, and the larger plans of 1780, the story of the later months of 1779 has often seemed to historians tame and relatively Lernoult, June 9, 1779. Report said that the Americans were coming with a force of 4,000. " Draper MSS., £8 J 46-4^. Letter of Captain Parke, July 30, 1779. " Draper MSS., 23 J 127. Captain John Wiliams was appointed his aid at Fort Clark (Kaskaskia) ; Captain Richard McCarty at Cahokia; Captain James Shelby at Fort Patrick Henry (Vincennes) ; Major Joseph Bowman was given the direction of the recruiting parties. Problems of the Northwest in 1779 83 unimportant. This study will have served its main pur- pose if it makes evident that in the establishment of peaceful relations with the Indians, in the founding of civil government in the Illinois country, and in the neutraliza- tion of all British activity in the northwest by the zeal and publicity with which the proposed expedition against De- troit was promoted, George Rogers Clark and his associates had successfully met the problems which confronted them. In view of these larger events Clark's judgment upon his success in spreading reports may well be given a wider content by the historian, and the summer of 1779 pro- nounced one that " was spent to advantage. . . ." ^* James Alton James. " Clark's Memoir. KANSAS Some years ago, in a New England college town, when I informed one of my New England friends that I was preparing to go to Kansas, he replied rather blankly, "Kansas?! Oh." The amenities of casual intercourse demanded a reply, certainly, but from the point of view of my New England friend I suppose there was really nothing more to say; and, in fact, standing there under the peaceful New England elms, Kansas did seem tolerably remote. Some months later I rode out of Kansas City and entered for the first time what I had always pictured as the land of grasshoppers, of arid drought, and barren so- cial experimentation. In the seat just ahead were two young women, girls rather, whom I afterwards saw at the university. As we left the dreary yards behind, and entered the half-open country along the Kansas River, one of the pair, breaking abruptly away from the ceaseless chat- ter that had hitherto engrossed them both, began looking out of the car window. Her attention seemed fixed, for perhaps a quarter of an hour, upon something in the scene outside — the fields of corn, or it may have been the sun- flowers that lined the track ; but at last, turning to her com- panion with the contented sigh of a returning exile, she said, " Dear old Kansas! " The expression somehow re- called my New England friend. I wondered vaguely, as I was sure he would have done, why any one should feel moved to say " Dear old Kansas ! " I had supposed that Kansas, even more than Italy, was only a geographical ex- pression. But not so. Not infrequently, since then, I have heard the same expression — not always from emo- tional young girls. To understand why people say " Dear 85 86 C. L. Becker old Kansas ! " is to understand that Kansas is no mere geographical expression, but a " state of mind," a religion, and a philosophy in one. The difference between the expression of my staid New England friend and that of the enthusiastic young Kansan, is perhaps symbolical, in certain respects, of the difference between those who remain at home and those who, in suc- cessive generations, venture into the unknown " West," — New England or Kansas, — wherever it may be. In the seventeenth century there was doubtless no lack of English- men — ^prelates for example, in lawn sleeves, comfortably buttressed about by tithes and the Thirty-nine Articles — who might have indicated their point of view quite fully by remarking, " New England? ! Oh." Whether any New Englander of that day ever went so far as to say " Dear old New England," I do not know. But that the senti- ment was there, furnishing fuel for the inner light, is past question. Now-a-days the superiority of New England is taken for granted, I believe, by the people who live there ; but in the seventeenth century, when its inhabitants were mere frontiersmen, they were given, much as Kansans are said to be now, to boasting, — alas ! even of the climate. In 1629, Mr. Higginson, a reverend gentleman, informed his friends back in England that " The temper of the aire of New England is one special thing that commends this place. Experience doth manifest that there is hardly a more healthful place to be found in the world that agreeth better with our English bodyes. Many that have been weake and sickly in old England, by coming hither have been thoroughly healed and growne healthfuU strong. For here is a most extraordinarie cleere and dry aire that is of a most healing nature to all such as are of a cold, mel- ancholy, flegmatick, rheumatick temper of body. . . . And therefore I think it a wise course for all cold complections to come to take physic in New England ; for a sup of New Kansas 87 England aire is better than a whole draft of Old England's ale." Now, we who live in Kansas know well that its climate is superior to any other in the world, and that it enables one, more readily than any other, to dispense with the use of ale. There are those who will tell us, and have indeed often told us, with a formidable array of statistics, that Kansas is inhabited only in small part by New Englanders, and that it is therefore fanciful in the extreme to think of it as representing Puritanism transplanted. It is true, the peo- ple of Kansas came mainly from "the Middle West" — from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Kentucky, and Mis- souri. But for our purpose the fact is of little importance, for it is the ideals of a people rather than the geography they have outgrown that determine their destiny; and in Kansas, as has been well said, " it is the ideas of the Pil- grims, not their descendants, that have had dominion in the young commonwealth." Ideas, sometimes, as well as the star of empire, move westward, and so it happens that Kansas is more Puritan than New England of to-day. It is akin to New England of early days. It is what New England, old England itself, once was — the frontier, an ever changing spot where dwell the courageous who defy fate and conquer circumstance. For the frontier is more than a matter of location, and Puritanism is itself a kind of frontier. There is an intel- lectual " West " as well as a territorial " West." Both are heresies, the one as much subject to the scorn of the judi- cious as the other. Broad classifications of people are easily made and are usually inaccurate ; but they are con- venient for taking a large view, and it may be worth while to think, for the moment, of two kinds of people — ^those who like the sheltered life, and those who cannot endure it, those who think the world as they know it is well enough, and those who dream of something better, or, at any rate, \ 88 C. L. Becker something different. From age to age society builds its shelters of various sorts — accumulated traditions, religious creeds, political institutions, and intellectual conceptions, cultivated and well kept farms, well built and orderly cities — ^providing a monotonous and comfortable life that tends always to harden into conventional forms resisting change. With all this the home-keeping and timid are well content. They sit in accustomed corners, disturbed by no fortuitous circumstance. sBut there are those others who are for- ever tugging at the leashes of ordered life, eager to venture into the unknown. Forsaking beaten paths, they plunge into the wilderness. They must be always on the frontier of human endeavor, submitting what is old and accepted to conditions that are new and untried. The frontier is thus the seed plot where new forms of life, whether of institu- tions or types of thought, are germinated, the condition of all progress being in a sense a return to the primitive?) Now, generally speaking, the men who make the world's frontiers, whether in religion or politics, science, or geographical exploration and territorial settlement, have certain essential and distinguishing qualities. They are primarily men of faith. Having faith in themselves, they are individualists. They are idealists because they have I faith in the universe, being confident that somehow every- thing is right at the center of things ; they give hostages to the future, are ever inventing God anew, and must be al- ways transforming the world into their ideal of it. They have faith in humanity and in the perfectibility of man, are likely, therefore, to be believers in equality, reformers, intolerant, aiming always to level others up to their own high vantage. These qualities are not only Puritan, they are American; and Kansas is not only Puritanism trans- planted, but Americanism transplanted. In the individu- alism, the idealism, the belief in equality that prevail in Kansas, we shall therefore see nothing strangely new, but Kansas 89 simply a new graft of familiar American traits. But as Kansas is a community with a peculiar and distinctive ex- perience, there is something peculiar and distinctive about the individualism, the idealism, and the belief in equality of its people. If we can get at this something peculiar and distinctive, it will be possible to understand why the sight of sunflowers growing beside a railroad track may call forth the fervid expression, " Dear old Kansas." I ndividualism is everywhere characteristic of the ' frontier, and inAmerica, where the geographical frontier i has hitherto played so predominant a part, a peculiarly j marked type of individualism^ is one of the most obvious traits of the people. " To thie frontier," Professor Turner has said, " the American intellect owes its striking charac- teristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness ; that practical, inventive turn ' of mind, quick to find expedients ; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless nervous energy; that dom- inant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance that comes from freedom." On the frontier, where everything is done by the individual and nothing by organized society, initiative, resourcefulness, quick, confident, and sure judgment are the essential qualities for success. But as the problems of the frontier are rather restricted and definite, those who suc- ceed there have necessarily much the same kind of initiative and resourcefulness, and their judgment will be sure only in respect to the problems that are familiar to all. It thus happens that the type of individualism produced on the frontier and predominant in America, has this peculiarity, that while the sense of freedom is strong, there Is neverthe- 90 C. L. Becker less a certain uniformity in respect to ability, habit, and point of view. The frontier develops strong individuals, but it develops individuals of a particular type, all being after much the same pattern. The individualism of t he front ier is one of achievement, not of eccentricity, an m- dividualism of fact arising from a sense of power to over- come obstacles, rather than one of theory growing out of weakness in the face of oppression. It is not because he fears governmental activity, but because he has so often had to dispense with it, that the American is an individu- alist. Altogether averse from hesitancy, doubt, specula- tive or introspective tendencies, the frontiersman is a man of faith : of faith, not so much in some external power, as in himself, in his luck, his destiny ; faith in the possibility of achieving whatever is necessary or he desires. It is this marked sel f-relian ce that gives to Americans their tre- mendous power of mitiative ; but the absence of deep-seated I differences gives to them an equally tremendous power of concerted social action. The confident individualism of those who achieve through endurance is a striking trait of the people of Kansas. There, indeed, the trait has in it an element of exaggeration, arising from the fact that whatever has been achieved in Kansas has been achieved under great diffi- culties. Kansans have been subjected, not only to the ordinary hardships of the frontier, but to a succession of reverses anddisasters that could be survived only by those for whom defeat is worse than death, who' cannot fail be- cause they cannot surrender. To the border wars suc- ceeded hot winds, droughts, grasshoppers ; and to the dis- asters of nature succeeded in turn the scourge of man, in the form of " mortgage fiends " and a contracting cur- rency. Until 1895 the whole history of the state was a series of disasters, and always something new, extreme, bizarre, until the name Kansas became a byword, a syn- Kansas oi onym for the impossible and the ridiculous, inviting laugh- ter, furnishing occasion for jest and hilarity. " In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted," became a favorite motto of emigrants, worn out with the struggle, returning to more hospitable climes ; and for many years it expressed well enough the popular opinion of that fated land. Yet there were some who never gave up. They stuck it out. They endured all that even Kansas could inflict. They kept the faith, and they are to be pardoned perhaps jf they therefore feel that henceforth there is laid up for them a crown of glory. Those who remained in Kansas from 1875 to 189s must have originally possessed staying qualities of no ordinary sort, qualities which the experi- ence of those years could only accentuate. And as suc- cess has at last rewarded their efforts, there has come, too, a certain pride, an exuberance, a feeling of superi- ority that accompany a victory long delayed and hardly won. The result has been to give a peculiar flavor to the Kansas spirit of individualism. With Kansas history back of him, the true Kansan feels that nothing is too much for him. How shall he be afraid of any danger, of Tiesitate at any obstacle, having succeeded where failure was not only human, but almost honorable? Having conquered Kansas, he knows well that there are no worse worlds to conquer. The Kansas spirit is therefore one that finds something exhilarating in the challenge of an extreme dif- ficulty. " No one," says St. Augustine, " loves what he endures, though he may love to endure." With Kansans, it is particularly a point of pride to suffer easily the stings of fortune, and if they find no pleasure in the stings them- selves, the ready endurance of them gives a consciousness of merit that is its own reward. Yet it is with no solemn martyr's air that the true Kansan endures the worst that can happen. His instinct is rather to pass it off as a minor annoyance, furnishing occasion for a pleasantry, for 92 C. L. Becker it is the mark of a Kansan to take a reverse as a joke rather than too seriously. Indeed, the endurance of ex- treme adversity has developed a keen appreciation for that type of humor, everywhere prevalent in the west, which consists in ignoring a difficulty, or transforming it into a difficulty of precisely the opposite kind. There is a tradi- tion surviving from the grasshopper time that illustrates the point. It is said that in the midst of that overwhelm- ing disaster, when the pests were six inches deep in the streets, the editor of a certain local paper fined his com- ment on the situation down to a single line, which ap- peared among the trivial happenings of the week: "A grasshopper was seen on the court-house steps this morn- ing." This type of humor, appreciated anywhere west of the AUeghanies, is the type par excellence in Kansas. Perhaps it has rained for six weeks in the spring. The wheat is seemingly ruined; no corn has been planted. A farmer, who sees his profits for the year wiped out, looks at the murky sky, sniffs the damp air, and remarks seri- ously, " Well, it looks like rain. We may save that crop yet." " Yes," his neighbor replies with equal seriousness, " but it will have to come soon, or it won't do any good." When misfortunes beat down upon one in rapid succession, there comes a time when it is useless to strive against them, and in the end they engender a certain detached curiosity in the victim, who finds a mournful pleasure in observing with philosophical resignation the ultimate caprices of fate. Thus Kansans, " coiners of novel phrases to express their defiance of destiny," have employed humor itself as a refuge against misfortune. They have learned not only to endure adversity, but in a very literal sense to laugh at it as well. I have already said that the type of individualism that is characteristic of America is one of achievement, not of eccentricity. The statement will bear repeating in this Kansas 93 connection, for it is truer of Kansas than of most com- munities, notwithstanding there is a notion abroad that the state is peopled by freaks and eccentrics. It was once popularly supposed in Europe, and perhaps is so yet, that Americans are all eccentric. Now, Kansans are eccentric in the same sense that Americans are : they differ somewhat from other Americans, just as Americans are distinguish- able from Europeans. But a fundamental characteristic of Kansas individuaHsm is the tendency to conform; it is an individualism of conformity, not of revolt. Having learned to endure to the end, they have learned to con- form, for endurance is itself a kind of conformity. -It has not infrequently been the subject of wondering comment by foreigners that in America, where every one is supposed to do as he pleases, there should nevertheless be so little dan- ger from violence and insurrection. Certainly one reason is ! that while the conditions of frontier hfe release the in- Ij dividual from many of the formal restraints of ordered { society, they exact a most rigid adherence to lines of con- jl duct inevitably fixed by the stern necessities of life in a primitive community. On the frontier men soon learn to conform to what is regarded as essential, for the penalty of resistance or neglect is extinction: there the law oft survival works surely and swiftly. However eccentric frontiersmen may appear to the tenderfoot, among them- selves there is little variation from type in any essential matter. In_the new community, individualisni means the! ability of the ind ividual to succeed, not^by submittlng'tcJ some external formaTairrtTarh^"stnriess by following the bent of an unschooled will, but by^^ognizing and volun~ tarily adapting himself toJiecessaTy_c^3ffions^ Kansas, it is true, has produced its eccentrics, but there is a saying , here that freaks are raised for export only. In one sense ( the saying is true enough, for what strikes one particularly is that, on the whole, native Kansans are all so much alike. 94 C. L. Becker It is a community of great solidarity, and to the native it is "the Easterner" who appears eccentric. I The conquest of the wilderness in Kansas has thus de- Iveloped qualities of patien ce, of cglm, stoicaL. goQd= [humored endurance in the face of natural difficulties, of conformity to what is regarded as necessary. Yet the pa- tience, the calmness, the disposition to conform, is strictly confined to what is regarded as in the natural course. If the Kansan appears stolid, it is only on the surface that he is so. The peculiar conditions of origin and history have infused into the character of the people a certain romantic and sentimental element. Beneath the placid surface there is something fermenting which is best left alone — a latent energy which trivial events or a resounding phrase may unexpectedly release. In a recent commencement address, Mr. Henry King said that conditions in early Kansas were " hair-triggered." Well, Kansans are themselves hair-trig- gered; slight pressure, if it be of the right sort, sets them off. " Every one is on the qui vive, alert, vigilant, like a sentinel at an outpost." This trait finds expression in the romantic devotion of the people to the state, in a certain alert sensitiveness to criticism from outside, above all In the contagious enthusiasm with which they will without warning espouse a cause, especially when symbolized by a striking phrase, and carry It to an issue. Insurgency Is native in Kansas, and the political history of the state, like Its climate, is replete with surprises that have made It l" alternately the reproach and the marvel of mankind." JBut this apparent instability Is only the natural comple- ment of the extreme and confident Individualism of the ; people : having succeeded In overcoming so many obstacles that were unavoidable, they do not doubt their ability to destroy quickly those that seem artificially constructed. It thus happens that while no people endure the reverses of nature with greater fortitude and good humor than the Kansas 95 people of Kansas, misfortunes seemingly of man's making! arouse in them a veritable passion of resistance; the merel suspicion of injustice, real or fancied exploitation by those! who fare sumptuously, the pressure of laws not self-im-i posed, touch something explosive in their nature that transforms a calm and practical people into excited revolu- 1 tionists. Grasshoppers elicited only a witticism, but the i "mortgage fiends" produced the Populist regime, a kind of religious crusade against the infidel Money Power. The same spirit was recently exhibited in the " Boss Busters " movement, which in one summer spread over the state like a prairie fire and overthrew an established machine sup- posed to be in control of the railroads. The " Higherf Law " is still a force in Kansas. The spirit which refusedf to obey " bogus laws " is still easily stirred. A people which has endured the worst of nature's tyrannies, and cheerfully submits to tyrannies self-imposed, is in no mood to suffer hardships that seem remediable. II Idealism must always prevail on the frontier, for the frontier, whether geographical or intellectual,; offers little hope to those who see things as they are. To venture into the wilderness, one must see it, not as it is, but as it will be. The frontier, being the possession of those only who see its future, is the promised land which cannot be entered save by those who have faith. America, having been such a promised land, is therefore inhabited by men of faith: Idealism is ingrained in the character of its people. But as the frontier in America has hitherto been geographical 'and material, American idealism has necessarily a material basis, and Americans have often been mistakenly called materialists. True, they seem mainly interested in material things. Too often they represent values in terms 96 C. L. Becker of money: a man is " worth " so much money; a university is a great university, having the largest endowment of any; a fine building is a building that cost a million dollars, bet- ter still, ten millions. Value is extensive rather than in- tensive or intrinsic. America is the best country because it is the biggest, the wealthiest, the most powerful ; its people are the best because they are the freest, the most energetic, . the most educated. But to see a materialistic temper in all this is to mistake the form for the spirit. The American cares for material things because they represent the sub- stance of things hoped for. He cares less for money than for making money: a fortune is valued, not because it represents ease, but because it repr esents strug gle, achieve- ment, progress. The first skyscraper in any towrTns • nothing~iii~itseirn3ut much as an evidence of growth; it is a white stone on the road to the ultimate goal. Idealism of this sort is an essential ingredient of the Kansas spirit. In few communities is the word progress more frequently used, or its meaning less frequently de- tached from a material basis. It symbolizes the summum bonum., having become a kind of dogma. Mistakes are for- given a man if he is progressive, but to be unprogressive is to be suspect; like Aristotle's non-political animal, the unprogressive is extra-human. This may explain why every Kansan wishes first of all to tell you that he comes from the town of X , and then that it Is the finest town in the state. He does not mean that it is strictly the finest town in the state, as will appear if you take the trouble to inquire a little about the country, its soil, its climate. Its rainfall, and about the town itself. For it may chance that he is free to admit that it is hot there, that the soil is inclined to bake when there is no rain, that there is rarely any rain — all of which, however, is nothing to the point, because they are soon to have water by irrigation, which is, after all, much better than rainfall. And theft Kansas 97 he describes the town, which you have no difficulty in pic- turing vividly: a single street flanked by nondescript wooden shops ; at one end a railroad station, at the other a post-office; side streets lined with frame houses, painted or not, as the case may be; a school house somewhere, and a church with a steeple. It is such a town, to all appear- ances, as you may see by the hundred anywhere in the west — a dreary place which, you think, the world would will- ingly let die. But your man is enthusiastic ; he can talk of nothing but the town of X . The secret of his en- thusiasm you at last discover in the inevitable " but it will be a great country some day," and it dawns upon you that, after all, the man does not live in the dreary town of X , but in the great country of some day. Such are Kansans. Like St. Augustine, they have their City ef God, the idealized Kansas of some day : it is only necessary to have faith in order to possess it. I cannot illustrate this aspect of Kansas idealism better than by quoting, from Mrs. McCormick's little book of personal experience and observation. Having related the long years of struggle of a typical farmer, she imagines the Goddess of Justice revealing to him a picture of "the land as it shall be " when justice prevails. " John beheld a great plain four hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide — a great agricultural state covered with farmers tilling the soil and with here and there a city or village. On every farm stood a beautiful house handsomely painted out- side and elegantly furnished inside, and equipped with all modern conveniences helpful to housekeeping. Brussels carpets covered the floors, upholstered furniture and pianos ornamented the par- lors, and the cheerful dining-room had elegant table linen, cut glass, and silverware. Reservoirs carried the water into the houses in the country the same as in the cities. The farmers' wives and daughters, instead of working like slaves without proper utensils or house furnishings, now had everything necessary to lighten work and make home attractive. They had the summer- 98 C. L. Becker kitchen, the wash-house, houses for drying clothes, arbors, etc. The door-yards consisted of nicely fenced green lawns, wherein not a pig rooted nor mule browsed on the shrubbery nor hen wallowed in the flower-beds. Shade trees, hammocks, and rustic chairs were scattered about, and everything bespoke comfort. Great barns sheltered the stock. The farms were fenced and subdivided into fields of waving grain and pastures green." This is what John is supposed to have seen on a sum- mer's day when, at the close of a life of toil, he had just been sold up for debt. What John really saw had per- haps a less feminine coloring; but the picture represents the ideal, if not of an actual Kansas farmer, at least of an actual Kansas woman. This aspect of American idealism is, however, not peculiar to Kansas : it is more or less characteristic of all western communities. But there is an element in Kansas idealism that marks it off as a state apart. The origin of Kansas must ever be associated with the struggle against slavery. Of this fact, Kansans are well aware. Kansas is not a community of which it can be said, " happy is the people without annals." It is a state with a past. It has a history of which its people are proud, and which they in- sist, as a matter of course, upon having taught in the public schools. There are Old Families in Kansas who know their place and keep it — sacred bearers of the traditions of the }' Kansas Struggle. The Kansas Struggle is for Kansas what I the American Revolution is for New England; and while f there is as yet no " Society of the Daughters of the Kansas Struggle," there doubtless will be some day. For the Kansas Struggle is regarded as the crucial point in the achievement of human liberty, very much as Macaulay is said to have regarded the Reform Bill as the end for which all history was only a preparation. For all true Kansans, the border wars of the early years have a perennial interest : they mark the spot where Jones shot Smith, direct the at- Kansas 99 tention of the traveler to the little village of Lecompton, or point with pride to some venerable tree bearing honor- able scars dating from the Quantrill raid. Whether John Brown was an assassin or a martyr is a question which only a native can safely venture to answer with confidence. Re- cently, in a list of questions prepared for the examination of teachers in the schools, there appeared the following: " What was the A'ndover Band? " It seems that very few teachers knew what the Andover Band was ; some thought it was an iron band, and some a band of Indians. The newspapers took it up, and it was found that, aside from some of the old families, ignorance of the Andover Band was quite general. When it transpired that the Andover Band had to do with the Kansas Struggle, the humiliation of the people was profound. The belief that Kansas was founded for a cause distin- guishes it, in the eyes of its inhabitants, as pre-eminently the home of freedom. It lifts the history of the state out of the commonplace of ordinary westward migration, and gives to the temper of the people a certain elevated and martial quality. The people of Iowa or Nebraska are well enough, but their history has never brought them in touch with cosmic processes. The Pilgrims themselves are felt to have been actuated by less noble and altruistic motives. The Pilgrims, says Thayer, " fled from oppression, and sought in the new world ' freedom to worship God.' " But the Kansas emigrants migrated " to meet, to resist, and to destroy oppression, in vindication of their principles. These wer e self-sacr ificing emigranjts^e_athers^wereje]i:^eeking. Justice, though tardylnTFs work, will yet load with the highest honors, the memory of the Kansas pioneers who gave themselves and all they had to the sacred cause of human rights." This may smack of prejudice, but it is no heresy in Kansas. The trained and disinterested physiocratic his- 100 C. L. Becker torian will tell us that such statements are unsupported by the documents. The documents show, he will say, that the Kansas emigrants, like other emigrants, came for cheap land and in the hope of bettering their condition ; the real motive was economic, as all historic motives are ; the Kansas emigrant may have thought he was going to Kansas to resist oppression, but in reality he went to take up a farm. At least, that many emigrants thought they came to^ resist oppression is indisputable. Their descendants still think so. And, after all, perhaps it is important to distinguish those who seek better farms and know they seek nothing else, from those who seek better farms and imagine they are fighting a holy war. When the people of Newtown wished to remove to Connecticut we are told that they ad- vanced three reasons : first, " their want of accommodation for their cattle;" second, "the fruitfulness and commo- diousness of Connecticut ; " and finally, " the strong bent of their spirits to remove thither." In explaining human his- tory perhaps something should be conceded to " the strong j\^ bent of their spirits." Unquestionably cattle must be ac- commodated, but^ belief, even if founded on error, is a fact that may sometimes change the current of history. ) At all events, the people of Kansas believe that their ancestors Iwere engaged In a struggle for noble ends, and the belief, whether true or false, has left its impress upon their char- acter. In Kansas the idealism of the geographical frontier has been strongly flavored with the notion that liberty is something more than a by-product of economic processes. If Kansas idealism is cplored by the humanitarian liberal- ism of the first half of the last century, it has nevertheless been but slightly influenced by the vague, emotional, Jean Paul romanticism of that time. Of all despondent and mystic elements, the Kansas spirit is singularly free. There are few Byrons in Kansas, and no Don Juans. There is plenty of light there, but little of the " light that never was Kansas loi on land or sea." Kansas idealism is not a force that ex- pends itself in academic contemplation of the unattainable. It is an idealism that is immensely concrete and practical, re- quiring always some definite object upon which to expend itself, but once having such an object expending itself with a restless, nervous energy that is appalling: whatever the object, it is pursued with the enthusiasm, the profound con- viction given only to those who have communed with the Absolute. It would seem that preoccupation with the con- crete and the practical should develop a keen appreciation of relative values ; but in new countries problems of material transformation are so insistent that immediate means acquire the value of ultimate ends. Kansas is a new state, and its inhabitants are so preoccupied with the present, so resolutely detached from the experience of the centuries, that they can compare themselves of to-day only with themselves of yesterday. The idea embodied in the phrase, " Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht," has slight significance in a community in which twenty years of rapid material improvement has engendered an unquestioning faith in indefinite progress towards perfectibility. In such a community, past and future appear foreshortened, and the latest new mechanical device brings us an ap- preciable step nearer the millennium, which seems always to be just over the next hill. By some odd mental al- chemy it thus happens that the concrete and the practical have taken on the dignity of the absolute, and the pursuit of a convenience assumes the character of a crusade. Whether it be religion or paving, education or the disposal of garbage that occupies for the moment the focus of at- tention, the same stirring activity, the same zeal and emo- tional glow are enlisted: all alike are legitimate objects of conquest, to be measured in terms of their visual and transferable assets, and won by concerted and organized attack. I recall reading in a local Kansas newspaper some 102 C. L. Becker time ago a brief comment on the neighboring village of X (in which was located a small college mistakenly caHed a university), which ran somewhat as follows: " The University of X has established a music festival on the same plan as the one at the State University, and with most gratifying results. The first festival was alto- gether a success. X — — is a fine town, one of the best in the state. It has a fine university, and a fine class of peo- ple, who have made it a center of culture. X lacks only one thing; it has no sewers." Perhaps there are peo- ple who would find the juxtaposition of culture and sewers somewhat bizarre. But to us in Kansas it does not seem so. Culture and sewers are admittedly good things to pos- sess. Well, then, let us pursue them actively and with absolute conviction. Thus may an idealized sewer become an object worthy to stir the moral depths of any right- rninded community. An insistent, practical idealism of this sort, always busily occupied with concrete problems, is likely to prefer ideas cast in formal mold, will be a little at a loss in the midst of flexible play of mind, and look with suspicion upon the CiHiancipated, the critical, and the speculative spirit. It is too sure of itself to be at home with ideas of uncertain pressure. Knowing that it is right, it wishes only to go ajiead. Satisfied with certain conventional premises, it hastens on to the obvious conclusion. It thus happens that Americans, for the most part, are complaisantly satisfied with a purely formal interpretation of those resounding words that symbolize for them the ideas upon which their institutions are supposed to rest. In this respect Kansas is truly American. ]Srowhj!jeJ.sutlie re mo rg^loyal-devo- tion to such words as liberty. .de mQcracy, eq uality, educa- tionr. — iBtrtrpreocCupation with the concrete fixesTKe~aHen- tionTipbn the word itself, and upon what is traditionally associated with it. Democracy, for example, is tradition- Kansas 103 ally associated with elections, and many of them. Should you maintain that democracy is not necessarily bound up with any particular institution, that it is in the way of be- ing smothered by the complicated blanket ballot, you will not be understood, or, rather, you will be understood only too well as advocating something aristocratic. Democracy is somehow bound up with a concrete thing, and the move for the shorter ballot is therefore undemocratic and un- American. Or, take the word socialism. Your avowed socialist is received politely, and allowed to depart silently and without regret. But if you tell us of the movement for the governmental control of corporate wealth, we grow enthusiastic. The word socialism has a bad odor in Kansas, but the thing itself, by some other name, smells sweet enough. If one is interested in getting the essential features of sociaHsm adopted in Kansas, or in America itself, the name to conjure with is indeed not socialism, but equality. Ill In a country like America, where there is such confident faith in the individual, one might naturally expect to find the completest toleration, and no disposition to use the gov- ernment for the purpose of enforcing uniform conditions: logically, it would seem, so much emphasis on liberty should be incompatible with much emphasis on equality. Yet it is precisely in America, and nowhere in America more than in the west, that liberty and equality always go coupled and inseparable in popular speech; where the sense of lib- erty is especially strong, there also the devotion to equality is a cardinal doctrine. Throughout our history, the west has been a dominant factor in urging the extension of the powers of the national government, and western states have taken the lead in radical legislation of an equalizing I04 C. L. Becker character. This apparent inconsistency strikes one as especially pronounced in Kansas. The doctrine of equal- ity is unquestioned there, and that governments exist for the purpose of securing it is the common belief. " A law against it " is the specific for every malady. The welfare of society is thought to be always superior to that of the individual, and yet no one doubts that perfect liberty is the birthright of every man. Perhaps the truth is that real tol gratio n is a sentiment foreign to the American temper. Toleration is for the skeptical, being the product of much thought or of great indifference, sometimes, to be sure, a mere modus vivendi forced upon a heterogeneous society. In America we ■ imagine ourselves liberal-minded because we tolerate what we have ceased to regard as important. We tolerate religions but not irreligion, and diverse political opinion, but not unpolitical opinion, customs, but not the negation of custom. The Puritans fought for toleration — ^for jhem- / selves. But having won it fo r themselves, straightway de- "nied it toothers. No small part of American history has been a repetition of the Puritan struggle; it has been a fight, not for toleration as a general principle, but for recognition of a civilization resting upon particular prin- ciples: in exterior relations, a struggle for recognition of America by Europe; in interior relations, a struggle for recognition of " the West " by " the East." The principle of tolieration is written in our constitutions, but not in our minds, for the motive back of the famous guarantees of individual liberty has been recognition of particular opinion rather than toleration of every opinion. And in the nature of the case it must be so. Those who create frontiers and establish new civilizations have too much faith to be tolerant, and are too thoroughgoing idealists to be indifferent. On the frontier conditions are too haz- ardous for the speculative and the academic to flourish Kansas 105 readily: only those who are right and are sure of it can succeed. Certainly it is characteristic of Americans to know that they are right. Certainly they are conscious of having a mission in the world and of having been faithful to it. They have solved great problems hitherto unsolved, have realized Utopias dreamed of but never realized by Europe, They are therefore in the van of civilization, quite sure of the direction, triumphantly leading the march towards the ultimate goal. That every one should do as he likes is part of the American creed only in a very lim- ited sense. That it is possible to know what is right, and that what is right should be recognized and adhered to is the more vital belief. That liberty and equality are compatible terms is, at all events, an unquestioned faith in Kansas. The belief in equality, however, is not so much the belief that all men areTqijaTli!riliFconvrcnoir^^ of societ;^ tb TgStatriJdT-eottdititFfislhat wil l make themT or'lSd this notion, so far from bemg inconsistent with the pronounced individualism that prevails there, is the natural result of it. In Kansas at least, no one holds to the right of the in- dividual to do as he likes, irrespective of what it is that he likes. Faith in the individual is faith in the particular in- dividual, the true Kansan, who has learned through ad- versity voluntarily to conform to what is necessary. Human nature, or, at all events, Kansas nature, is es- sentially good, and if the environment is right all men can measure up to that high level. That the right environ- ment can be created is not doubted. It is not possible foi" men so aggressive and self-reliant, who have overcome so many obstacles, to doubt their ability to accomplish this also. Having conquered nature,, they cheerfully confront the task of transforming human nature. It is precisely be- cause Kansans are such thoroughgoing individualists, so vSl. resourceful, so profoundly confident in their own judg- io6 C. L. Becker ments, so emancipated from the past, so accustomed to de- vising expedients for every new difficulty, that they are un- impressed by the record of the world's failures. They have always thrived on the impossible, and the field of many failures offers a challenge not to be resisted. To effect these beneficent ends, the people of Kansas turn naturally to the government because they have a very simple and practical idea of what the government is and what it is for. The government, in Kansas, is no abstract concept. It is nothing German, nothing metaphysical. In this frontier community no one has yet thought of the gov- ernment as a power not ourselves that makes for evil. Kansans think of the government, as they think of every- thing else, in terms of the concrete. And why, indeed, should they not? Within the memory of man there was no government in Kansas. They, Kansans, made the gov- ernment themselves for their own purposes. The govern- ment is therefore simply certain men employed by them- ' selves to do certain things ; it is the sum of the energy, the good judgment, the resourcefulness of the individuals who originally created it, and who periodically renew it. The government is the individual writ large ; in it every Kansan sees himself drawn to larger scale. The passion for con- trolling all things by law is thus not the turning of the hopeless and discouraged individual to some power other and higher than himself for protection; it is only the in- stinct to use effectively one of the many resources always at his command for achieving desired ends. Of a govern- ment hostile to the individual, they cannot conceive ; such a government is a bogus government, and its laws are bogus laws; to resist and overthrow such a government, all the initiative and resourcefulness is enlisted that is devoted to supporting one regarded as legitimate. There is a higher law than the statute book ; the law of the state is no law if it does not represent the will of the individual. Kansas 107 To identify the will of the individual with the will of society in this easy fashion, presupposes a certain solidarity in the community: an identity of race, custom, habits, needs; a consensus of opinion in respect to morals and politics. Kansas is such a community. Its people are principally American born, descended from settlers wfho came mainly from the middle west. It is an agricultural state, and the conditions of life are, or have been until re- cently, much the same for all. " Within these pastoral boundaries," says ex-Senator Ingalls, in his best Kansas manner, " there are no millionaires nor any paupers, ex- cept such as have been deprived by age, disease, and calam- ity of the ability to labor. No great fortunes have been brought to the state and none have been accumulated by commerce, manufactures or speculation. No sumptuous mansions nor glittering equipages nor ostentatious display exasperates or allures." And the feeling of solidarity re- sulting from identity of race and uniformity of custom has been accentuated by the peculiar history of the state. Kansans love each other for the dangers they have passed; a unique experience has created a strong esprit de corps — a feeling that while Kansans are different from others, one Kansan is not only as good as any other, but very like ; any other. The philosophy of numbers, the doctrine of the majority, is therefore ingrained, and little sympathy is wasted on minorities. Rousseau's notion that minorities are only mistaken finds ready acceptance, and the will of the individual is easily identified with the will of society. And in a sense the doctrine is true enough, for there is little difference of opinion on fundamental questions. In religion there are many creeds and many churches, but the difference between them is regarded as unimportant. There is, however, a quite absolute dogmatism of morality. Baptism is for those who enjoy it, but the mbral life is for all. And what constitutes the moral life is well under- io8 C. L. Becker stood : to be honest and pay your debts ; to be friendly and charitable, good-humored but not cynical, slow to take of- fense, but regarding life as profoundly serious ; to respect sentiments and harmless prejudices ; to revere the conven- tional great ideas and traditions ; to live a sober life and a chaste one, — to these they lay hold without questioning. Likewise in politics. One may be democrat or republican, stalwart or square-dealer, insurgent or stand-patter: it is no vital matter. But no one dreams of denying democracy, the will of the people, the greatest good to the greatest number, equal justice and equal opportunity to all. Whether in respect to politics or economics, education or morals, the consensus of opinion is very nearly perfect: it is an opinion that unites in the deification of the average, that centers in the dogmatism of the general level. It goes without saying that the general level in Kansas is thought to be exceptionally high. Kansans do not regard themselves as mere westerners, like lowans or Nebraskans. Having passed through a superior heat, they are west- erners seven times refined. " It is the quality of piety in Kansas," says Mr. E. H. Abbott, "to thank God that you are not as other men are, beer-drinkers, shiftless, habitual lynchers, or even as these Missourians." The pride is natural enough, perhaps, in men whose judgment has been vindicated at last in the face of general skepticism. Hav- ing for many years contributed to the gaiety of nations, Kansas has ceased to be the pariah of the states. Kansans have endured Job's comforters too long not to feel a little complaisant when their solemn predictions come to naught. " While envious rivals were jeering, . . . pointing with scorn's slow unmoving finger at the droughts, grasshoppers, hot winds, crop failures, and other calamities of Kansas, the world was suddenly startled and dazzled by her col- lective display of . . . products at the Centennial at Phila- delphia, which received the highest awards." It is inevi- Kansas 109 table that those who think they have fashioned a corner- stone out of the stone rejected by the builders should regard themselves as superior workmen. To test others by this high standard Is an Instinctive pro- cedure. There is an alert attention to the quality of those who enter the state from outside. The crucial question is, are they " our kind of men? " Do they speak " the Kansas language? " Yet the Kansas language Is less a form of speech, or the expression of particular ideas, than a cer- tain personal quality. Some time since a distinguished visitor from the east came to the state to deliver a public address. He was most hospitably received, as all visitors are, whether distinguished or otherwise, and his address — permeated with the idealistic liberalism of a half century ago — was attentively listened to and highly praised. But to no purpose all these fine Ideas. The great man was found wanting, for there was discovered, among his other impedimenta, a valet. It was a fatal mischance. The poor valet was more commented upon than the address, more observed than his master. The circumstance stamped the misguided man as clearly not our kind of man. Obviously, no man who carries a valet can speak the Kansas language. Needless to say, there are no valets In Kansas. The feeling of superiority naturally attaching to a chosen people, equally Inclines Kansans to dispense readily with the advice or experience of others. They feel that those who have worn the hair shirt cannot be Instructed In asceticism by those who wear silk. In discussing the uni- versity and its problems with a member of the state legis- lature, I once hazarded some comparative statistics show- ing that a number of other states made rather more liberal appropriations for their universities than the state of Kansas did for hers. I thought the comparison might be enlightening, that the man's pride of state might be touched. Not at all. " I know all about that," he re- no C. L. Becker plied. " That argument is used by every man who is in- terested in larger appropriations for any of the state in- stitutions. But it doesn't go with a Kansas legislature. In Kansas, we don't care much what other states are doing. Kansas always leads, but never follows." And, in fact, the disregard of precedent is almost an article of faith; that a thing has been done before is an indication that it is time to improve upon it. History may teach that men cannot be legislated into the kingdom of heaven. Kansans are not ignorant of the fact, but it is no concern of theirs. The experience of history is not for men with a mission and faith to perform it. Let the uncertain and the timid profit by history; those who have at all times the courage of their emotions will make history, not repeat it. Kan- sans set their own standards, and the state becomes, as it were, an experiment station in the field of social science. The passion for equality in Kansas is thus the comple- ment of the individualism and the idealism of its people. It has at the basis of it an altruistic motive, aiming not so much to level all men down as to level all men up. The Kansan's sense of individual worth enables him to believe that no one can be better than he is, while his confident idealism encourages him to hope that none need be worse. IV The Kansas spirit is the American spirit double distilled. It is a new grafted product of American individualism, American idealism, American intolerance. Kansas is America in microcosm: as America conceives itself in re- spect to Europe, so Kansas conceives itself in respect to America. Within its borders, Americanism, pure and un- defiled, has a new lease of life. It is the mission of this self-selected people to see to it that it does not perish from off the earth. The light on the altar, however neglected Kansas 1 1 1 elsewhere, must ever be replenished in Kansas. If this is provincialism, it is the provincialism of faith rather than of the province. The devotion to the state is devotion to an ideal, not to a territory, and men can say " Dear old Kan- sas ! " because the name symbolizes for them what the motto of the state so well expresses, ad astra per aspera. 0/,^.^.^^ . ^ , ^ C ' Carl Becker. FEDERALISM AND THE WEST The fate of the Federalist party has been a puzzle of long standing. The narrow margin by which the Repub- licans won the election of 1800 was not prophetic of in- variable success, and at first sight it appears anomalous that the Federalist party which carried the ratification of the constitution and successfully established the government under it should have been condemned to successive defeats and lingering death. To say that the party was not in accord with the political tendencies of the country is rather a conclusion than an explanation; yet if we assert that Fede^lism^ was npn-expansi while_the growth of th£west_a£crued to_the benefit of Repub licanism, we rise to the dignity of a working hypothesis which, if established, affords at least a partial solution. The first parties of the constitutional period were the re- sults of two sets of contending forces. In the areas of earliest colonization, where constant intercourse with Eng- land had been the condition of existence, social evolution in- evitably followed old-world lines. From the beginning political privilege was limited in these communities by prop- erty and religious qualifications which followed English precedents. However much In advance of English prac- tice, the colonies at the outbreak of the Revolution still be- trayed the aristocratic temper of the mother-country In their political arrangements. But American conditions had given birth to a new ideal. In the interior, where nothing was known of the back-to-nature call of French political philosophy, a primitive society had come into be- ing which actualized in a measure the ideal of Rousseau. The self-reliant backwoodsmen owed slight allegiance to 113 114 H. C. Hockett any master, and held the divine right of kings and the traditional right of aristocrats in equal contempt. When the coastwise oligarchies, firm in adherence to the right of blood and wealth to rule, attempted to exercise control over the back country, maintaining their dominance against popular majorities by suffrage qualifications and in- equitable apportionment of representation, the ideals of the interior democracies and of the ruling classes clashed. The contest was a long one, and was still in progress when the Revolution came. Each stage of the contest with England had its effect upon this intestine conflict, and it was pres- ently transferred to the national arena. The philosophy of natural rights, advanced to justify the revolt of the col- onies, spread the democratic leaven and strengthened the popular cause against the aristocrats, and the success of the colonies in destroying British authority over them weak- ened the respect in which all authority was held. To this cause was due in part the confusion of the Confederation period. The movement for the new constitution was a r reaction against the prevalent excess of democracy. This reaction enabled men of the essentially conservative class to regain control and frame an instrument more adequate \ for the ends of government as they conceived them. The \ issue of ratification gathered the commercial and pro- i fessional classes into one camp, leaving the agricultural in- / terest, with the exception of the large planters, in the 4 other. The line of division thus separated the propertied } from the unpropertied, the Atlantic coast from the in- I terior. j These divisions corresponded closely, on a national scale, to the old local groupings of aristocrats and democrats, - and perpetuated the antagonism between east and west. The new issues of the Federalist administrations produced only a partial realignment: th^JFeder^Ji^^^aTt^cont^^ to include those who believed social order to be the chi^ Federalism and the West 115 purpose of governrnent, and who, distrusting the political capacity of the masses, favored the vigorous rule of the well-born/ To the extent to which it was the party of aristocratic tradition, and the representative of the com- merciaTagainsTthe agricultural interest, it was a party of inherent antagonisni to the _ interests and ideals of the west. Let us now test this a priori conclusion by studying the attitude of the party and its leaders towards the west, and tracing its fortunes in western regions. The idea _that property interests are the main concern of society was prominent in the debates in the constitutional convention, and affected the provision for the admission of new states. Men who were prominent later in the__^ ranks of the FederaTparty Insisted upon some scheme of apportionment which would safeguard the interests and power of the original states. They feared the crudity of the frontier and the military burdens which it, might Im- pose upon the maritinie states. Said Gouverneur Morris : "n, "The busy haunts of men, not the remote wilderness, is the proper school of pohtlcal talents. If the western people get the power into their hands, they will ruin the Atlantic interest."^ The efforts of this conservative ^' * Broad construction was not a fundamental tenet of the Federalists, so much as a means by which they sought to secure the ends of government as they conceived them. When their opponents secured control, strict construction became the natural defense for the same interests. 'Madison's Notes of the Debates (Scott's edition), p. 327. On another ■" occasion Morris said: "Property was the main object of society. . . . The rule of representation ought to be so fixed, as to secure to the Atlantic States a prevalence in the national councils. The new States will know less of the public interest than these, will have an interest in many re- spects diflferent; in particular will be little scrupulous of involving the community in wars the burdens and operations of which would fall chiefly on the maritime States." Ihid., p. 298. Similar views were ad- vanced by Rufus King (p. 300), Rutledge (p. 298), Butler (p. 301), Gerry (p. 345), and Williamson (p. 313)- A" °f *«se men were Fed- eralists except Gerry, although Butler presently ceased to act with that party and Rutledge did not become an active partisan until the late ii6 H. C. Hockett grou|)__toxendar, the western communities j)ermanently de- pendent failed; they succeeded only in securing to Con- gress an uncertain measure of discretion in the admission of new states, in the provision that " new states may be admitted by the Congress." * The ambiguous phrase did not close the gate of statehood against the territories, nor did it shut the door against future controversies. The discussions of the convention betray the natural bias of men of the type which gave tone to Federalism. And certainly the western communities then in existence gave little promise of such development as these men would have wished. The middle-state and southern emigrants to the Kentucky and Tennessee frontiers came chiefly of that stock which had given birth to the American ideal of democracy. When the ratifying conventions of North Carolina and Virginia met, the delegates from these western counties voted almost solidly against ratification,* and ratification once an accomplished fact, even the Federal party there tended rapidly towards Republicanism. The excise and direct jtax powerfully alienated western, sentiment. In Tennessee there were a few admirers of Hamilton's policies ; ° in Kentucky the excesses of the French Revolu- tion and the violence of Genet's partisans tended for awhile to maintain an administration party.® But in a great outburst of indignation over Jay's treaty. Senator Marshall was denounced for his favorable vote,' and within a few years the Federal party was destroyed so completely nineties. The champions of equal rights for the west were Madison, Mason, and Wilson. Ibid., pp. 322, 329, 344. 'See Farrand: "Compromises of the Constitution," in American His- torical Review, IX., pp. 483-4. * Libby, O. G., Geographical Distribution of the Vote on the Rati- fication of the Constitution, University of Wisconsin Bulletin, I., No. i, PP- 35i 39- ° Phelan, J., Tennessee, pp. 241-2. * Shaler, N., Kentucky, p. 129. ' Ibid., p. 131. Federalism and the West 117 that the legislature of that commonwealth was chosen as an organ for the Republican pronunciamento against the Alien and Sedition laws. The test of Federalist policy, culminating in these acts, proved the real affinity of the pseudo-Federalism of Kentucky and Tennessee to be the Jeffersonian party. Nevertheless, the nascent Federalism of 1792 offered no protest against the admission of the first of these west- ern_jtates. Never, a. territory of the Union, Kentucky Cam4.,aBieilxJntoMthe^ sisterhood of states jn pursuance of an agreement between Virginia and Congress. But the ap- Pik^tW of Tennessee in 1796 was the signal for Federal- \ ist opposition. The people of the "Territory South of^'^^l' W;^ the Ohio River," as it was officially designated, acting un- '''■'' der an ordinance of the territorial legislature, without '^'^ ' authorization of Congress, had held a convention and adopted a constitution under which they now claimed recognition. By the terms of North Carolina's cession, Congress was pledged to grant eventual statehood on terms defined by the Ordinance of 1787 for the Northwest Ter- ritory. Not venturing to Impugn this pledge, the Fed- eralists professed friendship for the statehood aspirations of the people of the territory, and confined their objections to insistence upon safe precedent, since " in a few years, other States would be rising up in the Western wilderness, and claiming their right to admission," and " it was of considerable moment to the United States, that a proposi- tion which admitted a new State to the equal rights in one important branch of Government In the affairs of the na- tion should be seriously considered and grounded on clear constitutional right."* They maintained that action by Congress must precede th£ organlzatioiTof a state govern- ' Speech of William Smith of South Carolina, May 5. Annals of Con- gress, Fourth Congress, l sess., 1300-1304. Smith's leadership is sig- nificant of the non-sectional character of the Federalist opposition. ii8 H. C. Hockett ment, and pointed out that it was quite within the power of Congress, by dividing the territory into two states, to " leave less than sixty thousand inhabitants in either, and consequently deprive them of any claim whatever to ad- mission into the Union at this time." ' The Federalists had no desire, however, to increase the ultimate number of Republican states, as such a division would have done; they considered the eagerness of their opponents to grant recognition as due to the hope of electing Jefferson,^" and wished to delay recognition long enough to deprive the Republicans of three electoral votes in the presidential cam- paign then in progress. By a vote of 43 to 30, however, the House took action in favor of immediate recognition, and so far as the alignment of parties has been ascertained, it stood: Republicans 17 to i in favor, Federalists 2 to 12 against.^^ In the Senate, Rufus King presented a committee report which declared the inhabitants of Tennessee, in the absence of action of Congress, not yet entitled to admission as a state." This report the Senate adopted, and by a vote of 1 5 to 8 passed a bill reported later from King's committee for "laying out into one State the territory ceded by the State of North Carolina." ^^ In the end the Senate passed the House bill by the casting vote of acting-president Liv- ermore, whose action gave his Federalist friends chagrin." On the whole, the Federalist attitude in the Tennessee ' Ibid. '° " No doubt this is but one twig of the electioneering cabal for Mr. Jefferson." — Chauncey Goodrich to Oliver Wolcott, Sr., quoted by Fhelan, Tennessee, p. i88. ^' To ascertain the party politics of obscure congressmen is very dif- ficult. I have relied upon the Congressional Biographical Directory, cor- recting and supplementing it where possible. Notwithstanding the in- complete figures the party alignment is evident. ^' Annals of Congress, Fourth Cong., l sess., 91-94. "Ibid., pp. 97, 109. " Goodrich to Wolcott, loc. cit. Federalism and the West 119 episode is what one would expect jn the light of the speeches in the convention of 1787. .They displayed a willingness to prolong the territorial status, which is in marked con- trast with the Republican view of it as " a degraded situa- tion," lacking " a right essential to freemen— the right of being represented in Congress." ^° " There is no question," asserts one historian, " that the rapid growth of the new settlements, whether in the old States or in the West, from 1790 on, was a material cause of the final complete annihilation of the Federal party." ^* " The decision between Federalism and the so-called Re- publican party," writes another, " depended on the two great and growing states of Pennsylvania and New York; and from the very fact that they were growing, that both of them had an extensive backwoods frontier. . . ." " But it must not be hastily concluded that the frontier was in- variably Republican. If the Kentucky and Tennessee area was a natural region for Republican expansion, Federalism also showed a marked tendency to spread westward with the migrating New England stock, and did not yield to the forces of democracy without a struggle. The expansion of Federalism and Its gradual approximation to Repub-- llcanism are excellently illustrated in the history of New York, and the study has especial Interest because of the unique part played by that state In the election of Jefferson. In the struggle over ratification of the constitution, the Federalist vote came from the commercial regions of the lower Hudson; the patroon aristocracy and their tenants on the upper Hudson, and the German population of the Mohawk Valley were strongly opposed to ratification. If the New York convention had been among the earliest to " The words are Madison's. Annals, Fourth Cong., I sess., 1308-9. See note 2, p. 115. ; '" Hinsdale, B. A., Old North'west, p. 295. " Hildreth, K., History of the United States, V., p. 416. I20 H. C. Hockett meet, there is little doubt it would have refused to ratify; but the geographical position of the state made rejection impracticable in the face of the action of the other states. But while the Federalists were strengthened by this initial victory, and aided by the influence of federal patronage In the state, they could hardly have shaken the dominance of the democracy led by George Clinton without the aug- mentation of their voting strength by immigrants from New England. To this immigration chiefly must be at \ ^, iJ}., tributed the revolution which gave the state into the hands B* f^fdf the Federalists from 1794 to 1800. The influx of New i i$f ** Englanders in these years affected most the very regions '*' i^ which had been anti-federal, and the frontiers. The '^ "j opening of cheap lands drew swarms of farmers from Con- W i n^f^ticut and Massachusetts, while the establishment of new 0|y(\^* CQunties attracted to the county towns young lawyers and ;.'' , i^' Merchants of Federalist principles, whose political talents ^. I yi^ provided leadership for the rural electorate.^* In the ap- '' -^ portionment of 1791, the population of the Western Dis- trict entitled it to five of the twenty-four state senators.^* The rapid increase of freeholders, due chiefly to the im- migration from New England, necessitated a reapportion- ment four years later, when, of the twenty additional sen- ators for the entire state, twelve fell to the Western Dis- trict.^" During the nineties, this district was the most certainly .federalist area in the state, electing candidates of that party almost without opposition. By 1798, how- ever, Republican gains gave warning of the early passing of Federalist control in the state at large, and in the elec- tion of 1800, which restored the Republicans to power, the Federalists were defeated even in the Western District, ^° Benton, Nathaniel S., A History of Herkimer County, Including the Upper Mohavik Valley, p. 259. " Hammond, J. D., History of Political Parties in the State of New York, p. 52. " Ibid., p. 99. Federalism and the West lar which\now became as regularly Republican as it had been Federalist. These.iac,ts point to thgactiial conversion of Federalist voters to Republicanism, a,iid suggest that the Federalism of the New England-New York frontiersman was tradi- t jonal rathe r_ than vital. Naturally, the appeal of the wilderness was strongest with the younger and less pros- perous men^-^^the very class least steeped in the orthodox Federalisni_ of their native communities. Transplanted £r. om its original environment, Federalism of this type easily conformed to its new surroundings and presently merged into Republicanism. The actual process may, in- deed, be traced. During the two or three years preceding 1800, there were in the assembly eight or ten members who had been chosen as Federalists, but who were begin- ning to question the doctrines of that party, and to act with the Republicans.^^ Among these was Jedediah Peck, an uneducated immigrant from Connecticut, who plied the trade of surveyor in behalf of his fellows who, during the nineties, redeemed Otsego County from the wilderness, " He would survey your farm in the daytime, exhort and pray in your family at night, and talk on politics the rest part of the time." ^^ Such was the character of the man chosen by the Otsego settlers to represent them in the coun- cils of the state, and from the representative may be in- ferred the character of the constituents. The latent aristocracy q£ Fe deralism, w hich showed its hand in the Ahen and Sedition acts, was too much for these people, and Peck circulated a petition for the repeal of the Sedition law. For this Judge Cooper, the novelist's father, an ardent Federalist, caused Peck to be arrested and carried two hundred miles to New York for trial. The effect of such a spectacle upon a population already disaffected, on the eve of a state and national election, is easily imagined. " Jbid., p. 123. " Ibid., p. 124. 122 H. C. Hockett " A hundred missionaries in the cause of democraqr, sta- tioned between New York and Cooperstown, could not have done so much for the Republican cause as this jour- ney of Jedediah Peck from Otsego to the capital of the State." ^* Meantime other influences had been working in the same direction. Of a type similar to Peck was Obadiah German, member from the neighboring county of Chenango. To these waverers Aaron Burr had been pay- ing court, conscious that their espousal of democracy would be an important factor in the winning of the west. Fall- ing in as it did with the events narrated. Burr's plan was completely successful, and in the decisive campaign of 1 800 these counties followed their converted leaders into the ranks of Republicanism.^* Herkimer, another of this group of western counties, was won by similar means, ,dis,- affejtion, caused by the policies of the Adams administra- tion coinciding with the coming of a Republican lawyer sent to organize the local democracy.^'' In its new garb the Western District speedily became dominant in state politics. By 1805, German was the recognized leader of the Republicans in the assembly; ^' in 1809, western New York demanded the choice of a citizen of that section for United States senator, and secured the election of German over several prominent competitors.^'' In the gubernatorial campaign of 18 10 the issue was ad- mitted to rest with the same section. In the hope of carry- ing this stronghold of Republicanism, the Federalists nominated Jones Piatt, a pioneer of Whitesborough, who, notwithstanding the revolution of sentiment which had taken place around him and his own steadfast Federalism, had retained his popularity in the part of the state with "'Ibid., p. 132. ''Ibid., pp. 124, 134. "' Benton, History of Herkimer County, p. 262. °° Hammond, History of Political Parties, p. 218. "Ibid., p. 276. Federalism and the West 123 which he had so long been identified.^* But the device failed. The^convsr§ipn,9i. the west ta RepHblieanisro sealed the doom _of_ tjie- Jederallst party ia New York.;, and the Re- publican victory in die statein 1800 swung, twelve electoral votes from the Federalist column, which, in view of the balance of parties in the rest of the country, may fairly be said to have decided the presidential election. Never after 1796 did New York cast a Federalist electoral vote, and that party gradually sank to the position of a faction acting with one or the other of the Republican groups as interest seemed to dictate.^' In that portion of the Northwest Territory which be- came the state of Ohio, Federalism had its severest test in direct competition with the democratic stock which had already captured Kentucky and Tennessee. The Federal- ists were first on the ground; the veterans who followed Putnam to Marietta found themselves, in the period of nascent parties, in sympathy with their eastern relatives. In the settlements around Cincinnati, also, were many ^^ easterners whose leanings were towards Federahsm, and ^^ 3^ * Arthur St. Clair, the territorial governor, was a staunch iL '^'^ adherent of that party. The governor himself entered the lists as a pamphleteer in defense of the Adams ad- ministration,'" and the legislature of 1799 voted a com- plimentary address to the president with but five dissenting voices." These five votes, however, were ominous of ap- proaching discord. Into the Cincinnati region and the °° Ihid., p. 279. "Hammond's explanation of the fall of the Federalists is: "They did not properly appreciate the intelligence and good sense of tlie mass of the community. ... It was this unjust estimate . . . which carried them into a course of reasoning and action which resulted in . . . utter overthrow." P. i6a. Hammond's work was published in 1843. "" Smith, W. H., St. Clair Papers, II., p. 442- "7Wi., I., p. 213; II., p. 484- 124 H. C. Hockett Virginia military reservation was pouring a flood of south- ern immigrants imbued with a dislike of the dependent ter- ritorial status; with characteristic impatience at arbitrary power, the leaders of this element had clashed with St. Clair in the interpretation of his powers. The result was a firm conviction on their part that they should never get fair play under the territorial regime. The rapid increase of population promised them relief through early statehood, but St. Clair, true to his Federalist instincts, mistrusted the classes to whom he foresaw power would fall. To him they seemed an indigent and ignorant j)eople, ill qualified to form a constitution and government for themselves, and too remote from the seat of government to feel a whole- some respect for the power of the United States. ,^^_Fhced political principles they have none. . . . Their govern- ment would most probably be democratic jn form and oligarchic in its execution, and more troublesome and more opposed to the measures of the United States than even »" Kentucky.'"'' To Timothy Pickering, the Federalist sec- \ retary of state, St. Clair therefore proposed a departure ; from the plan of division of the Northwest Territory laid ^; down in the Ordinance of 1787, and a division of the " in- j habitants in such a manner as to make the upper or Eastern / division surely Federal, and form a counterpoise ... to L those who are unfriendly to the General Government." ^' Upon reflection, however, he abandoned this project on the ground that " the eastern division is too thinly inhab- /ited, and the design would be too evident," and, as sug- I gested in the Tennessee debate, proposed a division which, while leaving each portion " a sufficient number of inhab- itants to continue in the present [second territorial] stage j of government," would keep " them in the colonial state '^ St. Clair to James Ross, December, 1799. Ibid., II., pp. 481-3. "This letter has been lost. St. Clair gives a summary in his com- munication to Ross, cited above. Federalism and the West 12c for a good many years to come." Instead of lending ( *" himself to St. Clair's scheme, Pickering submitted the let- '' ter to William Henry Harrison, delegate of the Territory m Congress, on whose recommendation a division was made (May, 1800) in accordance with the Ordinance. Hoping to secure a reconsideration by Congress, St. Clair's partisans next (November, 1801) carried through the legislature a bill assenting to a departure from the bounds of the prospective state, as defined by the Ordinance, which Fearing, Harrison's successor as territorial delegate, was instructed to submit for the approval of Congress. Mean- time, the Jeffersonian regime had been inaugurated at Washington, and St. Clair's opponents met the issue by appealing to their friends at the capital, not only to reject the boundary act, but to take steps favorable to the ad-v^ ,„^ mission of the state. The quarrel of Ohio Federalists and Republicans over statehood now transferred to the larger arena of the na- tional Congress, bade fair to become a national party is- sue. It was predicted that Federalists would oppose ad- mission, because the increase of western and southern states accrued to the advantage of their opponents.** On the other hand, the Republicans were eager to add to their party strength three electoral votes which might prove decisive in the contest of 1804. The boundary act was decisively rejected on January 27, 1802, only five votes being recorded in its favor ; and the next day the first steps towards a statehood bill were taken under a motion by Giles, a zealous Republican from Virginia.*^ In the debate which ensued the expected Federalist opposition failed to break cover. Roger Griswold of Connecticut was al- lowed, almost unsupported, to voice the protest of the op- position. In the Tennessee debate, the Federalists held " Ibid., I., p. 338. '° Annals of Congress, Seventh Cong., I sets., pp. 465-6, 469. 126 H. C. Hockett that an act of Congress must precede the formation of a state government by the people of a territory; now Gris- wold maintained that the passage of an act giving the as- sent of Congress to such action, upon the petition of in- dividuals, and contrary to the wish of the legislature as im- plied in the boundary act, was an unwarranted interfer- ence with the concerns of the people of the territory."' The Republicans maintained, as in 1796, that territorial gov- ernments "were arbitrary at best, and ought not to exist longer than they could with propriety be dispensed with. They were opposed to the genius of the people of this country. . . . The people resident in the Territory had emigrated from the different States in the Union, where they had been in the habit of enjoying the benefits of a free form of government; they no doubt looked forward to a very short period, at which they might again enjoy the same as pointed out by the Ordinance . . . but if the doctrine now contended for in opposition, shall prevail in this House, all their hopes are blasted," for, answering Griswold, it was urged that it was " not to be supposed that men who have power to nullify every act of the peo- ple, will ever sanction one to put an end to their own political existence." In support of this contention the boundary act was clted.^'' It is interesting to note the bearing of these early party contests upon the evolution of our practice in admitting states. In these two instances, the Federalist objections tended to correct extreme action by the Republicans. The Federalists were nevertheless opportunists, and Griswold's plea was not entirely consistent with the Federalist conten- tion in 1796. Then it was asserted that the action of the territorial legislature should not be taken as conclusive of "Ibid., 1104-5. " Extract from the speech of R. Williams of North Carolina. Annals, sup. cii., pp. 1107-ro. Federalism and the West 127 the wish of the people of Tennessee, since many were known to oppose statehood; while Griswold maintained that the action of the legislature was the only evidence of the attitude of the inhabitants of a territory cognizable by Congress. The final vote on the Ohio statehood bill shows more clearly than the debate the partisan nature of the issue. The vote of those whose politics have been ascertained shows the Republicans 14 to i in favor of it, with seven Federalists opposed. The bill as passed offended the Fed- eralists by separating what is now eastern Michigan from the proposed state. This they believed to have been done from the fear that that district, which Federalism seems to have dominated, would give a majority against state- hood, or, if favorable, would carry the state into the Fed- eralist column.^* It is significant of the extent to which Federalism had invaded the west, that a gerrymander was necessary to insure Republican ascendency. The passage of the enabling act was only the beginning of disaster for the Ohio Federalists. Their delegates in the constitutional convention were outnumbered nearly three to one; St. Clair was dismissed by Jefferson, with scant courtesy, before the expiration of his term as terri- torial governor, for criticising the action of Congress in a speech before the convention.'" The convention, true to the current creed of democracy, and mindful of the conflicts with the late governor, framed a constitution which trusted large powers to the legislature, but reduced the governor to a figurehead. In the first election the Republicans car- ried even Marietta by a large majority, the disheartened Federalists casting blank ballots, in view of the certainty of defeat.*" The rout of the party by these events was so com- " Burnet, Jacob, Notes on the Early Settlement of the Noi^th-Western Territory, p. 337. "• St. Clair Papers, I., pp. 244-6; II., pp. 592-6°' • " /*«V., I., p. 247. 128 H. C. Hockett plete that it practically disappeared from the state. Vir- ginian, New Yorker, Yankee, Scotch-Irishman, Irishman, and Englishman were drawn alike into the all-embracing democracy. All of these stocks were represented in the governor's chair within a quarter-century,*^ but no man who before the party title of Federalist attained important of- fice until about 1820, by which time that designation was fast losing its significance. Among the politicians of these early days, however, were many men from New England, and especially Connecticut, who had imbibed the principles of democracy in their earlier home, or who found their Federalism no longer tenable in the changed social and political conditions of the West.*^ " Tiffin, English; Kirker, Irish; Morrow, Scotch-Irish. Huntington was born in Connecticut, Looker in New York, and Worthington in Virginia. *^ Congressmen of Connecticut birth: RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS, Jr., Middletown. A graduate of Yale, originally a Federalist; went over to the Republicans during the statehood contest. When a candidate for governor in 1810, his opponents sought to defeat him by calling him a Federalist. JOHN S. EDWARDS, New Haven. First congressman from the West- ern Reserve counties, under apportionment of i8i2. An " extreme Jeffer- sonian Republican.'' LEVI BARBER, Litchfield. PHILEMON BEECHER, Kent. Sent to the Fifteenth Congress by the fifth Ohio district. " Originally a Federalist with broadened ideas." The first of that party name elected to Congress by an Ohio constituency. PETER HITCHCOCK, Cheshire. JOHN C. WRIGHT, Weathersfield. ELISHA WHITTLESEY, Washington. STANLEY GRISWOLD, Torringford. JAMES KILBOURNE, New Britain. BENJAMIN RUGGLES, Woodstock. ETHAN ALLEN BROWN, Darien. A law student and protege of Alexander Hamilton, but none the less an " uncompromising Democrat." In connection with these should be mentioned Samuel Huntington, who became governor in i8o8. He was the namesake and adopted heir of an uncle, a governor of his native state. In Ohio he ranked with the mod- erate Republicans, respected and trusted by men of both parties. In contrast with all of the above is the record of William A. Trimble, of Virginia stock and Kentucky birth. Trimble studied law at Litchfield, Federalism and the West 129 The approach of the election of 1804 found the Fed- erahsts, as a national party, in desperate straits. The general moderation of Jefferson's administration won pop- ular approval, at the same time that such measures as the attack on the judiciary confirmed the apprehensions of Federalist leaders. There appeared little hope of staying the tide of evil. By means of the twelfth amendment, the vice presidency, which, under the original provision, the Federalists might expect to fall as a consolation prize to their minority party, had been seized by the majority. Through this amendment, the constitutional provision for slave representation, and the growth of the west, the Federalists saw their opponents becoming more and more firmly entrenched in the executive and legislative depart- ments of the general government. During the nineties, Kentucky had sent two members to Congress; under the apportionment following the census of 1800, she sent six, and enjoyed a double allotment of presidential electors. The admission of Ohio added three more electors to the Republican column, destined to swell to eight on the next apportionment. " In thirty years," wailed Pickering, " the white population on the Western waters will equal that of the thirteen States when they declared themselves independent of Great Britain." *^ The expansion of democ- racy seemed likely to find no limit, for, worst of all, the Louisiana Purchase had added a vast new world, which in time would swell the number of Republican states. The ruin of the Atlantic interest, predicted by Morris in 1787, seemed drawing near: the friends of commerce, of con- Conn., and became a " liberal Federalist." He was elected United States Senator in 1819, enjoying the distinction of being the first non-democratic senator chosen by Ohio. For these personal notes I am indebted to many sources, especially to Taylor, Ohio in Congress. ''Letter to Rufus King, March 4, 1804: Adams, Henry, Neuj England- Federalism, p. 35a. I30 H. C. Hockett servative government and good order, seemed destined to permanent subjection to the party of " incongruous ma- terials, all tending to mischief."** Under these circumstances the ultra Federalists began to feel that the Union had failed to secure their dearest in- terests, and to consider the feasibility of a northern con- federation.*^ " The people of the East," wrote Pickering to Cabot, " cannot reconcile their habits, views, and inter- ests with those of the South and West. The latter are beginning to rule with a rod of iron. ... I do not be- lieve in the practicability of a long-continued union. A northern confederacy would unite congenial characters." ** In the end conservative counsels prevailed; the " disease " of democracy was preying on the vitals of New England herself, and was not to be cured by separation from the south and west.*^ But the secession project only slum- " Hamilton's characterization of the Republican party in letter to Jay, 1800: Lodge, Works of Alexander Hamilton, VIII., p. 550. Space forbids review of the Louisiana debates. In the discussion of the treaty of pur- chase, the Federalists admitted the right of the United States to acquire foreign territory, but denied the constitutionality as well as the policy of admitting such territory to statehood. See, e.g., Pickering's speech: "He had never doubted the right to the United States to acquire new territory, either by purchase or by conquest, and to govern the territory so acquired as a dependent province." Annals, Eighth Cong., I sess., p. 45. See also Morris's opinion, quoted by Farrand in American Historical Remeixi, IX., p. 484. The above italics are mine. Compare the arguments on previous occasions. It is interesting to speculate on the course our territorial sys- tem would have taken under unhampered Federalist control. " " They saw in Louisiana the question of life or death. . . . They were fully aware that the popular will throughout the length and breadth of the country was arrayed against them, and they knew of but one method of relief — a dissolution of the Union. . . . They did not fear the measure of acquiring Louisiana per se, but the supremacy of Democracy, which was its meaning to them. They saw in it the assurance of a perpetuation of Jefferson's power and of his maxims." Lodge, H. C, Life of George Cabot, pp. 43 s-6. " January 29, 1804: Adams, Henry, Ne August '3, p. 7; Industrial Age, 1874, April 18, p. 4, June 13, P- 5, June 27, P- 4, Sep- tember 5, p. 5, October 17, p. 4; ^mer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, PP. 412-415- '• Chicago Tribune, 1874. February i2, p. 8, June 18, p. 3, August 7, p. i ; Industrial Age. February 28, 1874, P- 4! ^"'er. Annual Cyclo., 1874. PP- 557-559- 156 S. J. Buck and the enforcement of the railroad laws. The resolutions on tariff and currency were somewhat ambiguous, but the latter seems to have definitely committed the association to the Greenback policy.°° In May, 1874, the advisory board of the State Farmers' Association issued a call to " the farmers, mechanics, and other laboring men, as well as all other citizens of Illinois who believe as declared by this Association at Decatur, December 18, 1873," to send dele- gates to a state convention at Springfield, June 10.*" This convention chose " Independent Reform " as a name for the new party; nominated candidates for treasurer and su- perintendent of public instruction — the only state officers to be elected — and adopted the resolutions of the State Farmers' Association as a platform with almost no changes, although a vigorous minority, led by the Honorable Wil- lard C. Flagg, president of the association, strove for the adoption of a resolution " uncompromisingly opposing any further inflation." " The Democratic convention, which met in August, took issue with the Independents by demanding the resumption of specie payments as soon as practicable and nominated a separate candidate for treasurer, but accepted the Inde- '" 111. State Farmers' Assn., Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting, pp. 98-109. The resolutions and reports of this meeting are also to be found in Prairie Farmer, XLIV., p. 4.09, XLV., p. i (December 27, 1873, January 3, 1874) ; Industrial Age, December, i873-January, 1874, passim; Amet. Annual Cyclo., 1873, p. 368. *° Prairie Farmer, XLV., p. 155 (May 16, 1874) ; Chicago Tribune, 1874, May 6, pp. i, 5, May 11, p. 2. *' For the platform and reports of this convention, see: Prairie Farmer, XLV., p. 195 (June 20, 1874) ; Chicago Tribune, June 11,. 1874, p. i; In- dustrial Age, June 13, 1874, p. 5; Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, p. 402; Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical, IL, pp. 824-826. On the cam- paign and local conventions, see: Industrial Age, 1874, September 19, p. 4, October 10, p. 4; Prairie Farmer, XLV., p. 275 (August 29, 1874). Thirty- three papers which supported the Independent party in the campaign are listed in the Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1874, p. 7. Independent Parties in the West 157 pendent nominee for superintendent.*^ In the election which ensued, the fusion candidate for superintendent of public instruction received a majority of about thirty thou- sand votes, but the Republican candidate for treasurer was elected with a plurality of thirty-five thousand, while the Independent nominee received about seventy-five thousand votes out of a total of nearly three hundred and seventy thousand. In the congressional elections the opposition fared somewhat better, regular Republican candidates be- ing elected in but seven of the nineteen districts, while the remainder were classified: eight as Democrats, three as Independent Reformers, and one as an independent Re- publican. In the state legislature also, the Republicans lost their majority through this election, while the Independ- ents secured the balance between the two other parties with three senators and twenty-seven representatives.*' In Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota there were enough representatives of the new party in the legislatures of 1874 to secure the enactment, with some assistance from anti- railroad Republicans, of the Granger railroad laws of those states.** Although the railroad companies denied the validity of these laws and endeavored to have them set aside by the courts, they entered at the same time upon a campaign to secure their repeal. In the legislative elec- tions of 1874 the railroad forces generally supported the Republican candidates, and the Republicans secured a ma- jority over the combined Democratic and Reform opposi- " Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, p. 403; Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical, II., p. 827; Koerner, Gustav, Memoirs, II., p. 583. "Election returns can be found in: Industrial Age, 1874, November 7, p. 4, November 14, p. 5; Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, p. 404; Tribune Al- manac, 1875, pp. 47, 80-82; World Almanac, 1875, P- 24; Moses, J., sup. cit., II., p. 827. " The history of this legislation and of the struggle over its enforce- ment is dealt with in the writer's forthcoming monograph on The Granger Movement. 158 S. J. Buck tion in both houses of all three of the legislatures. *° In Minnesota the result was the immediate repeal of the Granger railroad law enacted the year before, but in Wis- consin and Iowa enough of the Republican legislators were " anti-railroad " to prevent the repeal of the Granger laws in those states at this time. The various local farmers' and Reform parties were also drawn together into state parties in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska in 1874. In Missouri the new party was one of opposition to the Democrats who were then in con- trol and received the support of the Republicans ; *° in Kansas, on the other hand, all the elements of opposition to the dominant Republican party were joined under the " Independent Reform " banner; *^ and in Nebraska candi- dates were put in the field by all three of the parties.** The new party movement does not seem to have made much of an impression upon the political situation in these states, for the Democrats won in Missouri with nearly forty thou- sand majority, and the Republicans in Kansas with about *" On the campaigns of 1874 in these states, see: Chicago Tribune, Janu- ary-July, 1874, passim; Industrial Age, February-November, 1874, passim; Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, pp. 418, 564, 810; Tuttle, Wisconsin, p. 649. In Wisconsin the officers of the State Grange took part in this cam- paign, first by calling upon all Patrons to vote for candidates who would support the Granger railroad law, and then by circulating a list of ques- tions calculated to be submitted to candidates and to force them to declare their positions on the question of railroad regulation. Wis. State Grange, Proceedings at the Second Session (1874), especially the appendix, pp. 3-12; Maynard, M. E., Patrons of Husbandry in Wisconsin (Univ. of Wis., MS. thesis, 1895), p. 57. *° Chicago Tribune, 1874, January 10, p. 3, January 12, p. 8, February ai, p. 8, June 11, p. i; Industrial Age, 1874, May i6, p. 5, May 30, p. s. June 13, p. 4, July 25, p. 6, September 5, p. 4; Prairie Farmer, XLV., p. 75 (March 7, 1874) ; Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, pp. 576-579. " Chicago Tribune, February 21, 1874, p. 8 ; Industrial Age, 1874, July 25) P- 5. September 26, p. 4; Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, PP- 435-437; Wilder, D. W., Annals of Kansas, pp. 643-646, 655, 658; Andreas, Kansas, pp. 218, 264. " Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, p. 586. Independent Parties in the West 159 twenty thousand, while in Nebraska the vote cast by the third party was inconsiderable. In Oregon an Independent party made its appearance in the spring of 1874 with candidates for the June elec- tion and an anti-monopoly platform. The two old parties were very closely balanced in this state, and are said to have formed a coalition in some districts to defeat the new movement. The Independents had the support of a con- siderable portion of the press and probably of most of the Grangers, who at this time numbered nearly all the farmers of the state in their ranks, and they displayed considerable strength in the election, the votes on state officers and con- gressman being about ninety-seven hundred for the Demo- crats, ninety-two hundred for the Republicans, and sixty- five hundred for the Independents. In the legislative elec- tions the new party fared even better, securing twenty-nine members of the lower house to twenty-eight Republicans and twenty Democrats, while in the Senate six Independ- ents held the balance of power between the two old par- ties. Two supreme court judges and many county officials were also elected by the Independents.** The " People's Independent " party of California, which had been fairly successful in the legislative elections of 1873, did not have an opportunity to take part in a state election until 1875. In that year candidates were put in the field by all three of the parties, the outcome being the election of the Democratic ticket with about sixty-two thou- sand votes, the Republican vote being thirty-one thousand and the Independent, thirty thousand.^" " Chicago Tribune, 1874, April 16, p. 8, April 17, p. 5, May 6, p. 4, June 3, p. 5, June 4, p. s, June 26, p. 2 ; Amer. Annual Cyclo., 1874, pp. 671-674. °° Davis, W. J., History of Political Conventions in California, pp. 331-333; Bancroft, H. H., History of California, VII., pp. 65-67; Hittell, T. H., History of California, IV.; Appleton's Annual Cyclo., 1875, pp. 98-101. i6o S. J. Buck Although some striking results were achieved by these Independent parties in 1873 and 1874, and in a few states in 1875, their careers were all very brief. In Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, where the movement met with little success, nothing further was heard of it after 1874. The Independent Reform parties of Indiana and Illinois took part in the formation of and became compo- nent parts of the National Greenback party in 1875 ^^^ 1876,°^ and as such cast considerably smaller votes than they had in 1874, although enough Independents and Greenbackers were elected to the legislature in Illinois to hold the balance between the two old parties and bring about the election of Judge David Davis as an Independent to the United States Senate.°^ In Wisconsin and Iowa, the fusion of Democrats and Reformers or Anti-Monopolists was tried again in 1875, ^"^ '^^'th some success in Wiscon- sin, where the fusion candidates for state officers, with the exception of governor, were elected, though by very small °' The State Farmers' Association of Illinois was represented by dele- gates in the conventions at Cleveland and Philadelphia in 1875, which made arrangements for the national "Independent" or Greenback con- vention in Indianapolis, May 17, 1876. See the proceedings at the third annual session of the association in Prairie Farmer, XLV., p. 403, XLVI., PP- 35. 38 (December 19, 1874, January 30, 1875). On the last stages of the Independent Reform party in Illinois and its transition to the Green- back party, see: ibid., XLVI., pp. 163, 196 (May 23, June 19, 1875) ; Western Rural (Chicago), XIII., p. 196 (June 19, 1875) ; Appleton's An- nual Cyclo., 187s; p. 393, 1876, p. 393; Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical, II., pp. 834, 839, 848-850. The fourth and fifth, which were probably the last, annual sessions of the State Farmers' Association, were held in January, 1876, and January, 1877. Industrial Age, 1876, February 5, March 25; 111. State Farmers' Assn., Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting. " Judge Davis had been agreed upon as the independent member of the electoral commission to decide the Hayes-Tilden contest, but his election to the Senate at this time necessitated the choice of another. If the Inde- pendents had not held the balance of power in this Illinois legislature, it is possible, if not probable, that Tilden instead of Hayes would have become president of the United States. Independent Parties in the West i6i majorities. The Republicans regained complete control of the legislature, however, in both states and repealed the Granger railroad law of Wisconsin in 1876, the Iowa Granger law meeting the same fate two years later. The presidential campaign of 1876 put an end to the Inde- pendent movement in both of these states.^' In Minne- sota a " Reform " party, which seems to have had no di- rect connection with the Anti-Monopoly party of 1873, although probably composed of about the same men, put a ticket in the field in 1875 against both Republicans and Democrats, but secured less than two thousand votes, and did not appear again.'* There was an election for congressman in Oregon in 1875 ^"d the Independent party again had a candidate In the field, but he received only about eight thousand votes. In the legislature which was elected in June, 1876, therp were also a few Independents in both houses, but the presi- dential election in the fall probably put an end to the movement here also.^'' Nor does the People's Reform party of California appear to have kept up its organiza- tion after 1875, although many of the Grangers and oth- ers who belonged to it cast in their lot with the " Work- ingmen's party," which was organized by the followers of Dennis Kearney in 1877 and played a considerable part in California politics until 1880.'° As a result of this survey of western state and local politics from 1873 to 1876, it appears that Independent, Reform, or Anti-Monopoly parties were organized In "Wisconsin Statesman (Madison), 1875, September 18, p. 3, Novem- ber 13, p. 3, 1876, March 11, p. i, March 25, p. i; Appleton's Annual Cyclo., 1875, pp. 402, 763. 1876, PP- 413-415, 806-808. '* Appleton's Annual Cyclo., 1875, pp. 509-5"- "Ibid., 1875, p. 609; Wisconsin Statesman, July lo, 1875, p. 3. "Bryce, American Commonwealth, II., chap, xc; Andrews, E. Benj., The Last Quarter Century, I., chap, xiii.; Bancroft, H. H., California, VII., pp. 335-412. 1 62 S. J. Buck eleven states — Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, California, and Oregon. In some of these states, as in Wisconsin and Iowa, the new parties secured victories, including the elec- tion of the state ticket in Wisconsin, by coalescing with the Democrats and forming a new party of opposition to the dominant Republicans. In other states, as in Oregon and in part in Illinois, they maintained their independence of the old parties and secured local victories over both of them, and in three states — Illinois, Kansas, and California — ^they secured the election of " Reformers " to the United States Senate.°^ The purpose and character of this Independent move- ment can best be determined by an examination of the plat- forms adopted. In all of the states, except Indiana and Michigan, these contained planks demanding the subjection of corporations and especially railroad corporations to the control of the state, and in several states regulation of all monopolies was demanded. It was thus an " anti-monop- oly " movement, and in this direction the Granger laws were its principal achievement. Though most of these laws were subsequently repealed, still they definitely established the right of a state to regulate railroad charges and pointed the way for all future legislation on this important sub- ject. But it was more than an "anti-monopoly" move- ment — it was also a " reform " movement. Every plat- form adopted by the new parties in all of the states de- nounced corruption in government and demanded reform, economy, and reduction of taxation, and several of the platforms contained specific demands for " civil service re- form." In this direction the movement seems to have been ■" The Biographical Congressional Directory lists Harvey of Kansas as a Republican, but Booth of California is described as an " Antiraonopolist " and Hager of the same state as an " Antimonopoly Democrat," while Davis of Illinois is listed as " elected ... by the votes of Independents and Democrats." Independent Parties in the West 163 a result of the unusually large amount of corruption which prevailed in both national and state governments during the first half of the decade of the seventies."^ These, then, were the two principal and distinguishing characteristics of the new parties — they were anti-monopoly (or anti-railroad) and reform movements. Their plat- forms contained many other planks, but some had refer- ence to local matters only, while others, such as a demand for the reduction of the tariff to a revenue basis,^" were bor- rowed from the Democrats. On the currency question the platforms varied somewhat, but the majority took a defi- nite stand in favor of a return to specie payment as soon as practicable. In some cases the currency planks appear to have been attempts to straddle the issue, but in only two states — Indiana and Illinois — is it possible to trace a direct connection between the Independent movement and the Greenback parties which followed it. There are a number of reasons which help to explain the shortness of the lives of these Independent parties. While the issue of reform is a good one upon which to arouse temporary enthusiasm, it is hardly a satisfactory basis for the organization of a new party — if the reform is accom- plished the raison d'etre of the party is gone, and if it is not accomplished the party is a failure. It might seem that the issue of railroad regulation would furnish a basis upon which a more permanent political party might be built up, but in this direction the movement suffered from the fact that the Granger laws for which it was held re- sponsible did not work well, partly because of their crude- ness, partly because of the determination of the railroads '" Cf. Dunning, W. A., Reconstruction Political and Economic, chaps. xiv., xviii. " The objection to the protective tariff seems to have been based upon the feeling that it was class legislation— that it taxed the farmer for the benefit of the manufacturer— rather than upon the more recent argument that it fosters monopolies. 164 S. J. Buck to make them appear injurious to everybody, but most of all because of the financial depression which followed the panic of 1873. Moreover, in many parts of the west the people still desired the construction of more railroad lines and there was a feeling that this would be checked by re- strictive legislation.'" Again, it seems to be true, on the whole, that no po- litical party can survive a presidential campaign without a national organization. The appearance of the National Greenback party and its absorption of the Independent Reform organization in Illinois, where the movement had been the most promising, practically barred the way to the organization of a National Reform party for the campaign of 1876. Large numbers of the Independents, not only in the states where the parties had declared for sound money but in Illinois and Indiana as well, could not recon- cile themselves to the Greenback doctrine and as a result most of the wandering sheep returned to the Democratic or Republican folds. The fundamental cause for the fail- ure of the movement, however, seems to have been the same as that which has caused the failure of every third- party movement in the United States since the Civil War — the innate political conservatism of the bulk of the Ameri- can people. Although recognizing that the issues which originally divided the old parties have largely passed away, they prefer, even though it may be a somewhat slower process, to bring forward the new issues and to work out the desired reforms in the established parties rather than to attempt to displace them with new organizations. Solon Justus Buck. '"' The unsatisfactory operation of the Granger laws was also a factor in bringing about the co-incident decline of the Patrons of Husbandry and the other agricultural organizations. The Grange was also discredited by the failure of most of its co-operative enterprises, and during the years 1875-1877 it declined almost to extinction in the western states. VIRGINIA AND THE PRESIDENTIAL SUCCES- SION, 1 840-1 844 For the spirit with which it was conducted, the surprises which it developed, and the importance of its results, the campaign in Virginia to name John Tyler's successor to the presidency has scarcely a parallel. It lasted four years and was, during the greater part of the time, a four- cornered contest waged by the respective friends of Henry Clay, John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, and John C. Cal- houn. It resulted in the repudiation of two native sons, Tyler and Clay, in a temporary breach in the political al- liance between Virginia and New York, in making conti- nental expansion a great national issue, and last but not least, it was largely instrumental in effectively blighting the long-cherished presidential hopes of John C. Calhoun. Before the results of the election of 1840 were fully known, except to warrant the claims of an overwhelming victory for the Whigs, Thomas Ritchie ^ of the Richmond ^ Thomas Ritchie was born at Tappahannock, Essex County, Virginia, November 5, 1778, and died July I3, 1854. He was the son of Archibald Ritchie, a Scotch merchant. By application of his fine natural abilities young Ritchie acquired a good education. His tastes ran to literature and to subjects pertaining to politics and economics. In 1804 he became editor of the Richmond Enquirer, formerly the Examiner, in which posi- tion he remained until 1845, when he went to Washington to become editor of the Union, the mouthpiece of Polk's administration. After Polk retired from the presidency Ritchie continued to edit the Union until 1852, when he was practically forced to retire to restore accord in the Democratic party. In Virginia Ritchie was known as the " Napoleon of the press," and he there exercised a power in politics surpassed only by that of such leaders as Jefferson and Madison. After 1830 he had scarcely a peer among the Democratic leaders of his native state. Al- though a state-rights politician of the most uncompromising character, 165 1 66 C. H. Ambler Enquirer set himself to the task of allaying sectional and personal jealousies, in order to make possible subsequent victory for the Democrats in the state and in the nation. To these ends he desired a return to fundamental prin- ciples.^ Despite the fact that the Whigs of Vir- ginia had urged the election of General Harrison on the ground that he was a true Whig, intent only upon a desire to check executive usurpations and abuses,^ Ritchie looked upon their success as a triumph for old-time Federalism.* He and his political friends felt that Henry Clay, the real leader of the Whig party, in- terpreted the victory of 1840 as a repudiation of Jackson and of Van Buren and as a popular demand for the re- charter of a United States bank and the enactment of a protective tariff law.^ They insisted that, as an opposi- tion, the Whig party had ceased to exist and that it had, by a return to the principles and leaders of 1832, become the Federalist party of the elder and younger Adams.® Ac- cordingly the Richmond Enquirer raised the " beacon flag of Virginia," the resolutions of 1798, and invited the states he was rarely found on the side of John C. Calhoun. He was devoted to the Union of the fathers, which he maintained could be preserved only by adhering to the letter of the federal constitution. As a last resort he believed that a state had the right to secede, but he thought that such a course would never be necessary. One of his favorite expressions was, " I shall never despair of the republic." His devotion to the Union, opposition to negro slavery, liberal attitude on constitutional reforms, internal improvements, and education, and his consequent popularity in the western counties made him a political power in his own day and did much to keep western Virginia loyal to the Union in i86i. " Richmond Enquirer, November lo, 13, ao, 1840. ' Ibid., December i, 1843. This number of the Enquirer contains an excellent article by Thomas W. Gilmer, a former Whig, on the origin and history of the V^^hig party. * Ibid., January 7, 1841. " Thomas Ritchie to Martin Van Buren, May 19, 1841. Van Buren MSS., in the Library of Congress. ' Richmond Enquirer, December i, 1843. Virginia and Presidential Succession 167 to rally in an effort to save the constitution and to return to the party of Jefferson and of JacksonJ To relieve her favorite son of the odium cast upon him by nullification and to place his candidacy for the presi- dency in a more favorable light in the other states of the Union, South Carolina, at the same time, practically repudiated her doctrines of 1832 and pro- claimed the resolutions of 1798 to be the true prin- ciples of the Democratic party/ This feigned surrender was joyfully received in Virginia, where it was looked upon as the peaceful preliminary to a bitter contest between the friends of Calhoun and of Van Buren for the presidential nomination. But it was too soon to begin the fray, and Ritchie, who had done more than any other one person except Andrew Jackson to thwart the ambitions of Cal- houn, now proclaimed that " the Democrats of Virginia will stand by the side of South Carolina and Alabama ' and maintain the institutions of the South and the great principles of 'gS-'gg." " The first phase of the contest over the succession was fought out within the Whig party. As soon as Tyler had taken the oath of office, the state-rights Whigs of the " Virginia lowlands " led by Henry A. Wise, Abel P. Upshur, L. W. Tazewell, and Judge N. Beverly Tucker " began to lay plans to thwart the ambitions of Clay, to re- store the fallen prestige of Virginia, and to make it pos- sible for Tyler to be his own successor. Tyler's conscien- '' Ibid., November 13, 1840. " Ibid., January 7, 1841. • These states had given their electoral vote to Van Buren. '° Richmond Enquirer, January 2, 1841. "A writer from Accomac County, the home of Mr. Wise, said that Tyler wrote to Wise " to come immediately." He added, " Webster will have a tough colt to manage, and Wise will defeat him in his federal plans." Ibid., May 14, 1841. T. W. Gilmer and W. C. Rives of the Pied- mont section were also friendly to Tyler. 1 68 C. H. Ambler tious desire to Interpret the constitution strictly, his sensi- tive vanity, and his inordinate jealousy of Clay made it possible for this " corporal's guard " " to lead him whith- ersoever it would. It is difficult to determine the extent of the influence exercised by Calhoun upon these leaders and their plans.^* With Tyler they were his ardent ad- mirers. They had followed him into the Whig party in 1834, but had not yet, like their hero, retraced their steps, when the untimely death of General Harrison threw the executive branch of the government into their hands. It is evident in any case, that a breach between the state-rights Whigs and the national Whigs of Virginia was inevitable. In the presidential election of 1840, Hunter had refused to attend the poUs.^* Later Wise strenuously objected to the proposed extra session of Congress decided upon by Harrison.^' In the congressional elections, which came immediately after Tyler's elevation to the presidency. Wise, of the Accomac district, and Francis Mallory, of the Norfolk district, were re-elected as state-rights Whigs ; ^* Thomas W. Gilmer resigned the office of governor and, as a state-rights Whig, successfully contested the re-election of the regular Whig nominee In the Albemarle district, James Garland; ^^ and Hunter secured a re-election as an " independent." ^* Of these developments and the pros- pects for the future Thomas Ritchie wrote to Martin Van Buren as follows : " The Whig dynasty must soon tumble '* This was a name applied by Clay to Tyler's advisers. ^' Both Wise and Upshur were devoted to Calhoun. " Calhoun Corre- spondence," Am. Hist. Assn. Rept. (1899), II., pp. 549, 555. '* Richmond Enquirer, February 13, 1841. ^' Ibid., February i, 6, 1841 ; Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, II., p. 7- -° Richmond Enquirer, April 20, 1841. " Ibid., April 30, 1844. " Ibid. Virginia and Presidential Succession 169 to pieces: Hunter, Gilmer, and Mallory will not vote for a bank." " The extra session of Congress, which met in May, 1841, witnessed a battle royal between Clay and Tyler to drive each other from the coveted leadership of the Whig party. With an incredible presumption Tyler and his friends sought to crush Clay, as Jackson had done. If unsuccess- ful in this attempt, they hoped, at least, to divide the party and to place Tyler in a position of influence as the leader of the state-rights faction.^" Clay ignored them completely and used the Whig majorities in Congress to pass bank bills, which, it was known, Tyler would veto. Alleged compromise measures were met by other vetoes, and the session adjourned, leaving Tyler in the hands of un- scrupulous advisers — without a party among the masses and without a cabinet.^^ Before the session adjourned the national Whigs of Vir- ginia had proclaimed the " Boy Orator of Slashes," Henry Clay, to be their unalterable choice for the presidency.^^ With this declaration they ceased, until Texas became an issue, to be a mere opposition party, and became a party of principles, favoring a recharter of a United States bank, an increase in the customs duties, and the distribution of the proceeds from the sales of the public lands.^* The old state-rights leaders were cast off, and John Minor Botts, Wm. L. Goggin, Alex. H. H. Stuart, and Geo. W. Sum- mers, representatives in Congress, and John Hampden " Thomas Ritchie to Martin Van Buren, March 19, 1841. Van Buren MSS. This was twelve days before the special session of Congress of 1S41. "Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, II., pp. 37, 46, 707; Rich- mond Enquirer, May 14, 1841; Ibid., July 13, 1841, contains a letter from Beverly Tucker; Schouler, History of the United States, IV., p. 395. "Richmond tVhig, November 9, 1841; Richmond Enquirer, November 12, 1841. " Richmond Enquirer, August 10, 1841. "Ibid., February 23, 1843, December i, 1843. lyo C. H. Ambler Pleasants, editor of the Richmond Whig, now became the leaders of the party. Following the cue of the un- scrupulous Botts,^* the Whig now read Tyler out of the party, characterizing him as a " fifteen shilling lawyer " and a " Tittlebat Titmouse " in the seat of " the refined Aubreys." ^^ Indignation meetings were held in all parts of the state, and Tyler was generally condemned as a " political traitor." ^° So popular did Henry Clay be- come with the masses, that the Whig legislature of i84i-'42 thought it politic to give a newly formed county his surname.^^ Webster's refusal to leave the cabinet, when the other members resigned, gave credence to the rumor that he and Tyler had, like James Monroe and John Q. Adams, united their fortunes with a view to the presidential succession.^* The administration was still young, and it was thought that Tyler could, with the aid of his friends in Virginia, rally a southern party which could be united with Webster's fol- lowing in the north in such a way as to determine the suc- cession for at least eight years. Francis P. Blair, editor of the Washington Globe, considered Tyler " quite as well qualified " as Monroe to carry out such an agreement, but he added: "The times are changed. Old Adams still lives, a comment on the honesty of the first coalition, and Webster has enough of the odor of nationality to give the "' While the compromise bank bill was pending an ill-advised letter written by J. M. Botts came to light. Niles Register, LXI., p. 35. " Richmond Whig, November 9, 1841 ; Richmond Enquirer, November 12, 1841. About this time J. H. Pleasants became an associate editor of the Independent, the spokesman of Clay in Washington. Richmond En- quirer, November 12, 1841. Later Joseph Segar, also a Virginian, became an associate editor on the staff of the same paper. Ibid., March 3, 1842. " Ibid., September 24, 1841. " Ibid., January 8, 1842. "" Francis P. Blair to Martin Van Buren, September 27, 1841. Van Buren MSS. Virginia and Presidential Succession 171 scent to the present administration through all its depart- ments." ^° Whatever may have been the attitude of Tyler toward his secretary of state, it is certain that Wise and Upshur were determined to drive him from the cabinet, and to tolerate no alliance with Federalism.'" On the other hand, Tyler and his friends sought a pop- ular following in the Democratic party. They had suc- cessfully combated all efforts to recharter a United States bank and to promote the ambitions of its patron, Clay. It therefore seemed reasonable to them that the Demo- crats of Virginia might look upon Tyler as playing the part of Jackson.'^ Besides, they had other reasons to hope for a popular following among the Democrats in Virginia. In an effort to regain that following and influence in his party, which his opposition to the Independent Treasury scheme had caused him to lose temporarily, Richie in his paper, the Richmond Enquirer, had coquetted with the ad- ministration powers by playing upon their "vanity" and by praising their " sagacity." '' He even sent one of his " strictly confidential " letters to one of the leaders in which he praised Mr. Tyler's bold and patriotic stand against the bank and assured him that the " Republicans ^' of the un- terrified Commonwealth " were with him.'* So noticeable did the favor in which Ritchie held Tyler become, that the Richmond Whig denominated the Richmond Enquirer " the organ for the Whig president in the Commonwealth of Virginia." '^ Thus it was that the Madisonian, Tyler's " Ibid. " Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, II., pp. 85, 120, 704. Rich- mond Enquirer, May 28, 1841 ; Ibid., May 26, 1843. " Richmond Enquirer, October 22, 1841. "Richmond Enquirer, September 14, 1841; Ibid., February 10, 1842. "Locally the name "Republican" was applied to the party of Jackson and of Van Buren. ■* Letter of Thomas Ritchie, owned by the author of this paper, date August 30, 1841. " Richmond Whig, February 22, 1842. (172 C. H. Ambler organ at Washington, disavowed at this time any inten- tion to establish a third party.^* Wise, Mallory, and Gil- mer, former Whigs, each sought re-election upon the Democratic ticket; " and Tyler sent M. M. Noah, of the Philadelphia Weekly Messenger, to Richmond to ascer- tain the strength of the administration in Virginia, and to arrange, if possible, an understanding whereby the En- quirer would sustain his candidacy for the presidency.'* But the Richmond politicians desired only the votes and influence of the administration party, and to this end sought to drive them farther and farther from the Whigs. Mr. Ritchie gave no promises to Mr. Noah, but assured him that it would be his duty as well as his pleasure to support Mr. Tyler for an election, should he get the nom- ination of the Democratic party.^° At the same time he continued his efforts to drive Webster from the cabinet ; *" he warned the administration of the difficulties, if not im- possibilities, in the way of forming a third party ; *^ he held out dreams of immortality to Tyler in case he adhered to the principles of '98 *^ — yet he consistently refused to com- mit himself regarding the presidency.*' An overwhelming victory in the local elections of 1842, due to gains made largely in the eastern counties," attested the wisdom of " Richmond Enquirer, February 26, 1842. " Richmond Enquirer, September 3, 28, 1841 ; Ibid., October 19, 1841. '" Ibid., August 4, 1843. For a different impression see Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, II., pp. 101-105. " Ibid., August 4, 1843. *° Ibid., February 17, 1842; Ibid., May 26, 1843. This number of the Enquirer contains an estimate of Webster as a man and a statesman. *^ Richmond Enquirer, February 26, 1842; Ibid., March 3, 1842. "Ibid., June 8, 25, 1841; Ibid., July 20, 1841; Ibid., August 10, 20, 1 841. *' Richmond Enquirer, March 10, 1842. " The Democrats gained 38 members in the House of Delegates, con- verting a Whig majority of 2 into a Democratic majority of 36. Ibid., May 6, 1842. Virginia and Presidential Succession' 173 Ritchie's policies and restored him to his former place of influence in his party. Although he had retired from public life in disgust, Clay continued to gain in popular favor in those parts of eastern Virginia where the state-rights Whigs had been strongest. Except for the mistakes made by Botts, the work of the national Whig leaders was effective. The con- tinuation of financial embarrassments, the growing desire for manufacturing industries, and the impetus given to in- ternal improvements by the building of railroads and the application of steam to navigation, made Henry Clay and the principles of the Whig party popular with the artisan, commercial, and manufacturing interests.*' In both Petersburg and Richmond hundreds of persons signed peti- tions to Congress praying for the enactment of a pro- tective tariff law." Many pronounced the financial " ex- periments " of Jackson and of Van Buren failures, and in- sisted that a national bank was necessary to regulate the currency and to produce the return of desirable business conditions.*'^ As to its constitutionality they were un- willing to go beyond the opinion of James Madison, who had sustained the national bank in 18 16 and at other times.*' Thus the Whigs continued to be formidable until the contest was ended. Inability to gain a popular following among the Demo- crats of Virginia, Clay's retirement from active participa- tion in politics, and the demonstrations in favor of a pro- tective tariff, caused Tyler to think of appealing to the " moderates of both parties " and doubtless "'House Journal, 27 Cong. 2d sess., pp. 532, 611, 617, 680, 793, 810, 854.; Niles Register, LXIL, pp. 288, 302. De Bow, Rcvieiu, X., p. 542. " Richmond Enquirer, June 17, 24, 1842. " Wise favored the recharter of a national bank. Wise, Seven Dec- ades of the Union, p. 187. "Richmond Enquirer, September 6, 1844; Hunt, Writings of James Madison, IX., pp. 365, 442. 174 C. H. Ambler influenced his decision to sign the tariff bill of 1 842." But it was too late to conciliate the Whigs. They laid their defeats in the local elections at Tyler's door; °° J. M. Botts was insisting upon his impeachment ; °^ and the Richmond Whig continued to comment upon his incompetency. At the same time the Democrats completely deserted him. They had received all the available spoils and were dis- gusted with his recent concessions to the Whigs and his approval of the tariff bill of 1842.''^ With the Demo- crats went some of his former state-rights Whig advisers, who now drew closer to Calhoun. But Tyler was obstinate and continued to pursue the presidency and duty, when guided by no other light than that' " reflected from burning effigies." =' Meanwhile the contest within the Democratic party had commenced in earnest. The strength of the Van Buren faction lay chiefly in the western counties and was composed largely of friends of General Jackson. The leaders were James McDowell of . Rockbridge County, Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Albemarle County, and George C. Dromgoole of Brunswick County. McDowell was a brother-in-law of Thomas H. Benton, and the ablest politician west of the Blue Ridge. Randolph was a grand- son of Thomas Jefferson, and was intensely jealous of W. C. Rives, who laid claim to the political legacies of both Jefferson and Madison. As Rives had drifted farther from Van Buren in his opposition to the Independ- ent Treasury scheme, Randolph had drawn closer to him. Dromgoole was the ablest leader on the " southside " of the James, but he was given to habits of intemperance " Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, II., p. 182. "Richmond Whig, May 20, 1842; Richmond Enquirer, May 24, 1842. " Ibid., September 9, 1842. ■" Richmond Enquirer, August 26, 1842. " Niles Register, LXI., p. 177- Virginia and Presidential Succession 175 which greatly impaired his usefulness." To these leaders should be added the names of Dr. John Brockenbrough, president of the bank of Virginia, Judge Henry St. George Tucker, president of the court of appeals, Judge Peter V. Daniel of the United States district court, and W. H. Roane, late senator in Congress. Each one of the last named group had been prominent in the " Richmond Junta." Because of its importance in this and other contests, " the Junta " requires more than passing mention. It was the name given to a number of relatives °° and political associates, who rendezvoused at Richmond °* and exercised a power in party organization and in the distribution of patronage, equaled only by its prototype, the Albany Re- gency. It was held together, not merely as an organiza- tion to secure the spoils and joyful triumphs of political victories — it was the heart of that great party, then con- fined largely to western Virginia, where the theories of Thomas Jefferson and of Patrick Henry °^ regarding the rights of majorities in government, continued to live. Be- fore this time it had engaged in many a gallant and suc- cessful fight against " Calhounism." °' Two other tried and trusted members of the Junta, '* W. H. Roane to Martin Van Buren, September ii, 1843. Van Buren MSS. "^ Ritchie, Roane, and Brockenbrough were cousins. Judge Richard E. Parker of the Virginia Court of Appeals, who died in 1840, was also a member of the Junta, and a relative of Ritchie and Roane. He was pos- sibly the ablest leader in it. On more than one occasion Van Buren offered him a place in his cabinet. See Fan Buren MSS. " The public prints for this period contain many references to the Richmond Junta. " W. H. Roane, a moving spirit in the Junta, was a grandson of Patrick Henry. "Jeffersonian principles" was the slogan of the Rich- mond leaders. °' Some of its leaders had committed themselves to Van Buren in letters ■written to him. See Van Buren MSS. 176 C. H. Ambler Thomas Ritchie, of the Richmond Enquirer, and Andrew Stevenson, ex-speaker of the national House of Representa- tives, were friendly to the candidacy of Van Buren, but were not, for obvious reasons, enthusiastic in his support. As has already been seen, the Democrats and former state-rights Whigs of eastern Virginia, many of whom were friends of Calhoun, had just restored Ritchie to his place of influence in his party. Only base ingratitude or ex- treme narrowness of political vision, neither of which were characteristic of him, could have induced Ritchie to turn abruptly against these friends. Until late in the contest his peculiar relations with each faction and the extreme necessity for discretion influenced the columns of the En- quirer. More than once W. H. Roane wrote to Silas Wright of the " narrow place " in which Mr. Ritchie found himself, and of the handicap which his necessitated inactivity placed upon their plans in Virginia."' His desire :to be either governor of Virginia or vice-president of the United States, and his willingness to make political al- liances which would promote one or the other of these am- bitions, kept Stevenson from taking sides. It is not im- probable that his ambition was a factor with Ritchie. They were " old cronies," and Ritchie thought that the party should vindicate Stevenson against the recent attacks made jipon his conduct as minister of the United States at the court of St. James."" Calhoun's party was confined almost entirely to eastern Virginia. A very large number of his friends were former Whigs, who had either followed their leader into the Democratic party in 1837, or deserted the Whig party in 1 841. Of Calhoun's party W. H. Roane wrote: " W. H. Roane to Martin Van Buren, February 14, 1843. Fan Buren MSS. " The Stevenson MSS. in the Library of Congress contains some inter- esting letters from Ritchie to Stevenson. Virginia and Presidential Succession 177 " There is quite a stiff party in this state, calling themselves State Rights Republicans, many of whom were a few years ago State Rights Whigs." " The leaders of this party were: R. M. T. Hunter of Essex County, who had long been Calhoun's right-hand man in Virginia, although he had not followed closely the political affiliations of his leader; James A. Seddon of Richmond, whose chief political duty was to watch and report the movements of the Junta; Wm. O. Goode of Mecklenberg county, the rival of Geo. C. Dromgoole; Wm. F. Gordon of Albemarle county, who, as a Whig member of Congress, had, in 1834, proposed the Independent Treasury system; and Wm. P. Taylor of Caroline county, a worthy son of the illustrious John Taylor of Caroline. With all that aggressiveness and impatience which char- acterized the followers of Calhoun, his friends led ofE in this contest. In the early part of 1842 they circulated a pamphlet to set forth the claims and qualifications of their favorite for the presidency. About the same time the Lynchburg Republican and the Norfolk Chronicle and Old Dominion nominated him and Silas Wright for the presidency and vice-presidency, respectively.'^ But Cal- houn could not hope for success in Virginia without the sup- port of Ritchie and the Enquirer. He complained of Mr. Ritchie's policy of keeping Virginia attached to New York and Pennsylvania, when she (Virginia) should " be at the head of the South." ** For reasons already shown, the time was now thought opportune for effecting a long cov- eted alliance with the Richmond Junta. The Richmond " W. H. Roane to Martin Van Buren, February 9 and 14, 1843. Van Buren MSS. "Thomas H. Benton to Martin Van Buren, April 17, 1842. Van Buren MSS. ""Calhoun Correspondence," Am. Hist. Assn. Kept. (1899), II., pp. 517, S27> 538, 544. 546. 562. etc. 178 C. H. Ambler Whig became the tool of its enemies and was used with other prints already committed, to sound Ritchie and to drive him to declare for Calhoun. He was alternately accused of being both a friend and an enemy.®* After the enactment of the tariff law of 1842 Calhoun's friends, in keeping with their disposition to rule or to ruin, sought to intimidate by insisting that Calhoun would be a candidate for the presidency, whoever might be the choice of the Democratic national convention.®^ To all these " prods " Ritchie was evasive. He ex- pressed the profoundest respect and admiration for the genius and ability of Mr. Calhoun, as demonstrated in his early public service, and since his return to the Republican principles of '98 ; "^ he denied the alleged existence, on his part, of a feeling of uncompromising hostility toward Cal- houn; and he assured the public that he would joyfully support him for the presidency, should he be the nominee of the Democratic party."^ But he consistently refused to commit himself to the candidacy of any man, preferring " the success of principles to the aggrandizement of any individual." "= The attitude of Ritchie and the temporary apathy of the friends of Van Buren were encouraging. Accord- ingly Barnwell H. Rhett, of South Carolina, came to Rich- mond in the autumn of 1842 and tried to ally Ritchie and the Junta actively in the interest of Calhoun.®" He told them of Calhoun's intention to resign his seat in the federal " Richmond Enquirer, August 12, 1842. "Richmond Enquirer, October 18, 28, 1S42; Ibid., November i, 4, 8, 1842; see also " Calhoun Correspondence," Am. Hist. Assn. Report (1899), II., pp. 516, 517. "" Richmond Enquirer, August 12, 1842. "Ibid., August 12, 1842; Ibid., November i, 4, 8, 1842. " Ibid., November 4, 8, 1842. " W. H. Roane to Martin Van Buren, September n, 1843. Van Buren MSS. Virginia and Presidential Succession 179 Senate, and of his resolution to rest his claims to future political preferment on a book on the principles of gov- ernment, which he was then writing. He also raised ob- jections to the practice of electing delegates to the Demo- cratic national conventions by state conventions, and of permitting a majority of the delegates thus selected to cast the entire vote of a state. Moreover, he declared it to be the purpose of Calhoun's friends to remedy the al- leged defects in the national nominating body, and to post- pone the nomination to the latest possible date. The echoes from Rhett's visit had not ceased, when Calhoun took advantage of an opportunity to visit Richmond while on his way to Congress.'" He confirmed what Rhett had said and made overtures to the political leaders. The efforts of Calhoun were In vain, but they were treated with the greatest courtesy and with apparent con- sideration. Roane advised against his contemplated re- tirement from the Senate and his determination to risk his chances for the presidency upon the results of the con- test then pending.'^ Meanwhile Ritchie assured the public that it would not be entirely deprived of Mr. Calhoun's services, because " he Is now writ- ing a book on the principles of government." ^^ At the same time he was careful to deny the statement of the New York Herald to the effect that the Charleston (S. C.) Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer had come out openly In support of Mr. Calhoun.'^ Of this and other attempts to win Ritchie, Wm. Selden, one of his closest political friends, said in a letter to Van Buren: " Every device had '° W. H. Roane to Martin Van Buren, September ii, 1843. Van Buren MSS. " Ibid. " Richmond Enquirer, December 8, 1843. " Neiv York Herald, December 5, 1842. See also Richmond Enquirer, December 8, 1842. i8o C. H. Ambler been freely exhausted to detract Mr. Ritchie from your support." '* With characteristic impatience, the friends of Calhoun could not wait for developments and sought to force the issue. Accordingly, they refused to vote for Ste- venson in the gubernatorial contest then pending and either gave their support to James McDowell, or to an in- dependent candidate.'" Chagrined at the tactics of his new friends and alarmed at the demands of the west for an investigation of the state banks located in Rich- mond,'" Ritchie dropped Stevenson and aided in making his rival, James McDowell, governor. At the same time he expressed, in a confidential way, to the friends of Mc- Dowell, his Intention to support Van Buren for the presi- dency." The desire to continue to be the spokesman of his party, which was now passing to the leadership of the west, and to aid Stevenson in his candidacy for the vice- presidency doubtless Influenced him in this decision. The following extract from a letter by John Letcher, later gov- ernor of Virginia, to Thomas H. Benton, throws light upon the Inner workings of these transactions : " I can well imagine your surprise when I inform you that Ritchie is himself friendly to the election of Mr. Van Buren, in- deed takes him as his first choice over all who are spoken of in connection with the presidency. He regards his election as essen- tial to the purity of Republican principles — as the only fitting and " Wm. Selden to Martin Van Buren, March 5, 6, 1843. Van Buren MSS.; also R. B. Gooch to Augusta Devezac, December, 1842. Van Buren MSS. "John Letcher to Thomas H. Benton, December 15, 1842. Van Buren MSS. '" Ritchie owed a large sum to the State Bank of Virginia, of which his cousin, Dr. Brockenbough, was president. Richmond Enquirer, July 15, 1842; Ibid., November 18, 1842; Ibid., January tz, 14, 19, 184J. " John Letcher to T. H. Benton, December 15, 1842. Van Buren MSS. Letcher was the spokesman for his fellow townsman, McDowell, in hi» campaign for governor. Virginia and Presidential Succession i8r proper rebuke to the log-cabin and coon-skin fooleries of 1840, He told me in making these declarations that he had spoken more fully to me, than he had done to any one else and that he did not desire that it should be made public until after our next spring: elections for fear that it might be the means of creating such a division among our friends here, as had taken place in North Carolina in the Senatorial ElectionJ^ As soon as these elections were over he assured me that he would take the same position in his paper. " The conversation led me to conclude that Stevenson seeks an alliance with Mr. Van Buren, on the Ticket, and that he will struggle for the nomination for the Vice-presidency. The Cal- hounites at Richmond are evidently taking up this idea, and the more indiscrete amongst them avow it openly. Hence they are dissatisfied with Stevenson and avow their determination to vote against him in the Gubernatorial Election, which takes place to- day. They also speak in harsh terms of Ritchie, and charge a col- lusion between the two, having for its sole object Stevenson's- promotion. Knowing that such an opinion would result to Mr. McDowell's advantage, I was perfectly willing that they should entertain it, and use it to their heart's content." '* Two days later the Richmond Whig, in an editorial on the election of McDowell, said: "The Richmond Junta and the Richmond Enquirer have been de- feated by the mountains," and the Enquirer is " therefore defunct." «» Alarmed at the concerted efforts of Calhoun's friends, Benton had, early in 1842, caused his followers in Mis- souri to nominate Van Buren for the presidency.^^ This done, he had hastened at once to the Hermitage to apprise the " Old Hero " of the movements in the political world and to secure his indorsement of Van Buren for a third " The factional fight between the friends of Van Buren and Calhoun was also on in North Carolina. Richmond Enquirer, January 7, 1843. " December 15, 1842. Van Buren MSS. "Richmond Enquirer, December 17, 1842. " Thomas H. Benton to Martin Van Buren, April 17, 1843. Vam Buren MSS. 1 82 C. H. Ambler nomination. Jackson's approval was cheerfully given and at once conveyed to his political henchmen, but it did not arouse much enthusiasm in Virginia. Occasionally a prominent leader committed himself ; *^ but it was not until Congress and the state Assembly met in December, 1842, that the friends of Van Buren began to rally. In the As- sembly they outnumbered their opponents four to one,*' and they administered stinging defeats to aspirants who sought of&ce as the friends of Mr. Calhoun.** The first spirited contest to be fought at close range be- tween these rival factions took place in the Democratic state convention, which met in Richmond, March 2, 1843. It was waged over the method of organization and the time for holding the proposed Democratic national convention. Led by James A. Seddpn, the friends of Cal- houn favored May or June, 1844, and insisted that the delegates thereto should be elected by congressional dis- tricts, and that each delegate should have one vote on the floor of the convention. Following the command of Wright and Benton,*'^ the friends of Van Buren, led by Geo. C. Dromgoole, favored an earlier date, October or November, 1843, for holding the convention, and adhered to the old method of appointing delegates thereto by state conventions and of letting the majority of a state's dele- gates cast the vote of that state.*" They insisted upon an early nomination to prevent sectional and personal jeal- ousies, which they feared would arise at the next Congress °" p. v. Daniel to Martin Van Buren, December 16, 1841. Van Buren MSS. See also J. R. Poinsett to Martin Van Buren, October 7, 1842, on conditions in Virginia. Van Buren MSS. "' G. W. Hopkins to Martin Van Buren, February 20, 1843. Van Buren MSS. "' Richmond Enquirer, February 28, 1843. " F. P. Blair to M. Van Buren, January 17, 1843. Van Buren MSS. "Richmond Enquirer, March 7, 1843. G. W. Hopkins to M. Van Buren, February 20, 1843. Van Buren MSS. Virginia and Presidential Succession 183 and prevent their ultimate success. On the other hand, their opponents desired a late nomination so far as the choice of a candidate was concerned, for directly opposite reasons. They expected sectional issues to arise, which would make Van Buren an unavailable candidate. If they were not already looking to Texas,*' they expected that the agitation of the tariff would unite the south in support of their favorite, Calhoun.*' So skillfully had the organiza- tion been manipulated that Seddon's plan carried in the select committee on address, but it was voted down on the floor of the convention.'* Then the friends of Van Buren passed resolutions which rec- ommended that the national convention be held on the fourth Monday in November, 1843, ^"^ that the delegates thereto be chosen by congressional dis- tricts and instructed to vote by states, each state having as many votes as it had members in Congress, and the majority of the state's delegation casting the whole vote.*" As the followers of Calhoun had hoped, by their plan, to control a large part of the delegation to the national con- vention, the decision of the Democratic state convention in Virginia came as a stinging defeat. The Charles- ton (S. C.) Mercury raised strenuous objections to the whole proceedings.'^ It insisted that Ritchie "had everything cut and dried for Van Buren." Ritchie replied in a long editorial article In which he denied the charge that he had called and organized the con- vention, but admitted taking a deep interest in it. He in- " A. Stevenson to Van Buren, October 8, 1843. Van Buren MSS.; John Letcher to Thomas Ritchie, September 23, 1843. Ibid. "Richmond Enquirer, March 7, 1843; "Calhoun Correspondence," Am. Hist. Assn. Rept. (1899), II., p. 516. '• Richmond Enquirer, March 7, 11, 1843. "Ibid., March 11, 1843. "Ibid., March n, 1843; Silas Wright to Martin Van Buren, April 10, 1843. Van Buren MSS. 184 C. H. Ambler sisted, however, that his interest had always been di- rected to promote accord, and to that end he had pre- sided at conferences of the rival factions."^ The Mercury would not be appeased, and defiantly placed at the head of its editorial column, "JOHN C. CALHOUN, FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, subject to the decision of a national convention to be held in May, 1844.""^ The next tilt between the rival factions came in the elec- tions held in April, 1843. ^^ ^^^ alleged that the major- ity in the Assembly had gerrymandered the state to pre- vent the election of representatives to Congress or of delegates to a national convention, who would be friendly to Mr. Calhoun.** But the consequent apathy, on the part of the friends of Calhoun, injured only themselves and in a way they could ill afford. Wm. O. Qoode was defeated by Geo. C. Dromgoole for a renomination for election to Congress ; °' Hunter failed in his contest for a re-election; °* and Wm. Smith (Extra Billy), an avowed friend of Calhoun, went down to de- feat at the polls before a Whig, Samuel Chilton.*^ As a result of these contests Calhoun did not have a friend In Virginia's delegation in Congress, except those who were also friendly to Tyler.'* True to his former promises,'* and to comply with the earnest solicitations of those who did not understand the reasons for his prolonged silence,^"" Ritchie now declared "Richmond Enquirer, March i8, 1843. " Ibid., April 4, 1844. ■" Richmond Enquirer, May 9, iz, 19, 1843. •' Jbid., April 7, 1843. "Ibid., June 13, 1843; Ne !•> pp. 22-24. " Blanco, J. F., Documentos, 11., pp. 55S-SS9- ^' Ibid., pp. 639, 640; Barros Arana, D., Historia jeneral de Chile (Santiago, 1884-1902), VIII., pp. 215-237. " Alamdn, L., Historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1883-1885), I., pp. 331-335- Spanish-American Diplomacy 237 which styled itself " the supreme governmental junta of America " was created in the picturesque Mexican village of Zitacuaro.^* In this essay there is opportunity only to suggest the animus of some of the leading actors in the kaleidoscopic scenes in which viceroys and captain-generals were often succeeded by provisional juntas. It must not be forgotten that there were many devoted loyalists who followed the Spanish standard on many widely-separated battlefields. Opportunists there were not a few. The historian of the future may indeed seek a partial explanation of this uprising in the psychology of a group or a " race." Some Spanish Americans were loyal to Ferdinand VII, but agitated because of the chaotic conditions in Spain and loath to yield allegiance to the changing authorities in the Peninsula. In certain regions the people were apparently affected by the contagion of example. Some argued that the dethronement of the Spanish king had broken the connecting link between Spain and the colonies,^^ a plea resembling one made at times by the men of 1776. Many Spanish Americans were discontented because of inherent evils in the colonial regime. A few were animated by the doctrines of the revolution in France; some were influenced by the militant policy of England with re- spect to Spanish America; while many conceived the United States to be their grand exemplar. To these nations the chiefs who entertained thoughts of independ- ence naturally turned with great expectations. What was the policy of distracted Spain towards this movement in her transatlantic dominions? On January 22, 1809, the central junta declared the American pos- " Hernandez y Ddvalos, J. E., Coleccidn de documentos para la Mstoria de la guerra de independencia de Mexico de 1808 d 1821, III., p. 340. "' As a specific illustration of this constitutional plea, see the letter of J. G. Roscio to Andres Belo, June 39, i8io, in Amundtegui, M. L., Vida de Don Andres Bella, p. 83. 238 W. S. Robertson sessions of Spain to be not colonies, but an Integral part of the Spanish nation with the right to representation in the junta." But the regency decreed in August, 18 10, that because of the establishment of the provisional gov- ernment by Venezuela, its ports were to be rigorously blockaded.^^ On January 21, 181 1, after fruitless nego- tiations with the Venezuelans,^* an agent of the regency from a coign of vantage in the West Indies, rashly ordered the enforcement of the blockade." On the other hand, the Spanish Cortes, which met in September, 18 10, soon decreed that the Spanish dominions in both hemispheres comprised one nation, that the inhabitants of the ultra- marine provinces had equal rights with the peninsular Spaniards, and that the American insurgents would be pardoned as soon as they recognized the legitimate sov- ereign authority in Spain."* Decrees were passed osten- sibly to encourage industry, commerce, and equality of classes in the Spanish Indies."' These measures, however, did not conciliate the American deputies in the Cortes, who presented a strong remonstrance on American affairs."* The proceedings of the national peninsular authorities hence did not heal the widening breach between Spain and her colonies. The quixotic junta of Caracas was meanwhile trying to "' Blanco, J. F., Documentes, II., p. 230. " Walton, W., An Expose on the Dissentions of Spanish America, ap- pendix, document D. '* Blanco, J. F., Documentos, II., pp. 693-696, 699-703. " A copy of the order is found in P. R. O., Foreign Office Corre- spondence, Spain, 120, " Coleccion de los decretos y ordenes que han expedido las cartes generates y extraordinarios desde su instalacidn en 24. de setiemhre de 1810 hasta igual fecha de iBii, p. 10. " Ibid., pp. 72, 73, 87, 90, 61-63. " Aldman, L., Historia de Mexico, III., pp. 451-471, for comment on the proposals see Walton, W., An Expose, p. 291. The eleven propositions on American affairs can be found in Guerra, J., Historia de la revolucidn de Nue'va Espaiia, II., pp. 647-655. Spanish-American Diplomacy 239 establish friendly relations with foreign governments. It soon communicated with English officials in the West Indies. Early in May, 18 10, the junta sent an account of the separatist movement in Venezuela to Governor Layard of Curagoa, who at once dispatched his aide-de- camp, Captain Kelly, to London with the news that the junta was preparing to send envoys to England.^' An agent of this junta, Juan Ewardo, soon arrived in the island with messages of friendship for Great Britain. He was graciously received by Layard, who declared that he cordially approved of every step which had been taken, and that the manner in which the junta had been estab- lished would be " the admiration of all future ages." Governor Layard also expressed his intention of sending his secretary, John Robertson, to congratulate the junta and to promote friendly relations between Curagoa and Caracas. The sympathies of the governor were so strongly enlisted that he even offered to furnish the Ven- ezuelans with muskets from the governmental ordnance in the island.^" The junta of Caracas also sent a message to Governor Manchester of Jamaica " expressing a desire to enter into the strictest alliance and freest commercial intercourse with the British Nation." ^^ The actions of Governor Layard were not in perfect harmony with the wishes of the English cabinet. The mission of Captain Kelly to England with the news of the changes in Venezuela was approved ^^ ; but the virtual recognition of the governmental junta was disapproved.^* "Layard to Liverpool, May 8, 1810, P. R. O., Colonial Office Trans- missions, Cura(oa, 67/. " Layard to Jose de Llamosas and Martin Tovar Ponte, May 14, 1810, ibid. " The Duke of Manchester to Lord Liverpool, June 10, i8io, P. R. O., Colonial Office Correspondence, Jamaica, 71. " Layard to Liverpool, June 29, 1810, P. R. 0., Colonial Office Corre- spondence, Curagoa, I. " Layard to Liverpool, July 23, i8io, ibid. 240 W. S. Robertson On June 29, 18 10, Lord Liverpool, the English minister for war and the colonies, thus described the conduct which England wished its representatives in the West Indies to observe: "The great object which His Majesty has had in view from the first moment when intelligence was received in this Country of the glorious resistance of the Spanish Nation against the Tyranny and Usurpation of France, was to assist by every means in His Power this great effort of a brave, loyal, and high spirited People, and to secure if possible the Independence of the Spanish Monarchy in all Parts of the World. As long as the Spanish Nation persevere in their resistance to their Invaders, and as any reasonable Hope can be entertained of ultimate Success to their Cause in Spain, His Majesty feels it to be his Duty according to every obligation of Justice and good Faith, to discourage any pro- ceeding which may have the effect of separating the Spanish Provinces in America from the Parent State in Europe; — the In- tegrity of the Spanish Monarchy upon principles of Justice and true Policy, being not less the object of His Majesty than of all loyal and patriotic Spaniards." ^* Before this dispatch was written, the junta of Venezuela had sent Simon Bolivar, Luis Lopez Mendez, and Andres Bello on the important mission over-seas. Bello, a scholarly and talented Venezuelan, acted as the secretary of the commission; ^' Mendez was a member of a leading insurgent family; and Bolivar, the chief of the trio, was the scion of an illustrious family of Caracas, who had been educated in Venezuela and in Europe.^^ Like other chiefs " Layard to Liverpool, June 29, 1810, P. R. O., Colonial Office Corre- spondence, Curagoa, I. An indorsement on Manchester's dispatch to Liy- erpool, June 21, 1810, states that a copy of these instructions was sent to Manchester, ibid., Jamaica, 71. °° Velasco y Rojas, marques de, Simon Boli'var, p. 15. " Larrazdbal, F., La