Ohio History Journal

Ohio Day at the Jamestown Exposition.              181

bidden all attempts to settle it and, revoking all rights of the colonies

under their charters, had made it part of Canada.

After receiving control of it Congress first, by the great Ordinance

which was the forerunner of the Constitution, devoted this entire region,

whoever might become its inhabitants, to liberty, justice and equal rights

forever, and then, having nothing else to give, granted rights in it to the

soldiers of the Revolution and others who, impoverished by the war, had

to begin life anew. Some of these sold their rights but others risked the

hardships and perils which beset the long journey and awaited them at

the end of it.

The French had gone around by the lakes and the Spanish up the

Mississippi, so that not a settlement had they made in the easterly part

of this territory. But the Americans, following the routes of the great

continental pathfinders, the buffalo, reached that part first, and everybody

who ever saw Ohio knows why they went no further.

There flowed the beautiful river through the valley where the

forces of nature had for ages collected all the elements of fertility, with

the Muskingum, the Hocking, the Scioto and the Miamis flowing in from

the North, each through its broad rich valley. There was Lake Erie

smiling at the Cuyahoga, the Sandusky and the Maumee as they came to

it from the South. And between the heads of these rivers stretched the

great divide where the trails of the Indians and trappers carrying their

canoes across from one stream to another had traced the routes for

commerce.

These men did not come as conquerors to overthrow existing insti-

tutions; there were none. They sought no conflict with the savages who,

bent always on killing each other, wandered through the forests which

had overgrown the traces of two other races which had preceded them to

extinction. They did not come to impose on others religious creed or

civil authority. They merely sought homes they could call their own

where the soil would reward their husbandry and their children enjoy

the broader possibilities of a new country.

Some of them came from New England to take up lands reserved

in the grants to Congress; some from the Middle States where the war

had wrought the severest domestic injuries; some came from the Southern

States; but from nowhere came more or better settlers than from Virginia.

This was natural and fit. The pioneers whose settlement here three

hundred years ago we now celebrate and their successors had better

founded charter rights to the Western country than any of the other

colonies. Then Virginia troops under General Clarke had taken it from

the British during the Revolution and it had been formally attached to

the Old Dominion as the County of Illinois. These facts had enabled Jay,

Franklin and Adams as our peace commissioners to make and maintain

a claim to it.

And it was Virginia which closed the long and often bitter dispute

among the States over their claims to these lands. She authorized her

182        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

delegates in Congress to convey all her rights to the United States.

Thomas Jefferson carried his authority to the delegation and was one of

the signers of the grant which became the first muniment of title to the

territory which now includes five States of the Union and part of a sixth.

It was fitting that Ohio, the first entirely new State, admitted to the

Union just twenty years later without the usual tutelage as a separate

territory, should cast her first electoral vote for Thomas Jefferson as

President of the United States.

The causes already mentioned would have assured to the lineage of

Ohio a strain of Virginia blood, but this was made broader and finer by

the reservations which Virginia made in her grant to the United States.

She retained a large area for General Clark and his soldiers. These were

only plain backwoodsmen, but they accomplished more than any equal

number ever did in the history of mankind; and they did it by a com-

bination of courage and endurance for which I know of no parallel.

Their leader has well been called the "Hannibal of the West," because,

without support from his distant government, itself struggling with the

foe on its own soil, he held his conquests to the end of the war.

The retreat of the ten thousand, the charge of the six hundred and

other examples of heroism have been immortalized, though they mostly

lacked permanent results. American literature has not yet exalted above

simple narrative the mid-winter march of our two hundred and the

capture of the entire and more numerous British garrison of Fort Vin-

cennes, including its commander. And this was no fruitless display of

military genius and heroism, for it protected the patriots from further

attack from the rear during the remaining years of the war for independ-

ence and gave to five great States a birthplace and a home.

Virginia also made reservations for her revolutionary soldiers. All

these lands were rapidly settled by families who both in public and private

life have been large factors in the growth and greatness of Ohio. They

extend from the Scioto to the Little Miami and are still known as the

Virginia Military Reservation. My selection by the Commission has at

least one element of fitness, for on that reservation I was born.

Before the great National road was projected, Virginia had estab-

lished a highway from Alexandria to Marietta; and Washington urged the

opening of communication with the Western country by portages from

stream to stream across the mountains.

So while Ohio comes, like all the world, to join in celebrating one of

the great events of history-the first permanent settlement of our race on

the continent of North America, she comes with more than a general

interest, because if any State more than another can be called the mother

of Ohio that State is Virginia.

But the Old Dominion, in making to the Union a grant of her

western rights, did more than secure homes for her soldiers. Her coun-

cils were directed by men whose profound study of government and far-

sighted purpose were making our Revolution more than a successful re-

Ohio Day at the Jamestown Exposition.          183

bellion. They were designing and building a Republic on a plan until

then untried.

Our present Republic had not yet been formed, but it was apparent

that the old Confederation must be replaced by a more perfect Union of

the colonies which had become independent States, and the character of

that Union was already taking form in their minds. It would be a gov-

ernment endowed with certain powers of the States, delegated to it by

them to be used for their common protection and welfare. But, by reason

of its origin and nature it could have no existence apart from the States

which composed it, and no functions except those devolved on it by

them. The principle of local self government or home rule was too im-

portant and too deep-seated in the hearts of the people of all the States

to be yielded, or even qualified further than was necessary to create a

lasting Federal Union.

What use could the Federal government have for a region great

enough for an empire in itself? None except to open it for settlement.

And what relation were the settlers to have with the States or the new

Republic? Some of the States could not extend their boundaries, and

jealousies would be aroused if those which could should do so. More than

a century was to pass before anybody would suggest that the general

government has imperial powers and may acquire and hold territory for

its own aggrandizement without regard to present or prospective ad-

mission as new States.

Home rule means a government created and carried on at home by

home agencies which are thus never out of touch with the people. As

Virginia soon after consented to separate statehood for Kentucky, be-

cause the government beyond the mountains at Richmond was not home

rule for Kentuckians, though they had a voice in it, so she did not seek

to impose government from a distance on the people beyond the Ohio, but

secured for them the same right her own people enjoyed.

That there might be no question about the political future of the

country she gave up, Virginia made and Congress accepted her grant on

the express condition that "the territory so ceded shall be laid out and

formed into States, not less than three nor more than five, to be distinct

Republican States and admitted members of the Federal Union having

the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other

States."

This was no doubt the precedent for the similar condition in the

later grant by France of the Louisiana region which expanded our

boundaries to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. And the course

so provided has been followed without exception with respect to all ter-

ritory settled by Americans. Arizona, New Mexico and Alaska alone do

not yet enjoy the rights of statehood, unless Oklahoma is to be stopped

at the door.

More than a century of experience under this dual form of govern-

ment has proved its fitness and sufficiency for the needs of our people. In

184        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

each state they have built up and carry on for themselves institutions under

which protection, justice, education and public convenience are provided,

and civil rights defined and secured. Those whom they entrust with the

making and enforcement of laws are chosen by themselves from their

own number and act under their own hand and eye. And they have at

the same time a voice in the conduct by the general government of the

foreign and general affairs committed to it.

The people of Ohio cherish still as they always have done the

"rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence," as well as the mem-

bership in the Union, thus secured to them. They might have gained

these otherwise, but are none the less grateful for the precaution taken

by Virginia which assured them. And they have justified her by the use

they have made of these rights.

They realize that for a people who have set out to govern them-

selves to look to some one else, no matter who to help govern them is

a confession of unfitness. They are proud of the governor who when

pleaded with to call for Federal troops said Ohio could take care of her-

self, as she did.

And the people of Ohio have no excuse for lapsing from the virtue

of self reliance. They have shown that they know how to deal with trusts

and combinations organized and conducted in defiance of the laws of

trade and the rules of fair dealing. They are sure they better than others

can control without crippling the corporations they create and fix the con-

ditions on which those created by other sovereignties may do business

within their borders. And they are not willing to yield the right to do this

to any other power, or to have it qualified save by the condition, to which

they have given irrevocable consent, that they must act justly with re-

spect to rights lawfully acquired.

It is a matter of no personal interest to me, because my aim in life

has never been to amass wealth, but I am not taken with the idea of

seeking to limit by law the acquisition of fortunes. The smallest fortune

is too great if it be dishonestly or unfairly gained. With laws so

framed as not to impose unnecessary charges on the people which operate

to give some advantages over others, and with laws impartially enforced

to prevent unfair methods and corrupt practices, no fortunes will be

"swollen," which implies unnatural and perverted growth.

Nor with our well tested systems of inheritance and restriction of

entailments will fortunes long remain in unworthy hands; while fair got-

ten wealth has neither temptation nor occasion to seek illicit favors from

officials who make and enforce the laws. And in our free country every

man who thinks happiness lies in wealth has the right to get as rich

as he honestly can. All we should demand is that he shall not increase

his gains by withholding from the laborer his just reward or adding

hardships to his lot, nor by depriving others of their gains by unfair

competition. And he must bear his due share of the expenses of the gov-

ernments which protect him in pursuit and possession.