Ohio History Journal

ADDRESS AT MARIETTA, OHIO, 1858.1

 

 

BY HON. THOMAS EWING.

EDITED BY C. L. MARTZOLFF, ATHENS, OHIO.

Ladies and Gentlemen:-

We meet to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the first

landing of our Pioneer Fathers on the shores of the Ohio, in the

North Western Territory. An age-the full age allotted to

men has elapsed since that hardy band of brave men and brave

women, fresh from the war of the Revolution, a few of the

boldest and most adventurous of the relics of that war, through

fresh toils and yet untried dangers, came and planted themselves

on this remote and then almost inaccessible shore.

We at this day can ill appreciate the trials and privations

through which they passed. The world has since changed.

Man has acquired dominion over the elements, the powers of

nature, which he had not then attained. There is hardly any

habitable spot on the earth now as difficult of access. You may

reach the Red River of the North, ascend the Missouri, the

Amazon, the La Plata, the Oregon, to their sources and plant

yourselves at either foot of the Rocky Mountains or the Andes;

pass to the farther Indies, to New Zealand or Australia more

speedily; carry with you more of the necessaries of civilized life

and reach the spot with less toil and danger than those daring

and determined men encountered. They came aware of all they

had to encounter, and prompt to meet it all. They came full of

high hopes of a mighty future, Heaven directed, urged on by

an impulse which looked for its result in generations to come;

they comprehended their destiny, and they fulfilled it.

With an earnestness of purpose approaching enthusiasm,

with an exaltation of feeling, proper to the great cause to

which they devoted themselves, they blended the consideration,

 

1Published for the first time from the original manuscript. - EDITOR.

(186)

• 1
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.          187

 

the caution, the adaptation of means to end, which was and is

the characteristic of their race, they deliberated, they reflected,

they weighed consequences good and evil-present and future-

and they resolved. Songs full of sturdy love and wild adventure,

which I heard sung in my childhood and snatches of which still

linger in my memory, incited the young and ardent; while the

mature and the wise looked with almost prophetic vision to the

future destinies of the promised land. Mr. Webster once showed

me a pamphlet (2), published (I think at Salem) in 1785; the

object of which was to prepare the minds of the deliberate and

thoughtful for the adventure. It contains a description, favor-

able but not overwrought of the country and its advantages,

especially its future. And it speaks with a confidence, which

amounts almost to a certainty, that steam would be applied to

navigation, and that no portion of the earth would profit by the

application so much as the country washed by our Western

rivers. Mr. Webster said that those best informed gave the

honor of its authorship to Doctor Manasseh Cutler. The pam-

phlet ought to be, and I trust it is, in the possession of some

Western Historical Society. It ought to be, and perhaps is,

in the possesion also of some of the descendants of its excellent

and distinguished author.

Impelled by motives such as those on which I have touched,

our Pioneer Fathers determined upon the adventure.   The

country was remote, the land wild and unexplored, but it was

not for them or of them to enter as intruders upon land, not

their own.

They purchased before they moved. They were not enam-

ored of what in modern times is called squatter sovereignty,

(3)-they loved the protection, and they loved also the re-

straints of law, and were not content to put themselves without

its pale. They waited, therefore, for the ordinance of July 13,

1787. Clothed with the title to their future homes-protected

and controlled by the ordinance, and armed with their own self-

sustaining energies, they pressed forward to their destined goal.

They met and they overcame all that opposed them. Wild

nature and wilder man-and they planted themselves here-their

journey was ended and they were here. Here under the stately

• 2
 

188      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

trees of the primeval forest, seventy years ago, they were

assembled, consulting together of measures for their own pres-

ent safety and of preparations for their future homes. But all

these are of the past-all save one-the venerable man, (4)

whom you have just risen to honor, have descended to the tomb;

and they have left the land which their hardy virtue won, and

which their labor improved and beautified to you, their descend-

ants whom I see around me. It is a rich inheritance. And it

was a noble band of men who bequeathed it. From the origin to

the decline within the whole life allotted to a nation, but one such

product of men is allowed. Physically, morally, mentally, but

one-and they are never strictly reproduced. Other and many

high qualities their descendants possess-but the state of the

country, the social condition, the various surroundings of life,

have forbidden to spring up into strong and full development,

as the characteristic of a whole people, the sturdy and hardy

virtues of the Pioneer Fathers.  Theirs too was an exalted

destiny worthy of the men.

It was the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio on which

they entered and into which they led the immigration of our

race. It was a wide and a goodly land and it came into the

possession of civilized man under happy auspices.

Their movement though silent and unnoticed was worthy

of record in the annals of the world. The territory on which

they entered equals in area England and France and Belgium,

and it is equal to all these in capability of administering to the

wants of man. Those countries are overpeopled. May it be

long before ours holds the human multitude which swarms upon

them-but, without trenching upon the comforts of life, the

natural capacities of the country will sustain a population greater

than that of any sovereignty in Europe, Russia (5) alone ex-

cepted-and in the natural course of events, another seventy

years will give it such population with all its good and evil-its

power-its wealth-its refinement and its crime.

Providence brings forth his great results in silence. Seventy

years have elapsed and we look with wonder at the aggregate

of change which has passed by almost unnoticed. The popu-

lation of the Territory which began seventy years ago with one

• 3
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.          189

 

little band of Pioneer emigrants, has in one age risen to seven

millions. Nothing in our past history is involved in mist or

twilight-it is all distinct before us and we have reached a stand-

point from which we can see the future, in its leading features

almost as clearly and certainly as the past. As we know that

on the soil of our Territory there are now seven millions of

inhabitants with all the appliances and comforts of civilized life,

we also know with almost equal certainty that in another seventy

years there will be fifty millions, (6) with the due and wonted

increase in refinement and wealth and power and learning.

The mighty contemporaneous movements of peoples and

nations which agitated the world and which make up the history

of the age-the French revolution which overthrew throne and

altar-which destroyed the organization social and political of

the first of European nations and deluged its soil with blood has

passed by and vanished like a dream. It has changed a dynasty

but left no other trace in France. The volcano burst forth and

spread desolation through Europe, hurled kings from their

thrones and made soldiers kings, but it has passed by and

Europe is essentially what it was before the campaign of Na-

poleon Bonaparte,- France as she was an hundred years before

the Cossacks entered Paris. A change has no doubt taken place,

but few can mark, and none define it. France still remains with

her nationality-her chivalry-her pride-her love for glory-she

is closed in by the same boundaries and governed by the same

laws; socially and morally she is the same; still France in full

and perfect identity. (7)

Europe, the same community of mighty nations as before

she was overwhelmed by the revolutionary torrent. The ancient

landmarks of her kingdoms which had been swept away were

restored by the Treaty of Paris. She has increased in population

and wealth during an interval of peace, but is now essentially

the same as before the Tornado swept over and wasted her.

The events of the age which were called great-those which

crowd full the records of history have passed and left but a

trace. (8)

How different in its character and consequences, the event

which we have met to celebrate. Seventy years ago forty-eight

• 4
 

190      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

men landed on this spot and commenced the settlement of the

North Western Territory. The world knew them not-marked

them not-contemporaneous history passes them by in silence,

yet they laid the foundation and fixed the destiny of more than a

mighty Empire. They were of the people who gave birth to the

ordinance of 1787.

The men who negotiated the purchase and who set on foot

and moved forward emigration, devised and carried through the

ordinance for the government of the colony which they planted

-it was emphatically the ordinance of our pioneer fathers-

they were its material embodiment-they came with it here, and

they planted and fixed here forever, in form and substance,

the principle of political and personal liberty which it secures.

The country was destined to be peopled-to be rich and popu-

lous for nature framed it to be the desired habitation of man-

but by whom and under what laws-political-moral and social

was determined by them under this their organic law.

They came here under law-for they desired its protection

and did not reject its restraints. Squatter sovereignty had in

that age and among that people no being, it is an imposthume

in the body politic which has grown out of long years of pros-

perity and peace. They came not under the Constitution of the

United States, for it had not yet received its authority by adop-

tion, but under their own special constitution, the Ordinance of

1787, and the Pioneers were not in haste to be lawgivers. For

more than eleven years-until the population of the Territory

rose to 5,000 souls, the governor and judges adopted laws from

the several states for their government and protection. (9)

Thus a regular system of government was established and

law and order and social quiet at once prevailed-crimes were

few and breaches of the peace rare. We had indeed at once

from its first foundation a well organized and a well governed

community. But modern statesmen have discovered that a vital

error subversive of popular rights was committed in the forma-

tion of the ordinance. (10)

The Territory lay on the borders of free and of slave states,

and according to them the advocates of Freedom and of Slavery

ought to have been permitted to meet upon it and fight for

• 5
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.           191

mastery, and especially the first forty-eight men who found them-

selves together in the Territory should have been permitted to

form themselves into a Legislative council and House of Dele-

gates and enact laws for the government of future emigrants.

In 1854 these reformers carried out the teaching of their

more matured wisdom in the act for the organization of the

Territory of Kansas. (II)   That was intended to restore the

injured people to their primitive rights and from the ample ex-

perience we have had of its effects we are able to compare the

practical wisdom of the present age with that of the past.

In a new and remote territory, it must be expected that

unless the people are a law unto themselves, the laws will oper-

ate feebly or not at all. Hence it was once thought important to

remove from controversy every political and social question on

which the community would tend to divide into great and

organized parties. The question of slavery might threaten such

division. It was therefore settled by the organic law of the New

Territory and emigration thereupon adapted and conformed

itself to the law.

It was pronounced as by the fiat of Omnipotence that there

should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said Terri-

tory except for the punishment of crime. And all men from

whatsoever country or state they might come, yielded at once

to the mandate. That was no subject of strife among the people

of the Territory northwest of the River Ohio-the question there

was from the first and forever at rest. In the Southern Terri-

tory of Mississippi it was at once also decreed that Slavery did

and might exist-and the question was settled there also.

One would be inclined to think that the admirable working

of the system thus early adopted and so long tried with success,

would have recommended its continuance. But the rights of

Squatter Sovereignty which have been recently discovered and

explained were ignored and therefore violated by that ordinance;

they required vindication and the Kansas-Nebraska Act was

therefore passed and those rights were vindicated. In sober

truth, that act was a proclamation to the two sections of the

Union-then as now unhappily divided, saying to them, in

language as plain as laws can speak, "Go and fight for the mastery

• 6
 

192       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

in that Territory. It is a desirable Territory, from its situation

each section of the Union may claim it. Go and fight for it.

There are no laws there and will be none except such as you shall

make for yourselves. The party that can use the rifle, the

revolver and bowie knife the best, shall have it. You who can

cheat most at the polls, who can best stuff the ballot boxes and

most skillfully forge returns, and especially you who can with a

strong hand drive off your adversaries and prevent them from

casting their votes-you shall rule the land and fix its destiny.

Murder, arson, violence, forgery, crime in none of its forms

can be punished unless you see fit to punish it. Commit there-

fore boldly for an empire is the reward of manly daring."

Such was the mandate-such also the execution. In no

nook or corner of a civilized country, since civilization first

dawned, has there existed a more absolute anarchy, a more

brutal degrading and terrific anarchy. There was no law, no

protection of person or property. Drunken ruffians murdered

in open day whomsoever they chose to treat as personal or

political enemies, and exhibited their bleeding scalps in triumph.

And men of standing and intellect were shot down in their own

houses because they refused to submit to personal depredation

and exile. I was in Leavenworth a year after these scenes had

closed and saw the house well marked with shot in which

Phillips, (12) a lawyer of eminence, was murdered because he

refused to go into exile and would not submit to be tarred and

feathered a second time. His offense was that he expressed

opinions unfavorable to the establishment of slavery in the

Territory. A spot was pointed out to me about two miles from

Leavenworth where a ruffian by the name of Fugit (13) shot

down and scalped a German boy of nineteen or twenty years of

age, and afterwards displayed his trophy in the town, averring

that it was the scalp of an abolitionist. He did it, of course,

with impunity. It was one of the excesses into which those

engaged in a great and holy cause sometimes fall and his appre-

henshion and punishment would have weakened his party, which

under the Kansas-Nebraska act was the Law and Order party

of the day. I heard the number of murders during these

troubled times estimated at one thousand-of course not all on

• 7
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.          193

one side, for after the first few months, retaliation was as

bloody and cruel as aggression-the passions of violent men

were excited to ferocity and they wreaked themselves on each

other.

Such was the practical illustration-the working out of the

theory of Squatter Sovereignty-and when at last, with all its

appliances it failed, as fail it did and fail it must, United States

troops were called out, to compel self government at the point of

the bayonet.

On the contrary, the leading characteristics of all the terri-

tories and all the states successively formed out of the great

North Western Territory to which the ordinance of 1787

applied, from their earliest organization down to the present time

have been reverence for and obedience to law and a love of

social order. The wild passions of men were restrained from

the first by actual government. No ruffian band was suffered

to take possession of the Territory and curse it with unrighteous

laws. On the contrary, wise and wholesome laws which all men

approved, commanded respect and reverence, and order was

secured by their certain and faithful execution, all its successive

organizations were from the first settled communities, as regu-

larly and completely so as if they had existed a thousand years;

and with this great advantage, that then there were no large

masses of men, in crowded cities where the very multitude pre-

vents detection and forms a cover for crime. In these new com-

munities individual man, the humble as well as the exalted, stood

out in relief. All men were known and the acts of all could be

traced. There were no crowds in which the hunted criminal

could hide and elude pursuit. In these causes were laid the

foundations of our new communities. And it is hard to find on

the face of the wide earth five independent states which have

passed through an equal period of self government with more

perfect political and social order, and with less of crime. In

this point of view and to this extent, at least we may be proud

of our most ancient organic law,-the Ordinance of 1787-proud

that we have been reared under it and that we have contributed

our mite to confirm and extend its influence.

But there is another point of view in which that ordinance

Vol. XXVIII-13.

• 8
 

194       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

merits consideration.  Under its provisions, there could be

neither slavery or involuntary servitude within the limits of the

Territory except for the punishment of crime.

I am not about to discuss the good or evil inherent in

the institution of slavery. Many of those who have been reared

under its influence, and are most familiar with its effects pro-

nounce it a positive good and desire therefore to extend it.

While most of those who look at it from without, consider it

a moral and social evil, and are eager to rescue the slave holder

and the slave from the curse to which they believe them sub-

jected. With these opinions I have nothing to do at present,

unless it be to express the belief that as propagandists, neither

will be successful; that even philanthropists may be excused,

after twenty-five years of earnest effort, if they give up all hope

of reforming opinion, by denunciation on the one side or by

menace on the other.

The effect however of this clause in the ordinance may

be considered without trespassing even for a moment on this

debatable ground.

It excluded slavery from the Territory. As a necessary

consequence it required that all labor should be performed by

freemen-men having social standing and political rights-it

therefore made labor honorable within the Territory-whether

it be so intrinsically is another question, debatable as it seems.

It is held honorable by all on one side of the line because it is

the vocation of freemen-degrading in the eyes of some on the

other side because it is the task of slaves. Where this is wholly

or principally the case, labor may be naturally enough looked

upon as a badge of servitude. While with us we see all labor

performed by freemen. When we know that it is not the com-

mand of a master, but the strong will of the man that gives to

his muscles vigor and energy and action--when we see and know

that intelligence and talent and sometimes genius guides his hand

-when we see him by the aid of these seizing upon the mightiest

physical powers of nature and subjecting them to his will, we

grow up habitually in the opinion that labor is not only honor-

able but ennobling.

Therefore, we of the North Western Territory honor this

• 9
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.          195

 

provision of the ordinance and think it has not humbled us in

the scale of moral, mental and social being. Labor with us and

among us is honorable, and men who live by labor have chosen to

settle here rather than go into a state when it would degrade

them-hence the difference in the progress of country and city

on different sides of the line.

In 1800 the part of the North Western Territory which is

now Ohio had 45,000 inhabitants; Kentucky, 220,000-nearly

five to one. In 1850 Ohio exceeded her by a million.  And

taking this into view and considering the extent of territory, soil,

climate and mineral wealth, it is fair to suppose that if the Ordi-

nance of 1787 and the institution of slavery had changed sides,

the present excess of population would have changed sides with

it. If the Mississippi Territory now comprising the states of

Alabama and Mississippi and which was set apart for the settle-

ment of those holding slaves, had attained a population to the

square mile equal to that of Ohio, the two states would now

contain all the population of all the new slave states and terri-

tories in the Union.

From the facts before us then, these conclusions follow:

that in the first planting of a colony it is safe and consistent

with the largest rational liberty to give it laws, and that it

should not be its own lawgiver until it acquired numbers suf-

ficient to form a regular community. And that the restriction

in the Ordinance of 1787, the fundamental law of the territory

northwest of the river, was and is acceptable to the great ma-

jority of the emigrating people of the United States and the

rest of the civilized world and has tended greatly to the pros-

perity and advancement of the territory over which it extended.

And it has extended and is destined to extend far beyond the

limits of the Northwest Territory. It has passed the Mis-

sissippi river; it has occupied the shores of the Pacific. And

no human artifice or human power can prevent its progress until

it shall have united and covered the intervening space along the

corresponding parallels of Latitude.  The rapidly increasing

population of the northwestern states prove it. The late events

in Kansas and its present condition prove it. And I rejoice that

it is so, for I believe it to be the happier and better condition

• 10
 

196       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

of the human race. The state of Missouri is as a headland-a

cape projecting northward far into the territory occupied by free

labor. The tide that sets westward is spreading over it, and

in the natural and necessary progress of events that will soon

be added to the number of states in which there shall be neither

slavery nor involuntary servitude except the punishment of

crime. It requires no external effort-no care on our part, to

produce the result. We have nothing to do but to leave the

people of that state to their own counsel-it will be the state in

the Union that shall first hereafter abolish slavery. St. Louis

is actually free from its effects-free labor has taken full pos-

session of it. I have walked the city for days without seeing

a single colored man at work in the street or waiting in a hotel.

And its growth has indicated it a free city-its bustle, its busi-

ness, its commerce and manufactures mark it as such. It re-

quires no vote testing the strength of parties to convince me

of this.

But on this subject there is harsh and bitter feeling between

the different sections of the Union. This is much to be de-

plored. Let us consider it for a moment-there is perhaps blame

on both sides and let us pluck the beam from our own eyes

before we seek to remove the mote from our brother's. If they,

on the other side of the line, are happy in the institution of

slavery, why should not we permit them to enjoy the cherished

privilege?  If we are content without it, they ought to pity

and not be angry with us for wanting a just relish of the good

things which they enjoy. But public opinion-enlightened pub-

lic opinion-on different sides of the line is not very widely

different. I have heard the opinion expressed by intelligent

Southern men-themselves large slave-holders-that slavery is

a "moral and social evil." Once I heard it expressed in the

Senate of the United States, by a distinguished Virginia

senator. About twenty-five years ago the subject was discussed

in the Virginia House of Delegates, and opinions, to which I

am quite ready to subscribe, were advanced and strongly urged

by nearly half the members. They believed and still believe

slavery to be an evil-an evil not created or committed by them,

but inflicted upon them. And is not this true! We all are

• 11
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.          197

 

aware that in the original draft of the Declaration of Inde-

pendence, (14) a clause from the pen of Mr. Jefferson, after-

wards stricken out, denounced the British government for

having forced slavery upon the Colonies. And the charge was

just. When the introduction of slaves was permitted and the

trade encouraged by the government; when labor was wanted

and slaves were sold cheap; ten men who chose to stock their

tobacco plantations with slaves-could fasten the institution

upon the Colony against the will of an hundred who might

oppose it. Slaves were then introduced into the Colonies by

the art and under the encouragement and countenance of the

Mother Country without reference to the will of the Colonies.

And the great mass of thinking men in Virginia now look upon

Slavery as Mr. Jefferson looked upon it.

Such is not the universal opinion and perhaps not now the

general feeling for in the exacerbation of sectional and political

strife opinions change--and sometimes feeling gets the as-

cendency over opinion, assumes its name and usurps its place.

But why, we exclaim, why do they not rid themselves of

the evil? Put the curse far from them? Are they not responsi-

ble for it, because they retain it? These are propositions on

which I have thought much -and allow me to say, in all sin-

cerity and candor, they are questions which I feel myself in-

competent to answer. It were no light thing to change at once,

suddenly and violently the social condition of a great community

-there are few among the sturdiest advocates of personal lib-

erty, that would if they had the power and responsibilities of

Legislators abolish at once Slavery in Virginia, for example, and

set all the slaves instantly free. If any one would do it, it

must be in ignorance of its necessary consequences; or he

would do it as an avenger, not as a Legislator.

Gradual emancipation-prospective and gradual, such as

was proposed in 1832, is all that remains. Policy doubtless

dictates it. It is for the interest of Virginia and the other border

States that it should be adopted; but would it subserve the

cause of humanity? Of this I entertain doubt. Indeed my

opinion is that it would not. It would at once reduce the value

of Slaves in the States where prospective emancipation was

• 12
 

198      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

adopted, and cause their transportation to the sugar and cotton

fields of the South, where they would be harder worked and

less cared for. The border States would be freed from the evil;

but the condition of their slaves would be changed, harshing and

sadly for the worse, their numbers would be reduced, but not

by emancipation. This is the point of view in which emancipa-

tion presents itself to humane and considerate men of the South.

Let us look at it from their standpoint, truthfully and honestly

-and not even to ourselves, in our own thoughts, bear false

witness against our neighbors. They are placed in their present

social condition by no voluntary act of their own- for good

or for evil it is their condition and wise and prudent men do

not rush inconsiderately into great social change.

And we may I think safely and without the abandonment

of any duty, forego our harangues on the general evils of

Slavery. Our opinions are fixed and do not require to be made

more strong - the evil will not invade us. And our most florid

eloquence, with all accustomed rhetorical exaggeration, can do

little elsewhere. Indeed families and States are alike in this-

none of them are conciliated or improved by outside strictures

on their domestic regulations. There has been to some extent

a tendency among us to this annoying interference and it has

produced evil and not good. All that we can rightfully and

wisely do; all that we should desire to do is-when Slavery

attempts to pass beyond its allotted bounds, to arrest its prog-

ress; to bid it, to make it, stop. The disparaging language-

the denunciations and threats of Southern rhetoricians excite

in me no serious emotions, no feeling of anger, or resentment.

The Southern Senator who told us of the white slaves of the

North and compared them and their condition rather unfavor-

ably, with that of the black slaves, who cultivate the rice fields,

on the Ashley and Cooper river flats, simply struck me as no

very profound philosopher and as a man of no extensive or

exact observation. Perhaps the remarks were intended to be

insulting but from their extreme inaptitude, he failed to make

them so.

Another Senator of some distinction spoke of "crushing

out" the miserable faction opposed to the extension of Slavery

• 13
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.          199

 

into Kansas. This is horrible, especially when we consider the

number of human beings, not less than Eighteen millions, which

make up this faction.

The Indians when they exterminate a neighboring tribe

call it "wiping them out." The Senator used a harsher term, and

therefore I presume intended a harsher process. But I have

heard nothing for ten days past on the subject and trust we

are now safe. Indeed, I have no doubt he has given it up.

A few years ago we of the West were threatened with a

terrible calamity from a like quarter. A popular meeting in a

district of South Carolina which numbers full seven thousand

whites and divers slaves, threatened to blockade the mouths of

the Mississippi river and destroy its commerce, because somebody

somewhere in the West had written or spoken something against

Slavery. They did not execute the threat, because they were

unwilling to involve the innocent with the guilty in one common

calamity--perhaps because they became satisfied that the pro-

vocation did not justify such a wide spread and ruinous inflic-

tion.

Lately and I believe last of all a member of congress be-

cause of certain wrongs not very well defined, threatened to

carry "fire and sword" into the Northern cities. On full re-

flection, I am satisfied he may well be indulged in this. He may

carry his sword anywhere, if he only takes care not to trip him-

self with it - and as to fire, if he confines it to his segar, which

I have no doubt he will, he may go with it also where he pleases,

stopping short of Boston-but there he must be cautious, for

if he smoke it in the streets of that city, he will be nabbed by a

constable before he can walk a square.

But seriously, there is much wrong and much folly. Much

injurious reproach and absurd outbursts of passion on either

side, and we are not competent to determine where and with

which, there is the most folly and the most wrong.

For myself, I think it idle and impotent and mischievous

to say on our side that no future Slave State shall be admitted

into the Union. The future belongs not to us! It is under the

control of a higher Power and a more far seeing Wisdom. It is

enough for us to act our part well-to stand firmly, in the

• 14
 

200       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

present, for what we feel to be the right, the good and the true;

and leave the future to those who shall come after us and to the

Providence which has watched over our Country and preserved

it through many trials and which we may well hope will here-

after guide and direct us. And in my sober judgment, it is un-

wise for those who wish the continuance of Slavery to extend

it, if in their power, over the new Territory. In the border

States from Delaware to Missouri inclusive less than one-fifth

of the whole population are slaves. This number is quite in-

sufficient to perform the necessary labor of a community; there

must therefore be free blended with slave labor, in all these

states, or free labor must take possession of them, or portions

of them, and Slavery cease to exist. This is one of the events

which is coming and must inevitably come in the course of time

and the spreading out more thinly the Slave population, over

an enlarged Territory would but hasten its consummation.

It is all however but a question of time--the change is

inevitable and now in rapid progress. The Slave population on

the whole extent of the border is moving southward and free

laborers are taking their place. Take for example a broad belt

of Virginia beginning on the Ohio River and running southeast

to the Chesapeake Bay. The proportion of Slaves will begin

at a little less than one in forty and end at about one in three.

The middle region including the Shenandoah Valley having about

one in nine. The very small number of slaves to be found in

Missouri especially in the Northern portion of the State, shows

that Slavery cannot go into new and wholesome regions along

with free labor much less make its way where free labor has

already entered and begun to make progress.

It is very vain then to hope or to fear that Slavery will

extend itself in the United States. It is impossible that it should

unless the Slave trade be opened and carried on with such activ-

ity as to equal and counterbalance European emigration. This

the civilization of the age forbids. North and South, at home

and abroad, all men, with most rare exceptions, raise their

voices and their hands against such abomination. The thing is

impossible, and so is Slavery extension in the United States.

Indeed if undisturbed--if left to the operation of the causes

• 15
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.         201

which in the nature of things act upon and control it, 'tis im-

possible it should long maintain itself within its present limits.

We may therefore dismiss our fears of Slavery extension for

they are groundless; we may also without omitting a duty, cease

wholly to interfere with our neighbors on the other side of the

line for our efforts to improve their social condition are vain-

they have not indeed yet signified their assent to receive any

one among us as their Lycurgus. What we have done for them

thus far has been the offspring of zeal without knowledge and

produced evil only. We may leave them then, to manage their

own affairs in their own way. Under the inevitable law to

which we find them subjected. Let us therefore look to our-

selves.

Our Republic has peace- it has Union - May they long

continue. There is no rival nation on our borders whose jealous

enmity can for a moment disturb, or check our onward progress.

We are advancing rapidly enough in power and wealth. We

need not stimulate our youth in these to higher efforts and

greater energy. Another seventy years will give to the United

States more than two hundred millions of inhabitants. To our

own North Western Territory fifty millions. Numbers sufficient

to make one of the most powerful among those who will then

be the mighty of the Earth. Numbers whose wants will inspire

them to cultivate the Earth until its surface through the whole

land shall bloom like an Eden--to build up mighty cities and

make them the marts of wealth - to command the manufactures

and the commerce of the world--leaving wealth and leisure

and mind enough free to explore to their very depths in all their

hidden recesses, the secrets of nature, the mysteries of matter

and the deeper mysteries of mind.

In all that relates to these-to physical and intellectual

development we need not fear that as a people, we shall fall

short of the foremost, in the coming age, or of the highest hopes

that may be formed of our progress. Even now we are for-

ward, but not indeed foremost in the cultivation of intellect-

but more and better than any other people, we bring the intel-

lect to act upon physical nature and make that nature in all its

elements subservient to our wants. But blended with these, and

• 16
 

202        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

to modify and control them, we require of the youth who are

to be the future men of our Country a higher and more careful

moral culture; an education of the soul and of the heart, which

the advancing prevalence of crime among educated men shows to

have been too much neglected or forgotten. We have if rightly

directed, the elements of a great and happy and prosperous com-

munity. It tends rapidly to its point of culmination-the past

age. The last seventy years has been an age of happy progress,

and with the blessings of Providence, we may hope for our

descendants whom we leave to possess the land many ages of

like freedom and prosperity.

 

EDITORIAL NOTES.

(1) THE MARIETTA CELEBRATION OF 1858, SEVENTH OF APRIL.

The seventieth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers of

the West was celebrated yesterday. The day was favorable, and the

attendance larger than was anticipated.

Hon. Thomas Ewing delivered the anniversary oration, in the Con-

gregational church, to an overflowing house. The platform was crowded

with grey-headed "pioneers." Among them was Mr. Amos Porter, the

sole surviving member of the little band that landed here seventy years

ago. He is now in his ninetieth year. He was introduced to the audience

by Mr. A. T. Nye, the presiding officer, and the assemblage rose to do

the old man honor. The most interesting and affecting spectacle of the

whole day, was the cordial greetings of the Pioneers, on the stage.

The old men grasped each other by the hands, with hearty and vociferous

congratulations, as some old comrade was recognized.

Mr. Ewing, the orator of the day, was introduced to the audience

in a very neat and appropriate speech by Hon. Joseph Baker. Mr.

Ewing's speech was an able and eloquent production, worthy of the

distinguished reputation of its honored author.

In the afternoon, a large company sat down to a sumptuous dinner,

at the National House. Among the guests, we noticed Gen. Brown and

Judge Brown, of Athens; Gen. Goddard, L. G. Converse, of Morgan

County, the second born white child in Ohio; Mr. Bradford and Mr.

Mayberry, of Parkersburg. Judge Hayward, Robert Warth and Phillip

Cubbage, of Gallipolis, Judge Dickey, of the Ross and Highland dis-

trict, James Dickey, one of our oldest settlers, formerly of Amestown;

Amos Dunham, of Pomeroy; D. B. Linn, editor of the McConnelsville

Enquirer, and C. A. McGraw, of the Herald.

At the close of the dinner, the following toasts were read:

1. The day we celebrate, April 7th, 1788.

2. The Orator of the Day.

• 17
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.                203

 

3. The Ordinance of 1787-The charter of freedom framed by

the wisdom and patriotism of the founders of the Republic, and under

which states have grown great and illustrious.

Response by Hon. C. B. Goddard, of Zanesville.

4. The Ohio Company--Formed for the purpose of securing

lands and homes for the Pioneer settlers.

Response by Judge Hayward, of McConnelsville.

5. Gen. Rufus Putnam and the noble men who landed with him,

April 7, 1788.-The state they founded will ever do them honor.

Responded to by Prof. E. B. Andrews, of Marietta College.

6. The last of the Pioneers, Mr. Amos Porter-In boyhood he

heard the booming guns of Bunker Hill - in his venerable age he hears

the voice of a mighty Empire where 70 years ago all was a wilderness.

Responded to by G. M. Woodbridge, Esq.

7. Virginia, -whose patriotic counsels in 1784 gave up her claim to

the N. W. Territory, and made it the heritage of the whole country.

8. Education of the people by Common School and College,--

recognized by the founders of the Territory in the Ohio University, and

free schools in every township.

Responded to by Hon. A. G. Brown, of Athens.

9. The Pioneer Clergy of the Northwest.

Response by Pres. Andrews, of Marietta College.

The reunion at Odd Fellows' Hall was a rich treat to the old vet-

erans. Their eyes will never look upon the like again. In the evening

Hon. Wm. Woodbridge, of Michigan, was expected to be present and

deliver an address; but owing to sickness he could not be with us. He

sent an exceedingly interesting address, portions of which were read

by Mr. T. C. H. Smith. Letters from various distinguished persons

were also read, which will be found in our columns today.

The old Pioneers who were present gave interesting and enter-

taining reminiscences of the days of "Auld Lang Syne."

A select choir, during the intervals between speeches, etc., sang

some of those rare old songs, with fine effect.-Marietta Intelligencer,

Thursday evening, April 8, 1858.

The Congregational Church referred to is the famous "Two Horn"

Church, which for years had the distinction of being the oldest build-

ing in Ohio constructed for religious purposes. It was destroyed by fire

several years since and a new modern brick "Two Horn" edifice erected

in its place.

(2.) Dr. Cutler published a pamphlet after his visit to New York

in 1787, designed to give information about the West. Mr. Ewing remem-

bered correctly that Dr. Cutler foretells the use of steamboats on western

waters. Rumsey's plan for applying steam power to boats was then

attracting considerable attention, although twenty years would elapse

before Fulton made his successful trip with the Clermont on the Hud-

son. But the date (1785) given by Mr. Ewing is incorrect, for a very

• 18
 

204        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

obvious reason. -Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society's Publica-

tions, Vol. I, p. 27.

ADDITIONAL.

The book bore the title, "A Description of the Soil, Productions,

etc., of that Portion of the United States Situated Between Pennsylvania

and the Rivers Ohio and Scioto and Lake Erie."

It was published in both English and French, the latter being a trans-

lation. It was written by Dr. Cutler but his name did not appear as its

author. The pamphlet is characterized for its extravagant statements

regarding the Northwest and its possibilities. It appears in its entirety

with appended foot-notes in Volume III. of the Society's "Publications."

(3) Mr. Ewing here takes a shot at "Squatter Sovereignty" which

had for several years at that time been engaging the attention of the

people. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, enacted in 1854, was the embodi-

ment of this theory of "Home Rule" instituted in the interest of so-

called democracy. The struggle in Kansas, by the pro and anti-slavery

adherents, was the direct result of the enactment into law of the famous

Douglas doctrine. Mr. Ewing had opportunity to know a great deal about

the effects of this law as his son, Gen. Thomas Ewing, had been in the

midst of the struggle in Kansas.

(4) This was Mr. Amos Porter, as stated in Note 1.

(5) Even Russia could not be excepted now. The population of

the United States approximates two-thirds that of Russia, while the

density of population is only about half that of the realm of the Czar.

(6) The population of the Northwest Territory in 1910, fifty-two

years after Mr. Ewing's address, was eighteen and a quarter millions.

His prophecy will hardly be realized.

(7) One looking at France in 1858 might be lead to make such

statements as found in this paragraph. At that time the Second Republic

had but recently been overthrown and Louis Napoleon was Emperor.

The "change" which had taken place was only dormant. Though France

was no longer a Republic, yet her Emperor dared not do what the

Bourbon dynasty had done for years with wanton impunity.

(8) Few students of history could agree with the orator's state-

ments in this paragraph. The Congress of Vienna which Mr. Ewing

evidently refers to, did attempt to turn the hands of the clock back to

where they had been before the Revolution. But they could never by

any process cause the people to unlearn the lessons  of Liberty and

Equality which they had absorbed in those days. For a time, there was

indeed a reaction, but the series of revolutions in the thirties and forties,

from which emanated constitutional governments, was a direct heir of

that earlier period. Perhaps to one who had observed it at close range,

it was not so apparent as it is to us who can get the historic perspec-

tive of the events from the distance.

(9) In the governor was vested full authority. He was com-

mander-in-chief of the militia and selected his subordinates excepting

• 19
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.                 205

 

the general officers. He laid out counties and townships and appointed

their magistrates. With the judges, he jointly had the selection and en-

forcement of such criminal and civil laws as might be selected from the

codes of other states.

(10) An ironical reference to Squatter Sovereignty.

(11) The Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

(12) "A   Vigilance Committee was appointed in the spring of

1855, having for its object 'to observe and report all such persons as

shall, . . . by the expression of Abolition sentiments, produce dis-

turbance to the quiet of the citizens or dangers to their domestic rela-

tions; and all such persons so offending shall be notified and made to

leave the Territory.' On this committee were several members of the

Legislature. The first person 'observed and reported' by the committee

as acting so as to endanger 'their domestic relations' (by which delicate

expression is meant the institution of slavery) was Mr. William Phillips,

a lawyer residing in Leavenworth, whose offense was that he had sworn

to a protest against the validity of the election in his district, in con-

sequence of which protest Governor Reeder had ordered a new election.

Mr. Phillips was 'notified' to leave the Territory. He refused to do so,

whereupon he was seized by a party of Missouri men to the number of

fourteen, taken across the river, and carried several miles into Missouri.

(To Weston.) They then proceeded to shave one side of his head, next

stripped off his clothes, and put him through the horrible ordeal of tarring

and feathering. This being completed, they rode him on a rail for a mile

and a half, and finally put him up at auction, a negro acting as auctioneer,

and went through the mockery of selling him, not at the price of slaves,

but for the sum of one dollar. Eight days after this outrage a public

meeting was held, at which the following resolution was unanimously

adopted:

"'That we heartily endorse the action of the committee of citizens

that shaved, tarred and feathered, rode on a rail and had sold by a negro,

Wm. Phillips, the moral perjurer.'

"The meeting was presided over by Mr. Rees, a member of Council

in the Kansas Legislature, and the resolution was offered by Mr. Payne,

a judge, and also member of the House of Representatives. The outrage

committed against Mr. Phillips was not, therefore, the hasty action of

a few murderous ruffians, but one advisedly carried out and afterwards

deliberately endorsed by a number of citizens and by members of both

houses of the Legislature. Mr. Phillips returned to Leavenworth, but has

since, according to accounts received in the autumn of 1856, been shot."

-Gladstone's History.

The Leavenworth Herald devoted a column to the description of

the tarring, feathering and riding on a rail of Wm. Phillips. The crime

of Phillips was, that he protested against a fraudulent election.  The

Herald said:

"Our action in the whole affair is emphatically endorsed by the

• 20
 

206        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

Pro-Slavery party in this district. The joy, exultation and glorification

produced by it in our community are unparalleled."

 

 

"On the first of September, 1856, Capt. Frederick Emory, a United

States mail contractor, rendered himself conspicuous in Leavenworth, at

the head of a band of ruffians, mostly from western Missouri. They

entered houses, stores, and dwellings of Free-State people, and, in

the name of 'law and order,' abused and robbed the occupants, and

drove them out into the roads, irrespective of age, sex or condition.

Under pretence of searching for arms, they approached the house of

William Phillips, the lawyer who had previously been tarred and

feathered and carried to Missouri. Phillips, supposing he was to be

subjected to a similar outrage, resolved not to submit to the indignity,

and stood upon his defence. In repelling the assaults of the mob, he

killed two of them, when the others burst into the house, and poured a

volley of balls into his body, killing him instantly in the presence of his

wife and another lady. His brother, who was also present, had an arm

badly broken with bullets, and was compelled to submit to an amputation.

Fifty of the Free-State prisoners were then driven on board the Polar

Star, bound for St. Louis. On the next day a hundred more were

embarked by Emory and his men, on the steamboat Emma. During

these proceedings, an election was held for mayor, and Wm. E. Murphy,

since appointed Indian Agent by the President, was elected, 'without

opposition. "-"Governor Geary's Administration in Kansas," by John H.

Gihon.

(13) Fugit was a drunken border ruffian who made a bet of a

pair of boots in a Leavenworth saloon that he would take the scalp of

some free-state man within two hours. He started out and about two

miles west of Leavenworth met a Rev. Mr. Hoppe in the road, killed

and scalped him. Nothing was done with Fugit.

(14) "That the passage concerning slavery should have been

stricken out by Congress has often been regretted; but would it have

been decent in this body to denounce the king for a crime in the guilt

of which the colonies had shared? Mr. Jefferson wrote in his draft:

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating

its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who

never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another

hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.

This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare

of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a

market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his

negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain

this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might

want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people

to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has

• 21
 

Address at Marietta, Ohio, 1858.                207 deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.' "Surely the omission of this passage was not less right than wise. New England towns had been enriched by the commerce in slaves, and the Southern colonies had subsisted on the labor of slaves for a hundred years. The foolish king had committed errors enough; but it was not fair to hold so limited a person responsible for not being a century in advance of his age; nor was it ever in the power of any king to compel his subjects to be slave-owners. It was young Virginia that spoke in this paragraph-Wythe, Jefferson, Madison, and their young friends- not the public mind of America, which was destined to reach it, ninety years after, by the usual way of agony and blood."-Parton's "Life of Jefferson."

• 22