YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 070864450 r^Gcssmi^s us NSBRft'SKA © | SECOND SBRIM. T0&. *¥. •YAILJS-^M^iaSfl'inr- Gift of q^j. J*+-u . /a, 190Z T. W. TIPTON. FORTY YEARS OF NEBRASKA At Home and in Congress BY THOMAS WESTON TIPTON United States Senator for Nebraska, 1867-1875 A SPECIAL PUBLICATION OF THE NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY LINCOLN, NEBR.: STATE JOURNAL COMPANY, PRINTERS 1902 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. OFFICEB8 : CONSTITUTING BOARD OP MANAGERS. President — * J. Steeling Morton, Nebraska City. First Vice-President— Bobert W. Furnas, Brownville. Second Vice-President— Chables Sumnee Lobingier, Omaha. Treasure-! — C H. Geee, Lincoln. Secretary — H. W. Caldwell, Lincoln. * Died April 27, 1902. OFFICE STAFF. Jay Amos Baeeett, Librarian and Assistant Secretary A. E. Sheldon, Director of Field Work. E. E. Blackman, Archeologist. Clarence S. Paine, Collector of Curios. Daisy M. Palin, Newspaper Clerk. COMMITTEES FOE 1902-1903. Publication — H. W. Caldwell, S. L. Geisthardt, Charles S. Dundey. Obituaries — E. W. Furnas, Geo. L. Miller, A; L. Bixby. Program— H. W. Caldwell, A. E. Sheldon, A. T. Eichardson. Library — Jay Amos Barrett, Miss Edith Tobitt, Albert Watkins. Museum and Collections — Jay Amos Barrett, C. S. Paine, H. T. Clarke. STATED MEETINGS. Annual meeting of the Society, second Tuesday in January. Meetings of Executive Board, first Tuesday after second Monday in Janu ary, April, July, October. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. Territorial Governors 1-73 Francis Burt 1- 2 Thomas B. Cuming 3- g Mark W. Izard 9-16 William A. Richardson 17-20 J. Sterling Morton 21-47 Samuel W. Black 48-55 Algernon S. Paddock 56-60 Alvin Saunders 61-73 CHAPTER II. Territorial Delegates 74-103 Introduction 74- 76 Napoleon B. Giddings 77- 78 Bird B. Chapman 79- 81 Fenner Ferguson 82- 85 Experience Estabrook 86- 88 Samuel G. Daily 89 J. Sterling Morton 90- 99 Phineas W. Hitchcock 100-103 CHAPTER III. State Governors 104-210 David Butler 104-117 William H. James 118-119 Robert W. Furnas 120-134 Silas Garber 135-140 Albinus Nance 141-147 James W. Dawes 148-159 John M. Thayer 160-175 James E. Boyd 176-201 Lorenzo Crounse 202-205 Silas A. Holcomb 206-210 CHAPTER IV. State Senators 211-385 Preliminary Historical Sketch 211-215 Thomas W. Tipton 216-266 John M. Thayer 267-278 Phineas W. Hitchcock 279-286 Algernon S. Paddock 287-304 Alvin Saunders 305-313 Charles H. Van Wyck 314-332 Charles F. Manderson 333-361 William V. Allen 362-385 (i") IV contents. page CHAPTER V. Representatives .' 386-556 T. M. Marquett 386-389 John Taffe 390-394 Lorenzo Crounse 395-409 Frank Welch 410-413 Thomas J. Majors 414 Edward K. Valentine 415-420 Archibald J. Weaver 421-425 James Laird 426-438 Gilbert L. Laws 439-442 William J. Connell 443-448 George W. E. Dorsey 449-454 John A. McShane 455-461 William J. Bryan 462-500 William A. McKeighan 501-516 Omer M. Kern 517-528 Eugene J. Hainer .529-537 David H. Mercer 538-549 George D. Meiklejohn 550-556 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIOWS. Thomas Weston Tipton. Frontispiece. face page J. Sterling Morton, 1858 24 J. Sterling Morton, 1896 96 David Butler 104 R. W. Furnas 120 J. E. Boyd 176 Lorenzo Crounse 202 Silas A. Holcomb 208 Charles F. Manderson 336 William V. Allen 368 William Jennings Bryan 464 t2-^i- ct ffisir-isLALje*- *h. /spy— ^J-ic^zTS. &2 >&-€. ^zk^OL <&bU*r~ , frt^c. $ W, &/^l^i^t (v) PREFACE. After a continuous residence of thirty-three years in Nemaha County, four of which were with the celebrated First Nebraska Regiment, and eight in the United States Senate, having suffered a sudden loss of health, I found a very pleasant pastime and most genial employment in recalling the early days of Nebraska pioneer ing. My first impulse was to utter opinions of men and measures. But remembering how liable we all are to make mistakes, and being fearful of doing injustice, by omission or prejudice, to some of my associates, I determined, as far as possible, to become only the re. corder of their public works and compiler of their sentiments and oratorical gems. My theme, Forty Years of Nebraska at Home and in Congress, brought into review fifty officials, — eight territorial governors, six delegates in congress, ten state governors, eight United States sena tors, and eighteen members of the house of representatives. The number required brevity. The one million new-comers and young generation were to be instructed, and the considerate and merciful criticism invoked of the remaining fifty-eight thousand old settlers. I acknowledge my indebtedness to ex-governor Furnas for the use of his invaluable library, to the Illustrated History of Nebraska, and to the Congressional Globe and Record. THE AUTHOR. 607 Florida Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C. May 30, 1894. (vii) ERRATA. Page 21, Note. For Joseph D. Morton read Julius Dewey Morton. Page 55, Note. For III. read I. Page 57, line 18. For Nebr. , Territory read Nebraska Territory. (viii) CHAPTEK I. THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. GOVERNOR FRANCIS BUET, Aug. 2 to Oct. 18, 1854. The sad history of Governor Burt1 of South Carolina, the first governor of Nebraska, is soon written. He was appointed by President Pierce and reached the Territory at the Mission House at Bellevue, now of Sarpy county, on the 7th day of Oc tober, 1854, just four months and seven days subsequent to the passage of the act organizing the Territory. Coming there much indisposed, he died on the 18th of the same month of his arrival, having taken the oath of office on the 16th of October, 1854, and closing a two days' term of official life. He has been spoken of as "a man of stern integrity and unblemished charac ter, greatly beloved by those who knew him," and in the pecu liar terms of that day, as "an accomplished southern gentle man." 1 Governor Francis Burt: Nebr. State Hist. Soc. Pub., sec. series, I., 25-38; first series, I., 93 (biog. from N. Y. Times, Nov. 9, 1854); II., 19. Savage and Bell, Hist, of Omaha, -50. The following genealogy of the Burt family is furnished hy Miss Katharine Burt, daughter of Gov. Francis Burt: Matthew Burt [b. before 1732, Mecklinburg, Va.: m., Harwood; after Rev olution, moved to Edgefield, S. 0. ; d., ] had 14 children: Harwood, Matthew, Philip, Edward, John, Francis, William, Eobert, Garland, Moody, Susan, Martha, Mary, Ann. Francis Burt [b. about 1774; m. Katharine Miles (dau. of Aquila Miles, and- Harriet Giroud who was dau. of Jourdan, dau. of French Huguenot, and who had 8 children: Susan, Rebecca, Katharine. Pamilia, Amelia, Jack, Lois, Aquila); d., ] had 10 children: Louis, Matthew, Oswald, Armistead, Francis, Erasmus, Harriet, Eliza, Katharine, Pamilia. Francis Burt [b. Jan. 13, 1807; m., 1831, Georgiana Hall, -dau. George Abbott Hall of Charleston (son of Geo. A. Hall and Lois Matthews, sister of Mrs. Thomas Hayward whose husband was signer of Declaration of Independence) and Anne Dawson (b. Oct. 9, 1774; dau. John Dawson and Joanna Mouck; descendant Dr. Henry Woodward; m., 1806)] had six children: Frank (d. 1850), Georgiana (m. William H. Dawson, 1854; d. 1882), Harriet (m. D. M. Young, 1868), Armistead (m. Laura Rippeton, 1887), Joanna (m. George Robert, now deceased, 1879), Katharine (b. 1842, lives Macon, Ga.), Mary (m. William A. Johnston, 1871; d. 1879), George Abbott -<"Frank";,m. Minnie Nutting, 1881). 2 (1) -i NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The Secretary of the Territory, T. B. Cuming, of Iowa, imme diately assumed the duties of acting-governor, and his procla mation, announcing the sorrowful death, draping the national flags, and appointing an escort, was the first executive utter ance. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. ACTING-GOVERNOR THOMAS B. CUMING. Oct. 18, 1854 to Feb. 20, 1855, and Oct. 25, 1857 to Jan. 12, 1858. The first Territorial Legislature of Nebraska convened Jan uary 16, 1855, Acting-Governor Thomas B. Cuming delivering the message. In that document he said: The first official act within our Territory has been indeed a mournful one, the transmission to a bereaved wife and orphaned children in South Carolina of all that was mortal of your late lamented governor, Francis Burt. In his death you have suffered a severe loss — the loss of a man peculiarly qualified by his public experience and capacity, his private virtues, and his energy and firmness, for the satisfactory and courageous discharge of his official duties. He spent but a few weeks of suffering among us, and his grave in- a far off State is only another tie of union between com munities widely severed, who will revert to his memory with fraternal pride, and to his untimely decease with sympathetic sorrow. There were no unpleasant discriminations to subtract from the universal esteem in which his manly and amiable traits were held by an enlightened people; and the fact that South Carolina has given us one of her distinguished sons, is accompanied upon your record by the expression of your undivided respect and affection.i The Territory being without a system of civil or criminal law, or corporations, financial institutions, or public works, as rail roads, bridges or highways, the foundations were to be laid,. and superstructures erected. In the absence of financial re sources, appeals were made for congressional aid, in behalf of the Pacific railroad, telegraph and mail facilities, a chain of military posts for emigrant protection, and land donations for all conceivable purposes. Having hoped for the arrival of Governor Burt's successor up to the meeting of the legislature, and not wishing to pledge 1 Council Journal, 1st session, pp. 8-9. 4 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. bim to any specific policy, the acting- governor dealt in brief and general allusions and closed as follows: I could not forbear, gentlemen, in transferring to another the trust reposed in me, from expressing a pride that, our Territory being thus speedily built up as another arch in the national fabric, your public acts and counsels will contribute to defend and perpetuate the Union and the Constitution of the United States as the only sure founda tion of our civil liberties. I trust that your delibera tions, by the blessing of Divine Providence, may be con ducted with efficiency and prudence, and that the most ardent hopes of each one of you who have confronted the hardships and trials of pioneer life, may be realized in the promotion of the lasting good of our vast and promising young- Territory. i When the 4th Legislative Assembly convened December 8th, 1857, Secretary Cuming, being again acting-governor, delivered a message congratulatory and instructive: We are assembled today under the most favorable aus pices. The Territory of Nebraska has, thus far, achieved all that her friends could ask. Her early organization and rapid progress have signally illustrated the safety and ex pansive force of the principles of the Federal compact, from which naturally sprang her organic act. On account of Nebraska's close proximity to the Anti-Slavery strife in Kansas, where the slave power was- determined to •enthrone the "peculiar institution," and the resident citizens were equally devoted to the free soil and free men, the gover nor made the following allusions: Although lamentable dissensions have given to our sister territory a wider notoriety, we may well congratulate each other upon the verification of the political truth, "Happy is that people whose annals are tranquil." Safe, thus far, from the interference of reckless agitators and the mad efforts of intolerant fanatics, we can furnish to the world an enviable proof of tbe legitimate effect of the genius and spirit of our republican institutions. Among his recommendations he mentioned the fact that the 1 Council Journal, 1st session, 12. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. O citizens of Omaha had contributed $50,000 to aid in completing the Capitol building for which Congress should reimburse them ; and that the government should give the territory a surveyor general; distribute troops along the emigrant line of travel; make appropriations for railroad construction and for bridging the rivers and streams on the United States mail routes. He drew a very true picture of the evils of unrestricted and negli gent banking and demanded all the safeguards that prudence could dictate. The few days allowed for a session of the legislature had demonstrated the fact that legal enactments were limited, eon- fused and contradictory, and needed constant amendments and comparisons with the legislation of older communities. The thoughtful reader will understand that the laws, regula tions and customs of a new and formative society will be con stantly superseded by the progress of intellectual and physical development. This final message of Governor Cuming closed as follows: I have thus presented to you, gentlemen, plainly and hurriedly, such considerations as have occurred to me, un certain, until the eve of your assembling, whether in my in cidental position, such a communication would be required. Once before we have met under similar circumstances. Since that initial period, the bitterness of sectional strife has been measurably allayed. Strange faces and new interests have taken their places upon the stage and many of the actors in our early history have passed away, or been lost in the throng- of events. Men, out of repair politically and morally, will continue to be prostrated, one by one, and their names expire with the forgotten influences of the past; but out- powerful young Territory will move on with augmented and prevailing force and realize, in its future fortunes, all that human hope or ambition can anticipate or wish. Acting- for that Territory in a coordinate capacity, and in view of the mutations of public affairs, and in the vicissitudes of life, permit me to assure you, each and all, that I cherish a sincere desire for your success, individually, as well as in your endeavors to promote the public good. May no per sonal resentment or local alienations hereafter mar the harmony which should inspire the intercourse of the repre sentatives of the government and of our people. May no b NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. boundary — natural or artificial — prevent the union of all our energies, in building up an eminent, honored and thriving State. May you be prospered in all your laudable aims, and after performing the high duty of legislating for a patriotic and confiding people, return in health to the comforts and friendships of your respective homes. Within three months from the date of this official document, its author had passed from earth, and at the meeting of the next legislature, Governor Richardson said: "The Territory has lost one of her brightest intellects, one whose genius and at tainments had inspired his many friends with high hopes and marked out for him a brilliant and useful future. T. B. Cuming, Secretary of the Territory, has been called away forever."1 The legislature having referred this message to a committee, the following report2 was made by its chairman, Hon. R. W; Furnas, subsequently governor: Thomas B. Cuming was appointed secretary of the Terri tory of Nebraska by Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, upon the organization of the Territory, and entering at once upon the discharge of the duties of his office, he arrived here in the month of September, 1854. By the untimely decease of Governor Burt, he succeeded to the supreme executive and became ex-officio Governor of Ne braska. How ably he filled that office, those living can testify. In the organization of the first legislature, sur rounded as he was by conflicting elements, threatened by fierce contending factions, standing in imminent danger of personal violence, he wavered not once in his fealty to the general government, nor in his fidelity to the trust reposed in him. Throughout the whole duration of those trouble some times he pursued a policy, the sagacity of which was proved by its success, and the wisdom of which is evidenced by the present prosperous position of the Territory which he governed. Upon the resignation of Governor Izard, he again assumed the. executive office and from that time till near his death maintained it. He has been identified with the Territory ever since its organization, as one of its highest officers. He died with the mantle of authority still about him. in the land which he had chosen for his own; in the country which he had ruled so well. He was buried with his honors fresh upon him; from the halls where he was 1 Council Journal, 5th session. 15. 2 Council Journal, 5th session, 30-31. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 7 wont to tread among a people that delighted to do him reverence. He was followed to his grave by those who were his friends, and the soil for which he had lived and labored received his remains. His requiem was tolled by the silence of those who knew what they had lost, and 'if you seek his monument look around you.' Besides being for a long time the first executive officer of the Territory, he was in many respects the first man of Nebraska. And hereafter when the roll of the great men of the Territory is called, and the name of Thomas B. Cuming- is pronounced the first upon the list, let the answer be as it was with the surviving com rades of La Tour, D'Auverne, first grenadier of the army of France, "Died on the field of honor." The closing moments of an existence, checkered as his has been by worldly con tests, cannot but attract attention. His life was no holiday; but almost every moment of it had been passed in the busy thoroughfares of the world, and when finally prostrated by disease, the closing acts of his public life were characterized with the same energy and decision which made his character what it was. Your committee have in this hurried manner discharged the duty imposed upon them. They are con scious of their inability to present » report for your con sideration commensurate with their estimation of the man, and their appreciation of Thomas B. Cuming as an executive officer. Your committee would close their report by express ing their earnest Hope that here in the shadow of the Capitol, about whose arches the spirit of the deceased may linger; that here the memory of those sectional disputes among which the latter part of his life was unavoidably passed, will cause this legislature to avoid them, and unite for the furtherance of such measures as shall be for the good of the whole country. Never was the pathway of a young politician beset with greater perplexities and temptations than those surrounding the first temporary executive of the Territory of Nebraska. To be unexpectedly called upon to assuhie the duties of another, and expected to evolve a government from a state of elementary chaos, in the absence of precedents, would have required all that age, experience and human sagacity could have furnished. While it became his duty to designate the place for the assem bling of the first session of the legislature, the final question of Capitol location was left to the representatives of the people; but inasmuch as the place of the first meeting would have the 8 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. prestige of an incipient Capitol, his decision was sought in the spirit of desperation. What there was of settlement, was di vided by the Platte River into North and South, while in the two antagonistic sections, three rival towns in each were ready to destroy their local competitors to gain a permanent advantage. These were Bellevue, Omaha and Florence to the north, and Plattsmouth, Nebraska City and Brownville to the south. Bellevue, having been the place where the first governor landed and died, and whence his acting successor issued the first official proclamation, and possessing the most beautiful location, had many reasons to anticipate becoming the perma nent seat of government. When, therefore, Mr. Cuming, having ordered the taking of a census, in 1854, and the election of members of a legislature and of a delegate to Congress, appointed the assembling of the first session for Omaha, the clans were mustered for war. In the absence of courts to issue the quo warranto or mandamus, appeal was occasionally made to the knife and revolver, and under mental conditions affected by the use of money or whis key. Accordingly, in 1858, when the location question was again revived, and Secretary Cuming was once more acting-governor, after Governor Izard's resignation, a majority of the legislature removed to Florence, eight miles up the river, and called upon him for the records in possession of the minority at Omaha. Before a solution of this complication was secured Gov. Rich ardson of Illinois arrived and, assuming control, released the young official once more to his original duty of secretary of the Territory, which place he filled until early in the spring of 1858, when he was stricken by death, in his 28th year. TERRITORIAL GOVEKNORS. GOVERNOR MARK W. IZARD. Feb. 20, 1855 to Oct. 25, 1857. In the illustrated history of Nebraska, a writer quoting from the Omaha Herald, proceeds as follows: "Mark W. Izard, who came into the Territory as United States marshal, was ap pointed successor to Governor Burt, and the ball was given in honor of his excellency." It might be here parenthetically stated that when the governor was to read his inaugural mes sage he arranged it so that a negro was to announce his ap proach to the legislative chamber, by saying, "Mr. Speaker, the Governor is now approaching''; but forgetting his text he elec trified the assembled wisdom with, "Mr. Speaker, de Gub'ner hab done come." The following is from the Herald: Izard was a stately character physically; mentally, rather weak, and felt a lively sense of the dig-nity with which the appointment clothed him. He had never known such an honor before, and it bore upon him heavily. To the few per sons who then constituted the population of the city, the governor was careful to intimate a desire to have his g-ubernatorial advent suitably celebrated. The factious and wary Cuming suggested the idea of giving Izard an executive ball. The larger of the two rooms, which then constituted the building, was the theatre of a scene perhaps the most ludicrous that was ever witnessed in the history of public receptions. The room had a sing-le coat of what was called plastering, composed of a frozen mixture of mud and ice, and a very thin coating at that. The floor was rough and unplaned, and not altogether safe for those who preferred the upright position. It had been energetically scrubbed for the occasion. The night being dreadfully cold and the heating apparatus failing- to warm the room, the water froze upon the floor and could not be melted by any then known process. Bough Cottonwood boards on either side of the room were substituted for chairs. The hour of seven having arrived, the grand company began to assemble. Long before the appointed hour his Arkansas excellency appeared in the dancing hall. He and Jim Orton and "the band" of Council Bluffs reached the scene about the same moment. 10 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The governor was very polite to Jim, and Jim was just "tight" enough to be correspondingly polite to the governor, while Izard was the guest of nine ladies, who were all that could be mustered, even for a state occasion in Omaha. They were Mrs. G. L. Miller, Mrs. T. B. Cuming, Mrs. Fenner Ferguson, Mrs. J. Sterling Morton, Mrs. C. B. Smith, Mrs. Fleming Davidson, Mrs. A. J. Hanscom, Mrs. A. D. Jones, and Mrs. S. E. Rogers. Two of the ladies could not dance, and their places were supplied by the same number of gentlemen. The governor had a son by the name of James. He was his excellency's private secretary, and wishing to present a high example of stj'le, he came in at a late hour escorting Mrs. Davidson. His bearing was fearfully stately and dignified. He wore a white vest and white kids, as any gentleman would do, but these were in rather discordant contrast with the surroundings. Paddock, Poppleton, Cuming, Smith, Morton, Ferguson, Goodwill, Clancy, Folsom, and Dr. Miller, besides a large assembly of legislators, attended. Jim Orton was the solitary fiddler, occupying a corner of the room. The dance was opened and it was a gay and festive occasion. During the dance several accidents happened. One lady, now well known in Omaha, fell flat; others did likewise. The supper came off about midnight, and consisted of coffee with brown sugar, but no milk, sandwiches of a peculiar size, very thick, and made up of a singular mixture of bread of radical complexion, and bacon. The menu was supple mented with dried apple pie, and there being no tables in those days, was passed around. The governor having long lived in a hot climate, stood around shivering with the cold, but bore himself with amiable fortitude, buoyed up with the honors thus showered upon him. and at the proper time, under a deep sense of his own consequence, made a speech returning thanks for the high honor done him. On the 20th day of February, 1855, the successor of Governor Burt having arrived. Secretary Cuming introduced him to the legislature in a most complimentary speech, which was replied to in a manner indicating that "honors were easy," and eulo- giums at par. Mr. C'umi.xg: We congratulate you and ourselves, Sir, that the blessing of prosperity and harmony, and the glory of great hopes for the future are lighting up your path, which the vigorous arm of popular sovereignty has carved out and upon which we have entered. * * * We feel assured, Sir, that a glorious destiny will result from that manifesta- TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 11 tion of the popular will which has already fixed the west ward "march of empire"; and we rejoice in the assurance that you will hereafter occupy a prominent place among the benefactors of commerce, the promoters of patriotism and the friends of mankind. i To which the governor replied: I return my sincere thanks to you for the kind and compli mentary manner in which you have received me. In the difficulties through which you have passed, and the embar rassments which you have unavoidably encountered in the organization of this now prosperous and growing Territory, I am conscious you had at heart the welfare of the whole Territory. I return to you my sincere thanks for the cordial welcome and friendly feeling with which you have received me. * * ! I feel that there is wisdom and in tegrity enough here to lay the foundation for a government, the blessings of which are soon to be enjoyed by a popula tion unparalleled in the settlement of any country, a popu lation which will vie in point of morals and intelligence with any country, new or old.2 These few complimentary extracts may suffice as introduc tory to an official acquaintance and a prelude to the governor's first message3 of February 27, 1855, which ran as follows: The circumstances under which I make this, my first official communication to_ your honorable body, are some what peculiar, my arrival in the Territory having been delayed by causes entirely beyond my control, until a late day of the session. I cannot flatter myself that I am officially familiar with the progress already made, to indi cate a course of policy for the government of your future actions, with as much clearness and precision as 1 could desire, but finding the session fast drawing to a close, and the more important matters of legislation which are of vital interest" to the people of the Territory, yet in their incipient state, or wholly untouched, I feel it my duty to call your attention to the subject, and recommend to your favorable consideration such measures as I deem im portant for the speedy organization of the Territory, and future peace and harmony of our young and growing com munity. 1 Council Jqurnal, 1st session, 78. 2 Council"jfiirrWal,ist session, 78, 79. 3 Council Journal, 1st session, 97-99. 12 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The length of the session being limited to forty days by the organic act, he recommended that the code of Iowa for civil and criminal practice be adopted, and that a general election law be framed, and a system of territorial revenue be established, and rules and regulations prescribed for defining the rights of set tlers under the act of Congress. There was a most pressing necessity for the admonition against special legislation, instead of general laws, for all manner of persons were under a frenzy of excitement in order to acquire charters for banks, ferries and endless corporations, the erection of counties and location of towns, and for the permanent establishment of the capital, whereby a fictitious value should at once be attached to real estate, and vast fortunes amassed. The legislature then. in ses sion was not responsible to any settled and well defined con stituencies; and many members were citizens of other states, mere adventurers, who, being on prospecting tours, found time to take part in the first organization. On the eighth day of the session, charges were made against six members of the council for want of citizenship, and one for being a minor, leaving six to assume valid citizenship; and inasmuch as a large immigra tion was expected before another election, a preamble and reso lutions were introduced in the council suggesting a general resignation of the members and a -new election. Closing his message, the governor said: Having the fullest confidence in your wisdom, integrity and patriotism, I invoke the blessing of the Divine Being upon your deliberations and look forward with lively an ticipations for the result of this, the first legislative as sembly of the Territory of Nebraska, to bring honor and prosperity upon her people, and invite our friends from abroad to come in and share with us the blessings of a government founded upon the eternal principles of popular sovereignty, and I trust that you will always find in me a faithful co-worker in seeking to effect these desirable objects. During this first session a report was made on the subject of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, of which two para graphs will show the drift: TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 13 That in their opinion, where the people are prepared and public sentiment sufficiently in favor of a prohibitory law to fully sustain and enforce it, such a law would be pro ductive of the best results to the community. * * * As much, however, as we may be in favor of a prohibitory law, until the community by petition or otherwise, may fully manifest their determination to sustain such a law, it would be idle to enact it. The house of representatives having passed a bill excluding free negroes from obtaining a settlement in the territory, it was finally indefinitely postponed in the council by a vote of 7 against 4. On the 19th day of December, 1855, Governor Izard delivered his second message1 to the legislature, and as the facts of history were few, and the realms of fiction unbounded, he dealt in the imaginary creations of the present and the gorgeous realizations of the future. The infant territory was prosperous, the early organization was of bold and energetic measures, the principles of "popular sovereignty" vindicated, the people happy in a degree heretofore unexampled, while towns and cities were springing up as if by magic. The capitol, for which he had projected the plans, and which were worked out in detail by the accomplished architect of St. Louis, William Rumbold, would be the most imposing of buildings, and would be copied by Kansas, and admired by all master builders visiting the Ter ritory. The territorial road westward to Kearney would be the forerunner of the Pacific railway; and the completion of the surveys of government lands would supercede the term "squat ter" and we become sovereigns of the soil. Special attention being given to the ordinary wants of the new community, and a highly colored portrait drawn of our enterprising and intelli gent and patriotic neighbors of the Pacific slope, he promised hearty co-operation with the new legislature, and invoked upon them the guidance of Divine Providence. One of the most notable acts of the body was the adoption of the repo.rt of the committee on codification of laws, and an effort to arrest the ocean tide of divorce applicants and to refer them 1 Council Journal, 2nd session, 5-15. 14 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. exclusively to the courts, became a pressing necessity. The end of the second legislative year found a network of corporations, and the town site plats in universal existence. On the 6th of January, 1857, Governor Izard came to the front with his last message,1 but he came up smiling, and his voice attuned to strains of congratulations. While Kansas had been desolated by pillage and her people murdered, Nebraska had been at peace : When we reflect that but two short years have passed since Nebraska was a vast uncultivated and unsettled region, with scarcely a mark to indicate that civilization had reached its borders, its present condition almost startles us with a conviction that the hand of magic, rather than enterprise of the pioneer, has wrought the change. We can boast of a population of more than 15,000 intelligent, orderly and energetic citizens, who may challeng-e comparison with those of any State or Territory in the Union, of flourishing- towns and prosperous cities, with their broad and beautifxil prairies, being thickly dotted with comfortable farm houses and well cultivated fields, yielding their rich treasures to the hand of peaceful industry, and with handsome church edifices, well regulated schools and busy streets. The ap preciation of property has far exceeded the expectations of the most sanguine. Business lots upon streets where the wild g-rass still flourishes are readily commanding from $500 to $3,000 each, and land adjacent to our most pros perous towns commanding from $50 to $400 per acre. In the election of James Buchanan to the presidency (which preceded the great internal war), he saw an evidence that the slavery agitation was settled forever, and exclaimed: Preparatory to the reception of the immense tide of immigration and wealth that is destined to flow into our Ter ritory at the opening of spring, from all sections of the country, it is our duty that you will adopt, at an early day, a wise and judicious system of legislation for the security of persons and property. The value of education, common and collegiate, received marked and extended attention, and the duty of memorializing 1 Council Journal, 3rd session, 12-20. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 15 Congress for grants of land for those purposes was vigorously pressed. Reiterating many former recommendations, he closed his of ficial communication: In conclusion I cannot too earnestly exhort you to cul tivate a spirit of harmony and conciliation in your councils, and I trust that under the wise direction of an overruling Providence, the result of your deliberation may be such as will best promote the future growth and prosperity of our young and rising community. Following the message in hot haste came a resolution for a committee on removal of the capitol, which in two days there after, reported in favor of the measure, which passed the legis lature and in due time was vetoed by the governor. The insinu ations of undue influences in the original location at Omaha were offset by the following language of the veto measure:1 It is not pretended that a single house, or even sod shanty has been erected on the site of the proposed capital, or in the vicinity. It appears to be a floating town, not only without a location, but without inhabitants. In regard to banks and banking a committee used the follow ing: We have now six banks; add six more and we have twelve, a bank for every thousand inhabitants. Who are the men who are asking for these charters? Are they sovereign squatters of Nebraska? Not at all. Most, if not all of the leading- men are from other states, who would be very much obliged to us now to legislate to them the opportunity of filling our pockets with their bills, but who would laugh us to scorn when they had our gold and our property in their possession. The bill to incorporate the extra six met with the executive veto and failed to become a law. The committee to whom was referred so much of the governor's message as related to the election of President Buchanan, reported: That while we have no objection to the election of James Buchanan, yet they cannot see that the rights of the South 1 Council Journal, 3rd session, 46-48. 16 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. are more secure than if John C. Fremont had been the fortunate candidate, neither do we think that it will be for the interests of the South that her peculiar institution should be secured to her. Seeing that with them, and all her superior natural advantages, a blight hangs over and eventually cripples and enervates all her energies. His last veto1 arrested a bill entitled, "An act to repeal all criminal laws passed at the first session of the legislative as sembly," which was finally passed over the veto, and before the convening of the legislature, December 9th, 1857, Thomas B. Cuming was again acting-governor, due notice of which has already been taken in the section concerning him.2 1 Council Journal, 3rd session, 158-159. 2 See page 3. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 17 GOVERNOR WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON. Jan. 10 to Dec. 5, 1858. In the Directory of Congress the following appears: William A. Richardson was born in Fayette County, Ken tucky; graduated at the Translyvania University; studied law and came to the bar before attaining his twentieth year. He soon settled in Illinois, and in 1835, he was elected state attorney; in 1836 he was elected a member of the legislature; in 1838 he was elected to the state senate, and again in 1844 he was elected to the legislature and made speaker of the House. He was chosen a presidential elector in 1844. In 1846 he served as captain in the Mexican war, and on the battlefield of Buena Vista was promoted by the unanimous vote of his regiment; in 1847 was elected a repre sentative to Congress from Illinois where he continued to serve by re-election until 1856, when he resigned. In 1857 he was appointed by President Buchanan, governor of Ne braska, which position he resigned in 1858; in 1860, he was, against his consent, re-elected to the house of representa tives, but before the expiration of his term in 1861, was chosen a senator in Congress from Illinois, for the un expired term of his friend, S. A. Douglas, serving on the committee on territories and the committee on District of Columbia. From the legislative records it appears that Gov. W. A. Rich ardson assumed the duties of his office on or about the 12th day of January, 1858, at which time he was called upon to recog nize the action of the majority of the legislature then in session at Florence, to which place they had seceded from Omaha. On the ground that Omaha was the seat of government for the ter ritory, their request was promptly refused,1 while the minority adjourned the legislature, on January 16, 1858, four days after his accession to power. Inasmuch as all criminal laws had been repealed, and a great legal confusion existed, an extra session convened on the 23d of September, 1858, and a regular one or- 1 Council Journal, 4th session, 146-148. 3 18 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. dered by law to follow it beginning October 4th, 1858. One brief message1 sufficed for both sessions and also announced the fact of the governor's resignation of his office. As a justi fication for a special session he said: The only law under which crime can be punished in this Territory is the common law of England. All other criminal laws have been abolished by a previous legislature. The •common law of England is so uncertain and doubtful in Teference to every proceeding and offense and its punish ment, that every point will have to be adjudicated before the courts can tell what the law is. As reported the territorial indebtedness was $15,774, and it ^vas said that only five counties had paid a part of their taxes, ;also that banks had failed to redeem their notes and should be ¦dealt with accordingly, and that Congress should be memorial ized in aid of roads and bridges and general improvements. In & burst of enthusiasm never yet justified, he fancied a new El- .dorado of gold at Cherry Creek and Laramie Peak, that "should igive an impetus to every branch of industry, and eventually make the great valley of the Missouri not only the garden but the central money power of the Union." In imagination his tears caught the thundering Union Pacific trains, and his eyes were gladdened by the world's commerce gliding from ocean to ocean. But he is entitled to utter in glowing rhetoric impres sions of the future: Nebraska occupies a position in the very heart of this -great republic, and as she is now the g-eographical center ¦of the Union, so shall she soon become the commercial. Standing as we do midway between the Atlantic and Pacific, Tvhere the wealth and commerce of both oceans shall pay -tribute to our people, their wealth, their advancement, and their power is inevitable. With a soil unsurpassed in fer tility, and a climate whose healthful influences are admitted t>y all, settled by a class of people whose industry, enter prise, and intelligence is fast converting the wilderness into a garden, who shall dare portray the fullness and prosperity of that splendid destiny which is reserved for the future State of Nebraska. * * :: 1 Council Journal, 5th session (containing also journal of special session), 12-15. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 19 Having resigned the place 1 now occupy, my official con nection with you will soon cease; I can therefore have- no interest, no wish and no inclination to enter into any local agitation. But upon the other hand, I wish in some degree to contribute to the advancement and improvement of the Territory. I shall recur with pleasure to the many kind nesses of the people of the Territory towards me, and carry with me the recollection that I have endeavored faith fully to promote the public welfare. In conclusion permit me, to urge you, gentlemen, to discard all local feelings, all jealousies, and unite where interests are the same and where opinions cannot be divided, in passing laws so necessary for the interests of those you represent. I hope peace, concord, and ha'rmony may characterize your deliberations; and that you may so discharge your duties as to merit and receive the approval of your constituents after your labors shall have been completed. The following report1 is a flattering testimonial of apprecia tion and esteem: Your committee to whom was referred so much of the governor's message as relates to the resignation of his office, beg leave to respectfully report: Governor Bichardson arrived in Nebraska on the 10th day of January last, in the midst of the most violent contest this Territory ever wit nessed. He came here under an appointment of the general government, most fit to be made. He had stood up in the Congress of the United States, one of the foremost champions of that principle which asserts and vindicates the ability of the American citizen, whether a resident of the older or newer settlement of the country, to govern himself. The champion, the eloquent, powerful cham pion of natural rights of the people of Nebraska, most fit- was it that he should be set over them as their gov ernor. He came welcomed by the warmest enthusiasm of the people of the Territory. They felt, as they had abundant reason to feel, most grateful that a man of his reputation, which was national; of his abilities, which, in the then present exigencies of public affairs, were needed for the public good; of his connection, so intimate and so honorable, with their first history, should be sent among them. Open arms, warm hearts, welcomed him to this Ter ritory. He has served us for nearly a year; all his wisdom, all his best efforts, have been ours; no personal feeling, ambition or pride, have ever swayed him. Patriotism, a 1 Council Journal, 5th session, 214: made by W. E. Moore, Nov. 1, 1858. 20 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. generous regard for the highest public good, have characterized his administration. The Territory of Ne braska stands today on a moral and legal position far higher, more honorable, than ever before. We have now a complete, wise, and well regulated system of laws; indi vidual and public rights can, and henceforth will be vindi cated and wrongs punished. For all this, how largely are we indebted to Governor Richardson, to his wholesome and timely advice and direction. He goes from our midst carrying the sincere regrets of every class of our citizens, that the pleasant and useful public and private relations which he has in so short a time so firmly established, are to be severed amid all the shifting scenes of life. He will carry with him the gratitude of this whole people for the great good he has done us and our posterity, and our hearty wishes for his prosperity and welfare, will attend him in all time to come. The governor's expose of the territorial banks was amply sus tained by a minority report of a committee, recommending the repeal of four of their charters, while the majority suggested the repeal of all, unless their cases were to receive the attention of the courts. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 21 ACTING-GOVERNOR HON. J. STERLING MORTON. Dec. 5, 1858 to May 2, 1859, and Feb. 24 to May 15, 1861. Hon. J. Sterling Morton1 came to Bellevue, Nebraska Ter ritory, November 10, 1854, and on April 12, 1855, removed to Nebraska City, where he established his permanent home. By the appointment of President Buchanan he became secre tary of the Territory July 12, 1858; which office he held until succeeded by A. S. Paddock, under the administration of Abra ham Lincoln. At the date of his arrival, he was only twenty- two years of age, having been born in 1832. No young man ever came to the territory better prepared for a useful and hon orable career. Having enjoyed the advantages of Michigan University, and having received his final diploma from Union College, New York, and being endowed with a fine command of language, with the fancy of a picturesque writer, and the aggressive style of the ready debater and orator, journalism and politics offered inducements in the line of his capabilities and taste. But these acquisitions and natural endowments were forti fied, directed, and restrained by sound morals, high sense of honor and that chivalric bearing that charms society and makes home happy. As a writer on the Detroit Free Press and Chicago Times, his contributions were highly prized, while before his ap pointment as Secretary, he was editor of the Nebraska City News, and in 1855 elected to the legislature. During the ses sion he attempted to stem the tide of wild-cat banking, which resulted in his defeat in the election of 1856. This was a source of regret on the part of many new made friends; but the Board of Regents, members of the faculty, and many students of the Michigan University, could have said, "I told you so"; for I re- ¦Abner Morton emigrated from St. Albans, Vt., to Jefferson County, N. Y., about 1816. His son, Joseph D. Morton, emigrated from N. Y. to Michigan in 1834. Julius Sterling Morton, son of Joseph D., was born in Jefferson County, N. Y., April 82, 1832. 22 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. member how the boy stood by an excommunicated professor in. the college, denounced all in authority, and chose expulsion rather than sacrifice a single conviction. In 1857 he was again elected to the legislature and saw at once in exploded banks and a defrauded people, evidence of the wisdom of his unre lenting opposition to the issue of an inflated, irredeemable paper currency of 1855. In 1860 he was democratic candidate for delegate to Congress against Samuel G. Daily, republican, and inasmuch as the Bu chanan administration with which he was connected, stood charged with being the hot bed of treason, and his party the home of traitors, in the hour of national peril no explanation or protestation could prevail. Even Douglas democrats who approved Mr. Lincoln's war policy, could not receive absolution, unless the name of democrat was discarded for that of republi can. But after the storm passed over, Mr. Blaine, a republican historian, declared no man would have lamented over a des troyed Union more than President Buchanan. In this cam paign, joint discussions were held by the rival candidates, thousands of miles traveled, a few voters addressed and cabins and dug-outs transformed into opera houses and hotels, with the open prairies as an annex. No railroads or turnpikes or canals aided in travel, but private vehicles struggled through the grass, marshes and quicksands, furnishing opportunities for walking, wading and swimming. Patriotism was retailed at a premium, eloquence lavished in profusion. Yet only 5,900 votes were returned, of which a majority of fourteen were awarded Mr. Morton, but afterwards lost by a contest in Con gress.1 Six years thereafter, in 1866, we find him a candidate for first governor of the new state, against David Butler, republican. Public arguments, for speedy admission as a state, were used by republicans, to the effect that the best government lands were being taken by settlement, and in a few years a new state would have to receive an inferior grade as her donation for education and internal improvement purposes; that the Territory could 1 Pages 90-99. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 23 not draw capital to it as readily as a state could; and that the salaries named in the constitution to be voted upon, were so- small the people could meet them without oppressive taxation, on account of the enhanced value of property. To which it was replied that the national domain was inex haustible, the salaries delusively low, and increased prosperity would demand corresponding expense. Republicans were influ enced privately by the consideration that they were now in a majority, and state and national patronage would be dispensed in their behalf. But democrats hoped that enough conservative republicans, sustaining the policy of Andrew Johnson, could by union with them capture the state and national offices, with a few years' delay. Accordingly, when they voted for Mr. Morton, many also voted against state admission, but the returns finally gave Butler a majority of 145, and state admission a majority of 100. At the first election of United States senators, Mr. Morton was a democratic candidate, receiving the full party vote, as against T. W. Tipton, republican. Sixteen years thereafter, in 1882, when the vote had increased from 8,041 in 1860, to 87,345 in 1880, Mr. Morton was again put forward by his party as a candidate for governor against James W. Dawes. In this con test a majority of the votes were given to Mr. Morton and Mr. Ingersol ; but Mr. Dawes, having more than either of the others, was elected. Again in 1884, Mr. Morton and Mr. Dawes- were op posing candidates, while Mr. Morton increased his vote over that of two years previous from 28,562 to 57,634, and Mr. Dawes raised his from 43,495 to 72,835 and was again elected. In 1892, he once more carried the minority party's banner, in a contest for gov ernor, and returning it unsullied, re-entered the democratic ranks. Often called upon to act in the capacity of governor, during the absence of that official, and at one time for six months con tinuously, following the resignation of Richardson, he met the emergencies with promptness and efficiency.- In 1859, on ac count of the attack of the Pawnee Indians upon the persons and property of citizens of Dodge and Cuming counties, he called 24 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. upon Colonel Charles May, commander at Ft. Kearney, for aid in the shape of cavalry.1 As a result of this appeal Lieutenant Robertson, U. S. Army, Comd'g 2nd Dragoons, joined the com mand under Gen'l Thayer, which was accompanied by Gov. Black and staff, and overtaking the Indians in camp, received their surrender, the delivery up of seven of their young men, and pledges of future good conduct. In September of the same year, 1859, Secretary Morton deliv ered the address at the Agricultural Fair, Nebraska City, which was incorporated with the first annual report of the state soci ety and entered upon the legislative records. No other citizen could have given such a sketch of the first five years of terri torial life; and at no other place and time could the intellectual photograph have been pictured. Without agricultural data on which to draw, the task of "brick without straw" was re-en acted; and the address comes forth to-day, from the tomb of official documents as history embalmed in sparkling garniture, We claim it as a Nebraska classic, and have only one fear of our proprietary right being disputed. This arises from the fact that the young orator emigrated from the state of Michigan, whose Professor, Moses Coit Tyler, in his history of "American Lit erature," declared that England had a claim to our early Pil grim literature, inasmuch as '-an Englishman undergoes no literary evolution by sitting down to write in America instead of England." We set forth in our demurrer, that the Pilgrim eloquence was couched in ancient forms, while ours revelled in the freedom and independence of impulses unchained, thoughts exuberant, and fancies born of a future of incomprehensible splendor. In introducing him, Robert W. Furnas, president of the ter ritorial board of agriculture, said: Ladies and Gentlemen: I congratulate the Nebraska Ter ritorial Board of Agriculture, and others who honor us with their presence and aid on this first effort made to hold an ¦Nebr. State Hist. Soc-. Pub., first series, II., 194-196, 181-185; III., 279-286. At II., 194-196, may be found copies of a petition to Secretary. Morton, the letter of Secretary Morton to Col. May, a reply by Lieut. William G. Gill, and a list of the officers in the expedition. T. STERLING MORTON, 1858. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 25 Agricultural Pair west of the Missouri River. While it may be said of those who have ventured into this "western wild," we are a feeble folk in most respects; we are, nevertheless, enthused with "western pluck" and have "de clared intentions" to carve out of this "New West" homes for ourselves as well as for those who are to come after us. This first effort to present "products and resources" is a striking evidence of this. That there is a promised future for agriculture in Nebraska, and that not in the "far distance" we have abiding faith. It affords me pleasure to introduce as an orator of the day one of the earliest of pioneers; a young man who has given much thought to the future possibilities of a region known until a recent date only as the Great American Desert. He will address you from the improvised rostrum- platform, a farm wagon, placed in the shade of this native oak tree. I ask for him your careful and considerate attention. The address of Mr. Morton was as follows: Mr. President and Gentlemen: Called upon to address you, the farmers of Nebraska, you, whose calling I so much honor and love, I was flattered, and in a moment of self- reliant enthusiasm, I accepted the call and haye undertaken the duty which it imposes. It had been my intention at first thought to gather together accurate and reliable statistics concerning the agricultural interests and capacities of the Territory; but having made a trial at collecting data of that description, I have given it up as impracticable from the fact that no regular accounts or correct statements relative to the products and exports have been kept in any- county in the Territory. Even the returns of the assessors of taxes in the various counties as sent tip to the auditor of the Ter ritory are very inaccurate and convey no well defined idea of the amount of land in cultivation, nor any information upon which a reliable estimate of the capital employed in agriculture can be based. I have, then, only my own observation, dating from November, 1854, together with a somewhat limited experience, to draw upon and can assure you that such information is far less satisfactory to me (and probably will be to you) than statistical facts and figures. But such knowledge as I have concerning the beginning and the success of farming in this territory, I give to you with pleasure. 26 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The Indian title to the Omaha and Otoe lands', which comprised respectively the land lying along the Missouri River, north of the Great Platte, and that similarly situated south of the last mentioned stream, was not extinguished until late in the spring of 1854, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill did not pass the House of Representatives until the 24 th of May of the same year, so that the season was too far advanced for the emigrants of that summer to put in crops, except in a very few instances, and I think it safe to say that not more than a single section of land was tilled in the whole Territory of Nebraska in 1854; in fact, the only considerable patches of corn that I remember seeing that fall were raised by the Mission of Bellevue, and by the town proprietors of Nebraska City on the town site. I remember that we commenced the winter of 1854-'55, a little colony of hopeful boarders, purchasing everything that we ate, and even feed for our horses and cattle in the neighboring states of Iowa and Missouri, and they, even, had very little zo spare. The winter was exceedingly mild and with the early spring-time came the farmers with their breaking teams and the big plows, and the sturdy hand of industry was for the first time browsing- in the sunlight that gladdened the beautiful prairies of our new found homes. Yet what did they know of the rich soil of this untried land? Its productiveness was to them an unsealed book. No human test had ever demonstrated their worth, and yet the farmer turned the heavy sod and planted his corn for the first time, with an abiding faith that his labors would be -re warded, that his all that he had invested in the experiment, would be returned to him "ten fold, and that his wife and little ones whose very lives were staked upon the soil and its capacities, would be fed, clothed and cared for by the generous returns of the earth. The man who builds the first house, gathers his family around the first home fire side, and plants the first seed, and risks his all upon the first crop, in a country whose lands have been forever untried, and upon which the slumbers of barrenness have rested down unnumbered centuries, must needs be and is braver and grander in his heart than he who leads an army into a battle, and moves unawed amid the emissaries of death himself. The spring and summer of 1856 were seasons of intense anxiety to the first tillers of the soil, but the harvest sun shone propitiously and the benignant rains and the growth- giving dews were plenteous, aud when the autumn came with its sere and yellow leaves the great experiment had TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 27 been successful; and to the questions: "Can Nebraska ever be settled up? Can she ever sustain any considerable population?" the joyous fields of golden grain nodded an indisputable affirmative, and gracefully beckoned the weary emigrant to a home of healthfulness and abundance. The glad tidings of our success in agriculture were heralded far and near through the medium of our pioneer press, and a new impetus was thus given the emigration of that fall and the following spring. But here came also a spirit of evil among us, a spirit of reckless speculation, and a seeking for some new method to acquire wealth, some method which required neither mental nor manual labor. The legislative assembly in January, 1856, deeming it necessary to have more money in the country, had, very unwisely, concluded that the creation of banks of issue, by special charter, would accomplish that much desired object. And so six banks were created, or one bank for every 500 men in the Territory, and each bank had power to issue as many dollars of indebtedness as the circum stances of its individual stock-holders demanded for their own pecuniary necessities or ambitions. And what were the consequences? Rag money was plenty, everybody had credit, and it was no heavy undertaking to secure discounts. Town property, though very plenty, as many, very many thousands of acres of land had been planted with small oak stakes, were not so amazingly abundant as Fontenelle, Ne maha Valley & Western Exchange bank bills, and, as is always the case in commercial matters, the scarcer article went up in price, and the plentier went down; that is to say, money was plentier than town lots, and consequently cheaper. And now indeed did the unsophisticated and en thusiastic believe that the method of making without either mental or manual labor had most certainly been invented and patented in and for the Territory of Nebraska. So far did this idea diffuse itself throughout the community, that it reached and took entire possession of the executive head of the Territory, insomuch, that in a message to the Legislative Assembly of the Territory, Governor Izard men tioned, as an evidence of our flush prosperity, the fact that town lots had advanced in price, in a few months, from $300 to $3,000, apiece. Unfortunately for the wise constructors of those patent mills for money making, there was no reality or soundness in the prosperity of that day. It did not arise, as all wealth and true capital must arise, from that great sub stratum of prosperity which underlies and supports the whole civilized world, and is called agricultural development. 28 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Yet the popular mind was apparently satisfied, and lulled itself into the belief that the honest art of industry and economy belonged to a former generation, and that here indeed they were certainly useless and obsolete. Who would bend the back, nerve the arm to labor, and sweat the brow in cultivating the soil, when by the aid of a lithographer and the flatulent adulation of some ephemeral newspaper, a half section of land could be made to yield three thousand town lots, at an average value, prospectively, of one hundred dollars each? Whom could we expect to desert the elegant and accomplished avocation of city founder and dealer in real estate, for the arduous and homely duties of the farmer? We acquired great velocity and speed, in fact became a, surpassingly "fast" people. AVe aspired at once to all the luxuries and refinements of older and better regulated communities in the East. AVe emerged suddenly from a few rough hewn squatters, arrayed in buck-skin and red flannel, to a young nation of exquisite land sharks and fancy speculators dressed in broad cloths. The greater portion of the summer of 1856 was consumed in talking and meditating upon the prospective value of city property. Young Chicagos, increscent New Yorks, precocious Phila- delphias, and infant Londons, were duly staked out, litho graphed, divided into shares and puffed with becoming unction and complaisance. The mere mention of using such valuable lands for the purpose of agriculture, was con sidered an evidence of verdancy wholly' unpardonable, and entirely sufficient to convict a person of old fogyism in the first degree. Farms were sadly neglected in the summer of 1856, and there were not as many acres planted that season, in pro portion to the population, as there were the year before, but the crop of town plats, town shares, town lots, and Nebraska bank notes, was most astonishingly abundant. AVe were then very gay people; we carried a great number of very large gold watches and ponderous fob chains; sported more fancy turn-outs, in the way of elegant car riages and buggies; could point to more lucky and shrewd fellow citizens who had made a hundred thousand dollars in a very short time; could afford to drink more cham pagne, and talk and feel larger, more of consequence, and by all odds richer than any yearling settlement that ever flourished in this vast and fast country of ours. We all felt as they used to print in large letters on every new town plat, that we were "located adjacent to the very finest groves of timber, surrounded by a very rich agricultural TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 29 country, in prospective, abundantly supplied with building rock of the finest description, beautifully watered, and possessing very fine indications of lead, iron, coal, and salt in great abundance." In my opinion we felt richer, better, more millionairish than any poor deluded mortals ever did before, on the same amount of moonshine and pluck. But the seasons were prompt in their returns, and the autumn winds came then as they are coming now, and the ripening sunbeams descended upon the earth as they do today; but the fields of grain that they wandered and glistened among were neither as many nor as well tilled as they should have been. The fall of 1856 came and passed, and not enough had been raised to half supply our home wants. Town lots we could neither eat nor export; they were at once too ex pensive for food and too delicate for a foreign market. All that we had in the world to forward to the Eastern marts was a general assortment of town shares, ferry charters, and propositions for receiving money and land warrants to invest or locate on time. The balance of trade was largely against us. We were now, more than ever, a nation of boarders, eating everything eatable, buying everything consumable, but producing- absolutely nothing. The winter of 1856 and '57 came, and the first and second days of December were most admonitory and fearful har bingers of suffering; they came like messengers of wrath to rebuke the people for the folly, the thriftlessness, and ex travagance of the summer that had passed unheeded and unimproved. The storm that lashed those two days through and ushered in the terrible life-taking winter of that year, will never be forgotten by those of us who were here and experienced it. The legislative assembly commenced in January, 1857, and again were the wisdom and sagacity of Solon and Lycurgus called into active service. A grand rally was had for the purpose of raising more means and more money by legislative legerdemain. New towns were incorporated and new shares issued; insurance companies were chartered with nothing to insure and nothing to insure with; and, finally, another nest of wild cat banks was set for hatching, it having been deliberately decided that the easiest way to make money was through the agency of paper mills, en gravers, and the autographs of fancy financiers. Not less than fifteen new banks were contemplated and projected. Preparations were thus coolly and deliberately made for issuing evidence of debt, amounting, in the aggregate, SO NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. to millions of dollars, and a confiding and generous public. were expected to receive them as money. Fortunately for you, for the Territory, for your reputation for sanity, the great infliction was escaped, and out of the entire number, De Soto, and the never to be forgotten Tekama, were all that ever saw the light; thus this second attempt to legislate prosperity into the country by the manufacture of an irre sponsible and worthless currency failed most signally. Its only fruits have been seen in the thousands of worthless pictures which have the impress of the Tekama bank, and have finally exploded in the pockets of the merchants, mechanics, and farmers of this territory, and thereby de frauded them of some hundred thousands of dollars worth of capital and labor. In the mid-summer of 1857, while credulous men were buying town lots at enormous prices, and sapient specu lators were anxiously looking up enough unoccupied prairie land to uphold a few more unnamed cities, while the very shrewd and crafty operators in real estate were counting themselves worth as many thousand dollars as they owned town lots — while enthusiastic seers observed with prophetic eye city upon city arise, and peopled with teeming thousands, while the public pulse was at fever heat — when the old fogies themselves were beginning to believe in the new way of making money without labor, the financial horizon began to darken. At once hope whispered that it Was only a passing cloud, but judgment predicted a full grown storm. And one pleasant day, when lots were high and town shares numerous and marketable, the news came that one Thomp son, John Thompson, had failed, and also that the hitherto invulnerable Ohio Life & Trust Company had departed its pecunious and opulent existence. The streets in cities, thereabout were occupied by knots and groups of wise and anxious men; the matter was fully and thoroughly discussed and it was g-enerally conceded that, though it did sprinkle some, it probably would rain very little, if any. But again and again came the thunder bolts, and the crash of banks, and the wreck of merchants, and the fall of insurance companies, the decline of railroad stocks, the depreciation of even state stocks, and finally the depletion of the National Treasury. The quaking of the credit of all the monied institutions, in fact, of the govern ments themselves, of both the old and the new world, demonstrated beyond a doubt, that the storm had indeed begun, and furthermore, that it was a searching and testing storm. Just as in your own farm yards, when a sudden storm of TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 31 rain, lightning and tempest has broken out from a sky almost all sunshine, you have seen the denizens of the pig-sty, the stables and the poultry coops, run, jump, squeal, cackle, neigh, and bellow in their stampede for shelter; so vamosed the city builders, speculators, bank directors and patent cash makers of Nebraska, while the terrible financial tornado of 1857 swept over the world of commerce. The last day of the summer of 1857 had died out and was • numbered upon the dial plate of the irrevocable past. The September sun had come, glittered, warmed and ripened and the time of harvest had gone by. November, cold, cheerless and stormy, came on apace and whispered in chilling accents of the approach of winter. It became the duty of every man to look to his pecuniary condition and to prepare well for the season of cold; and the examinations then made by you and all of us, proved this: they proved that the season of planting in 1857, like that of the year previous, had slipped by almost unnoticed, and unimproved by a great many of the people of Nebraska. We had not raised enough even to eat; and as for clothing, it looked as though nakedness itself would stalk abroad in the land. If the great states of Illinois and Wisconsin found them selves, that fall, in an almost hopeless bankruptcy, what then must have been our condition? The irrepealable law of commerce which declares that, "whenever the supply of any article is greater than the demand, that article must decline in market value," was most clearly proven in Nebraska. The supply of town lots, after the monstrous monetary panic of 1857, was as large as ever. There was at least one million of town lots, in towns along the Missouri River, between the Kansas line and the L'Eau-qui-Court; but where was the demand? It had ceased! It had blown away in the great storm, or been crushed out in the great pressure. We had nothing else to offer for sale, except real estate, and even that of very doubtful character. AVe were yet a colony of consumers; we were worse off than ever; we were a nation of boarders, and had nothing to pay board with, and very little valuable baggage to pawn for the same. The greater num ber of our banks had exploded, and the individual liability of stockholders, as marked on each bill, proved to mean that the bill holders themselves were individually responsible for whatever amount they might find on hand after the -crisis. > I think we were the poorest community the sun ever ilooked down upon; that the history of new countries can 32 NEBRASKA STATE -HISTORICAL SOCIETY. furnish no parallel for utter and abject poverty. 1 believe on the first day of January, 1858, there was not, upon an average, two dollars and fifty cents in cash to each in habitant of the Territory. Hard times were the theme of each and every class of society, and all departments of industry. Merchants, mechanics, speculators and bankers were continually lamenting their departed fortunes, and their many failures and losses. There was one class of individuals who, although they may have been sadly pinched by the pressure of times, noted no failures in their ranks, and who, when winter set in, were comparatively well off, in fact, relatively opulent and luxurious in their circumstances. They were the very few farmers who had passed through the era of speculation untempted by the allurements thereof, they who had fol lowed the plow steadily, and planted their crops carefully. They, and they alone, of all the people of Nebraska could board themselves. There is no doubt but that poverty in duces thought. It may paralyze the physical energies for a time, but it will induce reason and reflection in the thought less and judgment and discretion in the reckless, after all other arguments have failed. I believe that owing to our extreme poverty, we were led to more thinking and' reasoning during the winter of 1857 and 1858, than up to that time had ever been accomplished in the Territory. As you have seen your grandfathers, during the long winter evenings, sit down by the large fire place when the huge back log and big blaze burned so brightly, away back east, some where, at your old homesteads, as when the old man, after reading his newspaper, would wipe his spectacles, put them up by the clock on the mantle piece, and seating himself there in the genial fire light, place his head between his hands, and his elbows on his knees, and have a good "long think"; just so with us all in Nebraska that winter. AVe had a "think," a long, solemn, gloomy think, and among us all, we thought out these facts: that the new way of making- money by chartering wild cat banks, had proved a most un profitable delusion and an unmitigated humbug. We thought that building large cities without any inhabitants therefor, was a singularly crack-brained specimen of en terprise; and furthermore, that everybody could not live in town who lived in the Territory unless the towns were laid off in 80 acre or quarter section lots. AVe thought, to sum up all hurriedly, that it was useless to attempt to leg islate prosperity into that country; that it was impossible to decoy wealth into our laps by legal enactment; that we had, in fact, been a very fast, very reckless, very hopeful, TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 33 enthusiastic, and self-deceived people; that while we had assumed to play the part of Dives, we were really better fitted for the performance of the character of Lazarus. The scheme for obtaining wealth without labor, prosperity with out industry, and growing into a community of opulence and ease without effort had been a complete failure. The spring of 1858 dawned upon us, and the icy hand of winter relaxed its hold upon the earth, and the prairies were once more clothed in sunshine and emerald. The result of our thinking during the long dreary winter, was now about to be embodied in active efforts to enhance our real prosperity and substantial wealth. It had been fully and justly determined that the true grandeur and pros perity of the people was concealed in their capacity for industry, honesty and patient endurance. If there were fortunes to be made in Nebraska, they were to be acquired by frugality and persevering exertion, alone. The soil was to be tilled and taxed for the support of the dwellers thereon; and out of it and it alone was all true and sub stantial independence to be derived. For the first time during our political existence, we realized our true con dition, and comprehended the proper method of ameliorating and improving it. The numerous signs marked "banker, broker, real estate dealer," etc., began one by one to dis appear, and the shrewd and hopeful gentlemen who had adopted them were seen either departing for their old homes in the east, or buckling on the panoply of industry, and fol lowing quietly the more honorable and certainly paying pursuit of prairie-breaking and corn-planting. The gloom of the long night of poverty was about passing away for ever. The clouds were breaking, the effulgence of a better and brighter day sent its first glad beams to reanimate and rejoice the dispirited and encourage the strong and hopeful. Labor at once began and its hundred voices made the air resonant with its homely music. All about us, on every side, the prairie plow was at work, turning over, as it were, the first page in the great volumes of our prosperity. Everywhere were brawny arms lifted up to strike the earth, that a stream of plenty and contentment might flow forth and bless the country, even as the; rock itself sent up sweet waters to quench the thirst of Israel's children when smote by the strength of Aaron. Everywhere these rich and rolling prairies which had lain for unnumbered cen turies as blank leaves in the history of the world's progress were being written upon by the hand of toil, snatched from the obscurity of uselessness, and forever dedicated to the support of the Anglo-Saxon race. The sunshine seemed 4 34 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. brighter, and the rain and the dews more plentiful and refreshing, because they descended upon the earth and found it not all a wild and desolate waste. Seed had been sown, farms opened and every energy had been taxed to make the Territory of Nebraska self sustaining. It was the first genuine effort in the right direction. The people were aroused to the fact, that agriculture, and that alone, was to be for many years the sole support, the sheet anchor and the salvation of the Territory. Emulation was excited; each endeavored to outwork the other in the good cause. In many of the counties, fairs were held last fall, and agri culture had at last, after three years of neglect, assumed its true position in Nebraska. As you well remember the season was favorable, the crops were heavy. We had enough, aye, more than enough, and the last spring wit nessed the first shipment of our surplus production of grain to the foreign market. The first steamers that came up the Missouri in 1857, brought us corn to keep us and our stock from perishing by hunger and starvation. We paid for it at the rate of two dollars a bushel. But now by the energy of our farmers, Nebraska in less than two years had been transformed from a consumer to a producer. And the steamboats of the old Missouri bore away from our shores in the spring of 1859, hundreds of thousands of bushels of corn to the southern and eastern markets, which we did not need for our home use, and for which, at the rate' of 40 cents per bushel, we have taken more money than for town lots in the last eighteen months, or will in the next twenty- four. Thus imperfectly and hurriedly I have narrated the history of agriculture in Nebraska, down to the planting of last spring's crop; what that was and how much greater the breadth of land cultivated than ever before, the new farms that met the eye on every side, and the vast fields of ripen ing grain that magically unsurpassed the place of the rank prairie grass, eloquently proclaimed. If our brief and only half -improved past has been thus en couraging and thus indicative of prosperity; if notwithstand ing the mercilessness of the panic and scarcity of money, the present time, today, finds Nebraska richer in the true ele ments of prosperity, stronger in the golden capital of skillful industry and contented labor than she ever was before, who shall predict her future? Who shall attempt to portray the fulness and glory of her destiny? The Anglo-Saxon race are being driven by the hand of God across the continent of America, and are to inhabit and have dominion over it all. These prairies which have been cleared and made ready for the plow by the hand of God TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 35 himself, are intended for the abiding place of the pioneers in the progress of the world. The American Indian, in -whom there are none of the elements of thrift, held a tenancy upon these fertile plains for centuries; but there was neither labor in his arm nor progression in his spirit. He was an unworthy occupant of so goodly a land and he has been supplanted. He has gone, and his race is fast becoming extinct; the world is too old for its aborigines. Their destiny is completed; they are journeying to their fate; they must die, and a few years hence only be known through their history, as it was recorded by the Anglo- Saxon, while he pushed them before him in his onward tread. We stand today upon the very verge of civilization, riding upon the head wave of American enterprise, but our de scendants, living here a century hence, will be in the center of American commerce — the mid-ocean of our national great ness and prosperity. Upon this very soil, the depth and richness of which is unsurpassed in the whole world, in a country whose mineral resources — as yet wholly unde veloped — are certainly magnificent and exhaustless; whose coal beds are as extensive as its prairies; whose rivers and springs are as healthful as they are numerous, in such a country agriculture must and will carve out, for an in dustrious people, a wealth and happiness, the like of which the world has never dreamed of before. Manufacture and skill in the various arts may, and will undoubtedly aid us in our pursuit of a glorious and independent opulence,' but our great trust and strong hope is still hidden in the fertility of our soil and its adaptation to general cultivation. The agriculturist may be proud of his calling for in it he is independent; in it there is no possibility of guile or fraud, and for his partners in laboj- God has sent him the genial sunshine, gentle rains and the softly descending dews. The very elements are made his assistants and co-workers; the thunderbolt that purifies the atmosphere and furnishes electric life to the growing crops, is his friend and his helper. It may be urged, and often is, that the calling of the farmer is an arduous and homely one,— that it is arduous no one can deny, but it is honorable. The idea that a man cannot be a true gentleman and labor with his hands, is an obsolete, a dead and dis honored dogma. All labor is honorable. The scholar in his study, the chemist in his laboratory, the artist in his studio, the lawyer at his brief, and the preacher at his sermon, are all of them nothing more, nothing less, than day laborers in the world's workshop— workers with the 36 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. head. And the smith at his forge, the carpenter at his bench, mechanics and artisans of every grade and kind, and the farmer, are the same laborers — workers with the hand. The two classes represent the two divisions of labor, and they are mutually dependent upon each other. But if among them all there is one art more health-giving, one art more filled with quiet and honest contentment, than another it is that of agriculture. And yet agriculture, although it is the art supportive of all arts, although it is the basis and foundation upon which the superstructure of all the commerce of the world is reared, is less studied, less thought of, and more remote from its perfection than all others. During the last ten years it has, however, begun to at tract a greater degree of attention and has taken a few steps towards that high place in the world's business which awaits it. The county, state, and national fairs, which are now proven so useful, are the protracted meetings of husbandmen, where agricultural revivals are initiated and thousands annually converted to the faith of the great church of human industry. And this is the first revival of the kind ever instituted in a territory. To Nebraska be longs the honor and the good name of having placed a bright and worthy example before the sisterhood of chil dren States which bound her on the south and west. Let us continue in the good work; let every heart's aspiration, every thought and effort be to make each succeeding fail- give better and stronger testimony in favor of the re sources and wealth of our vast and beautiful domain. And while in the east the youth are being prepared for the so-called learned professions, law, divinity, and medi cine, let us be content to rear up a nation of enlightened agriculturists. Men sturdy in mind and thought even as they are robust in body and active in all that pertains to the full development and perfection of the physical system of mankind, let it be our high aim, by our en lightened and well-directed training of both the body and the mind, to elevate and improve our race and make the western man the model, both physical and intellectual, from which all the world may be happy to make copies. AVith such an ambition in the minds of the people, and an energy to gratify it, the future of this commonwealth is such a one as thrills the patriot's heart with grateful pride, and makes one sad to think that death may close the eye before it shall have rested upon the beauties of the Garden State that will have been builded up on these shores within the next ten years. AVhen the valley of L'Eau- TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 37 qui-Court, the great Platte, the AVeeping AVater, and the two Nemahas, shall be shorn of their native wildness and be resonant with the song of the husbandman, the rumble of mills, the splash of the paddle wheel and the puff of the steam engine; when away out upon those undulating plains, whose primeval stillness is now unbroken, save by the howl of the wolf, or the wind sighing through the rank prairie grass, the American citizen shall have builded up homes, hamlets and villages; when the steam plow, with its lungs of fire and breath of vapor, shall have sailed over the great land-ocean that stretches its luxuriant waves of soil from the western bank of the Missouri to the base of the Rocky Mountains, leaving in its wake thrifty settle ments and thriving villages, as naturally as a ship riding upon a sea leaves the eddy and the foam sparkling in the sunlight that gilds its path through the waste of waters. AVhen, only fifty miles westward from the Missouri River, the strong saline waters of Nebraska shall have arrested the attention of the capitalist, and attracted the skill of the manufacturer and shall have become, as it must and will, the salt producer of the whole northwest; when the rock- ¦ ' ribbed mountains that form our western boundary shall have been compelled to give up to mankind their long- hidden and golden treasures; when afar off up the winding channel of the great Platte, the antelope, the buffalo and the Indian shall have been startled by the scream of the locomotive car, as it roars and rumbles over the prairies and the mountains, hastening to unite the states of the Atlantic and Pacific into a unity and fraternity of interests, a future greater and brighter than words can picture is to be achieved, and you, the farmers of Nebraska, are its prime architects and its master workmen. Be inspired then to hasten the carving out of that destiny of indisputable superiority which God has assigned the American people; and, so inspired and so laboring in the great field of the world's advancement, when death, that harvester whom no seasons control and no laws restrain, gathers you to his dark and noiseless garner, may you go, like the grain that has thrived and ripened in the brightest sunshine, pure and untainted by the mildews of the world, back to Him who planted mortality on the earth, that im mortality might be reaped and garnered and loved in heaven. This agricultural address was no sporadic effort, but the com mencement of a devotion to the tillage of the soil, to the cul tivation of flowers, shrubs and trees, a devotion which culmi- 38 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. nated in the rural decoration of Arbor Lodge, the presentation of a beautiful park to Nebraska City, and to the association of his name with Arbor Day triumphs and its beneficent results. ARBOR DAY. In the preface to a book entitled "Arbor Day," which Gov. R. W. Furnas dedicated to the Hon. J. Sterling Morton, we have the following: Perhaps no observance ever sprung so suddenly and al most universally into use in the higher ranks of life as that of Arbor Day. The name itself attracts, and at once secures fast hold on refined, intelligent people. The thought originated with one who worships at the shrine of home and its endearing relations. A resolution providing that "Wednesday, the 10th of April, 1872, be and the same is hereby set apart and consecrated for tree planting in the state of Nebraska, and the State Board of Agriculture hereby name it Arbor Day, and to urge upon the people of the State the vital importance of tree planting, hereby offer a special premium of one hundred dollars to the agri cultural society of that county of Nebraska which shall, upon that day, plant properly the larg-est number of trees; and a farm- library of twenty-five dollars' worth of books to that person who, on that day, shall plant properly in Ne braska the greatest number of trees," was unanimously adopted by the State Board of Agriculture on motion of Hon. J. Sterling Morton, January 4, 1872. i On the day specified in the resolution, the people re sponded by planting 1,000,000 trees and repeated the same in 1873. Supplementing the State Board, Gov. Furnas issued a proclamation March 31, 1874, and in 1885 the legislature made the 22nd of April, Mr. Morton's birthday, a holiday, to be known as Arbor Day. In aid of the object a pro vision was incorporated in the state constitution and numer ous legal enactments. Within two months of the public observance of the first Arbor Day the Hon. P. W. Hitchcock was instrumental in passing through the United States senate a bill "To' encourage the growth of timber on the western prairies," the beneficent op eration of which continued for twenty-two years. Within the space of sixteen years Arbor Day was observed in twenty- TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 39 seven of the States and three of the Territories. Editor H. L. Wood, of the Nebraska City Daily Press, having conceived the happy idea of issuing an Arbor Day edition of his pa per, received congratulatory responses from many distinguished citizens. From James Russell Lowell, poet and diplomat ist: "I am glad to join in this tribute of friendly gratitude to the inventor of Arbor Day." From George H. Broker, of Philadelphia: "I beg to join with you all in the congratulations that may be offered to this friend of humanity on his birthday, which was a happy day for the world into which he was born." From the brilliant author, T. J. Headly: "All honor to the founder of Arbor Day." From George William Curtis, editor: "I am very glad to join in grateful congratulations to the author of the suggestion which has resulted in so beautiful and service able an observance as Arbor Day." From Gov. Martin of Kan sas: "Mr. Morton's thought has brought forth good fruit, and has been of vast pecuniary value to Kansas and Nebraska, and to all the states of the West." From ex-Senator T. F. Bayard: "I count it my good fortune to have long known J. Sterling Morton, and appreciate his many delightful qualities of head and heart." From John C. Fremont, the explorer and pathfinder of em pire: "I am glad to have the opportunity to enroll myself among the friends and well-wishers of Mr. Morton, and to congratulate him upon the success of his unselfish and broadly useful work." In the House, the irrepressible and genial Hon. Church Howe introduced the following resolution, which was passed: Whereas, The President-elect of the United States has seen fit to select one of the most distinguished citizens of this State for Secretary of Agriculture; and Whereas, J. Sterling Morton, one of the pioneers of Ne braska and the creator of Arbor Day, is particularly well equipped for the position, which we firmly believe he will fill with credit to Nebraska and honor to the Nation; be it Resolved, That the house, irrespective of party politics, tender its thanks to the Hon. Grover Cleveland for the honor conferred upon the State of Nebraska. The fact that the measure was introduced by a republican and 40 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. was passed without a dissenting vote was especially gratifying to the friends of Mr. Morton. Within two months Mr. Morton became Secretary of Agricul ture. When the people of New Jersey, in compliance with the governor's proclamation, met to celebrate Arbor Day, their pro gram spread before them an elaborate, philosophic, and sta tistical essay, by the Secretary, upon the Forestry of Civilized Nations. Of the "relentless, never-ending war between the animal and vegetable kingdom," he said : Like great wheels the cycles revolve and reappear, now in the animal and then in the vegetable world, as mere mites in the stupendous machinery of the universe. The glow of beauty on the cheek of youth to-day, may to morrow tint a rose growing upon that youth's grave. We die, we are buried, and down into our very graves the kingdom of the forest and field sends its fibrous root-spies, its pioneers, and sappers and miners. The grand oak, the majestic elm, throw out their arms and foliage to wave and shimmer in the sunlight, and deploy their roots and rootlets to invade graves, and bring them food and strength from the- tired forms that sleep therein. The almost infinite possibilities of a tree germ came to my mind, one summer when traveling in a railway carriage amid beautiful cultivated fields in Belgium. A Cottonwood seed on its wings of down drifted into my compartment. It came like a materialized whisper from home. Catching it in my hand I forgot the present and wandered into the past, to a mote like that which had, years and years before, been planted by the winds and currents on the banks of the Missouri. That mote had taken life and root, growing to splendid proportions, until in 1854 the ax of the pioneer had vanquished it, and the saw seizing it with relentless, whirling taeth reduced it to lumber. From its treehood evolved a human habitation, a home — my home — ¦ wherein a mother's love had blossomed and fruited with a sweetness surpassing the loveliness of the rose and the honeysuckle. Thus from the former feathery floater in mid-air grew a home, and all the endearing contentment and infinite satisfaction which that blessed Anglo-Saxon word conveys, that one word which means all that is worth living for, and for which alone all good men and women are living. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 41 Never did the Secretary of Agriculture seem a more fitting part of his surroundings than when on Arbor Day, 1894, he stood uncovered under the towering trees and among the aspiring shrubs, upon the flower-clad lawn of his great department; and there, with firm hand, steadied in place the Morton Oak of the future. And equally true to nature and the occasion did inspired in tellect entwine the moral and epitaph: It seems to me that a tree and a truth are the two longest lived things of which mankind has any knowledge. Therefore it behooves all men in rural life besides planting- truths to plant trees; it behooves all men in public life to plant economic and political truths, and as the tree grows from a small twig to a grand overspreading oak, so the smallest economic truth, as we have seen in the United States, even in the last year, can so grow as to revolutionize the government of the g-reat Republic. I say, then, that we should all plant trees and plant truths, and let every man struggle so that when we shall all have passed away we shall have earned a great epitaph which we find in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. You remember Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of that wondrous consummation of beauty in building, and there among the heroic dead of England's greatest heroes upon land or sea repose his remains. On other tombs are marked words of eulogy, fulsome sometimes, always intense, but upon the sarco phagus where Sir Christopher Wren's remains repose is inscribed only these simple words: "Si quwris monumentum circumspie" — If you seek my monument look around you. So every man, woman and child who plants trees shall be able to say, on corning as I have come, toward the evening of life, in all sincerity and truth: "If you seek my monu ment, look around you." This occasion was a surprise arranged by the officials of his department; but one year afterward it was more than dupli cated on Congress Heights, D. C, April 22, 1895, being Arbor Day and his sixty-third birthday, when sixty-three trees were planted in his honor and named for distinguished persons. One of these he planted and named "Sound Money." Mr. Morton's ability as a platform speaker made him a favor ite in many -states long before his introduction to a president's 42 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. cabinet, not only on the stump but in the lecture hall as well; and whether his efforts were reported from cosmopolitan Chi cago or primitive Boston, prairie garlands twined gracefully with conservative chaplets. Had -his fortune been cast in a democratic state, he would, in national politics, have at once wielded the rudder as well as the oar. In 1890, Prof. Perry of Williams College, being ready to dedicate the crowning effort of his life, "Principles of Political Economy," inscribed that supreme analysis: TO MY PERSONAL FRIEND OF LONG STANDING J. STERLING MORTON OF NEBRASKA A FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE, ALSO FOUNDER OF ARBOR DAY. For forty years Mr. Morton has illustrated the "survival of the fittest," and the Roman motto, "Semper paratis" — always prepared. Mr. Morton unintentionally and unexpectedly evoked a storm of denunciation as the result of clear conceptions, bold utterances and intellectual aggressiveness, from a speech delivered in the "Congress of Agriculture," at Chicago, 111., Oct. 16, 1893. The American farmer has foes to contend with. They are not merely the natural foes — not the weevil in wheat, nor the murrain in cattle, nor the cholera in swine, nor the drouth, nor the chinch-bug. The most insidious and de structive foe to the farmer is the "professional" farmer who, as a, "promoter" of granges and alliances, for political purposes, farms the farmer. He thought "individual investigation of economic questions" of more value to farmers than granges or alliances attempting "to run railroads and banks, and even to establish new systems of coinage." He affirmed that "no man should give a power of attorney to any society or organization or person, to think for him." Immediately upon the delivery of the address, he was denounced as an enemy of agriculture, and the president was importuned by granges and editors for his summary removal as Secretary of Agriculture. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 43 In reply to these violent accusations Mr. Morton published the address without note or comment and incorporated with it the most violent criticisms of his traducers, in order that the public might discover the grounds on which they planted their enginery. A- copy of this most valuable address, falling under the attention of a distinguished economist, received the compli ment, "clear as a bell, sound as a nut, and lively as a play." When the Hansborough bill was before Congress, offering a government appropriation for the destruction of the Russian thistle, and an applicant was seeking appointment as chief of exterminators, the Secretary ironically suggested including "cockle-burs and fan-tail grass," and further said: The Hansborough bill will never be perfect until paternal ism has so amended it as to have the government not only weed, but plow, cultivate, and garner all crops for the people of the United States. The circulation of pint, quart and gallon packages of the Kentucky antidote for snake bites, gratuitously, under government franks through the mails, ought to begin as soon as the serpents open up for summer business. There is no crop so dangerous to man kind (as Adam's experience in the Garden of Eden shows), as a snake crop. When Mr. Morton took charge of the Department of Agricul ture, March 4th, 1893, he found 2,497 employees on its pay rolls, of whom 305 were discharged within nine months. He was able to submit an estimate for the fiscal year, to end June 30, 1894, of $369,658 less than was appropriated for the previous year. He found the Department in its fifth year taking on all the ex travagant vices of the older ones, as indicated by a few items from an interview. The conversation here turned to the Department of Agricul ture and I asked the Secretary whether he was making any changes in the methods of running it. He replied : I am making a great many, and I am trying to bring the department down to a practical business basis. I believe in spending money where it should be spent, but I don't believe in wasting it. I have already found a number of big leaks which I am stopping. One is in these experimental 44 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. stations which have been established by the department over the country. Some of them are no good whatever. Why, I have found one at Garden City, Kan., the business of which was to evolve a grass which would grow on the arid plains of the west. Twenty-two thousand dollars have been spent on it in five years, and a Professor Veasy is trying there to produce a sort of grass that will grow without rain, water or soil, a sort of grass orchid, I presume. From what inquiries I made I found that this Professor. Veasy had a home address at Denver, Colo., and he seemed to be only heard from at times when his salary was due. I have stopped the appropriation and I suppose he will now materialize in some shape or other. I got a request the other day for $50 for a United States flag, which was to be put up over the sugar beet farm at Schuyler, Neb. I couldn't see the reason for the appropria tion and I investigated the station. I found that it was costing us over $5,000 a year and that all we could get out of it was some beet seed, which the regular sugar beet factories would send to us if we would only pay the freight. We pay on these experimental stations about $360,000 a year, and I think the most of them should be abolished. My idea is that experimenting should be done through the agricultural experiment stations of the states. There are forty-four of these scattered all over the Union. They get an appropriation from Congress of $750,000 a year. This goes directly to them, and over it we have no control. I think that the seeds could be distributed through these experiment stations and not by the congressmen. It costs $135,000 a year to send out seeds from here. I am going to recommend Congress to abolish this part of our busi ness. As the seeds are now sent out they do not reach the parties they should nor do the proper kind of seeds get to the proper localities. "What are you going to do as to the meat inspection, Mr. Sec retary?" I asked. He replied: I am going to abolish a, good part of it. Our meat ex ports to Germany last year amounted to only $2,000,000 and I find that the Germans reinspected all the meat that came in. We sent $34,000,000 worth to England, where there was no inspection. The inspection costs a vast deal more than it comes to, and in eleven months it has footed up a total of about $200,000. Why, during that time we paid out $4,000 to inspect the meat at the Indianapolis abattoirs, and how much meat do you think was exported from there? TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 45 Just $351.50. For every dollar's worth of pork sent to Germany from Indianapolis we paid more than $10 for in spection. It isn't good business. "How about American Corn in Europe? Is Cornmeal Murphy going to revolutionize the continent?" I think not, though he is still in Europe. More of our corn should be used in Europe, but I believe we can create a greater market for it by getting the Germans to use it in the making of beer rather than the making of bread. Most of the beer in the United States is made largely of corn. The Milwaukee brewers will tell you they don't use it, but they use glucose, which is the same thing, and the greatest per cent of our beer comes from corn. Milwaukee turns out a hundred car loads of beer every day the year round, and our breweries have a great deal to do with the price of corn. The Germans use vast quantities of beer. Bavaria alone turns out 9,000,000 barrels a year, and the other German provinces have vast brewing establishments in all of their large cities. Corn makes a very good beer, and I think we can gradually get them to using it. I have selected a, bright, well educated brewer, to go to Germany to look into the matter. While the above shows in what spirit of intelligent discrim ination he began placing his department upon an honest basis, the general outcome has become his splendid vindication. Dur ing the absence of Secretary Morton in Europe, in the fall of 1894, studying their agricultural systems, and economic meth ods, D. MacCuaig, Esq., Chief Clerk of the Department, in suc cessfully vindicating him against political campaign charges of a republican committee, inoidently touched upon the subject of the foregoing interview. If there is one thing which Secre tary Morton detests more than paternalism it is nepotism. Amid the subsidence of premature clamor, the words of the Hon. E. J. Hainer of Nebraska, in the House of Representatives, February 4, 1895, add to the official vindication: I know that there is no better friend of the real genuine agriculturist, not the fraudulent kind, — not those who masquerade as agriculturists, — there is no better friend of the genuine farmer than the present Secretary of Agri culture, J. Sterling Morton, though he be a Democrat. 46 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. In the February number of the North American Review, 1895, there appeared an article from the pen of the Secretary, in which he illustrated the proposition, that "to-day analyzed, is only a portrait in miniature of an aggregate yesterday." From the history of early exchanges of property, and the opinions of ancient authors upon a circulating medium, he passed to the object lesson of Nebraska in her infancy, with an inflated paper currency, before her possession of exchangeable commodities, and the crash two years later, when the inferior currency had expelled the superior. In a subsequent interview the salient points of the article were condensed : 1 do not believe that an international congress can es tablish permanently a commercial ratio between gold and silver any more than it can establish a permanent com mercial ratio between rye and wheat. But if an international conference can fix the price of gold or of silver, it can also fix the price of wheat or of any other commodity, and thereby avoid all the possible shrinkages in values which tend to cause panics. I think the word "intrinsic" ought not to be used. The value of gold is always relative. To illustrate: If I sell you a thousand bushels of wheat today for $570, the transac tion has established, for the time being, the wheat value of gold and the gold value of wheat. Tomorrow's cables of utter failure of wheat crop in Argentina, Russia, and Europe entirely change the relation of gold to wheat, and the thousand bushels of wheat purchased at 57 cents yesterday, is worth $1.14 a bushel today. But in the mean time, there has been no "intrinsic" value of gold, notwith standing there has been a change in the relation of wheat to gold. My own judgment is that we must sooner or later declare that the United States of America recognizes gold as the best and least fluctuating measure of value and medium of exchange which the commerce of civilization has thus far utilized. The time for straddlers has passed. Those who are for sound currency on a, gold basis ought to have the courage to say so, and abide by the results of their declaration. It makes no difference to me whether a declaration of truth, either upon the tariff or the money question, tem porarily drives votes from or allures them to us. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 47 It is barely possible that the financial fallacies of the populists and other vagaries may temporarily secure a majority of the voters of the United States. Should such a catastrophe overtake the country, the people must learn by experience what they should have learned by diligent study and reason. I have no hesitation in declaring myself utterly opposed to all free coinage fallacies, all the 16 to 1 lunacies, and all of the cheap money illusions and delusions which populists and other vagarists advocate. My judgment is that silver cannot be restored to its monetary place in the commerce of the world, because the supply of silver has outgrown the demand for silver in the exchanges of civilization. The relation of supply to demand is the sole regulator of value. This maxim applies alike to salt, silver, sugar, and soap. All the legislation of all the law-making bodies on the face of the globe can neither mitigate nor annul the operation of the inexorable law that "the relation of supply to demand is the sole regulator of value." The President's critics ask, What is sound money? Any ordinary man of business may answer that question. Sound money is that sort of currency which has the most universal and least fluctuating purchasing power in the markets of all countries. That money is the' soundest for which, throughout the commerce of the civilized world, there is the most universal demand. And that universal demand is always based upon the universal and unfluctuating purchas ing power of that money. The present epidemic of the silver fever will in due time abate. As the temperature of the 16 to 1 patients declines, mental aberrations will dis appear and reason once more resume its sway. 48 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. GOVERNOR SAMUEL W. BLACK. May 2, 1859 to Feb. 24, 1861. The appointment of Samuel W. Black,1 as associate justice of the territory of Nebraska, in 1857, was the date of his introduc tion to the "Far West." Born in the city of Pittsburg, Pa., in 1818, then on the confines of western civilization, and educated under the severe moral constraints of covenanter influence, he reached man's estate better furnished for the battle of life than a majority of American youths. At twenty-two years of age thousands were charmed by his brilliant oratorical efforts in that incomprehensible campaign of 1840, when speech and song, hurled in passion, drove democracy from the White House and enthroned "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." Sanguine friends were predicting for him the garlands of suc cess at the bar, when the Mexican war gave an outlet for youth ful valor, and a colonelcy commission filled the demands of an enthusiast's ambition.- When introduced to Judge Hall, of Ne braska, a Mexican remembrance incited his wit, when he ex claimed, "Judge Hall, are you related to 'The Halls of the Mon- tezumas?' " and received the retort, "Governor Black, are you a relative of the Blacks of South Carolina?" After the resignation of Governor Richardson in the fall of 1858, the Hon. J. Sterling Morton, territorial secretary, became acting governor until the arrival of Governor Samuel Black on the 2nd of May, 1859. On the 6th day of December, 1859, Governor Black delivered his first official message to the legislature. Being a man of scholarly attainments and well posted in political history, he devoted half of the space of a long message to dispel the cloud cast over the Territory by the ignorance and hasty decisions of early explorers, as to its being a desert region, and further, to establish its right to speedy admission as a state. 'Biography of Gov. Black, Nebr. Stat. Hist. Soc. Pub., 1st series, I., 94, 95. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 49 But inasmuch as practical agriculture has completely dissi pated the illusion, and the question of an admission to the Union been a fixed fact for twenty-four years, both theories may be passed over in silence. At the threshold of discussion we meet the following: Nebraska has heretofore suffered from inconsiderate and nasty legislation, as well as from sudden and untimely repeal of a large portion of her laws. We have, however, , just cause of congratulation that the code, both civil and criminal, adopted by the legislature of last year, is in full force and successful operation. The recommendations relative to lands bearing the greater :share of taxation, homestead exemption from sale for debt, prudent usury laws, the intelligent limitation of official fees, the enactment of laws to protect debtors and secure creditors in the sale of real estate under execution, were worthy of a sound law yer and impartial judge. The brief allusion to the mistakes and calamities of the past was pungent and graphic : It is a matter of bitter experience that the people of this Territory have been made to pass through the delusive days of high times and paper prices, and the consequent dark and gloomy night of low times and no prices. By far the most notable message ever delivered, up to that ¦date, in Nebraska closed, pure in morals and beautiful in style: We may here turn to our past history as a territory, and find material for pleasant meditation. Individual faults and occasional infractions of the law are of course upon the record, but not a single page is darkened by the registry of a single outbreak among the people. Our growth in population and prosperity has been equal to the most san guine expectation. Of agricultural supplies we already pro duce far more than we consume, and we may reasonably hope that but a few years will roll around before Nebraska will be as well known in the markets of the world as the oldest and largest grain growing states in the Republic. A railroad to the Pacific Ocean is no longer a problem without a, solution, and its construction and completion are but a question of time. These prairies will all be peopled from the great rivers to the mountains. The farm 5 50 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. house and the school house will decorate the plains, and temples reared to the living God will resound with praise from living and grateful hearts. This is the mighty and majestic future to which we look almost with the assurance of divine faith. Our fathers saw this and were g-la.d. And when this "goodly frame," without a parallel, this Union, was first conceived, they trusted in Jehovah and were not disappointed. They knew as we know that there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow, and in the .rise and fall of nations. That their fate, who have fallen, may not be ours, and that our country may continue to rise and increase in just power, in excellence and in virtue, should be and will be, in all parts of it and in all times to come, as in the times past, the invocation and prayer of the patriot. On the occasion of vetoing an act of incorporation, the gover nor said: "It is time that the spirit of incorporation should be sub dued and checked. All special privileges and chartered rights conferred on a few, are so much taken away from the general privileges and unchartered rights of the many." As illustrative of the bungling way in which laws had been enacted, a com mittee reported: "That there was no law in existence in 1858 which authorized the levy and collection of territorial tax. The legislature of 1857, in attempting to adopt a revenue law, only adopted the enactment clause." As only four counties paid anything into the treasury in 1858, said amounts were recom mended to be returned. There seeming to be no doubt that there were six slaves in Nebraska and had been formerly as many as thirteen, a bill was introduced and passed for the abolition of slavery in the territory, which was vetoed on the ground that slavery existed in the Louisiana purchase when we acquired it by the treaty, and could not be disposed of until the adoption of a state constitution. On the 4th day of December, 1860, the governor delivered his second and final annual mes sage to the legislature, and proceeded at once to the vital ques tions in which the people were specially interested. Referring to the previous session, he said: I urged then, as I urge now, the necessity of the law against usurious rates of interest. Better have no money TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 51 than buy it with the life blood of the needy and hard pressed of the people. In response to this utterance the rate of interest was placed at 10 per cent in case there was no agreement for another rate not exceeding 15 per cent. Of salaries he said: It is perfectly well known that the income of several of the officers in the Territory is far greater than it should be, and that the territorial debt would be an easy burden - if it were not for the issue of the warrants to satisfy the claims of public officers, whose fees in many cases are four times as much as their services are worth. To remedy this evil, a most searching and comprehensive law was passed covering the whole range of fees and salaries. The territorial debt was stated at $52,960, with collectible resources amounting to $30,259. Contemplating the manner in which the public debt had increased from a small amount in five years to $50,000 his indignant language was: Let the days of extravagance and enormous fees be num bered and cut short, and let a system of rigid and severe economy, suited to the times and our condition, be intro duced and adopted, and that without delay. His plea for an indirect bounty by which the growth of timber on the treeless prairies might be encouraged was promptly met by the passage of an act allowing a reduction of $50 on the val uation of real estate for every acre of cultivated fruit, forest or ornamental trees. On the supposition that "the relation of a. Territory to the general government is peculiar, and one in many respects of entire dependence," he urged that Congress be called upon for aid for bridges and roads on the lines of western travel, and for emigrant hospitals, and an arsenal of repairs and sup plies. No important interest of the home-seeker seemed to es cape his attention. His confidence in the future of the Terri tory was reiterated: A soil so rich and prolific, a climate for the most part of the year so pleasant, and at all seasons so full of health, was not meant for a waste place nor a wilderness. God has 52 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. written His decrees for her prosperity deep in the earth, ! *: and developed His designs in the rejoicing harvests which return in smiling abundance to them who, betimes, have sown in tears. With his eye upon the storm cloud in the sky of the Union, and his ear sensitive to the strains of discord, he came to his final appeal: The suggestions of self interest and the loftiest patriot ism should combine to make the people of the Territories faithful to the constitution and firm to their attachment to the Union. When one is the subject of open and frequent violation, and the other trembles on a sea of trouble, every good and conscientious citizen will ask himself the question, what can I do that my country may be saved? You cannot shut your eyes, nor can I close mine, to the fearful fact that this confederacy is shaken to the center and vibrates with intense feeling to its farthest borders. ' If it is not in our power to do something to bring back the days of other years when peace prevailed, let us at least do nothing towards making the present more gloomy and r the future, at best, but hopeless. Rather with one accord let us invoke the God of all peace, for "even the wind and the sea obey Him," that He will subdue the storm and quiet every angry element of alienation and discord. Up to the assembling of the legislature in 1860, the govern ment officials had been members of the Democratic party, and those of them from slave, states uniformly brought with them one or more slaves, claiming that slavery was national. Dur ing the first four or five years of territorial existence the anti- slavery sentiment of the people had been in restraint by the theory that it was better for the material interests of the new community that they should not antagonize the policy of the party in power. And as the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the struggle to force slavery upon Kansas had threat ened the life of the Union, it seemed nothing short of the Repub lican cyclone of 1860, which brought Mr. Lincoln into the White House, could consolidate the emigrants and check the domineer ing assumption of official dictators. But the make-up of this legislature proclaimed the emancipation of sentiment and the TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 53 dawn of a new political era. Of course there were at all times a few bold spirits, illustrating the fact that a true reformer must be in advance of his times. On the 23d day of the session, in reply to the governor's mes sage of censure, a committee of whom T. W. Tiptoa of Nemaha county was chairman, made the following report: The select committee to which was referred the special message from the governor, dated December the 16th, 1860, calling the attention of this body to the fact that only seven teen working days of the session remained, and up to that date he had received no bills for his official signature, have had the same under consideration and beg leave to report: First, that from a careful and thorough examination of a standard almanac, his point in regard to the time is well taken; and second, that the journal of the council appears to sustain the second count in the indictment. We are happy to learn from his excellency that "I make this sug gestion in no spirit of complaint," for we are certain that he has no" cause of complaint, and had he complained we would have handed his complaint over to a people who have been cursed with too hasty, illadvised, and inconsider ate legation. But when he says as a reason for prompting us to action, "Not on my own account alone, but for the sake of the people, I request that you will endeavor to hasten tbe public business," we desire to remind his excel lency that the same people whose will has been stricken down at a previous session, by his veto, has sent us here to own allegiance to no earthly power but themselves, and our oaths of office, and further that we represent thousands of freemen and hold our commissions from them, while he holds his from the President of the United States. The people are well aware that no legislature, a large portion of whom hold for the first time, can in the short space of twenty days, bring legislative order out of choas, and estab lish a judicious revenue system, construct an election law that will guard the ballot box, equalize the fees of all public officers, reduce the burdens of taxation by thousands of dollars, and place a future state on a broad and glorious platform of constitutional liberty. But if it is a fact that we have been by day and night laboring in this chamber and committee rooms, in this behalf for 23 days, may we not-, when successful, return to our constituents in conscious pride and triumph? In taking- leave of this peculiar mes sage we concur in the propriety of the following language of his excellency: "Nor do I assume any right to influence 54 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. in any way your movements, or deliberations." From this avowal on his part, your committee recommend that the council continue to transact legislative business in its own way, determining- its own movements and controlling its own deliberations. On the 6th day of the term Governor Black served upon the legislature a veto message of "A bill prohibiting slavery in the Territory," which was promptly passed over his veto by a vote of 10 to 3 in the council and 33 to 2 in the house. Of the votes in the council 8 of the 10 were cast by republicans and 2 by Douglas democrats. Of these republicans Dundy became United States district judge, Elbert governor of Colorado, Mar quette and Taffe representatives in Congress, Strickland, Doug las democrat, United States district attorney, and Thayer and Tipton United States senators, evidence sufficient that the peo ple were not misrepresented on the slavery question. On a motion of Mr. Tipton the public printer was ordered to accom pany the governor's message with the action of the Legislature in passing the bill over the veto, on which subject he delivered the following remarks: In my humble opinion this veto message is a most remark able production — remarkable on account of the pertinacity with which his excellency follows up this question of human freedom with ponderous documents, earnest protests, and unavailing entreaties. In its component parts it is equally remarkable, whether you consider it » system of dove tailed fallacies, special pleadings, or sublimated foolishness. If his excellency had a mint of gold with which to bribe this legislature, and we possessed all the logical acumen and captivating eloquence of our race; were we willing to re ceive the one and exert the other, we could neither give dignity to this document nor force to its conclusions. The honest hearts of oar constituents would consign us for our efforts to everlasting political infamy. The republicans had declared in their Chicago platform, "that the normal condition of all the territories is that of "freedom, and we deny the right of Congress, or of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 55 territory of the United States." National democrats held that slavery was national, and could follow the master at his pleas ure. The Douglas democrats, followers of the distinguished Illinois senator, claimed that the people, as an act of "popular sovereignty," could "vote it up or yote it down," according to their preferences. Before the end of the session Gov. Black found numerous occasions to exercise his veto, and in no addi tional case did the legislature reverse his decision. On the last day of the session he concluded his last veto message with the following sentences: This is the last day of your session, and this communica tion is about the last I shall have an opportunity to submit to the legislative assembly. When I had the honor to occupy a seat on the bench, I trust I was persevering and firm in vindicating the great right of protection to life which the law extends to every human being. The position then occupied I am unwilling to change, even by a distant and remote conviction. Wherefore this bill, which seems to excuse, if it does not justify, a felonious homicide, is not approved. On the 11th of January, 1861, when the hands of the clock indicated final adjournment, as a passenger from the deck of the vessel waves a final adieu to friends on shore, the council, on motion of General Thayer, sent to the house greeting : — Resolved, That we hereby heartily and cordially endorse the official conduct of the executive of this Territory, His Excellency, Hon. Samuel W. Black, for his gentlemanly and courteous treatment of the members of this legislature, and for the prompt, efficient and energetic manner in which he has discharged the duties devolving upon him during the session of this legislature, and during his term of office. The 24th of the next month marked the departure of the gov ernor to his native Pennsylvania, and on the following June dates the death of Col. Black, shot from his horse at the head of a Union regiment, leading a desperate charge against a Confed erate army. A statement of his tragic death was communicated to the Nebraska State Historical Society by his daughter.1 'Vol. III., 1st series, 94, 95. 56 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. ACTING-GOVERNOR A. S. PADDOCK. 1862, 1867. Hon. A. S. Paddock came to Nebraska under the most favor able circumstances possible for a young man of ambitious ten dencies, being twenty-seven years of age and possessing a good- education, free from all public vices, and with a "sound mind in a sound body," possessed of fundamental principles of law,. and the experiences of self-support. Pioneer neighbors naturally hailed him as one qualified for counsel and aggressive action,. a new man, in a new country, where a new set of political is sues were beginning to monopolize public attention. Having inherited anti-slavery sentiments from a New England ancestry,. his natural affiliations would be with Fremont as a presidential candidate in 1856, and for Lincoln in 1860. When, therefore, he met New Yorkers in the Chicago convention in 1860, from whom he had parted as an emigrant in 1857, and was with them in voting for William H. Seward for nominee, a mutual co-oper ation in the future was easy and natural. With Lincoln elected and Seward in the cabinet, and the prestige of a campaign ora tor associated with the name of Mr. Paddock, the appointment was made and confirmed, and he entered upon the duties of Secretary of Nebraska April 1st, 1861. In 1864 he was candi date for nomination before the republican convention of Ne braska, for delegate in congress, with T. M. Marquette, P. W. Hitchcock and T. W. Tipton as friendly competitors. Each being voted for separately, Mr. Tipton lacked four votes of the nomination while Mr. Marquette was a few short also. On the next ballot the first count gave Mr. Paddock a majority of one,. but before the announcement a delegate claimed the parlia mentary right of changing his vote, which left it' a tie. Up to this point the friends of Mr. Hitchcock had been casting com- TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 57 plimentary votes to each candidate, and now that his time of trial had come, all were "returned with interest," and he re ceived the nomination. In 1866, while Mr. Seward was still in the cabinet of Andrew Johnson and many conservative republicans were sustaining the administration, Mr. Paddock became a candidate for Con gress, receiving a conservative republican and democratic vote, but failed of election by a majority of 848 votes, in favor of John Taffe. In 1867 President Johnson gave him the nomination of Gover nor of Wyoming territory, which was finally declined. Subse quently he was elected a senator of the United States, in 1875, and re-elected in 1887, while in the interim he served on the Utah commission. Among the many duties devolving upon him as acting gover nor, was his preparation for the subjugation of the hostile Indi ans in the year 1862. Omaha, Nebr., Territory, Sept. 9, 1862. Eon. E. M. Stanton, Sec'y of War: Powerful bands of In dians are retiring from Minnesota into the northern counties of this Territory. Settlers by the hundreds are fleeing. Instant action is demanded. I can turn out a militia force, a battery of three pieces of six pounders, and from six to ten companies of cavalry and mounted in fantry. The Territory is without credit or a cent of money. Authorize me to act for the general government in pro viding immediate defense and I can do all that is necessary with our militia, if subsisted and paid by the government. A. S. Paddock, Sec'y and Acting-Governor of Nebraska. Authority being granted, all preliminary steps were taken, the Second Nebraska cavalry organized and placed under the command of Col. Furnas, and a complete victory obtained over the savages in the battle of Whitestone Hills, with the Brules, Yankton and Blackfeet Sioux. When the legislature convened in January, 1867, the governor being absent on official business, the duty of presenting the annual message devolved upon the territorial secretary, Hon. 58 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. A. S. Paddock. The facts and figures of the accompanying re ports of state officers belonged to the administration of Gover nor Saunders, while the secretary was entitled to full credit for most wise and conservative views upon the national land sys tem, results of the war, impartial suffrage, and kindred themes of vital importance to the embryo state. The financial statement gave an available surplus of $61,810, whereas six years before, the date of the governor's first mes sage, the indebtedness was $37,226. The revision of the laws had been accomplished in an admirable manner. "The wise economy" of the homestead law "had been no more clearly illus trated than in this' territory." Said he, "How much wiser then the economy which gives to productive industry the possession of the national domain free of cost, than that which disposes of it in large tracts to speculators, in whose hands it remains unoc cupied and unimproved, a veritable obstacle in the way of the rapid settlement and development of the country." Among numerous recommendations made to the legislature was that for a memorial to Congress protesting against any future cash sales of public lands, or withdrawing from market for pros pective railroads, or locations by script or warrants unless for new state uses, and also asking that government buy the Union Pacific railroad lands and devote them to free settlement. It was also recommended that a liberal amount be appropriated to secure the active labors of immigrant agents, and to accom plish a geological survey of the Territory. In order to bring in closer relati'ons, commercially and socially, the inhabitants north and south of the Platte, a free bridge was urged as an unavoid able necessity. A very satisfactory review of the railroad situation was closed as follows: Such brilliant railroad prospects have very rarely, if ever, presented themselves to the people of a new state or terri- lory. Nature has marked this spot, equi-distant from the two great oceans, as the pivotal center of the railroad system of America. God grant that the Union Pacific railroad, which is the true base of all prosperity, may be TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 59 speedily completed to the Pacific. May it form an additional bond of union to the states, a never failing source of pride, of glory and of strength, to the nation, and an equal source of pride and profit to the brave and energetic gentlemen who engaged in its construction. After commending the admission of the Territory as a state of the Union, and proffering co-operation in behalf of greater efficiency in the common ^schools, the acting governor concluded his official communication with temperate and patriotic allu sions: I should hail with joy a radical change in the rule of suffrage which would give the franchise to intelligence and patriotism wherever found, regardless of the color of its possessor. He who can read understandingly the constitu tion of his country, and he who has fought in its defense, of whatever race or color, should have a voice in the choice of the nation's rulers. I should therefore cheerfully concur with you in a memorial to Congress, praying for an amend ment of our organic law, in accordance with this view. No change, however, should be made which would take the franchise away from any person who now enjoys it under existing laws. i At the time he delivered his message there was a peculiar significance in the following: The kind offices of the peacemaker avail not, and the olive branch" is cast aside, a withered and useless thing. How can our beloved country be united again in fact as well as in form? How can the Union be firmly re-established in the hearts and in the affections of the people of all sections? For the patriotic love of the people is the soul of the union, its preservation is essential to the very life of the nation itself. I do not believe it can be done by depriv ing eleven states of loyal representatives in the national \ congress, when representation is the very germ and essence of union. Only that which will win back the hearts of the southern people will give stability and enduring peace to the Republic. In conclusion, permit me to assure you that I shall most earnestly co-operate with you in every endeavor to promote the varied interests of our Territory. Whatever measures may commend themselves to your wisdom and judgment, as 60 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. best calculated to promote the general welfare will receive my most cordial approval. Permit me to wish you a pleasant sojourn at the territorial capital, and after the labors of the session are terminated, a happy return in safety and in health, to your families and friends. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 61 GOVERNOR ALVIN SAUNDERS. May 15, 1861 to Mar.'l, 1S67. Gov. Alvin Saunders1 claims Kentucky as his birthplace, and was born on the 12th of July, 1817. At twelve years of age he was taken by his parents to the State of Illinois, and in his 19th year united his destiny with the small village of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. With patience and luck he endured the vicissitudes of pioneer life, and as merchant's clerk and merchant, as postmaster and member of a constitutional convention, as representative of the people in the state senate and in the Chicago National Con vention of 1860, which nominated Mr. Lincoln, he secured and held the implicit confidence of an honest, intelligent and patri otic community. Though of Virginia parentage and Kentucky birth, having developed an enthusiasm for "free speech, free soil, and free men," he was fully competent to stand guard on freedom's battlements during the stormy days of the Union. After discharging the duties of Governor for a term of four years, the circumstances attending the signing of his second commission were so peculiar that they are treasured up as a sacred remembrance. I saw Mr. Lincoln, who told me to return home, as it was all right and he would attend to the commission. I started for home in the morning, and in the evening of the same day he was killed. I telegraphed back to find out what had be come of my commission, and learned that the room had not been opened. When it was opened the commission was found on the table, unfolded, with his sigiiature attached. It was not signed by Mr. Seward. I have the commission in Mr. Lincoln's name, but the appointment was actually made out by Mr. Johnson. 1 Gunnell Saunders, father of Alvin Saunders, was a native of Loudoun County, Va., who emigrated to Bourbon County, Ky., when a young man, and thence to Fleming County. His ancestry was English, and his wife, maiden name Mary Manzy, was a native of Culpepper County, Va., from French family. Alvin was one of five sons. Gunnell went to Springfield, 111., about 1829. 62 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Before he assumed the duties of Territorial Governor of Ne braska, May 15, 1861, ten states had passed ordinances of secession, Davis and Stephens elected president and vice-presi dent of the Southern Confederacy, a call had been issued for 75,000 men at the north and for 32,000 at the south, Fort Sumter had been bombarded by the rebels and Massachusetts troops mobbed in Baltimore on their way to the city of Wash ington, and President Lincoln had ordered the blockade of southern ports. Three days after Gov. Saunders' arrival he issued a proclama tion for troops for three years' service, closing with the following emphatic language: Efforts are being made to trample the stars and stripes, the emblem of our liberty, in the dust. Traitors are in the land busily trying to overthrow the Government of the United States, and information has been received that these same traitors are endeavoring to incite an invasion of our frontier by a savage foe. In view of these facts, I invoke the aid of every lover of his country and his home, to come promptly forward to sustain and protect the same. His acts and messages reveal the fact that during the four years of devastating war, his thoughts were ever with the men who answered the calls for troops. Whether they were in camp or in council chamber, their wants and domestic anxieties urged him to duty and called out his ready sympathy. In his first message to the legislature, the Governor said: Congress, at its last session, in providing means to be used in putting down rebellion in a number of Southern States of the Union, levied a direct tax on the people. The Constitution of the United States provides that direct taxes shall be levied by Congress in proportion to the population. The proportion assigned to Nebraska amounts to nineteen thousand three hundred and twelve dollars. This tax may be assessed and collected by officers to be appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury, or may be assumed by the Territorial Government. In the latter case, a deduction of 15 per cent, from the gross amount will be allowed the Territory. I therefore recommend that you make the necessary provision for its collection by adding the gross amount to the tax levy for the coming year for TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 63 territorial purposes, or that you make such other provision fortits payment as your wisdom may devise. Although the sum to be raised is comparatively large, we should not hesitate to bear our part of the burden. Each one should be willing to exert himself to the utmost to avert the danger which now threatens the Union. We would be unworthy descendants of the good and great men who pledged their property and their lives to secure our free institutions, if we hesitated to make any sacrifice necessary for their nreservation. The patriotism of those who assist our country now, when she is defending the Constitution and the Union against traitors and rebels, and who stand firmly by that flag, and those institutions, which have descended to us from the hands of Washington, will be held in grateful remembrance by the great and the good everywhere, and their names will descend with imperishable honor to posterity, for having aided in preserving to their country and the world, in its original integrity and vigor, the freest and best government on earth. A committee to whom was referred the subject of the direct tax, reported that inasmuch as Congress allowed the Territory $20,000 per year, for legislative expenses, the legislature should not be convened during the next year, but the $20,000 should be diverted by the general government for the cancellation of the tax of $19,312. And to show the necessity of this, they instanced the financial condition of the people, illustrating with Douglas County. Douglas County has a mortgage debt of $800,000 hanging over her citizens, covering the majority of the real estate in the county and bearing interest at an enormous rate of from 2 to 10 per cent per month. The court records will show a judgment debt of several thousand dollars. The County has a debt of $50,000. So with the other coun ties throughout the Territory. Our Territorial debt is $50,000. Our taxes in every county in the Territory have been higher for three years than in any state in the Union. Inasmuch as the progress of the Government, in the suppres sion of the rebellion, was the all absorbing question, his second message, in 1864, contained the following: When you were last in session the rebels claimed all of the slave states and all of the territories south of Kansas and west to California, but the Union armies have 64 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. ? been steadily driving- them back from the loyal states and toward the interior from the coast, capturing fortifica tions and cities until now the stars and stripes float in triumph over at least two-thirds of the Territory then claimed by the insurgents. A few months more of vigorous and persistent effort on the part of the great armies and navies of the Republic, it would seem, will probably be suffi cient to wipe out the last vestige of this gigantic rebellion, and establish the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws throughout the whole extent of all the states and territories of the Union. It must be a source of profound gratification to you to know that the citizen soldiery of Nebraska, springing to arms from the peaceful pursuits of life, at the call of the President, totally unaccustomed to the hardships and dep rivations of the weary march and camp life, and to the exposure and dangers of protracted campaigns, have per formed their part so nobly in every trial of endurance and courage. A Nebraska soldier, whether called on by his country to , confront the wily savages on the frontier, or the rebel hosts in battle array, has never shrunk from duty, quailed before danger, or turned his back on the foe. After urging that all possible effort should be made for the comfort of the soldiers in the field, and of the sick and wounded, and of widows and orphans, and for allowing the soldiers to vote for state and national officers, he passed to the subject of monuments. I also recommend that you make the necessary provision for keeping a correct record of the names of all who enlist in the military service of the- Territory, to be preserved among the public archives; and that the names of all who are wounded or fall in battle should be inscribed on a roll of honor, to be carefully preserved for the inspection of future generations. I also suggest that justice to this class of our fellow citizens seems to me to require that a monu ment should be erected at the capitol, on which to inscribe the names, and preserve the memory of all from this terri tory who have fallen in their country's service since this rebellion commenced, or who have fallen during its con tinuance. He further elucidated the steps leading up to emancipation, as a military necessity, and its influence at home and abroad on TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 65 the final result, and declared in favor of an immediate peace con sequent upon a restored union. In his message of 1865, Gover nor Saunders made the following prediction: This war for the preservation of our national life, al though protracted through more than three years of bloody strife, is at length happily drawing to a close; and recent events would seem to indicate, with almost mathematical certainty, that the end cannot be far in the future. Slowly, but steadily and surely, the Union armies are exhausting the strength and resources of the rebel forces. Their lines are being rapidly contracted — their ranks decimated beyond the possibility of recuperation, and the spirit of the ¦misguided masses has been broken. Our armies and navies almost encompass them, while one of our greatest generals, with his victorious columns, has marched through the very heart of the Empire State of the South, from the interior to the coast, and captured the most populous and im portant commercial city in the rebellious district, almost without opposition. The significant facts leave no room to doubt that at an early period the supremacy of the consti tution and the laws will be restored in every portion of the country, thus establishing human liberty, alike in the South and in the North, and vindicating the capacity of the people for self government. One year later he had the happiness to herald the consumma tion of the great work, in the following language of his annual message, of January, 1866: Our flag, emblem of the unity, justice, power and glory of the nation, now floats in triumph over every part of the Republic. Every foot of our national territory has been pre served intact. The supremacy of the constitution and laws is acknowledged by all the inhabitants, but this great boon has been secured at a fearful cost of blood and treasure. Having thus passed through the Red Sea of disaster which menaced us, and for a time threatened to engulf and over whelm the fair fabric of justice and liberty reared for us by our fathers, may we not hope that our glorious Union will be perpetual and dispense its blessings for all future time to the oppressed and downtrodden who may seek an asylum in this land of liberty and equal justice from the tyrannies of the old world. When the question of emancipating slaves was discussed, as a 6 « 66 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. military necessity, Governor Saunders held and expressed very decided views: Look, if you please, at the effort put forth by the cun ning .politicians and traitors of our country, to prejudice the minds of the unwary against the President's proclama tion emancipating the slaves in rebel districts. Thousands throughout the country had their minds thus prejudiced, and for the time being poisoned, against the measure; and yet, tfiat very same measure has, perhaps, done more to give us strength, both at home and abroad, than dny other adopted by the administration. And perhaps we ought not to close our eyes to the fact, while dwelling on this subject, that many of .the best and wisest men in the country be-. lieve that if the slaves should all be liberated, during the progress of the war, it will be a just retribution on those who originated the rebellion; for there is a universal con- Tictioi . among all classes, that slavery was, either directly or indirectly, the cause of the war, and that the guilty cause ought to be destroyed, and that without this, no lasting, permanent peace can possibly be secured. If it stands in the way of victory, of peace, of a restored and perpetual Union, let it die the death of the malefactor. On the 25th of January, 1S64, Governor Saunders had the su preme pleasure of placing his signature to a joint resolution of the Legislature complimented the territorial troops: Resolved, That the thanks of the people of this territory are due, and are hereby tendered through their Legislative Assembly, to the brave men who have gone from our ter ritory to battle for the preservation of our country. That we look with pride and satisfaction upon the record our soldiers have made since the war of the rebellion was in augurated, and that their unsurpassed bravery on every field, from Fort Donelson, where the blood of Nebraska first mingled with the crimson tide of the brave of other states, who consecrated with their lives the first great victory of the war, down to the heroic defense of Cape Girardeau, where the sons of our territory, almost unaided, achieved one of the most brilliant and decisive victories that will adorn the annals of the present struggle, "a record which commands the admiration of the world, and places us under a debt of gratitude to ijhose brave men which we can never repay. How thoroughly the Governor's patriotic efforts were supple- TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 67 mented by the women of the territory, appears from their con tributions to the St. Louis Sanitary Fair of 1864, to the amount of $10,000, and to the Chicago Fair of 1865, to the amount of $25,000, where Mrs. Alvin Saunders and Mrs. O. F. Davis were active participants. The sentiments of loyalty and patriot ism proclaimed by the Governor were amply supplemented by the utterance of the Legislature of 1SG1-2: Resolved, That, disavowing, as we do, the right of any state or states to nullify the federal law or secede from the federal Union, we regard such secession or nullification as treason against the United States, and believe it to be the first and holiest duty of the Government to uphold its laws and repress treason. To a resolution of a republican member of the Legislature — "Resolved, that whenever an American Citizen unsheathes his sword and shoulders his musket, at his country's call, he should leave the spoilsman, the partisan and the politician in a name less grave behind him," there came a democratic response: "That we hold rebels against our government to be outside the pale of its protection." His messages furnish the land-marks of the Union Pacific railroad. In the first one, of December, 1861, we have the follow ing: A mere glance at the map of the country will convince every intelligent mind that the Platte Valley which passes through the heart, and runs nearly the entire length of Ne braska, is to furnish the route for the Great Central Rail road which is to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific States and Territories. Through Nebraska must pass, in a few years, not only the travel and trade between the Eastern and Western portion of our country, but also much of the trade and travel between the Old and New World. In his message in January, 1864, he thus congratulated the Legislature : Congress passed a bill, at the first regular session after the inauguration of the present administration, providing for the construction of the Great Pacific Railway, commenc ing on the 100th meridian, within the Territory of Nebraska, ¦68 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. thence westwardly to the Pacific coast, with three branches from the place of beginning eastward to the Missouri River. With these magnificent works successfully prosecuted, con necting directly with the great cities of the Atlantic and Pacific, with the benefits of the homestead act, of a virgin and fertile soil, of exhaustless salt springs, with a climate as salubrious as exists in the world — none can hesitate to pre dict for Nebraska gigantic strides in the attainment of '; uyealth and power. In January 1865, his declaration was: It will be gratifying to you, and the people of the Ter ritory to know that the work on the great Union Pacific ,' Railroad, which is to pass through the entire length of ) Nebraska, is progressing at a very considerable rate. The \ work of grading, bridging, and preparing the ties, is pro gressing much more rapidly than had been anticipated by our most sanguine people. I feel fully authorized to say, that unless some unforeseen misfortune attends this great i enterprise, more than fifty miles westward from Omaha will be in readiness for the cars before your next annual meeting. In January, 1866, he reported fifty-five miles of track com pleted, and grading and bridging for niety-five miles, and pre dicted that 150 miles of the road would be ready for the cars within twelve months. But all speculations were to be exceeded during the year of 1866, since on the 11th of January, 1867, cars were running a distance of 293 miles from the initial point, and 262 miles of track were laid, in that year. On the 2nd day of December, 1863, as one of the national Com missioners to locate the initial point of the road, with spade in hand to "break ground," the governor delivered the following address: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: We have assembled here to-day for the purpose of in augurating the greatest work of internal improvement ever projected by man, ah improvement which is to unite with iron bands the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific, and to connect not only the great cities of the Atlantic with those of the Pacific Ocean, but to open the gateway of com merce for the nations of the earth. This gigantic enterprise, TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 69 which spans a continent, is destined to become the great thoroughfare not only for manufactured articles of our own New England, the agricultural staples of the valley of the Mississippi, and tbe gold and silver of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Neyadas, but also the silk of the Indies, the manufactures of England and Prance, and the teas of China. It may indeed be appropriately termed the "Nation's Great Highway." This, my fellow citizens, is no mere work of fancy, or fic tion, but a substantial reality. The people, the great masses, have taken hold of it, and the work this day so auspiciously inaugurated, is destined to go steadily forward to com pletion. Whether viewed in the light of a, prudential war measure or regarded in the light of a commercial enterprise, the Nation is so deeply interested in its speedy completion that it cannot fail. The parties who participated here today in this initial step, represent the diversity of interests which are combined to push it forward to a complete consummation. You behold here the engineer, the mechanic, the laborer, the physician, the lawyer, the capitalist, the editor, the telegraph operator, all taking part in the exercises of this hour — and for such, throughout the whole country, is composed of backers of this great enterprise. I cannot close these brief remarks without expressing the g-ratitude which I feel to the Presi dent and the Congress of the United States for the good judgment which they have displayed in giving- life to this magic work, and congratulating the people of the whole Union on its commencement and the cheering prospects of its early completion. In advance of Congress, the Governor said in his message of 1861: "You should, in my opinion, urge Congress to enact a Homestead law at its next session." And in that of 1864, we have the following: Among the many beneficent acts of legislation, passed by the Congress" of the United States, since your last session, may be mentioned the "Homestead Bill." In fact, its suc cess, so just to the settler, and so wise as a measure of national policy, seemed hopeless, while the reins of govern ment were held by such men as controlled the administra tion preceding that of our present chief magistrate. The honor of the prompt passage of this great measure, is du,e to President Lincoln and his political friends in Congress. 70 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. This question received special attention in all his messages, and after various efforts, congressional action was secured, and the transition made from the territory to a state, during the term of his incumbency. Without any exaggeration, his term of office included the most eventful period of our history, and no state or territory had a more faithful officer or devoted war governor than Nebraska. In the message of 1861, we read: We are surrounded by tribes of Indians who are more or less tampered with by wicked men, and traitors of the Union; we are in the immediate vicinity of the battle fields of the rebellious states; the regular troops, who have been recently garrisoning our forts, are being rapidly withdrawn; large numbers of our best and bravest young- men have been summoned from their homes to aid in fighting the battles of the Union; we have a long range of frontier settlements ex posed to the tomahawks and scalping knives . of savages. You should, therefore, urge upon Congress, in the strongest terms, the necessity of furnishing our people with the means of defending their homes and families. The subject received attention in his official communication January 8, 1864: True, Nebraska has no particular calls made for the serv ices of her militia lately; nothing, however, but the liberality of the general government in supplying our wants with government troops has prevented it. In 1865 his reference to the theme was as follows: In the late call for troops to assist in protecting our frontier settlers from the savages, I found myself obliged to rely entirely upon the patriotism and liberality of the peo ple in order to raise and equip » sufficient force to give proper relief to the stiffering people. It was recorded in the message of January 9, 1866, that: The Indian War upon our Western border to which I ad- i < verted in my last annual message, still continues. It was hoped tnat with the close of the rebellion these troubles would cease; but this hope has proved groundless. Em boldened by success, the savage tribes who have committed these outrages upon the lives and property of emigrants, and upon the Overland Stage line, and Pacific Telegraph, TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 71 have become exceedingly reckless and daring in their murderous forages; and outrages the most atrocious and wanton in their character are of frequent occurrence. Noth ing will, in my judgment, give us peace upon the plains, but the employment of the most vigorous measures to hunt out and severely punish the authors of these outrages. After Gov. Butler (of the State) had convened a Legislature on the 4th of July, 1866, for the election of United States Sena tor, Congress ordered the Territorial Governor (Alvin Saunders) to convene the Legislature for the purpose of adopting a "con dition precedent" to the State's admission into the Union. Ac cordingly he issued his proclamation February 14th, 1867, and his message to the Legislature February -20th, 1867. Against the state legislature amending the provisions of the constitution, which as voted upon by the people recognized only white voters, the democrats entered their protest in a series of state resolu tions in 1868 ; while at the same time there was not a unity of opinion among republicans on the questions of the right of the State to act, and the policy of extending the elective franchise to the people of color. Indeed, Governor Saunders, the very em bodiment of national republicanism, said in his proclamation, to the Legislature: It no doubt would have been more satisfactory to you, as I frankly confess it would have been to me, if Congress had given the settlement of this question directly to the people of the Territory, instead of requiring of you, who were not particularly instructed on the subject, to take upon yourselves the whole responsibility oi deciding this subject for them. On the other question he affirmed: The day,' in my opinion, is not far distant when property qualifications, educational qualifications, and color qualifica tions, as precedent to the privilege of voting, will be known no more by the American people; but that intelligence and manhood will be the only qualifications necessary to en title an American citizen to the privileges of an elector. At this time the amendment to the United States Constitution had not passed, establishing impartial-suffrage, but in 1870, two 72 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. years later, the democratic platform read: "Resolved, that the Democracy of Nebraska accept the adoption of all amendments of the fundamental law of the land' as a formal settlement of the questions disposed of thereby." The State's admission, and the suffrage question both settled and out of the contest, in 1870 the republicans endorsed Grant's administration, commended congress for a reduction of the bur dens of taxation and extended sympathy to Germany in her struggle with' France; while the democrats resolved, "That all taxation, to be just, must be for a public purpose, equal, and uniform; that the national government has no right to levy a tax upon one individual to advance or promote the interest of another." The condition, to which the state was to give assent, was, "That within the State of Nebraska there should be no denial of the elective franchise, by reason of color or race," except to untaxed Indians. This having been complied with, the state was formally admitted by the president's proclamation of March 1, 1867, when Governor Saunders was superseded by Governor David Butler. On retiring he indulged in a few parting words to a constituency that, in full, reciprocated his .confidence and esteem. TO THE PEOPLE OF NEBRASKA. Executive Office, Omaha, Nebkaska, March 27, 1867. I have this day received official notice from the State De partment at Washington, of the President's Proclamation announcing that the Legislature of Nebraska has accepted the conditions proposed by Congress, and declaring the fact that Nebraska is admitted as one of the independent states of the Union. The Governor elect under the state organiza tion being now ready to take charge of the office, my duties as the Chief Executive of the Territory this day cease. I take pleasure, before retiring- from this office, in availing myself of this opportunity of returning my sincere thanks to the people of the Territory for their uniform kindness, and for the alacrity and promptness with which every offi cial demand upon them has been honored, whether in war or in peace. No period of time of the same length since the TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. 73 organization of our Government has been so eventful and full of interesting history as has been the six years' I have been honored with an official connection with the people of Nebraska, and it gives me great pleasure to know that peace and general prosperity now prevail throughout our whole country, and especially to know that no country can truthfully boast of greater peace or more genuine pros perity than can Nebraska. Especially do I feel proud of the financial condition of the Territory. Six years ago the debt of the Territory was fully two dollars for every man, woman and child in it, and the warrants of the treasury were selling- at from twenty- five to thirty cents on the dollar. Now her paper is at par, and she is ready to pay every dollar of her indebted ness of whatever character, so that the new state can com mence her career without a dollar of debt hanging over her. This condition of affairs, so far as my knowledge ex tends, is without a, parallel in the history of new states, and gives cause for mutual and general congratulation. While our officers and people have been so attentive to the * finances of our country, they have not been idl6 or wanting in other important particulars, for during the war Nebraska furnished as many troops as any other state or territory in proportion to its population, and no soldier from any quarter showed more valor or made a better record for bravery or true soldierly conduct than did those from Ne braska. So, viewing it from any standpoint, 1 feel proud that I have been permitted to occupy so conspicuous a posi tion among a people so patriotic, prompt, and appreciative. With my best wishes for the prosperity of the whole people, of our new State, and for its great success, I am, etc., Alvin Saunders. CHAPTEE II. TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. Whoever attempts to write history for the people of Nebraska, or sketch the career of prominent citizens, meets with many impediments. So young is the State, that many of the actors are still in stage costume, and extremely sensitive as to any criticism upon the performers or the play. Scenes that were thrilling to them and heralded as tragic, divested of their sur roundings may innocently by strangers be classed as comical. An eloquent author once said: "Every attempt to present on paper the splendid effects of impassioned eloquence, is like gathering up dewdrops, which appear jewels and pearls on the grass, but run to water in the hand — the essence and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the form are gone." And so when the writer erects a statue upon the historic page and exclaims, "Behold the man !" the disappointed reader may demand, "What of the electric current that warmed the heart, illumined the eye, and flushed the cheek; what of the hopes that impelled, the fears that retarded, the placidity or turbulence that dominated the inner life?" In spite of all hindrances and discouragements, with an apology to the "old settler," and a salutation to the new-comer and his juvenile family, the writer enters upon the theme, Nebraska in Congress. Her first appearance before the government was as a very dim inutive, nameless infant in arms, when in April, 1803, France, by treaty, gave her mother Louisiana away, in marriage, to "Uncle Sam." In 1804 Louisiana was erected into two territories, called Orleans and District of Louisiana, and provision was made for (74) TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 75 the formation of a State Constitution for the Territory of Orleans whenever the population reached 60,000. Having ac quired the specified amount in 1810, an Enabling Act was passed in 1811, and in 1812 the Territory of Orleans with the name of Louisiana was admitted into the Union as a state; leaving the balance of the purchase for future disposal. The Louisiana purchase cost the United States $11,250,000; and such an amount due the citizens of the United States, from France, as should not exceed $3,750,000. It was bounded north by the British possessions, south by Mexico, and west by the Rocky Mountains, and is to-day included in the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The name of Louisiana was changed to Missouri Territory in 1812, and later the southern part became the Territory of Arkan sas. The necessary steps being taken, a part known as Missouri became a state June, 1821. As Missouri was coming in as a slave state, the free states demanded "a set-off," hence the Missouri Compromise was enacted, to quiet "slavery agitation forever," and this, when ruthlessly repealed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, precipitated the "death to slavery forever" struggle. By that notable act, all new states subsequently formed north of parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, dividing the Louisiana Purchase, should come in free or slave, as the people might determine. And so a protecting barrier was erected be tween Nebraska and slave territory for a term of thirty-three years, ending in 1854. This same line was extended through Texas, under certain conditions, on her admission to the Union in 1845. In 1850, when the Union was endangered by the fiery discussion over the admission of California as a free state, the doctrine of non-inter vention as to slavery was affirmed; and when it was enacted in the organic law of Nebraska that the Missouri Compromise was "inoperative and void," and slavery was a question exclusively for the people to settle, Senator Benton of Missouri declared the 76 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. statement was "a stump speech injected into the belly of the bill." Had Nebraska then been as far south as Kansas, border warfare would have desolated her plains, murdered citizens, and laid homes and cities in ashes. . Nebraska was introduced to congress, by name, in 1844, when a bill to define her boundaries was presented to the House of Representatives. In 1854 the step-daughter was considered of sufficient age to commence superintending her future estate, under the directions and instructions contained in a law of con gress denominated the Organic Act. TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 77 NAPOLEON B. GIDDINGS. 33rd Congress, 1855; Jan. 5 to Mar. 4. In order to "set up housekeeping" in accordance with the cus toms and manners of the elder sisterhood, a selection of an agent, in that behalf, was made on the 12th day of December, 1854. The student of history will remember that Napoleon Bonaparte was a prime factor in behalf of France in Mr. Jeffer son's negotiations for Louisiana, and the reader of the annals of Nebraska notes the fact that Napoleon B. Giddings, of Missouri, was her first delegate in Congress. The election took place seven months from the date of the Organic Act of May 30th, 1854. Voting precincts had been designated at twelve places in eight counties adjacent to the Missouri River. Of 800 votes, Mr. Giddings received 377, which was a majority over any one candidate's vote, though a minority of the whole number cast. On the 5th day of January, 1855, just twenty-four days after the election, the Congressional Globe ias the following entry: Mr. Phelps of Missouri announced that the Delegate from Nebraska was present and desired to take the oath of office. Mr. Giddings thereupon presented himself at the bar of the House, and the Speaker administered to him the usual oath of office. The term for which he was elected was to expire on the en suing 4th of March, within about two months. A few days before the advent of Mr. Giddings to the House, Mr. Mace of Indiana introduced a bill modifying the Kansas-Nebraska law, and re-enacting the Missouri Compromise act to protect Nebraska from slavery, and for the admission of Kansas as a free state, which failed to pass. Hon. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, formerly Senator, having to be absent for a few •days, left a short speech to be read for him by a colleague, in 78 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. which he deprecated the opening up of the slavery discussion on general principles, but especially for fear of retarding emi gration, which was so desirable to aid and encourage the con struction of a Pacific railroad. Admitting the border ruffianism of Missouri, he claimed it was the natural product of New England Colonization Societies, from which he had from the first anticipated evil. . Bills were introduced by Mr. Giddings as follows: To estab lish post roads; to protect the proprietors of towns in their town sites; to establish land offices; and for surveying, marking, and opening roads. He offered amendments to establish an arsenal in Nebraska, and to allow $50,000 for public buildings. On the 31st day of January he wound up his legislative career by the delivery of his maiden speech. Mr. Giddings said: I wish to say a word or two in answer to the gentleman from Virginia in relation to the power of the governor in locating the seats of government in these territories. No such power is given to them. They are given the right to select the point at which the first legislature shall be con vened; but after that it is left to the legislature to decide at what point the future capital shall be located. I hope the gentleman will not try to put restrictions on Kansas and Nebraska that have never been placed upon any other territories under the government of the United States. A very short speech of a very short term, and so passed the Napoleon of Nebraska from public observation, returning to his home in Savannah, Missouri. TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. . 79 BIRD B. CHAPMAN. The second election for delegate to congress took place Novem ber 6, 1855, at which Bird B. Chapman received 380 votes and Hiram P. Bennet 292, according to the returns of the canvassing board. Mr. Bennet instituted a contest which resulted in the presentation of a resolution by the committee on elections de claring that Bird B. Chapman was not entitled to the seat.1 Each argued his side of the case before the committee, and in open session before the House of Representatives. In the house Mr. Stephens of Georgia specially championed the cause of the sitting member, while Washburn of Maine argued in favor of the contestant. It was a contest to reconcile serious irregularities and to eliminate from the count fraudulent votes. Of the two speeches in the house, Bennet's alone appears in the Globe. Mr. Bennet complained seriously that after the case had been closed before the committee, and each claimant had been so informed, ex parte testimony had been received and incorporated in the minority report: Mr. Speaker, I object to all ex parte testimony in the case, and I particularly object to the four ex parte affidavits upon which the minority report is based; and first, because it is ex parte; second, because it was never presented to the com mittee, only to the minority; and third, because it was not shown to me to exist till long after the majority report was printed. And again, because they were made by my political and personal enemies.. And fourth, I object to these affi davits because they contain misrepresentations, prevarica tion's, and falsehoods. My old enemy Sharp comes on here about the time the majority report was made; and after looking over all my printed testimony and the majority re port, and conning it over three or four weeks, he fixes up a state of facts just sufficient to carry his friend, the sitting 'Nebraska contested election case, 1856; Cong. Globe, 33 Cong., 1st sess., 476-477, 630, 641, 970, 1011, 1055-1056, 1196, 1688-1690, 1692, 1711-1715, 1729. SO NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. delegate, through, swears to it in a corner, and then takes good care to leave the city before it was possible for me to know what was done. The Hon. Geo. W. Jones, United States Senator from Iowa, having volunteered an endorsement of the veracity of Mr. Sharp, received the speaker's attention: It is true, this deponent was once a member of the Iowa legislature, and while there I believe he supported the elec tion of the Hon. Geo. W. Jones to the senate. Mr. Speaker, one good turn deserves another, and the senator comes to the rescue of his former constituent. The contestant seems, from the record, to have been neither a novice in debate, nor timid in attacks. Having parried several thrusts from the keen rapier of the mercurial Stephens, he ex claimed in a tone of exultation, "Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia has not quite got me yet." Of the sitting delegate, Mr. Chapman, he said: The gentleman alluded to his residence in the Territory of Nebraska. Now, I know, Sir, that that is mere clap trap talk; but as he has alluded to it I will answer it. He says when he went to the Territory, thus and so. He went to the Territory the year that the territorial government was organized. He was a candidate for Congress before he got there. He happened to be beaten very badly at the election and the next day after the election he went home to Ohio, and we saw nothing more of him. Yes, we — the squatters of Nebraska — saw nothing more of him until thirty-five days before the election of a delegate last No vember, when he came back into the Territory. He had to be there forty days to entitle him to vote. He was not a, voter, and did not vote at that election. Nevertheless, by getting all of the executive influence of the Territory in his favor he ran a, pretty good race; but I beat him. That is, I beat him before the people, but he beat me before the canvassers — all of whom were my personal and political enemies. One word further in reference to this matter. For the purpose of serving » notice upon the sitting delegate, that I intended to take testimony to use in the contest for his seat, I inquired of him last January, in that lobby, where his residence was. In truth he did not know where it was; and I could not serve a notice at his residence in the Terri- TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 81 tory because he had none there. It will be shown, in my further argument, that that fact worked a great hardship to me. It is a source of regret that the speech of Mr. Chapman does not appear in the Globe, as there is no way to restore the oratori cal equilibrium. On the final vote there were sixty-three mem bers of the house in favor of unseating Chapman, and sixty-nine opposed — so the contest failed. A resolution finally closed the case, on the 25th of July, 1856, allowing the retiring contestant mileage and per diem up to date. The allusions to Mr. Chap man's citizenship are corroborated in Nebraska history. Hon. J. Sterling Morton is reported as saying of the first election for delegate in Congress, December 12, 1854: Even in that early morning hour of the county our people exhibited a wonderful liberality in bestowing their franchises upon persons who had no interests in common with them, and who have never since been identified with the material development of this section of the world. Mr. Giddings resided then, as now, in Savannah, Missouri. Mr. Chapman was a citizen of Ohio, and never gained a residence in Nebraska, while Mr. Johnson was a denizen of Council Bluffs, Iowa. But as there were not to exceed twenty-five domiciles in Pierce County (now Otoe) at that time, nor more than fifty beds, it was always a mystery, — except to Col. John Bouleware and family, who then kept a ferry across the Missouri Biver, — where the 208 patriots came from who exercised a freeman's rights on that auspicious dawn in Otoe of the science of self government and the noble art of electioneering. In order to parry the point of this truthful charge, be it re membered that this was prior to legislation in Nebraska. Mr. Bennett had not only "come to stay," but was a member of the legislature from Otoe County in 1854 and again in 1859, and was justified in regarding Bird B. Chapman as a Bird of passage. 82 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. FENNER FERGUSON. Dec. 7, 1857' to Mar. 3. 1859. Fenner Ferguson, who was appointed Chief Justice October 12, 1854, was elected delegate to Congress August, 1857, and was sworn in upon the 7th day of December, 1857. On the 16th day of September, 1857, Bird B. Chapman, who had been a candidate for re-election, served notice of contest. It appears that there had been four candidates before the peo ple, and the votes were distributed as follows: Fen ner Ferguson, 1,642; Bird B. Chapman, 1,559; Benjamin P. Rankin, 1,241; John M. Thayer, 1,171. After one-half the time had elapsed for the taking of testimony, the contestant served notice November 14th, but the member elect had left the Terri tory for Y^ashington, D. C, the notice being left at his usual place of residence. At the time specified, testimony was taken in the absence of Ferguson or any one by him authorized to act. A person, however, did appear, and informed the contestant, that unless he was allowed to cross-question witnesses, certain Mormons would not testify for the contestant. If Chapman had inaugurated a game of delay, the tables were turned upon him, on the 3rd of December, when Silas A. Strickland, agent for Ferguson, left notice at Chapman's residence for the taking of testimony on the 14th of the month, Chapman being absent from the Territory. As a way out of these complications the committee on elections, April 21, 1858, reported a resolution to the House, to extend the time for taking testimony, which would virtually send the case over to the next session of Congress. That was passed by a vote of ninety-eight to eighty- five. Before this action of the House, January, 1858, the legislature of Nebraska passed joint resolutions, in the name of a large majority of the people, affirming belief in Mr. Ferguson's election and in his TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 83 "capacity, integrity, fidelity and incorruptibility," and indig nantly repelling all foul aspersions cast upon him, for the pur pose of prejudicing his right to a seat in Congress. The House of Representatives, feeling that the Nebraska legislature had overstepped the bounds of propriety by attempting to indicate their duty in settling the status of members, on motion, laid the resolutions on the table without printing. Accordingly, ad ditional testimony having been taken, the committee, by a majority, decided in favor of Mr. Chapman; which report was taken up in the House February 9, 1859. Mr. Wilson of Indiana said, in behalf of the contestant : "This whole case turns upon three precincts — Cleveland, Monroe, and Florence." There were but six voters residing in the Cleveland precinct and but five dwellings therein, and yet there were thirty-five votes cast, eighteen or twenty by persons erecting a hotel for the Cleveland Land Company, who voted for the sit ting member and whose votes the committee rejected. He charged, further, that in the Mormon precinct of Monroe, where there were forty Mormon voters, and only five other persons re siding there, the vote cast was eighty-seven, of which the sit ting member, Ferguson, received eighty-three, and contestant one. And that before the polls were formally opened forty votes had been cast, as a large number of men came there at two o'clock in the morning, voted and went away. He said : "In the Monroe precinct appear names which of themselves are prima facie evidence of fraud — Oliver Twist and Samuel Wel- ler." In the Florence precinct, 401 votes were returned, where the polls were kept open three hours later than allowed by law, of which 364 were for the sitting member and four for the con testant. One person voted four times and at least "one hundred persons were unknown to the oldest settlers." Mr. Washburn: "Was not that man whose testimony you refer to, accused of perjury?" Mr. Wilson: "Yes, but the man who accuses him is him self accused of murder." Mr. Wilson charged in addition that none of the officers in 84 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. these three precincts were sworn by a legal officer, as though they intended fraud from the very start. In justification of the committee's decision, he quoted many precedents for the rejec tion of votes, and though it was late in the Congress, eighteen months after the election, he demanded prompt action, and concluded: "Looking oyer the elections for the last few years in the Territories, it does seem to me that a certificate of election from a Territory has become almost prima facie evidence of a great fraud committed." The beautiful superstructure erected by the ingenuity of the gentleman from the state of Indiana was adroitly attacked by the wide-awake member from the state of Maine, Mr. Washburn : Mr. Speaker, not only is all this testimony ex parte (taken alone by one party), but a great part of it is composed of affidavits, sworn to before a notary public who, the gentle man says, has no right to administer an oath in the Ter ritory of Nebraska. And, Sir, there is not a single fact upon -which he relies for the material points in his case, but what as hearsay. There is not a single fact of importance touch ing the precincts of Florence and Monroe but what comes from the declarations of third parties. There is not a scintilla of testimony here which is not of that character; •whereas the rebutting testimony is that of witnesses who lived within the precinct, and who were sworn and cross- examined and stated facts within their knowledge. The sitting delegate did not see fit to rely upon the evidence of the runners and agents of the contestant, men who lived in Omaha and could know nothing- certain; but he went to Florence and to Monroe and to Cleveland where the facts transpired. He took the testimony of the men, of all others in the world, who knew exactly all the facts in the case. < In reply to Davis of Maryland, Mr. Washburn said: The gentleman piles up precedents as high as Olympus, but I will never receive hearsay testimony to affect the rights of parties. It is not law, it is not sense, and indeed, Sir, it is not good nonsense. [Laughter.] No man can stand upon it. I have known several persons of the surname of Twist and Weller. and 1 want the gentleman to inform me whether it is impossible, or even improbable, that among all the Twists there is not an Oliver, or among all the Welle.rs there is not a Samuel? [Laughter.] And if so, why TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 85 may they not be in Nebraska, as well as anywhere? [Laugh ter.] And I think the gentleman is getting himself into a twist very fast. [Laughter.] After Mr. Washburn had examined precedents and testimony, he was followed by Mr. Boyce of South Carolina, who stated that formerly the law in Nebraska did not close the polls at 6 p. m.; that the young men working at Cleveland Hotel building made their homes wherever they found work; that there were nearer one hundred than merely forty resident voters at Monroe and that fifteen votes were cast at Florence after six. o'clock. Many other members participated in the discussion, and when it was closed, "confusion so confounded" led to an effort to declare the seat vacant, and finally a compromise laid the whole subject on the table, leaving Ferguson in the chair; and the day before the session and Congress closed, a resolution passed awarding Chapman six thousand dollars, salary and mileage. Thus endeth the second contest. From the number of bills introduced and arguments made before the committees on Public Lands, Indian Affairs, Judi ciary, Public Buildings, and others, there is every reason to believe that the legislature did not overestimate the "capacity, integrity, and fidelity" of their delegate. 86 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. EXPERIENCE ESTABROOK. Oct. 11, 1859 (election) to May 13, 1860. Mr. Estabrook was born in 1813 in the state of New Hamp shire. At the age of forty-two years, in 1855, he settled in the Territory of Nebraska. He was a student of Dickinson College, Pa., and a law student of Chambersbung, in the same state. He graduated in 1839. His time was occupied as a clerk at the Brooklyn navy yard for a short time, as an attorney at Buffalo, N. Y., for one year, and fifteen years at Geneva Lake, Wisconsin. His elections were : Attorney General of Wisconsin, member of the Wisconsin legislature, and member of the Nebraska Constitutional Convention of 1871. His appointments were: Attorney General of Nebraska by President Pierce, 1855, and Commissioner for Codification of Laws of Nebraska, 1871. A good citizen and an honorable lawyer may become his epitaph. On tne 18th day of May, 1860, Mr. Campbell of Ohio, from the committee on elections, called up the following resolutions: Resolved, That Experience Estabrook is not entitled to the seat as delegate from the Territory of Nebraska to the Thirty-sixth Congress of the United States. Resolved, That Samuel G. Daily is entitled to the seat as delegate from the Territory of Nebraska to the Thirty-sixth Congress of the United States. This was a unanimous report, agreed upon alike by Democrats and Republicans. Mr. Estabrook belonged to the former and Mr. Daily to the latter party. The election had taken place on October 11, 1859. The canvassing board gave Mr. Estabrook 3,100 votes and Mr. Daily 2,800, or a majority for Estabrook of 300 votes. Of these 292 were reported coming from Buffalo County, but of that number 238 were cast in Kearney City which is not in the county of Buffalo. Mr. Campbell said: "The testi mony discloses the fact that there were not over eight houses, not over fifteen residents, and not one acre of cultivated land, or a TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 87 farm house in the neighborhood of Kearney City. Nor was Buffalo County organized." Therefore "the entire vote was rejected as illegal and spurious." All of the spurious votes were given to Estabrook and not one to Daily. The vote of Calhoun County was rejected because it was attached for voting purposes to Platte County, and though having only two families in the northwest and four in the southeast part, had returned thirty- two votes, twenty-eight for Estabrook and four for Daily. Mr. Campbell said: As to the vote of Izard County, the committee rejected the twenty-one votes cast for the sitting member, and the three cast for the contestant, as the entire vote purporting to have been polled in that county was a fraud, and that no such vote was ever polled. * * * If there had been any settlers there, if there had been one acre of cultivated land, if there had been a single voter in the county, if there had been an election precinct, and if there had been officers who held an election there, how easy it would have been for the sitting delegate, after full notice, to have brought one of these twenty-four voters, one of these election officers, to show that there was a settlement and that an election had been held and that there were votes cast in the county of Izard. In L'Eau-qui-Court County, 128 -votes were reported, all for Mr. Estabrook, while a member of the legislature swore that there were only from thirty to thirty-five votes in the county. The names of members of Congress were entered on the poll book as Howell Cobb and Aaron V. Brown, and two messengers who procured a copy of the poll book from the clerk were mobbed by parties who declared, "as they were parties to the fraud, they would never suffer any evidence of it to leave the county." These figures of 128 were reduced to sixty, and a majority of 119 votes were awarded to the contestant on a final adjustment of all the votes cast. In conclusion, Mr. Campbell said'. The learned and able members of the committee who are friends to the sitting delegate, — and I trust all the mem bers of the committee were disposed to do that which was simply right, — could not find in the case evidence enough to found a minority report on. 88 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Mr. Estabrook desired to make a motion to recommit the case to the committee. Mr. Campbell said: The motion which the gentleman is about to make has been made in the house once, and rejected there, or referred to the committee of elections, and argued and rejected there. Mr. Gartrell desired the sitting member should bave more time7 and said: I desire to say in justification to myself that while I voted in favor of ousting the sitting delegate and giving the seat to the contestant, I did so upon the ground that the record evidence before the committee disclosed that the contestant was clearly elected. I did not vote for ousting Mr. Esta brook with any idea that he or his friends in Nebraska had perpetrated any fraud. Finally, when Mr. Estabrook desired to speak more at length on some other day, and thought he could clear the Territory of charges of fraud, and admitted that "there always is irregularity on the frontier and you ought not to hold the frontiers of the country to the strict rules of law," the House desired him to close his remarks at that time. But when he declined to do so the final question was ordered, and Mr. Daily was sworn in on the 18th of May, 1860. That being the date of the convention that was to nominate Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Estabrook exclaimed, "I thank the House for making me a sacrifice to the gods of the Chicago convention." Thus endeth the third contest. TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 89 HON. SAMUEL G. DAILY. Samuel G. Daily of Indiana effected a settlement at Peru, Nemaha County, Nebraska, in 1857; and before the permanent organization of the Republican party in the Territory, was free to avow his utter hostility to the institution of American slavery. One year prior to this, the first National Republican Convention assembled in Philadelphia, Pa., and nominated for president John C. Fremont, and for vice-president William L. Dayton of New Jersey; while a remnant of the old Whig party nominated Ex-President Millard Fillmore of New York. Mr. Daily had thoroughly adopted the doctrines of the platform : That we deny the authority of congress or of a terri torial legislature, or of any individual or association of indi viduals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States while the present constitution shall be maintained. That the constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism — polygamy and slavery. Ready and willing to do all in his power in aid of these prin ciples, he was elected to the territorial legislature in 1858, and as a delegate in Congress contested the election of Mr. Estabrook in 1859. In 1860 he was a candidate for Congress, subsequent to Mr. Lincoln's nomination, and made a very thorough canvass of the Territory with Mr. Morton, his democratic opponent. In 1862 he succeeded in defeating Judge J. F. Kinney of Nebraska City, and closed a third term in Congress. On his retirement, Mr. Lincoln gave him the appointment of deputy collector of the port of New Orleans, where he died in September, 1865. 90 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. J. STERLING MORTON. Nov. 3, 1860 (certificate of election) to May 7, 1862 (cessation of privileges). Although his name was never entered on the rolls of the House of Representatives in Congress, the history of Nebraska and a manual published by the legislature in 1885 speak of him as elected to Congress. The contest in which he figured in the first session of the thirty-seventh Congress, was the most remark able in the past history of the government. He was then under thirty years of age, and already stood so high in the confidence of his party leaders that such men as Pendleton of Ohio, Voor- hees of Indiana, and Richardson of Illinois became his cham pions. The latter, who had been governor of Nebraska for one year, said of him : I know him; I will say of him that, of all the young men in the country, and I am familiar with a great many of them, he has the greatest intellect and the most promising future. I pass this compliment upon him; I have known him for years, and I have watched him well. Beyond the Ohio River there is not a brighter intellect. Gentlemen, you will hear of him hereafter; mark my words. And I will say of Mr. Daily — and I say it with pleasure — that he is a clever gentleman. He was a member of the leg islative assembly when I was governor of Nebraska Terri tory. I found him ready to support me at all times in the vindication of the law, and in everything calculated to con tribute to the welfare and prosperity of the country. I am not here, Mr. Speaker, to say one word offensive to him. But I do think that the American House of Representatives have committed an outrage in permitting the Governor of the Territory, in violation of his oath, in violation of his duty, and in violation of every trust reposed in him, to unseat a delegate, as has been done in this case. Mr. Daily had also the aid of true political friends. They had, in a previous Congress, ousted a Democrat and seated him, — the political excitement was intense, — and now that he came a TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 91 second time claiming the right to cast another garland upon the altar of the newly enthroned Republican divinity, the admiration was shared between the gift and the donor. They pointed to his superior skill in strategy, admired his bold aggressiveness, and held him not too rigidly to the rules of rhetoric or the amenities of debate. On the 9th day of October, 1860, the election for delegates took place. On the 3rd of November, 1860, a certificate of election was issued to J. Sterling Morton, declaring him as having re ceived the largest number of votes, and concluding, "this shall be the certificate of the said election as delegate to Congress, to the thirty-seventh Congress of the United States." The canvass of votes was made by the governor, chief justice, and district attorney, as required by law. Six months thereafter, unknown to the chief justice and attorney, without any re-canvass, or sending of it to the secretary of state for legal record, Governor Black issued a certificate of election to Mr. Daily, the opposing candidate, after Mr. Daily had months before been taking testi mony to contest Mr. Morton's right to the seat in Congress. The reason given for this act was, that fraudulent votes had been discovered to the amount of 122, the deduction of which from Morton's vote elected Daily. The governor enjoined secrecy upon Mr. Daily, saying that he owed Morton money, for which he was being hounded, and if made known his departure from the state might be obstructed. The second certificate, attempting to revoke the first, was dated April 29, 1861, and as there was an extra session of Con gress to commence July 4, 1861, that date would necessarily cause its publication. Mr. Daily stated to the House that, to avoid apparent undue secrecy when on his way east to Congress, he telegraphed an eastern paper of the fact of a new certificate. But Mr. Morton never saw the announcement; and arrived in Washington on the supposition that he was a member of Con gress. The former private secretary of Governor Black (March 4, 1862) having made an affidavit of his copying the Daily certifi cate for the governor, "after he (Black) had been removed from 92 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. the governorship of Nebraska and Alvin Saunders had been appointed," made an explanatory affidavit in the interests of Mr. Daily April 30, 1862, in which he said he only intended by the word removed to say that it was after his removal so far as the appointment of Governor Saunders removed him, but he was the governor up to the time he left the Territory. Not to be outdone by this flank movement, Mr. Morton showed, by a letter of the Secretary of the Interior, "that Mr. Pentland was appointed a temporary clerk in the general land office March 15, 1862, on the recommendation of Hon. S. G. Daily of Nebraska Territory," implying thereby that Pentland was under obliga tions to Mr. Daily. This was parried by the assertion that high government officials of Pennsylvania had recommended Mr. Pent land. When, in connection with the Daily certificate, it was asserted that Mr. Daily had purchased the horse and carriage of Governor Black, as though "one good turn deserved another," he admitted the purchase, but said he got them one hundred dollars ander their true cash value. On the subject of the second certificate of election, Mr. Morton said in opening his speech in the? House: He did this because he hated and desired to injure me. It was the vengeance of an assassin and » coward wreaked upon one who had, by loaning him hundreds of dollars, saved him and his family from shame and mortification, saved even their family carriage from public auction at the hands of the sheriff. Mr. Black owed me money and became indignant because I, after he had enjoyed for three years the use of a few hundred dollars, which he had borrowed to return in three days, pressed him for payment. How this revoked certificate got on the house roll was stated by Mr. Daily in answer to Voorhees of Indiana: I went to Col. Forney, then clerk of the House, presented my certificate to him, and told him to read it and to con sider whether it was proper or wrong; and if proper to put my name on the roll, and if wrong to put Mr. Morton's name on the roll. I told him Morton had another certifi cate, as he would see by the reading of mine; but when he read it, he said that a man who had been imposed upon by TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 93 fraud had a right to correct his own act, as he thought Black had done in this case. The first vote taken in this case was upon a motion to sub stitute the name of J. Sterling Morton for that of Samuel G. Daily, which was lost, and Mr. Daily was sworn in on the second day of the extra session, July 5th, 1861. The second vote involved a refusal to recognize Mr. Morton as a sitting member pending the contest, which carried the case over to the next session of Congress. As this was the fourth contest in succession from Nebraska, members were reluctant to enter upon its settlement, only that the two certificates for the same election gave it a novel char acter. It was the true policy of Mr. Morton to be respectful and conciliatory toward the majority, and hence he spoke of the mistake the House made in not allowing him to be sworn into the organization. But it was the policy of Mr. Daily to keep the majority in line, and hence his course of procedure to prejudice the House against his opponent. The war raging, and the very existence of the Union in peril, if the stigma of rebel could be attached to Mr. Morton's name, frauds against such an one would be hailed as blessings in disguise. But when Mr. Daily asserted that he had a letter from a Democrat, a captain in the army, who said Mr. Morton "sympathized with Southern traitors," Mr. Morton exclaimed: I have simply to say this, that towards the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress, when the nation itself seemed in the convulsions of dissolution, when, amid the roar and din of assembling armies, I heard the voice of the venerable gentle man of Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden) sounding calmly and grandly over and above all the terrible tumult, saying unto the waves of sectional strife, "Peace, peace, be still," I caught the words and echoed them even upon the far-off prairies of Nebraska. If that may have been disloyalty, then I am disloyal; if that may have been treason, I am proud to be called a traitor, — a Crittenden traitor. Mr. Daily: "Will the gentleman please close with prayer?" He would make no charges himself, but would send up the letter. Members declared it personal and not in order. 94 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Mr. Johnson : "I think the House has been sufficiently dis graced with this scene already, and I object to it." Each of the gentlemen was an adept at evasion and retort. In a running debate with Voorhees of Indiana, Mr. Daily ex claimed: While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return, and when Mr. Lovejoy said, "I feel bound to interpose in behalf of the scriptures," Mr. Daily, unabashed, continued: It is good doctrine anyway. It ought to be there -if it is not. I have read Watts and the Bible so much together that I sometimes mistake one for the other. [Laughter.] Now I would say further in regard to Governor Black, he was an appointee of Mr. Buchanan. The marshal and the secretary, Mr. Morton, were also Buchanan men. They were all Breck- enridge Democrats; and a large majority of them are now in the rebel army. But Mr. Black, when the national diffi culty arose, broke friendship with these old friends, and went back to his native town of Pittsburg where he raised a fine regiment, and we heard of him the other day as the first man to enter the enemy's works at Yorktown. Mr. Morton: I think he would have been the second man in, if there was as certain knowledge that there was whiskey there, as there was that there was no enemy there. Mr. Daily, knowing what a center thrust this was in the knowledge of all Nebraskans, and that the House was ignorant of its terrible point, indignantly answered, "That shows, Mr. Speaker, the character of men. I do not reply to it." Mr. Daily, having passed a pleasant eulogy upon a witness, whose character when attacked had been sustained by twenty of his neighbors, received the following from Mr. Morton: The cabinet of Jeff Davis could, I have no doubt, impeach the loyalty of this congress, cabinet, and president, and sub stantiate their own, before any tribunal in Richmond; the inmates of a penitentiary establish among themselves their purity and the wickedness of the outer world; and the little imps in Tartarus would attest the virtue of Satan and im peach the court of heaven that banished him, TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 95 Inasmuch as this contest was never decided on its merits, it matters but little that the analytic arguments of distinguished members should be omitted, and only a mere synopsis of those of the contestant and sitting member be given. The speech of Mr. Morton was first in order, and announced the consequence of the committee being bound by the prima facie action of the House : My conclusion must naturally and logically follow that the best manner to become a member of Congress with safety, security, and celerity, is not to become a candidate before the people at all, but quietly to go to the private residence of some governor of small means, easy virtue, and extravagant habits and purchase a certificate of election, being well assured that it is positively the last one to be issued, come here and secure the affections of the clerk of the House by some means, and if he is a bold man, and an anxious candidate for re-election, your name will be put upon the roll-call of the members and you will be sworn in, safely in, seated upon live oak and green morocco, to enjoy all the honors and perquisites arising therefrom, for the period of two years. Taking up the case of L'Eau-qui-Court county, where one hundred twenty-two votes were thrown out of his count, on the testimony of four witnesses, Mr. Morton referred to evidence in which Mr. Westerman said that in consideration of the testi mony which they were to give in behalf of Samuel G. Daily, "I agreed to pay W. W. Walford one hundred dollars and Heck fifty dollars." He further showed that, in a case in Dakota Territory, subsequently, this same Westerman gave as a reason why the witness Walford should not' be believed upon oath, that he was a hired witness in Nebraska; and of the fourth one, Cox, he said, "He tendered his services to me as an itinerant witness, but I declined to negotiate, and within a week he turned up as a witness for Mr. Daily." When it was charged that the vote of the county for him was greater than the whole population, he showed that since the election a part of the county had been set off to the Territory of Dakota, and a new census taken. Of twenty votes denied him 96 NEBRASKA STATE HISTOEICAL SOCIETY. in Monroe precinct, Platte County, because some were of citizens ' upon a reservation, he claimed they were, nevertheless, citizens of Nebraska, and such residents had been entitled to vote in the nearest adjacent precinct, by a recent legislative enactment. Of thirty-nine votes from Buffalo County, he claimed that the sworn records of the county showed organization and hence the vote valid. In Rulo precinct, Richardson County, where ninety votes were cast for Morton and the committee deducted twenty for want of residence in the precinct, he claimed that custom allowed them to vote in any precinct where they might be on the day of election, and further said: Perceive that while they are painfully careful to deduct twenty votes from me, they are felicitously forgetful of the nine votes which they admit should be deducted from those returned for Mr. Daily. Falls City precinct returned one hundred and four votes for Mr. Daily. The ballot box, unsealed, was for hours in the hands of a person out of the possession or sight of the election board. It is proved, too, handfuls of ballots were taken out of the box by a political friend and supporter of Mr. Daily's and others put in their place by the same person. The whole 104 votes returned from Falls City should be thrown out. If L'Eau-qui-Court is thrown out the former certainly must be. If both go out, I am elected. Mr. Noble of Ohio: Mr. Speaker, I have been acquainted with that judge and his associates a great while. Where they lived before they went there, they would neither be believed on oath, nor be entrusted with anything. I could relate instances of fraud above anything I ever knew, during an active practice of over twenty years. Mr. Morton presented in evidence an act of the Nebraska legislature, since the commencement of the contest, legalizing the first organization of Pawnee County, and claimed that he lost thirty-nine votes in Buffalo County on a charge of non- organization, while in a county of the same condition, his opponent gets one hundred of a majority. He claimed that the law was not observed in Clay and Gage counties and in the J. STERLING MORTON, 1896. TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 97 precincts of Otoe and Wyoming in Otoe County, and that the elerks of Dodge, Cass, Nemaha, Lancaster, Johnson and Wash ington made no abstract of votes, as the law required, and the minority report claimed they should be thrown out. He argued in conclusion, that to enforce the law as it had been construed against himself, would reduce Mr. Daily's vote two hundred and ninety -four. Mr. Morton concluded: "Thanking the House for its courteous attention, I submit the case for its determina tion." As L'Eau-qui-Court county was the objective point of attack, Mr. Daily approached it promptly: Knowing the means that they would resort to, while going through the canvass with the contestant, I said to him that I did not expect to get the certificate; I said to him that these officials will manage affairs so that when it is ascer tained how many, they will bring from some place nobody has heard of before, votes enough to elect you. Sure enough it turned out as I predicted. Neither the contestant nor I had ever heard of this northern precinct of L'Eau-qui-Court county; but it was from that precinct that a vote of one hundred twenty-two came in, all for the contestant, and sufficient to elect him. But, how, let me ask, were those one hundred twenty-two votes counted? They were counted contrary to law; they were counted contrary to the evidence before the territorial canvassers. Now how did the terri torial canvassing board know that there was any vote of that kind? Because the county clerk had stated to them that such a return had been presented to and rejected by him; and because he rejected it they counted it. [Laughter.] There is a return included here, called Cottonwood Springs, some ninety miles beyond Fort Kearney, of some seventy votes for Mr. Morton, which I did not go to the trouble of proving fraudulent, because I had enough to do to make out my case without. I now dare him to go back npon that issue (of fraud) to the Territory and I will show, beyond a doubt, that his certificate was obtained, counted, and this return, which wias no return, counted, without which the certificate could not have been given, by means of bribery, that the certificate was caused to be made out by the appliances of bribery. Mr. Morton: I understand the sitting delegate to say that he is willing 98 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. upon these certificates to go again before the people of Ne braska and try the contest there. I am willing to accept that proposition. Mr. Daily: No, Sir; at the next election in that Territory I will con sent to that trial again: I am speaking simply of these cer tificates, which, 1 repeat, have nothing whatever to do with the merits of the case. Mr. Daily stated that the witnesses, who received $150 for coming to Omaha to testify, traveled two hundred fifty miles and were over sixty days making the trip. He claimed that Morton had votes counted for him in Platte County, from the Indian Reservation, by men who took the oath on the condition that the Reservation was found to be in Monroe precinct. As the chairman of the committee was to close the debate in behalf of Mr. Daily, it allowed the sitting delegate to disport himself at will among the multitudinous questions raised during the discussion. My friends are very impatient, and I must hurry to a con clusion. There are a great many things with regard to this case which I would take delight in talking about, because I tell you that it reeks with the greatest fraud, and chican ery, and trickery that ever was concocted in the darkest hours of the night amid the infernal regions below, or that ever could be concocted by Democratic officials under James Buchanan to carry the day in the territory, right or wrong. [Much laughter.] Mr. Voorhees: Inasmuch as this line of remark is indulged in, I shall say to gentlemen upon the opposite side of the house, that with this country filled and reeking from side to side with frauds committed by high officials of the present adminis tration, it comes with a bad grace from them to say one word about frauds that have been committed in times, past. Mr. Daily: Oh, I hope these frauds are not to be brought into this case. God knows there was enough fraud in the Nebraska case on the part of the contestant without bringing in all the frauds about horse contracts. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am constrained out of mercy for the house, so Jong bored by this case, to close this argument. TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 99 Following the closing speech of Mr. Daus, on motion of Mr. \ Washburn, a friend of Mr. Daily, the whole subject was laid upon the table by a vote of sixty-nine to forty-eight. So the contest was never decided, but Mr. Daily held the seat under the second certificate. The privileges of Mr. Morton ceased May 7, 1862. 100 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. HON. P. W. HITCHCOCK.1 Into the political campaign of 1864, as republican candidate for delegate in Congress, Mr. Hitchcock entered unconditionally and hopefully. No man went beyond him in an endorsement of Mr. Lincoln's sublime prophecy that, "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our natures." Having been a delegate to the convention and voted for Mr. Lincoln's first nomination, and having heartily approved his official acts, and under his appointment acted as United States marshal for four years, it became more than a mere pleasure, a positive duty, to advocate his re-election. The Democratic candidate was General George B. McClellan, a splendid officer and pure patriot, who had been deemed too slow by the radical Republicans and too conspicuous for the scheming politicians. After the asperity of the war was subsid ing Ben: Perley Poor, a Republican author, said of him: "General McClellan, who was then eulogized as a second Napoleon, soon found himself -'embarrassed' by men who feared that he might become president if he conquered peace." He was also im pressed with this presidential idea by pretended friends who had fastened themselves upon him, and "between two stools he fell to the ground." All state or territorial politics were overshadowed in the canvass and national issues predominated. Mr. Hitchcock was elected delegate to Congress by a majority of one thousand, while Lincoln's majority in the United States, of the popular vote, was 407,342, and of the electoral college over McClellan, was 191. Ten states were in revolt and not represented. 1 For more personal details of the life of Mr. Hitchcock, see pub. Nebr State Hist Soc, first series, vol. I., pp. 100-103. ' TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 101 The circumstances attending the advent of Mr. Hitchcock in public life, as a delegate in Congress, were monumental as to eras, marking the returning shadows of slavery, and the dawn ing glories of universal freedom. The hour in which he re sponded to the roll-call of "Nebraska," the newly elected Speaker of the House emphasized the living contrast: The Thirty-eighth Congress closed its constitutional ex istence with the storm-cloud of war still lowering over us; and, after a nine month's absence, Congress resumes its leg islative authority in these council halls, rejoicing, that from shore to shore, in our land, there is peace. But the fires of civil war have melted every fetter in the land and proved the funeral pyre of slavery, and the stars on our banner, that paled when the states they represented arranged themselves in arms against the nation, will shine with a more brilliant light of loyalty than ever before. In the membership of the House was an infusion of the best young blood of the nation. The "Plumed Knight" of Maine, James G. Blaine; Roscoe Conklin, the gorgeous, of New York; the sauve and well-poised Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania; the scholarly James A. Garfield, of Ohio; the chivalrous N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts; with a long list of compeers, challeng ing their pre-eminence, and holding the scales of decision in equal balance. Under the wig and upon the crutch came Thad- deus Stephens, the invincible old commoner of Pennsylvania, wielding the war club of leadership in the style of a Cromwell; while bearing the motto, "The pen is mightier than the sword," came Brooks of New York, editor, orator, and statesman. It matters not that a delegate in Congress may be of finished education, devoted to principles, profound in the science of government and used to intellectual sparring in stormy debate, yet he is barred from national themes and confined to narrow and material lines of territorial wants. But if of studious habits and sound morals, and making each opportunity a stepping- stone to future elevation, the confined position of delegate will not prevent the acquisition of valuable material for use in the Senate or House of Representatives. The legislature of 1865-6 charged Mr. Hitchcock with the 102 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. presentation of memorials asking for bounty lands for Nebraska volunteers, and the same aid for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad as that accorded to the Union Pacific, and land grants for railroads west from Nebraska City and Brownville. Also for reimbursement of expenses incurred in suppressing Indian hostilities; and for numerous mail routes. In the first session of the thirty-ninth Congress, of his own motion, he presented bills for the creation and construction of a penitentiary, and for the finishing of the capitol building; asked that internal revenue from Nebraska might be ap propriated. To faciliate emigrant travel anfr secure a western outlet for Nebraska productions, he presented a bill for a wagon road from Columbus to Virginia City, Montana. To save the people from frauds of irresponsible corporations and heartless cormorants he presented and advocated before the appropriate committee a petition for "just and equal laws" respecting inter state insurances. When terror-stricken emigrants fled before the murderous and thieving forays of Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux, their claims for remuneration and protection were met by an anticipating effort. With a firm faith in the future of the great west and its com mercial demands, the Missouri river ready for heavy transporta tion, and an indomitable enterprise promising to make the beautiful central prairie state the railroad checkerboard of the nation, he early advocated Omaha and Nebraska City for posts of delivery. Bills for a geological survey and for government buildings at Nebraska City were deemed advisable, in order that concealed treasures might be disclosed, and for the accom modation of United States courts, revenue office and postal department. In summing up the results of the first session of the thirty- ninth Congress, the United States statutes disclose the follow ing state of facts : . Bills passed establishing sixteen post routes ; for surveying public lands, $25,000 appropriated; for territorial expenses, $26,500; and as much of $45,000 as the secretary of war shall deem necessary to reimburse the territory for ex- TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. 103 penses incurred in the suppression of Indian hostilities in 1864; and for the removal of the surveyor general's office of Wisconsin and Iowa to Plattsmouth, Nebraska. There was also found due and appropriated for Indian tribes in Nebraska, under treaties, over $100,000. Inasmuch as the closing session of the thirty-ninth Congress, closing Mr. Hitchcock's term, was to be one of three months only, and as the senator and delegate from Nebraska were awaiting admission, but little business was pressed upon the dele gate ; and he returned from the position three days before* the end of his term, while the proclamation of the president, extinguishing the taper of the Territory, unveiled the star of the State. During that second session, however, the record shows the passage of an act allowing an annual appropriation of internal revenue, for three years, aggregating $40,000 for penitentiary buildings, $15,000 for land surveys, and an allowance for a geological survey, with $31,500 for legislative expenses. In his argument before the various house committees on lands, Indian affairs, pensions, claims, post offices, appropriations, commerce, agriculture and territories, as well as in his intercourse with fellow members, he manifested good capacity, liberal acquire ments, commendable devotion to duties, with gentility of deport ment. From the remembrance of their college days, it was no matter of astonishment when Garfield met him in the house, and subsequently, Ingalls in the senate. CHAPTER III. THE STATE GOVERNORS. GOVERNOR DAVID BUTLER. David Butler, first governor of the state of Nebraska, was born in the state of Indiana near Bloomington, Monroe County,. December, 1829. At that time in the west educational facilities were so very indifferent that farmers' sons were doomed to enter public life, very generally developed more by application to severe toil and the treasures of personal experience, than by technical scholastic culture. Whether superintendent of a Wisconsin stock farm before of age, or assuming the charge of a large family and an embarassed estate on the death of his father, or coining out of the financial crisis of 1857 with "an inheritance of loss," he was prepared for new ventures and future encounters. Arriving in Nebraska in 1858, still a young man, little did he suppose that in eight years' time he would be enrolled among the executives of states. Engaging in mercantile pursuits in Pawnee City and in raising and dealing in live stock, he was soon established as a persever ing and successful man of business. Efficiency and prominence soon marked him for a leader, and prior to his nomination for governor he had served three years in the legislature. According to the provision of the state constitution, the first session was to convene on the Fourth of July, 1866; and tc this body was delivered the first message of the first governor of the new state. As this period marks an era in our political existence, it may not be inappropriate to present it in full: Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives: In ac cordance with a time-honored custom, that reaches back to the beginning of our national existence, I assume the (104) DAVID BUTLEE. STATE GOVERNORS. 105 privilege of addressing the first senate and house of repre sentatives, chosen by the popular will, since Nebraska was elected to take her rank as one of the sovereign states of the Union. The position in which we stand to-day is pecu liar to our national economy, and affords an instructive comment upon the character of our institutions and their adaptation to the needs of a progressive people. While in a territorial condition, we have, necessarily, been depend ent upon the general government for social and civil pro tection, for the appointment of our executive and judicial officers, and for annual appropriations to defray the ex penses of a territorial government. Now that the rapid increase of our population and the proportional develop ment of our resources have given us sufficient strength and stability to dispense with the temporary guardianship afforded by the Organic Act while passing our minority in the family of the Union, we propose, quietly and peaceably, in accordance with numerous precedents afforded by other states, and in response to the invitation extended to us by an act of Congress of 1864, commonly called the Enabling Act, to take upon ourselves the responsibility of state gov ernment. The auspices under which we ask, at the door of Con gress, for admission into the Union, are extremely favorable to our future happiness and prosperity. The tide of imrni- g-ration, checked for a season by the disturbing influences of the great civil war, is again pouring with increased mo mentum over the western banks of the Missouri, and now, although a year has scarcely elapsed since the close of the rebellion, our population has probably increased one-third; our prairies have been taken up with unexampled rapidity by enterprising- settlers, and herds of cattle and fields of luxuriant grain change, as if by magic, the solitary wilder ness to the appearance of civilization. The question of state government, as it has been submit ted to the people, has not been sprung precipitately upon them. No exception can with propriety be taken to the manner in which it has been brought before them. It has been thoroughly discussed; first by the territorial legis lature that drafted the constitution, then by the press and by the people at large, and the result of the vote upon the state constitution evinces that a majority of the people of Nebraska deliberately prefer the rights and privileges appertaining to a state to the more imperfect organiza tion of a territory. The objection to the admission of Ne braska by Congress, on the ground of a scanty population, cannot be urged with any appearance of consistency. At 106 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. the time of the passage of the "Enabling Act" by Con gress in 1864, the population of Nebraska was estimated at 38,000. As no accurate census has been taken since that time, the exact increase cannot be stated, but from the returns of the assessment of 1865, from the great influx of immigration during- the fall of 1865, and the spring of 1866, and from the number of votes cast in the recent election, sufficient data are presented to estimate, with probable ac curacy, that it will not, by the time Congress can take action upon the question of her admission, fall short of 70,000. This, so far from being below the standard of new states, is really above the average. That it will be any grievance to the older states in the Union to give Nebraska a greater representation in Congress than is prescribed by law, is an evident fallacy. In apportioning representatives to other states, although a population of 120,000 is required for each member, yet several of the states have each a rep resentative in Congress for a fractional part of the stated number, often less than the population of Nebraska. In addition to this, it will be found, upon reference to the census returns of the different states, that not only have the majority of them been admitted before their population was up to the standard of representation, from time to time increased by Congress, but in at least one case (that of Florida) a state has been represented for years, upon the congressional floors, by two senators and one representa tive, that has not at this moment a population exceeding that of Nebraska, and which has never in its history meas ured up to the legal standard. That the people of Nebraska and of all the territories, now or to be organized, would suffer injustice were it requisite to the admission of a state that she should have the number of inhabitants required for a representative is evident, not only from the foregoing statements, but from the guarantees given them in the treaty by the provisions of which Louisiana was ceded by France to the United States in 1803, and which embraces nearly all the states admitted since the treaty was made, and the present western territories, with the exception of those ceded by Mexico. In the third article of that treaty we find the following language, than which nothing can be more explicit and clear: "The inhabitants of the ceded terri tories shall be incorporated in the union of the United States, and be admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal Constitution, to the enjoyments . of all the rights and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of all their liberty, prop- STATE GOVERNORS. 107 erty and the religion which they profess." Now, what is meant by the expression "as soon as possible, according to the principles of the constitution," if it is not to be inter preted, as soon as their wealth and population shall be suf ficient to support a state government? It could not have been in contemplation that an inexorable sliding scale should be established, increasing from time to time, to keep pace with the development of older- communities, to which ¦each new territory must measure up or be kept out from her right of representation and self-government. If the people of the Atlantic states could support their respective state governments with population ranging, in some instances, considerably less than that of our terri tory, then it reasonably follows that the time contemplated in the treaty, specified by this somewhat emphatic expres sion, "as soon as possible," has arrived for the state of Ne braska. While it is a subject of regret that the majority for the constitution was so small, ^et an impartial examination into the causes that tended to decrease it will do away with most of the significance that might be attached to that •circumstance. Nebraska, while sending her full quota of volunteers to the national army for the suppression of the rebellion, contributed very little in the way of direct taxa tion for the prosecution of the war. While most of the states were obliged to offer large bounties to induce enlist ments, we were wholly exempt from such burdens, and the close of the war found us neither impoverished by heavy taxes nor weighed down with a heavy debt. The ad vantage thus enjoyed by our tax-payers over those of other sections, though really adventitious, carried great weight as an argument in favor of a territorial Jiorm of govern ment to minds not accustomed to study much the sci ence of political economy. Another argument used against the constitution was of a very different nature, and was iound in the instrument itself, in the clause denning the extent of the elective franchise. But this vexed question seems now about to be placed beyond the reach of agita tion by an amendment of the constitution of the United States which has already passed Congress, and now awaits the ratification of two-thirds of the states, which in due •course of time will permanently settle the political status of the African. Within the last two years the wealth of the territory has increased with even greater rapidity than the population. In 1864 the taxable property of Nebraska was returned as $11,000,000; in 1865 at $13,000,000. This year the returns already filed in the auditor's office indicate a total of 108 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. $18,000,000. The same ratio of increase will give us in 1867" the sum of $35,000,000; but taking into consideration the unprecedented increase of emigration, and the large amount of capital introduced by the rapid progress of our internal* improvements, it will be safe to estimate the amount of taxable property in 1867 at upward of $40,000,000. The railroad interests of Nebraska are assuming large proportions. The work upon the main line of the Pacific Railroad is progressing at the rate of one mile per day, and in a few weeks the track of iron will extend two hund red miles west to Fort Kearney. If the same energy shall be displayed till its completion, but a short time will elapse- ere it will wind its way beyond our western boundary. This road completed, together with the various connecting- branches, now in contemplation, or in process of construc tion to unite lis with the great eastern roads and the gulf" of Mexico, we shall have abundant facilities for transport ing our surplus products to the eastern, southern and west ern markets. The importance of the early completion of" these highways of commerce is not overlooked by our enter prising people, and must be felt even by a casual observer who should to-day cross our broad fields, where the cattle graze upon a thousand prairies, and the earth seems op pressed by the burden of ripening grain. Measures have been recently taken in several counties for the development of our mineral resources, and the present indications are that coal exists in inexhaustible quantities in Nebraska- It cannot be long in the natural order of things before the attention of capitalists will be directed to our mines and coal will in good time fill the breach caused by our tem porary scarcity of timber. To a community so comparatively wealthy as our own the burdens of a state government must be light; and when we take into the account the inevitable impetus to be given to- emigration and the introduction of capital by the adoption of a state constitution, we can but come to the conclusion- that financially we shall be upon a much better basis ir± 1867 with a state organization than in 1866 as a territory. The duties of the present legislature, though important,. will not probably occupy much time nor entail very much upon the treasury in the way of appropriations. Until the seal of legality is placed upon'its records by our admission and consequent recognition by Congress, its action should be limited to the business actually necessary to put in mo tion the machinery of state. The election of United States senators, who shall, in conjunction with our congressional representative, present our petition at Washington, is of STATE GOVERNORS. 109 •course the first and most important step. That your coun sels will be guided by wisdom and patriotism, the fact that you come fresh from the people, to whom the issues of the day have been presented with distinctness and ability, seems to afford the strongest pledge. The amendment to the Constitution of the United States, recently passed by Congress, and submitted to the action of the several states, to which I have incidentally referred, should, in my opinion, be acted upon during the present session. It is the embodiment of the reconstruction policy of Congress— a policy long considered and carefully di gested, and which is apparently the wisest, the most ex pedient, and the most conformable to the spirit of our Institutions, of any that has been suggested, or that can be adopted. It gives a promise of an early solution to the main questions that have threatened the national life, and if fully carried out in letter and spirit, will, as I think, restore harmony and concord to the national councils and reaffirm in our Constitution the fundamental principles •enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal. It is not necessary for me to enter into the particulars of the amendment at present, as I shall take an early opportunity to communicate it to _your honorable body. Financially I am able to report the territory in a healthy -condition. The light debt incurred by us during the Indian troubles, in defending our frontiers, forms the extent of our liabilities. Congress will, doubtless, in accordance with •established precedents, reimburse us for our expenditures in calling out the militia against the Indians, as soon as our just claim shall have been properly represented. To these facts, and especially to the financial tact and energy of our present territorial administration, are we indebted for the gratifying fact that our bonds will bring in the market ninety-seven cents on the dollar. In this respect we have radvantages not often possessed by a new state, and which will tend to alleviate any additional burdens that the ¦change in our form of government may impose. There has never been in our history a finer prospect for an abundant harvest than at present. He who sends the "early and latter rain" has blessed us most abundantly, and to Him should our hearts go forth in gratitude for His many mer- ¦cies. We believe that the time is not far distant when the prod ucts of our soil shall make our name familiar in the com mercial marts of the farthest clime — when our prairies Lshall be dotted with comfortable dwellings and tracts of 110 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. growing timber, from the Missouri to the mountains, and when our churches and schoolhouses, greeting each other from every eminence, shall be the index of the intelligence and moral worth of our citizens. That the future of Ne braska will give a glorious fruition as the reward of our sanguine hopes, is my firm trust and is the prayer of every good citizen and patriot. This session, of eight days' duration, resulted in the election of United States senators, as follows: Thomas W. Tipton hav ing been nominated as a republican, and J. Sterling Morton as a democrat, twenty-nine votes having been cast for the former, and twenty-six for the latter, Thomas W. Tipton was declared duly elected. And twenty-nine votes having been cast for John M. Thayer, and twenty-six for Andrew J. Poppleton, John M. Thayer was also declared duly elected a senator. On the fourth day of April, 1867, the governor issued his proc lamation for a session of the legislature to convene on the six teenth of May ensuing, and specified thirty-one subjects for its special consideration, in order to accelerate the transition from the territory to the state; while to this called session he delivered a very exhaustive message explanatory of the necessity of a special session. Among other things introductory he said: No state has ever entered the Union under more favor able auspices than our own. Practically free from debt, our credit is sound, and our resources entirely available for present and future needs. Our facilities for communication with the east and south have been greatly increased during the past year, and the Rocky Mountains and shores of the Pacific are rapidly drawing near to us, as the construction train of- the Union Pacific makes its daily progress west ward. The tide of immigration, that at the close of the rebellion commenced to pour over our borders, has experi enced no abatement, but has continued, with accelerated speed, to people our fertile prairies with hardy pioneers, and to contribute the necessary labor and capital for the development of our latent wealth. The conclusion was as follows: Gentlemen, I cannot conclude without expressing a hope tha*t in all your deliberations the spirit of harmony and mutual forbearance, so necessary to the preservation of the STATE GOVERNORS. Ill dignity of a legislative body, may be carefully preserved— that every measure brought up for your consideration may meet with unprejudiced and unimpassioned examination — that our new state, through your wisdom and prudence, may inscribe upon the opening pages of its history a record un sullied by the petty, yet bitter, warfare of local interests, and that every member of your body may bear in perpetual remembrance that he owes not merely a duty to the partic ular section that he represents, but that Nebraska, as an integral state, now calls upon him for the unselfish service of his head and heart. Rendering in all sincerity our hum ble acknowledgments to the Giver of all good, for our pres ervation and protection as a people, since the date of our organization as a territory, uniting with our sister states in gratitude to Him for His guidance of the American Re public, through the tempest of treason and armed rebellion, to the haven of peace and renewed prosperity, let us sol emnly join in an invocation to the same Almighty Power, for the continuance of his fostering care— that our soil may ever yield its bounteous harvest to the intelligent toil of the husbandman, and that the peaceful conquests of com merce and mechanical skill may be as enduring as the truth of the great principle of universal freedom, which forever assures them of victories. On the 27th and 28th days of October, 1868, a special session of the legislature was holden at Omaha for the appointment of presidential electors, of which the governor said: In consequence of the recent admission of Nebraska to the Union, the time prescribed for the regular session of the legislature has not arrived. Since the admission of the state you have once convened by the call of the executive. At that time your attention was directed to the many im portant questions, growing out of the change in our do mestic government, which were pressing upon us for im mediate action. You have therefore been called together at this time to make such provision for the appointment of electors of president and vice-president of the United States of America as you in your wisdom shall deem best. This business being accomplished, Mr. Majors, since lieutenant governor, offered the following resolution: Resolved, By the senate and house of representatives con curring, that we respectfully, but earnestly, urge upon the next president of the United States, General U. S. Grant, 112 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. the appointment of the Honorable John M. Thayer in his cabinet; who will, by his long residence on the frontier, and his acquaintance with the resources and developments of the West, and with the necessities of the people, be en abled to advance the interests and prosperity of this great and growing country. Mr. Freeman moved to strike out "General Grant" and insert "Horatio Seymour," which was lost, and the resolution adopted. An act having passed the legislature, July, 1867, "for the loca tion of the seat of government of the state of Nebraska, and for the erection of public buildings thereat," the governor, the secre tary of state, and auditor, being the commissioners to perform said duty, did, on the 29th day of July, 1867, establish the capital at the village of Lancaster, on grounds including state lands and the old surrendered town site of Lancaster. And thus the sale of town lots inured to the financial benefit of the state, hav ing amounted to $76,715 during the. first year thereafter. The commissioners whose names were thus identified with Lincoln as state capital, were Governor David Butler, Thomas P. Ken- nard, Secretary of State, and John Gillespie, State Auditor. The new seat of government was made prominent, in the gov ernor's message of January 8th, 1869: This commodious and well appointed hall, these substan tial walls, this entire beautiful edifice, this enterprising and thrifty town, sprung, within the last eighteen months, from the open prairie and to-day contributing, directly and indirectly, to the prosperity of an area of more than ten thousand square miles, this has been accomplished without cost to the state or individuals. It has contributed to the enrichment of both. It has added to the wealth of the state not less than five millions of dollars. Nor have the public benefits been yet fully measured. I would, in this connec tion, recommend that provision be made for the sale of the remaining lots. So much of the proceeds as may be neces sary for that purpose should be appropriated to the con struction of the dome, included in the original design of this building, and the fencing and ornamenting of the grounds, and the remainder to the erection of a building for state university and ag-rieultural college. The grounds upon which the old state house stands were given by the citizens of Omaha to be used by the territory STATE GOVERNORS. 113 for the erection thereon of the state capitol. In addition to this, the city gave toward the completion of the building $30,000 in bonds, which have been redeemed. On the fourth of March next, the state will have removed from them all its movable property and have ceased to oc cupy them for the purpose originally designed. I recom mend that they be granted to the city of Omaha for a high school on the condition that when they shall no longer be used for that purpose they shall revert to the state. Recurring to the above subject, in his message of January 6th, 1871, we have: By the provisions of "An act to provide for the sale of unsold lots and blocks on the town site of Lincoln, and for the location and erection of a state university, and agricul tural college, and state lunatic asylum," approved February 15th, 1869, the commissioners were authorized to sell all the unsold lots and blocks on the town site of Lincoln; to con struct the dome of the capitol building; to erect a state lunatic asylum at a cost of $50,000, and a state university and agricultural college at a cost of $100,000. "On the 8th of November (1870) the [asylum] building was formally ac cepted, and on the 1st of December completely furnished and ready for the reception of patients. Orders were issued and the patients from the Iowa Hospital and the different jails throughout the state, in all numbering over thirty, removed to the asylum, where they are now receiving the best care. The message of 1871 made mention of the State University: This institution, established on a broad basis, and liber ally endowed by your predecessors, is not as yet open for the reception of students. The board of regents have been appointed and organized, and have taken some steps prelim inary to the selection of the faculty. Our university building is a source of pride to the citizens of our state, and is a model not only in architectural beauty, but in its internal arrangements, and its adaptation to the purposes for which it is designed. Let me express the hope that the legislature may always be ready to foster its inter ests by wise legislation. Having presented the necessity of a state prison in his official communication of 1869, that of 1871 reported progress: The legislature, recognizing this necessity, made provis ion for the erection of a penitentiary, on lands previously 9 114 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. set apart for that purpose, about three miles south of Lin coln, and also for the sale of lands donated to the state, by the general government, to aid in the construction of such an institution. The contract for building the peniten tiary was awarded to Messrs. Stout and Jamison, at a con tract price of $307,950. They are executing their work in a manner alike creditable to themselves and the state. The labor of the convicts is hired to them at the rate of forty- two cents per day, for each convict who is able to work. I am pleased to notice that under the present arrangement the condition of the prisoner is in every respect much im proved. No such an amount of responsibility had been cast upon any previous governor, as to the material interests of the people of Nebraska. Butler's term of occupancy might properly be called , the creative period of the state. Immigration was to be induced and fostered by all practicable means, education provided for their descendants, penal laws enacted for their protection from the vicious, and a state militia for safety from savages; con stitutions framed, amended and adapted to constantly varying necessities; a capital city established as the home of the state, and so located as to become a great railway center. The wisdom of the location, and the general acceptability of administration, had to extinguish early prejudice and vindicate the propriety of original design. The financial statement as given in the message of 1871, re ported a balance in the treasury of $77,886. Said he: I am pleased to note that the material wealth of the state has been rapidly increasing. The assessed valuation of 1868 was about $32,000,000. That of 1870 was over $53,000,000, thus showing the gratifying increase of $21,000,000 in two years. The document concluded: Invoking for your deliberation the guidance and blessing of Him who controlleth all things, I express the hope that your session may be productive of the highest public good, and honor to yourselves. At the time of his first election, in 1866, Governor Butler, re publican, had a majority of 145 votes over J. Sterling Morton, STATE GOVERNORS. 115 democrat. In 1868 his majority over J. R. Porter, democrat, was 2,227. In 1870 the majority over John H. Oroxton was 2,478. But in this, his third campaign, charges were made against him of great irregularities in administering the school fund of the state. His political friends claimed that no harm could come to the state from a re-election, as the legislature would be republi can, and they would examine the case and do justice in the premises. Accordingly, by the sixth day of March, 1871, eleven articles of impeachment were presented by the house of repre sentatives, to the senate as a Court of Impeachment, one of which charged Governor David Butler with having appropriated to his own use $16,881.26 of school fund, derived from the general government, and that "in this he had committed and was guilty of a misdemeanor in office." To all the articles he interposed specific denials, and affirmed the borrowing of the school fund and the placing on file a mortgage to secure the same about the first of January, 1871, which would be three years after the arrival of the money in the state treasury. Three months after the convening of the court (June 1, 1871) he was found guilty of "a misdemeanor in office," and the sen tence was that he be removed therefrom. The managers of im peachment were Honorables J. C. Myers, J. E. Doon and Dr. Forest Porter. Honorables Clinton Briggs, John J. Reddick and T. M. Marquette were counsel for the defendant. On the day preceding the rendering of the decision the gov ernor presented to the speaker of the senate a proposition for settlement as follows, but as the Court of Impeachment had no control of a settlement it proceeded to decide upon a "misde meanor in office" : To the Honorable, the President of the Senate: I take the liberty, on the re-assembling of your honor able body, to communicate with you upon the subject of the five per cent. fund. Early in the spring of 1868, soon after the collection of that fund, I made a loan of the state of the sum of $16,881.26, and afterwards amply secured the same by bond of mortgage. This was done in perfect good faith and with the understanding that the transaction was perfectly legal. Many, however, of my fellow citizens differ 116 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. with me as regards the legality of the loan and the suffi- iency of the securities, and while I am unchanged in my opinion on the subject and conscious that I have at no time done other than my duty in the premises, I am ready and willing, in order that the subject of dissention may be disposed of, to deposit in the state treasury the full amount of such loan with interest from the 25th day of May, 1869, the date of the arrival of the fund in Lincoln in charge of the deputy state treasurer, and I ask the passage of an act providing for the cancellation of the securities. I sincerely trust that this proposition on my part may be received in the same spirit in which it is made, and that harmony may again prevail in the administration of our state govern ment. David Butler. Executive Department, Lincoln, May 30th, 1871. February 20th, 1873, a select committee made report: We find the claim against ex-governor David Butler, amounting originally to $16,881.26, due the five per cent fund, which, together with interest now due, amounts to $23,664.84, in a very unsatisfactory condition, there being no securities properly on file in the state treasurer's office as security for the payment of this debt. Ex-governor But ler has submitted a proposition to your committee, to trans fer to the state the residence and adjoining grounds, now occupied by him as a homestead, in payment of the above debt upon the following terms: For the house, outbuild ings, 80 acres of ground, and furniture contained in the main building, the state to allow the sum of $30,000, to be paid as follows: Principal debt, $16,881.26; interest, $6,283.58; warrant on general fund, $6,835.16; total, $30,000.00. Your committee has the foregoing proposition under careful con sideration, has visited the premises and carefully examined the house and grounds, and has reached the decision to strongly urge the passage of a bill for an act to provide for purchasing a governor's mansion. Instead of adopting the committee's recommendation, the leg islature passed an act, March 3rd, 1873, "To provide for the liqui dation and settlement of certain claims with David Butler." And in accordance with said act, April 4th, 1873, a board of com missioners reported, "That we have examined and appraised 3,400 acres, the lands of David Butler, in quantity sufficient to liquidate the indebtedness of David Butler to the school fund of STATE GOVERNORS. 117 the state of Nebraska," to which Governor Robert W. Furnas gave his official approval of the same date. Eight years after the $16,881 had gone into the possession of Governor Butler, the legislature passed a resolution rescinding the verdict of removal from office; and since the settlement, on the supposition that the 3,400 acres of surrendered land had become valuable and the state could afford to refund the amount over and above the liquidated debt, a bill for that purpose was presented to the legislature, but has not been enacted into law. 118 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. ACTING GOVERNOR W. H. JAMES. 1871-1873. William H. James was a native of Marion County, Ohio, and received his early education in the common schools of the State and from the Marion Academy. He was alternately farmer, clerk, and mechanic, and finally student at law, having entered a law office in 1853. The date of his settlement in Nebraska was in 1857, three years after the territorial organization. From this time until his election as secretary of state in 1870, he had given some attention to legal practice, surveying, and the duties of register of a land office for five years under appointment of President Lincoln. His term of acting governor commenced with the im peachment of Governor Butler, March 4th, 1871, and continued till January 10th, 1873. The legislature convening but once every two years, he delivered his only message January 10th, 1873, and three days thereafter was superseded by Governor Furnas. ¦ Among the subjects presented for consideration we find the admonition that prison discipline should seek the protection of society, and not attempt "vindictive punishment," greater unity of action between the regents and faculty of the state university demanded, special attention to be given the insane, idiots, and imbeciles, pardoning power to be exercised with great care, laws enacted to protect capital coming to the State for invest ment, and usury laws repealed since "capital is timid." There remained in the state treasury' January 18th, 1871, $37,547; receipts to December 31, 1872, $1,183,074; total $1,220,621. Disbursements, $1,022,233; balance in treasury to credit of the several funds $98,387. Inasmuch as the exercise of "doubtful and dangerous author ity" had given him an administration, "of few days and full of STATE GOVERNORS. 119 trouble," he deemed it well to go upon record as to the care of public funds. While it is true that public money should be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of authority, it is equally true that the executive officer of the State should not be urged to a stretch of legal or constitutional author ity by reason of insufficient provisions, to meet any de mands on the State, growing out of the proper administra tion of the laws. A violation of the law growing out of a public want, may furnish a precedent under which a private need may be met. And I feel that I can not too strongly urge upon your attention the importance of a careful exam ination into the wants of the state government and the making of such specific appropriations as will remove all necessity or excuse for the exercise of doubtful and danger ous authority. After the acting governor's intelligent disquisition upon the scrupulous care to be observed in the use of public money, and "the impolicy of resorting to doubtful and dangerous authority," it is a little astonishing that, the state senate felt called upon to ask what disposition had been made of a particular fund, in charge of the governor, of which the auditor and treasurer had no report; and further that a senate committee had to report that he admitted that he had not done right in retaining a certain $6,300 — and would pay it over on the order of the legis lature, and though he promised to make a written statement to the committee in the course of the same day, had failed to do so. In those early days of crude laws and new and unexpected de mands, it was attempted to palliate delinquencies and indiscre tions from the demands of public wants, though there was great danger of establishing precedents in favor of "private needs." 120 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL. SOCIETY. GOVERNOR ROBERT W. FURNAS. 1873-1875. Born in 1824, an orphan at eight, a printer's apprentice at seventeen years of age, and editor of a Miami County, Ohio. paper in his twenty-third year, the subject of this sketch began life courageously and in earnest. During forty-five years ex- Governor R. W. Furnas has been a very active and intelligent worker for the interests of Nemaha county and the State of Nebraska. The town of Brownville knew him as a Fourth of July orator in 1856, and subsequently as member of the town council and the board of education, as a trustee of church property, leading member of the Masonic order, and a practical florist and landscape gardner from the beauty of his home sur roundings. The county had the benefit of him as editor of its first paper, president of her agricultural society, a cultivator of nursery stock for orchard and grove, and dealer in choice live stock of all descriptions, and member of the legislature and constitutional convention. The State had his services as presi dent of her agricultural association, and of her horticultural, pomological, and historical societies, and as regent of her univer sity and governor. Early in her history he was active in placing her fruit on exhibition in Boston, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Virginia, and in securing premiums. In 1885 Governor Dawes said, in a message relating to a state display at the New Orleans exposition : With his characteristic energy and enthusiasm Mr. Fur nas entered upon the work placed in his hands; and the re sult of his work, so untiringly and industriously performed, is witnessed in the magnificent display of the various re sources of Nebraska now upon exhibition in New Orleans; u, display that has called forth encomiums from the press of the country, attracting general attention and eliciting from those who have not visited Nebraska expressions of wonder, and astonishment at the great extent and variety of her resources. R. W. FURNAS. STATE GOVERNORS. 121 In recognition of distinguished services the legislature pre sented the governor with a vote of thanks and a gold medal. On the publication of an address upon the origin, history, and uses of corn, entitled "Corn is King," he made mention of the circumstances attendant upon his New Orleans supervision: As most of you are aware, I enjoyed the distinguished honor of representing the young agricultural giant, Ne braska, at the World's Industrial and Centennial Exposition, New Orleans, La., 1884-5. When I accepted the position tendered me by the United States, as commissioner, I de termined to make a point on the great staple product of Nebraska, corn. The first banner I flung to the breeze in government building had inscribed upon its folds "Corn is King." To go south and claim king for any other soil product than cotton, especially at the Cotton Centennial, was deemed an intolerable bit of impudence in nowise ortho dox — a broad-gauge departure. Cotton, sugar, and tobacco all elevated their nasal protuberances, saying- by actions, which are said to speak louder than words, "How dare you?" Minnesota, "with boundless wheat fields glinted," our next door neighbor at the exposition, was "to arms" "in the twinkling of an eye," pressing the superiority of wheat and invoking the muses to aid her in obliterating our ban ner inscription. Colorado, Kansas, Illinois and Dakota set themselves to work manufacturing huge artificial ears to eclipse our natural growth of Chester County Mammoth. For a time outsiders entertained doubts as to our ability to maintain the advanced position taken. But we "fought it out on that line," and came home "with our banners still flying." And now in calmer moments, as it were, I am bold to assert the belief that among all the factors of culture in the United States corn takes prece dence in the sale of crops, as best adapted to more soils, climates, and conditions, is used for more purposes, fur nishes more nutritive food for man and beast, has more commercial, cultural and economic value, gives more grain to the acre than any other cereal, more fodder than any of the grasses, puts pur beef in prime order, fattens our pork, is the basis of our butter and cheese supply, furnishes immense manufacturing material, has twice the value of cotton, worth fifty per cent more than wheat, its influence on the prosperity and wealth is greater than that of any- other cultivated plant, and to the transportation compa nies "has millions in it." Appealing to the previous cen sus report it appeared that in a particular year corn ex- 122 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. ceeded wheat, oats, barley and rye, in bushels, 609 millions, and surpassed them all 103 million dollars. The president of the United States made him one of a com mission to examine into the agricultural capabilities of Cali fornia, Oregon, Arizona, and New Mexico, and a forester of the national agricultural department. He was agent of the Omaha Indians in Nebraska, and colonel of an Indian brigade and of the Second Nebraska cavalry in 1863, which did duty under General Sully against the Sioux Indians. When the agricultural department at Washington was allowed a cabinet officer, many of the friends of Governor Furnas hoped the pres ident would select him as that secretary. The first official proc lamation of the observance of Arbor Day was issued by him, two . years after Mr. Morton's Resolution establishing it, and eleven years before the State made it a legal holiday; and his enthusiasm in that direction has only increased as the years have added to the wisdom of the enterprise. In the campaign under General Sully of the regular army, the battle of White Stone Hills was fought September 3, 1863, two hundred miles above Fort Pierre, Dakota. Reporting re sults, having described the amount of scouting necessary to locate the enemy, Colonel Furnas said of the battle and the conduct of the Nebraska troops : The battle now raged with great fury for some time on both sides, the enemy successively by a desperate charge attempting my right and left flanks, but they were repelled with slaughter. They fell in every direction in front of my line by the unerring aim of my brave soldiers, who, both officers and men, fought with the coolness and courage of veterans, exposed as they were to a galling fire from the enemy the whole time. Their loss in killed and wounded will not fall short of one hundred and fifty, as scouts sent out next day after the battle report their dead as scattered over the country for miles on the line of their retreat, and their wounded as twice that number. The casualties in the Second Nebraska Cavalry are seven killed, fourteen wounded and ten missing. The officers and men under my command are not only entitled to my thanks, but the con fidence of their country for their bravery, efficiency and promptness on this occasion. Not a, man in any capacity flinched a particle. STATE GOVERNORS. 123 Under date of September 16, 1863, General Sully thanked the troops in order Number 62: In separating- from this brigade, the Second Nebraska Cavalry, the commanding general takes the opportunity of thanking Colonel Furnas and the officers and men of the regiment for the great assistance they have rendered him in the late campaign, and for the cheerfulness with which they have obeyed orders. This was followed the next day by a farewell letter to the colonel commanding: Headquarters N. W. Expedition, Fokt Antietam, D. T., Sept. 17th, 1863. Deab Colonel: — As we are about to separate after months of hard campaigning, you to your family fireside, I where I may be ordered, I can not part with you without thanking you for your valuable services to me in the duties of the late campaign, and I hope, Colonel, if you ever again throw away the "pipe of peace," and buckle on your saber, I may have the good fortune to have you associated with me. With the kindest feelings for your success, I remain your obedient servant, Alf. Sully, Brig. Gen. At the expiration of the term of service, when mustered out at Omaha November 30, 1863, Colonel Furnas took leave of his command by issuing order Number 12, the latter part of which is here quoted: The battle of White Stone Hills and its results will ever be an all-sufficient voucher for you. There you displayed coolness and courage unsurpassed, even by veterans. The severest chastisement ever inflicted upon Indians was ad ministered by you. To you of the Second Nebraska Cavalry, who participated in that battle, is due that victory, and you alone. For it you are entitled to the thanks of your country; for it a grateful people of the northwest will ever hold you in remembrance. It was » proud day for you and amply rewarded you for all the toils and hardships you en dured. Should your country ever again require your serv ices, it knows you will be as prompt to respond in the future as in the past. We now separate to go to our respect ive homes. The best wishes of the colonel commanding attend you. Col. R. W. Furnas. By order of H. M. Atkinson, Adjutant. 124 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Governor Robert W. Furnas was the second in the list of state executives. In his inaugural address of January 13th, 1873, after declaring that his aim should be "to serve faithfully a people who had so generously confided the sacred trust," he pledged himself that no duty would be left unperformed in ad vancing the State to an honorable position. "While elected by one of the political organizations of the day, my duty now is to the whole people." He said of the theatre of action, "Here we are laying more the foundations than otherwise, for those who are to come after us. We are compelled therefore, to a very great extent, to meet emergencies and demands as they arise and present themselves for our consideration." Inasmuch as our land endowment for schools embraced "one-eighteenth of the entire public domain," he believed in the near future that "our whole educational sys tem, from common school to university, could, with careful management, be made entirely independent of state aid." Com ing to his favorite theme of agriculture, it was commended to intelligent and devoted supervision: The area of country embraced within the geographical limits of our State being peculiarly and almost exclusively of an agricultural character, together with the fact that we occupy the keystone place in this gigantic trans-Mis souri arch of agriculture, the settled national axiom that nations, states, individuals, and civilizations prosper as agriculture thrives, or recede as it languishes, renders this branch of industry, in a great measure, the foundation of that prosperity in store for us. As if the treeless prairies were supplicating for moisture and shade, in their aid was invoked the supervision of a state for ester, with premiums to stimulate culture. The theory of tax ation recommended that, "in a free government like ours, sus taining burdens should be borne proportionately with means and ability to contribute," and that, as between lines of trans portation and the people, "mutual efforts and labors should be followed with mutual accommodations and benefits: wholesome, judicious, impartial legislation, tending to serve the public good, should not be lost sight of during your labors." In order that STATE GOVERNORS. 125 state, county, and municipal bonds should be advanced to par, registration was urged in order to establish value with the pur chaser; and with equal urgency attention was called to the util ity of immigration agents and documentary statements of the "unsurpassed fertility of our fifty million acres of vacant lands." An appeal was made in behalf of the claims of the United States Centennial Exposition of 1876, and of that at Vienna in 1874, so that evidence of Nebraska's capability to furnish desirable homes for toiling millions could be understood by the people of our own and foreign lands. In behalf of the peace and quiet in our "New West," from personal observation and the experi ence of many years, he recommended the removal of the Indi ans from the midst of our settlements, and locating them else where, by themselves. Deprecating hasty legislation, and prof fering hearty co-operation, he assumed the reins of govern ment, "invoking the aid of Him who guides and governs the acts of individuals, as well as rules the destinies of nations." As Governor Furnas served but one term in office, two years elapsed between the time of delivering the foregoing inaugural and his final and only message. The message may be considered under three heads: principles discussed, facts stated, and rec ommendations made. Under the head of revenue he said: Government being universally recognized among the wants of men, its maintenance is provided for by contri butions from all interested in its existence, by a system familiarly known as and called taxation. In this, the true principle is, that each subject ought to contribute to the support of the government by which he or she is protected, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abil ities. No good citizen will consider it a burthen, or imposi tion, thus to contribute. While it is contended that any ex emption from taxation is wrong in principle, it is equally objectionable in practice. The exemption of one dollar from taxation, only opens the door for ten more to illegiti mately evade. For instance, in this State, as shown and stated, the total property valuation for taxable purposes, is a fraction over eighty millions of dollars, while the jfact is, there is not less than three hundred million dollars worth of property in the State, which should be made to 126 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. yield revenue. With universal and equal taxation, promptly collected, the poor man, designed to be benefited by exist ing exemptions, will have by far less to pay than now; so small an amount in fact, that the tax gatherer will be un able to make change. It is not persons of limited means who obtain the advantage of either exemptions or evasions; but they of more ample possessions. He said of the agricultural college: The policy of the State should be the better education of the industrial classes. Our future wealth is in the fertility of our broad acres. These demand skilled labor, that they may produce a maximum of commercial value, with a mini mum of human labor. Only by calling to our aid every available means of cheapening productions, can we bring our products into successful competition with other states nearer the great markets. The work is fairly begun. It needs but your fostering care to make it an institution not only of pre-eminent utility in the development of the com monwealth, but every way worthy the State and the age. While upon the subject of the state prison, he called attention to "a fact prevalent to-day, not only in this country, but through out the world, that all well governed and successfully conducted prisons have ceased to be mere instrumentalities for the pun ishment of offenders, but on the contrary partake of a reforma tory character." Acting upon the principle that if "industry is a, moral power outside of the prison, and morality is an economic power outside of the prison," they bear exactly the same relations to each other inside Of the prison. And, further, the more a prison is made reformatory, the more profitable will it prove economically. While it is true some men are born thieves, in the great majority of cases they are not so from choice, but from misfortune. The innate criminal is treated as a diseased man. Incarceration simply serves to place those incapable of self-restraint, in safe keeping be yond the power of injuring any one. The object, to im part an education, intellectual, moral, industrial and eco nomic, as will put it within the power of the prisoner when liberated, to keep out of crime. Therefore, society is more interested in* the reformation of a criminal, than in his pun ishment. Again, in the great majority of cases of impris onment, innocent and dependent families are the real suf- STATE GOVERNORS. 127 ferers, and should not be overlooked. To this end con victs should, in the matter of labor, be paid a just and equitable compensation for labor performed, and after de ducting sufficient to defray the actual expense of mainte nance, the remainder be paid to the necessitous families, or in case of none such, reserved for the convict at the time of liberation. This would not only provide to an extent for families so often rendered destitute, but would awaken self respect and incite to good behavior and habits of in dustry, that would follow, and lead to future usefulness. The system of leased labor of convicts, at mere nominal and speculative rates, as practiced in this State and some others, is wrong in principle and pernicious in all its tendencies. Labor, whether inside the prison walls, or outside, should be worthy of its hire. Properly stimulated and manipu lated, the convict labor in our state prison, could be made to yield the State triple what it now does, and still leave a balance for the convict or his family more than the en tire sum now inuring to the State, — the meagre sum of forty-two cents per day. The most embarrassing, responsible, and difficult duty to perform devolving upon the chief executive, is the exercise of the pardoning power. None but the experienced can comprehend the situation. In nothing, nor even in all else, is he exposed to such censure. In almost every case he encounters acrimonious criticisms from those who know none of the facts, and have never given the subject a mo ment's thought or consideration. Extremists argue that this high prerogative should never be exercised to set aside the verdict or sentence of a court, when the facts are, it was created and vested for that sole purpose and no other — can be used for no other. The framers of the con stitution and the lawmakers, had that object directly in view. The courts themselves recognize and appeal to it as s\ich. They convict and follow sentence with an immedi ate application for executive aid, or clemency, to set aside what they have just enunciated, claiming that the law, in cases made and provided, is imperative, requiring strict observance of the form and letter. I am convinced, how ever, as to the great impropriety of vesting this high power in any one individual, especially with such meagre regula tions as are found in the statute books of this State. A pardoning board or council to act in conjunction with the executive, with power to command the attendance and pres ence of papers, and administer oaths, would better meet the emergency. 128 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Before the railroad question had assumed all its subsequent importance he gave expression to the following views: There are those who, failing to comprehend facts, are prone to charge ail the ills with which business interests are afflicted, and of which they complain, to the railroad companies; and hence there is, just now, conflict in some portions of the country. While I wish it distinctly under stood that in no way am I an apologist for any man, corpo ration, or anything tending in the least to oppression or monopoly, I am free to assert what I conceive to be a well- founded belief, that railroads have made the West, and that their value is incalculable and universally conceded. True they have in instances become strong, powerful, and profli gate organizations, resulting in wrong and oppression. This is the natural and inevitable tendency of the concentra tion or aggregation of great wealth, it matters not whether in railroad, bank, or manufacturing organizations, individ uals or in whatever capacity it may act. While it is the duty of "the people, in whom all power reposes" under our form of government, to protect against any and all reck less and unscrupulous acts, let them come from what source they may, it is a mistaken idea that mere legislation will cure the ills with which business and morals are oft- times afflicted. These statements of fact and opinion may also be quoted : Our population has quite doubled itself within two years past, numbering now, without doubt, at least three hundred thousand souls. The balance on hand at date of last report, December 1st, 1872, $198,287. Receipts from that date to date of present report, $1,469,408, making total receipts from all sources, of $1,667,695. The total disbursements were $1,433,152. State warrants are now and have been for "a year past, at par. The State has no bonded indebtedness. The state university, insane hospital, blind and deaf and dumb asylums and state normal school were all reported as well officered and in good condition. The fifth annual reports of the warden, inspectors, phy sician, and chaplain, in detail, are transmitted, by which it will be seen that the number of prisoners incarcerated is fifty-four. The total current expenses of the prison for the two years, 1873 and 1874, are shown to be $58,000.43, or an average of about $538 per prisoner per year. The total amount of convict labor at forty-two cents per day is $4,343.64, or nearly forty dollars per prisoner per year. On this labor, there is now due from the contractor, unpaid, STATE GOVERNORS. 129 $3,418.45. Estimate for the coming two years, $45,000. But forty-one cases of sickness have occurred within the past two years, and but one death since the establishment of the prison. With the appropriation made by the legislature for that purpose, an excellent and well selected library of 438 volumes is provided and in use by the prisoners. The chaplain reports favorably and encouragingly as to the moral improvement, and reformatory tendencies of inmates. STATE LANDS. There were donated by the general government, known as saline lands, seventy-two sections. From this there have been appropriated by legislative acts: for the benefit of the state normal school, twenty sections; for the model farm, in connection with the agricultural department of the state university, two sections; for the use of the insane hospi tal one-fourth of a section. There have been sold to various persons, as per deed record in this office, seventeen thou sand five hundred acres, leaving a balance undisposed of and on hand, of twelve thousand seven hundred and forty- four acres. There remain to be selected and approved, to complete the seventy-two sections donated, four and one- sixteenth sections. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT LANDS. There were donated and have been selected and confirmed, five hundred thousand acres. By acts of the legislature, the whole of these lands have been appropriated and con- vej'ed for purposes designated, to aid in the construction of railroads and bridges. In fact the records show, that by reason of hastily deeding before confirmation, thirty- one thousand four hundred and seventy-six acres have been deeded more than the State owned, or was entitled to. PUBLIC BUILDINGS LANDS. There have been received twenty sections designated as for public buildings. The whole of these lands were, by act of February 10th, 1871, transferred, or appropriated to aid in the construction of the state penitentiary. PENITENTIARY LANDS. There were donated for the erection of a state peniten tiary, fifty sections, which, in addition to the twenty sec tions before named, made seventy sections applicable for that purpose. Of these there have been sold and used in the erection of buildings, forty-three thousand one hundred and eighteen acres, leaving on hand, undisposed of, one thousand six hundred and seventy-six acres. 10 130 NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. UNIVERSITY LANDS. Seventy-two sections were donated, selected and con firmed. AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE LANDS. Ninety thousand acres were donated and selected, of which eighty-nine thousand four hundred and sixty acres have been confirmed, leaving five hundred and forty acres yet unconfirmed. The school lands alone, if sold, would create a permanent school fund of over $20,000,000. EDUCATION. The report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the years 1873 and 1874 is most gratifying to the friends of education. At the close of the fiscal year 1872, there were 538 school houses in the State, valued at about $700,000. The present report shows 1,345 school houses, valued at a fraction over $1,300,000. An increase of over eight hundred buildings, and $600,000 valuation in the two years. The total number of pupils at the close of the year 1872 was 51,123; at the close of 1874, 72,991, showing an in crease in the two years of 21,868. The total amount of school money apportioned by the Superintendent for the years 1871 and 1872 was somewhat over $370,000. The past two years the total amount apportioned was nearly $100,- 000 of an increase. At the close of the year 1872 there were 1,512 qualified teachers in the State. The reports for 1873 and 1874 show 2,200. LINCOLN CITY LOTS. The capital city, Lincoln, as originally platted, consisted