470

Kentucky amends her Constitution.

1799. During this session, a bill, authorising a lottery for a public purpose, passed by the council, was rejected by the representatives. Thus early was the policy adopted of interdicting this demoralizing and ruinous mode of gambling and taxation; a policy which, with but a temporary deviation, has ever since honorably characterized the legislation of Ohio. Before adjournment, the legislature issued an address to the people, in which they congratulated their constituents upon the change in the form of government; rendered an account of their public conduct as legislators; adverted to the future greatness and importance of this part of the American empire; and the provision made by the national government for secular and religious instruction in the west; and upon these considerations, urged upon the people the practice of industry, frugality, temperance and every moral virtue." Religion, morality, and knowledge,” said they, "are necessary to all good governments. Let us, therefore, inculcate the principles of humanity, benevolence, honesty and punctuality in dealing, sincerity, and charity, and all the social affections."

About the same time, an address was voted to the President of the United States, expressing the entire confidence of the legislature in the wisdom and purity of his administration, and their warm attachment to the American constitution and government, The vote upon this addressproved that the differences of political sentiment, which then agitated all the states, had extended to the territory. The address was carried by eleven ayes against five noes.

On the nineteenth of December, this protracted session of the first legislature was terminated by the governor. In his speech on this occasion he enumerated eleven acts, to which, in the course of session, he had thought fit to apply his absolute veto. These acts he had not returned to the legislature, because the two houses were under no obligation to consider the reasons on which his veto was founded; and, at any rate, as his negative was unqualified, the only effect of such a return would be to bring on a vexatious, and probably fruitless, altercation between the legislative body and the executive. Of the eleven acts thus negatived, six related to the erection of new counties. These were disapproved for various reasons, but mainly because the governor claimed that the power exercised in enacting them, was vested by the ordinance, not in the legislature, but in himself. This free exercise of the veto power excited much dissatisfaction among the people, and the controversy which ensued between the governor and the legislature, as to the extent of their respective powers, tended to confirm and strengthen the popular disaffection.*

During this year Kentucky proceeded to amend her Constitution, now seven years old. It is not our purpose to enter into the * Chase's Sketch, p. 20.

1800.

Proposal to divide the N. W. Territory.

471

details of the several State charters, and we shall only mention the fact that the earliest born of our western commonwealths, when a change was made in her fundamental law, gave it a more democratic and popular character. This was done by making the choice of the senate and governor direct, instead of being as formerly through a college of electors; and by limiting the veto power.

In 1799, Kentucky began, or rather threatened to begin, a system of internal improvements, by a survey of the river upon which her capital stands; the work recommended by the engineer, however, and which might have been done very cheaply, was not undertaken.t

1800.

The great extent of the territory northwest of the Ohio made the ordinary operations of Government extremely uncertain, and the efficient action of Courts almost impossible. The Committee of Congress who, upon the 3d of March, reported upon the subject, said,

In the three western countries there has been but one court having cognizance of crimes in five years; and the immunity which offenders experience attracts, as to an asylum, the most vile and abandoned criminals, and at the same time deters useful and virtuous persons from making settlements in such society. The extreme necessity of judiciary attention and assistance is experienced in civil as well as criminal cases. The supplying to vacant places such necessary officers as may be wanted, such as clerks, recorders, and others of like kind, is, from the impossibility of correct notice and information, utterly neglected. This Territory is exposed, as a frontier, to foreign nations, whose agents can find sufficient interest in exciting or fomenting insurrection and discontent, as thereby they can more easily divert a valuable trade in furs from the United States, and also have a part thereof on which they border, which feels so little the cherishing hand of their proper Government, or so little dread of its energy, as to render their attachment perfectly un

* Marshall, ii. 233. 246. 252. 292. 293, &c.-Butler, 290.

+ Butler, 293.-Marshall, ii. 317.

472

Indiana Territory formed.

1800. certain and ambiguous. The committee would further suggest, that the law of the 3d of March, 1791, granting land to certain persons in the western part of said Territory, and directing the laying out of the same, remains inexecuted; that great discontent, in consequence of such neglect, is excited in those who were interested in the provision of said law, and which require the immediate attention of this legislature. To minister a remedy to these evils, it occurs to this committee that it is expedient that a division of said Territory into two distinct and separate Governments should be made; and that such division be made, by a line beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami River, running directly north, until it intersects the boundary between the United States and Canada.*

In accordance with the spirit of this resolution an act was passed, and approved upon the 7th of May, from which we extract these provisions.

That from and after the 4th day of July next, all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, which lies to the westward of a line beginning at the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of Kentucky River, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north, until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall, for the purposes of temporary government, constitute a separate territory, and be called the Indiana Territory.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That there shall be established within the said territory a government, in all respects similar to that provided by the ordinance of Congress, passed on the thirteenth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio; and the inhabitants thereof shall be entitled to, and enjoy, all and singular the rights, privileges and advantages, granted and secured to the people by the said ordinance.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That so much of the ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, as relates to the organization of a General Assembly therein, and prescribes the powers thereof, shall be in force and operate in the Indiana Territory, whenever satisfactory evidence shall be given to the Governor thereof, that such is the wish of a majority of the freeholders, notwithstanding there may not be therein five thousand free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one years and upwards: Provided, that until there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants, of twentyone years and upwards, in said territory, the whole number of Representatives to the General Assembly shall not be less than seven, nor * American State Papers, xx. 206.

1800. W. H. Harrison appointed Gov. of Indiana Territory. 473 more than nine, to be apportioned by the Governor to the several counties in said territory agreeably to the number of free males of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, which they may respectively contain.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed so as in any manner to affect the government now in force in the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, further than to prohibit the exercise thereof within the Indiana Territory, from and after the aforesaid fourth day of July next: Provided, That, whenever that part of the territory of the United States which lies to the eastward of a line beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami River, and running thence, due north, to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall be erected into an independent State, and admitted into the union on an equal footing with the original States, thenceforth said line shall become and remain permanently the boundary line between such State and the Indiana Territory, any thing in this act contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That, until it shall be otherwise ordered by the Legislatures of the said Territories, respectively, Chillicothe, on the Scioto River, shall be the seat of the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River; and that St. Vincennes, on the Wabash River, shall be the seat of the government for the Indiana Territory."*

The person appointed to govern the new-made Territory, was William H. Harrison,† whose commission was dated in 1801.

We have already mentioned that Connecticut in her Reserve had retained the jurisdiction thereof as well as the soil. When she disposed of the soil, however, troubles at once arose, for the settlers found themselves without a government upon which to lean. Upon their representation, the mother State, in October 1797, authorized her Senators to release her jurisdiction over the Reserve, to the Union; upon the 21st of March, 1800, a Committee of Congress reported in favor of accepting this cession, and upon the 30th of May, the release was made by the Governor of the State in accordance with a law passed during that month: the United States issuing letters patent to Connecticut for the soil, and Connecticut transferring all her claims of jurisdiction to the Federal Government. At that time settlements had been commenced

*Land Laws, 451.

+ Mr. Harrison had in a great measure procured the formation of the separate Territory. (Life of Harrison by Todd and Drake, p. 22.)

American State Papers, xvi. 94 to 98.-Chase's Statutes, i. 64 to 66.

474

Governor St. Clair's Speech.

1800.

in thirty-five of the townships, and one thousand persons had become settlers; mills had been built, and seven hundred miles of road cut in various directions.†

Congress having made Chillicothe the Capital of the northwestern Territory, on the 3d of November 1800, the General Assembly met at that place. At this meeting Governor St. Clair in strong terms expressed his sense of the want of popularity under which he labored; he said,—

"My term of office, and yours, gentlemen of the House of Representatives, will soon expire-It is indeed, very uncertain, whether I shall ever meet another Assembly, in the character I now hold, for I well know, that the vilest calumnies and the greatest falsehoods, are insidiously circulated among the people, with a view to prevent it. While I regret the baseness and malevolence of the authors; and well know that the laws have put the means of correction fully in my power, they have nothing to dread from me but the contempt they justly merit. The remorse of their own consciences will one day be punishment sufficient:- Their arts may however succeed:-Be that as it may, of this I am certain, that, be my successor whom he may, he can never have the interests of the people of this Territory more truly at heart than I have had, nor labor more assiduously for their good than I have done; and I am not conscious that any one act of my administration has been influenced by any other motive than a sincere desire to promote their welfare and happiness."

Notwithstanding the general dislike felt toward him, however, St. Clair was re-appointed in 1801 to the place he had so long occupied.

Toward the close of this year the first Missionary to the Connecticut Reserve, came thither under the patronage of the Connecticut Missionary Society. He found no township containing more than eleven families.

Upon the 1st of October in this year the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso was made between Napoleon as first Consul, and the

* Mr. Badger, (in American Pioneer, ii. 276,) says but thirty-one townships were inhabited: there were in the Reserve east of the Cuyahoga one hundred and three townships. (American Pioneer, ii. 25.)

† American State Papers, xvi. 97.

Burnet's Letters, p. 73.

| American Pioneer, ii. 275.