and Governor Ritner's honest soul was vexed at the temporary loans which the policy of the Legislature forced upon him. He could not veto the separate items of the appropriation bills, and the good and bad were so mingled he was forced to permit all to pass together. Private companies and sectional jealousies were allowed to dictate terms to the State. A flood in the Juniata on June 19, 1838, swept away forty miles of canal, and four hundred thousand dollars were borrowed, without legislative authority, from the Bank of the United States to repair the damage. To complete the system, over three millions dollars more were needed, and nearly a million of the permanent loan would come due in 1839 and 1840. The last message of the governor, in December, 1838, was therefore one of misgiving. He was one of the best of Pennsylvania's governors, an outspoken friend of honesty, freedom, education, and temperance, and he could not view the triumph of Jacksonian principles, the overthrow of banks, the suppression of slavery discussion, the use of public office and public money to reward friends and punish enemies, with anything but alarm. His party, now the United Whig party, made up of old Federalists, Antimasons, and conservative Democrats, made him their standard-bearer for the fourth time in 1838.

The Democrats, now also united, presented as their candidate David Rittenhouse Porter, of Huntingdon County. He was a Pennsylvanian by birth, of Irish ancestry. His father was a faithful and efficient officer of the revolutionary army, and a friend of Pennsylvania's first astronomer, who was his teacher, and for whom he named his son.

No campaign of Pennsylvania, before or since, has been conducted with more virulence. Thaddeus Stevens, fresh from an antimasonic investigation of masonry, where all Masons refused to testify, injected into it the vigor and violence of his own personality. He was assisted by Thomas H. Burrowes, Secretary of the Commonwealth, afterwards a successful administrator of the public schools, and Theodore Fenn, the editor of The Telegraph, the Ritner organ. The Democrats had an equally effective organization, with the

newspaper support of the Keystone and the Iron Gray. Lies of the most atrocious kind were published about the candidates, and many of the measures by which both parties sought to win the election were greatly reprehensible. The Antimasons and Whigs depended upon the appropriations to canals and railroads, and the laborers employed thereon, the new constitution, the public schools, and the recharter of the National Bank. The Democrats had behind them the Jacksonian policy in its entirety. The returns showed Porter's election by about one hundred and twenty-seven thousand votes to one hundred and twenty-two thousand. The lower House of Legislature was almost evenly divided, the majority being dependent upon which of two contesting delegations from Philadelphia should be seated. Without these, there were forty-eight Democrats and forty-four Antimasons and Whigs. The Senate had a Whig majority, and quickly organized. Then began a struggle which is generally known as The Buckshot War."

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Each of the sections of the assembly elected its speaker and perfected its organization, taking in its own delegation from Philadelphia. Sometimes sitting in the same hall at the same time and sometimes apart, each body professed to be the legal Legislature. Harrisburg became the centre of all eyes, and a great crowd, composed of violent partisans, assembled there. This crowd, however, never did anything more serious than hoot and cheer, carry an offending speaker from the platform to a chair in the aisle, and force Thaddeus Stevens to jump out of the back window of the Senate chamber. Public meetings were held, and sympathy seemed to be in the main with the Democrats. Governor Ritner finally issued a proclamation stating that, inasmuch as a mob at the seat of government was overawing the Legislature, the civil and military authorities of the government should hold themselves in readiness to proceed to the capital and aid in the supremacy of law. He also, by means of laborers on State works, took possession of the arsenal. This would have precipitated a fight, had not two gentlemen in whom

the people had confidence pledged their honor that the arms should not be used against the citizens.

The governor then ordered General Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, to bring to the seat of government a force "sufficient to quell this insurrection". He gathered together one hundred men. In the attempt to supply buck

shot cartridges for these troops, the bearer was waylaid and compelled to surrender them to the Philadelphia populace. Many of these have been preserved as mementoes of the "war."

The

Two days later the troops reached Harrisburg. General refused to allow them to be used to support either party, or for any other purpose than to protect public property, and decided himself upon the propriety of any orders given him. He was ordered home, and a small detachment under Whig officers was brought in from Carlisle. No disturbances, however, occurred, and the presence of troops probably did more to damage the governor's party than to aid it.

In the mean time three members of the Whig house abandoned their party and joined the Democratic organization. This gave the latter body a clear majority of uncontested seats. The Senate was finally brought to recognize it as the legal body. The election returns were opened, the new constitution formally declared adopted, and David R. Porter became governor.

This was the last struggle of the antimasonic party. Its members generally became Whigs, and afterwards Liberty Men and Republicans.

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CHAPTER XX.

1838-1850.

Ritner's and Porter's Messages-Deficits and Mismanagement— Public Works-Riots in Philadelphia-Girard's Will and CollegeState Politics-The Harrison Campaign-Tariff-Mexican War— Wilmot Proviso-Improvements-Graham's Magazine-Bayard Taylor and T. Buchanan Read.

RITNER wound up his administration by a message to the Legislature, in which he narrated in brief the events of the 66 war," claiming that the introduction of the soldiers had saved the government from violence at the hands of the mob. He referred to the tests for voting imposed by the new constitution, and the great evil of betting on elections, which made "all good men doubt the fairness of the results." The duties of Superintendent of Instruction were now becoming quite onerous, and he recommended that the Secretary of the Commonwealth be relieved of them, and a special office be created, a recommendation which was afterwards adopted. He pointed with satisfaction to the growth of the public school system during his incumbency. The common schools had increased in number from seven hundred and sixty-two to about five thousand, the academies from seventeen to thirty-eight, and of the ten hundred and twenty-seven school districts eight hundred and seventy-five had now accepted the provisions of the law. What now was needed was a supply of trained teachers. In his treatment of the financial question he was hardly fair. While it was true that the public debt had not grown since 1835, he left conditions such that a considerable increase was immediately necessary. His statement that the canal and railroad tolls had yielded about a million dollars during the last year was true only

of the gross receipts. As a matter of fact, the repairs and charges for motive power had eaten up all the profits.

When Porter came into office he found the treasury empty and a scale of expenditures which would inevitably produce a large yearly deficit. The canals were in such a condition that work could not be stopped, or all that had been done would be lost. There would apparently be no money to pay the interest on the debt due the 1st of February, 1839, and "it would be an everlasting stigma if any creditor should have to wait" for his money. The debt was now about thirty million dollars, and the apparent deficit for 1839 was nearly four million dollars. United States distributions of public funds could not be expected, and bank stocks, of which the State owned several millions, would not yield much, if any, dividends. For the debt the State could point to a great system of public transportation, which, however, was still only partially completed. The great need was ready money, and the only recourse was borrowing. But when the attempt was made no proposals came from the State banks. Porter was furious at the "combination," as he deemed it, of the banks against their creator, the State, and advised, after the fashion of Jackson, to break them down by the immediate sale of the State stock. The banks were already on the verge of closing their doors, and were restrained by other than political considerations from extending their loans. On October 10, 1839, they suspended payments. Governor Porter succeeded in procuring about six million five hundred thousand dollars during the year in Europe and at home, paid the debts of the State, and continued the canal work.

He dealt vigorously and plainly with the situation, which was not of his creating. He told the people that they had been deceived by the publication of the gross receipts of the public works, while the item of expenses was kept in the background. He warned them that the disastrous financial conditions would still further curtail income; that they were compounding their debt, and had been for years, at the rate of a million or more a year; that, while they