250 - HISTORY OF OHIO 1795 Thomas Morris came to Columbia, in what is now Hamilton County, Ohio, and became a clerk in a store at that place owned by Rev. John Smith, then a Baptist minister and afterward a member of the Territorial Legislature, delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1802, and United States senator from Ohio. Smith was a versatile and popular man and, like most of the immigrants from Virginia, deeply interested in politics and ambitious to participate officially in the government of the new state. In the early history of Ohio the citizens of the southern counties were intensely interested in public affairs. Almost every voter seems to have been a practical politician, and the contests for place and principle were usually spirited and apparently out of proportion to the honors and "emoluments." Salaries were small, too small to attract candidates, but great honor attached to even trivial offices, and with the sparse population of pioneer days, almost every elector might aspire to political preferment at the ballot box. Issues and men were subjects of discussion at debating societies, log rollings, house raisings and other meetings. Person would travel miles to hear even local speakers discuss the political issues of the day. Orators of reputation from a distance had practically the entire population for a circuit of many miles as their auditors. In this formative period the voter felt that he had a very direct share in the government—that he was an essential part of it—that it was not so much a duty as a proud and patriotic privilege to make his influence felt on election day. He followed with enthusiastic fervor his party leader, his political hero, and rejoiced that his voice and vote were potential in the enactment of laws and the administration of public affairs. Such was the spirit of the community in which the early life of Thomas Morris was spent and of the county and district that he represented so long in the General Assembly of Ohio. In the employ of John Smith and in the stirring pioneer Village of Columbia, he found a continual stimulus to interest in the men and the issues of the day and a standing invitation to enter the political arena of the new state. By environment and conviction he was a staunch democrat and a faithful follower of Thomas Jefferson. He attended such schools as were accessible on the frontier, read eagerly the few books available and made most of his limited educational opportunities ; studied law and was admitted to the bar. He moved to Williamsburg, Clermont County, in 1800 and thence to Bethel, Ohio, in the same county, in 1804, and commenced the practice of law. He was elected a state representative from Clermont County in 1806. His biographer is in error when he says that Morris served twenty-four years in the General Assembly of Ohio, and the sketch in the Congressional Directory is slightly inaccurate. He served in the Lower House four terms of one year each and in the State Senate six terms of two years each. The aggregate of his service in both houses from 1806 to 1832 was sixteen years. In 1809 he was elected judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, but never qualified for the position. In the period of his legislative service, Clermont County was much of the time entitled to two representatives and a senator. These offices were eagerly sought and candidates were generally numerous. The issues for the most part were local and personal. The followers of Jefferson were in the ascendancy, and allegiance to his party was a requisite to success. Anti-slavery views, especially in the early part of the period, do not appear to have been a handicap to candidates. In the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1802, Philip Gatch and James Sargent were chosen to represent the county because of their opposition to slavery. 2 Alexander Campbell, who served as state representative with Thomas Morris and afterward as United States senator from 2 - Morris, B S., "Life of Thomas Morris," p. 30. ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 251 December 11, 1809, to March 3, 1813, was a Virginian, a pronounced abolitionist and headed the list of vice presidents of the Ohio antislavery convention when it was organized in 1835. While Morris was practicing law in Bethel, a youth by the name of Thomas L. Hamer came to the village in search of employment. He met Morris, who was practicing law in the village, who received him kindly, admitted him to his office and home and treated him almost as one of his own sons. Hamer was naturally gifted, studious and ambitious. He taught school, studied law, and in 1821 was admitted to the bar. He served as state representative from Brown County, and was speaker of the House. He became famous as an orator, surpassing, his democratic friends declared, even the renowned Tom Corwin. He favored the War with Mexico and backed up his words in the uniform of a brigadier general on the field of battle. He was stricken with a fatal illness and died "under the walls of Monterey." It so happened that, after long service in the General Assembly of Ohio, Morris concluded in 1832 that he would like to represent his district in Congress. It so happened that his protege, now a successful lawyer in Georgetown, Brown County, and in the same congressional district, had reached a like conclusion for himself. Both entered the race as democratic candidates, and the recently organized whig party, encouraged by this division in the ranks of their political foes, brought forth as their candidate Owen Fishback. To make the contest still more interesting, a third democratic candidate by the name of Russell entered the list. The campaign waxed warm, fast and furious, with the following result when the votes were counted : Hamer, 2,171 ; Fishback, 2,069 ; Morris, 2,028 ; Russell, 403. The fervid oratory of young Hamer had won. Thomas Morris must have been chagrined and disappointed. It so happened, however, that his loss was his good fortune. In a little less than two months after his defeat, he was elected by the General Assembly to serve a full term in the United States Senate. Hamer was twice reelected to Congress. By a singular coincidence their congressional service began and ended on the same dates. The anti-slavery views of Thomas Morris were known to those associated with him when he was elected United States senator, but neither he nor they could at that time foretell the crucial tests that awaited him in the high position to which he had been called. Thomas Morris took his seat in the Senate at the opening of the regular session in December, 1833. It was at a time when the agitation which had in a measure been quieted by the Missouri Compromise was again taking form in petitions to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This aroused the super-sensitive South. Slaveholders feared the effect of public discussion upon the negro population. If the slaves should come to understand, so many of them reasoned, that a powerful party or interest in the North favored their freedom, they might rise in servile rebellion to throw off their chains. The leaders of the two dominant parties in the North came to appreciate this feeling on the part of their brethren in the South. With patriotic motives, for the preservation of the Union, they were joining hands to silence all discussion of the question of slavery. Clay, Webster and Calhoun, the senatorial triumvirate, found themselves in substantial agreement on this issue. Senator Morris witnessed with grave apprehension the progress of this coalition. He was conscious of its strength and of the political disaster that would probably overwhelm any one who had the temerity to encounter it. He had seldom spoken in the Senate. He left oratorical contests to others. But despite his diffidence, he was an able speaker and drove home his arguments with directness and power. He was a staunch partisan, and he must have regretted to become 252 - HISTORY OF OHIO involved in heated arguments with one who had long been recognized as an able leader of the democratic party. When Congressman John Quincy Adams, formerly President of the United States, presented a petition in the House of Representatives to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, an uproar was precipitated, the echoes of which were heard throughout the land. This was followed by the adoption of a series of three resolutions, the most important of which was as follows : "And whereas, it is extremely important and desirable that the agitation of this subject should be finally arrested, for the purpose of restoring tranquility to the public mind, your committee respectfully recommends the adoption of the following additional resolution, viz : "Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall he had thereon." 3 Little opportunity was given for debate to those opposed to the resolution. They were shut off by the previous question. There was, however, determined opposition on the part of the minority that went down to defeat. The vote on the resolution stood, yeas, 117 ; nays, 68. Ohio congressmen who voted against it were William K. Bond, Thomas Corwin, Joseph Crane, Elias Howell, Benjamin Jones, Jeremiah McLene, Samson Mason, Bellamy Storer, John Thompson, Samuel F. Vinton, Taylor Webster and Elisha Whittlesey. Similar action was anticipated on the part of the Senate. It was not, however, until December, 1837, that the distinguished senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, introduced a series of resolutions declarative of the attitude of the Senate toward anti-slavery agitation. All of these are interesting to the student of the anti-slavery movement, but only two are reproduced here. Resolved, That domestic slavery, as it exists in the Southern and Western states of the Union, composes an important part of their domestic institutions, inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized, as constituting an essential element in the distributions of its powers among the states ; and that no change of opinion, or feeling, on the part of the other states of the Union, in relation to it, can justify them or their citizens in open and systematic attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow ; and that all such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledges to protect and defend each other, given by the states, respectively, on entering into the constitutional compact, which formed the Union, and as such is a manifest breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn obligations, moral and religious. Resolved, That the intermeddling of any state or states, or their citizens, to abolish slavery in this district, or any of the territories, on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful ; or the passage of any act or measure of Congress, with that view—would be a direct and dangerous attack on the constitution of all slave-holding states. 4 The manifest tendency in the Senate was to follow the precedent of the House and suppress all agitation on the slavery question. Great statesmen were in that body. There was the eloquent Henry Clay, of Kentucky, a distinguished leader of the whig party. There was Daniel Webster, whose debate with Hayne, whose eulogy on Ohio and the Ordinance of 1787 and whose eloquent plea for "liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable" awoke a patriotic response throughout the land. But who would now dare to rise against the dominant 3 - Register of Debates in Congress," Vol. XII, p. 4051. 4 - Morris, "The Life of Thomas Morris," pp. 97-98. ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 253 influence of the South ? One senator, yes, one, till then comparatively unknown outside of his own state, one obscure senator, unaided and alone, stepped into the arena and took up the gage of battle thrown down by Calhoun. He, too, submitted a series of resolutions embracing his convictions on the true policy of the Government under the Constitution. Two only are here reproduced that constitute in a measure his courageous answer to the challenge of Calhoun : Resolved, That domestic slavery, as it exists in the Southern and Western states, is a moral and political evil, and that its existence, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, is not recognized by that instrument as an essential element in the exercise of its powers over the several states, and no change of feeling on the part of any of the states can justify them or their citizens in open and systematic attacks on the right of petition, the freedom of speech, or the liberty of the press, with a view to silence either, on any subject whatever ; and that all such attacks are manifest violations of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and defend each other, and as such are a manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn obligations, political, moral and religious. Resolved, That it is the indisputable right of any state, or any citizen thereof, as well as an indispensable duty, to endeavor, by all legal and constitutional means, to abolish whatever is immoral and sinful, and that Congress alone possesses the power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in this district or any of the territories of the United States ; and the right of petition, of speech, and of the press, to accomplish this object, is not to be questioned, and that an act of Congress on this subject would be within its constitutional powers. 5 Senator Morris followed up his resolutions with a speech opposing those presented by Calhoun. In taking his stand he declared that he understood the powerful influences with which he had to contend ; "that he knew the prejudices that were against him" ; that his "best friends would differ from him" ; but he had counted the cost and would do his duty. He closed by offering an amendment to strike from the first of the Calhoun resolutions here quoted the words "moral and religious." His amendment was voted down, and the Calhoun resolutions without material change were passed by a large majority. That evening, after the arduous struggle of the day, he retired to his room and made a brief entry in his memorandum book including among other statements these sentences that reveal the spirit with which he entered the contest : "Resolutions have been introduced declaring that we have no right—either political, moral, or religious—to discuss the institutions of any state, with a view to effect a change in those institutions. The object is to prevent the discussion of slavery in any of the States ; but the Resolutions strike at all discussion. I regard these resolutions as the most daring attempt against American liberty, that has yet been brought forward in Congress, since the foundation of the Republic, and as such I oppose them." 6 The storm of opposition that Morris anticipated as a result of his defiance of the slave power arrived promptly and smote him with its bitter blast. He was denounced as a traitor to his party and steps were promptly taken to prevent his return to the Senate. In December, 1838, soon after the Ohio General Assembly met, a committee appointed by the democratic members of that body sent him a letter with four questions to test his political faith. They were as follows : 1. Are you in favor of an independent treasury bill ? 2. Are you a supporter of the leading measures of the present administration ? 5 - Morris, "The Life of Thomas Morris," pp. 100-101. 6 - Morris, "The Life of Thomas Morris," pp. 105-106, 254 - HISTORY OF OHIO 3. Are you for or against modern abolitionism ? 4. Are you willing to submit to the selection made by your political friends? 7 Morris answered all of these briefly and to the entire satisfaction of his party leaders with the exception of th third. He answered this at great length and so frankly that there could be no misunderstanding as to his position. His opening sentence is an index to the entire answer : "I am opposed to slavery in all its forms ; and against its further extension in our country ; believing it to be wrong in itself and injurious to the best interests of the people, I view it as a creature of State law only, and that Congress have no power over it, as it exists in the States ; neither have Congress the power to create a system of slavery where it does not exist or to give it new and additional security." 8 He further stated in language that was doubtless resented by those to whom the reply was addressed, "I believe it to be the duty of the states as well as their interest to abolish slavery where it exists, but that no other state would be justifiable in interfering for that purpose." He stoutly defended the right of petition to the Legislature as "Inviolate on all subjects and above the power of law," and declared the right of all citizens "to speak, write or print on the subject of slavery, as on any other subject." It is rather remarkable that two of the committee of three that addressed the questions to Senator Morris were none other than John Brough and David Tod, two rising young democrats in the General Assembly who were now prominently engaged in an effort to prepare the way for the removal of Morris from the Senate at the end of his term and who a little later aided in that consummation by voting for Judge Benjamin Tappan as his successor. It is worthy of note in this connection that Tod and Brough twenty-three years afterwards themselves concluded to follow in the course laid down by Senator Morris, whom they had gleefully aided to retire from the Senate. Tod became one of the war governors of Ohio and marshalled the troops of the state to put down the rebellion, which Morris had foreseen from afar, while Brough changed his views in regard to slavery, followed Tod as war governor of Ohio and became conspicuous in the support of Lincoln and his emancipation policy that struck the shackles from the bondsman. Driven from his place in the Senate, denounced by his party and ostracized by his former associates, Morris did not waver in the support of the cause he had espoused or the determination to protest, while he remained in the Senate, against all efforts to silence discussion and prevent presentation of petitions on the question of slavery. One of the eminent statesmen of that body from a southern state had voiced his opposition to slavery in a notable speech at a meeting of the Colonization Society, in Washington, January 20, 1827, in the following language : "I am no friend to slavery. The searcher of hearts knows that every pulsation of my heart beats high and strong for civil liberty. If I could be the instrument in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our country, and removing the cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations—if I could be instrumental in ridding this foul blot from that state which gave me birth, or that not less beloved state which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy, for all the triumph ever decreed to the most successful conqueror." 9 This was the language of Henry Clay, of Kentucky. Mark the contrast of his views as expressed in the Senate, February 7, 1839: 7 - Morris, "The Life of Thomas Morris," pp. 192, 193, 194. 8 - Ibid, 192. 9 - Morris, "The Life of Thomas Morris," pp. 108-109. ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 255 "It is because these ultra-abolitionists have ceased to employ the instruments of reason and persuasion, have made their cause political, and have appealed to the ballot-box, that I am induced upon this occasion to address you. * * * That is property which the law declares to be property. Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." 10 As the former speech of Senator Morris was directed principally against the democratic leader, John C. Calhoun, he now turned his attention chiefly to Henry Clay and the coalition of the two. After Clay's speech he sought the earliest possible opportunity to reply, two days later on February 9. This speech of Morris was the most powerful arraignment of slavery that had been made in the United States Senate. It was published widely and frequently referred to as the "trumpet call" to all who were opposed to slavery. He opened his address by presenting petitions signed by several thousand citizens on the subject of slavery. In presenting them he said : "In availing myself of this opportunity to explain my own views on this agitating topic and to explain and justify the character and proceedings of these petitioners, it must be obvious to all that I am surrounded with no ordinary discouragements." 11 He appreciated the prejudice against him and the opposition of "the very lions of debate" in the Senate whose eloquence was cheered to the echo. He claimed that he had a right to expect on the floor of the Senate of the United States, even as the representative of an unpopular cause, that "order and a decent respect to the opinions of others would prevail." "From the causes which I have mentioned," said he, "I can hardly hope for this. I expect to proceed through scenes which ill-become this hall ; but nothing shall deter me from a full and faithful discharge of my duty on this important occasion." He drew attention to the fact that he was nearing the close of his six years' service in the Senate and that he had seldom taken part in debate. "I question very much," said he, "if I have occupied the time of the senate during the six years as some gentlemen have during six weeks or six days." He then referred to the resolutions that he had formerly presented, preceding his debate with Calhoun : "Let the. senator from South Carolina, before me, remember that, at the last session, when he offered resolutions on the subject of slavery, they were not only received without objection, but printed, voted on, and decided ; and let the senator from Kentucky reflect, that the petition which he offered against our right, was also received and ordered to be printed without a single dissenting voice ; and I call on the senate and the country to remember that the resolutions which I have offered on the same subject, have not only been refused the printing, but have been laid on the table without being debated or referred. Posterity, which shall read the proceedings of this time, may well wonder what power could induce the senate of the United States to proceed in such a strange and contradictory manner. Permit me to tell the country now what this power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself, is. It is the power of SLAVERY. It is a power, according to the calculation of the senator from Kentucky, which owns twelve hundred millions of dollars in human beings as property ; and if money is power, this power is not to be conceived or calculated ; a power which claims human property more than double the amount which the whole money of the world could purchase. What can stand before this power? Truth, everlasting truth, will yet overthrow it." In charging a coalition between the dominant political parties and their leaders, between the slave-holding South and the moneyed interests 10 - Birney, "Life and Times of James G. Birney," p. 345. 11 - The speech from which this and following quotations are made will be found in "The Life of Thomas Morris," .by B. F. Morris, pp. 111-165. 256 - HISTORY OF OHIO of the North, Senator Morris said that he had "seen this billing and cooing" between them for some time past. "All doubts are now terminated," he said. "This display made by the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), and this denunciation of these petitioners as abolitionists, and the hearty response and cordial embrace which his efforts met from the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), clearly shows that new moves have taken place on the political chessboard and new coalitions are formed ; new compromises and new bargains, settling and disposing of the rights of the country for the advantage of political aspirants." In assailing this powerful coalition he further declared that he was "endeavoring to drive from the back of the negro slave, the politician who has seated himself there to ride to office for the purpose of carrying out the object of this unholy combination." In defending the petitioners whom he represented he said : "Who has said that these petitions are unjust in principle, and on that ground ought not to be granted ? Who has said that slavery is not an Evil ? Who has said it does not tarnish the fair fame of our country? Who has said it does "not bring dissipation and feebleness to one race, and poverty and wretchedness to another, in its train ? Who has said it is not unjust to the slave and injurious to the happiness and best interest of the master ? Who has said it does not break the bonds of human affection, by separating the wife from the husband, and children from their parents ? In fine, who has said it is not a blot upon our country's honor, and a deep and foul stain upon her institutions ? * * * SLAVERY ! a word, like a secret idol, thought too obnoxious or sacred to be pronounced here but by those who worship at its shrine—and should one who is not such a worshiper happen to pronounce the word, the most disastrous consequences are immediately predicted, the Union is to be dissolved, and the South to take care of itself." He gave fervent expression to his personal opposition to slavery. "This principle," said he, "is deeply implanted within me ; it has 'grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength.' In my infant years I learned to hate slavery. Your fathers taught me it was wrong in their Declaration of Independence." Senator Morris made the most of Henry Clay's unfortunate reference to the ballot box and his declaration that law makes property. In support of the rights of the petitioners to make their will effective he said : "The senator complains that the means and views of the abolitionists are not confined to securing the right of petition only. No, they resort to other means, he affirms, to the ballot box. * * * Both political parties have courted them in private and denounced them in public, and both have equally deceived them. And who shall dare say that an abolitionist has no right to carry his principles to the ballot box? Who fears the ballot box ? The honest in heart, the lover of our country and its institutions ? No, 'sir ! It is feared by the tyrant. He who usurps power and seizes upon the liberty of others,—he, for one, fears the ballot box. Where is the slave to party in this country who is so lost to his own dignity or so corrupted by interest and power that he does not, or will not, carry his principles or his judgment into the ballot box? Such a one ought to have the mark of Cain on his forehead, and be sent to labor among the negro slaves of the South. * * * The moral power of the ballot box is sufficient to correct all abuses. Let me, then, proclaim here, from this high arena, to the citizens not only of my own state, but to the country, to all sects and parties who are entitled to the right of suffrage, 'To the ballot box !' * * * Fear not the frowns of power. It trembles while it denounces you." He pleaded strongly for the right to petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and drew a vivid picture of the slave trade as it was carried on under the shadow of the Capitol. Here are a few brief sentences of his arraignment : ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 257 "The slave-trade exists here in all its horrors, and unwhipt of all its crimes. In view of the very chair which you now occupy, Mr. President, if the massy walls of this building did not prevent it, you could see the prison, the pen, the hell, where human beings, when purchased for sale, are kept until a cargo can be procured for transportation to a southern or foreign market. * * * Since Congress has been in session, a mournful group of these unhappy beings, some thirty or forty were marched, as if in derision of members of Congress in view of your Capitol, chained and manacled together, in open daylight, yes, in the very face of Heaven itself, to be shipped at Baltimore for a foreign market." He referred to the excuse made by some senators that slavery must be preserved to avoid a dissolution of the Union. "It is slavery, then," said he, "and not liberty that makes us one people. To dissolve slavery is to dissolve the Union. Why require us to support the constitution by oath, if the constitution itself is subject to the power of slavery." And then he added : "Change the form of the oath which you administer to senators on taking seats here, swear them to support slavery and, according to the logic of the gentleman, the constitution and the Union will both be saved. We hear almost daily threats of dissolving the Union : and from whence do they come ? From the citizens of the free states ? No ! From the slave states only." He challenged Clay's basis for slavery as a permanent institution : "The senator finds consolation, however, in the midst of this existing evil, in color and caste. The black race, says he, is the strong ground of slavery in our country. Yes, it is color, not right and justice, that is to continue forever slavery in our country. It is the prejudice against color, which is the strong ground of the slaveholder's hope. Is that prejudice founded in nature, or is it the effect of base and sordid interests ? Let the mixed race which we see here, from black to almost perfect white, springing from white fathers, answer the question. Slavery has no just foundation in color ; it rests exclusively upon usurpation, tyranny, oppressive fraud and force. These were its parents in every age and country of the world ?" The speaker was especially severe in his dissent from the statement of Clay that law makes property in human beings. In this as in other sections of his well sustained and extended speech he rose to eloquence of thought and expression : "The senator further insists that 'what the law makes property is property.' This is the predicate of the gentleman. He has neither facts nor reason to prove it. Yet upon this alone does he rest the whole case that negroes are property. I deny the predicate and the argument. Suppose the legislature of the senator's own state should pass a law declaring his wife, his children, his friends, indeed, any white citizen of Kentucky, property, and should they be sold and transferred as such, would the gentleman fold his arms and say, 'Yes, they are property, for the law made them such !' No, sir ; he would denounce such law with more vehemence than he now denounces abolitionists and would deny the authority of human legislation to accomplish an object so clearly beyond its power." If not in the eloquent periods of Webster on the same subject he pointed out with at least equal directness and force the effect of slavery on the growth and progress of two sister states : "But, says the senator, we are yet a prosperous and happy nation. Pray, Sir, in what part of your country do you find prosperity and happiness ? In the slave states ? No ! No ! There all is weakness, gloom and despair ; while in the free states, all is light, business and activity. What has created the astonishing difference between the gentleman's state and mine—between Kentucky and Ohio ? Slavery, the withering curse of slavery, is upon Kentucky, while Ohio is free." He made an appeal to the Senate and the country to resist the encroachments of the slave power : 258 - HISTORY OF OHIO "Are we to cease all exertion for our own safety and submit in quiet to the rule of this power ? Is the calm of despotism to reign over this land and the voice of freedom to be no more heard ? This sacrifice is required of us in order to sustain slavery. Freemen, will you make it ? Will you shut your ears and your sympathies and withhold from the poor, famished slave a morsel of bread ? Can you thus act and expect the blessings of Heaven upon your country ? I beseech you to consider for yourselves." He devoted some space to the charge that he was an abolitionist, which charge he met boldly as follows : "If to maintain the rights of the states the security of the citizen from violence and outrage ; if to preserve the supremacy of the laws ; if insisting on the right of petition, a medium through which every person subject to the laws has an undoubted right to approach the constitutional authorities of the country—be the doctrines of abolitionists it finds a response in every beating pulse in my veins. Neither power, nor favor, nor want, nor misery shall deter me from its support while the vital currents continue to flow." There was at times, a touch of pathos in the speech. The speaker was conscious of what his stand had cost him. He was not insensible to the loss of strong friendships—to the severing of political and personal ties that for years had been unshaken. To these thoughts he referred briefly as he approached the conclusion of his address : "Condemned at home for my opposition to slavery, alone and single handed here, well may I feel tremor and emotion in bearding this lion of slavery in his very den and upon his own ground. I should shrink, Sir, at once from this fearful and unequal contest were I not thoroughly convinced that I am sustained by the power of truth and the best interests of the country." He seemed to be sustained not only by the conscious rectitude of his course, but by faith in the ultimate triumph of his cause : "I have endeavored to warn my fellow citizens of the present and approaching danger, but the dark cloud of slavery is before their eyes and prevents many of them from seeing the condition of things as they are. That cloud, like the cloud of summer, will soon pass away and its thunders cease to be heard. Slavery will come to an end and the sunshine of prosperity warm, invigorate and bless the whole country." After the simple statement that this was probably the last time that his voice would be heard in the Senate and an expression of the pleasure that he anticipated in returning to his native state, he said in conclusion : "I hope on returning to my home and my friends, to join them again in rekindling the beacon-fires of liberty upon every hill in our state, until their broad glare shall enlighten every valley and the song of triumph will soon be heard ; for the hearts of our people are in the hands of a just and holy Being, who can not look upon oppression but with abhorrence, and He can turn them whither-so-ever he will as the rivers of water are turned. Though our national sins are many and grievous, yet repentance, like that of ancient Nineveh, may divert from us that impending danger which seems to hang over our heads as by a single hair. That all may be safe, I conclude that the negro will yet be set free." The circumstances under which this courageous and defiant speech was made were not lacking in dramatic interest. It appears to have been wholly unexpected. When Senator Morris began his reply to Clay, but few spectators were present. Daniel Webster, in another wing of the Capitol, was arguing a case before the Supreme Court of the United States, and the crowds who were accustomed to hear the great orators of the day were with him. Soon the news spread, however, that something unusual was in progress in the Senate. The tide of visitors turned in that direction and speedily filled the galleries. As Senator Morris dealt blow after blow against the arguments of Clay, with an occasional stroke at the position of Calhoun, and poured forth in dignified but scathing language his arraignment of slavery, his hearers were held by his unques- ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 259 tioned sincerity, his courage and his audacity. But the turbulent scenes which he anticipated did not occur. In the audience were doubtless many citizens of the District of Columbia who were interested in maintaining slavery there. Their feelings while listening to portions of the speech can be better imagined than described. When the time and circumstances under which he spoke are considered, it is remarkable that Morris escaped personal insult or injury. The resentment felt by the South found expression and one senator declared that Morris "deserved expulsion from the senate ; that his presence was a contamination ; that he soiled the very carpet on which he stood," and this sentiment was echoed by the partisan press and the Legislature of Virginia. But Time, "the rectifier, where our judgments err," has reversed the dominant opinion of that day and the principles for which Ohio's brave representative stood alone in the United States Senate were long ago fully vindicated and permanently established in the constitution of the Republic. The courageous opposition of Thomas Morris to slavery cost him his place in the United States Senate. The speech of Henry Clay cost that distinguished statesmen the presidency. He owned slaves, and his speech in defense of this species of property alienated so many of the antislavery men in his party that it was found inexpedient to nominate him for the presidency, and that honor went to William Henry Harrison. His opposition to the use of the ballot box by the abolitionists to accomplish the advancement of their cause seems to have been well founded, so far as the realization of his great ambition was concerned ; for the abolitionists proceeded to organize the Liberty party and, in 1844, appealed to the ballot box and polled sufficient votes to defeat Clay for the presidency. Senator Morris, as candidate on that ticket for vice president, helped to accomplish that result. The defection of the anti-slavery whigs was not the only cause that led to the defeat of Clay, though that alone is believed to have been sufficient. After the close of his service in the senate, Morris found opportunity as a private citizen to speak and act in opposition to slavery. He was called upon to address public meetings. These were attended largely by his former supporters in the democratic party. He was not at first willing to leave the party without appearing before it in convention to defend his attitude. On January 8, 1840, he attended a democratic state convention in Columbus as a delegate from Hamilton County. The democratic Ohio Statesman and the whig Ohio State Journal made little mention of his presence ; possibly because it was to the interest of both to promote as speedily as possible his exit from public notice. The delegate called to preside over this convention was Thomas L. Hamer, former protege of Morris and now a popular democratic leader. Among the delegates from Clermont County sat Jonathan D. Morris, son of Thomas Morris ; also John Brough and David Tod. In this convention was William Sawyer, the outspoken partisan leader, later elected to Congress and a delegate to the second constitutional convention of Ohio, who believed that the negro should have all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, provided he would go to the black man's country, Africa, to enjoy these rights. The convention passed resolutions against anti-slavery agitation and declared that "no sound democrat would have parcel or lot in it." Thomas Morris rose to defend his course in the United States Senate. He had not proceeded far when he was interrupted with demonstrations of disapproval and "coughed down." Mr. Sawyer then rose and declared that he considered "the gentleman from Hamilton (Mr. Morris) a rotten branch that should be lopped off." This suggestion met with hearty approval and there were shouts of "Agreed !" "Agreed !" "Let him go !" "Turn him out of the party and all other abolitionists with him !"12 12 - Morris, "The Life of Thomas Morris," p. 191. 260 - HISTORY OF OHIO This was the final act in reading him out of the democratic party. He afterward became identified with the liberty party. On January 23, 1841, on his way home from an anti-slavery convention in Columbus, he stopped, on invitation, to deliver an address in Dayton, but he was prevented from doing so by a threatening mob. He spoke in other meetings where there were riotous disturbances, but nothing more dangerous than eggs were hurled at the speakers. • In May, 1841, a convention in New York tendered him the nomination for the vice presidency on the liberty ticket. In the state convention of that party held in the Second Presbyterian Church in Columbus, December 28, 1842, he took a prominent part. At the national convention of the new party in Buffalo, August 30, 1843, he was nominated for vice president and accepted. The spirit in which lie took this action is shown in a letter written to Dr. Gamaliel Bailey in 1841, when his name was placed in nomination for the same position by the New York state convention of the liberty party : "This nomination was not only unsought, but unlooked for, by myself ; but I can say, with perfect sincerity, that I received it and still view it as the highest honor ever conferred on me by any portion of my fellow citizens. Were I desirous of posthumous fame (which I believed all men are more or less) I had rather had my name inscribed upon the most obscure record of the friends of liberty, in the present struggle, than to be placed in the highest seats of power in opposition thereto. The liberty for which we contend is that which, like the star of Bethlehem, leads to the salvation of men." In the campaign of 1844 he took an active part as the candidate of the liberty party for vice president. The result of the election has already been stated. On December 7, 1844, he was suddenly stricken and died at his homestead farm in Clermont County, near Bethel, Ohio. The liberty party merged into the free soil party in 1848 ; and 1852, and the republican party of 1856. The sons of Thomas Morris did not follow him into the liberty party. Jonathan D. Morris was elected to Congress as a democrat to succeed Thomas L. Hamer, who died in the War with Mexico ; another son, Isaac D. Morris, served two terms in Congress as a democrat from an Illinois district. On April 27, 1922, the centennial anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant was appropriately celebrated at the little Village of Point Pleasant, Ohio, where President Harding delivered the principal address. On the day following the celebration was continued at Bethel, for many years the home of the Grant family. Here United States Senator Frank B. Willis paid tribute not only to Grant, but to Thomas Morris, at whose request Thomas L. Hamer had recommended Grant for cadetship at West Point. In referring to the speech of Morris in reply to Henry Clay, Senator Willis said : "The speech of Senator Thomas Morris of Ohio, delivered in the Senate on February 9, 1839, has never been excelled in that body in point of courage, logic and far-reaching effect. It awakened a lethargic Nation from the stupor of slavery." 13 In the afternoon when the great audience was taking its departure from the neat and prosperous Village of Bethel, one of the pioneers of the place said to the writer : "Senator Morris was all right. Everybody can see that now. The only trouble with him was that he was ahead of his time." Yes, he was "ahead of his time." Somebody, it seems, must always be ahead of his time in order that the world shall move onward. Thomas Morris realized this and never regretted the temporary sacrifice to attain his proud place among the pioneers in the cause of universal liberty. 13 - Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, Publications, Vol. XXXI, pp. 347-348. CHAPTER IV BY FORCE OF ARMS The institution of slavery presented a perplexing problem for which different solutions were suggested. Colonization had eminent supporters. Political organization and an appeal to the ballot box had been advocated. The purchase and liberation of the slaves by the Government had an occasional proponent. The Underground Railroad came into somewhat general use as a practical, though illegal, agency for gradual emancipation. The radical abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates seemed at times about to reach "the meeting of extremes" in an agreement peaceably to dissolve the Union. It was natural, perhaps, that those to whom hostility to slavery had become an obsession should be impatient at the long war of words and the comparatively meager results. This was especially true in Kansas, where force and fraud had nullified the ballot box as an agency to prevent the extension of slavery to that territory. The contribution of the Western Reserve to the anti-slavery movement in Ohio was important and distinctive. Conspicuous among its promoters were Joshua R. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade, and a score of others could be named who acquired more than local fame in service of the cause. Among these was one whose name has been in a most unusual way impressed upon the history of the state and nation. His deeds to this day have been the subject of controversy and he has been characterized alternately by writers and eminent men as knave and saint, as lunatic and prophet, as monster and martyr. After the flight of more than sixty years conflicting opinions are still registered in regard to this unique personality that emerged from obscurity into tragic prominence on the plains of Kansas and in the beleaguered arsenal at Harper's Ferry. It is not our purpose to essay the task of settling controversies and rendering final judgment. Such an effort would be vain. In view of the fact that John Brown was for most of his life a resident of Ohio and that a number of his followers in his final desperate enterprise were from this state, it has been deemed proper that a somewhat extended account of his activities should be recorded here. Recent histories of at least three other states have devoted much space to him. Assuredly no apology is necessary for ample representation in this contribution to the history of the state of his adoption. JOHN BROWN There is no dearth of material for this contemplated sketch. The events of the life of John Brown have been traced with industrious scrutiny from the date of his birth to his death on the gallows at Charlestown. It is really remarkable how every scrap of manuscript or other sources of information bearing upon his life has been sought and recorded by writers ever since his name became nationally 'known prior to the Civil war. His letters and those of his ancestors and immediate associates have been copied and printed in extenso with painstaking fidelity to delinquencies of orthography, capitalization and punctuation. Some writers have published the manuscripts verbatim - 261 - 262 - HISTORY OF OHIO only supplying the modern approved capitalization and punctuation. Others have given them to us verbatim et literatim. Not even the letters of our most distinguished statesmen have been considered and published with more painstaking fidelity to content, including even the trivialities. It is a significant fact, but strictly true, that the numerous letters written by John Brown today command a higher price in the manuscript market than the letters of a number of our eminent presidents. Although John Brown and his father had only the very meager education of the pioneers of their time, they evidently had the New England instinct for preserving correspondence which was common to their associates who came to the Western Reserve, and it is remarkable how much of their autobiographic effort and personal correspondence has been available for the industrious research of recent years. Biographies of John Brown very properly start with Plymouth Rock. His ancestor, Peter Brown, the carpenter, came over in the Mayflower with the Pilgrims in December, 1620. Detailed information is available in a number of works relative to the descendants of this ancestor. It is unnecessary to repeat here all that has been written. Peter Brown died in 1633 and his remains were buried at Duxbury, near those of the famous Captain Standish, whose monument now rises from the little promontory that faces the sea. Peter Brown of the Mayflower left a son named after himself who moved to Windsor, Connecticut, shortly prior to 1658. He here became the father of thirteen children, one of whom, John Brown, was born January 8, 1668. He grew to manhood and was the father of eleven children, one of whom, John Brown second, was born in 1700 and died in 1790. His son, Capt. John Brown of West Simsbury, was the grandfather of John Brown of Osawatomie and Harper's Ferry fame. This grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution and died in the service, leaving a widow and eleven children, one of whom was born after he entered the army. This widow's maiden name was Owen and one of her sons named Owen was the father of John Brown, the militant opponent of slavery. A detailed account of his ancestry shows that Welsh, Dutch and English blood mingled in his veins. Both of his grandfathers were officers in the Revolution, and one of them; as we have seen, died in the service. Owen Brown lived for a time in the Town of West Simsbury, now Canton, Connecticut. "Town" is used here in the New England sense and means township. Later he moved to Torrington, Connecticut, where his son, John, was born May 9, 1800. In 1804 Owen Brown made a journey to what was then the far West and visited Hudson with the thought of locating there. One year afterward he brought his family in a wagon drawn by an ox team, chose his place of habitation and became a citizen of the young state, Ohio. The maiden name of John Brown's mother was Ruth Mills. Her father, Lieut. Gideon Mills, moved to Ohio in 1800, five years before Owen Brown and his family came to the state. Fortunately for those interested, Owen Brown when nearly eighty years old and while living at Hudson wrote a biography covering rather fully the events of his life. This autobiography has a general interest for the reader, as it details the experiences, the trials, reverses and triumphs of the pioneers of our state and especially those who came over from Connecticut and settled on the Western Reserve. This brief narrative is taken up largely with the things that interested the average emigrant from the East who settled in this section. Much of it is devoted to family interests, the record of births and deaths of numerous children, the pursuits of the pioneers, efforts to get the merest rudiments of an education and the religious experiences which made up a prominent part of the history of Hudson and the surrounding country. We quote briefly from this autobiography. The first paragraph that ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 263 follows is reproduced literally. The remaining paragraphs without the peculiarities of orthography and punctuation : "We arrived at Hudson on the 27 of July and was received with many tokens of kindness we did not come to a land of idleness neither did I expect it. Our ways were as prosperous as we could expect. I came with a determination to build up and be a help in the seport of religion and civil Order. We had some hardships to undergo but they appear greater in history than they were in reality. I was often called to go into woods to make divisions of lands sometimes 60 or 70 Miles (from) home to be gone some two week and sleep on the ground and that without injery. When we came to Ohio the Indians were more numerous than the white people but were very friendly and I beleave were a benefit rather than an injery there [were] some Persons that seamed disposed to quarel with the Indian but I never had [such feelings] they brought us Venson Turkeys Fish and the like sometimes wanted bread or meal more than they could pay for, but were faithful to pay their debts. 1 "In September, 1806, there was a difficulty between two tribes; the tribe on the Cuyahoga River came to Hudson and asked for assistance to build them a log house that would be a kind of fort to shelter their women and children from the firearms of their enemies. Most of our men went with teams and chopped, drew, and carried logs and put up a house in one day, for which they appeared very grateful. They were our neighbors until 1812, but when the war commenced with the British, the Indians left these parts mostly and rather against my wishes." A glimpse of what the second war with England meant to this pioneer community may be had from the following quotation : "In July, 1812, the war with England began; and this war called loudly for action, liberality, and courage. This was the most active part of my life. We were then on the frontier, and the people were much alarmed, particularly after the surrender of General Hull at Detroit. Our cattle, horses, and provisions were all wanted. Sick soldiers were returning, and needed all the assistance that could be given them. There was great sickness in different camps, and the travel was mostly through Hudson, which brought sickness into our families. By the first of 1813 there was great mortality in Hudson. My family were sick, but we had no deaths. 2 John Brown inherited his opposition to slavery. This is clearly set forth in a statement by his father written about 1850 : "I am an abolitionist. I know we are not loved by many ; I have no confession to make for being one, yet I wish to tell how long I have been one, and how I became so. I have no hatred to negroes. When a child four or five years old, one of our nearest neighbors had a slave that was brought from Guinea. In the year 1776 my father was called into the army at New York, and left his work undone. In August, our good neighbor, Capt. John Fast, of West Simsbury, let my mother have the labor of his slave to plough a few days. I used to go out into the field with this slave—called Sam—and he used to carry me on his back, and I fell in love with him. He worked but a few days, and went home sick with the pleurisy, and died very suddenly. When told that he would die, he said that he should go to Guinea, and wanted victuals put up for the journey. As I recollect, this was the first funeral I ever attended in the days of my youth. There were but three or four slaves in West Simsbury. In the year 1790, when I lived with the Rev. Jeremiah Hallock, the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D., came from Newport, and I heard him talking with Mr. Hallock about slavery in Rhode 1 - Fox extended extract literally reproduced, see Oswald Garrison Villard's "John Brown Fifty Years After," pp. 12-14; for a freer rendering of the entire autobiography, see F. B. Sanborn's "John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia." 2 - Sanborn, "John Brown," p. 9. 264 - HISTORY OF OHIO Island, and he denounced it as a great sin. I think in the same summer Mr. Hallock had sent to him a sermon or pamphlet-book, written by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, then at New Haven. I read it, and it denounced slavery as a great sin. From this time I was anti-slavery, as much as I be now." 3 In 1857 when John Brown was in the midst of warfare against slavery and stationed at Red Rock, Iowa, he wrote in fulfillment of a promise a sketch of his life for Henry L. Stearns, a boy only thirteen years old. The occasion of the writing of this sketch was the gratitude of Brown to Mr. George Luther Stearns, a wealthy merchant and manufacturer of Boston whom Brown visited shortly after Christmas in 1856. Stearns had a beautiful home at Medford and here he entertained his guest, with whose anti-slavery views he was in cordial sympathy. The oldest son of the family was much interested in Brown and gave him some money that he had been saving to buy shoes for "one of those little Kansas children." \\Then Brown left the boy exacted from him a promise that he would write the story of his boyhood days. This he did later at Red Rock, Iowa, and sent it to the Stearns family. The manuscript is still in existence. It has been published many times and we quote from it simply within the limitations of what may especially interest Ohio readers. He speaks of the long journey to Ohio, which he distinctly remembered, always referring to himself in the third person : "When he was Five years old his Father moved to Ohio ; then a wilderness filled with wild beasts, & Indians. During the long journey which was performed in part or mostly with an ox team ; he was called on by turns to assist a boy Five years older (who had been adopted by his Father & Mother) & learned to think he could accomplish smart things in driving the Cows ; and riding the horses." 4 It is rather remarkable that no difference how large these pioneer families were they always seemed to have room for additions by adoption. The doors were usually open to a child or youth for varied periods of time as we shall see later. Again Browning in speaking of his coming to Ohio says : "After getting to Ohio in 1805 he was for some time rather afraid of the Indians, & of their Rifles ; but this soon wore off ; & he used to hang about them quite as much as was consistent with good manners ; & learned a trifle of their talk." 5 He then proceeds to tell how he learned the tanner's trade under the direction of his father and to detail his youthful experiences, his association with Indian children and his fondness for pets. Of schooling he received very little. He says : "Indeed when for a short time he was sometimes sent to School the opportunity it afforded to wrestle & Snow ball & run & jump & knocked off old seedy wool hats; offered to him almost the only compensation for the confinement, & restraints of school." 6 As he grew older larger responsibilities came to him and he drove cattle, sometimes a distance of 100 miles. His experiences at this period are the foundations from which Elbert Hubbard built up much of his interesting novel, Time and Chance. As set forth in that story, Zanesville, Ohio, was the destination of this boy herdsman. We quote from what he has to say in regard to the war with England, as he saw it, and the influences that made him a foe to slavery : "When the war broke out with England, his Father soon commenced furnishing the troops with beef cattle, the collecting & driving of which afforded him some opportunity for the chase (on foot) of wild steers & other cattle through the woods. During this war he had 3 - Ibid, pp. 10-11. 4 - James Redpath, "The Life of Capt. John Brown," p. 25. 5 - Ibid, pp. 25-26. 6 - Redpath, "Capt. John Brown," p. 27. ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 265 some chance to form his own boyish judgment of men & measures : & to become somewhat familiarly acquainted with some who have figured before the country since that time. The effect of what he saw during the war was to so far disgust him with military affairs that he would neither train, or drill ; but paid fines ; & got along like a Quaker until his age finally has cleared him of Military duty. "During the war with England a circumstance occurred that in the end made him a most determined Abolitionist ; & lead him to declare, or Swear : Eternal war with Slavery. He was staying for a short time with a very gentlemanly landlord once a United States Marshall who held a slave boy near his own age very active, intelligent and good f eeling ; & to whom John was under considerable obligation for numerous little acts of kindness. The master made a great pet of John ; brought him to table with his first company ; & friends ; called their attention to every little smart thing he said, or did : & to the fact of his being more than a hundred miles from home with a company of cattle alone ; while the negro boy (who was fully if not more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed ; & lodged in cold weather : & beaten before his eves with Iron Shovels or any other thing that came first to hand. This brought John to reflect on the wretched ; hopeless condition, of Fatherless & Motherless slave children : for such children have neither Fathers nor Mothers to protect, & provide for them. He sometimes would raise the question is God their Father ?" 7 It is worthy of note that through his youth and early manhood he was so thoroughly opposed to war that he refused to perform military duty and, like a Quaker, paid his fines. No one who knew him in this period of his life would have predicted that any cause would have moved him to appeal to arms and hasten the advent of a sanguinary and destructive Civil war. Of his early religious experiences he says : "John had been taught from earliest childhood to 'fear God & keep his commandments' ; & though quite skeptical he had always by turns felt much serious doubt as to his future well being; & about this time became to some extent a convert to Christianity & ever after a firm believer in the divine authenticity of the Bible. With this book he became very familiar & possessed a most unusual memory of its entire contents." 8 Again he reverts to his work at Hudson. He says : "From Fifteen to Twenty years old, he spent most of his time working at the Tanner & Currier's trade keeping Bachelors hall ; & he officiating as Cook ; & for most of the time as forman of the establishment under his Father." 9 While this youth was working in his father's tannery, another boy by the name of Jesse Grant, whose parents had come from Connecticut to Pennsylvania and later to Ohio, came to the Brown home and was admitted to the family. He and young John Brown worked side by side daily and became much attached to each other. Little did either dream of the future before him. John was to become the father of sons who should give their lives in an effort to overthrow the institution of slavery, and Jesse was to become the father of the general who should lead armed hosts to bind the states closer together and make freedom universal in America. Ulysses S. Grant, the son of Jesse, in his Memoirs, completed at Mt. McGregor July 1, 1885, has this to say of his father's apprenticeship in the tannery of Owen Brown : "He went first, I believe, with his half-brother, Peter Grant, who, though not a tanner himself, owned a tannery in Maysville, Kentucky. Here he learned his trade, and in a few years returned to Deerfield and 7 - Ibid, pp. 29-30. 8 - Redpath, "Capt. John Brown," p. 32. 9 - Ibid, p. 33. 266 - HISTORY OF OHIO worked for, and lived in the family of a Mr. Brown, the father of John Brown—'whose body lies mouldering in the grave, while his soul goes marching on.' I have often heard my father speak of John Brown, particularly since the events at Harper's Ferry. Brown was a boy when they lived in the same house, but he knew him afterwards, and regarded him as a man of great purity of character, of high moral and physical courage, but a fanatic and extremist in whatever he advocated. It was JOHN BROWN MONUMENT, AKRON certainly the act of an insane man to attempt the invasion of the South, and the overthrow of slavery, with less than twenty men." In the War of 1812, Owen Brown contracted to furnish beef to Hull's army, which with his boy John he followed to or near Detroit. Though John was but twelve years old, in after years he recalled very distinctly the incidents of the long march, the camp life of the soldiers and the attitude of the subordinate officers toward their commander. From conversations that he overheard he concluded that they were not very loyal to General Hull. He remembered especially Gen. Lewis Cass, then a captain, and Gen. Duncan McArthur. As late as 1857 he referred ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 267 to conversations between the two and among other officers that should have branded them as mutineers. How much of this has foundation in fact and how much is due to erroneous youthful impression, must of course remain a matter of conjecture. Like most children of his day, John Brown had very meager educational opportunities at Hudson. He supplemented the rudiments that he there acquired in the schools and the church by reading such standard books as "AEsop's Fables," "Life of Franklin" and "Pilgrim's Progress." At the age of sixteen years he joined the Congregational Church at Hudson and later thought seriously of studying for the ministry. With this purpose in view he returned to Connecticut and entered a preparatory school at Plainfield, intending later to take a course at Amherst College. Inflammation of his eyes, however, prevented him from continuing his studies and he soon returned to Hudson. Later at odd moments he studied surveying and attained skill and accuracy in its practice. In 1820 he owned a copy of "Flint's Survey." Some of his surveying instruments are in the museum of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, including his pocket and his field compasses, both in excellent state of preservation. His chief occupation, however, from 1819 to 1839, was the tanning of leather. That John Brown was a normal youth is attested by the fact that he early fell deeply in love. This was not reciprocated and he wrote in a letter about forty years afterward that as a result he "felt for a number of years in early life a steady, strong desire to die." That he was normal is also proven by the fact that he was later comforted and married Diantha Lusk of Hudson, Ohio, June 21, 1820. She was an excellent woman, very devout and fully shared her husband's faith and enthusiasms. On July 25, 1821, the first child of this union, John Brown, Jr., was born. Among his earliest recollections was the presence in the home one night of some fugitive slaves that his father was helping on their way northward. This was about the year 1825. Of the union of John Brown and Diantha Lusk three sons were born in Ohio : John, Jr., Jason and Owen. In 1825 John Brown moved to Randolph (now Richmond) Pennsylvania. Here were born his children Frederick (1), Ruth, Frederick (2) who was named after Frederick (1) died, and an infant son who died and was buried with his mother three days after his birth. John Brown married the second time Mary Ann Day, July 11, 1833. To them was born in Randolph one child, Sarah. At Randolph Brown established a tannery and pursued his calling, at the same time serving as postmaster of the village. In his ample log dwelling a room was set aside for the local subscription school. Here he remained ten years, modestly prosperous in business, highly respected and comparatively happy in the midst of his large and increasing family. While in Pennsylvania his antagonism to slavery continued, and the liberation of the bondmen through the agency of education became with him a favorite theme of speculation. His life at Randolph is reviewed in interesting and satisfactory detail by Sanborn and Villard. The latter quotes from the recorded recollections of James Foreman, who worked in Brown's tannery. This record reveals Brown's devotion to his family, his sterling Puritanism and his zeal for liberty. While in Pennsylvania, on January 11, 1832, he organized an Independent Congregational Society, "its articles of faith being written out in his hand as clerk of the society." 10 Here he maintained a station on the Underground Railroad and aided negroes on their way to Canada and freedom. From Randolph, Pennsylvania, in 1834 he wrote a letter to his brother in which he bore testimony to his interest in the liberation of the slaves. At this time it will be seen that he favored universal eman- 10 - Villard, "John Brown," p. 25. 268 - HISTORY OF OHIO cipation but there is no intimation that he had concluded that it was to be brought about by force of arms. We quote from his letter as follows : "Since you left me I have been trying to devise some means whereby I might do something in a practical way for my poor fellow-men who are in bondage, and having fully consulted the feelings of my wife and my three boys, we have agreed to get at least one negro boy or youth, and bring him up as we do our own—viz., give him a good English education, learn him what we can about the history of the world, about business, about general subjects, and, above all, try to teach him the fear of God. We think of three ways to obtain one : First, to try to get some Christian slave-holder to release one to us. Second, to get a free one if no one will let us have one that is a slave. Third, if that does not succeed, we have all agreed to submit to considerable privation in order to buy one. This we are now using means in order to effect, in the confident expectation that God is about to bring them all out of the house of bondage."11 In 1835 he returned to Ohio to enter the tanning business with Zenas Kent at Franklin Mills (now the Village of Kent) Portage County, Ohio. Scarcely had he finished the tannery at that place when the firm disposed of the property to Marvin Kent, the son of Zenas. John Brown then took the contract for the construction of that portion of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal between Franklin Mills and Akron. Believing that a large city was destined to spring up at Franklin Mills on the completion of the canal, he entered into extensive land speculations, making purchases entirely on his credit with practically no capital. Unfortunately shrewder business men were planning that the city should spring up at Akron rather than Franklin Mills and the diversion of the waters of Cuyahoga River to that site doomed the investments of Brown to a disastrous failure. The building in which he lived at Franklin Mills is still standing. A farm that he purchased in partnership with a Mr. Thompson was laid out in lots and platted by Brown. A few years ago the original plat in the handwriting of Brown was in the possession of the Kent family. The hard times of 1837 hastened the financial disaster which was assured when the water of the river was largely diverted to the rising Town of Akron. The failure of Brown involved to some extent his father, who had advanced money in aid of the project along with other creditors. As a result he was ultimately forced to bankruptcy. This led some who lost money through him to raise questions as to his honesty. Heman Oviatt of Richfield, Ohio, however, who lost money and became involved in law suits as a result of Brown's failure, bore willing testimony to his integrity as did other of his creditors. After his failure in business at Franklin Mills and other failures later in life, he made a statement to his son John in which he clearly set forth the fact that his great mistake was due to his attempt to speculate on credit. His son quotes him as follows : "Instead of being thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of pay as you go, I started out in life with the idea that nothing could be done without capital, and that a poor man must use his credit and borrow ; and this pernicious notion has been the rock on which I, as well as many others, have split. The practical effect of this false doctrine has been to keep me like a toad under a harrow most 'of my business life. Running into debt includes so much evil that I hope all my children will shun it as they would a pestilence." 12 The purchase of four farms on credit is declared "to have been a chief cause of Brown's collapse." If the city had been built at Franklin Mills instead of Akron, however, John Brown's financial career might have been very different. It is true nevertheless that a fatality 11 - Sanborn, "John Brown," pp. 40-41. 12 - Sanborn, "John Brown." ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS- 269 seems to have followed practically all of his business ventures and the fundamental cause he seems at last to have fully realized as stated above. His failure at Franklin Mills was followed by frequent shiftings from place to place and experiments in new ventures. He first returned to Hudson in 1837 ; went back to Franklin Mills later and again to Hudson. In 1838 he traveled about the country, making a trip to New York and Connecticut. For a time he was interested in the breeding of race horses ; he drove cattle to Connecticut ; he arranged to act as agent of a New York firm in the selling of steel scythes ; he purchased Saxony sheep at West Hartford, Connecticut, on the 18th of January, 1838 ; subsequently made other purchases, shipped the sheep to Albany and thence drove them overland to Ohio. In June, 1839, his interest shifted to cattle ; on the 15th of June, 1839, he received from the New England Woolen Company at Rockville, Connecticut, the sum of $2,800 for the purchase of wool. This money he appears to have used to relieve financial distress. He sincerely regretted his inability to meet his obligations as evidenced in letters written at the time and in others written when he was in prison in Charlestown in 1859. In 1840 he and his father arranged to invest in Virginia (now West Virginia) lands. These belonged to Oberlin College and were located partly in the present counties of Dodridge and Tyler, West Virginia. John Brown on April 1st of that year entered into an agreement with the trustees of Oberlin College to purchase some of these lands. He was to make a survey of the same, report to the board of trustees and receive $1 a day and necessary expenses for his work. At this time he contemplated not only making a purchase of a portion of the lands but also moving his family to them. His surveys and reports were made in accordance with the agreement and he proposed to purchase 1,000 acres. Negotiations were delayed, however, and the trustees seem to have concluded the agreement at an end. In a letter written from Hudson, February 5, 1841, John Brown seemed to regret that he could not go to Virginia as he had planned, but credited the circumstances that prevented his going, as usual, to the intervention of providence. In 1841 he turned his attention wholly to the raising of sheep, taking charge "of the flocks of Captain Oviatt at Richfield, Ohio." In this occupation he was successful for a time and developed great skill as a shepherd and judge of wool. While in Richfield four of his children died and three of them were buried at one time. In 1842 he received his discharge from bankruptcy resulting from the speculations at Franklin Mills, but practically all of his possessions were taken from him. He was permitted to keep "a few articles which the court had decided September 28, 1842, were absolutely necessary to the maintenance of the family--among them eleven bibles and testaments, one volume entitled Beauties of the Bible, one Church Members' Guide, besides two mares, two cows, two hogs, three lambs, nineteen hens, seven sheep and * * * three pocket knives valued at .371/2" 13 He succeeded so well in raising sheep and cattle that he became well known in Summit County. On April 10, 1844, he moved from Richfield to Akron where he established a tannery which was prosperous from the beginning. His disposition, however, to be dissatisfied with a modest degree of prosperity at his regular trade led him to form a copartnership with Simon Perkins, Jr., a successful business man of Akron. The firm of Perkins and Brown continued for a period of ten years. The family resided in a cottage on what is known as Perkins Hill. A portion of the building is still standing. Writers have detailed at length the home life of John Brown. His disposition to seek new fields and experiment with new enterprises took him frequently from his home, but he was at all times deeply interested 13 - Villard, "John Brown," p. 34. 270 - HISTORY OF OHIO in his family as his letters and the uniform testimony of his neighbors clearly show. He was a strict disciplinarian and required unquestioning obedience from his numerous children. He at first used the rod somewhat freely, but according to the testimony of his sons always justly, never in wrath. He had a habit of frequently inflicting punishment upon himself at the same time, on the ground that the child's offense had probably been due in a measure to his own neglect of duty as a father. After punishing the boy he would bare his own shoulders and require the boy to use the lash on him. With the residence at Akron came better educational advantages for his children, especially John Brown, Jr., and his sister, Ruth. John Brown's financial failures and lack of judgment in business matters brought him frequently into the courts of Portage and Summit counties, a detailed account of which is set forth by Villard (pages 36-41). In 1846 Brown had ventured upon the enterprise of wool merchant in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the firm of Perkins and Brown. Hither he moved his family. Here he met Frederick Douglass, who has given an interesting picture of Brown and his family as he saw them there. The object of the venture of Perkins and Brown at Springfield was the establishment of an office to classify wools for wool growers in order that they might be able to command a fair price for their product. The purpose was somewhat akin to the cooperative market projects of the present day. Brown and Perkins probably hoped to do for the infant wool industry of this country what associations have accomplished so successfully for the fruit growers of California and other states. The letter-book covering many pages, the greater portion of it in the handwriting of John Brown, and the remainder written by his son, John Brown, Jr., who had a good education, is now in the museum of the Ohio State Archaelogical and Historical Society and gives a very satisfactory insight of the work of the representatives of this firm through many busy months. An export trade to England was inaugurated and for a time the prospect was very bright for the building up of a flourishing business. It appears that the firm received by consignment large quantities of wool which they sometimes had difficulty in marketing. To one of their patrons who complained of the delay in remitting for his wool John Brown sent the following explanation which is here reproduced because of its Ohio connection : "We have at last found out that some of the principal manufacturers are leagued together to break us down, as we have offered them wool at their own price & they refuse to buy. . . We hope every wool-grower in the country will be at Steubenville (Ohio) 2d Wednesday of Feb'y next, to hear statements about the wool trade of a most interesting character. There is no difficulty in the matter as we shall be abundantly able to show, if the farmers will only be true to themselves. * * * Matters of more importance to farmers will then be laid open, than what kind of Tariff we are to have. No sacrifise kneed be made, the only thing wanted is to get the broad shouldered, & hard handed farmers to understand how they have been imposed upon, & the whole matter will be cured effectually."14 This proposed meeting was held and Brown appeared according to agreement and made an address that satisfied the Ohio wool growers. The manufacturers in the East, however, continued to make trouble for him and he found it difficult to dispose of the wool. He conceived the idea that by making a trip to Europe he could find market for his product. Accordingly he sailed August 15, 1849, in the steamer Cambria and arrived in London on the 27th of that month. He failed, however, to find sale for the wool in either London or Paris. He had shipped wool to London and was forced to accept a much lower price 14 - Villard, "John Brown," p. 60. ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 271 than he could have gotten in America. This meant disaster for his venture as a wool merchant. While abroad he visited not only London and Paris but Calais, Hamburg and Brussels. From the last named city he made a side trip to the battlefield of Waterloo. Evidence is not lacking that even at this time battlefields had an attraction for him and he was interested in the plans of the great combats of history. The final winding up of the wool business extended over a number of years and led to much litigation. It appears, however, that in spite of the losses sustained Colonel Perkins continued to entertain a friendly feeling for Brown. In a letter to Oswald Garrison Villard of December 26, 1908, Mr. George T. Perkins of Akron wrote : "My father, Simon Perkins, was associated with Mr. Brown in business for a number of years, and always regarded him as thoroughly honest and honorable in all his relations with him. Mr. Brown was, however, so thoroughly impractical in his business management as he was in almost everything else, that the business was not a success and was discontinued. Their relations were afterwards friendly." The senior member of the firm did not sympathize with Brown's extreme anti-slavery views. In 1878 Colonel Perkins said to Mr. F. E. Sanborn : "Do you mean to connect me with that Virginia affair ? I consider him and the men that helped him in that the biggest set of fools in the world." While in Springfield he was identified with Zion Methodist Church, made up largely of those who had withdrawn from other congregations because of their pronounced anti-slavery views. He became deeply interested in the plan of Gerrit Smith, the famous anti-slavery leader, who had offered to give 120,000 acres of land in Northern New York to worthy colored people. Early in 1848 Brown decided to move his family and establish his home among the negro colonists. He visited Smith on April 8, 1848, and entered into an agreement to move his family to North Elba and aid in directing the negroes, who settled on the land offered by Smith, in clearing away the forts and establishing homes of their own. He moved to North Elba in the spring of 1849. Here he engaged again in stock raising. The original white settlers in the North Elba region were not pleased by the coming of the blacks and the success of the experiment of Brown and Smith was not especially encouraging. That the experiment of establishing a colony of free blacks in the rugged and somewhat inhospitable climate of Northern New York should prove a disappointing and visionary enterprise was not surprising. No wonder that Brown in actual experience with the colored freed-men became a little impatient at times and realized the importance of teaching these people lessons of thrift and industry. To meet the needs of the situation he wrote in 1848 or 1849 for the Ram's Horn, an abolition paper, a contribution entitled "Sambo's Mistakes." It purports to be from the pen of a colored man by the name of Sambo and is divided into three chapters. The "mistakes," which Sambo sees and regrets. were such as the colored people in the colonly and elsewhere were prone to make. It was evidently the object of the contribution to help the blacks to see and correct their mistakes. In the practical test of his benevolent purpose Brown must have been somewhat disillusioned. In the year 1851 he organized in the City of Springfield a branch of the "United States League of Gileadites." This was an organization of colored people for the purpose of defending themselves and advancing their interests. The principles of the league were embraced in the "Words of Advice" written by Brown. They counseled self-defense and resistance of arrest by force of arms. It will be remembered that a little earlier the Compromise of 1850 was enacted, including the famous Fugitive Slave Law. It is needless to say that Brown, like other abolitionists, was very hostile to this law and that he began about this time to meditate an armed attack upon the 272 - HISTORY OF OHIO institution of slavery. Late in the year 1854 or early in 1855 he is reported to have had in mind an attack on Harper's Ferry : "First, to frighten Virginia and detach it from the slave interest ; second, to capture the rifles to arm the slaves ; and third, to destroy the arsenal machinery so that it could not be used to turn out more arms for the perhaps long guerrilla war that might follow."15 In the meantime Brown continued in the partnership of Perkins and Brown. In 1851 he moved his family again to Akron, where he took up once more sheep raising and pursued it with success to his satisfaction and that of his partner, Mr. Perkins. After the removal of his family to North Elba, New York, in 1854, and his withdrawal from the firm of Perkins and Brown, he found himself comparatively free to venture upon some new enterprise. His sons had grown up ; some of them remained in Ohio ; he could leave his family in New York with his son, Watson, who was then a young man, and choose his field of action. About this time five of his sons decided to leave Ohio and seek a new home in Kansas, then the Western frontier of American civilization. The impelling motive is set forth pretty clearly in the statement of one of the sons. In the years 1853 and 1854 many Ohio newspapers contained glowing accounts of the extraordinary climate, healthfulness and fertility of the Territory of Kansas. The efforts of Northern men to make this a free state also had its appeal for the Browns. In the month of October, 1854, three of the sons of John Brown—Owen, Frederick and Salmon—left their homes in Ohio and started on the Western journey. They took with them eleven head of cattle, three horses, two small tents, a plow and other farm tools. They proceeded by way of the lakes to Chicago and thence to Meridosa, Illinois, where they remained for the winter. Early the next spring they proceeded with their cattle and horses to Kansas and settled about eight miles from Osawatomie. As soon as the rivers were navigable, John, Jr., and Jason proceeded by way of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers to join the three brothers who had preceded them. At Saint Louis when they took passage on a steamboat up the Missouri they found themselves in company with a large number of men mostly from the South on their way to help make Kansas a slave state. It is needless to say that the Brown boys found little sympathy with their fellow passengers, whose "drinking, profanity and display of revolvers and bowie knives—openly worn as an essential part of their make-up clearly showed the class to which they belonged." "A box of fruit trees and grape vines," said John Brown, Jr., "which my brother Jason had brought from Ohio, our plow and the few agricultural implements we had on the deck of that steamer looked lonesome ; for these were all we could see which were adapted to the occupations of peace."16 Jason Brown's little son, aged four years, fell a victim to the scourge of cholera on this trip and was buried at night near Waverly, Missouri, where the boat had stopped for repair. As the two brothers took him to his last resting place, their way "illumined only by lightning and a furious thunder storm, the captain of the steamer without warning embarked again on the river leaving them as best they could to find their way to Kansas City." The unpleasant journey, however, was at last completed and the brothers arrived in Kansas, whose "lovely prairies and wooded streams seemed * * * indeed like a haven of rest." 17 The five brothers were finally reunited and entered with enthusiasm upon the building of new homes on these fertile prairies of the West. There were, however, drawbacks to this seeming paradise. Settlements were made usually along the flowing streams, the lurking places 15 - R. J. Hinton, "John Brown and His Men," pp. 587-588. 16 - Sanborn, "John Brown," p. 189. 17 - Sanborn, "John Brown," p. 190. ANTI-SLAVERY AND OTHER MOVEMENTS - 273 of malaria, and the new settlers were soon shaking with the ague. Controversies sprang up among them on the question of slavery and divided them into hostile camps. The events of the next few years in the life of John Brown, strictly speaking, do not come within the limitations of this work, but the fact that Ohio men figure prominently in the lurid annals of "bleeding Kansas" is considered ample apology for continuing the thread of this narrative beyond the borders of our state. In the long struggle for freedom that began with the suggestion of Timothy Pickering in 1783 for a new state beyond the Alleghanies with a solemn compact against slavery and ended with the Civil War the course of progress was unbroken. There were reverses, delays and defeats, but these were temporary. The friends of the movement had established their citadel in the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance of 1787, the basic principles of which they hastened to defend on the Western border. In the fierce struggle on the plains of Kansas, Ohioans bore a conspicuous and often a dominating part. Thomas W. Barber from Ohio was killed by the pro-slavery party and the deed became widely known through a poem by John G. Whittier. Quantrill, the Confederate guerilla chieftain, who acquired in Kansas a sinister fame, was a native of Ohio, as were many who were enrolled in the Free State army of Gen. James H. Lane. Wilson Shannon and Samuel Medary at different times served as governor of Kansas Territory. The former was appointed by President Pierce and the latter by President Buchanan. Both were from Ohio and had been prominent in the political activities of this state. Shannon had been its governor. Other Ohio men, less prominent, were not less powerful in shaping the destiny of Kansas in the days of stress and controversy over slavery. They were so numerous that they were the dominating influence in the convention that gave Kansas her free constitution. The census of 1860 shows that Ohio had at that time contributed more than any other state to the population of Kansas. Many immigrants came from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and it might be truthfully said that Kansas was a child of the Northwest Territory. John Brown did not carry the war into Kansas. It had preceded him and was well under way at least one year before he reached the territory. The invasion from Missouri and the South was in full sway. His sons who had preceded him were already involved in the controversy. They were outspoken in their attitude of hostility to slavery. John Brown, Jr., on June 25, 1855, was chosen vice president of the Free State Convention held in Lawrence on that day. He was on the committee that reported among other resolutions one containing this "defy" to the Missourians : "In reply to the threats of war so frequently made in our neighbor state, our answer is, 'We are ready.' For this attitude the Browns were "marked men" long before their father appeared on the scene. With a free vote and a fair count the ballot box might have postponed the appeal to arms in Kansas, but fraud and violence had paralyzed this constitutional agency for the peaceful adjustment of controversies. At previous elections the territory had been overrun by Missourians, and the most flagrant frauds had been openly perpetrated. At the election for delegate to Congress November 29, 1854, they cast 1,729 fraudulent votes. In one district where the census three months later showed only fifty-three voters, 602 votes were cast and counted. At the election of members of the Territorial Legislature, March 30, 1855, this outrage was even more brazenly repeated. "Of 6,307 votes cast, nearly five-sixths were those of the invaders." The Pro-Slavery party by in-- timidation and violence elected all the members of the Legislature except One and he afterward resigned. This was, the famous Lecompton Legis- 274 - HISTORY OF OHIO lature which forced upon the people of Kansas the Missouri code, including the institution of slavery. 18 It even went farther and made it a criminal offense for anyone to entertain and express opinions hostile to that institution. On October 1, 1855, occurred the Pro-Slavery election for territorial delegate to Congress. At this election 2,721 votes out of 2,738 were cast for Gen. J. W. Whitfield, the Pro-Slavery candidate. The Free State electors did not go to the polls. Eight days later they had their election in which they cast 2,849 votes for their candidate, former Governor Reeder. The Pro-Slavery governor of Kansas, Wilson Shannon, recognized the election of Whitfield and the United States House of Representatives gave him his seat in that body February 4, 1856. Upon the report of an investigating committee, however, he was afterwards unanimously ousted, but Reeder was not given the place. That it was not John Brown's intention originally to go to Kansas is clearly indicated in a letter that he wrote to his son, John, August 21, 1854. In this he said : "If you or any of my family are disposed to go to Kansas or Nebraska, with a view to help defeat Satan and his legions in that direction, I have not a word to say ; but I feel committed to operate in another part of the field. If I were not so committed, I would be on my way this fall." In May of the following year, however, he received a letter from this same son describing terrible conditions that had developed in Kansas as a result of the effort to make it a slave state. The appeal in this letter was so strong that Brown decided he would join his sons and lend every possible aid to those who were struggling to make Kansas free. He began at once to plan for collecting arms, ammunition and other supplies that might he helpful in his latest enterprise. Money was raised for this purpose in the anti-slavery convention at Syracuse on the 28th of June and later in Akron, Ohio, where his appeal met a generous response. On August 15, 1855, he reported his success in obtaining "guns, revolvers, swords, powder, caps and money." He proceeded by way of Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago and after a number of interesting experiences in his overland journey reached the family settlement near Osawatomie, October 7, 1855. Life in Kansas wrought a pronounced change in John Brown. This Western border offered the opportunity for the warfare that he desired to wage against slavery. "The staid, somber merchant and patriarchal family head was ready to become Capt. John Brown of Osawatomie, at the mention of whom Border Ruffians and swashbuckling adherents of slavery trembled and often fled." 19 While he was pleased with Kansas, he did not go there to make it his permanent home. He went to fight slavery, to aid his sons and others of their faith to make Kansas a free state. The contest had begun long before he went West. Letters from his sons and newspaper accounts carried to him information of Border Ruffian invasions and outrages months before he decided to answer the call to this new field of action. The Free State men of the Territory had called a convention which met at Topeka, October 23, 1855, framed a constitution that prohibited slavery and submitted it for popular approval. It provided for the election of state officers and members of the Legislature and fixed the place and date of the meeting of that body at Topeka, March 4, 1856. The Free State men had been outvoted a number of times by invaders from Missouri and the South with whom the election officers and the national administration were in sympathy. They were thus forced to hold elections of their own as a safeguard against fraud. This finally 18 - This is the "Kansas Legislature," referred to by John Brown in his letter of February 20, 1856, to Joshua R. Giddings. 19 - Villard, "John Brown," p. 77.