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Indiana Bicentennial 4.9: Oliver P. Morton (1861 – 1867) & the Civil War

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Oliver P. Morton (1861 – 1867)

I won’t do Morton or the Civil War any sort of justice with this entry. There is just too much going on. If history were a landscape, most of the time, you’d be looking at plains or maybe a forest. Suddenly you get into something like the Civil War or World War II, and it becomes an incredibly dense jungle. And I don’t have a machete. So, if most of this bicentennial series has been going an inch deep, now we’re down to a quarter inch or something. But, in any event, here is a very cursory overview.

Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton probably had the most middle names of any Hoosier governor and was the first who was born in Indiana. He, like me, was born in Wayne County, attended Miami University, and practiced law. But, that’s mostly where the similarities end.

Early on, Morton spent some time as a hatter but then went to Miami and Cincinnati to study law before returning to Wayne County and setting up practice in Centerville. He was a Democrat in a strongly Whig area of the state. However, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and Jesse Bright’s heavy handed efforts to command loyalty had created that deep rift in the Democratic Party, and Morton became part of the embryonic Republican Party. He went to the Philadelphia Convention in 1856 and became the party’s unsuccessful candidate for governor against Ashbel Willard.

In 1860, Morton was Henry Lane’s running mate and, as mentioned above, had an agreement with Lane that — if the Republicans controlled the General Assembly after the election — Lane would be elected to the U.S. Senate, and Morton would become governor. The Republicans did well in the election of 1860. While expansion of slavery into the territories was unpopular in Indiana, Republican success in the state was more of an embrace of self-determination and dislike of the Southern slave power. There was no great love of black people in the state (as the provision in the 1851 constitution excluding black people from the state demonstrates all too well). The Republicans, therefore, were careful to avoid any hint of abolitionism or assertions that black people were equal to white people. They campaigned on stopping the extension of slavery in the territories (and took advantage of the surprisingly strong anti-temperance movement of the time.) Democrats were deeply divided, and their appeals to racism and attempts to brand Republicans as abolitionists were unsuccessful. Indiana’s electoral votes went to Abraham Lincoln. The state sent seven Republicans to Congress. The state’s four Democratic Congressmen came from the southern areas of the state. Republicans also controlled the General Assembly.

Then, on December 20, 1860, members of the South Carolina government purported to secede from the United States; soon followed by other southerners. Morton became governor on January 16, 1861.  On April 12, 1861, southerners attacked the United States, opening fire on federal property at Fort Sumter. I’ve read that tensions were so high for so long, the onset of war was almost a relief for many.

The beginning of war was met with unity and enthusiasm in Indiana. It was an opportunity for patriotism and all of the pomp and martial grandeur of military activity. Hoosiers backed their leaders and flocked to the cause. Most thought the struggle would be short and relatively bloodless. As we know in retrospect, it turned into a meat grinder. Over the course of the war, something like ? of Indiana’s 300,000 military age men would serve. When Fort Sumter was attacked, Lincoln announced a need for troops. Morton telegraphed him the same day, offering 10,000. Morton had made clear in a November 1860 speech that he regarded secession as lawless, not permitted under the U.S. Constitution and that supporters of the U.S. would be doing a disservice to their birthright if they allowed Southerners to break the law and remove their states from the Union. “If it was worth a bloody struggle to establish this Nation, it is worth one to preserve it, and I trust that we shall not, by surrendering with indecent haste, publish to the world that the inheritance our fathers purchased with their blood we have given up to save ours.”

The state’s initial quota was about 4,600 men; but, within a week, Indiana had 12,000 volunteers. Lew Wallace  was appointed Indiana’s adjutant general and began organizing “Camp Morton” at the Indiana fairgrounds as a mustering spot and training grounds.

In the beginning, Democrats and Republicans were united behind the Union cause. Morton called the legislature into special session in April 1861, and the legislature approved funds for the war effort. However, before long, Morton faced opposition to both sides. Within his own party, George Julian did not feel that Morton went far enough. Julian was a radical Republican and a Quaker, a rigid man who invited comparisons to the Cromwellian Puritans who executed King James I. For example, in the April 1861 session, Morton supported a General Assembly resolution stating that the state’s money and military forces should not be used in any aggression upon slavery. Julian and like-minded Republicans wanted to do just that.

However, Morton’s main opposition would come from Indiana Democrats.  While there were some Democrats who stuck with the war effort and joined with the Morton-Republicans and there were also Democrats who favored ceding the Southern territories to the rebels, for the most part Indiana Democrats supported efforts to preserve the Union but objected strongly to Morton and Lincoln’s tactics — which they saw as, not only exceeding their legitimate powers, but also as self-serving efforts to expand the power of their party. One of Morton’s tactics was to paint all Democrats who opposed him as Confederate-sympathizing Copperheads.

Indiana’s slave-holding Democratic Senator did not fare well during this early period of the war. Most of the Senate Democrats left or were ejected as the Southern states issued articles of secession. He had antagonized the northern, Douglas Democrats. Then, it was discovered that he had written a letter recognizing Jefferson Davis as President of a foreign nation. Even worse, it was a letter of introduction attempting to acquaint Davis with a Texas arms dealer.

The discovery of Bright’s March 1861 letter to the president of the seceding Southern states provoked calls for his expulsion from the United States Senate:

                                                                                Washington, March 1, 1861

MY DEAR SIR:  Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance my friend Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas.  He visits your capital mainly to dispose of what he regards a great improvement in fire-arms.  I recommend him to your favorable consideration as a gentleman of the first respectability, and reliable in every respect.

        Very truly, yours,                                        JESSE D. BRIGHT

To His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

           President of the Confederation of States.

 

Bright testified that he didn’t remember writing the letter, and the Senate Judiciary committee recommended that the resolution of expulsion not pass. However, on February 5, 1862, the full Senate voted 32-14 to kick him out. Bright was the only Senator from a non-slave holding state expelled and the Senator in U.S. history to have been expelled.

Back in Indiana, the beginning of the draft intensified Democratic opposition to Morton and the war. As the war ground on, the luster wore off and, beginning in October 1862, conscription would become necessary. This became a major political issue for the 1862 elections. Later in the war, and more in the southern counties, resistance to the draft intensified — in one or two cases even resulting in the death of the local commissioner responsible for administering the draft. (In each county, the local commissioner would create ballots for the abled bodied men in each of the townships, and then a blindfolded person would draw out as many ballots as was required.)

The election of 1862 was a bad one for the Republicans. Hoosiers were nervous about the progress of the war, and the abolitionist trajectory the Republicans were taking. The Democrats regained control of the legislature. They promptly began the process for passing resolutions favoring an armistice and criticizing Lincoln policies concerning emancipation and suspension of habeas corpus. When they attempted to pass a bill that would have reduced Morton’s control over the state militia, rather than acquiesce to the legislative process, the Republicans in the General Assembly bolted and prevented a quorum. Morton had a problem. The General Assembly had not passed an appropriation bill before the Republicans fled the State House. No problem. The governor just charged it. He was able to rely on loans from friendly bankers and financial help from the Lincoln administration. He kept the money in his office safe rather than in the Democratically controlled state treasury. He paid bills as he saw fit, and the legislature was a non-factor for a couple of years. To justify his almost certainly unconstitutional actions, Morton trumped up the threat of Democratic copperheads in the State.

The lack of robust Copperhead activity in the state was illustrated to some extent by the lack of support Morgan’s Raid when the Confederate marauder attacked Hoosier territory in July 1863. He was able to damage Hoosier property and steal supplies, but was unsuccessful in raising any kind of organized support from the supposedly pervasive Copperhead community. That said, in 1864, there were aborted plans by Harrison Dodd to seize the state arsenal and free Confederate prisoners. Dodd fled to Canada before he could be arrested, but several co-conspirators, including Lambdin P. Milligan were arrested. Dodd was convicted by a military tribunal in absentia and sentenced to hang. Milligan was also convicted in December 1864 and sentenced to hang on May 19, 1865. However, in April 1865, the southern rebels had surrendered and President Lincoln was assassinated. President Johnson commuted the execution to life imprisonment. And, in April 1866, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Ex Parte Milligan determining that, because civil courts were in operation, conviction of a civilian in a military tribunal was unconstitutional because the tribunal had no jurisdiction over the individual.

However, in the fall of 1864, ex parte Milligan was still well in the future, and the sensation of a Democratic/Copperhead plan to seize the state armory played into Morton’s hands. Initially, there was a question as to whether Morton could run for Governor because the Constitution of 1851 permitted only one term. However, because he had technically been elected as lieutenant governor he was allowed to run (even though he had been governor for all but two days of the term.) The elections of 1864 went much better for Morton and the Republicans than the 1862 election had gone. Republicans won 8 of the 11 Congressional districts, Morton was re-elected, and the Republicans won majorities in the General Assembly.

By the time the war ended, Morton and the Republicans were ascendent. The troops returned from war, and the Democrats struggled with their legacy as the party of the South and opposition to the war. Republicans would wrap themselves in the bloody shirt for quite some time to come.

In October 1865, after the war, Morton suffered from a stroke. He went to Europe for several months seeking treatment. During that period, Lieutenant Governor Conrad Baker served as acting governor and oversaw the demobilization of Indiana’s military service. Morton returned to office in March of 1866, but was unable to walk without assistance. In 1867, the Indiana General Assembly elected Morton to the U.S. Senate. Morton resigned the governorship, and Baker served the remainder of Morton’s term.

Indiana Bicentennial 4.8: Abram Hammond (1860-1861) & Henry Lane (Jan 14, 1861 – Jan. 16, 1861)

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Abram Hammond (1860-1861)

Hammond had been Lieutenant Governor under Governor Willard  and served the short remainder of Willard’s term. Hammond, a former lawyer and judge, had been a pro-slavery Whig before the party imploded and became a Democrat thereafter. Part of his selection as Willard’s running mate had to do with hopes that he would draw support of other former Whigs. Hammond served for three months, and his main achievement seems to have been giving an annual address to the General Assembly. Among other things, he was in favor of accommodating Southern demands in order to avoid disunion. On his recommendation, Indiana sent delegates to an unsuccessful peace conference with the goal of preventing war with the South.

Henry Lane (1861)

Lane served as Governor for only two days, from January 14, 1861 – January 16, 1861. He was a prominent early Republican and, when he ran for Governor, his plan was — if the Republicans controlled the General Assembly — to have it appoint him to the U.S. Senate, replacing Graham Fitch (the unprincipled physician from Logansport).

Even though Lane served only two days as governor, his story probably deserves some elaboration. Lane was an anti-slavery Whig and Henry Clay supporter, originally from Kentucky. He became a lawyer and a banker, moving to Crawfordsville in 1832 and worked at the Bank of Indiana. He served in the Indiana Senate and in the state House of Representatives in the late 1830s. He became a U.S. Representative in 1840, and then served with Indiana’s First Regiment and then its Fifth Regiment in the Mexican-American War.

As the Whigs imploded in the 1850s, Lane was part of the Fusion/People’s Party conglomeration that won the House in 1854 which resulted in gridlock when the Democrats refused to caucus and Indiana went without a Senator for a period of time. In 1856, the People’s Party in Indiana, with the cooperation of the American Party, sent a delegation of Hoosiers to the second national Republican convention in Philadelphia. Lane was elected President of the convention where he declared:

“Freedom is national. Freedom is the general rule. Slavery is the exception. It exists by sufferance. Where it does exist under the sanction of the law, we make no war upon it. Does that constitute us Abolitionists, simply because we are opposed to the extension of slavery? If that makes an Abolitionist, write ‘Abolitionist’ all over me.”

 

In 1858, still angry about the procedurally suspect election of Bright and Fitch to the Senate, state Republicans who had taken control of the legislature, elected Lane and William McCarty to the U.S. Senate while Bright and Fitch were still serving terms. The U.S. Senate refused to seat Lane and McCarty. So Bright and Fitch kept their Senate seats.

In 1860, Lane campaigned with Oliver Morton as his running mate. The two had agreed that, should the Republicans control the General Assembly after the election, Lane would go to the Senate, taking Fitch’s seat, and Morton would become Governor. Lane was initially rejected (again) by the Democratically controlled U.S. Senate, but, as the Southern states began to secede, the balance of party power in the Senate shifted to the Republicans, and Lane took his seat in the U.S. Senate with his fellow Senator, Jesse Bright. (With the Southern Democrats leaving and having alienated Stephen Douglas and the Northern Democrats, things must have been fairly lonely for Bright just about then.)  

Lane served just the one term in the Senate. After that, he spent a short time during the Grant administration as an Indian commissioner and then as a commissioner for the improvement of the Mississippi River. He then returned to Crawfordsville where he passed away in 1881.

Indiana Bicentennial 4.7: Sen. Jesse Bright – Indiana’s Slave Owning Senator & Democratic Party Boss

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Senator Jesse Bright, as I mentioned, was a slave owner himself, and the other U.S. Senate seat, vacant from 1855-1857, was filled by Graham Fitch, a physician from Logansport. Bright and Fitch were supporters of the southern Democrats and the Buchanan administration.  Bright engineered Fitch’s election to the Senate by the Indiana General Assembly through some heavy-handed and creative political maneuvering. The Republicans had a slight majority in the Senate while the Democrats had a majority in the House. Bright pushed for a joint session of the House and Senate. Having secured the joint session, when the Senate Republicans bolted in an effort to prevent election of a Democratic Senator, Bright pushed for a rules interpretation that said a quorum determination would be made based on the number of members of both chambers. He had enough extra Democrats in the House to overcome the lack of Republicans from the Senate. Based on that interpretation, the joint session elected Fitch — said by one contemporary to have no principles “He would be an abolitionist if it was profitable.”

In 1857, Bright thought things were going well for him. He had engineered his own re-election and the election of Fitch to the U.S. Senate. He had derailed an appointment by President James Buchanan of former governor James Wright to the cabinet — and instead managed to get Wright appointed as ambassador to Prussia. However, he had developed a reputation as untrustworthy, grasping for power, and a tool of the Slave Power of the South. Furthermore, in 1857, the Buchanan administration made a choice to support the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas — seen as fraudulent, pro-slavery, and contrary to the notion of popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty was  supported by northern Democrats, and Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas split with the President over the issue. Douglas fought hard and had the support of most of the Northern Democrats in the Senate. Bright was pro-slavery and had a personal dislike for Douglas (who he regarded as a rival for power). Bright was politically savvy and must have known that Lecompton and opposition to popular sovereignty wouldn’t be popular in Indiana. But, he was stubborn, apparently quite devoted to slavery, sympathetic to the South, and strongly disliked Douglas:

Bright, who rarely gave extended remarks on the floor of the Senate and who was especially loath to speak out on controversial issues, cast off his reticence to defend Buchanan. And in defending Buchanan, Bright now finally exposed the depths of his commitment to the white South. In his speech, he repudiated the principle of popular sovereignty and claimed that he had previously supported it only out of expediency. The Senator had “never entertained a doubt” about the power of Congress to legislate for the territories. Bright suggested that with all of the agitation over Lecompton, it was “better” not to refer such a question “to the vote of the people.”

Senator Fitch, Bright’s lackey, backed him up on this issue. The real action on whether to support admission of Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution seems to have been in the House of Representatives where another Hoosier played a major role. After the House rejected the Senate’s version, Indiana Representative William English, who was an ally of Bright but whose district was strongly opposed to Lecompton, offered a compromise that involved sending the proposed state constitution back to Kansas where the choice would either be to accept the pro-slavery state constitution or remain a territory.

Throughout the 1850s, Bright had advanced Southern causes at the expense of the strength of the Indiana Democrats. The party had survived, but Lecompton had been a step too far. Hoosiers — especially Hoosier Democrats — did not care greatly about whether Kansas was slave or free, but really embraced the notion of popular sovereignty. And, given the massive voter fraud that brought forth the Kansas Lecompton Constitution, most Hoosier Democrats could not bring themselves to support it. They felt that it reflected a triumph of a minority slave interest over the majority of Kansans who opposed slavery. Bright’s heavy handed use of patronage in his efforts to maintain party discipline hurt more than it helped.

At the 1858 state Democratic convention, there was a platform dispute concerning Lecompton. Lew Wallace, leading the anti-Lecompton forces negotiated agreed language with Bright’s faction which involved the phrase “now and hereafter” that implied Kansas’ admission to the Union was not supported. However, when the platform was printed up by a publisher connected with Bright, the “now and” was left off, implying that the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas was acceptable. This appears to have been Bright’s work and deepened Democratic rifts. The anger prompted a second convention where anti-Bright Democrats endorsed Stephen Douglas and popular sovereignty. The Congressional elections were disastrous for Bright. Only three of Indiana’s eleven Congressional Districts went to his candidates. The Republicans picked up seven, and one was won by an “anti-Lecompton” Democrat. By 1860, Bright had lost control of the Indiana Democrats to an extent that he was unable to stop an endorsement of Stephen Douglas for President.

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Returning to Gov. Willard for a moment – in addition to being the youngest Governor, Willard also had the dubious honor of being the first governor to die in office. Having suffered from tuberculosis for years, Willard would seek out different climates by way of treatment. In 1860, after experiencing hemorrhaging of the lungs following a speech at a state Democratic meeting, he went to  St. Paul, Minnesota with the hope of regaining his health.  After a month in Minnesota, Willard relapsed and died on October 4, 1860.

Indiana Bicentennial 4.6: Ashbel Willard (1857-1860) & His Problematic Brother-in-Law

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Ashbel Willard (1857-1860)

Ashbel Willard was a lawyer and a teacher who had made his way to New Albany. He seems to have been an accomplished speaker and active political campaigner (but something of a drunk) who rose rapidly in the state Democratic Party. In 1852, he was elected as Lieutenant Governor and was nominated by the Democrats as their candidate for Governor in 1856. His opponent in 1856, Oliver Morton was a leader in the People’s/nascent Republican Party and who had been an anti-Nebraska Democrat. A major focus in the election of 1856 were the events in Kansas, where partisans had taken up arms against one another to see whether pro-slave or anti-slave could gain the upper hand in the “popular sovereignty” battle to see whether Kansas would be slave or free when it organized. The dispatches from Kansas — such as those from former Congressman, James Lane — were followed closely in the papers. James Lane left the Congress in 1855 and went to Kansas where he led the Jayhawkers, a group of Free Soilers. (Lane would later become a U.S. Senator from Kansas and a general in the Civil War.)

During the election of 1856,  Morton carried the Whitewater valley and the northern districts, but the People’s Party lost ground from the election of 1854 and, at the age of 36, Willard was elected as Governor. The political scene seems to have been tense but gridlocked with the extension of slavery continuing to dominate the public attention. The General Assembly failed to pass an appropriations bill and Willard called the Indiana General Assembly into its first special session. In the meantime, Willard went ahead and paid interest on the State’s debt despite no appropriation for the payment having been made. He reached what was likely a sensible but legally questionable conclusion that there had been a “perpetual appropriation” of the two cents per hundred dollar tax levy dedicated to public debt payments. Even more questionable, however (though probably still sensible) was his decision to go out and borrow money when it turned out there wasn’t enough in the Treasury to make the debt payments. He drew the line at making payments (despite there being money in the Treasury for the purpose) toward benevolent institutions without an appropriation — in this context, I believe the “benevolent institutions” were places like the Indiana School for the Deaf and the Institute for the Blind, and asylums. Those were forced to shut down until the General Assembly was called into special session and the matter sorted out. (Knowing how these things work out, I wouldn’t be too surprised if his decision to let the benevolent institutions close was calculated to put political pressure on the General Assembly to get its act together — with Willard fearing the wrath of bond holders more than the wrath of the beneficiaries of the benevolent institutions.)

Willard was a supporter of Southern slavery and the Fugitive Slave Act. However, he found himself directly involved on the abolitionist side of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Brown had been an abolitionist fighter in “Bleeding Kansas,” among other things leading the defense of Osawatomie, Kansas when slavers were attacking. The problem with the Kansas-Nebraska idea that self-determination should govern whether a state was free or slave was that the methods of persuasion often got violent. In Osawatomie, the slavers murdered John Brown’s son among others and looted the town. Brown and his forces, for their part, engaged in guerrilla attacks on pro-slavery forces. In October of 1859, Brown took his show on the road and attacked the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry in hopes that the attack would provoke a slave rising that would bring down the slave system.

Brown was something of a messianic figure, and one of his followers was John Cook (described as reckless, impulsive, indiscreet, but genial, generous and brave) who, as luck would have it, was married to Gov. Willard’s sister. The raid on Harper’s Ferry was put down fairly quickly.  “Cook escaped to the mountains of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where he was hidden by the Underground Railroad. But, after a few days, on October 25, 1859, Cook came to the Hughes Furnace looking for food. Unfortunately, that place was managed by a southerner, Dan Logan, who supplemented his income by capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their Southern masters. Logan immediately recognized Cook who was “under medium size, skin as soft as a woman’s, and his deep blue eyes and wealth of blond hair made it easy to identify him.”” Despite Willard’s support of slavery, he also apparently felt strongly about family and, so, he enlisted Daniel Voorhees to assist Cook. Voorhees was the U.S. Attorney for Indiana and “one of the finest trial lawyers in the Midwest.” It seems that, when they got to Virginia, there wasn’t much of a defense to be had, and Voorhees got Cook to write a confession in hopes of at least saving him from the gallows. Despite implicating some prominent northern financiers and supporters of Brown’s effort, the Virginia Governor deemed the confession insufficient and backed out of the deal he had struck with Voorhees. Voorhees did what he could at the trial, making impassioned pleas on behalf of Cook as a guileless boy under the thumb of the despotic Brown. Voorhees was unsuccessful and Cook was convicted, regarded as a Judas figure by some of Brown’s supporters. Cook died at the gallows on December 16, 1859.

The raid on Harper’s Ferry did not generate the slave rebellion that John Brown hoped for, but it’s often regarded as the real beginning of the Civil War, the spark in the powder keg. It certainly raised tensions in the Democratic Party. Most of Indiana supported the northern Democrats and Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois. But, Indiana’s two U.S. Senators did not.

Indiana Bicentennial 4.5: More on Gov. Wright and the Election of 1854

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Governor Wright continued

Returning to Governor Wright’s term: Wright was the first governor elected under the new 1851 Constitution. It expanded the term of office for a Governor from three years to four but provided that the Governor could not serve consecutive terms. There was a brief discussion about whether Wright was eligible, but because his first term was served under the old Constitution, he was permitted to run for a second. In the election of 1852, he beat a Whig and a Free Soiler and won a term from 1853-1857. Wright was a fierce, but ultimately unsuccessful, opponent of the General Assembly’s move to allow the Bank of Indiana to incorporate as a private institution. He raised allegations of fraud in the Bank’s methods for gaining the General Assembly’s support and, while some infractions were found and the process cast in some doubt, no action was ever taken to revoke the charter.

Election of 1854

The Indiana Democrats continued to struggle with the slavery question. By the election of 1854, the state Democratic leader, now Senator Jesse Bright — who owned slaves in Gallatin Kentucky — was steering Indiana’s Democrats to more of an alignment with the Southern Democrats (for example, supporting James Buchanan rather than Stephen Douglas). Bright was using support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which would allow further expansion of slavery into the territories) as a litmus test for his supporters and making an effort to drive opponents out of the party. For example, in the convention of 1854, Oliver Morton was expelled when he attempted to use his influence to convince delegates to take a position against Kansas-Nebraska.

There was, during this time, a fractured opposition to the Democrats. The Whigs were in disarray, but still around. The Know-Nothings opposed the papacy and foreigners. (The Democrats were generally supportive of the often Catholic immigrants). The Free Soil Party was in opposition to expansion of slavery. The abolitionists weren’t exactly a party, but they were a political force. And there were many Democrats who opposed expansion of slavery and were disaffected with Bright’s control of the party. These opponents had an opportunity inasmuch as Democratic support of Kansas-Nebraska couldn’t be harmonized with the party’s position from previous years. Part of this mix was initially organized as the People’s Party of Indiana. Shortly thereafter, it would become the Republican Party. In 1854, the Fusion of anti-Democratic forces would win the House of Representatives and hold a substantial minority in the Senate. (The case of John Freeman, the free black man from Georgia accused of being a slave, was noted in one source as being an item of popular concern which helped the Fusion cause). The result was mostly gridlock for the next General Assembly.

As I wrote in an earlier post opposing modern efforts to repeal the 17th Amendment providing for direct election of U.S. Senators, following the election of 1854, the first order of business for the new General Assembly was selecting a United States Senator. However, rather than permitting the choice of a Fusionist, the Democrats refused to caucus. As a consequence, from 1855-1857, Jesse Bright was Indiana’s lone Senator.

Indiana Bicentennial 4.4: School Law of 1852 & the Fugitive Slave Act

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School Law of 1852

The newly adopted state Constitution required the election of a Superintendent of Public Instruction and the creation of a system of Common Schools. In response to those requirements, the General Assembly adopted a school law in 1852. The law created the State Board of Education. The Superintendent of Public Instruction was to be the President of the Board and the only member directly involved in education. The other members were the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Treasurer, and the Auditor. In 1855, the Attorney General was added to the list. “The Board was directed to meet annually for the purpose of promoting education through conferences, interchange of views, introduction of uniform schoolbooks, establishing township libraries and determining questions that might arise in connection with the public schools.” William Larrabee was the first Superintendent. Caleb Mills, so instrumental in creating the position, was the second.

The School Law  also provided that that schools would be supported through state taxation but delegated the responsibilities of erecting school buildings and hiring school teachers to the township trustees. The law declared each civil township a township for school purposes as well.  The old district schools became property of the townships. The quality of these facilities varied wildly, and sometimes there were no buildings available at all.

Many cities and townships raised taxes of their own. However, in 1858, the Supreme Court, in the case of Jenners v. Lafayette, a tax for a township in Lafayette (50 cents on the hundred dollars) was struck down as impermissible. (“This decision deprived the schools of most of their revenue and caused almost a complete shutdown of the schools. This decision was as unpopular as the Dred Scott Decision. “) The Court reasoned that the new Constitution’s prohibition on special laws regarding public education forbade local units of government from taxing themselves to pay for schools.  For several years, this decision ground school progress to a halt. Some cities tried to muddle along with private donations. Others simply gave up. The General Assembly subsequently passed legislation saying this was permissible, but the Supreme Court continued to strike down such measures through the 1850s and 60s. The General Assembly finally wore down the Court and an 1885 decision found one of these measures acceptable.

Fugitive Slave Act

In 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, the U.S. Congress adopted the Fugitive Slave Act. This law placed all black people, free and fugitive alike, at risk. The standard of proof for a slave catcher was trivial — he simply had to swear an oath to a justice of the peace and received the legal authority to carry a black person away into bondage. Federal commissioners had the power to deputize private citizens to assist in the capture of fugitives. The commissioners received $10 for each person they returned to bondage.

John Freeman – 1853

In 1853, John Freeman, a wealthy black man who lived in Indianapolis was accused of being a slave. Freeman had come to Indianapolis from Georgia in 1844. By 1853, he had acquired about 4 acres in the vicinity of what’s now Capitol and Michigan Street. He worked as a painter and also owned a restaurant in town. That year, a Methodist minister from St. Louis came to town with an affidavit claiming that Freeman was his slave who had run away 17 years ago. Being the rare black man with the wherewithal and social connections to fight this kind of thing, some of the city’s best legal talent came together to litigate the matter. However, while the charges were pending, the law did not authorize bail. So Freeman was stuck in jail for 9 weeks.

Freeman’s side located witnesses who knew him as a free man in Georgia during the relevant time period and even seem to have located the real runaway slave who was up in Canada (and, for obvious reasons, would not come to Indiana to testify.) However, the minister’s side came up with three people willing to testify that Freeman was the runaway (after Freeman was compelled to let these witnesses view him naked). During the course of these proceedings, local sentiment was aroused against the minister and the marshals enforcing the Slave Act. The minister fled the area before the trial took place.

Even though Freeman’s lawyers did not charge him for their services, he still took a substantial financial hit from the experience. He was forced to pay for his own jailing ($3 per day), and the costs of transporting witnesses from Georgia were substantial.

Freeman attempted to recoup his losses by filing civil suits against the minister and against the federal marshal. The suit against the marshal was dismissed on a technicality (the suit was filed in Marion County but the marshal lived in Rush County.) Freeman obtained a judgment against the minister in the amount of $2,000, but he fled further — selling his house in St. Louis and making himself scarce. Freeman’s finances were decimated, but, comparatively speaking, his was a fortunate outcome. There is no telling how many black northerners were falsely accused and lacked the resources to fight the accusation. (Though, given the immorality of slavery, a truthful accusation doesn’t make the federally-assisted intrusion of the South’s peculiar institution much more palatable.)

Calvin Fairbank – 1851

Of some note, in part because it involved the signing of an arrest warrant by Governor Wright, was the matter of Calvin Fairbank.  He was a Methodist Episcopal minister, educated at Oberlin, who had become an abolitionist after a woman who had been a slave told her story of being separated from her family as a child. Fairbank had been sentenced to jail and released previously for his work helping slaves escape. He was enlisted to help with the escape of a Kentucky slave named Tamar and was in Clark County after having successfully assisted with Tamar’s case. On November 9, 1851, Fairbank was arrested by the Sheriff of Clark County on a warrant signed by Wright, acting on a request from Kentucky’s governor. However, the sheriff allowed Fairbank to be taken by men from Kentucky, apparently in violation of the law on how such extradition was to take place. After that, he was run through a sketchy legal proceeding in Kentucky where he wasn’t allowed to call witnesses on his own behalf, and then subjected to some brutal treatment at the hands of the Kentucky penal system — flogging and overwork being the primary methods of punishing Fairbank. He was said to have sustained over 30,000 lashes in the 12 years he was imprisoned in Kentucky.

West – 1857

There was also the case of a slave named West in 1857. A slave catcher  had taken West in Illinois and was passing through Indianapolis, waiting to catch a train back to Kentucky. (Railroads were growing during this period — by 1853, the Monon Railroad had extended from the Ohio River to Lake Michigan.) Abolitionists in Indiana initiated a trial, accusing the slave catcher of kidnapping a free black man, hoping – if nothing else – to drive up costs for slave owner in an amount that exceeded the value of West to the slaveowner. They hoped that, if the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, maybe slavers would stop operating in Indiana.

One issue in the case was whether a cause of action could be instituted by a black man, such as West, who had entered Indiana after the new Constitution in contravention of the new Article XIII. Fairly early on in the proceedings, the kidnapping charge was dropped, but then a new proceeding was instituted on whether a warrant under the Fugitive Slave Act was appropriate. Lawyers for West scrutinized every undotted “i” and uncrossed “t.” For example, they challenged the affidavit that spoke of West’s status as a slave in “Kentuck.” Of course – they argued, “Kentuck” is not a state, so the affidavit should be stricken and the cause dismissed.  When the evidence showed pretty clearly that West was, in fact, a runaway slave; his counsel shifted gears and offered up abolitionist sermons designed to arouse the public:

The fugitive act is a godless law, it is an unutterably infernal law and if its provisions are carried out, it will drag God Almighty from his throne, and inaugurate the reign of the devil upon the earth. There is not a doctrine taught by Jesus Christ which is not derided and trampled under foot by the law.

When these appeals to the federal commissioner were unsuccessful, West’s attorneys tried filing for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal court. The federal judge denied the petition because his jurisdiction was concurrent with that of the federal commissioner, and he had no authority to second guess the Fugitive Slave Act or the commissioner’s decision under the circumstances.  After that, there was a brief, failed escape attempt followed by the process of transporting West from Indianapolis to Louisville. The crowds surrounding the train were ugly, and a great deal of security was required. There were at least two attempts to block or derail the train by blocking the tracks. The whole undertaking had cost West’s purported owner a great deal, and angry sentiment had been aroused in the people of Indianapolis.

If you read the Southern articles of secession, when the individuals purporting to secede from the United States are not talking about how they are seceding to preserve slavery; very often, they are talking about their dissatisfaction with northern compliance with the federal Fugitive Slave law. I mention this, not because it’s so important to Indiana history, but because modern revisionists seeking to slap some lipstick on the pig of Southern motivations at the time, offer up nonsense about how secession was really about a deep commitment to state’s rights and federalism. Their commitment to the Fugitive Slave Act exposes this as nonsense. In any event, it’s clear that sectional tension over the issue of slavery was a festering wound in the country during the 1850s.

Next time: More on Governor Wright and the Election of 1854.

Indiana Bicentennial 4.3: Joseph Wright (1849 – 1857) & the Constitution of 1851

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Joseph Wright (1849-1857)

Wright was the son of a bricklayer who moved his family from Pennsylvania to Bloomington and helped build the first halls of Indiana University. Wright himself worked his way through IU and eventually became a lawyer and found his way into politics. In 1849, with the support of Governor Whitcomb, Wright was the Democratic nominee. Slavery was the dominant question of the election, and Wright had a record of opposing slavery when he was in Congress, and that seemed to have helped his cause; defeating Whig John Matson.

During Wright’s term, the State adopted a new constitution, the State Board of Education was created, and the Department of Agriculture was founded. (One of its first initiatives was the Indiana State Fair which first took place in 1852.) Throughout his term, he wrestled with Jesse Bright — largely without success — for control of the Democratic Party. (Bright was an unlikable bully who was skilled at working committees, rewarding friends, and punishing enemies. More on him later.)

Constitution of 1851

Through the 1840s, there had been a push for a new Constitution. In part, this was a sign of the times — a commitment to progress and reform. A number of other states in the Old Northwest went through constitutional re-writes at this time. In part, it was a reaction to the failed Mammoth Improvement Act. There was a concern that the General Assembly did not operate efficiently — wasting money by meeting every year and considering a great deal of specific, local legislation. In 1850, the General Assembly adopted legislation facilitating the Constitutional convention. Ultimately, the districting for electing the 150 delegates was very similar to the districts in place for electing the 150 senators and representatives. A couple of tweaks were made: Boone and Tipton counties were in a senatorial district with Hamilton County. But, for the constitutional convention, only Hamilton County voters got to vote for that particular convention delegate. Also, Daviess and Martin counties jointly elected a representative and a senator. Instead of jointly electing those two convention delegates, each county got to elect its own convention delegate. The delegates were to meet in the Capitol Building in Indianapolis (efforts to retain the Masonic Hall apparently having failed), and the General Assembly appropriated $40,000 for the convention.

Most of the delegates were farmers, lawyers, and physicians. Very few of the delegates were native Hoosiers. About half were born in the South. Democrats were dominant at the time and made up 2/3 of the delegates. The rest were Whigs.

Much of the underlying structure of the Constitution of 1816 was retained, however there were some major new features. Under the Constitution of 1851, the General Assembly would meet only once every two years for sessions lasting 61 days. The new constitution was also somewhat more forceful on the subject of education than the 1816 version had been. As you might recall, the 1816 version had some good language about education but gave the government a loophole by saying it should be implemented “as soon as circumstances will permit.” Thanks to the agitation of Caleb Mills and the education reformers, the Framers of the 1851 deemed that the circumstances were ripe, stating that the General Assembly was “to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” This led promptly to the School Law of 1852 (which was blocked by the Supreme Court a couple of times before it was allowed to take effect in the 1860s).

Immigrants (male and white) were allowed to  vote if they had been in the country a year, in the state for 6 months, and expressed an intent to become citizens. (Irish and German immigrants were regarded as more likely to vote for Democrats). This expansive attitude toward the vote did not, of course, extend to women and blacks. Black people were singled out for particular abuse by this new constitution. A new Article XIII was added:

Section 1. No negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.

Section 2. All contracts made with any Negro or Mulatto coming into the State, contrary to the provisions of the foregoing section, shall be void; and any person who shall employ such Negro or Mulatto, or otherwise encourage him to remain in the State, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.

Section 3. All fines which may be collected for a violation of the provisions of this article, or of any law which ay hereafter be passed for the purpose of carrying the same into execution, shall be set apart and appropriated for the colonization of such Negroes and Mulattoes, and their descendants, as may be in the State at the adoption of this Constitution, and may be willing to emigrate.

Adding insult to injury, this Article was the subject of an independent vote and was more popular with Hoosiers (passing 113,828 to 21,873) than the rest of the constitution. Fortunately, this article was declared invalid by the Supreme Court in 1863.

Next time: The Fugitive Slave Act & the School Law of 1852

Indiana Bicentennial 4.2: Paris Dunning & Sectional Conflict

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This is installment 4.2 of my bicentennial series, covering Governor Paris Dunning and the rise of sectional conflict in the State.

Paris Dunning (1848-1849)

Dunning was a journeyman in Indiana government. After being a teacher, a doctor, and a lawyer, he was elected to be a state representative for Monroe County then a state senator for Monroe and Brown counties. He had voted for the Mammoth Internal Improvement Act and, when that went south, he did not get re-elected.  Dunning returned to private practice in Bloomington for awhile. However, Governor Whitcomb chose Dunning as a running mate in the 1846 election. The previous lieutenant governor, Jesse Bright (about whom I’ve written before), had been elected to the Senate by the legislature in 1844. When Whitcomb arranged to have himself elected by the legislature to the other U.S. Senate seat in 1848, the office of governor was vacant, and Dunning took Whitcomb’s place as Governor. As governor, Dunning spoke out against slavery. He asked for and received a resolution from the General Assembly urging Congress to oppose expansion of slavery in the territories.

Gov. Dunning also followed Governor Whitcomb’s work in advocating for a ballot initiative to replace Indiana’s 1816 Constitution. Under the 1816 state constitution, every twelfth year at the general election for governor, a poll was to be taken to determine if electors favored calling a constitutional convention. “Although there was much debate, this provision was interpreted to mean that the General Assembly could call for a convention at any time.” The 1846 election had included a referendum where a small majority favored amendment. However, there was some question about the vote. In particular, while the votes for amending the constitution exceeded those against such an amendment, the votes in favor made up less than 50% of those casting votes. However, responding to Governor Whitcomb’s recommendation in 1848, the Indiana General Assembly adopted legislation providing for another referendum in 1849. Governor Dunning signed that legislation, and a new referendum was conducted in 1849 with 81,500 in favor and 57,418 voting against.

Governor Dunning recommended that the legislature adopt legislation to provide for the districting of the state for delegates and adopt a tax to pay for the constitutional convention. He also noted the need to curb special legislation in the general assembly which, by his estimation, took up three-fourths of the General Assembly’s time.

Sectional conflict and state party politics

During this period, the sectional conflict was making itself felt within State politics. When the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, his status as a slave owner caused some consternation among antislavery Whigs and defections among Democrats. The Free Soilers attracted some bleed off from disaffected members of both parties. The Lafayette Journal was apparently one of the few publications willing to give voice to Free Soil sentiment. Schuyler Colfax considered buying the Journal to rid it of editor John Semans  who wrote in 1848:

“The nomination of Gen. Taylor is a disgrace to the Convention and an insult to the intelligence and virtue of the American people. The Whig party is basely betrayed—aye, sold to the Southern slaveholder. For ourselves we are against the nomination might and main, heart and soul.”

Meanwhile, there was further anti-Taylor animosity in Indiana that had little to do with the question of slavery but more with his treatment of Indiana’s soldiers during the Mexican-American War. In particular, there was a feeling that Indiana’s Second Regiment had been unfairly smeared as cowardly and, consequently, Indiana “suffered the stigma of military ineptness for many years after.” In the election of 1848, the Free Soilers were  an irritant to dyspeptic Democratic party boss and Senator, Jesse Bright:

The Free Soilers, however, proved to be thorns in the side of the Democrats and managed to put Jesse Bright in a bad humor all day. He had left Washington to supervise personally the Jefferson County election in his native town of Madison. As he watched the polls, he roared at the Free Soilers: “G-d damn you—I wish you and they were in Hell…. If I had the power I’d send you there.”

While the Democrats were still ascendant in the General Assembly, the process of selecting Gov. Whitcomb as Indiana’s U.S. Senator, among other things, highlighted that antislavery sentiment was politically useful. The Whigs and abolitionists were able to make some hay out of the Democrats’ ties to the South. For their part, in 1849, Indiana Democrats were shifting gears and coming out in opposition to slavery in the territories and Southern intransigence on the subject. Their opponents were not inclined to let them off the hook so easily:

Said the State Journal of its Democratic rival: “The Sentinel now begins to talk of ‘freedom’ and ‘southern dictation’ as glibly as though to such language it had long been accustomed. It does not sound beautifully from the lips of those who bowed so submissively to ‘Southern dictation’ and supported Mr. Polk for the Presidency—and who bowed still lower to the same dictation when they supported General Cass, who sold himself to the South! Then how harmoniously it sounds from those who aided in annexing Texas to the Union, with territory out of which to make four more Slave States! They talk of ‘Southern dictation’ who have been its most abject worshippers, and now ask to be thought sincere.”

The appeals of the major parties to attract Free Soil sentiment seems to have done its job, and the Free Soilers made no nominations in 1849. However, national sectional tensions were pulling the parties apart. As the state Democrats tried to distance themselves from the South, the state Whigs were being pulled under by their association with the slave owning Taylor. In general, the Free Soilers fused with the Democrats, and the sound defeat of the Whigs in 1849 took most of the life out of the party. Democrats took the lead on the common school law and the question of the new Indiana constitution which, in addition to the question of slavery, seem to have captured most of the state’s political attention for the next few years.

Bicentennial 4.1: The National Scene (1848 – 1865)

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This Fourth Installment of my Indiana Bicentennial Series will start where the third installment left off at the end of Gov. Whitcomb’s term in 1848, discuss Indiana’s 1851 Constitution, and then head through the Civil War and Governor Oliver Morton’s terms of office.

The U.S. Presidents through this period were Zachary Taylor (1849-1850), Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), Franklin Pierce (1853 – 1857), James Buchanan (1857 – 1861), and Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865).

The Indiana Governors were Paris Dunning (1848-1849), Joseph Wright (1849-1857), Ashbel Willard (1857-1860), Abram Hammond (1860-1861), Henry Lane (for two days in 1861), and Oliver P. Morton (1861-1867).

The National Scene

These first few Presidents are, as the Simpsons put it, “the adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable caretaker Presidents of the U.S.A.!”

Zachary Taylor

The people of the U.S. love a general and, after a good war, can typically be trusted to elect one. (See, e.g., Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, Eisenhower). Zachary Taylor (“Old Rough & Ready”) was elected on the strength of his victories in the Mexican-American War. Taylor did not actually have well-defined political positions. He was a slave owner but was not pushing for its expansion. Acquisition of the Mexican territory helped to exacerbate sectional tensions. Southerners were deeply concerned about their ability to own other people and perfectly willing to destroy the U.S. in order to preserve that prerogative. By and large, Taylor supported the Northern position and was apparently willing to sign a provision that would have barred slaves in the new territory if it ever reached the President’s desk. He supported the notion of California skipping the territory phase altogether and proceeding directly to statehood — this would leave the slavery question out of Congress’ hands. With the gold rush on, California’s population was exploding, so the timing worked. In 1846, after Joseph Smith had been murdered by non-Mormon neighbors in Illinois (Smith seems to have had this effect on his neighbors), Brigham Young led the Mormons to Utah. After initially applying for recognition as a state, Utah was organized as a territory in 1850. The slavery issue in Utah was muted somewhat by the territory’s general inhospitability for raising crops. The Compromise of 1850 was underway but not completed by the time of Taylor’s death on July 9, 1850 of a stomach ailment.

Millard Fillmore

Vice-President Millard Fillmore, who we have come to know as a not very funny comic strip duck stepped into the Presidency upon Taylor’s death. He was an early member of the Whig Party and, before the Vice-Presidency, had held various political offices in New York state. As an anti-slavery moderate from New York, he was put on the ticket with the slave holding Taylor who was at least nominally from Virginia. Fillmore helped finish the work on the Compromise of 1850. Ultimately, that Compromise resulted in five pieces of legislation: California was admitted as a free state. The Texas boundary was settled in a way that compromised some of its claims on New Mexico, but the U.S. paid the state’s debts. A New Mexico territory was created which was open to slavery. The slave trade (but not slavery) was abolished in the District of Columbia. And, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The Fugitive Slave Act was a federal law that required Northern States and their officials to arrest black people on as little as an affidavit from Southern slave owners who claimed the person was a runaway. (The failure of northern states to comply with this piece of federal law appears in Southern declarations of secession and, as such, severely undermines the revisionist history claiming that Southern secession was a principled matter of states’ rights and tariffs as opposed to a strong desire to own other people and extract their labor for free.)

The Compromise of 1850 put a thin scab over the sectional division and delayed the Civil War by another few years. Fillmore was also active in the Pacific. He dispatched Commodore Perry to “open Japan” to trade — the opening was accomplished with cannons. Fillmore also rattled some sabers when France came sniffing around the Hawaiian islands. He was very much opposed to European powers acquiring a foothold in Hawaii. Fillmore attempted to run for the Presidency in his own right, but he had alienated northern Whigs with the Fugitive Slave Act. The Whigs appointed General Winfield Scott (another war hero), but he was defeated by the Democrats’ candidate, Franklin Pierce.

Franklin Pierce

Pierce took office in 1853 and helped exacerbate sectional conflict during his term by enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and by signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He was a New Hampshire Democrat who took advice from his Southern advisers. Transportation and communication infrastructure played a role in the challenges he faced in his administration. Jefferson Davis, who would later lead Southerners in their rebellion against the United States, was Secretary of War during the Pierce administration. In 1853, Congress appropriated money to find a railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Telegraphy had been on the rise since Morse came up with a commercial system that began linking the major urban centers in the east during the 1840s. The need for a cross-country telegraph system was recognized along with the need for a cross-country railroad system. Secretary of War Davis was tasked with the job of organizing the search for a route and he initiated the Pacific Railroad Surveys. One potential route was in the south, through land still owned by Mexico. This led to the Gadsden Purchase.

Southerners were lukewarm on internal improvements generally, finding that they received more immediate profit from more slaves and more cotton production, sold internationally. Davis, however, was a railroad enthusiast and a supporter of the Southern route. Pierce was amenable to the idea of expanding in the South and authorized the purchase of land from Mexico which would expand the United States’ southwestern holdings. Santa Anna, who had been returned to power in Mexico, needed money and was willing to deal. To him, this territory was more or less just a stretch of desert and, to him, $15 million (more than $400 million today) was a worthwhile trade. The treaty was eventually ratified, but it exacerbated sectional conflict in the context of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that was being debated. Northern Senators wanted their own railroad and opposed what might be the organization of more slave territory.

Senator Stephen Douglas (“the Little Giant”) from Illinois wanted a railroad from Chicago to the west. Organizing the Nebraska territory was a first step in the process. Under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, slavery would not be permitted in Nebraska; but southerners wouldn’t permit organization of Nebraska unless slaveholders were permitted there. Repeal of the prohibition of slavery in the northern territories sparked a vitriolic debate in Congress, and bloody conflict in the territories. The notion of “popular sovereignty” where the residents of the territory got to determine whether the territory would be a slave state or slave free prompted “a rush into Kansas, as southerners and northerners vied for control of the territory. Shooting broke out, and “bleeding Kansas” became a prelude to the Civil War.” The midterm elections of 1854-1855 were bad for Northern Democrats and Whigs. There was considerable agitation over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act for the benefit of Southern slave owners. A loose coalition of various political parties — Know-Nothing, Independent, Anti-know-nothing, Fusion, Anti-Nebraska, Anti-Administration, Whig, Free Soil, People’s Party of Indiana, and Unionist — would take control of the House. These anti-Democrats would soon form into the basis of the Republican Party. Pierce, the sitting President, was so unpopular by the time of the 1856 election that he could not even get the nomination to run for re-election. James Buchanan got the nod.

James Buchanan

Buchanan had the advantage of having been minister to the United Kingdom during the Pierce administration and was able to avoid getting caught up in the growing sectional unpleasantness prior to the election of 1856. The relatively new Republicans fielded John C. Fremont as a candidate, running with the slogan “Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont and victory!” However, the anti-Democratic forces had not consolidated and Fremont’s campaign was undermined by the Know-Nothings (officially the “American” Party) — so named because of their secretive origins. The Know-Nothings nominated former President Millard (not Mallard) Fillmore and attempted to ignore the slavery question; instead focusing on an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic platform (sounds vaguely familiar). They preferred “native” Americans, by which they did not mean American Indians. They meant the white Protestants who had been here for at least a few decades.

With the anti-Democratic vote split, Buchanan won the election. His administration was dominated by the tension leading up to the Civil War about which countless books and novels can and have been written. I can’t do them justice. So, I’ll just mention that the Dred Scott case was decided, John Brown gained notoriety as Kansas continued to bleed, Stephen Douglas debated Abraham Lincoln, rampant land speculation, currency policy, and a decline in international trade caused the Panic of 1857, and there was conflict between Mormons and the federal government in Utah. In 1858, the Republicans gained a plurality in the House of Representatives and began investigating the Buchanan administration for corruption. This was an interesting time in American politics. The Republicans were still in the midst of becoming the country’s second party, the Whigs had collapsed, the Democrats were deeply divided between North and South, and the Know-Nothings’ brief moment in the sun was fading as anti-immigrant fervor abated somewhat and they were hurt by their vague stance on slavery.

In 1860, all hell was breaking loose. The Democratic convention was a disaster with the Democrats ultimately producing three nominees: Southern Democrats nominating vice-president John Breckenridge; Northern Democrats nominating Stephen Douglas; and some took up with the Constitutional Union candidacy of John Bell, a Tennessee candidate who wanted to preserve the union without taking a position on slavery. The Republicans, of course, nominated Abraham Lincoln and, when he won, the Southerners were determined to take their ball and go home. As the white Southerners began agitating for secession, Buchanan essentially sat on his hands while the Southerners stole federal property. On January 9, 1861, South Carolinians opened fire on the American soldiers at Fort Sumter.

Abraham Lincoln

Anyone likely to have made it this far through a post on Indiana history already likely knows far more about Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War than I can even begin to cover here. So, for Lincoln’s Presidency, I’ll just borrow a line from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural: “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.”

Indiana Bicentennial 3.6: Gov. James Whitcomb, the Mexican-American War, and Education in Indiana

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This is installment 3.6 of my Indiana Bicentennial series. Installment 3 covers generally the period from 1832 to 1848. 3.1: national context. 3.2: Gov. Noah Noble. 3.3: Indiana’s Mammoth Internal Improvement Act of 1836. 3.4: Governor Wallace and Indian removal in Indiana. 3.5: Gov. Samuel Bigger. This last part of Installment 3 looks at Gov. James Whitcomb, the Mexican American War, and Education in Indiana.

James Whitcomb (1843 – 1848)

James Whitcomb moved from Kentucky to Bloomington, Indiana at the age of 26 where he established a law practice and became the Monroe County Prosecutor. Elected to the state Senate in 1830, he was an outspoken opponent of the Mammoth Internal Improvement Act. That along with the fact that he was a Methodist placed him well to run against Governor Bigger in 1843. (Some of Presbyterian Gov. Bigger’s comments in the 1830s about the educational competency of Methodists had alienated that group.) Whitcomb won the election by 2,000 votes out of 120,000 cast. Significantly – given how close the election was – 1,600 votes went to the newly formed Liberty Party which ran on an anti-slavery platform.

Whitcomb’s first term was devoted to addressing the State’s financial situation. Measures taken during Bigger’s tenure, a somewhat improving economy, and Whitcomb’s cuts to state employee compensation helped improve the state government’s financial outlook. During his term, he advocated for the creation of the Indiana School for the Deaf and a state mental asylum. Both initiatives were successful, but funding would have to wait until further recovery of the state’s financial prospects.

The State had made some recovery on its finances at the time of Whitcomb’s re-election bid, and he defeated Whig Joseph Marshall and Liberty candidate Stephen Stevens. However, despite the improvement on the debt situation, discussions were underway with Charles Butler, a representative of eastern and foreign bondholders to whom Indiana remained indebted. Butler had successfully negotiated a restructuring in Michigan which had similar internal improvement financial problems — also exacerbated by the Panic of 1837 and also involving the sketchy Morris Canal and Banking Company. In 1845, Butler began negotiations. Prior to the legislative session in December of 1845, Morris gave a speech in Terre Haute where he proposed that a tax should be imposed dedicated to partial repayment of the bonds. The bondholders, in turn, would take the Wabash & Erie’s revenues for the other half. He persuaded Governor Whitcomb of his plan and, together, they lobbied local and legislative leaders.

For his part, Butler attempted to scold Indiana for paying local contractors before paying bondholders and cast the State’s debt repayment obligations in moral terms, making much of the “widows and orphans who held Indiana bonds and depended on regular interest payments.” After some rough and tumble debate (one Senator called Butler’s style of writing and thought as “frothy and bombastic”) the legislature passed a bill in early 1847 that provided for payment of half of the bond obligation and traded control and revenues of the Wabash & Erie for the remainder. The debt still consumed about half of the State’s revenues, but it was becoming more manageable.

Mexican-American War

In 1846, the Mexican-American War broke out.  Initially, it would seem that Indiana would have difficulty meeting its obligation to supply soldiers. The militia system had been largely abandoned as the Native Americans had been pushed out of the state. The state’s arsenal was basically empty, and its militia was dubbed the “cornstalk militia,” with soldiers supposedly drilling with cornstalks as rifles and tassels in their caps.

In May, the Department of War sent a letter to the Governor requiring three regiments.The conflict was unexpected, the State had not appropriated money for the resulting expenses, and the State’s credit was ruined so it could not borrow for the necessary equipment.  Three regiments meant that 2,811 men had to be organized. However, a patriotic desire to plant the Star Spangled Banner on the Halls of Montezuma helped. Lew Wallace, then 19 years old, had a company organized in Indianapolis within 3 days. Men began to pour into Camp Clark (east of New Albany) from all over the state. Several branches of the State Bank made money available to fund the effort, and Indiana was able to meet its quota within 19 days. One unfortunate episode of the Indiana Brigade involved a mistake by the Second Indiana Regiment which was ordered to retreat when they should have held or advanced with the rest of the troops, apparently turning the battle in favor of the Mexicans under Santa Ana at Vera Cruz on February 23, 1847. Later in 1847, Indiana was asked to and did provide a fourth and fifth regiment. The U.S. won the war against Mexico and, by July 1848, the troops were back home. “A season of barbecues followed, the battle flags were presented to the State among solemn ceremonials, and the chapter was closed.”

Education

In the 1840s, the state of education in Indiana remained more aspirational than real. The federal Land Ordinance of 1785 provided that section 16 in each township would be set aside to support schools. The ordinance required surveyors to divide land into townships that were six miles square. Within each township, there were to be thirty-six sections, each a mile square. According to the ordinance,  “there shall be reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township.” Meanwhile, Indiana’s constitution of 1816 promised that the state would create, “as soon as circumstances permit,” a “general system of education, ascending in regular gradation, from township schools to state university, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all.” However, as of the 1840s, education of Indiana was haphazard and not much of a system at all. It ranked lower than some Southern states and all of the northern states in terms of literacy — 18 out of 28 states overall. Less than a quarter of children between five and fifteen attended school. 14.3% of adult Hoosiers were illiterate compared to a national average of 11.6%. By 1850, its literacy rank among the states had dropped to 23rd. Part of this is attributable to settlement patterns. A lot of the state’s settlers had come from the upland South which was not known to have a strong tradition of literacy.

However, during the 1840s, an effort was made to turn the aspiration of public education into a reality. A prime mover in this effort was a Presbyterian missionary from the east by the name of Caleb Mills whose six “One of the People” addresses helped culminate in the School Law of 1852. Mills was not alone in his efforts, rather he was part of a network of reformers working throughout the Midwest to improve education. Mills became familiar with the state of education in Indiana when he took a two year leave of absence from his studies at Andover Theological Seminary to institute Sunday School programs in northern Kentucky and southern Indiana.  In 1833, after graduating from Andover, Mills took a position at “Wabash Manual Labor College and Teacher’s Seminary” in Crawfordsville.

Thirteen years later, in 1846, Mills wrote the first of his “One of the People” papers. It was published in the Indiana State Journal in 1846 on the second day of the 1846 General Assembly under the title of “An Address to the Legislature.”

[Mills] pointed to Indiana’s lamentable inadequacy in the vital field of education, then passed to concrete consideration of particular evils and of remedies. Public funds at that time devoted to schools came largely from the federal land grant of one section in each congressional township. The money derived from these sections was not consolidated and then distributed equally throughout the state; instead each township kept whatever it could realize from its own section. Thus the very communities that most needed public assistance and could least afford to support schools from local funds, i.e., communities where land values were low and farms poor, in fact received the least help from the land donation; prosperous townships got the highest incomes from their more valuable lands. Such inefficient use of the funds must be rectified, said the Address, by equal state-wide distribution. Furthermore and even more significant, the really basic support for free schools must be raised by taxation. Finally, only if higher schools improve will well-trained teachers be available; therefore let the county seminaries and the state university be reorganized. Sell all the physical facilities of the seminaries and of the university; distribute the interest on the proceeds to one private seminary in each county and to every college whose governors will agree to maintain certain stipulated standards, to train teachers, and to devote the money received to provide prospective teachers with free tuition.

Mills was joined by Governor Whitcomb who, in his annual address to the legislature,”urged that body to revise the entire school system and place it under the charge of a state superintendent.”

No legislation resulted; however, in May 1847, the General Assembly called a state common school convention presided over by state Supreme Court Chief Justice, Isaac Blackford. The result was work produced by two committees. One was a public relations effort that explained the state of public education in Indiana and recommended the allocation of additional funds to education, that Indiana public schools should be free to students, that schools and teacher standards should be uniform, and that a superintendent of common schools should be established. The second committee produced draft legislation for consideration by the Indiana General Assembly calling for a poll tax, an organized system of superintendents and trustees, and a referendum upon the issue of common schools. That work, in conjunction with a second address by Mills published during the General Assembly’s work in December 1847 resulted in a referendum in the 1848 election wherein a majority of Hoosiers expressed support for the idea of a system of common schools.

Mills third address framed the results of the referendum for consideration by the 1848 General Assembly. He pointed to the strong correlation between a county’s high illiteracy rate and hostility to a system for common schools. Despite the negative votes, the majority of positive votes was “a cause for encouragement on the part of education advocates in the Hoosier state: ‘There was more genuine patriotism in the school vote of last August than was ever expressed at the ballot box since she [Indiana] became a sovereign state.'” The legislature passed a school law in 1848 which used taxation to support common schools and equalized the period of instruction for township schools. However, its effect was limited because it allowed counties to opt out, and, additionally, school funds were not consolidated and distributed equally among communities. After 29 counties rejected the 1848 system, Mills fourth address was focused on criticism of the 1848 law. The fifth appeal was directed at the Constitutional convention that led to the 1851 constitution. That document provided for “a general and uniform system of common schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge and equally open to all.” Finally, in 1852, the General Assembly adopted the School Law of 1852 which “established a common school fund, a centralized system of school organization, and a Superintendent of Public Instruction— all features Mills’ had strongly supported in his address. The 1852 law did not fully incorporate Mills’ proposals for graded schools and normal schools to standardize education and teacher training.”

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The education saga sort of straddles the time period had artificially set for this segment of my bicentennial series. So, to return briefly to Governor Whitcomb’s administration: before the end of his term, Governor Whitcomb was elected to the U.S. Senate by the state legislature and was replaced by Paris Dunning on December 26, 1848. Shortly before leaving office, in his December 1848 address to the legislature, Governor Whitcomb  advocated for a new state constitution.  Among the issues he regarded as being crucial to address was the proliferation of local and special legislation, assumption of public debt, and a change to a biennial rather than annual meeting of the General Assembly. More on that in Installment 4 of this Bicentennial series where I hope to address the convention for the 1851 Constitution and the onset of the Civil War.