HISTORY OF ILLINOIS,
FROM
1778 TO 1833;
AND
LIFE AND TIMES
OF
NINIAN EDWARDS.
BY HIS SON,
NINIAN W. EDWARDS.
SPRINGFIELD:
PUBLISHED BY THE ILLINOIS STATE JOURNAL COMPANY,
1870.




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy, by
NINIAN W. EDWARDS,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




PR:EEFACOE.
When I commenced this work, it was to comply with the request of the
Chicago Historical Society to prepare, for publication, a memoir of the
late Governor NINIAN EDWARDS. To this request was added a desire of
my brothers to have a copy of his speeches, messages, and his extensive.correspondence with many of the most eminent men of the country.
Whilst I had no doubt that it would add much to the interest of the work,
as simply a memoir of Governor Edwards, to make him the corresponding
center, around which all the important historical facts may be grouped,
yet, as such a course would have been very difficult and embarrassing to
me, I have concluded to make it more comprehensive by including, also, a
history of the County, Territory and State of Illinois, from the year 1778
to the time of his death, in 1833. Satisfied that such a work would be of
great interest, and of the highest importance for the historical facts it
would contain, and that the character of the materials I had collected,
with the numerous papers in my possession, were accurate and of great
value, I submitted my manuscript to the Chicago Historical Society, for
their examination and approval, and expressed the desire that some one
more competent should take my materials and rewrite the work. It was
referred to a committee consisting of the Hon. M. Skinner and Hon. I. N.
Arnold, with the Secretary, and in their report (which explains the
character and object of the work) the following resolutions were, at a
regular meeting of the Society, unanimously adopted:
"WHEREEAS Ninian W. Edwards, Esq., has submitted to this Society,
for their examination and approval, a manuscript Inemoir, entitled'A
Memoir of the Life and Times of the I-Ion. Ninian Edwards, first Governor
of the Illinois Territory,' and the same has been examined with attention
and care by a committee duly appointed for that purpose;




4                           PREFAGE.
"Resolved, That this Society express their cordial and high estimation of
the laborious, faithful and judicious manner in which Mr. Edwards has
executed the work now submitted, and that, in their opinion-in the
importance of the particular subjects treated by him, the full and authentic
character of the materials collected by him for their illustration, with the
numerous and extended details recovered by him and now first brought to
the public attention-the work, viewed as a History of Illinois, may be
regarded as in several respects the most important contribution yet made
to the history of this State.
"Resolved, That the collected correspondence of the late Gov. Edwards,
accompanying the above named memoir-including numerous letters from
William Wirt, John C. Calhoun, J. McLean, and other statesmen of eminent standing in the United States, hitherto unpublished-possess a high
national interest, as connected with important events and movements in the
history of our Federal Government, and are well worthy of publication,
while adding in a material degree to the public estimation of Mr. Edwards'
work.
" Resolved, That the Society's thanks are due and be returned to Mr.
Edwards, for the patriotic zeal and filial devotion with which he has
engaged in this just tribute of honorable commemoration to the late Gov.
Edwards, who, from his long-continued public service of the State of Illinois-both in the councils of the State and the Nation-merits an honored
place in the esteem and gratitude of the people of this State."
In communicating the above to me, the Secretary says he "has the
pleasure to state, that at the meeting at which the above was adopted, the
warmest interest was expressed by gentlemen in the progress and desired
success of the work-for whose satisfactory completion and successful issue
the most cordial wishes were indulged;" and adds, "I may be allowed to
state my individual impression of the very great value of the epitome of
our early legislation, which will have a high degree of interest to strangers
and be a desirable acquisition to our own citizens. Even as regards the
sketch of the early history of the Territory, from the time of its organization by Virginia as a county, it appears to me a natural introduction to the
main work, viewed, as you regard it, in the light of a historical sketch of
the Territory and State, rather than a personal memoir.'
Another motive I have in its publication is, to correct the misrepresentation of Gov. Edwards' real sentiments on the subjects of slavery, the
public lands, and other important measures.
N1NIAN W. EDWARDS.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, 1870.




PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
Organization of Illinois as a 7Coutty of Virginia- Letter of Instritctions
from  Governor Patrick Ile^nly to John Todd-Cession to the General
Government-Action of Congress- Ordinance of 1787: its general provisions.
The territory of Illinois was organized into a county, by the Legislature
of Virginia, on the 12th of December, 1778, and John Todd was appointed
Lieutenant-Commandant thereof, by Patrick -Henry, then Governor of the
State of Virginia.  The following is a literal copy of the letter of appointment and instructions to John Todd from Governor Henry:
WILLIAMSBURGH, Dec. 12, 1778.
To Mn. JOHN TODD, EsQ.
By virtue of the act of General Assembly which establishes the county of Illinois,
you are appointed County Lieutenant-Commandant there, and for the general tenor
of your conduct I refer you to the law.
The grand objects which are disclosed to your countrymen will prove beneficial, or
otherwise, according to the nature and abilities of those who arc called to direct the
affairs of that remote country. The present crisis, rendered so favourable by the good
disposition of the French and Indians, may be improved to great purposes; but if,
unhappily, it should be lost, a return of the same attachment to us may never happen.
Considering, therefore, that costly prejudices are so hard to wear out, you will take
care to cultivate and conciliate the affections of the French and Indians.
Although great reliance is placed on your prudence in managing the people you are
to reside among, yet, considering you as unacquainted in some degree with their
genius, usages and manners, as well as the geography of the country, I recommend it
to you to advise with the most intelligent and upright persons who may fall in your
way, and to give particular attention to Col. Clark and his corps, to whom the State
has great obligations. You are to cooperate with himn on any military undertaking,
when necessary, and to give the military every aid which the circumstances of the
people will admit of. The inhabitants of Illinois must not expect settled peace and
safety while their and' our enemies have footing at Detroit and can intercept or stop
the trade of the Mississippi. If the English have not the strength or courage to come
to war against us themselves, their practice has been and will be to have the savages
commit murder and depredations. Illinois must expect to pay these a large price for
her ficeedoml, unless the English can be expelled from Detroit. The means for effecting this will not perhaps be in your or Col. Clark's power, but the French inhabiting
the neighbourhood of that place, it is presumed, may be brought to see it done with
indifference, or perhaps join in the eiterprise with pleasure. This is but conjecture.




6                         HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
When you are oll the spot, you and Col. Clark may discover the fallacy or reality of
the former appearances. Defense, only, is to be the object of the latter, or a good
prospect of it. I hope the French and Indians at your disposal will show a zeal for
tie affairs equal to tlme benefit to be derived from establlishiig liberty and permanent
peace.
One great good expected from holding the Illinois is to overaw tlhe Indians from
warring on the settlers on this side of the Ohio. A close attention to tlme disposition,
cllaracter and movement of the hostile tribes is therefore necessary. Tile French and
militia of Illinois, by being placed on tlme back of them, may inflict timely chastisement on those enemies whose towns are an easy prey ili absence of their warriors.
You perceive, by these hints, that something in the military line will be expected
from you. So falr as the occasion calls for the assistance of the people composing the
militia, it will be necessary to cooperate with tile troops sent from here, and I know
of no better general directions to give than this: tlat you consider yourself as tlie
head of the civil department, and as such having command of the military until ordered
out by the civil authority, and to act in conjunction witl tlem.
You are, on all occasions, to inculcate on the people the value of liberty, and the
differncle between the state of free citizens of this Comrnonwealthl and that slavery
to which the Illinois was destined. A free and equal representation may be expected
by them in a little time, together with all tile improvement in jurisprudence and police
which the other parts of the State enjoy.
It is necessary, for the happiness, increase and prosperity of that country, that the
grievances that obstruct those blessings be known, in order to their removal. Let it
therefore be your care to obtain information on that subject, that proper plans may be
formed for the general utility. Let it be your constant attention to see that the inhabitants have justice administered to them for any injury received from the troops.
The omission of this may be fatal. Col. Clark has instructions on this head, and will,
I doubt not, exert himself to quell all licentious practice of the soldiers, which, if
unrestrained, will produce the most baneful effect. You will also discountenance and
punish every attempt to violate the property of the Indians, particularly on their
land. Our enemies have alarmed them much on that score, but I hope from your
prudence and justice that there will be no grounds of complaint on that subject.
You will embrace every opportunity to manifest the high regard and fiiendly sentiments of this Commonwealth towards all the subjects of his Catholic Majesty, for whose
safety, prosperity and advantage you will give every possible advantage. You will
make a tender of the friendship and services of your people to the Spanish Commandant near Kaskaskia, and cultivate the strictest connection with him and his people.
Tlie detail of your duty in the civil department I need not give; its best direction
will be found in your innate love of justice, and zeal to be useful to your fellow-men.
Act according to. the best of your judgment in cases where these instructions are
silent and the laws have not otherwise directed. Discretion is given to you fiom
the necessity of the case, for your great distance from Government will not permit
you to wait for orders in many cases of great importance. In your negotiations with
the Indians confine the stipulation, as much as possible, to the single object of obtain.
ing peace from them. Touch not tlhe subject of lands or boundaries till particular
orders are received. When necessity requires it presents may be made, but be as
friugal in that matter as possible, and let them know that goods at present is scarce
with us, but we expect soon to trade freely with all the world, and they shall not want
when we can get them.




LIFE AND TIlMES OF NiNIAN EDWARDS.                       7
Thel mattcrs griven you inl charge being singular in, their nature and weiglty in their
consequences to the peoplie immediately concerned, and to the whole State, they require
tlhe fullest exertion of your ability andl unwearied diligence.
Fronl mlatters of' gcucnal concern you must turn, occasionally, to others of less consequence. IMr. Roseblove's wife and family must not suffer for want of that property
of which they were bereft by our troops. It is to be restored to themi, if possible; if
this can not be done, tlhe public must support them.
I think it proper for you to send me an express once in tlhe montl, with a general
account of affairs with you ai andny particulars you wish to communlicate.
It is in contemplation to appoinlt an agent to m ianage trade on public accounts, to
supply Illinois and tle Indias with goods. If such an appointment takes place, yon
will give it any possible aid. Tlhe people with you should not intermit their endeavors
to procure supplies on tle expectation of this, and you may act accordingly.
(Signed)                                     P. HENRY.
Illinois continued to form a part of tlhe State of Virginia until the year
1784, when the country, being a part of the Northwestern Territory, was
ceded by the State of Virginia to the United States.  Immediately on the
execution of the deed of cession the General Government proceeded to
establish a form of government for the settlers in the territories thus ceded.
The whole subject was referred to a committee, of which Mr. Jefferson
was chairman.   The report of the committee, after being somewhat modified, was finally adopted by the passage of resolutions and ordinances for
the government of the territories that had been or might be ceded to the
United States, for the establishment of both temporary and permanent
governments by the settlers, and for the admission of the new states thus
formed into the Union.    It was provided, among other things, that the
settlers, either on their own petition or by act of Congress, should receive
authority to create a temporary form of government, and that when there
should be twenty thousand free inhabitants within the limits of any territory, they should have authority to call a convention to establish a permanent constitution and government for themselves, without any other limitation except the following:
1st. That they should forever remain a part of the confederacy of the
United States of America.
2d. That they should be subject to the articles of confederation and the
acts and ordinances of Congress like the original States.
3d. That they should not interfere with the disposal of the soil by Congrcss.
4th. That they should be subject to pay their proportion of the Federal
debt, present and prospective.
5th. That they should impose no tax upon lands the property of the
United States.
6th. That their respective governments should be republican.




8                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
7th. That the lands of non-residents should not be taxed higher than
those of residents.
8th. That any State, having adopted a constitution and having as many
free inhabitants as the least numerous of the thirteen original States, might
be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States.
The report of the committee contained the following clause: "That after
the year 1800, of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have
been personally guilty." But, on a motion by Mr. Spaight of North Carolina, which was seconded by Mr. Read of South Carolina, it was decided
that the above clause should not stand as a part of the report of the committee, and it was struck out because it failed to receive the support of a
majority of all the States. The following States voted for retaining the
clause: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina voted to strike it out; North Carolina was divided; one State lost its
vote by having only one delegate present; Delaware and Georgia were not
represented. Mr. Jefferson voted in favor of the clause, and his two colleagues voted against it.
This proviso was renewed by Rufus King, in 1785, as a condition upon
which the State of Massachusetts would cede her territory. It was referred
to a committee by a vote of eight States, but it does not appear that the
committee reported it back, and Massachusetts ceded her territory without
such condition.
The government of this country, as thus established, continued until the
passage of the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwestern
Territory, of which Illinois formed a part. After the division of the Northwest Territory, Illinois became one of the counties of the Territory of Indiana, from which it was separated by an act of Congress in the year 1809.
At the time of its separation from the Territory of Indiana, it was divided
into two counties-the counties of St. Clair and Randolph.
That the resolutions of 1784 were considered in force and gave authority
to the people to organize a government under them, is evident from the fact
that they were recognized by the ordinance of 1787 in the following words:
"Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, that the resolutions of the 23d
of April, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, relative to the subject of this ordinance, be and the same is hereby repealed and declared null
and void."
Under the ordinance of 1787 the Governor and Judges, or a majority of
them, had power to adopt and publish in the district such laws of the original States as were necessary, and best suited to the circumstances of the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                  9
Territory, subject to be disapproved by Congress; but when the General
Assembly was organized, the Legislature had authority to alter them as
they should think fit. The Governor had the power to appoint and commission all the militia officers below the rank of General officers, and, previous to the organization of the General Assembly, the Governor had the
appointment of such magistrates and other civil officers, in each county and
township, as he might think necessary for the preservation of the peace and
good order in the same. After the organization of the General Assembly,
the powers and duties of the magistrates and other civil officers were to be
regulated and defined by the Assembly; but all magistrates and other civil
officers whose appointments were not provided for by Congress, were to be
appointed by the Governor even after the organization of the General
Assembly. The Governor had also the power to lay out parts of the Territory, in which the Indian title was extinguished, into townships and
counties.
Another article of the ordinance provided that so soon as there should
be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age, upon giving proof thereof
to the Governor they should have authority to elect representatives to the
General Assembly.
To be eligible as representative, the ordinance required that a person
should have been a citizen of the United States for three years and a resident of the district, or a resident of the district for three years; and, in either
case, that he should hold in his right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of
land within his district.
To qualify a person to vote, it was necessary for him to hold fifty acres
of land in the district and to have been a citizen of one of the States and
a resident in the district, or the like freehold and two years residence in
the district.
The General Assembly consisted of a Council, House of Representatives
and the Governor, but no law could be passed without the approval of the
Governor. The right to elect a delegate in Congress devolved on the
Council and HIouse of Representatives, in joint session.
The above are some of the leading provisions of the ordinance of 1787.
On the 2d of May, 1812, Congress passed a law authorizing the admission of the Territory into the second grade of territorial government. This
act extended the right of suffrage so as to authorize any free white male
person of twenty-one years of age, and who shall have paid a territorial or
county tax previous to any general election, and be at the time of the election a resident of the district, and who shall have resided one year in the
Territory previous to the election, to vote for representatives and members
of the Council and a delegate in Congress.
-2




10                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
So much of the ordinance of 1787 as had required that there should be
five thousand fiee white male inhabitants in the Territory, had also been
repealed.
I find the draft of the memorial to Congress, praying for the admission
of the Territory into the second grade, and the extension of the right of
suffrage, among the papers of Gov. Edwards, and in his hand-writing.
By an examination of the ordinance of 1787 it appears, from the following provision, that under the second grade of government the Legislature
had unlimited power of legislation, unless restrained in the exercise thereof
by the articles in the ordinance: " The Governor and Judges, or a majority
of them, shall adopt and publish in the district such laws of the original
States, criminal and civil, as may be necessary, and best suited to the circumstances of the district, and report them to Congress from time to time;
which laws shall be in force in the district until the organization of the
General Assembly therein, unless disapproved by Congress; but afterwardnls the Legislature shall have authority to alter them as they shall think
fit."  From this provision it appears that only the laws which might be
adopted by the Governor and Judges were subject to the disapprobation of
Congress; that such laws were required to be reported to Congress not, as
has generally been supposed, for their approbation, but they were to be in
force until they were "disapproved" by Congress. 2d. That after the
organization of the General Assembly, the Legislature should "have authority to alter the laws as they shall think fit," without being required to
report them to Congress.
On the 8th of May, 1792, Congress passed another law "respecting the
government of the territories of the United States, northwest and south of
the River Ohio."
The first section of this law provided that the laws of the territory northwest of the Ohio, that had been or hereafter may be enacted by the Governor and Judges, shall be printed, under the direction of the Secretary of
State, and that two hundred copies thereof, together with ten sets of the
laws of the United States, shall be distributed among the inhabitants for
their information; and that a like number of the laws of the United States
shall be delivered to the Governor and Judges of the territory southwest of
the Ohio River.
Section two authorized the Governor and Judges of the territory northwest of the River Ohio to repeal the "laws by them made whenever the
same may be found improper."
Section three provides that the official duties of the secretaries of the
said territories shall be under the control of the laws of the territories.
Section four authorized any one of the supreme or superior judges, in
the absence of the other judges, to hold court.




LIFE AND TIMES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.                 11
Section five directed the Secretary of State to provide seals for the public officers in the said territories.
On the 17th of August, 1789, a law was also passed by Congress, in order
to adapt the provisions of the ordinance of 1787 to the constitution of the
United States. By this act the secretary of the territories, in case of the
death, removal, resignation or necessary absence of the Governor, was required to execute all the powers and perform all the duties of the Governor
during the vacancy occasioned by the removal, resignation or necessary
absence of the Governor.
The sixth article of the ordinance provided that there shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than for
the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
Having deemed it necessary to give a history of the different forms of
government under which the people of the Territory lived, I now proceed
to give a sketch of the life of Ninian Edwards, who filled such a prominent
place in the political history of both Territorial and State governments.




CHAPTER I.
Genealogy of Gov. Edwards-llis Birth and Early Education —IIs Removal to Kentucky-Dissipatecd Iabits-Election to the LegislatureBecomes a Lawyer and enters upon a Lucrative Practice-Is advanced
to the Bench-Becomes Chief J]tstice of Kentucky-Ills Political Views
— lis Marriage-Speech as Presidential Elector in 1804-Speech as a
Candidate for Congress, 1806- ChVarge to the Grand,lJu7r/-lls Relatrons with Mr. Clay.
Benjamin Edwards, the father of Ninian Edwards, was the son of Hayden Edwards, of Stafford county, Virginia, who married Penelope Sandford,
by whom he had four sons and several daughters.     They removed to Kentucky before the close of the last century, where they lived honorable,
virtuous and Christian lives, and each died at about the age of ninety years.
They were raised in connection with the English'branch of the Episcopal
Church of Virginia, but afterwards became members of the Baptist Church.
The following obituary notice of the Hon Benjamin Edwards, their son,
and father of Ninian Edwards, was written and published by the late Hon.
William Wirt:
Died on the 13th November, 1826, at his residence in Elkton, Todd county, Kentucky, BENJAMIN EDWARDns, in the 74th year of his age, and the 56th of his Christian
life. His venerable consort, Mrs. MARTHA EDWARDS, after a union of more than fifty
years, preceded him to the grave about three months before. They both resigned
this world with that perfect composure and full assurance of future happiness, which
religion can inspire, and left behind tlhem a numerous and respectable family of children and their descendants, to imitate their virtues and to deplore their loss.
Mr. Edwards was a native of Stafford county, in Virginia; and before he came of
age, lie intermarried with Margaret, the daughter of Ninian Bcall, of Montgomery
county, Maryland, and resided, for nearly twenty-five years, on his farm of Mount
Pleasant, about nine miles above the court house of that county. Iis pursuits were
those of agriculture and merchandize, which he conducted with industry and irreproachable integrity.
He had not the advantage of a classical education, but nature had given him a mind
of extraordinary force and comprehension, and a moral character of uncommon ele vation and energy. He was one of nature's great men; and she had stamped this character most strikingly on his countenance and person. He was large and well formed;
his countenance strongly marked with intelligence and benevolence; his step and
movements uncommonly dignified and commanding; and in his whole action three




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      13
was an easy, unaffected gracefulness, which proclaimed the gentleman and the man
of feeling, in a manner not to be mistaken. Though his manners were highly prepossessing, conciliatory and kind, yet such was the dignity that surrounded him, and
the respect with which he impressed all who approached him, that no mal dreampt
of using an irreverent liberty, or indulging in a thoughtless levity in his presence.
His colloquial powers were unrivalled in any company in which the writer of this article ever saw him. HIe had a manly and melodious voice, a natural fluency and eloquence that never hesitated, the most striking originality and vigor of thought, the
aptest and happiest illustrations drawn from the objects of nature around him, and an
accuracy and integrity of judgment, which have never been surpassed, on the objects
that called for his decision. IIe had supplied the deficiencies of youthful education
by careful reading, and had acquired a correct style, which was yet marked with the
native strength and originality of his thoughts, and he conversed with great power,
even on the subjects of literature, taste and science; and many have been the flippant scholars and collegians, who, after the interchange of a few remarks, have felt
themselves rebuked by his superior mind, and learned to listen with instinctive reverence and delight.
He made himself an excellent historian, both in ancient and modern history; and
to his children and their young companions, (of whom the writer was one,) with whom
he always took pleasure in conversing, he was one of the most instructive companions
whom the kindness of Providence could have sent them. Though always pious, there
was nothing austere, obtrusive or revolting in his religion; and in his domestic circle he would often indulge himself with great playfulness, and with the most successfuil humor; yet no occasion was ever lost in instilling into them pure and honorable
and lofty sentiments and principles, and kindling in them the flame of patriotic and
virtuous emulation, holding up to them, with great eloquence, the example of ancient
patriots, orators, and statesmen, with which he was so much enamored, as if he were
still in his youth.
lie rose to considerable distinction before he left Maryland, which was about thirty
years ago. Ile represented the county of Montgomery for several years in the State
Legislature; was a member of the State Convention which ratified the Federal Constitution; and, afterwards, a member of Congress for the district in which he lived.
Though nature had made him an orator of high order, he was restrained, by his unconquerable diffidence, from hazarding himself often in public debate. Ile spoke
but rarely, and then on local subjects, when forced forward by a high sense of duty;
yet on one of these occasions, in the Assembly of Maryland, with so much force did
lie strike the IIouse, that the late Samuel Chase, and several others of the most competent judges of eloquence in that body, crossed the floor of the House, to congratulate him, and to assure him that it rested with himself to become one of the most distinguished speakers of the age. But he was restrained, by diffidence, from profiting
by this suggestion, and a man who may be justly pronounced to have been one of nature's happiest efforts, has now passed away, to be forgotten by the world. Never
will he be forgotten by the grateful heart from which this humble tribute flows; nor
that excellent womana, who was the fit and happy counterpart of so extraordinary a
man. They were both an honor to their species, ornaments to the church to which
they belonged, and are now amongst the spirits of the blessed, who surround the
Throne on High.
WILLIAM WIRT.




14                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
IIe removed from Maryland to Kentucky in the year 1800. Ninian
Edwards, of Illinois, was their eldest son. He was born in Montgomery
county, Maryland, in March, 1775. Iis domestic training was well fitted to
give his mind strength, firmness and honorable principles, and a good foundation was laid for the elevated character to which he afterwards atttained.
Iis education in early youth was in company and partly under the tuition of the Hon. William Wirt, whom his father patronized. Mr. Wirt
was the eldest by two years and four months, but they were not merely companions in their studies, nor was the relation exactly that of tutor and pupil. They became devotedly attached to each other, and the foundation
was laid for the friendship and brotherly affection that lasted during life.
At the period this intimacy commenced Mr. Wirt was at the age of fifteen,
and he survived Mr. Edwards six months, wanting two days.
Mr. Wirt had been instructed in the Latin and Greek classics by Rev.
James Hunt, an Episcopal clergyman, who taught a select school in Montgomery county for a period, and when that school closed he was received
into the family of Mr. Edwards, nominally as private tutor for his son,
where he remained twenty months. This arrangement was an act of kindness and beneficence on the part of Mr. Edwards to aid Mr. Wirt in his
education, without the restraint that charity imposes.
The studies of young Edwards were further prosecuted under the tuition of Rev. Mr. Hunt, at Montgomery court house, from whence he was
sent to Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pa., then under the presidency of
the Rev. Charles Nesbit, D.D.
After leaving college he commenced, with several others, the study of
law. It was required of the law class that they should read, for one-half
of the time, history; but young Edwards having, under the instruction of
his father, become a good historian, devoted the portion of time required
for that study to the reading of medicine, and so thorough was his knowledge of that science, that he became, where he was known, almost as eminent in that department of science as he was in the law.' Before finishing
the study of law, he removed to Nelson county, in the State of Kentucky,
where he had gone, under the direction of his father, to open a farm for
him, and to purchase homes and locate lands for his brothers and sisters.
Nature here had lavished her gifts with wanton wildness. The character
of society was then unformed. Frivolty and dissipation prevailed over the
glowing feelings and volatile temper of youth; and the examples of age
and experience were not such as were calculated to ward off the temptation.
His father furnished him with ample means for his immediate support,
and he had all the prospective advantages of a new and growing country.
Thus sent forth upon the theatre of a new world, surrounded by companions whose pleasures and pursuits were in sensual indulgencies, it is not




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN RDWARDS.                 15
surprising that this inexperienced youth, with natural talents above the ordinary level, and the foundation laid for a virtuous and solid education,
should have given away to excesses and indiscretions, till the hopes of his
friends and his own aspirations of rising to distinction in any honorable
profession,.had withered.
I should do injustice to the ingenuous principles of his nature, were I to
pass over silently these two or three years of his early life. I have heard
him allude to it with those feelings with which an individual narrates his
sudden and unexpected deliverance from the most imminent peril.
Amidst the dissipation that surrounded him, and in the toils of which
he seemed effectually caught, it is gratifying to rmnlark, that he retained a
nice sense of honor, and that the truths of revealed religion, in which he
had been educated, had not lost their hold upon his mind.
During this period he was professedly engaged in legal studies. Such
habits, then, did not prevent his election to the Legislature of Kentucky, as
the Representative of Nelson county, before he had quite attained the age
of twenty-one years; and so well did he discharge the duties in that station,
that he was reelected in the subsequent year, by an almost unanimous vote.
In 1798 he was licensed to practice law, and the following year was admitted to the courts of Tennessee.
About this time he left Nelson county for Russelville, in Logan county,
broke away from his dissolute companions, commenced a reformation, and
devoted himself to severe and laborious study. He had previously squandered his patrimonial inheritance, impaired his health, and dissipated the
hopes of his friends and parents. But from this period he was able to resolve successfully. He soon rose so rapidly in his profession, that he was
not only considered one of the most eminent lawyers of that or any other
country, but, in the short space of only four years' practice, he amassed a
large fortune. He evinced, at a very early period, no ordinary power, with
habits of regular and unremitting industry.
IHe practiced extensively in the courts of Kentucky and West Tennessee,
and soon displayed talents and legal knowledge of a high order. And let
it be noticed that he was not drifting along the current of his profession
without competitors. At that period some of the brightest talents of Kentucky and Tennessee were at the bar, fired with the ardor of youthful aspirants-and it was no easy task for a young lawyer, with such competitors as Clay, Grundy, Rowan, Bibb, Boyle, J. H. Davis and others, around
him-yet among such competitors he was not excelled; and after the short
space of four years' practice, he filled, in succession, the offices of Presiding
Judge of the General Court, Circuit Judge, fourth Judge of the Court of
Appeals, and Chief Justice of Kentucky, before he was 32 years of age.




16                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
As early as 1799, in a reply to a letter from his father, who wished to
know something of his political creed, he says: "Suffice it to say, on this
head, I am a warm friend to the Union, and have a sufficient confidence in
the constituted authorities, that when they determine it necessary and expedient to adopt any particular measure, so far as my efforts in society can go
I will endeavor to support them, and shall always be willing to rally to the
standard of my country. I do approve most of the measures of the administration-still I cannot consent to be a blind adherent to them all. Yet,
I shall always be an enemy to any other than a constitutional appeal, in
any case. I have been one of the most active friends of government since
the rupture with France. I was active because I thought the situation of
my country rendered it my duty to be so, and I have the satisfaction of
believing that my efforts were not lost. The political fervor has entirely
subsided among us. I have entirely withdrawn myself from politics, and
am directing my whole attention to the law, in which I have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations, and I find myself handsomely requited thereby. I have the reputation, at least, of being at the head of the
bar, in the district in which I practice, and I know that the profits of my
practice are greater than those of any other. I am relieving myself fast
fron a variety of embarrassments, in which dissipation had involved me,
and am so far satisfied with my own conduct, that I am under no apprehension that you will ever again hear, that I am'a young man of fine talents,
but extremely dissipated.' On account of my health, I shall decline the
practice of law, provided I can obtain an appointment in the judiciary, of
which I have no doubt, upon the first vacancy. The salary is too low, being only ~180, and nothing but indisposition could induce me to accept
it." In this letter, after stating the amendments which had been made to
the Constitution of Kentucky, he says: "I am not astonished that the
convention has made the constitution worse instead of better; for what
more could be expected of a set of men, the most of whom were ignorant
of the principles of human nature, ignorant of the principles of civil society, and still more so of the science of government? It is impossible that
such men can entertain just conceptions of the principles of government;
neither can they devise the most eligible mode of concentrating power, for
the benefit of society. As well might we expect the uneducated to develop
and elucidate the most abstract principles in the science of philosophy,
physic or jurisprudence, as that they could compile a constitution, originating, distributing and restraining, in the most judicious manner, the power
necessary to the purposes of civil government and the complete organization of a populous community. It was attempted, in the convention,
to subvert the present judiciary system, by abolishing district courts and
courts of quarter sessions, and establishing, in lieu of them, circuit




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                17
courts; and in the first attempt, there was a decided majority in favor of
it. This, evidently, would have been flagrantly improper, for no regulation in civil society ought to be more particularly adapted to the political
state of that society, than the judiciary system-and at no period ought
the political state of a society to be more maturely considered than when
the rules of society are forming such a system. That the present system
is best adapted to the situation of our country, there is, in my opinion, no
doubt. But suppose it is admitted, on all hands, that the circuit system
was the best-the convention, in my opinion, had nothing to do with that
or any other. The only power they ought to have exercised was, to declare that the judiciary should be forever separate, distinct, and independent of the legislative and executive departments; in what manner the
judges should be elected, how long and upon what conditions they should
hold their office, how removed and how vacancies should be filled; but the
division of that power ought to be intrusted to the Legislature, which is
the proper body to define its ramifications. That is certainly the best judicial system from which justice can be most completely dispensed at the
least expense; but how a system is to be made to attain that end the
combined experience of mankind has not determined. While society is in
a state of progression, and has not attained its utmost perfection, it would
be unwise to adopt too permanent a system, by incorporating it in our constitution, and thereby precluding ourselves from the advantages of future
experience; for suppose the system the convention might adopt should
prove very defective, to what a situation would we then be reduced? To
the necessity of choosing one of two evils: either that of submitting to the
inconveniences growing out of such a judiciary system, or the calling of a
convention. This circumstance ought to have been sufficient to have convinced all thinking men that the convention had nothing to do with it,
but that, (as I have before observed,) the organization of this branch of
power ought to be intrusted to the Legislature, that it might be improved
whenever experience and observation should point out the necessity, and
might undergo different modifications, without producing any sensible inconvenience; whereas, if the convention had undertaken to modify this
branch of power, no amendment could have been made, except through
the medium of another convention. This would introduce too frequent
changes in the constitution, for however the idea of the immutability of
compacts, by which communities agree to support any system of government, may be exploded, and justly too, it is my opinion that too frequent
changes in the constitution of a state is among the greatest of evils, for it
unhinges government, relaxes the springs, begets incertitude in its operations, and creates a political chaos in society."
-3




18                      HTISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
A very short time after the date of this letter, his anticipations were realized by receiving the appointment of Judge.
Having already alluded to his rapid promotion in the judicial department of government, it cannot be doubted that this promotion was the result of the able and satisfactory manner in which he had discharged the
duties in that department of the government.
In 1802 he received a commission of major, from Gov. Garrard, to command a battallion of Kentucky militia, and the next year, 1803, he was
appointed judge of the circuit in which he resided. The same year he
made a visit to his native land and to his father's domicil. Here he formed
that most interesting connection, which frequently determines a man's
character and prospects in future life. The choice of his affections, the
endeared companion of his future days, the mother of his children, and at
the time of his death his disconsolate widow, was Miss Elvira Lane, from
a respectable family in the vicinity of his father's residence, and who returned with him the same season to Kentucky.
His official duties were discharged with ability, and met the general approbation of the people. So strong a hold upon the confidence of the people had he taken, that in 1806 he was promoted to the station of fourth
Judge of the Court of Appeals, and in two years after, to the responsible
and dignified station of Chief Justice of the State. The Rev. J. M. Peck,
speaking of him, says: "I have conversed with many persons who knew
him in all these judicial stations, and have not found one to complain of
remissness in duty. All concur in giving him an uncommon character for
the correctness of his judicial decisions, consistency of his course, and unwearied industry.  Evidently he possessed, in a high degree, the confidence
of the people. Hundreds of people who knew him as a judge, have visited him for legal advice, since his residence in Illinois, which was gratuitously bestowed. They had great confidence in the extent of his legal
knowledge, honesty of purpose, and correctness of judgment."
In 1804, whilst he was a judge, he was chosen as one of the electors for
President and Vice-President of the United States.  The following is an
extract from one of his speeches during that canvass:
Fellow- Citizens:
Believing that it is expected that I shall say something to you on the subject of the
approaching election, for electors, I beg leave to solicit your attention. You will soon
be called upon to exercise your right of suffrage by designating the persons upon whom
you wish to confide this all-important right of representing you upon one of the most important occasions that can arise under our government. The propriety and necessity
of exercising the right of voting, must be obvious to every reflecting mind. By negligence and inattention to its exercise, the people lose the proper sense of its advantages and inestimable importance; and although the occasional neglect of it, abstractly
considered, might produce no dangerous consequences, it begets a habit of inattention, which perfectly destroys that vigilance and strict inquiry so essential in every




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       19
republican government, and may, in process of time, produce that degree of supineness from which it will be impossible to arouse you but by the dreadful storm that
destroys you. These suggestions are by no means fanciful or visionary. The faithful
page of history affords too many melancholy evidences of the truth of them. You
now feel yourselves secure from danger; so probably did all the republics that have
hitherto existed. At some period of their government they felt as secure as you now
do; yet those governments, if history is to be credited, sooner or later eventuated in
despotism, and from the want of proper attention to the representative principle and
a frequent recurrence to its first or fundamental principles. It is true- there is no
analogy between our government and the ancient republics. They lacked the representative, as applied to all its branches; but it will be the same thing if we, possessing the principle of representation in so eminent a degree in our constitutions, do not
preserve it in its full vigor, which can only be done by the most zealous regard and
undeviating attention to our right of voting. Our glorious revolution, which, under
a beneficent providence, ended in the establishment of the rights of men, and made
us a free and happy people, has recognized the people as the source of all power. To
the people is assigned the right of raising and putting down our rulers, not with the
violence of an infuriated mob, but with the mild and equitable decision of an enlightened judgment. Ours is, I believe, the first fair and full trial of the representative
system, and it has so far, at least, triumphed over prejudice and opposition. On this
foundation our goverlnment rests, and while it is preserved in its full and constitutional vigor, in vain may the tempests of a corrupt world beat against it. It is a rock
against which the most violent billows, rushing with the utmost impetuosity, may dash
in vain, and must fall impotent at its base. Its strength and durability will only be
the more conspicious by the troubled and unstable state of all that surround it. These
are considerations which I submit to you, my fellow citizens, to show you the propriety of every man's voting when the constitution and laws of our country require it.
They are so far made on general principles, but our peculiar local situation may furnish reasons that ought to be no less operative with you.
After dwelling at length on the measures more immediately relating to
the interests of the people of the West, he proceeded as follows:
Should I meet with your approbation, and that of my fellow citizens of the district,
I pledge myself to you that I shall vote for Mr. Jefferson as President, and Mr. Clinton as Vice-President. The experience of almost four years has evidently demon
strated how much Mr. Jefferson is worthy of the confidence the people have reposed
in him. Not a single friend has deserted his cause, while many of his former enemies
have honorably acknowledged their mistake, and have been the most zealous supporters of his administration. In vain have his enemies scrutinized all his public measures, with a hope of finding some dangerous omission. In vain have they attempted
to throw odium on his private life, finding his public character unexceptionable. All
their efforts to wound his fair fame with the most malignant shafts of calumny, have
ended in showing how much he is beloved by his grateful countrymen. His intelligence, virtue and patriotism have irradiated and purified the public councils, dispelled the mist of delusion, and restored liberty to her full vigor and pristine benignity.
In vain then may his enemies employ every method in their power to destroy the confidence of the people in his administration.
He succeeded in this election, and had the honor of casting the vote of
his district for Mr. Jefferson.




20                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
In 1806 he was a candidate for Congress, against the celebrated Matthew
Lyon, but, on being promoted to the Court of Appeals, he declined before
the election.
That the reader may understand and properly appreciate the character
of the man who was selected by Mr. Madison to be the Governor of Illinois,
I give extracts from a speech in this contest with Matthew Lyon:
Let us, by all means and at all times, endeavor to preserve, in the utmost purity,
the advantages which we enjoy over other republics, and to transmit liberty unimpaired, as the best legacy to a grateful posterity, in the same manner, if not more
perfect, than we have received it from our glorious ancestors. That we may enjoy the.advantages and security I have mentioned as being peculiar to our form of government, will be fruitless, unless we use the means of preserving them. This advantage
evidently consists in the perfection of the principle of free representation. It is from
the people, then, that representation immediately flows by the mode of election.
While, then, the people are in the habit of cultivating public virtue, of preserving the
purity of elections, we need not fear corruption in the government. The power and
virtue of the people can only be exercised in elections, as far as relates to government.
Elections, therefore, must be considered as the test of public virtue; it is the vital
principle of free government; it is the corner-stone of the mighty fabric Me have
reared. If, then, the public sentiment should not be correctly exercised-if the respective merits and demerits of the candidates who solicit your favor are not duly
considered, without regard to anything but the public good-if elections become corrupted-the source is polluted; the different branches of government must partake of
that pollution; the whole will become contaminated and liberty will be jeopardized.
That you should only be guided by the merits of the candidates who solicit your
favor must be obvious to every thinking and dispassionate mind. It will be the duty
of your representative to protect you in the enjoyment of private property and personal security, liberty and public tranquillity. Who does not consider these as momentous questions? Is there a man among you who, if he were going to law for the
paltry sum of one hundred dollars, would not select an attorney to manage his business
whom he considered the most capable of serving him, provided he could confide in
his integrity? And if this is the case where only a little property is involved, how
much more should it be the case where your absolute and relative rights as citizens,
and your liberty-Heaven's best gifts-are concerned? It is not the question whether
you like this or that man better; but it is upon whom it is your interest to confide
your trust. The people in every district, in making their selection of a person to
serve them, should be as cautious as if he was the only man upon whom their interest
and welfare depended; for it surely can not be considered safe to be inattentive in
this respect, upon a supposition that if your representative is not calculated to advance and secure your interest and, protect your rights against all invasion, from what
quarter soever they may proceed, that still there may be some one from some other
quarter who can and will do it. If this disposition should be-manifested by you, the
same principles that have operated on you may operate on a majority of the different
districts throughout the United States, and this inattention might become universal.
Should this be the case, this problematical character may not then be found, but some
one might probably be found of ingenuity, strategem and address sufficient to successfully assail your best and dearest rights. At all events it is best to be on the safest
side.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     21
Again, he said:
That the success of our government depends upon the purity of election, is selfevident. Our greatest patriots, our best and wisest men, have proved incontestably
that such is their belief. * * * If, therefore, you do not discountenance those who
are disposed to practice this corruption (treating at elections)-if you do not withhold
from such men your confidence, and teach them that it is their interest to act otherwise
in order to gain your approbation-instead of inspiring the minds of your fellow-citizens with a laudable and patriotic ambition to serve their country and excel in virtue,
you cherish their vices by rewarding them; you establish a school of vice and depravity
in our country tending to contaminate not only the present but succeeding generations;
you foster in your bosoms the deadly adder which sooner or later will sting you to
death. The deadly poison will insinuate itself in the heart of society, and from thence
diffuse itself throughout all parts of it. Let it be conceded that you are willing to see
the practice of "treating" for an election once introduced among us, and what will be
the consequence? The precedent, once established, will become less and less objectionable by becoming more familiar to you; it will finally become fashionable, and ultimately necessary to success. I ask you, tllen, where is your boasted equality? Where
is the fair and open field in which talents and merit may successfully exert themselves
and receive their just reward?  It will vanish forever, or only remain like a dream
upon the mind. All distinctions will then be confined to the rich, for they alone will
be able to meet the expenses of an election. A man in moderate circumstances, be
his talents ever so great, will not be able to contend with his more wealthy competitor,
and we shall find ourself completely under the dominion of an aristocracy, while we
are only.amused with the name of a free government. He who has paid the least attention to the current of events, or histories of other countries, may be satisfied that unless this most formidable enemy to freedom, corruption, is successfully repelled by the
virtue and wisdom of the people, in his first attempt to invade us, he will rise in his
strength, like a mighty torrent, and tear down everything before him. * * * For
the sake of guarding against the evils that have befallen themn-for the sake of public
virtue-the people should discourage this practice in any shape in which it can make
its appearance. * * * The candidate who practices this corruption would not do so
unless he thinks that it would benefit his election. How, then, is it to promote his
election, unless he supposes that more people will vote for him in consequence of his
whisky than would otherwise do so. Does he not, then, attempt to buy their votes?
Certainly; for he buys the whisky, and this he gives for the'purpose of getting votes,
and all he receives in consequence of it are as much bought as if, instead of the whisky,
he has paid the value of it in money. Whether he succeeds or not, it must be evident
to all thinking men that this is his object. * * Would he give it unless he thought
it would gain him votes? and is there anything that ought to fill the minds of enlightened and independent freemen with more indignation than the supposition that their
minds were to be influenced in this way? Can a man insult them more than to show
that he conceives them so mean and mercenary; and can you suppose that a man is
not influenced by other motives than the public good, when he endeavors to succeed
in his election by purchasing it-in other words, by bribery and corruption?
This is the only view which I am capable of taking of the subject, and I hope my
observations will be received as a sufficient apology for my not falling into this too
common practice. I cannot but feel too great respect for my fellow-citizens to show
that I conceived them capable of being either directly or indirectly corrupted; and if
I did conceive them so, I cannot reconcile it to my conscience either to practice it upon




22                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
any one or violate the spirit of that constitution which I am sworn to support. I love
national liberty; I esteem the practice of which I am speaking as the most formidable
engine of attacking it; and if we ever do lose our liberties, I will venture to predict
that it will only be effected by destroying the purity of election. No man is fonder of
the approbation of his fellow-citizens than I am. My disposition and habits have
always led me to cultivate their friendship. I esteem it a most distinguished honor
and a most valuable and desirable acquisition. I am anxious to attain the honor of
serving my country; I have endeavored to qualify myself for it. But I am not disposed to attain this honorby any other than the most honorable means. I can never
sacrifice my integrity, my ideas of propriety or my independence to procure it. I do
most sincerely wish your approbation, but I only wish it upon proper principles. The
best criterion for judging the character of a man is by his acts.
Governor Edwards, from the time he was nineteen years of age until
he was twenty-one or twenty-two, led a dissolute life; he indulged in dissipation and gambling to an extent which alarmed his friends.  He therefore knew well the effects and consequences to individuals and society from
the practice of such habits, which were so prevalent in a new country.
Having, therefore, determined to reform himself, he was equally zealous,
on all proper occasions, in exerting himself to promote good morals and
public virtue. With a view of showing the opinion of our early legislators
on the subject of gambling, profane swearing and Sabbath-breaking, as well
as to show his efforts to check those habits and practices having a tendency
destructive to the mind and morals of the people as well as the government,
and also to show his high regard for religion and its importance in a national point of view, I give his opinions, as expressed in his charge to the
grand jury in Kentucky, in 1803, as follows:
I consider vagrants and gamblers as objects particularly mer;ting your notice and
reprehension. Such persons, in general, having no estates of their own, and who
are too indolent to use means to get a support, you may rely upon it are ready to
employ all manner of unjust, nefarious and unlawful means of acquiring money, and
the necessity of subsisting in some way disposes them for committing all kinds of
misdemeanors, from which must spring a school of vice in the bosom of your country
which will not fail to spread its infection and corrupt the manners of your fellowcitizens. These are consequences of a general nature, in which the public are interested, but it would be a very easy matter for you to extend your views to the
immediate pictures of distress-to those who feel the effects of the conduct of such
men as I have mentioned-I mean to their wives and children, reduced to penury,
and struggling, naked and comfortless, with their adverse fortunes, in a world not
much disposed to ameliorate their cruel destiny, and in many instances depending
upon the uncertain and precarious fortune of gratuitous subsistence from their
neighbors. Experience and observation must have convinced you that such cases
are not only very probable, but actually do exist. The desperate lives of vagrants
and gamblers have a natural tendency, besides shedding around in the circles of their
association the baneful contagion of evil example, no less destructive to the mind
and morals than the most virulent and raging pestilence to the body; but they produce and bring down upon the families the most complicated misfortunes, the con
templation of which shock the mind of sensibility and make humanity shudder to




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     23
think of. Whose heart is so adamantine that can behold, without sympathy, a poor
desolate woman, with a house full of helpless children, forsaken by her husband, the
natural protector of herself and children. She is left to her hard fate without means
of subsistence, in an open cabin not sufficient to shelter her and her helpless children
from the inclemency of the weather, and in the midst of disease and bodily affliction
tormented with the cruel reflection of her undeserved misfortunes; her heart swollen,
ready to burst its vital springs asunder at the miseries of her family, and nature almost sinking under the weight of anxiety to relieve their wants, which nature constrains them to vindicate, but which she is unable to relieve. This, I am inclined to
believe, is not a hypothetical case; my information is that such a case does exist.
It is your duty to inquire into such cases, and I hope these suggestions will superinduce extraordinary efforts on your part to bring the offenders to trial. The prevention of higher crimes is effected by a strict attention to the exercise of the most
important duties with which you, as a grand inquest, are invested, by suffering no
individual who comes within the description of gamblers and vagrants to escape your
notice. They will then not multiply from impunity. A few examples may dissipate
those pests of society who infest our peace and the public repose.
Drunkenness is also another offense properly coming within your jurisdiction, and
I fear the frequency of it, instead of impressing your minds with the importance of
applying to those who commit it the legal correction, has almost obliterated the
proper sense of the impropriety and danger of this most degrading and beastly vice,
for my own observation convinces me that a number of such cases exist. The few
presentments for the number of offenses of this kind that are committed cannot fail
to impress my mind with the idea that jurors have not hitherto duly appreciated the
power they ought to exercise on such occasions. The laws of the State expressly
prohibit it, which ought to be a sufficient consideration with the jury to induce them
to bestow on it the most particular attention; but I am astonished that this offense
should pass with such impunity, and should by law be so inadequately punished,
particularly on public occasions, when I consider the nature of it, and reflect upon
the train of evil consequences it produces. The mind of man, distempered and intoxicated with liquor, renders him fit for the commission of the most savage deedsit brutalizes him; it causes the profligate to extend the sphere of his licentious in
dulgence; it frequently brings into action the most turbulent passions the human
mind is capable of entertaining; it demoralizes a man, and for the time being destroys every virtue he ever possessed; it frequently dissolves the tender ties that
unite society. If it has such a tendency among mankind whose minds are humanized
by the highest degree of civilization, what can we expect from its practice in a frontier
settlement, where there has scarcely been time to tame the wild and refractory by
exhibiting to them the efficiency of the law. Who does not recollect that he has
witnessed an immense group of evils resulting immediately from this vice. Let any
man who cannot rely upon his own observation, as a test of its dangerous consequences, examine the faithful page of history, and I promise him that he will find in
consequence of it many horrid deeds committed. But, laying out of view the high
and important crimes it sometimes produces, I ask what are its almost universal tendencies? It certainly incites the mind to every species of mischief; to profane
swearing; it produces assaults and batteries, affrays, routs and riots, etc., and begets
an entire contempt for the laws and legal authorities. It is evident, by attending
to this branch of your jurisdiction, by making examples of guilty persons, you will
lessen the number of offenses which require to be presented by you by removing and
extirpating, as it were, the cause that produces them. I will venture to assert, that




24                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
one-half of the offenses against the penal laws, usually presented by grand jurors,
would not have been committed were it not for intoxication. You will, by this
means, greatly benefit the people who are guilty of this vice, as you will save them
from those excesses to which it may hurry them, and the expenses, fines and forfeitures necessarily attending thereon, and thereby prevent them from injuring their
constitutions, exhausting their pecuniary resources, and thereby distressing their
innocent families. What constitutes drunkenness is a matter of fact, of which you
are the proper judge; but for my part I have no idea that, to give you cognizance of
such cases, it should appear that a man was so drunk that he could neither talk, walk
or stand, for I really think that although such cases ought never to be overlooked
by a grand jury, that that is the most harmless intoxication which prevents a man
from insulting or injuring another or disturbing the public repose; but I am clearly
of the opinion that although a man may walk and talk as well as another, yet, if his
mind is distempered, his natural and common reason and discretion impaired by
liquor, if it tends to render him more dangerous and less peaceable than in his sober
moments, I should be inclined to think he ought to be presented. He, in fact, in
such a situation, is dangerous because he has the disposition and the power of disturbing the peace, and his example is equally pernicious to society, if not more so,
than he who can not move.
Profane swearing and cursing, Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy are also offenses
to which I beg leave to call your attention. Though trivial, as they are thought
by some, and so very leniently punished by our laws, they are very severely denounced by that law by which we must at last be judged. Since both the municipal laws of the land and the law of God prohibit these offenses, I trust that they
will meet with the proper attention from a grand jury who have obligated themselves to discharge their duties by a solemn appeal to Heaven. Our laws do not assume the right of controlling men's consciences; but they very wisely restrain mankind from open abuses of sacred things, from profanity, blasphemy, etc., which are
not necessary to the enjoyment of any religion that ever has or ever will exist, but
which must be not only incompatible and uncongenial with any religion or any system of ethics or morality. Thus far our laws go; not to shackle the opinions of
mankind, but to restrain them from the commission of acts which every reflecting
mind must consider highly improper; and I hope that the detestable poison of infidelity has not so far insinuated itself into the minds of this grand jury, as to lead it
away by the cant reasoning of those who are inimical to religion of every kind,
from bestowing the proper attention to these objects of their jurisdiction. These observations, I hope, are a sufficient answer to the objections which have frequently
been made to these laws, upon the ground of unconstitutionality. But it could be
easily demonstrated, that it is to the interest of the Commonwealth to cherish a
love for religion, and those cannot be very deserving citizens who make it their
business to depreciate its influence: for in the first place it is the foundation upon
which the fabric of our jurisprudence rests. What becomes of an obligation of an
oath, if you destroy the idea of a state of future rewards and punishments? Where
is the check to sordid avarice, domineering over the great host of evil passions?
Gentlemen may theorize in their closets as long as time lasts upon the light of reason, and its influence to govern mankind, but they will never succeed in any practical system. They should reflect before they attempt to undermine the fabric of future hopes. They ought to weigh well the consequences of success to society in
general. They should pause to consider whether, if nine-tenths of the world are not
restrained from the commission of high offenses neither by the fear of the penalties




LIFE AND TIMES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.                      25
of municipal laws, nor future punishments, under their present opinions, how much
more likely would they be governed by the light of reason, especially when it is considered, as it must be conceded, that they do not possess, independent of the fear of
present and future punishment, light of reason sufficient to satisfy them that they
act wrong, both as it relates to themselves and society. As, then, it is evident that
all those checks, with this fantastic light of reason, are insufficient to control the
passions of lawless and evil-minded men, it is paradoxical and absurd to contend
that it is to the interest of society to destroy any one of those necessary checks, and
it will be recollected that the laws are designed to govern men of the aforesaid description-from all which considerations I infer that as the particular tendency of
blasphemy, profanity, etc., is to destroy the influence of religion and morality on the
minds of our fellow citizens, that they ought for that reason to be punished. What
is the proper religion I shall not pretend to say, nor is it my province] to determine; but that some religion is necessary is evident from the history of past events.
Any religion is better than none at all, if there is the least credit to be given to sacred or profane history. The last, I presume, is an authority that infidels are not
disposed to question; and society is interested in the support of religion. We find
from history that the Assyrian Empire, that of the Medes and Persians, Grecian and
Roman, all flourished whilst they adhered to their religion and scrupulously practiced reverence and piety toward their gods; but as impiety and wickedness gained
ground, they began gradually to decline and ultimately sunk into total destruction.
Who can read the history of the proud, superb, and unequaled cities of Babylon and
Jerusalem, without seeing the evidences of God's wrath and chastisements for their
wickedness in their signal destruction; and if Jerusalem itself experienced those
visitations of the Almighty wrath in consequence of its wickedness, how shall we
hope to escape whilst we tolerate profanity and impiety, and thereby permit their
influence to extend to the rising generation, accumulating as it rolls on to the greatest magnitude, and that, too, at a time when we have just experienced greater dispensations of goodness and happiness than any other nation has enjoyed? In the dark
ages of antiquity, impiety was looked upon as the greatest offense; they would not
tolerate the least want of reverence for their supposed dieties, but severely punished
supposed offenses against them. Shall we, possessing the light of revelation, permit
an open irreverence and open opposition to the only true God? I hope not. It may
be asked, why may not men be left, in such cases, to their conscience and to their
future destinies? Because they would carry along with them the same fate for others whom they corrupt. We cannot consent that they shall blight and destroy our
fairest hopes by contaminating, by their evil example, our children. Knowing that
mankind is generally more disposed to embrace error than truth, to adopt vice than
virtue, and knowing the fascinating influence of example, the law will not permit
these persons to transfuse their poison into the breasts of others. These observations
do not exclusively apply to profane swearing, Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy, they
equally apply to other objects of your jurisdiction.
That Mr. Edwards was a very distinguished lawyer and able jurist no
one can doubt, after reading his opinions whilst he was one of the judges
of the highest court of the State of Kentucky; and to estimate, properly,
his reputation as a lawyer and jurist, it must be borne in mind that he
was selected to fill his judicial stations from the bar, composed at that time
of some of the most eminent lawyers in the United States. Judge Bibb
-4




26                       1ITSTORY OP TLIINOIS,
so highly appreciated his talents as a lawyer and judge, as to say that he
knew of no one who could write a more able opinion, and in so short time,
as Judge Edwards. The great secret of his success was owing to his powerful intellect and to his energy and untiring industry.
At a very early period he was selected by Mr. Clay to attend to important legal business for his father-in-law, Col. Hart, and in one of the letters
from Mr. Clay to him, dated in July, 1800, Mr. C., after finishing what
he had to say in relation to Mr. Hart's business, says:
I am happy to hear that we are anxious for the election of the same President.
It is now almost certainly ascertained that Mr. Jefferson will be elected. The election of representatives in New York has been in his favor, and he will, it is affirmed, certainly get every vote in that State. You have, no doubt, heard that Pickering is dismissed and McHenry resigned; the violent friends of the administration
seem to be quitting public service. Harper is no longer a candidate, and Sedgwick,
the speaker, has also declined offering.
Permit me to inform you that as Mr. Thurston declines offering for the clerkship of
the Senate, I shall, amongst many others, be a candidate for that office. Having lived
in the clerk's office of the High Court of Chancery of Virginia, and acted sometimes
as the amanuensis of the Chancellor, I have been induced to believe that I can discharge the duties of that office. Should you have it in your power to render me any
service, and think me deserving it, I will be much obliged to you for the favor.
I am, dear sir, you most obedient,
HENRY CLAY.




CHAPTER II.
Organization of the Territory of llilnois-Appointment of Mr. Edwards as
Governor —His arrival at Kaskaskia-Address of the Citizens of Randolph county, and Gov. Edw"ards' Reply- Superintendent of the U. S.
Salins - - lis Appointment of Territorial Officers —  r. Crittenden's
appointment as Attorney- General of the Territory.
In February, 1809, provision was made by Congress for the organization
of the Territory of Illinois, to take effect by the first of March. The duties
and responsibilities of a territorial Governor, at that time, were peculiarly
arduous and weidhty. Judge Boyle, one of the associate judges of the
Court of Appeals, of which Ninian Edwards was then Chief Justice, received this appointment, but declined accepting it.  To this important
station the Chief Justice was appointed by President Madison. This
commission bears date the 24th of April, 1809. The Territory was duly
organized by the Secretary, Nathaniel Pope, on the 28th of the same month.
Gov. Edwards arrived in June, and on the 11th of that month took the
oath of office and entered upon the administration of the government.
The following are among the letters of recommendation to his appointment to the office of Governor:
KENTUCKY (FRANKFORT), 10th April, 1809.
To the President:
DEAR SIR-Mr. Boyle having accepted the office of Judge of the Court of Appeals
of this State, I presume it will become necessary immediately to appoint a Governor
of the Illinois Territory in his stead. N. Edwards, Esq., Chief Justice of our Court of
Appeals, is desirous of filling this vacancy, and it is with pleasure that I bestow my
suffrage on his recommendation. The honorable appointments which this gentleman
has held (first as a judge of our Superior Court, and then promoted to his present station,) evince how highly he is estimated amongst us. In them he has acquitted himself
with great ability and generl satisfaction, nor can a doubt exist of his entire fitness
for the office in question.
I am, sir, your most obedient,
HENRY CLAY.
In a letter of the same date, to the Hon. Robt. Smith, Mr. Clay speaks
of him thus: " His political principles accord with those of the Republican
party. His good understanding, weight of character and conciliatory manners give him very fair pretensions to the office alluded to. Should further
information be desired in relation to him, I have no doubt that the whole




28                        HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
representation from the State, when consulted, would concur in ascribing
to him every qualification for the office in question."
The following tabular statement contains a list of the officers appointed
by the Federal Government for the Territory of Illinois, from 1809 to 1818,
inclusive:
OFFICERS.                     OFFICE.            DATE OF COMMISSION.
John Boyle............... Governor (declined).............. March  7, 1809
Ninian Edwards..........  Governor.......................       7,   "
Nathaniel Pope...........  Secretary.......................     7, 
Alexander  Stuart.........  Judge...................... " 7,
Obadiah Jones......................................         7,   "
Jesse B. Thomas..... "........                   7,
Stanley Griswold.............................   "      16, 1810.
John Caldwell........... Receiver of Public Moneys........ April  2, 1812.
Thomas Sloo............. Commissioner Public Land Claims..  "    2,   "
Ninian Edwards.......... Governor....................... Novem'r 12, 1812.
Nathaniel Pope......... Secretary....................... June    1, 1813.
W illiam  Sprigg...........  Judge......................... July  9, 1813.
William Mears........... Attorney................... August      1, 1813.
Philip Fouke............  Marshal.......................  "    1,   "
Shadrick Bond......... Receiver of Public Moneys....... October 3, 1814.
Ninian Edwards.......... Governor....................... January 16, 1816.
Thomas Towles...........  Judge..........................  "    16,  "
William Rector........... Surveyor Public Lan'ds........... April  29, 1816.
Benjamin Stevenson....... Receiver Public Moneys..........  "   29,   "
John McKee............. Register Land Office.............  "   30,   "
Joseph Philips............  Secretary......................  Decen'r 16, 1816.
Augustus Chouteau....... Indian Commissioner............. Febr'y  19, 1818.
Richard  Graham..........  Judge.......................  April  20, 1818.
On his arrival in Kaskaskia, to enter upon the discharge of his duties,
Gov. Edwards received the following address from the citizens of Randolph
county:
KASKASKIA, June, 1809.
To His Excellency NINIAN EDWARDS,
Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Illinois Territory:
We, the undersigned, citizens of the county of Randolph, in the said Territory,
beg leave to address you, on your arrival at the seat of government to assume the
important duties of the high station to which your country has called you, from the
honorable one which you held in the State of Kentucky. While, on this happy occasion, we greatly acknowledge the justice of the United States in granting the prayers
of our reiterated petitions for the division of the Territory, permit us, sir, to congratulate you on that event, and to assure you that we entertain the highest sense
of your merits and character, and appreciate the prosperity and happiness which we
flatter ourselves will result to the citizens at large from your administration. Presuming that you maybe in some degree unacquainted with the feelings and sentiments
of the citizens at this important crisis, we cannot forbear to express our hopes that
you will take into consideration that the majority, whose incessant exertions effectuated a division of the territory, have a claim on your excellency for the calumnies,
indignities and other enormities which those who opposed that measure never ceased
to heap upon the friends and advocates of the present system of our government.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     29
In announcing these truths, while we deplore that the gentleman who was elected
to Congress, and ultimately succeeded in obtaining justice for us, was hung in effigy
at Vincennes, by the opposers of the division, and that one of the warmest friends
and ablest advocates of the measure was assassinated at Kaskaskia, in consequence
of their machinations, we derive great consolation from a firm belief that your excellency will gratify the virtuous majority, to whose patriotic exertions the citizens
are indebted for a government of their choice, and your excellency your high station,
with that honorable indemnity which is in your gift, and which would be considered
by them as a remuneration for all those indignities and a pledge of their future support to your administration.
Having been informed that your excellency is vested with authority to inquire into
the conduct of the land office of the district of Kaskaskia, we conceive it necessary,
as a precautionary measure for the security of our titles, that all the books and papers
in the office should be sealed up until the determination of the inquiry and a new
board shall be organized.
In tendering you assurances of our highest respect and sincere attachment, we beg
leave to express a hope that you will shortly bring your respectable family to our
charming country, to make a permanent residence in the Territory, where we hope
your administration may be long and popular.
Gentlemen:                      (ANSWR.)
Your approbation of my appointment, and the friendly reception with which I am
honored by you, while they cannot fail to elicit from me the expression of my grati.
tude and respect, they will, at the same time, inspire.me with the strongest desire
to merit a continuance of your friendship and support. In the administration of this
government my first object is to do right, by a faithful discharge of the importantduties with which I am intrusted; my next object will be to render the most general
satisfaction-and I presume, with the enlightened citizens of Illinois, the latter will
be most effectually secured by a strict observance of the former. On subjects of a
political nature, it is not to be expected that mankind will ever perfectly agree,.in
all cases, and it is highly probable that on some occasions I may think differently
from a portion of my fellow-citizens. Should this be the case, though I shall maintain my own opinions with firmness and moderation, I shall always take great pleasure
in treating with the utmost respect the opinions of those who may disagree with me,
recollecting that the fallibility of my own nature should suggest to me the best
apology for the errors of others.
In the present state of society, and in the infancy of this government, I cannot
expect to please everybody. On the threshold I am met by a crowd of difficulties,
wh.ch I fear it will be impossible successfully to surmount. In this situation I only
ask for that liberal indulgence which one honest man ought to extend to another.
This I hope for; but should I be disappointed, I know that I cannot be deprived of
the consolation of having endeavored honestly and independently to do my duty.
To protect the equal rights of all (and not a part only) of the citizens of this Territory,
is the object of the government; and it is designed not only for the benefit of those
who are now residents, but also for all those who may choose to become so.
An office is a trust, deposited in the hands of the individual, who holds it not for
his individual benefit and advantage, but for the public good; and in all appointments by me the public interest, and not a system of favoritism, shall be my governing principle, A partisan I can not and will not be. Had I been such heretofore, and




30                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
an actual resident of this country during those contentions with which it has been
convulsed, and which I deplore as much as any man, I should think the feelings of
the man ought to be lost in those of the officer, whose duty it should be to consider
himself as the guardian and protector of the equal rights of his fellow-citizens, that
therefore, as such, he should have no friend to serve, no enemy to punish.
My powers with regard to the land commissioners are totally inadequate to the
object of your request.
To promote the happiness of the people and the prosperity of this country will
always engage my most earnest exertions.
With your country I am highly pleased-I agree with you that it is a charming
country; and as soon as it is possible, I shall endeavor to bring my family to it.
Accept my thanks for your polite attention to me, and be assured that your expression of friendship in your address is most sincerely reciprocated by me.
Should this answer not be as full or explicit as you expected, the few moments you
allowed me must be my apology.
N. EDWARDS.
At the time of his appointment to the office of Governor, he also received the appointment of Superintendent of the United States saline.
As Superintendent it was his duty to make all the contracts for leasing the
salt works, to collect the rent, and to provide for the shipment and sale of
the salt which was delivered to the government in lieu of a cash rent.
The following conditions were required to be inserted in the leases:
1st. The quantity of salt to be made annually, by the lessees, was not
to be less than 120,000 bushels of salt, and as much more as the Superintendent might think practicable and might be proposed by the lessee; and,
in order that this condition should be complied with, a penalty of one
bushel for each bushel falling short of the quantity was exacted, to secure
which there was to be a constant deposit of salt in the hands of the agent
of the United States.
2d. The maximum price of salt to be fixed at not less than 80 cts. nor
more than one dollar per bushel, leaving it between those limits, at the discretion of the Superintendent.
3d. A rent to be paid quarterly, in salt, equal to the difference between
what is judged a fair price for the lessees to sell at, and the maximum
price fixed by the lease; but to be calculated only on 120,000 bushels a
year, whether the quantity actually made exceeds or falls short of that
number. It was also stipulated that the salt paid to the United States
should not be sold at a price less than that fixed by the lease, except by
common consent the price should be lowered-in which case the rent was
to be diminished in the same proportion.
4th. Conditions must be introduced to effectually prevent the waste of
timber and to encourage the use of coal; to encourage which the Superintendent was authorized, at his discretion, to diminish the rent.
5th. It is left discretionary with the Superintendent to let the whole
saline to one or more companies.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     31
6th. No lessee should be concerned, either directly or indirectly, with
any other salt works.
The above instructions were given by Mr. Gallatin, then Secretary of
the Treasury, in the year 1809.
During the first three years of his administration of the territorial government, from the year 1809 to 1812, he had the power to make new counties and the appointment of all the offices; and yet, in all cases, he adopted
as a rule, which was invariably adhered to, to allow the people of each
county, by an informal vote, to select their own officers, both civil and
military.
The following is taken from a publication, made by him, on the subject
of the appointment of the militia officers of the Territory:
GENTLEMEN:-I regret very much the necessity which has hitherto rendered my
visit to this county, at an earlier period, impracticable. For a considerable length
of time immediately previous to my appointment to the office with which I am now
honored, I was engaged in the most arduous duties attached to the one which I lately held, in the State of Kentucky. On the notification of my present appointment
I delayed repairing to my new station no longer than about ten days, which time
was actually spent in deciding and disposing of such causes as had previously been
argued in the Court of Appeals, and which could not have been decided, without
me, but at very great inconvenience to the litigant parties, and a delay highly injurious to the public interest. Such imperious calls of public duty I could not feel
myself at liberty to resist; and whilst I yielded to them exclusively, the short time
of my delay, my private concerns were totally overlooked and neglected. These
considerations rendered my return to Kentucky at as early a period as possible so
indispensable, and the business of the Territory required my presence so much, at
the seat of government, that I found no time to devote to a visit to this country.
Independent of the pleasure which I would have felt in an opportunity of cultivating the acquaintance and friendship of those whose most important interests are
confided to my care and guardianship, I doubt not but it m'ght have been useful to
myself, and satisfactory to my fellow citizens, by enabling me to develop to them
the principles on which I mean to administer the government, and the motives by
which I have been and shall continue to be governed. The interval of my absence
from the Territory has increased the difficulty, but it has not destroyed my hopes of
convincing my fellow-citizens that their good-the peace, and tranquillity, and happiness, and prosperity of the Territory-are the objects of my most ardent wishes.
The human mind is oftentimes the victim of. prejudice. The utmost perfection of
human nature is not entirely free from its influence. The best of men are sometimes
subject to its dominion. And when mankind, instead of checking its approaches and
guarding against its progress, admit its entrance by opening to it every portal and
avenue of the heart, and invite its residence by cherishing it, the best, the noblest
affections of the mind are superceded by dislikes, hatred and jealousies almost as
injurious to those by whom they are entertained as to those against whom they are
directed. And while I am very ready to admit that I may have erred in some instances-as I pretend to no exemption from the fallibility of human nature, and know
too well my own liability to err —yet I think it highly probable that some portion of
prejudice must have intermingled itself in the judgment which some of my fellow



32                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
citizens may have passed on my official acts, and, if so, that prejudice has become
the more obstinate by being more matured, and consequently will be the more difficult to remove. But this is a difficulty at which I am neither startled nor appalled.
The experience of thirteen years, every day of which I have been engaged in public
service, in various stations, has convinced me that on the candor, the good sense
and justic.e of the people I can always confide. I never mean to pay my court
to demagogues. I will never admit that one, two, three or more persons shall exercise the right and claim the privilege of giving life, shape, motion and effect to public'opinion, where I am concerned. My appeal shall always be to the people; and
at the same time that I most firmly declare that I never will yield to mere popular
clamor, resulting from popular delusion artfully produced, I take a pride in declaring that I would take as much pleasure in explaining my conduct to the humblest
individual in the government, with a view to satisfy him, as I would to the highest
personage, the most exalted character or the most influential man in it.
Deriving the portion of public patronage with which I have been honored from
no high birth or noble ancestry, but being wholly indebted for it to those principles
of liberty and equality, those fundamental rights of man, that have been secured by
our glorious revolution and free constitution, by which every man of merit may be
rewarded, whatever may be his situation in life, I cannot but venerate and respect
those principles; and while I consider myself, as a citizen, inferior to no man
whom God has ever made, I feel no superiority to any other honest, well-behaved
man, however humble his station in life may be.
I am not ignorant of the facility with which the best actions of a man's life may
be perverted, misconstrued and distorted by malicious interpretations; nor am I ignorant of the ease with which public sentiment may be corrupted and public prejudices excited; nor am I to be deterred by them. I have often experienced the inconveniences of them; for I have, in the course of my political life, met with as
much opposition as any man whatever. But hitherto I have, in no instance, ever
failed to overcome it; for in nothing that I have attempted in the political way have
I ever experienced a personal disappointment; and in all my elections by the people, the least majority I ever had was upwards of three hundred votes. My dependence has always been upon the people. They may be wrong sometimes, but my political creed is that they will get right; and my firm belief is that the best means of
securing their lasting and permanent approbation is a firm and independent course,
even if they should not entirely concur; for there is a native magnamimity in the
souls of freemen, which leads them to admire a man who is nobly wrong much more
than one who is meanly right.
Gentlemen, I will close these general remarks with one more observation. I never
will shrink from opposition, even if I should fall under it, for I would far rather fall
nobly than rise meanly; but I never will court opposition-I will avoid it as long
as possible. I will spare no pains to satisfy any dispassionate man, who is willing
to be convinced, that my motives at least are pure, if he will with common frankness
give me the opportunity to do so.
The particular object that I had in view, at the present time, was to give some
elucidations of and explain the reasons that had lead me to adopt the plan to which
I had resorted for the purpose of organizing the militia of this Territory, and I had
expected to confine my address exclusively to those gentlemen who have recently
been elected by the people as officers, having only requested them to meet me on
this occasion. I calculated that I could not only convince them that my motivei




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     33
had been pure, but that my conduct had been correct, and that they, returning to
the various sections of the county where they reside, would have it in their power
to disseminate correct information upon the subject among their neighbors. That
other citizens, however, do me the honor to attend and hear me, is to me a source
of additional felicitation. I solicit all of you to lay aside your prejudices, if you have
any, and yield to the dictates of your own judgment, dispassionately exercised.
That my plan is perfect I shall not contend; perfection is the lot of no man. No
human institution that ever existed is free from imperfections of some kind, arising
either from the incompetency of the human judgment that conceived and planned
it, or the frailties, weaknesses or wickedness of those on whom it is designed to operate. This renders it quite easy to find fault, but very often as difficult to furnish a
better substitute; and I will venture to say that no plan that has ever been suggested to me is either more correct in principle or better calculated to give general
satisfaction. It is not enough to say it has its evils, it produces some discontents,
unless you could point out some plan that would have been free from these exceptions.
The peculiar situation of this Territory would have presented difficulties almost
insurmountable by a man acquainted with every citizen; they must be proportionateiy greater to a man like myself, a total stranger to almost every one-destitute
of information, and unable to act without it; embarrassed by representations diametrically opposite to each other proceeding from sources apparently equally respectable.
Unfortunately the Territory had been divided into violent parties. Political controversies had degenerated into personal animosities of the most rancorous and vin.
dictive nature. The combination of political dissentions and private hatred had
convulsed the whole society, and exhibited a scene of mutual struggle to put down
those who were opposed to each other. In this state of things, so much to be deprecated by dispassionate men, I found the Territory, when I came to it; and I determined to risk the whole combined opposition of both parties rather than yield
myself up to the control or enlist under the banners of either. I regretted those
dissensions as much as any man could do, and I was anxious to see them hastened
into oblivion, because I did believe, and still do believe, that they are not only injurious to the happiness, but in a high degree destructive to the prosperity and the best
interest of the Territory. They are also, to a great extent, inconsistent with the
liberal and enlarged sentiments of true republicans; for show me the man who cannot tolerate free opinion, or who has so little charity as to believe that every man
who differs with him on political subjects must be a knave, and I will show you a
man who is fit only to reside in the atmosphere of tyranny. If my neighbor disagrees with me in matter of opinion, I ought not and I would not dogmatically arrogate to myself such perfeet infallibility as making my own judgment the standard
to denounce him a fool or a knave. And if my conviction of the correctness of my
own judgment was irresistible, to me, I should regret that he was incompetent to
take my view of the subject, but it would be most uncharitable indeed to attribute
his error to him as a crime. Much less should I suppose that any man, merely for
differing with me in opinion, should be shut out from an equal participation in those
republican institutions that are introduced for the common good of all. Such a
principle is inconsistent with republicanism, which permits to every free man the
full enjoyment of his opinions and the liberty of expressing them; but in va'n would
you allow him such liberty if you annex so severe a punishment to the exercise of it.
-5




34                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
To use a homely comparison, this would indeed be presenting the wolf in sheep's
clothing. It would be monarchy or aristocracy nicknamed republicanism  As to
diversity of opinion we ought to expect it, and meet it with the most charitable
indulgences; for who is there that has not experienced the fluctuations of his own judgment? Who, that will extend his view throughout the circle of his acquantance,
has not seen many men, in whom he has equal confidence, differing in opinion upon
the'plainest points in politics, in law, in religion, in science of every kind, and even
in plain matter of fact? These considerations should teach us not to be either too
dogmatical or uncharitable.
They were most conclusive with me in resisting one plan of administration that
was warmly pressed on me. That was to appoint none to office, under any circumstances, who had ever opposed the division of the Territory. This proposition was
so repugnant to the dictates of my judgment, and to my sense of propriety and justice, that, if my political salvation had depended on it, I would not have adopted it.
Yet I hope that, in refusing it, I have showed as much decent respect for the opinion of others as I possibly could do without surrendering my own.
The next plan pressed on me was to reappoint all the old officers. But this itself had its objections; and it would have imposed obligations on me which no Governor ought to be required to discharge. If I had appointed gentlemen to offices
merely because they had before filled them, at the same time that I gave them the
benefit of their old stations, justice would most imperiously require that I should
have subjected them to the inconveniences of them; as, for example, if one of those
persons, while in the exercise of his former office, or during his tenure of it, had
committed an offense cognizable by a court of inquiry or court martial, surely I
ought not to have rendered him intangible to a proper inquiry, or to secure to him
impunity by issuing to him a commission of' posterior date, whereby no such court
of inquiry or court martial could be instituted with competent power either to investigate his conduct or to remove him from office. The difficulty, therefore, could
only be obviated by substituting myself in the place of such court, and I do ve ily
believe, if I had consented to undertake this arduous, this unpleasant and unprecedented labor, I should not have been able to have performed it by this time, if I may
judge from the disposition manifested to exhibit charges.
To have adopted this plan without making such inquiries would have been unjust
and impolitic; to have made the inquiries would have been oppressive to myself
and I doubt not, in some instances, very unsatisfactory to my fellow-citizens.
If I had adopted the plan as my governing rule, I should have been like a mere
machine, deriving my force and effect from borrowed impulse-all discrimination,
all discretion, all selection, would have been perfectly prostrated.
If I had adopted the plan partially, it would have been impossible to have given
general satisfaction, or to have avoided the imputation of having adopted a mere
system of favoritism, which would have kept up the excitement and agitation of the
public mind. Besides, my opinion is that offices are created for the benefit of the
people and not the occupants, and no person can properly claim one unless he merits it, and the public interest be advanced by him. This is not the doctrine of venal
courts or monarchical and aristocratical governments, where offices are given as bribes,
and pensions and sinecures and titles of nobility are given as the wages of corruption,
the more successfully to enable the government to invade the rights of the people;
but just so much as said principles are beneficial to other governments, they are detrimental to and inconsistent with the genius and spirit of ours.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    35
The government of Indiana had been dissolved, by which all the inhabitants of
this Territory were reduced to a perfect equality; and it seemed to me that the dictates of justice, as well as sound policy, required that equality should not be destroyed by the recognition of any presumptive pretensions, nor by any save only
those resulting from personal merit. Many persons probably, who were not in office,
might be more meritorious than some who held offices, and all ought to have had a
fair chance for promotion.
Revolving all these considerations and reflections in my own mind, I determined,
without such a suggestion from any person on earth, to adopt my own plan, which
was that the companies should elect the company officers and that those should
elect the field officers. And here I pass over in silence, without animadversion and
without the least resentment, insinuations that I had adopted this plan to favor this
and that man. Time will convince you all that such suspicions are totally unfounded;
and if I can only demonstrate my course is intrinsically correct, I am not very solicitous with regard to the motives that may be attributed to me.
Either of the other plans that have been mentioned would have been satisfactory
to the party by whom it was proposed, but not so to the adverse party. Both parties claimed the majority of the people. On this they predicated their claims on me;
and without admitting the propriety of such claim, in those cases, my plan gives to
both parties the opportunity of succeeding upon their own ground. I could not
select proper characters for officers without information, for I knew none of them.
I did not choose to depend upon the information of the leaders here, or the leaders
there, for this would have thrown me into the bosom of one party or the otherwhich I was determined to avoid. I therefore chose to make my appeal to the people, by the most practicable expedient that suggested itself to my mind.
By my plan those officers who were meritorious would be most likely to suceeed;
those who were not so could have no cause for complaint. Good republicans ought
to submit to the majorit., and no man of sensibility would wish to lead to bloody
conflict, in defense of their country, men who had not confidence in him; and it is
to be hoped that an empty title or the plumage and garnature of a soldier, in time
of peace, could not induce any man to disregard those nice and delicate notions of
propriety which he would have in time of danger. I am not afraid to consult the
people; and I do believe if in any case of militia appointments it is proper to consider their wishes it is in an exposed Territory like this, where the danger of invasion renders confidence in and attachment to officers so indispensible to the service.
If I could have returned earlier to the Territory it is probable that, in some cases,
I might have directed new elections. The season is now too far advanced-the
weather too likely to be inclement; and I do not consider myself authorized to call
out the people in those months in which, by law, they cannot de compelled to muster. A longer delay in the militia business would be injurious, and therefore I must
accept the returns of elections that have been made as the best expression of public
sentiment which it is in my power to acquire.
Among the first appointments of Gov. Edwards was that of John J. Crittenden, late Senator in Congress from Kentucky, to the office of Attorney
General of the Territory. Mr. Crittenden accepted the office, but in a very
short time resigned, and his brother, Thomas, was appointed in his place.
The following is his letter of resignation:




36                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
RUSSELVILLE, Feb. 24, 1810.
DEAR GOVERNOR:
I have inclosed you my resignation of the office of Attorney General, with which
you were good enough to honor me. I know not how to excuse myself for such conduct. You will call me fickle and capricious, and perhaps you will think me ungrateful. The first epithets I do not think I deserve-the third I know I do not.
I feel towards you all possible gratitude. I am bound to you by all that can bind
the most susceptible heart to the most generous of benefactors. I trust that my
destinies will, sometime or other, afford me an opportunity of convincing you of all
this. Whenever I can serve you, I entreat that you will let me know it. I beg
that you will command me. If you do not, I shall consider myself slighted. My
heart feels no wish more ardently than that of serving you. But, let me put an end
to these assurances; I could fill a volume. Capt. Butler is hurrying me. I want to
see you much. I want you to sign my justification. I want to lay my whole heart
and soul before you, to tell you all my reasons and feelings upon this subject. I beg
you will always consider me among the number of your best and most devoted friends,
JOHN J. CRIITENDEN.
His Excellency N. EDWARDS, United States Saline.




CHAPTER III.
Indian Depredations and Massacres-Movements of Captain LeveringIndian Council at Peoria —Speech of Gov. Edwards — Reply of Gomo,
etc.-Peoria in 1812.
In 1810, a series of massacres and depredations were committed by the
Indians of Illinois Territory, upon citizens living in Louisiana Territory,
which led to a long correspondence between the Governor of Louisiana
Territory and Gov. Edwards. The most daring of these was committed at
Portage du Sioux, on July 19th, and created great excitement at the time.
It appears, from the correspondence which it occasioned, that on the night
in question a party of Sacs stole from William T. Cole, Cornelius Gooch
and James Moredough a number of horses and other articles. They were
immediately pursued by Stephen Cole, James Moredough, W. T. Cole and
Sarshal Brown, who came up with the band on the next day. They were
first seen across a prairie, four or five miles ahead. Finding themselves
discovered the Indians kept changing their course, which prevented their
pursuers from overtaking them. In their rapid march, however, the Indians left behind them a quantity of their plunder, consisting of a valuable
pack-saddle, seven or eight deer-skins, two sides of leather, and some dried
venison-the property of Mr. Brown-which was recovered. Night coming on, and their horses becoming very fatigued, the pursuers concluded
to follow no further, and pitched their camp near a small branch, arranging
that the next day they should continue on to the house of Victor Lagotiere,
where they would leave the recovered property, and get him (who was
known to have great influence with the Indian tribes) to intercede for the
recovery of the horses. But about two o'clock in the morning, while sleeping around their watch-fire, they were fired upon by the Indians and four
of the party, consisting of C. Gooch, Abraham Patten, W. T. Cole and
Sarshal Brown, instantly killed. Stephen Cole was wounded in two places
and also tomahawked, but he recovered from his wounds. It was not,
however, till the 22d that he and James Moredough (the other survivor,
who escaped by hiding in the thicket) were able to get back to the settlement and give the news of the massacre. On the iext day a party started
back and recovered the bodies of the murdered men, but all the horses,
blankets, guns, ammunition, etc., belonging to them, were taken by the




38                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Indians. On the 23d of July, about three leagues below Mr. Lagotiere's,
two Indians of the Pottawottamie tribe were seen, by a man named Morris
Blondeau, lying in the woods, hungry and without fire, having a number
of horses in their possession, but upon their representing that they were
just returning from a Buffalo hunt, nothing was thought of the circumstance
and they escaped. The proof being ample that the massacre was committed
by the Pottawottamies, a requisition was made by the Governor of Louisiana
Territory, upon Gov. Edwards, to deliver them up for punishment.
On the 24th of July, 1811, Capt. Samuel Levering was honored with a
commission from Gov. Edwards to proceed to the tribes on the Illinois
River and demand of them the authors of the murders which had been
committed, and the property that had been stolen by the Indians in the
Louisiana and Illinois Territories, during the preceding two summers.
Capt. Levering departed on that day, from Kaskaskia, and arrived at Mr.
Jarrot's, in the village of Cahokia, on the next day, at 11 o'clock, P. M.
Capt. Ebert had engaged a part of the crew for the boat, and on the 25th
of July, the boat having been furnished by Gov. Clark with the necessary
equipments, provisions, etc., they left in the boat for Peoria, with the crew,
consisting of Capt. Levering, Capt. Hebert, Henry Swearingen, N. Rector,
a Frenchman, that passed for an interpreter, but was intended for a spy,
a Pottawottamie Indian, named Wish-ha, and eight oarsmen, each of whom
was armed with a gun. The names of the boatmen were Pierre St. John,
Pierre La Parche, Joseph Trotier, Francis Pensoneau, Louis Bevanno,
Thomas Hull (alias Woods), Pierre Voedre, and Joseph Grammason-all
of whom signed the articles of agreement as boatmen and soldiers for the
expedition.
On the 28th July, they arrived at Portage du Sioux, where they met
Capt. Whiteside with his men, who had just arrived from the blockhouse,
near the mouth of the Illinois River. Capt. Whiteside informed them that
he and his party had fired, a few days previously, on the Sacs, whose chief
was by the name of Quas-qua-me, as they were ascending the river, with
the intention of a summons "to bring them to," but that the Indians, not
understanding such a salutation, and supposing it to be an act of hostility,
returned the fire-whereupon his party, with a good aim, fired four shots.
On the morning of the 29th of July, they arrived at Prairie Marcot,
about nineteen miles above the mouth of the Illinois River, where Lieut.
John Campbell was stationed with seventeen men. Lieut. Campbell informed them that he had, a few days ago, taken a scout, and had seen pathtracks of fifteen Indians.
Nothing of special importance occurred until their arrival at Peoria, on
the 3d of August, where they met Mr. Forsythe, the Indian agent, who
informed Capt. Levering that he had delivered to Gomo Gov. Clalk's letter




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               39
to him, in relation to the murderers, and that Gomo replied as though he
was disposed to surrender the offenders; that one man could not fight and
contend with fifty; that his will was ineffectual and in opposition to that
which generally prevailed among the Indians.
On the 4th of August, Jacques Mettie, of Peoria, informed Capt. Levering that one of the Indians who committed the murder on Shoal creek
was a Pottawottamie, by the name of Nom-bo-itt, and that he was at that
time in a village on Yellow creek, whose chief is named Mat-cho-quis, about
ninety leagues from Peoria; and that another, also of the same nation, by
the name of Me-nac-queth, was at Latourt, or White Pigeon, on the road
leading to Detroit, about twelve leagues from St. Joseph; and the third
one of the party that murdered Cox is named Es-ca-puck-he-ah, or Green,
who was twelve or fifteen miles beyond White Pigeon, toward Detroitprobably at the apple orchard on the Kick-kal-le-ma-seau.
Mr. Fournier, who had been sent to Gomo's village to apprise him of the
arrival of Capt. Levering with a letter to him, from Gov. Edwards, reported
that an Indian had arrived in advance of him, and had informed Gomo
that the party consisted of fifty armed men, and that, notwithstanding his
representations to the contrary, Gomo would not come without fourteen
armed warriors with him.
On the morning of August 5th, a United States flag was seen at Gomo's
lodge, a quarter of a mile above, on the lake. On Gomo's receiving a message, he came to the quarters of Capt. Levering, who delivered to him the
letter from Gov. Edwards. Gomo replied that he would immediately return to his village, and would, on the following morning, prepare his young
men, and send them to call the chiefs to the council. He gave the names
of the following Pottawottamie chiefs: Neng-ke-sapt, or Fire Medals, at
Elkhart, near Fort Wayne; Topenny-boy, on the River St. Joseph; Moquan-go, on the Qui-que-que River; Wi-ne-magne, or Cat Fish, on the
Wabash River. He said that Marpock and his principal chiefs had gone
to Detroit, and probably would not return until the fall. The chiefs of the
towns on Fox River resided at Milwaukee; Little Chief, on River Au Sable,
or Sand River; Masseno, or Gomo, about seven leagues above Peoria;
Black Bird, chief of the Ottawas, on the River Au Sable. Gomo declared
his willingness to do all in his power to render justice and to satisfy the
Americans.
There was an Indian with Gomo, by the name of Me-che-ke-noph, or
Bittern, a half Fulsowine and half Pottawottamie, who said that the murderers of Price were five brothers, of the Fulsowines, whose names he gave.
Capt. Levering furnished Gomo with tobacco, as a message to the chiefs,
and he then left for his village.
There was, at first, a difference of opinion in relation to the policy of the
measures to be adopted by the council of Indians. One party were of




40                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
opinion that it would be policy to send a mission to those chiefs who afforded shelter to the murderers, make a demand of them, and surrender
them to the Americans. Another party were opposed to making any
attempt to deliver up the offenders, but proposed to collect much of the
stolen property and take it in, with representations that the offenders could
not be found. It was said that Gomo would advocate the first measure,
but he abhorred the pusillanimous appearance of attempting that which he
could not accomplish. He was heard to say that if he presented himself
to the chiefs and demanded the surrender of the murderers, they would say
to him that he was a chief on the Illinois River, and that he had better
attend to his own tribe.
The most prevalent policy-supposed to be that recommended by the
English-was to send Little Chief, who was a "' talkative fellow," to make
representations and assurances that would answer their present purposes;
and that, as other outrages had passed with naught but a frown or two,
this would likewise soon blow over.
Capt. Levering was of the opinion, in order that a mission should have
its desired effect, and make a serious impression on the Indians, and induce
them to deliver up the offenders and stolen property, that it should be a
joint one, from the Territories of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Louisiana,
to convene at Chicago, where the chiefs from the north side of the Lake,
as well as those from the Territories, could attend. None of the chiefs
could then say, "it is not my business; I am not called upon; it does not
concern me."
The party proceeded the next day, and arrived at a village of Indians
about seven leagues up the Illinois River. Being dark, the hands-saying
they were not hired to work at night-refused to go further. Capt. Levering engaged two Indians to take him and Mr. Fournier in a canoe, about
four miles higher up the river to a creek, from which place they were conducted, through a moist and thicketty bottom, to Gomo's village, where
they arrived about eleven o'clock, and disturbed Gomo and the Indians
from their sleep. They were invited into a lodge-a bark building, 25 by 50
feet inside, tenanting about thirty persons. There were scaffolds, from 6 to 7
feet long, 6 feet wide and 5 feet high, extending all around the building,
on which the Indians sat and sleep-stretching themselves from the
weatherboarding to the center. Capt. Levering and Mr. Fournier were
invited to mount those next to the ones occupied by Gomo and his family.
Although it was very late, a dish of food, made of new corn, was brought
in by Gomo's wife, and, whilst they were eating, Gomo smoked his pipe.
The men generally left their sleeping places, squatted around two fires in
the center of the building, "in all the solemnity of profound smoking."
This appears, says Capt. Levering, to be an etiquette due to strangers.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               41
Capt. Levering states that the Indians believed that the Americans were
their enemies and would constantly intrude on them. This, together with
their natural ambition to have it to say, as they do in their drunken frolics,
"I am a man: who can gainsay it? I have killed an Osage! I have
killed a white! " leads them to outrage; and frequent escapes from punishment leads them to suppose that the whites are supine and indolent.
On the next morning, accompanied by Gomo and another chief, they
returned to Peoria. On the next day, Capt. Levering introduced the conversation by saying to Gomo that he wished a private talk with him, which
he hoped would be useful; that he would not then'speak the words of our
father who sent him; that they were more interesting, and particularly
concerned all the nation, and that he was reserving them for the council
of chiefs who would be convened in a few days.
Gomo replied that he was rejoiced that he had been sent on this errand,
and wished that the chiefs could attend and hear for themselves our father's
words; for no communication which he or any other Indian might make
would be believed. They would, he said, call him sugar-mouth, and charge
him with being excited by fear or moved by treachery.
For that reason, Capt. Levering wished the presence of as many chiefs
and leading characters, from as many villages, as could be collected, that
none should be left in a state of ignorance that might and probably would
be the means of involving the whole nation in a war. He stated to Gomo
that our Great Father desired that peace and friendship should exist between the red and the white man, yet one chief might and could, from want
of the proper information, frustrate all these blessings; that it was important for the Indians all to know that, although the whites wished peace
and friendship, some of the Indians had committed outrages, which, if not
satisfactorily explained and atoned for, would end in their destruction. His
father, before sending him, had advised with their fathers on the west of
the Mississippi and on the east of the Wabash, and he now spoke agreeably
to their united deliberations. Although our fathers did not resent the first
injury, it was only through a disposition of forbearance, hoping that it was
an act of some unruly individual, which the chiefs would correct; for the
whites can not conceive that individuals among the Indians can continue
to perpetrate outrages without the countenance and encouragement of the
chiefs. They believe that the chiefs can restrain their people from the
commission of acts which will be injurious to their nation. The most forbearing, the greatest patience may become fatigued and worn out. Though
friendship, on our part, should be abundant as the waters of a great river,
yet, interrupt it till you choke it and it will be converted into a flood of
destruction, and in its course it could not discriminate the innocent from the
guilty-while any good man would lament the sufferings of the innocent.
-6




42                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Gomo wished that all the chiefs could attend and hear the words of their
father, and expressed a wish that ("apt. Levering should also tell them the
words he had spoken. He said that he would send for them, although he
thought it probable that the chiefs of the St. Joseph and Qui-que-que
Rivers, and Yellow Creek were absent from their homes, for there were a
number of runners from the British among them, with talks and messages,
which was probably the occasion of Marpock, and many Indians from this
and other towns, traveling lately towards Canada. In order to lengthen
the conversation Capt. Levering continued, as follows: "At about my age
past, the British and the Americans had a seven years' war. Washington,
the man that handed you the papers which you showed to me before leaving your village, was our Great Father, that had conducted our warriors
to the war. Ie is now dead, but we love him, for he was a good and brave
man and fought for our rights against the unreasonable pretensions of
the British. They would not allow us to be full men, able to manage
our own affairs; but, under Washington, we fought them for seven years.
They were worsted, and asked for peace. We love peace and happiness;
and Washington became our Great Father. But, ever since, the British
cannot be our generous friends; they are jealous of our growing strength,
yet they know that in case of war they cannot stand before us, and they
are continually striving to get the Indians into trouble with us, in order to
resent their enmities. They offer the Indians protection while they are
unable to protect themselves. If they could protect themselves, they would
wage open war on us. If they could have beaten us my lifetime ago, they
would have done it, and Washington, who gave you those papers, would
have been hung.   But they were conquered, and Gen. Washington,
eighteen years ago, made a treaty with the Indians, declaring that we will
be friends to the Indians; and they made a law that if an American should
kill an Indian, that it should be the duty of every Governor of our different States and Territories to catch that man and put him to death; and
that if any one should settle on any of your lands he should pay one thousand dollars and be imprisoned for twelve months. Such are the papers
which that great and good man put into your hands, and which you have
shown to me. All of our fathers, ever since, would treat you as children.
They would also remain at peace with the British; but for our kindness
they must at least treat us with justice-not insult us, not murder our people, nor steal our horses."
Gomo's elder brother spoke of a time when the British put the Indians
in the front of the battle. Gomo said he saw Washington in Philadelphia,
when they made the treaty of 1793. That there were two of the horses in
the possession of his tribe, and a third in his own possession, which he had
bought-saying, that at the time of the purchase he did not know that it
had been stolen. He said that they should be delivered up.




LIFE AND tIMES OP NINTAN EDWARDS.              43
On the 8th of August, 1811, Capt. Levering delivered, at the Governor's
request, two commissions-one to Thomas Forsyth, as justice of the peace
for the town of Peoria, and the other to John Baptiste Dupond, as captain
in and for the same place-both of whom took the oath of office.
Mr. Dupond said the Indians would expect him, now that he was a chief,
to give them some meat and tobacco, and that some unpleasantly disposed
persons would instigate the Indians to worry him, and that he hoped the
Governor would notice such; that he did not wish to accept the commission, but that as there were unfavorable reports of the place, he was willing to let it be known that there is a person well disposed to the government.
On the 15th of August, Miche Pah-ka-en-na, the Kickapoo chief, and
eleven of his warriors, arrived, and called on Capt. Levering, who told the
chief that as he was the only chief he had seen whom our father knew to
be friendly with his white children, he was particularly pleased to see him.
e gave them some refreshments, and the chief remarked that he had always heard that our father was kind and good, and he was happy to see
an evidence of it in his sons, and more particularly as some of his young
men were present to witness the friendly disposition. Capt. Levering told
him that their father and his greater chiefs were all known to their white
children; some knew them personally.  That he knew some of them
through the papers, some from the word of mouth, and they all desired to
live in friendship with their red children.
On the same day Gomo, Little Chief, and others, waited on Capt. Levering. Little Chief said that he had come to hear the words of his father,
and he hoped that they would be all told to them as they were written. Forsyth replied, with much warmth, that if they apprehended any
deficiency, they must get another interpreter. Little Chief said if they
had come to his village, he would have furnished them with a cabin and
plenty to eat; and, as he had come to hear the words of his father, he
wished to know where he should go. Capt. Levering replied that the white
men were aggrieved and had sent him to talk with the Indians; that he
was a sojourner and a stranger among them, but as he had invited them to
Peoria, he would furnish them with a house, but being in a strange place
and unprovided, he could not give them the kind and quality of provisions
equal to his wishes. Little Chief then showed him a paper and asked him
what it was. Capt. Levering informed him that it was a pass from Capt.
Heald, of Chicago, dated July 11, 1811, stating that Little Chief, a Pottawottamie, was on his way to St. Louis; as a further protection he gave
him a flag. The chief replied that he had given him a piece of coarse cloth;
and said that he was in the habit of speaking loud, but that when they
came to the council they must not mind it. Capt. Levering replied that




44                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
their white brethren used different kinds of cloth for different purposes;
the kind put into the flag was the best to flow in the wind, being light;
and when it was made into a flag their white brethren respected it and
would hurt no one under it; he carried it to war, and before he would
loose it, a good soldier would loose his life. The loudness of your voice
will make no difference, if you only talk of the business of the nation. In
the evening, about dusk, Capt. Levering walked up the bank of the river,
intending, if a suitable occasion should offer, to deliver his address to the
Indians. He observed the flag on the fence, flying, with the Union down;
and Mr. Fournier standing near, he requested him to tell the Indians that
they had hoisted their colors wrong, for the stars should be upward. The
Indian that Fournier addressed himself to replied that he knew it, but it was
not he that had put it so. Capt. Levering walked on a few steps, and seeing Little Chief coming out of the gate, he walked back a few steps, carelessly, and desired Fournier to say to Little Chief that the flag was hoisted
wrong; that the stars should be above. Little Chief replied that he knew
it; he was not an American-he was an Indian. Some person must have
made it in the night, for it had large stitches and the sewing was very
coarse.
Capt. Levering prepared the following address, to be delivered to the
Indians on the next morning:
Brothers, Chiefs, and Warriors:
On yesterday I told you how much we respect the flag of the United States; that,
through an act of friendship, one has been given to some one of you to guard you in
safety to St. Louis. The hoisting of the flag of the United States with the stars
downward is considered as degrading the flag, and an insult to the United States,
and our white enemies, whenever they take one from us, hoist it with the intention
of insulting the government of the United States; nor can the circumstance be less
insulting when it is done by the Indians, after they are duly acquainted with the mode
and etiquette.
My father, a part of that Government, feels himself aggrieved in his children, by
some persons from this quarter; yet, being unwilling to use hasty measures, that are
apt to injure the innocent with the guilty, and hoping to finld you disposed to be
friendly, has sent me to talk with you-yet I can not nor will not while you are insulting the government. You must turn your flag and have it placed properly, or I
will immediately leave here without delivering our father's talk.
At a very early hour on the next morning, the Indians had raised the
flag Union up.
Being informed, on the morning of the 16th of August, that the Indians
were ready and on their way to the council room, Capt. Levering invited
the inhabitants of Peoria to attend, and, accompanied by Mr. Forsyth,
Mr. Rector, Mr. Swearingen and Captain Hebert, met the Indians in the
council room.   He then proceeded to address the Indians as follows:




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                        45
Brothers, Chiefs, Warriors:
The weather is cloudy. In the region south and west of this you will see none moving-all having drawn towards their cabins, in apprehension of a storm. But our
father, who presides over the tribes between the Mississippi and Wabash, being a
good man, has sent me to invite you under this shelter to smoke a pipe in profound
meditation-having our ears open to the voice of the Great Spirit, and our hearts disposed to obey its dictates-to see whether all may not subside, be calm, fair and cheerful. But first let us smoke a pipe, and then attend to the talk of our father.
The following is Governor Edwards' address to the Pottawottamies, delivered in council at Peoria, on the 15th of August, 1811:
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, July 21, 1811.
To the Chiefs and Warriors of the tribes of Pottawottamies, residing on the Illinois River
andits waters, in the Territory of Illinois.
My Children, you are now met together, by my desire, on a very important occasion. You are now to be asked to do an act of justice. Should you refuse, it may
once more involve the red and white brethren in all the horrors of bloody war. On
the other hand, if you should perform what justice itself calls for, it will brighten the
chain of friendship, which has for a long time united the red people with their white
brethren of the United States.
My Children, ever since Wayne's treaty, our Great Father, the President of the
United States, has faithfully fulfilled all his treaties with you. He has endeavored to
make his red and white children live as one great family, loving and obliging one another, and he has always strictly forbidden his white children from doing any harm to
their red brethren.
My Children, for a long time the bloody tomahawk and scalping-knife have been
buried. The sun of peace has shone upon us, blessing us with his light and giving
gladness to our hearts. The red people have enjoyed their forests and pursued their
game in peace; and the white people have cultivated the earth without fear. But,
my children, these bright prospects are darkened. A storm seems to be gathering
which threatens destruction, unless it should be dissipated by that justice which you,
as good men, ought to render.
My Children, while we trusted to treaties with you-while we believed our red
brethren to be friendly-some of our people, fearing no danger, have been plundered
of their property and deprived of their lives by some of your bad men.
My Children, last year a perogue was cut loose on the Mississippi and a considerable
quantity of goods was taken out of it, and carried off, by some of your people. A
great many horses have been stolen from this Territory, both during the last and the
present year, many of which have certainly been carried off by some of your people.
Other horses have been stolen from the neighborhood of St. Charles, in Louisiana.
I demand satisfaction for these outrages.
My Children, on the 19th day of July, last year, in the district of St. Charles, and
Territory of Louisiana, a party of Pottawottamies stole several horses. On the next
day they were pursued by the white people, who lost their trail and quit the pursuit
On that night those Pottawottamies fell upon those white men, in their camp, killed
four of them, wounded a fifth, and carried off several horses and other property.
Among those Indians were Cat Fish, O-hic-ka-ja-mis and Mis-pead-na-mis. I demand
that these bad men, and all others who were of the party, together with the property




46                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
they stole, shall be delivered up to Capt. Levering and his party, or that you yourselves shall deliver them and the property to me.
My Children, on the 2d day of last June, on Shoal creek, in St. Clair county, in
this Territory, three of your bad men went to the house of a Mr. Cox, plundered his
property, took two guns, two mares and colts,,and a stud horse, barbarously killed
his son, and took his daughter a prisoner. A few days after this outrage, near the
Mississippi, in the same county and Territory, others of your bad men killed a man by
the name of Price, and wounded another by the name of Ellis. I demand that these
bad men, together with all the property they took off, shall be delivered to Capt..
Levering, or that you shall deliver them and the property to me.
My Children, the blood of those innocent men who have been wounded and murdered cries aloud to the Great Spirit for vengeance. The hearts of their relations
and brethren bleed with sorrow. The fire of revenge flames in their hearts, and they
thirst for blood.
My Children, I have found it almost impossible to prevent the white people from
rushing to your towns, to destroy your corn, burn your property, take your women
and children prisoners, and murder your warriors. But I told them that those who
have done the mischief were bad men; that you would disapprove their conduct, and
deliver them to me as enemies both to you and your white brethren. I commanded
your white brethren not to raise the tomahawk or go to war with you, and they
obeyed me.
My Children, now open your ears to hear my words, and let them sink deep into
your hearts. If you wish for peace with us, you must do us justice. If you disapprove those murders and other outrages that have been committed, you must deliver
up the offenders; for if you harbor among you such deadly enemies to us, you cannot
be our friends, and you ought not to expect our friendship.
My Children, Gov. Harrison demanded some of those bad men, when they were within his Territory, and'they fled to the Illinois River and took up shelter among you.
I now demand them, and you must not say they are fled elsewhere. They murdered
our people-they are our enemies-and if you have protected them, an d they belong
to your bands, you must find them and deliver them up, or we must consider you as
approving their horrid deeds and as being our enemies.
My Children, liars and bad advisers are among you; they profess to be your friends,
and they deceive you; they have their interest in view, and care not what becomes
of you, if they can succeed in their designs. Avoid such people.
My Children, you can remember when such men persuaded you to make war upon
your white brethren of the United States. They promised you great assistance, but
they left you to fight your own battles, and you found it necessary to sue for peace.
At that time you were stronger that you now are; the woods were then full of game
of all kinds; large numbers of you could collect together and traverse the country
without fear of wanting meat. Bnt this cannot now be done.
My Children, when we were at war with you, we were then weak; we have now
grown strong-have everything necessary for war, and are your near neighbors. Our
Great Father's dominions extend over vast countries, bounded by the great waters;
his great towns and cities are hardly to be counted; and his white children are thick
and numerous like the stars of the sky.
My Children, your Great Father, the President of the United States, has nothing
to fear from wars, but he wishes to be at peace with you, because he loves you and
wishes to make you happy. You ought to try to merit his kindness and avoid his resentment.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       47
My Children, your Great Father asks nothing but justice from you. Stffer not bad
advisers to pursuade you to refuse it. In kindness, none call exceed him; but if you
should be determined to treat him and his white children as enemies, storms and hurricanes, and the thunder and lightningof heaven, cannot be more terrible than will
be his resentment.
My Children, Capt. Samuel Levering will deliver you this talk; he is authorized,
by me, to demand of you the property that has been stolen, and those bad men who
committed the murders, and all who were of the party. You will confer with Capt.
Levering, and come to as speedy a determination as possible.
My Children, let justice be done, let all cause of quarrel be removed, and let us live
like brothers.
Your affectionate father,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
The council again met, on the 16th of August, to receive the answer of
the Pottawottamies.    Gomo spoke as follows:
We have listened well to your information, and hope that you will give the same
attention to our words.
I am very glad that you have come among us, and that you have delivered the words
of the Governor to all the chiefs and warriors in hearing. I intended to have gone to
see the Governor, but it is much better as it has occurred, that he has sent his talk
here.
You see the color of our skin. The Great Spirit, when he made and disposed of
man, placed the red skins in this land, and those who wear hats on the other side of
the big waters. When the Great Spirit placed us on this ground, we knew of nothing
but wlat was furnished to us by nature; we made use of our stone axes, stone knives
and earthen vessels, and clotled ourselves from the skins of the beasts of the forest.
Yet, we were contented! When the French first made large canoes, they crossed the
wide waters to this country, and on first seeing the red people they were rejoiced.
They told us that we must consider ourselves as the children of the French, and they
would be our father; the country was a good one, and they would change goods for
skins.
Formerly we all lived in one large village. In that village there was only one chief,
and all things went on well; but since our intercourse with the whites, there are
almost as many chiefs as we have young men.
At the time of the taking of the Canadas, when the British and the French were
fighting for the same country, the Indians were solicited to take part in that warsince which time there have been among us a number of foolish young men. The
whites ought to have staid on the other side of the waters, and not to have troubled
us on this side. If we are fools, the whites are the cause of it. From the commencement of their wars, they used many persuasions with the Indians; they made them
presents of merchandise, in order to get them to join and assist in their battles-since
which time there have always been fools among us, and the whites are blameable for it.
The British asked the Indians to assist them in their wars with the Americans, telling us that if we allowed the Americans to remain upon our lands, they would in time
take the whole country, and we would then have no place to go to. Some of the Indians did join the British, but all did not; some of this nation, in particular, did not
join them. The British persisted in urging upon us that if we did not assist them in
driving the Americans from our lands, our wives and children would be miserable for
the remainder of our days. In the course of that war, the American General Clark




48                         HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
came to Kaskaskia, and sent for the chiefs on this river to meet him there. We attended, and he desired us to remain still and quiet in our own villages, saying that the
Americans were able, of themselves, to fight the British.
You Americans generally speak sensibly and plainly. At the treaty of Greenville,
Gen. Wayne spoke to us in the same sensible and clear manner.
I have listened with attention to you both. At the treaty of Greenville, General
Wayne told us that the tomahawk must be buried, and even thrown into the great
lake; and should any white man murder an Indian, he should be delivered up to the
Indians; and we, on our part, should deliver up the red men, who murdered a white
person, to the Americans.
A Pottawottarnie Indian, by the name of Turkey-foot, killed Americans, for which
he was demanded of us: and although he was a great warrior, we killed him ourselves
in satisfaction for his murders.
Some of the Kickapoos killed an American. They were demanded, were given up,
and were tied up with ropes around their necks for the murders. This was not what
the chief who made the demand promised, as they were put to death in another manner. Our custom is to tie up a dog in that way, when we make a sacrifice.
Now, listen to me well, in what I have to say to you. The red skins have delivered
up their offenders.
Sometime ago one of our young men was drunk, at St. Louis, and was killed by an
American. At another time some person stole a horse near Cahokia. The citizens of
the village followed the trail, met an innocent Kickapoo, on his way to Kaskaskia,
and killed him. Last fall, on the other side, and not far from Fort Wayne, a Wyandot
Indian set fire to a prairie; a settler came out and inquired of him how he came to
set fire. The Indian answered that he was hunting. The settler struck the Indian
and continued to beat him, till they were parted, when another settler shot the Indian. This summer a Chippeway Indian, at Detroit, was looking at a gun; it went
off, accidently, and shot an American. The Chippeway was demanded, delivered up,
and executed. Is this the way that Gen. Wayne exhibits his charity to the red skins?
Whenever an instance of this kind happens, it is usual for the red skins to regard it
as an accident.
You Americans think that all the mischiefs that are committed are known to the
chiefs, and immediately call on them for the surrender of the offenders. We know
nothing of them; our business is to hunt, in order to feed our women and children.
It is generally supposed that we red skins are always in the wrong. If we kill a
hog, we are called fools or bad mell; the same, or worse, is said of us if we kill an
horned animal; yet, you do not take into consideration the fact that while the whites
are hunting along our rivers, killing our deer and bears, that we do not speak ill of
them.
When the French came to Niagara, Detroit, Mackinaw and Chicago, they built no
forts or garrisons, nor did the English, who came after them; but when the Americans
came, all was changed. They build forts and garrisons and blockade wherever they
go. From these facts we infer that they intend to make war upon us.
Whenever the United States make the Indians presents, they afterwards say that
we must give them such a tract of land; and after a good many presents they then
ask a larger piece. This is the way we have been served. This is the way of extending to us charity.
Formerly, when the French were here, they made us large presents; so have the
English; but the Americans, in giving their presents, have always asked a piece of
land in return. Such has been the treatment of the Americans.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       49
If the whites had kept on the other side of the waters, these accidents could not
have happened; we could not have crossed the widewaters to have killed them there;
but they have come here and turned the Indians in confusion. If an Indian goes into
their village, like a dog he is hunted, and threatened with death.
The ideas of the Pottawottamies, Ottaways and Chippeways are, that we wish to
live peaceable and quiet with all mankind, and attend to our hunting and other pursuits, that we may be able to provide for the wants of our women and children. But
there remains a lurking dissatisfaction in the breasts and minds of some of our young
men. This has occasioned the late mischiefs, which, at the time, were unknown to
the chiefs and warriors of the nation. I am surprised at such threatenings to the
chiefs and warriors, (old people,) who are inclined entirely for peace.
The desire of the chiefs and warriors is to plant corn and pursue the deer. Do you
think it possible for us to deliver the murderers here to-day?
Think you, my friends, what would be the consequence in case of a war between the
Americans and the Indians. In times past, when some of us were engaged in it, many
women were left in a distressful condition. Should war now take place the distress
would be, in comparison, much more general.
This is all I have to say on the part of myself and the warriors of my village. I
thank you for your patient attention to my words.
After Gomo had finished, he laughingly said that we have had long
talks; will not a little whisky enable us to sleep?  Capt. Levering understood him by lulling their fears.
On the next day, being the 17th of August, Little Chief spoke as follows:
Listen to me, my friends, if you wish to know the ideas and sentiments of the chiefs
and warriors here present to-day. Give the same attention to my words that I did
to those of yesterday.
At the conclusion of the American and Indian wars the Americans asked us to remain at peace and in quietness. I and my warriors have always observed the advice.
One of the promises of the Americans to the Indians, at that time, was that whenever.murders should be committed on either side, the murderers should be delivered
up to the opposite party. We have delivered up offenders; the Americans have delivered none.
The intention of the Pottawottamies, Ottaways and Chippeways has been to remain
peaceable and quiet, as they always have done, and still wish to do; and when that is
observed, there will be nothing to fear on either part, as you will see to-day.
At the peace of Greenville, it was agreed on both sides to deliver up all the prisoners; I myself ran from town to town gathering all; and Gen. Wayne said, "now all
is completed and hereafter we will see which of us (red or white) will first take up the
tomahawk. It shall now be buried." But from your talk of yesterday you threaten
to make war against us; to cut off our women and children.
You astonish us with your talk. When you do us harm, nothing is done; but
when we do anything, you immediately tie us up by the neck; sometime ago we
brought in a number of Osages, prisoners of war; you demanded them, and we delivered them up. There is no recompense for us.
You may observe the ideas of the chiefs and warriors of the Illinois River. Listen
to their talk and see whether it is not right. We wish that the Governor at Kaskaskia may hear our words.
-7




50                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
You see how we live-our women and children. Do not, my friends, suppose that
we are accomplices with murderers.' Take courage and let us live in peace and quietness, as we have heretofore done. You said that we, our wives and children, should
live in peace. You hear what the chiefs in council say; they cannot interfere in
the demand you have made. They cannot interfere in any bad business of the kind.
You see the situation of the Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways to-day.
The Shawnee Prophet, the man who talks with the Father of Light, blames us for not
listening to him. You do the same. We are like a bird in a bush, beset, and not
knowing which way to fly for safety-whether to the right or to the left. If our young
men behave ill to-day, you may blame the Shawnee Prophet for it.
The chiefs are reproached by the young men generally. They say to us, you give
your hand to the Americans to-day, and in future they will knock you in the head.
This is the occasion of their late unruly behavior.
Remember what you told us on yesterday. Among other sayings, you threatened to
kill our women and, children. Do not think that those young men that committed the
murders belong to this place. They came from the village of the Shawnee Prophet.
All the mischiefs that have been done have been committed through the influence of
the Shawnee Prophet, and I declare this to you for the truth.
Behold the Shawnee Prophet, that man who talks with the Great Spirit, and teaches
the Indians to pray and look to God! But as for us, we do not believe him. We
wish to chase our deer, and live in peace with the Americans.
Ever since the Shawnee Prophet has been on the Wabash River he has been jealous of the chiefs and warriors of this river. He suspects that we give information
and a favorable ear to the Americans, and says that the Americans will act like traitors to us.
For my part I suspect no wrong. I do not listen to the bad advice of the Prophet.
Our great chiefs of the Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways command us to
observe the alliance between us and the Americans, that we and our children may
live in peace and comfort. These are the reasons for our not listening to the Shawnee
Prophet.
My dear friends do not believe us accomplices in the mischiefs recently committed;
we wish peace.
Observe the chiefs and warriors in council. We think of nothing but to live in
peace and quietness. We would have been very much surprised if the Americans
had come and made war on us, feeling ourselves perfectly innocent of these offenses.
We think nothing of what is past, as we are innocent. These are also the sentiments of the Kickapoos; and we, the chiefs of the several tribes now in council, join
our hands together and hold them as fast as I now hold the wampum in my hand.
See, my friends, how matters stand to-day. If you wish for war with us, it lies altogether with yourselves. It is better to avoid it if possible.
If the Americans should commence war with us, we would have to fight in our own
defense. The chiefs are of opinion that it is best to remain at peace.
I have finished, my friends. Perhaps you take us for little children. We whip our
children, but men will defend themselves.
For myself I am indifferent. It would be the same with me to raise or bury the
tomahawk. I can but die at last
Observe, my friends: since our peace with the Americans we have been and still
are a poor people. We have not even a piece of ribbon to tie our speech. I have
finished.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     51
After Little Chief had concluded, Capt. Levering spoke as follows:
Brothers, Chiefs and Warriors:
I have listened with close attention to your words, and I shall be careful to convey
them to our father. It is for him to say what shall be done. But, being among you,
with my ears and eyes open to things that could not be known to the distance of my
father's cabin, I think that he will not disapprove of my speaking to you in my own
words, for I shall hold fast to his mind. I discover that you harbor a number of incorrect opinions, that render you dissatisfied with your white brethren; and I am really
so far your friend, that in case I saw you and my white brethren about rushing each
other into destruction through want of light, if I was able I would inform you of it.
But if I thought you were acting with your eyes open, you might abide the consequences; I should not push myself in the way.
As you have spoken on many subjects, I wish to have time to look over them, and
I also wish to put my words on paper, that I may show them to my father at Kaskaskia. I shall hope to meet you here again in the morning.
After the council adjourned, the chiefs, in behalf of their respective nations, offered him the hand of friendship.
On the next morning Capt. Levering continued his address, as follows:
Brothers, you have offered me your hands of friendship. If there was not something
sincere within, to give your offer a cordial reception, I should not have requested this
opportunity of speaking to you.
The brave and generous chief can show himself in his village at all times, and that,
too, with his head loftily erect! Honesty, still prouder, can traverse the globe naked,
and that through the glare of day.
Our father's minds and words to the Indians being as pure as sterling silver, they
have no fear nor objection to their sons talking to them, so that their words are open
and as clear as your native fountains; yet they wish you to be careful about listening
to every one.
Red men never injured me or my relations, and having grown up far from their
paths, I can have no prejudices or resentments against them; and as all men, both
red and white, understand how to estimate honesty, I may say that I have no inducement to deceive you. The very nature of my errand must assure you that the welfare
of my white brethren commands that I shall speak the truth. I shall be no false prophet. I am not endeavoring to be a chief among you. No generous man would be
offended with the free, open, decent candor of another, even though it should come
from an enemy. Now, brethren, listen to the facts-all the white people can tell
whether I lie, for we have it down in black and white, and the most of them can read.
The first white people that came across the wide waters, and settled on this side of
them, were Spaniards, and they settled on islands further distant than the mouth of
the Mississippi. These people, seeing flattering hopes in the West, gave the news,
and encouraged many people to come over from many nations, residing on the other
side of the great waters. The English were the first to settle on any part of the land
on this side of the mouth of the Mississippi, and all around the east and north to the
end of walking. After them came the French, who settled on the other end of Canada.
Then came the Dutch, on another part of the large shores; and many people came
from numerous nations, on the other side of the waters, that perhaps you never heard
of. The Americans were formerly the British; our forefathers were British; the
British King owned us as his children, and we obeyed him like dutiful children.




52                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
When he made war against the French in Canada, we went with his young men to fight
his battles; and we were proud to be and remain his children, until about forty years
ago, when he began to ask things of us that were unreasonable. Although we had at
all times regarded him as our father-believing that he had a right to ask it of us, we,
as dutiful children, gave him money and warriors, and both he and his big council
acknowledged that his American children had done more than their duty. But in
course of time he and his council thought that we were growing too rich; that riches
would give us the desire of leaving them, and that we would become a nation of
full strength. To prevent this they endeavored to take our money from us without
asking, and that, too, whether we were willing or not; just as though your chiefs
should hamstring your young men, through fear of their leaving them. This is exactly the case, for we never refused his requests; but when he began to draw by
force large quantities of honey from a small poor tree, we complained, but our complaints found a deaf ear. We preferred nakedness, cold, hunger, and all the horrors
of war, to such degradation. We fought him for seven years, under poverty and
hardship. The Indians did not know how much we were injured, or they would not
have increased our hardships. But, under Washington-a man now dead, yet we
delight in remembering him, for he was good and brave-our warriors fought our
battles and led us to well earned victory. The English asked for peace, and acknowledged us to be a separate nation.
This was the beginning of the American nation, when we chose Washington, our
victorious chief, to be our Great Father. Since then, the British cannot be our
generous friends, although they dare not come to open war with us. As a chief once
said to me, " they tell half lie, half truth-firing a gun into our canoe, and saying
it was a mistake!" They set the Indians on us to resent their own enmities, and for
the purpose of engrossing all the profit of the Indian trade.
Can you not see, brothers, that the British offer you protection, when, in case of
open war, they cannot stand in Canada? when they cannot protect themselves?
If I had sucked the same breasts with your chiefs and warriors, I would tell you this.
Now, brothers, attend, and you will begin to learn that your complaints against
the Americans are founded in error.
Was it the present Americans that crossed the water to your land? We were
then British, and governed by a British King, whom we had to fight as an enemy to
our rights and welfare. The English settled here some two hundred and ten years
ago; the present American nation is not of my age; and our Goveiument and Great
Father, in their disposition, are as different from the British King as the summer
from the winter day. The present Americans were nowise instrumental in crossing
the ocean; the first coming of their forefathers was owing to the British King, who
rules his sons far more imperiously than you suspect. If wanted, they must go and
fight, and cannot say nay. Even, then, although we were British, and under their
King, we, like you, found ourselves here, and from necessity we must be near neighbors. It is, therefore, our interest to cultivate friendship, unless we intend to destroy
each other.
I must have proven to you, by this time, that your prejudices to the Americans,
at least in one instance, are unfounded. I could, in a little time, make it appear
that nearly all of your supposed grievances are owing to a misunderstanding of our
nation. If this is true, you will find it agreeable as well as our interest to nourish
and water the friendship of the red and white men.
Although our father constructs forts outside the settlements of his white children,
he does not, as you seem to think, act differently from the French or the British.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     53
I have seen and have heard of forts all along the British line in Canada. I have
seen other forts along the lakes, and elsewhere, that were built by the French; and
let me tell you, chiefs and warriors, that the most of the forts in this country were
built by the British and French. When we have the Spaniards on one side of us,
and the British on the other, in forts, and they are endeavoring to make our red
brethren discontented with us, is it not advisable for us to keep up and garrison
those forts that came to us by the chance of war? Does the garrison at Chicago,
Detroit, Defiance, Ft. Wayne, or that at the mouth of the Missouri, or any other within
your knowledge, come out to war on the Indians? Those forts are intended and are
kept up merely to protect our friends; and to suppose that they presage or threaten
war, when they have never committed any, is rather an overstrained idea.
You say that the whites first led the Indians to acts of outrage, by inviting them
to join in war against the whites; and, consequently, the white people are to blame
for the bad practice among the Indians! But, I ask, have the Americans ever solicited the Indians to join them in war against the British? or, against any nation?
I answer, no. Our forefathers, even while we were yet fighting to become a nation,
advised the Indians to lay on their skins at home, raise corn and kill deer, but not
to engage in war on either side; and such has been the advice of our fathers to the
Indians ever since. It is true that some Indians, since then, have offered to join us,
and certainly you would not object to our receiving and taking sides in favor of our
friends.
Your ideas of the treaty of Greenville are alike inaccurate. You suppose that our
fathers promised that all murderers, on either side, should be delivered up to the
opposite party. That cannot be the case; for our laws would not allow our Great
Father, or Gen. Wayne with him, to make such a stipulation in a treaty. All offenders against our laws must be tried by our laws and by a jury of twelve of our citizens.
This is the way an Indian would be tried under our laws, and in the same manner
would a white man be tried for killing an Indian. I know this to be true (although
you have said that there is no recompense for an Indian) that when I left Kaskaskia
there was a man in jail, fastened with irons by the wrist, for having abused an Indian;
and this was done by order of the Governor, because he thought it just. The treaty
of Greenville requires of each of our Governors to catch a murderer of an Indian,
and to have him tried for murder, and if found guilty, to see that he was hung.
In answer to your complaint in the case of an Indian that was killed in St. Louis,
I must tell you more of our laws, and you will learn that the whites equal the red
men in their conceptions of justice. I cannot hinder the belief that somebody told
you wrong in the case of the Indian at Detroit; but I know something of this at St.
Louis. Whenever a man makes an attempt to kill another, a third party coming up
may kill the first to save the life of the second; and our laws do say that the third
was right in so doing-for the act of the first makes the supposition strong that he was
an unruly and bad man; the second might have been a good man, and his life should
be saved. All this is like the case in St. Louis. The Indian was drunk, flourishing
his tomahawk, and threatening to kill. Judge Meigs (a chief), without weapons,
stepped up to the Indian for the purpose of persuading him to be quiet; the Indian
drew his tomahawk on the Judge, and the young man, coming up and seeing him in
danger, killed the Indian to save the Judge's life. Judge Meigs told me this. He
is now Governor of Ohio.
You must not think, from my words, that I am unfriendly to the Spanish, French
or English. They are my brothers, and they, as well as we, are here from like cir



54                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
cuinstances. They, as well as others, who have come from over the waters, are
equally under the same care and protection of our Great Father.
Let us acquaint ourselves with times past, and with things that do not immediately
concern us, with the view of improving our minds and dispositions, and not strain
our brain to find out causes of discontent and quarrel. Let us consider and find out
what will promote our mutual benefit and harmony.
You have looked more to the threatenings of our father's words than to the justice
of them. Let us think of them for a while; and, in turning to them, I would not,
now, or at any other time, make them appear worse against you than the plain talk
of truth, and neither of us, I hope, are so far worse than children as to be frightened
at facts. It is true, as our father also tells you, that the head chief of all our tribes
would, like the sun, bestow his genial blessings on all-the weak and the strongon the mole-hill as well as the mountain; and even when his goodness should be
obstructed, he is yet mild and forbearing for a season, hoping that a sense of right
and wrong will correct and restore the evil; but when he finds that forbearance and
kindness fail-like the sun, when fogs and poisons threaten, the fire of his justice
will dissipate and destroy the evil. Before I left our father's cabin with his words
for you, a runner of his had returned from our father and chief on the west of the
Mississippi, and one from our father to the east of the Wabash, and our father knew
that their minds and determinations were in unison with his, and also with that of our
Great Father of all the tribes. Our father told you of the murder of five whites and
of the horses that were stolen at the same time, between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; this summer one has been murdered on one of the creeks that empties
into the Kaskaskia, and an attempt was made to carry off a woman; since then, one
has been wounded and another murdered near the Piasa rock, on the Mississippi;
and I myself have heard of thirty-three horses having been stolen by the Indians,
during this summer.
Little Chief said: " My friend, I request you, now, to take the names of
the chiefs and warriors, that you may show to your father in Kaskaskia
how ready we have been to attend to his words."
On the 18th of August, the Sac chief, Little Sturgeon, called on Capt.
Levering, who explained to him the circumstance and cause of Capt.
Whiteside having fired on some of his nation on the Mississippi.
The council assembled again; and after Capt. Levering had given his
advice, Gomo said:
We have listened with patient attention, and I hope that the great Master of Light
was noticing it. When the Master of Light made man, he endowed those who wore
hats with every gift, art and knowledge. The red skins, as you see, live in lodges
and on the wilds of nature.
The council then adjourned. Gomo delivered up two of the horses, and
Little Chief agreed to deliver to Capt. Heald, at Chicago, two more; and
Gomo said he would endeavor to have them all returned as soon as they
could be found.
-The chiefs told Capt. Levering that the murderers of the Coles party
were two Indians by the name of Esh-can-ten-e-mane and 0 kat-che-cummich, and that they were both at a village about twenty miles on this side




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     55
of the Prophet's village.  After the departure of the chiefs, Little Chief
returned and said that he wished to tell Captain Levering, in private,
that the murderers of the Coles party could be taken without any trouble,
by inviting them, among others, to a meeting at Fort Wayne next fall,
when, their names being known, the commandant could seize them.
For the purpose of having another talk with the Indians, Gov. Edwards,
in March, 1812, issued the following instructions to Capt. Hebert:
" Capt. Edward Hebert is hereby authorized by me to ascend the Illinois
River as far as he can, with a view to deliver a friendly talk to the Indians
of said river, and also to request the traders of every description to withdraw till our affairs with the Indians have a more settled and favorable
appearance.  I wish the request made in the most delicate manner; but I
also desire that the traders shall know that they need not expect any indulgences, if they should not instantly comply."
NINIAN EDWARDS, Governor,
Superintendent of Indian affairs in and over Illinois Territory.
To GOMO, Chief of the Pottawottamies on Illinois River:
My SON-Captain Hebert not long ago told me that yo were desirous to come to
see me. If you wish to come, you shall be conducted in safety. We never deceived
any Indians who came to see us upon our invitation. 1 do not believe you ever
heard of such treachery from any of your Great Father's officers.
It is my wish to preserve peace, to save the women and children. and to prevent
the earth from being stained with blood. If this is your wish, also, I want to see
you, and you can come with Capt. Hebert. I will send you back safely.
If you are for peace, we are ready to give you our hands. If you are for war, we
are ready for you.
I am not surprised that some of your young men are foolish and wish to go to war.
But you are old enough to know the folly of it. You are too old to be deceived by
the English. They pretend to be your friends, but their object is to get you to fight
their battles, and they care not what becomes of you afterwards.
We wish you to attend to your own business. We do not want you to fight for
us. We can whip the English ourselves.
The English tell you of the power of their King. They tell you he can conquer us.
You ought not to believe them. They told you the same story in the American
war; but you know they did not tell you the truth. We were then like little children, but we whipped them then; and if they thought they were now able to fight us,
why should they want to get your assistance?
Call together your old men, who have had experience in war and who have felt
its bad consequences, and let them advise the foolish.
You have traveled to some of the large cities of your Great Father, and ought to
have some knowledge of his strength. You cannot think to conquer him. You have
everything to lose and nothing to gain by a war with us.
If the English do not behave themselves we will take Canada, and drive them out
of America. You will have no one, then, to help you.
My son, now remember my words. If you and the British will go to war with us,
we shall immediately take Montreal and Upper Canada. We will never suffer a




56                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
British trader to go among you again. We will call home all our own traders and
carry war into your own country. Consider how you are to live without any trade,
when you are at the same time harrassed with war.
Your young men may not believe these things, but you are old enough to know
that they will come to pass. Why will you bring such evils upon yourselves? We
do not wish to afflict you unless you raise the tomahawk. When you do this, you
will not get peace as soon as you will want it. For if your Great Father, the President of the United States, is obliged, by your bad conduct, to go to war with you,
depend upon it he will strike such a blow as will prevent the red people from ever
wishing to go to war with us again.
Council held at Cahokia, April 16, 1812, between Ninian Edwards,
Governor of the Illinois Territory, and the chiefs and warriors of the following nations, to-wit:
Of the Pottawottamies-Gomo, Pepper, White Hair, Little Sauk, Great
Speaker, Yellow Son, Snake, Mankai, Bull, Ieman, Neck-kee-ness-kee-sheck,
Ignace, Powtawamie Prophet, Pamousa, Ish-kee-bee, Toad, Man-wess, Pipe
Bird, Cut Branch, The South Wind, and The Black Bird.
Of the Kickapoos-'Little Deer, and Blue Eyes (representative of Pamawattan), Sun Fish, Blind-of-an-eye, Otter, Mak-kak, Yellow Lips, Dog
Bird, and Black Seed.
Of the Ottaways-Mittitasse (representative of The Blackbird,) Keeska-gon, and Malsh-wa-she-wai.
Of the Chippeways-The White Dog.
Gov. Edwards addressed them as follows:
Chiefs and Warriors of the Pottawottamies, Kickapoos, Chippeways, and Ottaways:
My desire to preserve peace and friendship, if possible, between the red and white
people, induced me to send for you; and I am glad you have come to see me, according to my request, because it shows a desire on your part, as well as mine, to
keep the tomahawk buried.
My Children, your Great Father, the President of the United States, has given
many proofs of his love for the red flesh, and the red skins will always find him a
kind protector so long as they act with pure hearts. He loves both his red and
white children, and does not wish either to do hurt to the other.
My Children, for a long time the bloody tomahawk and scalping-knife have been
buried. The red people enjoyed their forests and pursued their game in peace; and
the white people cultivated the earth without fear. We were all then happy, and
your Great Father was glad to see it. For some time past, a storm has appeared to
be gathering. Injuries have been done, anger has been produced, and war has appeared
to be almost unavoidable.
My Children, that great deceiver, the Shawnee Prophet, has been hired by the
British to tell you falsehoods and to cause you to raise the tomahawk against your
white brother. He pretended to hold talks with the Great Spirit, to impose upon
the weak and foolish. He promised many things. He promised his followers victory at the battle of Tippecanoe; but the American chief, Gov. Harrison, proved
that he was a liar.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    57
My Children, before the Shawnee Prophet'began to work with a bad heart, you
were all happy; but he has distracted the red skins and their happiness is gone.
My Children, those who listened to the Shawnee Prophet have gained nothing but
misery; many of them were wounded, and others lost their lives and left their friends
to mourn over their folly.
My Children, the British have had other bad birds flying among you. I am not
surprised that some of your young men should have been deceived by them. But
there are some of you great chiefs who are old warriors, and wise enough to know
them better. Some of you know the horrors and folly of war well enough to wish
to avoid it.
My Children, you can remember when the British advised the red skins to make
war upon their white brethren of the United States. They then promised you great
assistance; but they deceived you and left you to fight your own battles, and you
found it necessary to sue for peace. At that time you were stronger than you are
now; the woods were then full of game of all kinds; large numbers of you could
collect together and travel through the country without fear of wanting provisions.
But this cannot now be done.
My Children, when the red and white people were formerly at war, we were then
weak; we are now grown strong-have everything necessary for war, and are your
near neighbors. Our Great Father's dominions extend over vast countries, bounded
by the great waters; his towns and cities are hard to be counted, and his white
children are as thick and numerous as the stars of the sky.
My Children, your Great Father has nothing to fear from war with you, for if it
were possible for the red skins to conquer one army, he could soon have another ten
times as strong to oppose you. But he does not wish for war. You have nothing to
hope from it, and you can have peace if you will do justice and comply with your treaty.
My Children, we are about to engage in a war with the British. I wish you to see
how different our conduct is from theirs. We do not wish you to take any part
with us in the war; we do not wish you to fight for us, because we know we are able
to whip them without your help; when we were as little children we fought, conquered them, and took the whole United States away from them; and if we fight
them again, we shall whip them and take the Canadas away from them. For this
purpose our Great Father now has an army of 185,000 men.
My Children, the British pretend to be your friends, but their object is to get you
to fight their battles; and they care not what becomes of you afterwards. They
tell you of the power of their King over the great lake. They say to you that he
can conquer us, but they know this is not true. If they thought they were able to
fight us, why are they so anxious to get you to assist them?
My Children, the British would now load you with presents, if you would engage
in the war, but remember these presents would last you but a little while and would
cost you very dear; for if you join them in the war against us, remember now my
words: We shall take Montreal and all Upper Canada. British traders and English
goods will never be suffered to go among you again. Our own traders will all be
recalled. War will be waged against you. Your country will be taken and strong
garrisons will be built in order to retain it. Consider how you are to live without
any trade, when, at the same time, you will be so harassed with war, that you can
hunt nowhere with safety.
My Children, your young men may not believe these things, but your old warriors
and brave chiefs have sense enough to know they will come to paesa  I tell you
-8




58                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
these things because I am so much your friend, that I do not wish you to bring those
evils upon yourselves, your wives and helpless children.
My Children, we do not wish to afflict you unless you raise the tomahawk. When
you do this you may not get peace as soon as you may want it: for if your Great
Father, the President of the United States, is obliged, by your bad conduct, to go
to war with you, he will strike such a blow as will be sufficient to prevent the red
people from ever going to war with us again.
My Children, remember it is easy to get'into war, but hard to get out of it again
with advantage,
My Children, I am satisfied that many of you have too much sense to listen to all
the Prophet's lies, and hate him in your hearts, because he deceived your friends
and has brought trouble on you all. But some of your people have listened to him,
or other bad advisers, and they have done us injuries which cannot be overlooked.
My Children, guilty as the Prophet has been, he has not done all the mischief;
others have done mischief, hoping they would escape punishment by laying the
blame upon him; but this must not be suffered. While some of your tribes have
been professing peace, your men have been committing depredations upon us. This
cannot be suffered; unless such bad men shall be given up for punishment, the tribe
must be answerable for their conduct. Your Great Father has been waiting to see
if justice would be done in those cases by yourselves, and this has led you into an error; for you suppose that because he has not made war upon you to revenge himself,
that he does not mean to have satisfaction, and you do not seem to think yourself
bound to deliver up such bad men; but even protect them, knowing their guilt,
and they are encouraged to do more mischief. If this conduct should be suffered,
our people might be murdered every day, and we never could get satisfaction-because we could not distinguish the guilty from the innocent.
My Children, while we trusted to treaties with you-while we believed our red
brethren to be friendly-some of our people on this side and some on the other side
of the Mississippi, fearing no danger, have been plundered of their property and deprived of their lives by some of your bad men; many horses have been stolen, for
which no satisfaction has been made, although it was promised. On the 19th day
of July, 1810, four men were killed and a fifth wounded, in the district of St. Charles,
in Louisiana. On the 2d June, last year, three of your bad men went to the house of
a Mr. Cox, in this country, plundered him of a great deal of property, barbarously
killed his son, and took his daughter a prisoner. A few days afterwards another
party killed a man by the name of Price, and wounded another by the name of Ellis,
in this country also, and near the Mississippi.
My Children, these were great outrages, but I used my exertions to prevent the
people from rising to revenge themselves; and I sent Capt. Levering to you to demand of you to give up the offenders, as you had bound yourselves, by treaty, to do.
You did not deliver them up, yet you say that you wish to be governed by the treaty,
and still you will not comply with it.
My Children, when I demanded those bad men, by Capt. Levering, you professed
not to know where they were; and still you said you could not deliver them up.
Since that time I have found out that some of them were actually with you-that
they are positively of your party, and have resided near Peoria ever since.
My Children, you stated that the chiefs did not know, when mischief was done, who
of their party committed it. We know enough of your customs to satisfy us that




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      59
such things are seldom concealed among you. But this, if true, was no excuse for
failing to deliver those you knew to be guilty.
My Children, you complained that we never delivered up our men to you when they
did mischief. We are not bound to do so by the treaty; we punish our men when
we can prove them to be guilty, just as we would punish the red people for the same
offenses. But you have failed to give up the late offenders for us topunish them, nor
have you punished them yourselves, though you know them to be guilty.
My Children, when I sent Capt. Levering to you with my talk, I was sorry to find,
in the answer I received, statements so much like those which the Prophet is in the
habit of expressing. You attempted to draw a contrast between the people of the
United States and French and British; you then said the French and British never
built forts, but that the Americans did so. This is not true. When the British first
made great canoes and crossed the great lake, they always built forts; and so did the
French. There are the remains of old forts everywhere near the great lake; both
the French and English built forts at Pittsburgh, on the Ohio. You see those works
at St. Louis. There is also a fort, called Fort Chartres, between this place and Kaskaskia. There are forts in Canada and many other places that were built by the British and French.
My Children, you also said to Capt. Levering that when the French and British
made presents to the Indians, they never asked any land; but that the Americans
never made you any presents, except they asked first for a little land and then for a
great deal.
My Children, there is indeed a difference between us and the French and British,
in this respect. We never take your land without paying you for it. They claimed
all your land and took it whenever they wanted it, without paying you anything.
They did not acknowledge that you had any land, and they have transferred it all to
us, without paying any regard to your claim.
My Children, when the British first crossed the great lake, the red people owned
all the land to the great water. The British took it all from you, and never paid anything. The red people also owned Canada; but that has been taken from them, and
you have never heard that the Indians received anything for all the lands that the
British now hold there, nor did you ever hear that the French paid for the land they
held on this or the other side of the Mississippi River.
My Children, we never want to buy your land, or take it from you, unless you wish
to sell it, and then we will give you the price that you ask for it. You cannot show
that we ever took a foot of your land, since we got clear of the King of England, without paying for it, and we are not answerable for the sins of the British King; for we
all know that he is not a good man, and that he did great injustice to the red people,
by taking their land without paying for it, although he now pretends to be their friend,
because he wishes them to fight for him. I hope, therefore, I shall hear no more upon
this subject.
My Children, you told Capt. Levering that if we did not have peace with you, it
would be our fault. This is not true; we only ask justice of you. If you do justice,
we wish for peace; but we cannot consent that the land shall be stained with the
blood of our innocent brethren, without some satisfaction being given. Peace, upon
such terms, is worse than war.
My Children, the blood of these innocent persons who have been wounded and murdered cries aloud to the Great Spirit for vengeance. The hearts of their relations
and brethren bleed with sorrow, and they thirst for revenge.




60                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
My Children, now open your ears to hear my words, and let them sink deep into
your hearts. If you wish for peace with us, you must do us justice. If you disapprove those murders and other outrages that have been committed, you must deliver
up the offenders, or punish them yourselves; for if you harbor among you such deadly
enemies to us, you cannot be our friends, and you ought not to expect our friendship.
My Children, you can choose peace or war upon proper terms. If you choose peace
and will do justice, it will rejoice the heart of your Great Father and the hearts of
all your white brethren.
My Children, if you or any other red people should be for war, we shall be ready
for you. I have an army coming on for the defense of my people. It will soon be at
this place, and if any more murders should be committed upon our people, I shall take
revenge. You must not let any such bad men come from among you, and you must
not harbor among you bad men of other tribes, knowing that they have injured us.
My Children, it now appears that the Winnebagoes are about to make war upon us,
and it is probable that other red people will also do mischief, hoping that it will be laid
upon the Winnebagoes; but I shall be upon my watch to detect and punish all such.
My Children, there has lately been much mischief done. I have strong reason to
believe that others, besides the Winnebagoes, have been concerned, and that some
of you have knowledge of it. If you are friends I expect you will tell us all you know.
My Children, let justice be done, let all cause of complaint be removed, and let us
again live like brothers.
My Children, we do not want your land. We have more land already than we can
use, and I shall neither propose to buy it, nor does your Great Father, or myself,
wish to take a foot of it from you. Those who tell you to the contrary tell you lies
and wish to deceive.
My Children, shut your ears against all evil counsellors and comply with your treaty,
and you shall still be treated as friends and brothers.
METTETASSE rose and said: This is the one (pointing to GOMO) who is to answer
your speech of yesterday, in the name of us all-Pottawottamies, Kickapoos, Chippeways and Ottaways.
THE PEPPER-My Father, my brother here, the oldest chief, will answer you. We
have all heard your speech of yesterday, and we will all hear his answer to you;
and, when the council is over, we all desire to go home.
THE LITTLE DEER-My Father, I am of the village of the Great Lick. I speak in
the name of Blue Eyes, the representative of Pamawatam. I give you my hand,
and wish to be peaceable. You might have heard talk of me, and I am well known
by all these Indians here, and it is well known to them all that I never listened to
the Prophet; and I am the first chief who, after the battle of Tippecanoe, went to
Gov. Harrison with my flag.
My Father, my chiefs and warriors are here, who all know me to be a peaceable
Indian. My village is small. This man (meaning GOMO) will speak to you, and we
will all agree to what he will say.
My Father, the people of my village are now anxious for my return, to hear the
result of this council.
My Father, we have reflected on your speech of yesterday, and we have consulted
together. Goao will answer in the name of us all. We wish to cross over so soon as
the council is over.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      61
GOMO' ANSWER.
My Father, you have heard what my war chiefs have said. I will speak to you as
the Great Spirit inspires me.
My Father, in this manner the Great Spirit has taught me to speak by giving me
a pipe and tobacco, therein to make my father smoke.
My Father, this is the pipe we have smoked together. I smoked out of it in coming down to see you.
My Father, all the chiefs that I left at home hold their pipes in their hands, to
smoke with us on our return.
My Father, we always kept fast hold of the pipe of peace. That pipe will remain
with you; and although it remains with you, it is still in our hands.
My Father, while you are smoking that pipe, your children smoke also with you.
My Father, when the Great Spirit created us, he gave us the pipe of peace. The
wampum we wear was made by our white brothers.
My Father, the manner in which I present you the pipe is our way and was transmitted to us by our ancestors, and we now know you hold it.
My Father, all that you said yesterday was well said, and I assure you it has sunk
deep into my heart, and it is from the bottom of my heart that I will speak.
My Father, if I came here, it was to hear your words, and therefore I thank you
for what you did say.
My Father, I am not to make a council of myself, and when my chiefs tell me
what to say, I do so. Therefore, what I now say is from them all.
My Father, I now show you I obeyed your orders. I intended to go and quarrel
with the Prophet, but I have put that off because you sent for me.
My Father, what has scared all our towns and villages is that affair that happened
on the Wabash.
My Father, we fave reflected considerably since yesterday. It is neither you nor
I that made this earth, and the Great Spirit is angry, and we do not know what he
will do.
My Father, by what I see to-day, probably our Great Spirit is angry, and wants us
to return to ourselves and live in peace. What I now say is from the bottom of my
heart.
My Father, you see many children have sold their lands. The Great Spirit did
not give them the land to sell. Perhaps that is the cause why the Great Spirit is
angry.
My Father, you have often been deceived. A chief will come and sell land. Can
a chief sell land? I am a chief, but I am poor and worthy of pity, and I want to
live in peace on our land.
My Father, if there could be found among us one chief who had influence enough
to deliver a murderer, I would be happy to see such a chief.
My Father, you probably think I am a great chief. I am not! I cannot control
my young men as I please.
My Father, I am a red skin; I am not a great chief. I am a chief whilst my young
men are growing, but when they become grown I am no more master of them.
My Father, the Great Spirit created us all. We have not the same power that you
have. You have troops and laws. When a man does ill, you have him taken and
punished; but this we cannot do.
My Father, I could very easily secure or kill the murderers you mention; but unless the whole of my chiefs and young men are consenting, I would be killed.




62                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
My Father, concerning the murderers, we will consult all together, and we will
then know what we will do.
My Father, I have not forgotten Gen. Wayne's counsel, and I have always tried
to follow it and to live in peace.
My Father, at the time the red skins were fighting, I was not among them. I was
then traveling through the States, and went to Washington City to see our Great
Father, and I was led to several sea-ports in America.
My Father, when Turkey-foot came here and killed your white children, you desired he should be killed. We got together and consulted among ourselves, and we
killed him.
My Father, the Kickapoos were those that killed your children on the Missouri.
You demanded the murderers. Here is the Blue Eyes present who brought them in,
My Father, it is impossible for us to bring in murderers. They are too much dispersed and too far off,
My Father, here is my oldest brother (Gen. Clark), that I saw two years ago, who
told me to live in peace, which I have always done.
My Father, in our treaty we are bound to deliver up murderers. I am not the
only chief who could not deliver up murderers.
My Father, at the Miami village a Pottawottamie was killed by an American. We
never demanded the murderer, but the factor there covered our dead brother by
giving us goods.
My Father, I have heard the good advice of your speech. I never listen to any
evil birds. I am for living in peace, and I will return to my people and rehearse
them your speech.
My Father, at the time the British and Americans fought, in the last war, we
never meddled in it. We used to come down here and follow the advice of a chief
who was then here.
My Father, I have already said to you we never meddled in the British battles;
and, therefore, do you think we would now join them? No, never!
My Father, no one can say I ever went to the English factories, or ever got a
blanket from the English. When I wanted a blanket, I would buy one from our
trader.
My Father, I must tell you the truth. I went to see them two years ago, and when
I got there the Indians, on seeing me, said, "here comes an American!" and it was
with difficulty that I got home without starving.
My Father, a father, when he wants his children to do well, instructs them. You
did so yesterday, and I was well pleased.
My Father, you asked me to tell you what was going on' in our towns. I cannot
now say, for I have been a long time absent, in our sugar camps. When I return
home, I will be able to learn.
My Father, I will state what I learnt last fall.
My Father, when Mainpock went to war, he had one of his young men killed,
who was an Ottawa, and related to another old man; and this old man sent his son
to the English. He said, "my father has sent for goods." And they told him he
must be very sorry for the loss of his son.
My Father, the British then told him, "why do you go to war against the Osages?
Go against the Americans; they are close."
My Father, when his son returned the old man answered the British agent, telling
him to fight his own battles, as he was determined to live in peace.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     63
My Father, do you think we would join the English? We remember, when you
beat them, they left us in the lurch, and we had to fly. Certainly we will not join
them again.
My Father, we have friends among us who often tell us not to join the Englishthat they will again forsake us; therefore we remain in peace.
My Father, I do not speak for all the Indian nations; I speak for those here.
My Father, you will easily know those who will assist the English; it cannot be
kept hid.
My Father, sometimes it makes me reflect, when I consider on the promises you
made us not to leave us in misery.
My Father, you told us, when you spoke to the Black Bird, that our fires would
always be kept up clear, and that we should not suffer. This has not been kept.
My Father, my chiefs have gone among the nations and received prisoners, and
returned them.
My Father, I never tried to sell land to get goods to cover us. I always got my
covering from my hunt.
My Father, I am not of those men who go and see their father to sell land. I go
and see my father to hear his words.
My Father, my desire is that our land remain as clear as this blue ribbon.
My Father, you see I have brought you our wives and children, to show you how
ragged they are.
My Father, I thought of asking you to place a factory in our town of Peoria, but
on account of the Winnebagoes, who are roving about, should any be killed, we
might be blamed; therefore I will not, at present, ask for one.
My Father, if it was your wish to send us goods, we would wish the factor to be a
man who has resided and does reside with us.
My Father, I have been asked to go and see our Great Father. The voyage is so
long that I would wish to remain at home in peace.
My Father, you sent for us and we came down, and were fired at. We wish you
had a fort at the entrance of the Illinois River, at which, in coming down, we might
stop.
My Father, when a garrison will be there we will come and see you oftener, and
feel better protected.
My Father, we are four nations here. Whatever the English may do, you may
rest assured none of us will join them.
My Father, I am at the other end of Peoria Lake. It is there where we will reside, and remain at peace in hunting to support our families.
My Father, we intend to meet and draw near to one another, with the intention
of living together in peace.
My Father, I have not much sense, but when you shall send any of your young
men into our towns, they shall not be afraid for it.
My Father, when you sent us Capt. Levering, he was received and well treated by
all our people.
My Father, it is all I have to say. I hope the Great Spirit will assist me in complJing with what I have said.




64                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
GOV. EDWARDS' REPLY.
My Children, I will speak to you in a plain and short manner, and I wish my words
to sink deep into your hearts.
My Children, if any of your white brethren had gone among you and committed
murders and robberies, your Great Father never would have forgiven them for it,
but they would have been punished as soon as their guilt could be proved.
My Children, your Great Father cannot forgive those who have murdered his white
children and taken their property. Your Great Father's children would no longer
love him if he were to suffer such things to pass unpunished.
My Children, your Great Father now asks you to do nothing for him but what he
would do for you, in the same circumstances.
My Children, you objected to give up those bad men to be hung, like dogs, as you
call it, and I now agree to permit you to kill them yourselves; and, if you will consent to do it, I will send a man with you to see it done, and we shall then have peace.
My Children, you do not acknowledge that any of the murderers are of your party,
except those who killed Cox and took his sister prisoner. What you say may be true,
and I now only demand that you shall deliver to me or that you shall kill those murderers that you acknowledge are of your party.
My Children, these three murderers that I now demand are Pottawottamies, and
I call upon you, great chiefs and brave warriors of the Pottawottamies, to comply
with your treaty and deliver up these bad men, or kill them yourselves.
My Children, I want to see if you will do that justice which you acknowledge is in
your power, and then I shall believe you tell the truth when you say you wish for
peace; and you shall be treated as good and dutiful children of your Great Father.
My Children, you say our people are not always punished when they do you injury,
but we always punish them, if we can find them out; and you have no excuse for not
punishing those who have lived among you and whom you know to be guilty.
My Children, you say these bad men are gone to the Prophet. This I know is not
true-for one of them you left near Peoria, with a sore foot, and they have lived within three leagues of Peoria for a long time.
My Children, it is no excuse for you to say that these men are gone to the Prophet,
because they were with you when I demanded them of you last year, and you have
had it in your power to deliver them up for a long time.
My Children, you cannot suppose that we are people who can suffer our brethren
to be murdered without having revenge. When we demand the murderers of you,
you say they are gone to the Prophet. Whei Gov. Harrison demanded them of the
Prophet, he said they were gone to you. You cannot suppose us such fools as to be
put off this way.
My Children, suppose some of our bad men were to go and kill your warriors, and
you could prove the fact! You find them to be the children of the American chief,
Gov. Harrison. You go to him and demand that they should be punished. He tells
you they are gone to Gov. Edwards. You then come to me. I tell you they are gone
to Gov. Howard. You go to him. He tells you they are gone to Gov. Harrison!by which you could get no satisfaction. You would think we were trying to make
fools of you. And we now think the same thing of you! You would want revenge,
and so do we want revenge; and we will have it.
My Children, think of these things. One day or other you will be sorry that you
did not listen to my advice, and you will then be convinced that I was your friend.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      65
My Children, I have heard your words, and I am sure there are good men among
you, and wish we could be friends. It may be a hard case for you to punish your bad
men; but you must remember it is a hard case for us to have our children and brothers murdered without revenge. If you will do us justice by punishing your murderers, and be friendly with us as brothers, you shall be protected against white people
and red people also. The Great Spirit made us all, and loves us. I wish to take you
to my heart and cover you with my wing. We do not want to buy your land, but we
will not give up what we have bought. You sold the lands, or your fathers did, and
you have no right to keep the pay and the land too. If twenty of your men murders
a hundred of our people, what are we to do? We cannot find them and you will not
punish them; what are we to do? You surely do not expect that we will let our
people be murdered, without revenge. If you will not give up your bad men who kill
us, we must kill as many of yours-and then we may kill the innocent, which we do
not wish to do.
GOMO S REPLY TO THE GOVERNOR'S SECOND SPEECH.
My Father, we are happy to hear what you have said, for we have come down here
for that purpose.
My Father, what you have recommended me to do, I will do.
My Father, we came here to hear your words; the chiefs and warriors have all heard
you. You will hear What I have done when I get home.
My Father, this is all I have to say to you. We will pay attention to your words.
PEORIA IN 1812.
Sometime in the fall of 1812, Capt. Thos. E. Craig was ordered by GQv.
Edwards to go to Peoria, and take prisoners those persons who were there
for the purpose of assisting the savages to murder our frontier settlers.
Capt. Craig was successful in the expedition and returned to Camp Russell
on the 16th of November, 1812, bringing a number of the inhabitants of
Peoria as prisoners, together with a considerable quantity of different kinds
of property. The prisoners were taken to St. Louis and discharged.
Gov. Coles, in his report to the Secretary of the Treasury in relation to
claims to lots in the village of Peoria, Illinois, refers to that place thus:
The village of Peoria is situated on the north-west shore of Lake Peoria, about one
and a half miles above the lower extremity or outlet of the lake. This village had
been inhabited by the French previous to the recollection of any of the present generation. About the year 1778, the first house was built, in what was then called
La ville de Maillet-afterwards the new village of Peoria-and of late the place has
been known by the name of Fort Clark. The situation being preferred in consequence
of the water being better, and its being thought more healthy, the inhabitants gradually deserted the old village, and, by the year 1'96 or 1'97, had entirely abandoned
it and removed to the new village.
The inhabitants of Peoria consisted generally of Indian traders, hunters and voyagers, and had formed a link of connection between the French residing on the waters
of the great lakes and the Mississippi River. From that happy facility of adapting
themselves to their situation and associates, for which the French are so remarkable,
the inhabitants of Peoria lived generally in harmony with their savage neighbors. It
would seem, however, that about the year 1781, they were induced to abandon their
-9




66                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
village from the apprehension of Indian hostility; but soon after the peace of 1783
they again returned to it, and continued to reside there until the autumn of 1812,
when they were forcibly removed from it and the place destroyed by a Capt. Craig,
of the Illinois militia, on the ground, it was said, that he and his company were fired
on in the night, while at anchor in the boats, before the village, by the Indians, with
whom the inhabitants were suspected, by Craig, to be too intimate and friendly.
The inhabitants of Peoria, it would appear, and from all I can learn, settled there
without any grant or permission from the authority of any government; that the only
title they had to the land was derived from possession.
It appears, from this report of Gov. Coles, that the following persons
were driven from Peoria in 1812, by Capt. Craig: Thomas Forsyth, Jacques
Mette, P. Larasier, (alias Chamberlain,) Antoine Le Claire, Michael Lacroix, Francis Racine, Sr., Frahcis Racine, Jr., Felix Fontaine, Hvpolite
Maillet, Francis Bauche, the heirs of Charles La Belle, Antoine La Pance,
Antoine Barboune, and Louis Pencenneau. In the above list is not included the women and children. From other authentic sources I am inclined to believe that the number of inhabitants then in Peoria was between two and three hundred. It was not settled again for many years,
and the following account is given of it in a letter from Gen. Joseph Street,
of March 30, 1827:
The whole county, as now cut down, contains about thirty or forty men, and in its
best state the whole docket does not exhibit thirty cases. There is nothing doing on
land and still less on the water, if such comparison is admissible. The harbor and
town site are the best, I presume, in all the western country; but not one sail enlivens the monotonous prospect or one oar dips into the "dark blue waves" of the fairy
lake from one year's end to the other-if you will except the ferry boat, with now and
then the canoe of a few miserable savages in quest of a dram.
After describing the country on both sides of the river, he continues:
This is the country, and a view of the resources and present prospects has been
hinted at and partially detailed. Upon this view, what is your opinion, my friend?
What should I do here or how could I do? It is true there is no prospect of getting
bread for my numerous family, but there is great reason to believe they would not
long want food at such a place. I could have gotten the county clerkship, but the
recorder and judge of probate's offices, Dixon, has determined to hold. The other two
are not worth $50 per annum-no, not $30. I cannot possibly go there. The clerkship of Peoria is worth nothing; the place, at present, has no attraction for me.
As Gov. Edwards' term of office expired by law, he was subsequently
reappointed in 1812, and again in 1815, and continued to fill the executive
chair until the organization of the State Government. For nearly four
years, in the early period of his administration, no Territorial Legislature
existed. The laws were made and administered by the Goveror and Judges.
The Governor had power to authorize the formation of a Territorial Legislature whenever he judged the interests of the country required it; but, in
accordance with those principles to which he was always devoted, he chose




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               67
to be guided by a deliberate expression of the will of the people. Accordingly, in March, 1812, he issued a proclamation for an election to be held
in the different settlements, to ascertain whether a majority were in favor
of a Legislative Government. Such being the decision of the people, as
expressed at the polls, he issued another proclamation, dated September 14,
1812, ordering an election to be held on the 8th, 9th and 10th of October,
and authorized the people to choose one delegate to Congress, and members
for the two houses of the Territorial Legislature; and, at the same time,
made provision for the organization of Madison, Gallatin and Johnson
counties. Two counties-St. Clair and Randolph-had been organized
under the jurisdiction of the Northwestern Territory.
Here we ought to return and contemplate the situation of the Territory
of Illinois, at the period of his appointment as Governor. Its population,
much divided by habits, and even by language and national peculiaritiesuntried in the art of government-numbering less than nine thousand souls,
and these residing in a few French villages or scattered through a few
feeble American settlements. The Indians occupied by far the greater
portion of the Territory, greatly outnumbering the whites, and meditating
hostilities on the whole line of frontier settlements. After putting the
machinery of the new government into operation, his penetrating mind
perceived the necessity of learning the numbers, strength, position, resources and intentions of the Indian tribes in the interior. Accordingly
he employed, at different times, trusty persons of the French population,
acquainted with the Indian character, languages and habits, and who could
safely penetrate the Indian country and gain the desired information.
Thousands of the citizens of this now flourishing State, who have known
and highly appreciated his services in more conspicuous stations of public
life, have little knowledge, probably, of his unremitting vigilance, quick
penetration of danger and timely application of means to prevent attack,
during the period immediately preceding the war, and while the artful and
talented chieftain, Tecumseh, was striving to effect a combination of all the
tribes, from Canada to the Floridas, preparatory to an attack upon the
frontier territories. For several years the correspondence of Gov. Edwards
with the War Department, and other authorities, was voluminous, and does
honor to his talents as a writer, his patriotism and his sagacity.
No one can read this correspondence, now on file in the office of the Secretary of State, without being convinced of his sleepless vigilance and his
ardent devotion to the welfare of the people of that trying period. No
father ever felt more acutely for the preservation of his children, when exposed to danger, than did Gov. Edwards for the safety of these frontiers.
In the year 1812, having, by the utmost vigilance and industry-for
which he was distinguished-penetrated the designs of the Indians, and




68                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
clearly foreseeing the imminent danger which threatened the Illinois Territory-finding it entirely abandoned to its fate, by the officer to whom its
defense had been intrusted, and believing its overthrow inevitable without
a vigorous effort to defend it-he determined, at the risk of his private fortune, (which would have been sacrificed had not his conduct been approved
by the General Government) to undertake its defense. Without any instructions to justify it, and, during the most important crisis, without any
commission-his old one having expired and no new one having been received-he marched, at the head of a considerable body of volunteers raised
by him for' the special occasion, with whose assistance he successfully
repelled the attacks of the savages, and carried the war into their own
country.
Mr. Lanman, in his Biographical Sketches, says that "before Congress
had adopted any measures on the subject of volunteer rangers, he organized
companies, supplied them with arms, built stockade forts, and established a
line of posts from the mouth of the Missouri to the Wabash River. He
was thus prepared for defense; and, during the Indian wars on the frontier,
was most devoted to his country's service."
I need not repeat how much the success of these measures depended
upon the fidelity, confidence and patriotism of the people. I only advert
to it to show that the people regarded him as wise in planning and energetic in executing these measures for the protection of their families and
defense of their country, and most cheerfully yielded him their united support. Nor does it comport with the present occasion for me to name those
patriotic citizens that, with him, shared the hardships and responsibilities
of that day of trial in subordinate posts of honor and authority.
While embodying and forming the citizens into the ranks of military
service of defense, and while it was somewhat doubtful whether the measure would so far meet with the approbation of the General Government as
to procure a remuneration of their expenses, the Commander-in-chief hesitated not to assure them that if the Government failed to provide for their
services, no one should suffer while his own ample fortune could supply
their necessities.
In the campaign of 1812, it became necessary to remove or disperse the
hostile Indians from the regions of Mackinaw and Peoria. Aid was expected from Gen. Hopkins, who had marched from Kentucky with a considerable force of volunteers, and who was instructed to form a junction
with the rangers and volunteers of Illinois, under the command of Gov.
Edwards. Though Gen. Hopkins penetrated a considerable distance into
the prairies west of the Wabash, he never arrived at the point of the contemplated attack. A boat loaded with provisions, fortified and manned with
a small company, under the command of Capt. Craig, was dispatched up the
river to wait at Peoria for the relief of the army.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      69
All the U. S. rangers and mounted volunteers who could be spared for this
enterprise were only about three hundred and fifty. After organizing at
Camp Russell, near where Edwardsville now stands, and each man furnishing himself with provisions for twenty or thirty days, which he carried on
his horse, the Governor, with this small force, took up the line of his march
through the prairies into the heart of the Indian country, one hundred and
sixty miles distant.  I have not time to recount the hardships and sufferings of this campaign. In one particular its object was defeated-in not
meeting with Gen. Hopkins and his volunteers; but the bravery, skill and
success on the part of the Illinois rangers and volunteers, under the guidance of their able commander, were not less conspicuous.   They broke up
the Indian towns on the Kickapoo, Mackinaw, and the bluffs near the head
of Peoria Lake, destroyed their crops, killed a number, took some prisoners,
and returned in safety with one man mortally and three others slightly
wounded.
Gov. Edwards was faithfully devoted to his country's service in laborious
and watchful days and pensive and sleepless nights. Was there danger in
the field, he was the first to meet it; was there toil, hardship and anxiety,
he was the first to feel it. The soldiers looked to him with reverence, confidence and respect, for he was their companion and friend. The rights of
his fellow-citizens were sacred to him, and they loved and admired him as
their protector.
The following letter to the Secretary of War contains an official account
of the expedition to Peoria:
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH Co.,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Nov. 18, 1812.)
To the HON. Wma. EUSTIS,
Secretary of War, Washington City,
SIR: Of the perils to which this Territory has been exposed, during this year, I
need add nothing to my former communication; but I beg leave to trouble you with
a sketch of my military operations.
In the early part of the season, and until the month of August, my measures were
entirely of a defensive and precautionary character-having kept a few companies of
mounted riflemen ranging across the Territory in such a manner as to cover our frontier, their line of march being sometimes three and never less than one day's journey
in advance of our settlements.
While this plan afforded the best practicable means of obtaining timely notice of
the approach of a large body of Indians, I thought that small parties, from whom I
apprehended at that time the most danger, seeing our line of ranging so far beyond
the settlements, would naturally be afraid to cross it, lest their trail should be discovered and they be cut off. And as there were so many points in the Territory equally
accessible to them, I preferred this disposition of my small force to that of collecting
it together at any one place; and my success has exceeded my most sanguine calculations-not having lost a single life, on as dangerous and exposed a frontier as any
in the United States.




70                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
In the latter part of August, being convinced that a large body of Indians intended
to attack us, and Col. Russell, who had arrived only a short time before with one
company of rangers, being called off with them to Vincennes, I immediately determined to collect and organize the most efficient force in my power, to take the command of it myself, and defend the Territory to the last extremity. Many circumstances induced me to believe that the meditated attack would be made on that part of
our frontier wiich lies between the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers-under which
conviction (which subsequent events proved to be well founded) I established and
supported several forts, at convenient distances on a line from one river to the other,
and as near to the centre of that line as a due regard to other circumstances, which
were entitled to weight, would admit of. I built a large strong fort, at which I collected my principal force-it being a point from which I could most conveniently aid
or relieve every other part that might be attacked.
Whilst the small body of infantry I had in service were relied on for the defense of
these forts, between four and five hundred mounted riflemen were kept almost constantly ranging in the country between us and the enemy. But scarcely were these
measures put into operation, before I ascertained the very day on which the Indians
proposed to assemble at Peoria for the purpose of coming down upon us, the route
they intended to take, and the objects they had in view; and I collected together,
with as much dispatch as possible, all my mounted men, with the intention of setting
out on an expedition against them-so planned as to fall in their rear and surprise
them, from which I did anticipate the most glorious result; and I am well convinced
I would not have been disappointed, for they had taken such extraordinary precautions to prevent their intentions being discovered, that they themselves entertained
no doubt that they had succeeded. But with every effort in my power to accomplish
my object, I was forced most reluctantly to abandon it, merely because the contractor
failed to supply the necessary rations.
It then became necessary to meet the danger in some other way; and calculating
rather upon desultory attacks from the enemy, than a united one, I endeavored to
have them opposed at every avenue through which they would be most likely to invade us-for which purpose I detached one company up the Illinois River, in a well
fortified boat, armed with muskets, blunderbusses and swivel.
The mounted riflemen I sent out in separate detachments to different parts of the
same river, with orders to keep up a constant communication with each other, and to
act either separately or together, as circumstances might require.
All these detachments, except one, soon fell in with Indian trails, gave chase to the
Indians for several days in succession, and would certainly have overtaken them, had
they not been retarded by the heavy rains that fell about that time. Finally those
Indians, after having stolen seven horses and wounded two men, in an unsuccessful
attack they made on one of our forts, were completely repulsed, and returned about
the last of September to their own villages. Of their number various accounts have
been given. All, however, agree that it was considerable, and I am pursuaded that
there is not one well informed man in this county who does not now believe that if
timely preparations had not been made to resist them on the frontier that I occupied,
the consequences would heve been melancholy and distressing. As the least of them,
had only a few families been killed, others would have removed, and terror would
have pervaded and depopulated this Territory.
When I found that the Indians had retired from our frontier I began to prepare for
an expedition against them, being fully convinced that I could so regulate it as to surprise them in their villages at the head of Peoria Lake. At this time I calculated on




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     71
no assistance or forces whatever, beyond what I had raised in the Territory; but after
every preparation was made, and the day of our departure fixed on, I received a letter
from Col. Russell, proposing to me an expedition somewhat similar, and promising to
come on before the day I had appointed for marching  He accordingly arrived, with
a part of two companies of rangers, consisting of fifty privates and their officers, and
tendered me his services, which I gladly accepted by appointing him second in command-well knowing and duly appreciating his great experience in Indian warfare and
his merits as a military officer.
Through him I also learnt that Gen. Hopkins was to march to Peoria with at least
two thousand mounted volunteers, and would arrive at that place about the time I expected to be at the head of Peoria Lake.
In consequence of this latter information, as an addition to my original plan I sent
one company of volunteers, with two boats, to Peoria-one of them being well fortified and the other carrying as much provisions as I could collect, and the necessary
tools to enable Gen. Hopkins to build a fort at that place, provided he chose to do so,
or, otherwise, to build it myself under cover of his army, whilst it was marching, as
he proposed it should do, up the Illinois River.
On the 18th of October, having made arrangements for the defense of the frontier
in my absence, and leaving a force which, under existing circumstances, I deenied adequate to that object, I commenced my march with about four hundred mounted volunteers. On our way we burnt two Kickapoo villages, on the saline fork of Sangamon
River —till which time I had permitted it to be understood that I intended to march
to Peoria and cross the Illinois at that place. But as my plan was entirely a different
one, I then thought it advisable to call a council of officers and unfold to them my real
views and intentions, in which, they all concurring, we marched with uncommon rapidity to a large village at the head of Peoria Lake, inhabited by Kickapoos and Miamies. It was situated at the foot of a hill, which terminates the low grounds of the Illinois River at that place and runs many miles parallel with it. In front of this village
the bottom, which is three miles wide, is so flat, wet and marshy, as to be almost utterly impassable to man or horse. Unfortunately our guides, instead of leading us down
the hill at the village, as I had expected, led us into the bottom about three-quarters
of a mile below it, and thereby deranged a plan of attack which I had at first contemplated. As we approached the town the Indians were seen running out of it in considerable numbers, and for some time I thought they were forming to give us battle.
With the centre of my little army I was marching in a direct course towards them,
the right wing being ordered to gain their flank on the right of us, whilst the left was
directed to cut off their retreat to the river. But in a short time I discovered them,
some on horseback, others on foot, all running as fast they could in a course at right
angles from that which I was pursuing, towards a point of woods in which I expected
they intended to form. I immediately changed my course, ordered and lead on a general charge upon them, and would have succeeded in cutting off their retreat had it
not been for the unsoundness of the ground over which we had to run. We, however,
rushed upon them with such impetuosity that they were forced to scatter and take
refuge in the swamp, in which those who were on horseback left their horses so completely mired that they could not move. A part was pursued through the swamp to
the river, where several were killed and the town of Chequeneboc, (a Pottawottamie
chief, who headed the party that came down to attack us,) together with all the pro
visions and other property it contained, was burnt. Another party was pursued into
the swamp in a different direction; several were killed, but finally they rallied at




72                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
that point in such numbers that those who pursued them were forced to retreat. I
then sent in a reinforcement, which induced the Indians entirely to give ground. The
pursuit and fight over, we returned to the village, which, with a great quantity of provisions and other valuable Indian property, we burnt and otherwise destroyed. We
brought off with us about eighty head of horses and four prisoners, having killed, according to the Indian accounts, frequently given, between twenty-four and thirty Indians, without the loss of a single man, and having only one wounded; which, in my
opinion, was entirely owing to the charge that was made upon the enemy, as they
were run so hard that when they attempted to form they were out of breath, and
could not shoot with sufficient accuracy.
Not meeting with nor hearing from Hopkins, and knowing that my force was too
weak and our horses too much fatigued to attempt anything further, I detached a party the next day to Peoria to leave directions for the Captain who commanded the
boats to return, as speedily as possible. This party burnt another village that had
been lately built within half a mile of Peoria, by the Miamies; and we all returned to
my headquarters, at Camp Russell, after a tour of thirteen days only.
The conduct of both the men and officers under my command was highly honorable
to themselves and useful to our country. They were uniformly obedient to my orders,
appeared sincerely desirous of giving me every assistance in their power, and in the
attack'upon the Indians they displayed a gallantry and intrepidity that could not be
surpassed.
You will clearly perceive, from the nature of my arrangements and plans of operation, that they have been actively employed in the most arduous duties, and I hope
they will soon receive the reward that is due to their services.
The boats did not return till the 15th inst., which has delayed this communication
to this time.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.




CHAPTER IV.
Termination of the War with the Indians —Gov. Edwards' Speech to the
Officers and Soldiers of the Army-Reply of the Army —Address of the
Governor to the Legislature-Reply to his Message by the Legislature.
Gov. Edwards' address to the late detachment of militia from St. Clair
county, Illinois Territory, on discharging them from service:
Gentlemen, Officers and Soldiers:
In discharging you from the military toils in which I have participated with you for
more than two months past, I should do equal injustice to my own feelings and to your
just deserts were I not to express to you the gratitude I feel for the services you have
rendered and the assistance you have afforded me in defending this Territory against
the extraordinary perils with which it has been threatened.
Fortified by a consciousness of having discharged my own duty and served my
country with effect, and honored by repeated public and private declarations of confidence in me by those who have had the best opportunity of judging my conduct, I
might bid defiance to all the silly tales, dastardly insinuations or wicked misrepresentations which folly, malice, ambition or interest have invented to injure me, or I might
content myself with challenging the most scrutinizing and implacable personal or political enemy to point out a solitary case in which I have not forseen every emergency
that has presented itself, and been prepared with the best means within my power to
meet it.
This course I should probably adopt, were it not that the injuries meditated against
me have been attended with the severest privations and sacrifices, on the part of the
good people whose interest and safety have been confided to my care; but this being
the case, I shall at some future and no distant period exhibit such a history of the
transactions of this year (illustrated by a chart and geographical notes) as will prove
that I have faithfully discharged my duty both to the General Government and to the
people of the Territory, who will find that if any peculiar hardships have been imposed upon them, no blame whatever can attach to me.
Ignorant, indeed, must that man be of the geography, history and situation of this
country, of the residence and number of savages, and of their habits, who can suppose
that any part of the frontier has been in a more dangerous situation than ours.
The greatest body of Indians in America reside on the Mississippi, and the water
courses that empty into it above St. Louis and Cahokia-thus having a facility of invading us by water, which all past experience and recent facts prove they uniformly
prefer, for ease, safety and expedition.
Our thin and dispersed population, with the extent of our frontier, presented many
points to the attack, to which those blood-thirsty savages were invited by the fair
prospect they had of doing the greatest injury to us with the least possible danger to
-10




74                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
tbemselves. Besides, notwithstanding all the noise and bustle that was made about
Indian depredations, in the course of last year, ours was the only frontier that was
actually attacked. A knowledge of these facts rendered me indefatigable in my exertions to defend my fellow-citizens, and to explore every source of information thatwas
accessible to me, for the purpose of ascertaining the disposition of the Indians towards us.
Upon some of you devolved the execution of all my defensive operations, and I reflect with peculiar pleasure that, whenever my plans have been explained, they have
met the most unqualified approbation of those who had to execute them, that they
uniformly inspired with confidence those who were most exposed to danger, and,
above all, that they have been crowned with such success that not a life has yet been
lost on as exposed a frontier as any that belongs to the United States.
My diligence in ascertaining the disposition of the Indians and the machinations of
their allies, have not been less successful-as my communications to the government,
together with facts which have subsequently developed themselves, incontestably
prove.
Ever since the battle of Tippecanoe I have uniformly maintained the opinion (probably with more zeal than discretion) that nothing short of the most vigorous offensive
operations against the Indians could procure us peace with them. Hostility, engendered by British influence, had rallied them against us, and as our difficulties with
England seemed to increase, I never could see any reasonable ground to hope that
that influence would be withdrawn or that it would be less efficient than it had hitherto been-more especially as the savages constantly failed or refused to surrender a
single murderer or to do any other act of justice that would argue their return to a
friendly disposition towards us. And I feel sincere regret at finding that all my predictions on this subject have been completely fulfilled.
Many suggestions which I had the honor to make, no doubt, at the time were
thought to be very visionary; but time has proved that they were well founded.
The intrigues of Dickson with the Sioux and Chippeways-the important fact that
the British had sent immense quantities of Indian goods to Fort St. Joseph, by way
of the Ottawa River, for the purpose of aiding those intrigues and of counteracting
any bad consequences that might otherwise result to them from the loss of Maldenthe dispatches that were sent by Innis of Ambersburg to Dickson, informing him of
the intention of the British to capture Mackinac, and the contemplated attack on
Chicago-were all communicated by me.
At length I obtained and transmitted to the War Department, documents which
proved the existence not only of a most formidable hostile confederacy, but the very
points which it proposed to attack. Copies of them were forwarded to the Governor
of Kentucky, whose opinion upon them, as well as that of Governors Howard and
Harrison, perfectly corresponded with my own, as their letters to me will show.
These documents completely proved the danger with which our part of the frontier
was threatened; they were duly appreciated by the Hon. Secretary of War, who expressly (predicating his instructions upon the information I had communicated) directed Gov. Harrison and myself to confer with each other, empowered us to call upon the Governor of Kentucky for assistance, and instructed him to furnish it.
In pursuance of the authority given me, I lost not a moment in asking the Governor
of Kentucky for a regiment of infantry. It was promptly promised me by Gov. Scott.
The promise was renewed by his successor, Gov. Shelby. The newspapers of Kentucky announced that a regiment had been sent to my aid. Gov. Harrison, who hap



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     75
pened to be at Frankfort about that time, requested also that it should be sent, and
in subsequent letters, which have been published, he renewed the same with an additional requisition.  But what -has been the result? Not a man has yet arrived.
And at a time when we had most cause to apprehend danger, even Col. Russell, who
was here with about fifty Kentucky rangers, under the authority given him by the
President, was called off with them to Vincennes, leaving us to shift for ourselves,
without the aid of a single man who had not been raised in the Territory, whilst a
force consisting of thousands was accumulating in Indiana Territory, which has double
our population, and which certainly (to say the least that could be expected) was not
in greater danger, whilst its proximity to Kentucky furnished a facility for obtaining
aid upon any sudden emergency, which, from the remoteness of our situation, was unattainable by us.
Upon these facts I wish to make no comments-my object being more to free myself from blame than to fix it upon any other person. Any ecclairecissements that may
be due to the government, to the public or to the gentlemen interested, I leave wholly
to themselves.
I must, however, acknowledge that the reliance I placed in the promises of assistance that were made me, was very near proving destructive to the Territory, by
throwing me off of my guard and preventing me from calling into service and organizing such a force as was found indispensably necessary to repel the hostile invasion,
which shortly thereafter actually took place.
On the receipt of Col. Russell's letter, announcing to me his orders to repair to Vincennes, I instantly determined to call out one-half of the militia and put myself at
their head. I had every difficulty to encounter. Without a cent of money to pay
the militia for their services last year or for months of past services in the present
year, or for any future services, and without a sufficiency of arms, ammunition or other
munitions of war, your patriotism, however, seconded my exertions, freed me from
the necessity of an extensive draft, and enabled me, in a very short period, to organize the force to which this country is indebted for its salvation.
It was about the first of September that I took the field with you. You will remember that I then informed you that in the light of that moon a furious attempt would
be made to invade our northern frontier-that I endeavored to stimulate you to exert yourselves to make the necessary preparations to resist it; and everything happened precisely as I had predicted. Nothing, I believe, was omitted, on my part,
which it was possible for me to do.
For some time previous to the invasion, the Indians had made use of every precaution to prevent their intentions being discovered. Notwithstanding which, I knew
the very day they assembled at Peoria for the purpose of coming down upon us, and
you know that I planned an expedition to fall in their rear, which would have been
successfully executed had I not been (much to my mortification) greatly disappointed
by the contractor, who failed to furnish the necessary rations.
We have, however, great cause to acknowledge the goodness of Heaven and to felicitate ourselves upon the events that have taken place.
Your bravery has enabled me to repel hostile invasion and to wage war upon the
enemy in their own country, with as much success and effect as has ever been accomplished by the same numbers since the first settlements of the Western country.
Your intrepidity and patriotism have been equally honorable to yourselves and useful to your country, and should events render it necessary for me again to take command, I sincerely pray that I may again have your aid.




76                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Gentlemen, for the partiality and personal attachment which the whole of you,
(without an exception to my knowledge,) have manifested towards me-for your public as well as private professions of confidence in me-for the unexampled harmony
and good order that has been observed-I beg you to accept the sincerest thanks of a
grateful heart, and in returning to the bosom of your families, to recollect that you
carry with you my most unfeigned wishes for your happiness and prosperity.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
November 10, 1812.
The following is the reply of the officers of the militia to Gov. Edwards'
address:
HEADQUARTERS, CAMP RUSSELL, Nov. 10, 1812,
To His Excellency, GOVERNOR EDWARDS:
SIR-Our opinion as to the danger our Territory has been exposed to is exactly
like yours, and we are free to declare that in our estimation you have greatly increased your claims upon the gratitude of the country for the wise measures which
you adopted for our relief. We have witnessed your having anticipated and disappointed the views of our enemies. We have always found you well informed concerning them, and, as the danger increased, we were happy to see you disregarding
the hardships of camp life and forsaking a comfortable home, ready at the post of
greatest danger to place yourself at our head. We have seen you undergo the fatigues of a successful expedition into the Indian country. We have witnessed your
coolness, deliberation and promptitude in the hour of peril, and should we again be
called into service, we shall be as happy to be commanded by you as you will be to
command us. We sincerely believe that it is owing to the measures which you put
into operation that this country has not been deserted and desolated. These are
facts recorded in the hearts of your fellow-citizens, which speak for themselves, and
which must render harmless all misrepresentations of your enemies-if you have
any. The sacrifices of the brave men whom you have commanded have been great.
Some of them have been in service since last spring; none of them have received
any pay, and many of them, we well know, are in great want of it. We hope no
exertion in your power will be wanting to procure them just compensation, and we
think that you might, with propriety, urge the distinguished services which they
have lately performed as an inducement to pay them as soon as possible. We take
the liberty of soliciting your approbation to the publication of your address this
day, to us, together with this answer, and we offer you our best wishes for your success and prosperity through life.
Signed in behalf of the officers, at their request, by
WILLIAM WHITESIDE,
JAs. B. MOORE,                                     LT. C. C. I. M.,
Clerk.                                         Chairman.
It appears from a letter which Gov. Edwards received from Gov. Shelby,
dated March 2, 1812, that the latter expressed his conviction that the
troops ordered from Kentucky "had been prevented from      reaching the
Territory by dishonorable steps." But the dangers, difficulties and embarrassments resulting from this disappointment were averted by the indefatigable exertion of Gov. Edwards. Gov. Shelby says, in this letter, that
Gov. Edwards is entitled to the honor of having planned and the glory of
executing so successfully this expedition to Peoria.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Gov. Edwards, in alluding to this expedition in a letter to Gov. Shelby,
dated December 20, 1812, says that "some attempts have been made to
deprive me of the honor which you say my exertions entitle me to, by giving to Gen. Hopkins the credit of planning it, and to Col. Russell the glory
of executing it. Although I cannot feel indifferent to the injustice done
me, nothing can provoke me to withhold from Col. Russell the just tribute
of applause to which his conduct, under my own view, has entitled him.
I acknowledge myself indebted to him for many and great obligations. To
me his assistance was important. Distinguished as he is for his bravery
and good conduct, nothing that I can say can add new lustre to his reputation, and one of the first wishes of my heart is that his country may appreciate his merits as highly as I do, because I am sure it would, at the
same time, eventuate in advantage to the public and do justice to an individual.
"It is, however, a duty which I owe to myself, to declare most explicitly,
that my expedition was planned by myself; that it originally depended,
in no respect, upon Gen. Hopkins or Col. Russell; that I had prepared
for it and had appointed a day for marching, previous to my hearing from
either of them.
"Disappointed in all the assistance that had been promised me, menaced
by formidable combinations of Indians, and seeing no measures adopted
which were calculated to afford security to the frontier, I felt the necessity
of turning out as Commander-in-Chief of my own militia, nearly one-third
of whom became volunteers under me; and after having encountered the
greatest difficulties, and having successfully defended the Territory under
such circumstances, it was hardly to be presumed that I would have relinquished the command of my own volunteers to any one.
"I knew my legitimate powers as Governor of the Territory, and I determined to maintain them, so far as related to my own militia, at all hazards, as the means of affording that protection to my fellow-citizens which
they had a right to expect from me, and for which they looked in vain
elsewhere. I have not disappointed their expectations; and I feel amply
rewarded by the testimonies of approbation with which I have been honored by the people and the Legislature of this Territory, and by the brave
officers and soldiers whom I lately commanded, which, added to a consciousness of having discharged my duty and a conviction that facts cannot always be perverted, renders me fearless of all attempts to do me injustice."
This correspondence was published in the St. Louis Gazette, and other
papers, immediately after the expedition had returned; and had there been
any truth in the reports that it had been either planned by Gen. Hopkins
or executed by Col. Russell, the published correspondence, in which Gov.
Edwards claims to himself the exclusive credit, would have been answered.




78                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Again, it appears, from Gov. Edwards' official report of this expedition,
to the Secretary of War, that on Col. Russell's arriving at the camp, a few
days previous to their march, with about fifty men under his command,
Gov. Edwards accepted their services and appointed the Colonel second
in command.
MESSAGE OF GOV. EDWARDS.
Fellow-Citizens of the Legislative Council, and of the House of Representatives:
The communications of the plenipotentiaries of the United States, charged with
negotiating peace with Great Britain, which have been recently communicated by
th6 President to Congress, by declaring the conditions upon which alone our enemy
is disposed to put an end to the existing hostilities, evince the insincerity of those
declarations which accompanied his invitation to treat at Gottenburg, account for
the motives which, on his part, so long delayed a meeting of the negotiators, and
leave us no other ground to hope for a speedy return to the blessings of peace but
by the employment of the utmost resources of the nation in a vigorous prosecution
of the war. Infatuated by his success in Europe, forgetful of the mutability of all
human things, and yielding to his jealousy of our growing commercial prosperity,
to his thirst of universal monopoly and to his unprincipled ambition, which have
equally distinguished him in peace and in war, the enemy has not only openly and
officially avowed but has particularly demonstrated his disregard of the laws and
usages of civilized warfare; and whilst he stands disgraced, and must eventually be
execrated by the civilized world for this gothic and vandalic destruction of the public edifices at the city of Washington, and his wanton robberies and devastation of
private property on the Atlantic waters, he has unblushingly acknowledged his alliance and identified himself with those ruthless savages whose maraudings and indiscriminate slaughters of men, women and children, both before and since the declaration of war, have been so often repeated and so severely felt and deeply deplored
on the frontiers of our unfortunate territories.
Mortified that the charm of his invincibility on the ocean has been dissolved, by
the superior skill and bravery of our valiant naval heroes, and calculating highly
upon the immense disposable force which the late unparalleled events in Europe
have placed at his command, he seeks a base, unmanly revenge; hopes to regain his
lost fame, and by his barbarous warfare to spread universal dismay and terror throughout our land; dreams of naught but victories, and, assuming the tone of a conquerer
arrogantly demands a surrender to himself of part of the State of Massachusetts, a
considerable portion of our Northwestern frontier, a stipulation on the part of
the American Government not to maintain or construct any fortification within a
limited distance of the shores of any of the lakes, from Ontario to Superior, both
inclusive, nor to maintain or control any armed vessels upon those lakes, nor in the
rivers which empty themselves into the same; and for his Indian allies. in consideration of their meritorious services in plundering our property, conflagrating our habitations, massacring our prisoners, and with inexorable ferocity murdering and mangling the bodies of peaceable citizens, innocent infants and helpless females. as a
sine qua non of any treaty, that they shall be included in the pacification, and that,
as incident thereto, the boundaries of their territories should be permanently established and its integrity guaranteed-proposing, as the basis of such boundary
the lines of the Greenville treaty, which would include in the proposed cession the
whole of this Territory, a few spots only excepted, a great portion of other lands for
which we have paid the Indians a valuable consideration, and a large extent of ter



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     79
ritory besides, which, in the treaty of 1803, he himself solemnly acknowledged to be
a part of the United States, thus evidently manifesting his intention to monopolize
the fur trade. to increase his influence with the savages, to perpetuate his disgraceful alliances, and to secure to himself additional facilities of annoying and desolating
our frontier at his pleasure, whilst he seeks to protect himself against the consequences of his ambitious views and nefarious conduct, by interposing an extensive
barrier between our Western settlements and his American provinces, and by obtaining the right to erect and maintain naval and military establishments on and
near to the lines which he proposes shall separate them.
Conduct like this, to which history scarcely furnishes a parallel since the eruption of the northern hive of barbarians into the Roman empire-presumptuous and
arrogant, overlooking the old and introducing new subjects of controversy-demanding the most important and unprecedented concessions, instead of tendering
reparation for the wrongs and injustice which forced our Government into the declaration of war against him-prove the fallacy of all calculations upon his justice,
moderation and magnanimity; portray in the strongest colors the most implacable
hostility towards us, and unfold his ambitious views against the prosperity and independence of our country,
Such circumstances appeal loudly to the pride and patriotism of every true Amercan. They aidmonish us to abstain from all party disputes among ourselves, and
will doubtless unite and animate the whole American people (who proudly identify
themselves with the Government of their choice) in courageous and patriotic efforts
to resist the relentless tyrant who seeks to overwhelm us; for it cannot be imagined
that the sons of America are yet so degenerate as not only to be willing to submit
to the wrongs and oppressions which were practised upon us by Great Britain, previous to the war, but also to reward both her and her savage allies for their subsequent
shocking and disgraceful barbarities by yielding to the humiliating concessions that
are demanded of us, and thereby offering inducements to the future repetition of
similar enormities.
Great and powerful as the enemy is, he will find obstacles and difficulties in carrying on the war at such a distance from Europe, against a people determined to be
free and to maintain the honor and independence of their country, which, notwithstanding the lessons of experience that he might have derived from our glorious
Revolution, his inflated vanity has not permitted him to anticipate. No doubt, from
the nature of his demands and the tone he has assumed, he flattered himself that,
with the immense armaments which he has detached to our coast, and the armies he
organized on our frontier, he would be able in a single campaign to reduce us to unconditional submission; but, so far, he has been most mortifyingly disappointed,
without anything to console him or to remunerate him for his vast expenditure, but
success in the honorable employment of stealing negroes, plundering and devastating
private property, ruining individuals, robbing Alexandria, and destroying, at the
city of Washington, models of taste and monuments of art which are held sacred and
are protected by all civilized nations. On the other hand, while our success in the
South and at Baltimore have been equally glorious to us and disgraceful to him,
the brilliant achievements of our arms on the Niagara frontier, at Plattsburg, and
on Lake Champlain, begin to develop our resources for war, demonstrate the superiority of freemen, fighting for their just rights, over the boasted mercenary legions
of Lord Wellington, and, with the increasing unanimity of our fellow-citizens, afford
us a happy presage of our future victories, which, with the blessing of the Divine
Being, who has hitherto so signally protected us, will produce the total discomfiture




80                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
of the enemy and his final expulsion from the American continent, or reduce him
to the necessity of tendering peace upon just and honorable terms.
With regard to our relations with the Indians, and the consequences that were
expected to flow from them, much diversity of opinion has heretofore unfortunately
prevailed, Mine has, however, on former occasions, been freely and unreservedly
communicated to you and the public, and the bloody scenes which some of you have
lately witnessed, and the rest have heard of, afford lasting and mournful evidences
of its general correctness, and have, I believe, resulted in a universal conviction
that nothing less than the most energetic and efficient exertions on our part can
maintain the tranquillity and safety of our frontier.
Incapable of properly appreciating the liberal and philanthrophic views of our
Government in regard to them, and influenced by the traditionary accounts among
themselves of our having expelled their forefathers from their favorite abodes, the
savages possess an hereditary hatred of us, which, with the intrigues and machinations of British agents, and their own jealousies and inquietude, arising from our
increasing population and the constant approximation of our settlements to their
villages and hunting grounds, so predisposes them to war with us, as to render it
easier at all times, when they can be flattered with the least prospect of success, to
engage them in alliances and open hostilities against us, from which nothing hitherto
has or hereafter can restrain them, as every man who possesses any practical knowledge of them well knows, but the powerful influence of fear alone. Instead, therefore, of confiding in professions on their part, which have so uniformly been insincere and perfidious, or relying upon temporizing expedients that have hitherto
proved to be fallacious and inefficient, we ought to indulge in no calculations of
peace with them, except such as are predicated upon the degree of fear with which
our measures may be calculated to inspire them, and these, to succeed, ought to be
such as to be produce an immediate and direct and not merely consequential and
future pressure upon them. As to the future and remote consequences, they either
do not think of them at all, or always hope to elude them. It is indeed greatly to
be feared that we shall not shortly realize the sanguine hopes that have been entertained of reducing them to submission by cutting off their intercourse with the
British.
This plan has been pursued ever since the commencement of the war. Partial,
but important, interruptions of that intercourse have certainly been produced, and
yet we have found the hostile confederacy constantly increasing, and no one now
doubts that it is greater and more formidable than it has been at any former period.
Although custom and habit have rendered the British trade a convenience to some
of the savages, many of them who are now arrayed against us have but partially enjoyed it, and none of them are so absolutely dependent upon it as we are apt to imagine-of which we have full proof in the wretched independence of some of the
more Western tribes; and, in the recent instances of our present Miami prisoners,
who, though long accustomed to such trade, have, nevertheless, existed for the last
two years without it, living in the meantime upon the beasts of the forest and clothing themselves and their families with their skins.
Like other nations in a state of barbarism their real wants are few and simple;
and to supply these and at the same time to wage war, nothing is indispensably nenessary to them but ammunition and arms. Of the former they want powder only,
having themselves inexhaustable stores of lead, and in the last three years the enemy has supplied them with a very considerable number of the latter. Admitting,
however, the ultimate practicability of succeeding in destroying the intercourse




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     81
that has been mentioned, still we could not hope for any immediate advantages from
it, for the enemy must have been destitute of foresight or regardless of precaution,
and the most positive information supported by much concurrent testimony cannot
have the shadow of truth to support it, if, to provide against such an event, he has
not accumulated, at points convenient for distribution, supplies abundantly sufficient
to last his allies for a considerable time yet to come. His means of doing so have been
ample, for, independent of other channels that have been accessible to him, the communication by way of Grand River has constantly remained uninterrupted; and, although you have seen the impracticability of the navigation of that river announced,
in a late official communication, yet we know, and the history of the fur trade will
prove, that, for mere commercial purposes only, it has long been annually frequented,
and that immense quantities of goods have been and continue to be transported through
that very channel.
But, supposing the British actually deprived of the means of furnishing future supplies, and their present stock exhausted-we are not now and cannot shortly be prepared to substitute with any of our own, and consequently have neither the means of
conciliating nor any inducements to offer the Indians, sufficient to prevail over the
double motives of hatred to us and partiality to our enemy: whilst the emissaries of
the latter, by their exclusive associations with them, would be able to alleviate any
particular pressure upon them by inspiring them with the hopes that its duration would
be of short continuance, and at all events could easily satisfy them that they would
have nothing better to hope for by shifting sides and uniting with us.
It is, however, very doubtful whether anything, short of the complete conquest of
the Canadas, can enable us to prevent the intercourse between those Provinces and
the Indians. We may, indeed, subject it to inconvenience by closing up some of their
ordinary commercial avenues; but on a frontier of such vast extent, and through the
uninhabited regions contiguous thereto, there are a variety of other channels of communication, which, though it might be unprofitable to pursue them in a time of peace,
do nevertheless furnish sufficient facilities of transportation for the purposes of war,
and that, too, without subjecting it to greater increase of difficulties and expense than
we ourselves, on some occasions, had to encounter. And knowing, as we do, the obstacles which the British surmount, in time of peace, in sending their goods between
three and four thousand miles into the northwestern parts of America, through numerous lakes and rivers, intercepted by more than two hundred rapids and one hundred and thirty additional portages, along which both the goods and canoes have to
be carried on men's backs, and knowing, also, that ever since the commencement of the
war goods have been packed on horses from Montreal to the southern parts of Lake
Michigan, we ought to begin to profit by the errors of our past calculations, and
should not rely too certainly upon the inability of the enemy to furnish the few articles which of themselves are sufficient to enable him to retain his influence with
and command the services of the savages. For even if we could succeed in totally
obstructing his communication with them from Canada, it is an incontrovertible fact
that goods can be furnished them on the Mississippi, from Hudson's Bay, by way of
the Red River of Lake Winnepeg, with less expense and greater facility than they
have hitherto been carried from Montreal to many parts of the Northwest. And if
there be any reality in the supposed alliance, or any intended concert of operation between the enemy and the Spanish North American provinces, it will doubtless greatly
enlarge the sphere of his influence and increase his means of preserving it. Seeing
how tenacious of the interests of his allies he has appeared to be, in the sine qua non
-11




82                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
which he tendered to our Commissioners at Ghent, we cannot reasonably doubt that
he will avail himself of all possible means of commanding their further assistance; and
the recent disasters on our own particular frontier are most unhappily but too well
calculated to give success to his efforts.
The frequent and unpunished incursions of the Indians, which have been too successful in spreading death and desolation in their train; the defeat of our forces and
the surrender of the fort at Prairie du Chien; two subsequent successive repulses at
Rock River; the late extraordinary evacuation and destruction, by our own troops,
of Fort Johnson, and the total abandonment of the respectable settlements of Shoal
and Sugar Creeks, leaving property to a great amount in the power of the savagesare events which betray our weakness and can hardly fail to invigorate their hopes
and invite their future enterprises; while the accounts they will receive of the causes
of the rupture of our negotiations for peace will tend equally to increase their hostilities to us and to strengthen their confidence in their ally. Many of them have lately
taken off the mask, which has been too successful in paralyzing the energies of our
government and in postponing the punishment due to their perfidy and atrocities;
and I hazard nothing in saying, that, from their proximity to us, thousands of them
could reach St. Louis or Cahokia from their own homes in five or six days.
Under these inauspicious circumstances, and having lost the services of a very valuable officer, by his untimely death, it is very fortunate for the territories that their
future defense is confided to the gallant Col. Russell, who, schooled in our Revolution,
being one of the distinguished heroes of King's Mountain, and having probably seen
more Indian fighting than any officer now in America, possesses all the ardor and enterprise, corrected by the experience of age, and, with his knowledge of the geography of the Indian country, needs only the aid of a competent force to act with energy
and efficiency; and indeed, disastrous as I think must be the final issue of relying on
the protracted measures of mere defense-producing an annual expenditure to a great
amount, without gaining an inch of ground or a single advantage of the enemy-I
nevertheless have no doubt that with a well appointed force of 2,000 infantry, a proper proportion of artillery, and 1,000 mounted riflemen, the war upon our frontier,
and with it the necessity of any further disbursements on our account, could be terminated in three months. And as there fortunately happens to be no contrariety of
opinion to prevent or retard the adoption of such a measure (all those with the best
means of information concurring, now, in the absolute necessity for it), it is to be
hoped a change so advisable with a view to public economy, and which would at the
same time so happily conduce to the safety and prosperity of these exposed territories,
will not long be delayed.
In the meantime, every dictate of prudence recommends the amendment of our militia system, so as to render it better adapted to the present conjuncture, to free it
from unnecessary delays in its operation, and to secure, by more certain and adequate
punishments, prompt obedience to such requisitions as emergencies may from time to
time require. Although this Territory has exhibited examples of patriotism that have
rarely been equaled and never surpassed-having, in the last five years, brought into
service a body of volunteers nearly equal in number to one-half of' the aggregate
amount of its militia, and this year having tendered a number considerably exceeding
that proportion-yet, there are individuals who, regardless of their obligation to participate with their fellow-citizens in the necessary defense of their country, have constantly failed and refused to perform any duty whatever, and whose obedience the ex_
isting laws have been found inadequate to command. And as all men under similar




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     83
circumstances, who receive equal protection from Government, owe to it the same
obligations, and upon the vital principles of equality are bound to the performance of
similar duties, the laws which with us are designed to govern all should be as competent to enforce the obedience of the perverse and refractory as that of dutiful and
virtuous citizens. And to add to their efficiency in the cases alluded to, by insuring
their speedy and prompt execution, it would. be advisable to provide that whenever
a draft shall be ordered in any regiment, a court martial shall be convened therein,
with power to hear and determine upon all excuses for exemption from service and
to inflict, in cases of delinquency, the fines prescribed by law-which it seems just
and reasonable should be sufficient at least to obtain the services of a substitute for
him who, without reasonable excuse, shall have failed or refused to perform his term
of duty.
It may, however, be expedient (making proper exceptions in favor of those conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms) to subject any person whose services shall be
required, and who shall have legal notice thereof, to the same coercion and penalties,
in every respect whatever, as if he had been actually mustered into service, unless he
shall in due time furnish a substitute, or be able to procure a certificate from such a
court martial as I have mentioned that he has exhibited an excuse deemed sufficient
for his exemption.
Instructed, from their infancy, in the most artful means of inflicting the greatest
injury upon their enemy with the least possible danger to themselves, and regardless
of the shame of a retreat, the savages usually make their incursions so suddenly, and
conduct them with such secrecy and caution, as to be able to surprise and ravage our
settlements or murder our fellow-citizens before we are notified of their approachafter which they retreat with such celerity as generally to escape with impunity. I,
therefore, feel it my duty to recommend the temporary organization, in each regiment,
of a corps of mounted riflemen, as the only species of force calculated to afford protection against those desultory attacks of which the savages are so fond, and from
which our extensive frontier, detached settlements and numerous vulnerable points
are greatly exposed.
In consequence of the effects resulting from opening the Land Office of the United
States in this Territory, a revision of our revenue laws has become necessary, and it
is to be hoped that you will be able to devise a more just and equal system of taxation
and to lessen the public burden upon our fellow-citizens, to which the pressure of the
war upon and the peculiar difficulties to which it has subjected them offer the most
powerful inducements.
I cannot, however, refrain from expressing my decided opinion that the salary of
$100, allowed the Attorney General, at the last session of the Legislature, for attending to important duties required of him throughout the whole Territory and in the
courts of every county therein, is not only insufficient but is not proportionate to allowances for other purposes. Experience evinces that much of the good effects to be
expected from our penal laws depends upon the talents and integrity of our Prosecuting Attorney. The compensation, therefore, ought to be such as, under all circumstances, would be deemed reasonably sufficient to command the services of one who
is not only willing but able to perform, with advantage to the public, the duties of
that station. The gentleman who has for some time past discharged these duties,
with equal zeal and ability, in the early part of the year resigned his cpmmission, in
consequence of the inadequacy of the compensation, but was prevailed upon to reaccept it, under the expectation that the Legislature might bestow on the subject
that reconsideration which I have felt it my duty to invite.




84                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Other subjects, on which, owing to my long continued and existing ill-health, I have
not heretofore been able to bestow the necessary attention, must be reserved for future special recommendation. In the meantime I beg leave to assure you of my readiness to afford you every facility to the discharge of your duties, and of my sincere
desire to cooperate cordially with you in all measures calculated to promote the public good.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
REPLY TO HIS MESSAGE BY THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE.
KASKASKIA, Dec. 2, 1812.
To His Excellency NINIAN EDWARDS:
SIR-The House of Representatives, being much gratified with the communication
which you have made, would disguise their feelings and do injustice to those of their
constituents, were they not to express their approbation of the measures you have
pursued to protect our frontiers and secure to us the advantages which nature evidently designed for us.
This protection, secured by your means, announces to us the interest which the
General Government takes in our welfare. It commands our attachment to the present administration, while we are fully penetrated with the conviction that the most
beneficial results have been produced by the instrumentality of a public servant who,
we believe, has been influenced by a desire to promote the public welfare and happiness. The objects that he has recommended shall engage our earliest attention. We
wish you may long continue to enjoy the confidence of your country, and with it health
and happiness.
The above address, being engrossed, was read a second time, and unanimously concurred in and signed by the Speaker; and it was therefore ordered that Messrs. Jones and Short be appointed to carry said address and
present it to the Governor.




CHAPTER V.
Message of Gov. Edwards in reference to the Territorial Judiciary System.
The Legislature, at its session of 1814, passed "An act to establish a
Supreme Court for Illinois Territory," which, in many material points,
changed the judiciary system adopted upon the organization of the Territory. Much discussion arose as to the power of the Legislature, under
the ordinance, to pass the act, and strong doubts were expressed, in high
quarters, as to its validity. The Judges of the Territory were requested
by the Legislature to state their opinion, in writing, on the merits of the
new law, and they took emphatic ground against it. They argued, that,
as the United States Government, in pursuance of the terms of the ordinance, had established a general court, and had reserved the right of appointing judges to conduct it, that the Territorial Legislature, which is an
inferior authority, had no power to change or modify it. They said, "it
would have been futile in Congress to establish a court, leaving the power
in other hands to establish a tribunal superior to it, which would be
to annul it;" that "the court established by the ordinance cannot be
subject to the revision or control of any tribunal established by the Territorial Legislature; and an appeal from the same court to the same is a solecism which we do not suppose to be the intention of this bill." "Neither,"
said the judges, "are we prepared to admit that the general court can be
so localized as to be reduced entirely to a county, though supreme within
the county." That "it was a question, whether a court can exercise a part
of its jurisdiction and forbear the rest, according to circumstances, and as
a regard to public convenience and the due administration of the law might
require." The Judges went on to argue the invalidity of the law at considerable length. Their argument was signed by Judges J. B. Thomas
and William Sprigg. Judge Griswold was absent, and did not attach his
name to their opinion.
In reply to their objections, Gov. Edwards, by request of the Legislature,
prepared an answer, which was also submitted and spread at large upon the
journals. It notices, fully, the arguments adduced by the Judges, and is
as follows:




86                        HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
ANSWER OF GOV. EDWARDS TO THE OPINION OF THE JUDGES.'ellow-Citizens of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives:
On Wednesday last, I received, for my approbation and signature, a bill, entitled
"An act establishing a Supreme Court for Illinois Territory." On the succeeding
Saturday evening, a joint committee from your honorable body presented a letter
from the honorable Judges Thomas and Sprigg, addressed to the Legislature of Illinois, and at the same time a joint resolution of your two houses, among other things
requesting my opinion, in writing, upon the objections to the passage of the aforesaid bill contained in said letter.
Although I had long known, from the presentments of grand juries, composed of
some of the most respectable persons in our country, and from a variety of other
sources, that a change in the judiciary- system, by abolishing the Court of Common
Pleas and transferring their duties to the Supreme Judges, had been determined upon
by the people, and although I had, immediately after the commencement of your
session, ascertained your determination to carry some such plan into execution, yet
I can most truly declare that on no occasion have I attempted to influence a solitary
individual to such a determination; and never, until I have been informed by the
members of your honorable body that Judges Thomas and Sprigg were willing to
execute such a law as the present bill contemplates, had I the least agency in it
whatever.
I am not, however, insensible of the weight of responsibility which this case, under
all its circumstances, seems to be likely to devolve upon me, as a component part of
the Legislature and Executive. As the case really appears to be, I shall not hesitate
to comply with your request, in which, while I must use the freedom necessary to
investigation, I hope to observe all the decorum and respect which is so justly due
to the occasion, and sincerely do I regret that my indisposition renders me so illy
qualified to do justice to the subject.
The language of the Judges in the conclusion of their address, their acknowledgment of the independence of the three coordinate departments of this government,
and the inference thence deduced that each ought to confine itself within the proper
sphere of its legitimate authority, would warrant me in concluding, if, indeed, their
words were not otherwise sufficiently explicit, that their objections to the passage
of the bill in question are predicated on the want of power only in the Legislature;
and in that point of view I shall proceed to consider them.
In their first objection, they state that "if this were merely a bill to change the
style of the general court, we should deem it objectionable in principle and inconvenient in practice." But to me it is inconceivable how a change merely nominal, and
in no wise substantive, could be supposed to violate principle. The appellation of
a court may sometimes be very absurd, but it can never add to nor diminish the
powers with which it is invested. In some of the States, courts, organized like
some of your courts of common pleas, and possessing similar jurisdiction,.are called
quarter sessions, county courts, or circuit courts; and if you, believing one of the
latter appellations to be more appropriate, were to adopt it, instead of the present
style of the court of common pleas, without further alteration, it would certainly be
no more objectionable on principle, according to my comprehension of the terms,
than if you were to call a son "John" in preference to "Thomas."
Declaring, however, as the Judges do, "that the ordinance, the laws of Congress
and their commissions point out the court that is to be constituted by them," their




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     87
objection to the style given by the present bill seems to be the more extraordinary
and unsubstantial, since it is evidently more conformable to those authorities than
any others, and is in no respect inconsistent with any exposition that has ever been
given to either-inasmuch as the ordinance and their commissions are silent as to
any epithet of distinction, while the law of Congress explicitly terms them " Supreme
Judges," and the laws of the Northwestern Territory of Indiana and of this Territory
all concur in defining the court of which their honors speak to be a "Supreme Court,"
thereby rendering any additional style superfluous, or at least unnecessary.
Speaking of their court as established by a higher authority than that of our
Legislature, they say that it has always borne the style of the "General Court."
A correction of this error, or explanation of this statement, would not be deemed
necessary, but for the purpose of showing the real origin of the style of which they
appear so tenacious, and the authority by which it was created. It certainly derived
its existence only from a law of the Northwestern Territory; and I believe the doctrine that one Legislature can assume such omnipotent power as to endow a subsequent one with equal authority, in such cases as the present, if it ever existed, has
long since exploded. No such question can, however, arise in this case, because a
law of Congress, amendatory to the ordinance, vested the Governor and Judges with
a power of repealing any of the laws which they had adopted; and the ordinance
expressly declares that after the organization of the General Assembly within the
Territory, " the Legislature shall have authority to alter the laws adopted by the
Governor and Judges, as they shall think fit." There cannot, therefore, be any
doubt but the Governor and the Judges had the right to repeal the law alluded to,
or that the Legislature that succeeded them had authority to alter or modify it;
and if the law itself had been repealed, I presume it will not be conceived that the
style of the court, which was wholly dependent upon it, would not have ceased to
exist.
If. then, the powers of this Legislature are not inferior to those of that which existed in the Northwestern Territory, can there be a doubt of your power to repeal
any of your laws? And if you were to repeal all the laws in relation to the general
court, what, then, would be the style of that court which their honors say has been
established by a higher authority than this Legislature?
Their next objections are, that the bill contemplates two grades of courts, and that
the supreme court cannot be localized to counties, though supreme therein. In support of these objections, great reliance seems to be placed on the ordinance, which
they say has established the court of which they are members; and although they
allow it is defective and not sufficiently minute in its details, yet they say it has
received, on certain points, a "practical construction, which we are not disposed to
innovate ourselves nor to sanction those innovations which cannot be reconciled
with either the received or true construction of that instrument." And as they also
declare they consider the bill in question eminently calculated to introduce into the
Territory a state of confusion and anarchy, it seems to be important to show (if it
can be done) that those fatal consequences, so much to be deprecated, will result
more from an innovation on the practical exposition that has, on certain points,
been given to the ordinance, and a departure from it hitherto received a worse construction, on the part of the Judges, than from any such act or disposition on the
part of the Legislature.
This I shall attempt to show by a brief review of some of the leading features of
the bill in question, and by a reference to the ordinance and to the practice under it.




88                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The present bill was certainly planned in a spirit of conciliation, and with a view
to render the duties assigned to the Judges as light and as little oppressive as possible-contemplating that each of them should have a circuit of two counties only,
in each of which he should hold two courts in the year; and that, for the purpose
of revising or correcting any erroneous decision that might take place, that they or
a majority of them should attend at the seat of government, as they are now required
by law to do. But, being aware that some objections might be made to the different
grades of courts, and believing that the same court might be required to hold its
sessions at different times and places, they have put it in the power of the Judges
to act as though it were one court, only, by all acting together, or to divide the
duties among themselves and to act separately-either of which, it appears from the
words of the bill, would meet the wishes and fulfill the intentions of the Legislature.
But, considered in either point of view, it seems to be thought by them a violation
of the ordinance-the words of which, as far as they are applicable to the case, are
that " there shall be appointed a court, to consist of three judges, who shall have a
common law jurisdiction," but how, when or where that jurisdiction is to be exercised is not pointed out, and therefore it is subject to the modification and direction
of the Territorial Legislature. If this were not the case, and the clause above recited were to be construed according to the nice technical rules of law, it would,
rom there being no limitation prescribed, oblige the Judges to take cognizance of
all cases at common law, however inconsiderable the amount, and it would follow
that no other tribunal could be constituted by you with concurrent jurisdiction in
any of those cases, for it is a well established maxim in law that "selectio unius est
exclusio alterius."
It is, however, evident to me that Congress intended merely to appoint and pay
the Judges, leaving it to the Territorial tribunal to adopt or form such a judiciary
system as they might conceive to be most conducive to the public good. For if
Congress had intended to perfect the establishment and organization of the court, it
is fairly to be presumed they would have been more explicit on that subject. And
this construction is the more rational, because the next succeeding clause seems to
be well calculated to supply the manifest deficiency by making it "the duty of the
Governor and Judges, or a majority of them, to adopt such laws from the original
States as might be necessary, and best suited to the circumstances of the Territory."
Many of the States had judiciary systems equally as liable to the objection of the
Judges as the one under consideration, and several of them had such as were analagous to it. Could not the Governor and Judges have adopted any of them? Suppose
they could have obtained the system of Pennsylvania, the General Court system of
Kentucky, or that of the Superior Court of Tennessee or Georgia, all of which possess
features very mjuch resembling the present bill: could they not have adopted one of
these? And if they had thought it the best suited to the circumstances of the Territory, would it not have been their duty to have adopted it in preference to any
other? Of this there can be no doubt, and most certainly it would not have been
improper in the Judges, or a violation of the ordinance, for them to have executed
any law which it was or might have been their duty to adopt; and the authority of
the Legislature to alter, as they "think fit," any adopted law, demonstrates that your
power is not less than theirs was.
This is also the "practical exposition" and the received construction of the ordinance, on this very point. For we find that the Governor and Judges of the Northwestern Territory actually adopted the law of Pennsylvania, by which the Judges




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     89
were bound to hold the general court in two different counties, circuit courts in counties, and courts of oyer and terminer or jail delivery. The laws thus adopted were
required to be submitted to Congress for their approbation, and though the same system, with different but not very material modifications, has existed for many years, it
does not appear to have been ever disapproved by that body; but we find them expressly recognizing the circuit courts, by providing specifically for the expenses of the
Judges in attending them.
The laws of Indiana, in force when this Territory was erected into a separate government, and when our first Judges were commissioned, required them to attend the
general court and circuit courts in counties, and courts of oyer and terminer. The
construction given to the ordinance, in both the territories of which we have formed
an integral part, was certainly acquiesced in by the Governor and Judges of this Territory, as is evident from their official acts; for in the year 1809 they organized a
general court, to sit in Kaskaskia, and courts of common pleas, to be holden by the
Judges, with a separate clerk to each court. In the same year it was deemed advisable to change the system. The common pleas was abolished, and the general court
was required to be held twice a year in the counties of Randolph and St. Clair, which
were all that then existed, and the jurisdiction of the court in each county was limited to the bounds thereof. In these measures Judge Thomas concurred, and indeed,
at the respective times of their adoption, I knew of no dissenting voice.
Under a law of Congress organizing the government of the Missouri Territory, recognizing three Superior Judges, appointed by the President and Senate of the United States, as explicitly as our ordinance does, the Legislature of that Territory, without any greater powers in that respect than you possess, have required the superior
court to be held in every county within each of which its jurisdiction is localized, and
the Judges, or a majority of them, have decided that the law is valid and have determined to execute it.
Without referring to analagous cases in some of the States, I trust I have said
enough to convince you that, on the points which I have so far endeavored.to investigate, you are not "justly chargeable with innovating the practical exposition or received construction" of the ordinance; and it will doubtless be to you a source of fe
licitation that the Judges have declared that they themselves have no disposition to
make such innovations.
They also say, that "an appeal from the same court to the same,. is a solecism."
But if this measure can justly be considered beneficial (without which it is to be presumed you would not have adopted it), I believe it will be very difficult for them to
establish that it is an infraction of the ordinance. Any system which gives to any
court original and final jurisdiction, is neither perfect nor very usual; but, owing to
the peculiar circumstances of the Territory, it may be found impracticable to establish any other. It, therefore, becomes prudent to guard, as far as possible, against
the defects that are inherent in such a system. These in part consist of hasty decisions, sometimes given from necessity, after a jury is sworn, and at other times without due deliberation or a sufficient opportunity of consulting authorities upon the subject; and, to obviate any ill consequences that might otherwise result therefrom, it
has been deemed advisable to declare that the Judges, upon the application of a party
who supposes himself aggrieved, shall, according to the forms prescribed by law, revise their own judgments; and I believe there are few judges who will not admit that
these decisions would be much more likely to be correct, upon a review of them at a
fixed place favorable to the production of the greatest number of books and to the
-12




90                        HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
ablest investigation, and where they would be free from all the embarrassments attendant upon jury trials. These are considerations that strongly recommend the
measure. No appeal can be allowed but in those cases in which it at present exists.
By compelling the party complaining to preserve the ordinary forms, you subject him
to the costs and damages prescribed by laws, sufficient to correct a mere litigious disposition; and in no instance can a plaintiff be longer delayed than under existing regulations. As, then, the measure promises some substantial good, at least, and is productive of no injury, its being denominated a "solecism" ought not to be sufficient to
prevent its adoption. And, indeed, it is as reconcilable to common sense as systems
that have been sanctioned by legislatures of the greatest intelligence; for there are
some at least that require the same judges to constitute circuit and supreme courts,
in the latter of which they can sit in judgment and give the casting voice in decisions
they have made in the former. Nor is the provision in this bill as novel as it seems
to be supposed, for we find, by the laws of Georgia, a power is specially given to the
supreme court to correct its own errors; and a party dissatisfied with a verdict of a
jury may, as a matter of right, enter his appeal in the clerk's office at any time within
the four days after the adjournment of the court.
The objection appears to be more to form than substance, for there has probably
never been a court that has not, in one way or another, revised its own decisions.
This power the Judges at present possess. Its exercise, however, depends on their
own discretion, and if the-Legislature think it best to regulate it by fixed rules, or
that it is more consistent with justice to give to their fellow-citizens, as a matter of
right, that which the Judges may equally grant or refuse them, as a mere matter of
discretion, it cannot, in any manner that I can conceive of, possibly violate any clause
in the ordinance-which is all that I attempt to prove. If, however, the two grades
of courts exist, as their honors suppose, and they are not disposed to innovate the
"practical exposition" of the ordinance, or its "received construction," the objection
will not be found to exist.
Their last objection is to the appointment of a plurality of clerks, or of one for each
county in which the court is directed to be held; and, in support of this objection,
they say, "if the ordinance established more than one clerk to the same court, why
have not several been appointed heretofore? If no such office was established by that
instrument, whence the authority to fill it?"
If their honors mean to prove, by these interrogatories, that the Legislature cannot
create more than one clerkship, because the ordinance has established but one, I
would ask if the same reason will not prove that you cannot establish any court whatever with common law jurisdiction. In the one case they say the ordinance, though
silent, has, by necessary implication, established a clerkship. In the other it has explicitly declared that there shall be a court, with common law jurisdiction. Whence,
then, is the authority, according to their reasoning, to establish another one? There
are no express restrictions upon you in either case. If, then, you have the power to
constitute a court of common pleas, to lessen and divide the duties of the court established by the ordinance, have you not equal authority to create an additional clerkship, to lessen and divide the duties of the one also established by the same instrument? Provided you should consider the measure necessary and best suited to the
circumstances of the Territory, upon principle it is perfectly immaterial how you divide the duties of the latter-whether you make them equal or unequal-for the argument of their honors is, that you cannot establish an additional clerkship under any
modification whatever, because the office is ministerial; and if the clerk cannot do all




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      91
the business himself, he may employ as many deputies as he chooses. They allege
that "not only the very nature of the court and the constitution of every other Territorial tribunal and of the Federal judiciary in general, but all courts in the United
States, unless very particularly constituted, demonstrates their construction to be the
true one." It is, I think, very probable, that, in many of the cases alluded to, there
may be but one clerk to each court; but this is rather an evidence that one has been
considered sufficient, than proof of the want of legislative power to create more.
Those cases, however, carry with them no authority, unless they can be shown to be
analagous in their circumstances to the present bill. I think I have already proved
that the true as well as received construction of the ordinance would have authorized
the adoption of the judiciary system of North Carolina, which requires the superior
court to be held twice a year in every county in the State, and that you have the
right to require the Judges to hold the court at more places than one. Instances,
therefore, where a court is held at one place only, can never be considered as applicable to the present case; because, in the former, there is neither the same reason
nor necessity for having two more clerks. But in Georgia and Ohio, there is a clerk
to the supreme court in every county. In Tennessee, the superior court was and I
believe still is held at three different places, and has separate clerks at each. Similar regulations exist, as I am informed, in other States; and in Missouri Territory,
where the superior court is established by a law of Congress, and where the objection
now under consideration would apply with equal or greater force, there has been established a separate clerkship to that in each county, under regulations precisely similar to those contained in the present bill. The hitherto received construction of the
ordinance in this Territory was, that a plurality of clerkships could be created; for
in this opinion the three Judges who constituted the court, previous to the appointment of Judge Sprigg, all concurred, upon several repeated arguments at differen t
times and places, as a journal now in my possession will show. And, indeed, it was
with some surprise that I found Judge Thomas referring to the case of the court at
Cahokia, as in that very case he not only wished to establish a separate clerkship, but
often maintained the opinion that it could be legally done, and that the Governor and
Judges, though vested with power to legislate sub modo only, and limited to the adoption of laws, were competent to do it, even without being able to find such a law in
any State. Thus it appears that the power to adopt laws from any of the States, and
not from particular ones only, presupposes the authority of the Legislature to alter
them as they shall think fit; and thus other powers enumerated in the ordinance, at
its received construction, as far as it can be ascertained, all combine to prove that
yours is the correct construction of that instrument, and that you have power to create a plurality of clerkships, if they are necessary and best suited to the circumstances of the Territory. That they are so, seems as capable of demonstration as any proposition in Euclid. Suppose the inferior courts had not been established, as is now
contemplated, whilst this was a part of the Northwestern Territory-what monstrous
oppressions must have been produced, by obliging the people to have gone to the office of a single clerk for a writ to redress the most outrageous grievance! How inconvenient and expensive would it even now be to compel all our fellow-citizens to
come to the seat of government, for every species of process; and how much more so
might it have been, if the war had not prevented the settlements of Prairie du Chien,
Green Bay and other places from extending themselves.
The convenience of the people and cheap and speedy administration of justice
are the principle objects, in requiring the court to hold its sessions in the different counties. The same considerations, or a part of them, at least, render it




92                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
as obviously proper and necessary that it should be separate clerk's offices. But
though these are no more contemplated by the ordinance than separate clerks, yet
their honors say the duties of them might be performed by deputies, as was done when
the general court was held at Cahokia and Kaskaskia, and had a separate office at
each place. But is this either just in itself or expedient in regard to the public? It
is evident that no one clerk could execute the duties of the office in all the counties,
and surely he ought not to be paid for labor wholly performed by another; nor is it
to be presumed that he could make a more judicious selection than the constituted
authorities, or that he could, for a part of the profits only, employ persons as well
qualified and as deserving of trust as those who could be engaged for the undivided
emoluments of the office.
In concluding my remarks, I beg leave to remind you that, as you witnessed the
severe indisposition that now afflicts me, and which has preyed upon me for several
months, I flatter myself that your liberality will make the proper allowances for the
many imperfections that are but too obvious in this attempted investigation;
NINIAN EDWARDS.
December 12, 1814.
In view of the whole matter, the Legislature adopted resolutions for
transmitting the contemplated act, together with the letter of the Judges
and the answer thereto of Gov. Edwards, to Congress, accompanied by an
address "requesting the passage of a law declaring the aforesaid enactment
valid, or to pass some law more explanatory of the relative duties and powers of the Judges aforesaid and of this Legislature, in order to remove any
future or existing difficulties that may arise between the Judges and the
Legislature." Congress accordingly, on the 3d of March, 1815, passed
"An act regulating and defining the duties of the United States Judges
for the Territory of Illinois."




CHAPTER VI.
The Indian Tribes and Villages of the Western Territory-   Treaties with
the Indians- Gov. Edwards' views on the Indian Trade and U. S. Saline
adopted by the General Government.
With a view of being acquainted with the country, the Indian villages
and the respective forces of different Indian tribes, Gov. Edwards employed
agents to ascertain the different routes of travel to and from the lakes, the
location of the villages and the number of warriors belonging to each tribe,
and such other information as might be useful during the year.
From notes furnished to him, and the maps on which are designated the
rivers, villages and routes from Mackinaw to St. Louis, in the year 1812,
I find the following:
Michilimakanac is an island, situated between Lakes Huron and Michigan. From
Mackanac to the main land on the north side of Lake Michigan it is six miles to a
place called Point St. Ignace; from Point St. Ignace to Point de Chene, or Oak
Point, the distance is six miles; from Point de Chene to the Poussette Island it is
fifteen miles. These islands are situated about one mile from the shore, in very
shallow water. From the Poussette Islands it is fifteen miles to a small river, called
by the Indians Min-a-coquin; from Min-a-coquin River it is fifteen miles to a point
called Patterson's Point, at which place it is very rocky, the water is very shallow,
and the navigation is very dangerous when the wind is high. Mr. John Hays, a very
intelligent person, with whom I am well acquainted, says that it was called Patter.
son's Point from the fact that a Mr. Charles Patterson, one of the principal members
of the Northwest Fur Company, with all his crew, perished there in a bark canoe,
about the year 1788. Mr. Hays says he passed through there soon afterwards, and
that he was well acquainted with Mr. Patterson.
From Patterson's Point to Soucheware (an Indian name) it is fifteen.miles. At
this place there is a most excellent harbor, situated behind a rock; it is very difficult to enter in high winds, and it is an excellent place to catch white-fish. From
Soucheware it is fifteen miles to a very handsome river called Manesty; a few miles
up this river there was a small Indian village of Chippeways. From the River Manesty it is nine miles to Point de Ecoise, or Bark Point. From thence to Detour it is
twenty-one miles, from which place cross over to the south side of the lake, leaving
a large bay or bend, called the Bay de Knocke, on the north, about one hundred
miles from Green Bay; a number of Indians-Ottaways, Chippeways and Wild-oatsresided in this bay. From Isle Detour it is three miles to Isle Broules, or Burnt
Island; from thence it is six miles to Isle Vert, or Green Island; from thence to
Isle de Pou, or Pottawottamie Island, it is six miles; from Pottawottamie Island to
Petite Etraite, or Little Strait, it is nine miles; at this place there is a village of




94                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
two lodges of Chippeways. From thence to Port des Mort, or Death's Door, (the
mainland on the south side of the lake), it is six miles; this place was called Death's
Door on account of a number of Indians, in their canoes, having been drowned there;
it is a very high, rocky and dangerous place in high winds, and is about one hundred
and sixty miles from Chicago. From Death's Door to Isle de Raccio, an island in
form of a circle, it is twenty-one miles, at which place there is an entrance for boats
in which no winds whatever can molest them, as there is a very large basin for a
harbor; this island is about one and a half miles from the shore. From thence it is
three miles to two small islands, near the shore, called by the Indians Nicola-Kechis,
on which there is a village of two lodges of Chippeways. From Nichola-Kechis it is
twenty-one miles to Bay de Tourgeon, or Sturgeon Bay, where there is a village
of three lodges of Chippeways; this bay is very deep. From this bay to Red River
it is twenty-one mites. From Red River to Cape de Pouant, or Winnebago Cape,
(a very high and handsome place, and where there was formerly a Winnebago'village,)
the distance is fifteen miles. From Winnebago Cape to Point au Sable, or Sandy
Point, a bay where a few Wild-oats live, it is three miles-from which point cross
over to the entrance of Green Bay, a distance of six miles. From Green Bay to
Minne-Wakey, on the route to Chicago, it is one hundred and fifty miles. From
Minne-Wakey (at and near which there are a number of Pottawottamies, Ottaways
and Chippeways) it is ninety miles to Chicago; the country around Green Bay is
very beautiful, the land is excellent, and it is settled on each side of the river (which
empties into the bay) by Canadians and some Americans; there are here about forty
houses, and the inhabitants are mostly all farmers; the north side is the most settled;
there is an excellent grist mill and distillery, and there is also, near this place, a
large village of the Wild-oats, situated on the north side, who have always been very
friendly. Three miles from Green Bay is Rapide de Pere, where there is a grist mill.
Six miles from Rapide de Pere is Petite Kakalin Rapids, where there is a village ot
six lodges of Wild-oats. Nine miles from this place is the Grand Kakalin Rapids
and portage, where there is a small village of Wild-oats. Six miles from the Grand
Kakalin Rapids is the small falls of the Petite Calumi. Six miles from Petite Calumi is the Grand Calumi and the portage, where the falls are much more considerable. Nine miles from Grand Calumi is the Rapids de Pouant, at the head of the
entrance of Lake de Pouant, where there is a village of about seven lodges of Ponants;
this village, though now reduced to seven lodges, formerly contained as many as thirty.
Lake Pouant is about twenty-one miles long and about four or five miles wide; at
the end of this lake is the entrance to Fox River of the Wisconsin, at which place
Mr. Hays says he has seen a very large village of Pouants, but at that time (1812)
there was not one lodge. From the mouth of Fox River it is nine miles to Bute de
Morte, or Death's Hill-so called in consequence of a number of Indians having been
killed there, a number of years ago, by the French; on the north side of the river
at this place the Wild-oats have a village. From Death's Hill it is three miles to the
Rivier des Loup, or Wolf River. From this river it is fifteen miles to Wakan, formerly a village of Winnebagoes, but now abandoned. From Wakan it is fifteen
miles to Tounere Jannof, or Yellow Thunder. From Yellow Thunder it is fifteen
miles to Le Plane, a remarkable place for encampment. From Le Plane to Mak-kan,
a small river, on which there was formerly a Winnebago village, it is fifteen miles.
From Mak-kan to Lake A-pock-way, where there is a village of two or three lodges,
but where once there was a very large village, it is fifteen miles; this lake is nine
miles long. From thence to Buffalo Lake it is fifteen miles; this lake is nine miles
across. From Buffalo Lake to Little Rock it is fifteen miles. From Little Rock to




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     95
the Forks it is fifteen miles. From the Forks it is fifteen miles to the Wisconsin
portage; the length of the portage is two and a-half miles; at the portage there is a
village of Winnebagoes, of three lodges, at which place a Frenchman lives who carries over the goods, boats, etc., with wagons; it is about three hundred and sixty
miles from Lake Michigan to the Wisconsin River. From the portage of Wisconsin
it is about one hundred and twenty miles to a village of Winnebagoes, of ten lodges,
about sixty miles from its mouth, where it empties into the Mississippi River; there
is nothing remarkable in the Wisconsin River except the big turn on the north side,
about ninety miles from the mouth and the same distance from the portage. From
the mouth of the Wisconsin it is six miles to Prairie du Chien, and twenty-one to
Village La Porte, a village of ten lodges of Foxes. From Village La Porte to Turkey
River it is nine miles; on this river there are about fifteen lodges of Foxes. From
Turkey River to Village Batard, consisting of about eight lodges of Foxes, it is fifteen
miles. From Village Batard to Little Prairie, a village of three lodges of Foxes, it
is nine miles. From Little Prairie to Petite Makokete, where there are six lodges
of Foxes, it is nine miles. From Petite Makokete to Old Mines it is nine miles.
From Old Mines to New or Spanish Mines it is six miles; near this place there is a
village of Foxes, up a small river. From Spanish Mines to Death's Head it is fifteen
miles; this is the place where Hunt's men were killed. From Spanish Mines to the
River Sussenneway, opposite Death's Head, it is also fifteen miles. From the River
Sussenneway to Fever River, on both of which rivers there are excellent lead mines,
it is three miles. From Fever River to Village Chaniere, containing ten lodges of
Foxes, it is nine miles. From Chaniere to Grand Makokete it is six miles. From
thence to Apple River it is six miles. From thence to La Prairie de Frappeau it is
fifteen miles. From thence to Potato Prairie it is fifteen miles. From thence to
Che-che-qui-me-nanque, formerly an Indian village, it is about nine miles. From
thence to Marais de Ange it is nine miles. From thence to Pecesuisenany, formerly
an Indian village, it is nine miles. From thence to the Rapids of Rock River it is
nine miles; these rapids are about eighteen miles in length; at the foot of
them there are about thirty lodges, having formerly for their chief Peau Blanc, or
White Skins, but at present his brother, Mohawk, is their chief. From this village
to Rock River it is three miles, and about one and half miles up Rock River, on the
south side, there is a very extensive village of Sacs, of nearly two hundred lodges;
up this river, also, about twenty or thirty miles from the mouth, there is a considerable Winnebago village. From Rock River to Grand Muscatine it is thirty miles.
From thence to Iowa River it is thirty miles. From Iowa River to Skunk River it
is sixty miles. From thence to Horse-shoe it is twelve miles. From Horse-shoe to
to Fort Madison it is nine miles. From thence to the head of Rapids des Moine it
is nine miles; these Rapids are eighteen miles long. From the foot of the Rapids
to the River des Moine it is about three miles. From thence to Fox River it is six
miles. From Fox River to River Wacanda it is twenty-one miles. From thence to
Prairie Wacanda it is three miles. From thence to Bay Boston it is nine miles.
From thence to L'eau Froide, or Fabian River, it is eighteen miles. From Fabian
River to Two Rivers it is three miles, to Prairie Joffreon. From thence to Bay
Charl it is fifteen miles. From thence to Petite Glaze it is twelve miles. From
Petite Glaze to Fort Mason it is two miles. From thence to Salt River it is twentyseven miles. From Salt River to River Denoyer it is three miles. From River
Denoyer to Buffalo River it is three miles. From Buffalo River to River Callums
it is four and half miles; it was near this river that O'Neal's family were killed.
From OallumB to Fort Boucher it is six miles. From Fort Boucher to Dog Island it




96                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
is six miles. From thence to Bell's Point it is twenty-four miles. From Bell's Point
to Cape au Grey it is fifteen miles. From Cape au Grey to Cuiver River it is three
miles. From thence to La Peruque, a small French village, it is six miles. From
La Peruque to the River Dedain it is six miles. From thence to the Illinois River
it is six miles. From thence to Portage de Sioux it is nine miles. From Portage
de Sioux to the Missouri River it is six miles.  From thence to St. Louis it is
eighteen miles. From St. Louis to Cahokia it is four miles.
The Pottawottamies, on the Illinois River, are divided into three bands, to-wit:
that of Gomo, consisting of about 150 men; they reside at the end of Peoria Lake
about seven leagues from Peoria. The Pepper's band at Sand River, about two
leagues below the Quinqueque, consisting of about 200 men of different nationsas Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways; Letourneau and Mettetasse are of
this band. Sand River is fifty leagues above Peoria and twenty leagues below Lake
Michigan. Mainpoc's band resides seven leagues up the Quinqueque (now called
the Kankakee), and consists of about fifty men. The remaining Pottawottamies
live on the River St. Joseph, on which there are three or four villages. On the
Fox River, which empties into the Illinois River at the Charboniere, or Coal-pit,
about thirty-five leagues above Peoria, is another band of Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways, having for their leader Wa-bee-saux. This river takes its source
from Mil-waa-kee. In this band there are only about 30 men.
The Kee kaa-poos are divided into three bands: Pamawatans, consisting of about
100 men, exclusive of those at the Prophet's, are now making their village on
Peoria Lake, three leagues from Peoria. The Little Deer has also abandoned their
great village, and is now forming his village opposite to Gomo's. His band consists
of about 70 men. Of this band there are also about 50 men, and the same number of
Pottawottamies with the Prophet. At the Little Makina, a river on the south side
of the Illinois River, is a band, headed by no particular chief, but generally by
warriors. Le Bourse Sulky is generally regarded as the main chief. This tribe consists of Kees, Chippeways, Ottaways and Pous, and number about 60.
At the camping place of Chicago, three leagues from the lake, is a village of
about 30 men, of Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways, having for their chief
Co-wa-bee-may.
The distance from Peoria to the Rock River on the Mississippi, is about twenty
leagues by land, and can be traveled in two days on foot and in one on horseback.
The country is mostly prairie and very fine open woodland. Opposite to the River
Vermilion, which is nearly thirty leagues above Peoria, by cutting across the land,
one would reach Rock River near Milwaakee. The whole country between the
Illinois and Mississippi Rivers is a fine open country, easy to travel through, chiefly
prairie, but high land. The Winnebago village on Rock River is about thirty or
forty leagues from the mouth and within one day's march of their old village on the
Lake Ap Quay, in the Fox River, that comes from Green Bay. The distance from
the Winnebago River to Milwaakee can be traveled in one and half days.
Leaving Chicago to go to Makina, on the south side of Lake Michigan, the first
river you reach is the Little Calumick, about five leagues from Chicago. There is
on this river a village consisting of about one hundred men, of Pous, Chippeways
and Ottaways. Old Camp-pignan is their chief. He has a burnt band and broken
nose. It was reported this spring that he was killed, on his way from Niagara to
Detroit. Man-mon-qai, who was his second, will probably be their next chief.
About ten leagues up the St. Joseph, a river about thirty leagues from Chicago,
there is a village of about 10 men, of Pottawottamies, with no particular chief to




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     97
head them. On the Terre-coupee, a small river that empties into the St. Joseph,
there is a village of 100 men, of Pous, headed by Mock-kua gon, about ten leagues
on a straight line from the lake and about thirty leagues by land, to Chicago. The
roads from this place to the lake and to Chicago are very fine, and pass through an
open country,
There is another village on the St. Joseph, about forty leagues above the mouth,
of Pottawottamies, the number of whom is not known. This village is situated at
the entrance of a small river called La Reviere Pirette, or Speckled River. The
chief of this band is named Mon-neck-quai-bee.
On the Stagheart, a small river, which also empties into the St. Joseph, there is
a village of Pous, the number of whom is not known. Their chief is Nan-quee-sai.
At the entrance of the Keck-kaa-ne ma-zo River into the lake, about fifteen
leagues north of the St. Joseph, there is a small village of 7 or 8 men, without any
chief and about twenty five leagues up the river there is a village of Pous and
Ottaways, of about 60 or 70 men. Their chief is unknown.
On the Grand River, ten leagues beyond the Keck-kaa-ne-ma-zo, there are four
villages of Ottaways, containing in all about 200 men. The first village is about
three leagues, the second about fifteen, the third about twenty-five, and the fourth
about forty leagues from the entrance, on a small river called Riviere de Plaines.
This grand river extends very nearly to Detroit.
Four leagues beyond the Grand River is the Mash-kee-gon, on which there are
two villages of Ottaways-the first about fifteen and the second about thirty leagues
from the mouth. The chief of the first is Peck-kwa-nai, or Smoke; of the second,
Wampum.
Four leagues beyond the Wash-kee-gon is White River, one league beyond which,
on the bluffs, is a village called the Bluffs of Ottawa, of about 70 or 80 men,
whose chief is not known. Twelve leagues beyond the White River is the River
Pere Marquette, on which there is a small village of Ottaways, chief unknown.
NAMES OF THE RIVERS EMPTYING INTO THE ILLINOIS RIVER.
The first river, in going up the Illinois River, is the Fouchai River, on the south
side and about six miles from the mouth of the Illinois River. The River Ma-kapinn is two miles above the Fouchai and on the same side of the Illinois. On the
south side and three leagues above is the Lionoise. On the same side and two
leagues above is La Pomme, or Apple River. On the north side and two leagues
above Apple River is River Chabot. Mouse River, on the south side, is three
leagues higher, and from this river it is one day's march to the Mississippi. Two
and a half leagues higher, on the north side, is Blue River. Two leagues above
Blue River, on the north side, is Pierre a la Fleche, or Arrowstone River. On the
south side, two leagues above Pierre a la Fleche, is Negro River. Mauvaise-terre
River is one and half leagues higher. Labellansine, on the south side, is four
leagues above. Mine River, on the north side, is two leagues above, and from this
river it is one and half day's march to the Mississippi. Four leagues above, on the
north side, is La Riviere a Bordelle, or Brothel River. On the south side, one and
half leagues above, is Sain-quee-mon River. This river extends to Wecas, near Vincennes, and on its branches were formerly Kee-ka-poo villages. On the south side,
about ten leagues above the Sain-quee-mon, is the River Meequen, which keeps a
direct line with the Illinois River for a long distance. Little Shwaa-yan, on the
north side, is three leagues higher. Shee-shee-quen on the north side isfour leagues
higher. Little Makina is five leagues higher, on the south side; the Kickapoos
-13




98                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
have a village here. The river is four leagues higher on the north side and one
league below Peoria. Lake Peoria is seven leagues long, at the end of which is
Gomo's village and a river called Moran's River. Little Deer's village is opposite
to Gomo's. Eight leagues higher is Corbeau River, or Blackbird River, on the
south side. Bureau River is six leagues higher, on the north side. Vermillion
River, on the south side, is nine leagues higher. Fox River, on the north side, is
four leagues higher. River Massan is about nine leagues higher, on the south side.
From here we can get to the Wabash, through a fine open country. Sand River,
on the north side, is three leagues higher. One and a half leagues higher is the
forks of the Quin-que-que. On the south side at this place the Illinois loses its
name, and is called from here Chicago River, to the lake, a distance of about twenty
leagues. On the north side of Lake Michigan, about thirty leagues from Chicago,
is River Mill-waa-kee, where may be found villages of Pottawottamies and Nollesawanes. At the Sauk River, on the same side, is a village of Ottaways and Cbippeways, and from this river it is but twelve miles to Green Bay.
The description of the several routes, villages, tribes and country is
taken from notes and maps furnished to Gov. Edwards, in 1812, by Mr.
John Hays and Mr. John Hay, both of whom filled important offices and
were intelligent Frenchmen. The latter was, for many years, clerk of all
the courts, and judge of probate of the county of St. Clair, in the State
of Illinois. I extract the following from a letter of John Hays to Gov.
Edwards, of August 20, 1812:
The route from Montreal to Michilimakanac, by the Grand River, is called 900
miles, the most difficult route perhaps in the world. There are 36 carrying places,
where all the goods are carried on men's backs over these portages, and in most of
those places the bark canoes are likewise carried on men's shoulders. There are
also 36 places where half canoe loads are carried, owing to the great rapids. The
canoe starts half loaded and deposits the half load at a certain place, and then
returns for the other half load. No boats of any kind can ascend this river-only
bark canoes which carry -seventy pieces, weighing one hundred pounds each;
every man carries two of those pieces over each carrying place. The canoes are
navigated by ten or eleven men, with paddles. By this route all the merchandise
from Montreal is carried to the Grand Portage, Nippegand Arthateaska, and all
the other wintering places on Lake Superior, and the peltries return by the same
route. A few years past all the merchandise from Montreal to Mackanac was taken
by the same route. The fort St. Joseph is about seventeen leagues from Mackanac.
Goods may be brought from St. Joseph along the main land and by the Island of
Mackanac. Those brought the last fall into the Mississippi, by Mr. Dickson and
others, were brought by this route.
The following description of Prairie du Chien is taken from a letter of
N. Boilvine to the Secretary of War, of the 2d of February, 1811:
Prairie du Chien is an old Indian town, which was sold by the Indians to the
Canadian traders about thirty years ago, where they have ever since taken their
merchandise, from which place it was sent in various directions. The Indians also
sold to them, at the same time, a tract of land measuring six leagues up and down
the river and six leagues back of it-the village between thirty and forty houses,
and the tract just mentioned about thirty-two families-so that the whole settle



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     99
ment contains about 100 families. These men are generally French Canadians, most
of whom have married Indian wives; very few white females are to be found in the
settlement. These people attend to the cultivation of their land, which is extremely
fertile; they raise considerable quantity of surplus produce, particularly wheat and
corn; they annually dispose of eighty thousand pounds of flour to the traders and
Indians, besides a great quantity of meal, and the quantity of produce would be
greatly increased if a suitable demand existed for it. Such is the beauty of the
climate, that the country begins to attract the attention of settlers. A variety of
fruit trees have lately been planted and promise to grow well. Prairie du Chien is
surrounded by numerous Indians, who wholly depend on it for their supplies.
Great danger, both to individuals and the Government, is to be apprehended from
the Canadian traders, who endeavor to incite the Indians against us, partly to monopolize their trade, and partly to secure their friendship in case a war should
break out between us and England. They are continually making large presents to
the Indians.
The United States, by the adoption of one simple measure, can secure this trade
and put an end to the intercourse between the Canadian traders and the Indians.
Prairie du Chien, from its central position, is well calculated for a garrison and
factory. It affords health, plenty of fine timber and good water. The Indians have
turned their attention to the manufacture of lead, from a mine about 60 miles below
Prairie du Chien. During the last season they exchanged four hundred thousand
pounds of that article for goods. They might be prevailed upon to open more mines,
as the profits from the manufacture of lead are much greater than from the laborious pursuit of peltries. A few tools will be necessary for them, and perhaps a
blacksmith to repair them. As soon as the Indians turn their attention to lead,
the Canadian traders, who have no use for that article, in the way of commerce,
would abandon the country. The factory ought to be well supplied with goods to
be exchanged for lead. This trade would be more valuable to the United States than
peltries, as lead is not a perishable article and is easily transported, whereas peltries
are bulky and large quantities are annually spoiled before they reach market.
After the war, and in connection with Gov. Clark and Col. A. Choteau
of St. Louis, Gov. Edwards was appointed by the General Government to
hold a treaty with the Indian tribes that had been concerned in the war.
This treaty was of vital importance to the future interests of Illinois and
Missouri, and no small portion of its advantages may be attributed to the
forecast of Gov. Edwards. In one of his communications to the Legislature, he thus refers to one of the objects he had in making this treaty:
In 1816 a tract of land bounded by Lake Michigan, including Chicago, and extending to the Illinois River, was obtained from the Indians, for the purpose of opening
a canal communication between the lake and river. Having been one of the Commissioners who treated for this land, I personally know that the Indians were induced to
believe that the opening of the canal would be very advantageous to them, and that,
under authorized expectations that this would be done, they ceded the land for a
trifle. Good faith, therefore, towards these Indians, as well as the concurring interest of the State and of the Union, seems to require that the execution of this truly
national object should not be unnecessarily delayed; and nothing is more reasonable
than that the expenses should be defrayed out of the proceeds of the very property
which was so ceded for the express purpose of having it done.




100                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The replies to his communications, both from the Territorial Legislature
and the Chiefs of the Departments at Washington, show in what high estimation his opinions in relation to the Indians, the salines, and his public services, were held. His intimate knowledge of the character of the
Indian tribes enabled him, when requested by the General Government,
to give important advice in the adoption of measures relative to our intercourse and trade with them; and in every instance, without an exception,
his views were adopted by the Government. Wm. H. Crawford, who was
Secretary of War in 1816, refers to Gov. Edwards' views on the subject
of the Indian trade in a highly complimentary manner. He says, "his
view of the subject, as well as several other important ideas, are more fully
developed in the communication of Gov. Edwards;" and in a letter to
Gov. Edwards, he says, "the Department has the fullest confidence in the
rectitude with which your superintendence has been exercised."  The
same may be said of the views entertained and the opinions communicated
by him in relation to the U. S. saline and lead mines, as will appear from
his extensive correspondence on those subjects.
"Owing to his knowledge and experience with the Indian character and
affairs," he was called upon by Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of War in 1818,
for his views in relation to the Indian trade, and for his ideas, also, on the
"relative merits of the system as it then was or with the improvements of
which it was susceptible, and the one proposed to be substituted by Congress."
In the year 1817, he received a letter from a very distinguished gentleman, stating that his friends in Washington City were urging his appointment as Secretary of the War Department. The editor of the "National
Register," in Washington, and one of the most influential papers of the
city of Baltimore, also presented his claims for that office.




CHAPTER VII.
Organization of the State Government and Gov. Edwards' election to United States Senate —peech on the Public Land Question-United States
Mineral Land —The Illinois Question-Letter of Mr. Wirt in reference
to his Retiring from Public Life —Mr. Calhoun's Letters in reference to
his Advancement-Graduation of the Price of the Government Lands.
The State Government was organized in 1818, by the election of Shadrack Bond, Governor, and Pierre Menard, Lieut. Governor. Elias K. Kane,
who was afterwards elected Senator in Congress, was appointed Secretary of
State, and Daniel P. Cook was elected the first Attorney General of the
State. Gov. Bond had been a delegate in Congress from the Territory
from 1811 to 1815, at which time he was appointed Receiver of the Land
Office, which office he held at the time of his election as Governor of the
State. He had made himself deservedly very.popular by his efforts in
Congress to secure the payment of the troops during war, and for his support of the measures having for their object the protection of our frontier
settlements.
Gov. Edwards and Jesse B. Thomas were chosen by the Legislature to
represent them in the Senate of the United States..In this conspicious
station, and one of the highest to which an American citizen can aspire,
while the great and complicated interests of the whole country came under
his eye, Gov. Edwards relaxed not his accustomed vigilance for the rights
and interests of his more immediate constituents.
- During the time he was Senator in Congress, no one had a higher standing as a debater or statesman. His policy in relation to the Indian trade,
the management of the lead mines and the U. S. salt works, had been previously adopted by the General Government. Among the first of his
speeches delivered in the U. S. Senate was one on the subject of the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union. Though from a free
State, and opposed to slavery, and especially to its introduction into his
own State, he ably contended for the right of the people of each State to
have such a constitution and institutions as they might adopt for themselves,
provided their form of government was republican and not in violation of
the constitution of the United States. His speech, on a resolution of Sen



102                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
ator Lloyd of Maryland, proposing to give to each of the old States, for
the purpose of education, a portion of the public lands equal to the amount
granted for the same purpose to the new States, contains, among other
things, an able exposition of the powers of the General Government on
the subject of appropriating the lands or funds of the Government for mere
local purposes. It places the right of the new States to the land, for those
purposes, on the ground which was afterwards adopted: that the land appropriated for such objects would tend to enhance the value of the remainder, and bring into market a vast quantity so much earlier, that the
Government would actually gain by the appropriation to the new States.
On the publication of this speech, Mr. Edwards received the following
letter from Mr. Blair, who was a member of Congress:
April 12, 1822.
Mr. Blair's most kind respects to Gov. Edwards of Illinois, and begs leave to present
his best thanks for the speech (in pamphlet form) on the resolution proposing to give
the old States lands for the purposes of education, &c.
At the same time he cannot refrain from assuring Mr. E. that this very able speech
has probably saved him from giving an erroneous vote. Mr. B. had thought it reasonable that the old States should participate in the benefit of the public lands equally
with the new States, without considering that the school donations of land were made
to the new States as a bonus for settling in a wilderness, &c. Mr. B. also begs leave
to assure Mr. E. that, in his opinion, this speech is equally creditable to the head and
to the heart. While it breathes the purest spirit of philanthrophy and benevolence,
it, in point of reasoning, "leaves no stone unturned."
I have also before me a letter from Hon. John Crowell, a member of
Congress from North Carolina, dated April 27, 1822, in which he says
that "Gov. Branch, of that State, has read your speech on the Maryland
proposition, and says you have changed his opinion, and that your arguments are unanswerable." The following extract from that speech shows
how well he understood, at this early day, the questions in relation to the
powers which respectively belonged to the General and State Governments:
The appropriation which we are asked to make is avowed to be for a mere State
purpose. The question then is, can the resources of this nation be thus applied? In
discussing this subject, I may, I presume, safely premise that the powers, duties and
objects of the Federal and State Governments are separate and distinct, and the prosperity and happiness of this nation depend upon the fidelity and wisdom with which
those governments, respectively, discharge their appropriate functions. Each government has, for those important purposes, and as necessary thereto, its own particular resources, which cannot be yielded up or misapplied, without impairing its capacity to fulfil the objects of its institution; for nothing could be more nugatory than a
grant of powers without the means of executing them. But, sir, whether the national
domain has been acquired by conquest, cessions from particular states, purchases from
foreign powers, one thing is undeniable-it has, doubtless, been acquired by and exclusively belongs to the Confederation or Union. It must, therefore, be considered
as National and not State property, and, by fair inference, is applicable only to Na



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                  103
tional and not State objects. It is true that it is a common fund in which all the
States are interested. So, sir, is the revenue and every other species of property belonging to the United States; in relation to all of which the interest of the States is
precisely the same. Being a common fund, applicable to the use and support of the
General Government, the States can enjoy the benefits of it only in its just and ligitimate application to National purposes. I hold, therefore, that no State can rightfully claim, and, of course, to none can be granted the separate and distinct use and
enjoyment of the property or funds of the nation, in consequence of a right to a common participation therein.
In this speech he further argues that Congress, having bound themselves, by solemn compact, to dispose of those lands for the use and benefit
of the Union, "and for no other use or purpose whatsoever," cannot withdraw any part from the use of the Union; that it was an acquisition in
their Federal character, in which character only could the States participate in the benefits of it; that, with the same propriety, the common funds
of the nation may be appropriated to objects to which the powers of Federal legislation are not pretended to extend, and that if the States have no
right to the separate and distinct use and enjoyment of the common property and funds of the nation, the Congress has no power to confer such a
right over them; that Congress could have no pretence of power to enforce
the application; and that Congress has no more right to grant away the
funds of the nation than the powers of the Government. This argument
is conclusive against the power to appropriate the funds of the nation to
internal improvements, except for works of national character, or to divide
the proceeds of the public lands among the States. But the grants to the
State lose all their character as donations, because the increased value of
the reserved alternate sections will increase the national fund.
The "National Intelligencer" thus alludes to this speech: "We omit
several articles to-day for the purpose of presenting entire, in one paper,
the speech of Mr. Edwards of Illinois, in the Senate of the United States,
delivered at the last session of Congress, on the proposition to grant to the
old States portions of the public lands for the purposes of education. Circumstances, which it is unnecessary to mention, have interfered to prevent
an earlier publication of this speech, which, though it is in opposition to
the policy we ourselves deem wise and have uniformly advocated, we must
confess is an argument of great ability, and so strong as to be calculated
to weaken in some degree the confidence of those who have been most
zealous and conscientious in maintaining the opposite doctrine."
Not only the people of Illinois, but those of all the United States, are
indebted to him for having defeated a policy which, had it prevailed, would
have resulted in a division of the public lands, or the proceeds arising from
their sale, among all the States of the Union, which would have prevented
those grants of land within their limits to the new States, for the purpose
of internal improvements. It would have also prevented the reduction of




104                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
the price, and consequently retarded their settlement. It was conceded
by all parties, at Washington, that the efforts of Gov. Edwards on this occasion defeated the passage of those resolutions. His policy in relation to
the public lands was, to facilitate every one in acquiring a home. In a
speech which he delivered as early as 1806, in Kentucky, he said: "My
wish was that every man might have an opportunity of procuring a freehold of his own; that there might be as few tenants as possible. I have
always considered tenants too subject to the influence of their landlords,
and landlords in general so much disposed to abuse that influence as to
render it dangerous and highly inimical to republicanism. With these
views I have zealously persevered in exerting the small portion of influence
I possessed to ameliorate the situation of the citizens of the district, and
to promote the general prosperity of the State."
In his message to the Legislature, in 1826, he says the course of policy
adopted by the General Government "is so restrictive of natural rights,
and at the same time so unexampled, that it is only to be justified by urgent
necessity, and should no longer be pursued after that necessity has ceased
to operate. Acknowledged authorities on the law of nature recognize to
all men a natural right, according to the beneficent intentions of the Creator of the world, to a portion of the land which He has made for their
benefit; and although this right, like all others, may be modified by the
institutions of civil society, yet, these should conform, as far as possible, to
natural rights. It would seem that no government, holding immense tracts
of waste and unappropriated lands, can, without acting contrary to Divine
intention and will, refuse to permit its own citizens to occupy a reasonable
portion of these lands, but for a price which many thousands of them are
unable to pay. Why, then, should this policy be continued? Justice,
sound policy, the beneficent intentions of the Creator of the world-who
made the land for the common benefit of all mankind, and conferred upon
every human being a right to a portion of it-will forbid it. The system,
therefore, sooner or later, must and will be abandoned."
These were not, however, the only grievances which he pointed out and
used his efforts to have remedied. There were other measures assumed,
by the General Government, in relation to the public lands, which threatened to undermine the foundations of the sovereignty and independence of
the States, and to subvert both our civil and political liberties& Declining
to sell, the United States claimed and exercised the power of leasing out
the whole of the mineral lands of the State, thereby establishing the relation of landlord and tenant between the United States and the citizens of
the State, and introducing a population among us dependent upon themselves, and at that time numerous enough to decide all our general elections
and to control our most important municipal affairs. At the session of




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    105
Congress in 1829 a bill was pending, in the House of Representatives, "to
authorize the President of the United States to appoint a Superintendent
and Receiver at the Fever River Lead Mines, and for other purposes,"
which, among other things, required those officers to report to the President
"such alterations in the manner of governing and leasing said mines as
may to them appear necessary for the better security of the interest of the
Government," and empowered the President to prescribe such rules and
regulations for the government of said officers and mines, leasing and surveying the mineral grounds, licensing smelters, and for preserving the
property of the United States, as to him may appear necessary and proper.
Gov. Edwards, in calling the attention of the Legislature to this subject,
said, " this project, by the concentration of so much power in the hands
of any one man, violates all the acknowledged principles of well regulated
liberty, and had not its parallel in the United States, nor even in Great
Britain since their emancipation from the misrule of the Stuarts; that,
divided as we had been upon the great question of slavery, its exercise
might have given the population of the mineral country a decided preponderance to the one side or the other; and that, with such means at the
command of the General Government, there was nothing to prevent its
deciding for us any other great question of national or state policy, upon
which an ordinary division of public opinion prevailed. A further exercise
of this power (he said) might subject our property, liberties and lives to
the uncontrolled domination of the mere dependents and tenants at will of
a government that never was intended to have any agency in our local
affairs." He called upon the Legislature to prevent its exercise by their
timely interposition; for, said he, "there is the same authority to lease the
whole as a part of the public domain within the limits of the State."
1 give further extracts from his messages to the State Legislature on the
subject of the public lands, as follows:
Adverse to our interest and welfare as has been the policy which the General Government has long pursued in relation to the public lands, there has been nothing so
well calculated to awaken our apprehension as certain principles which it has recently avowed and acted upon. Seriously injured by a system which prohibits settlement
and cultivation without previous purchase-refusing to sell, but upon terms far more
exorbitant than have ever been demanded by any State in the Union, or any of the
powers of Europe that have held land on this continent, and which exacts the same
price for lands, good, bad and indifferent-we have, year after year, implored Congress
to discontinue the grievances thus produced, by granting small donations out of the
vast public domain, to poor but meritorious and useful citizens who are unable to
buy; and by reducing the price, and apportioning it to the quality of the land. Reasonable as were these petitions, they have, however, not only been utterly fruitless,
but an aggravation of the evils, already so severely felt, is seriously threatened. A
high functionary of the Government, sensible of the magnitude of the interests at
-14




106                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
stake, but unappalled by it, in an elaborate and eloquent official report to Congress,
at the last session, in glowing colors, depicts even the present poor encouragement
afforded to the settlement and cultivation of the public lands as an evil to the nation,
and, with uncalculating intrepidity, powerfully urges the means of lessening "its absorbing force."
In this report, the Secretary of the Treasury says: "It cannot be overlooked that
the prices at which fertile bodies of land may be bought of the Government, under
this system, operate as a perpetual allurement to their purchase. It has served, and
still serves to draw, in an annual stream, the inhabitants of a majority of the States,
including amongst them, at this day, a portion, not small, of the Western States, into
the settlement of fresh lands lying still farther and farther off. If the population of
these States, not yet redundant in fact, though appearing to be so under this legislative excitement to emigrate, remained fixed in more instances, as it probably would by
extending the motives to manufacturing labor, it is believed the nation at large would
gain in two ways: First, by the more rapid accumulation of capital; and next, by
the gradual reduction of the excess of agricultural population over that engaged in
other vocations." Referring tothe public domain itself, he remarks, that "its very
possession is conceived to furnish paramount inducements, under all views, for quickening, by fresh legislative countenance, manufacturing labor throughout other parts
of the Union. It is a power to be turned to the account of manifold and transcendant
blessings, rather than reposed upon for aggrandizing too exclusively the interest of
agriculture, fundamental as that must ever be in the State. Agriculture itself would
be essentially benefited; the price of lands, in all the existing States, would soon
become enhanced, as well as the produce from them, by a policy that would, in anywise, tend to render portions of the present population more stationary, by supplying
new and adequate motives to their becoming so. And, as it is, the laws that have
legally, in effect, throughout a long course of time, superinduced disinclinations to
manufacturing labor, by their overpowering calls to rural labor in the mode of selling
off the public domain, the claim of further legal protection to the former kind of labor,
at this day, seems to wear an aspect of justice, no less than of expediency."
Without stopping to contest the wisdom and necessity of legislative enactments to
check a great and acknowledged excess of agricultural labor, in a free and enlightened
country, where every one is left to pursue his own interests, consult his own inclination, and choose his own vocation, or to inquire how agriculture could be "essentially
benefited" by increasing the price of lands, or manufactures advanced by enhancing
the value of the products of agriculture-and without denying the advantages of a
wise and judicious division of labor, properly and fairly effected-I may be permitted to say, that it seems to me a new discovery that, in a nation abounding with
vast regions of waste lands of unparalleled fertility, any vocation is better calculated
to increase its capital or promote its welfare than agriculture, or that, under such
circumstances, legislative discountenance should ever be interposed to bind or check
it, for the sake of promoting any other interest. This is believed to be an assumption,
which is contradicted by all the records of experience and observation, and the policy
which the Secretary predicates upon it, and which Congress seems to have adopted,
is as clearly inconsistent with the universally acknowledged and most solemn obligations of a nation. Vattel declares the cultivation of the earth to be the natural employment of man. In pages 91, 92 and 129, he says: "Of all the arts, tillage or agriculture is doubtless the most useful and necessary. It is the nursing father of the
State. The cultivation of the earth causes it to produce an infinite increase; it




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     107
forms the surest resource and the most solid funds of rich commerce for the people
who enjoy a happy climate."
"This affair, then, deserves the utmost attention of the Government. The sovereign ought to neglect no means of rendering the land under his obedience as well cultivated as possible."
"The government ought carefully to avoid everything capable of discouraging the
husbandman, or of diverting him from the labors of agriculture."
"The cultivation of the soil is not only to be recommended by government on account of the advantages that flow from it, but from its being an obligation imposed by
nature on mankind. The whole earth is appointed for the nourishment of its inhabitants; but it would be incapable of doing it, was it uncultivated."
Referring to desert places not necessary as such to the safety of a nation, and which
it is unable to cultivate, he says: "It is equally agreeable to the dictates of humanity
and to the particular advantages of the State, to give these desert places to strangers
who are able to clear the land and render it valuable. The beneficence of the State
thus turns to its own advantage; it acquires new subjects, and augments its riches
and powers. This is the practice in America. The English have carried their settlements in the new world to a degree of power which has considerably increased that
of the nation. Thus the King of Prussia also endeavors to repeople his States, laid
waste by the calamities of ancient wars."
The title of this nation to the public domain is primarily derived from these principles, and must forever remain subject to the obligations they impose. America, when
first discovered by the European nations, was inhabited by a people thinly scattered
over its surface, who neither would nor could cultivate it, and who consequently
could not lawfully claim the whole of it; and hence those under whom the nation
claims, as against the aborigines, lawfully took possession and acquired title. Admitting, then, the public lands belong to the United States, is not the government thereof bound, by the eternal principles of justice, and by a just regard to the laws of
nature, which is the Divine will, not only to permit, but to encourage the settlement
and cultivation of those lands, wherever it can do so without endangering the general welfare? And, if the dictates of humanity imposes on any nation an obligation,
as is said by the author above quoted, to give desert places "to strangers who are
able to clear the land and to render it valuable," how can a government like ours, so
emphatically relying for its support upon the virtue and affections of the people, and
professing to be actuated by sentiments of justice and philanthropy, refuse a similar
boon to a poor and dependent, but faithful and useful citizen? All civilized nations
acknowledge the justice of the principles I have quoted. Virtuous and enlightened
ones recognize, and, as far as circumstances admit, respect the obligations they impose.
The monarchies of Europe which have held territory on this continent, have conformed
to them with a beneficence and liberality which does them honor, and is particularly
worthy of the imitation of this nation, since no little of its present wealth, ard power,
and prosperity is justly attributable to that source. Why, it may be asked, should not
the Government of the United States be as liberal in this respect as those of Great
Britain, France or Spain, which it has succeeded? Is it that the public lands, having been obtained by the common efforts of all the States, should be disposed of for
their common benefit, and therefore cannot be rightfully transferred for the encouragement of agriculture? Were not those very lands originally obtained by the common
efforts of those nations? How then did their governments acquire the right to give
them away for the encouragement of agriculture? And why were they not equally
bound to exact for them the -highest price in cash that could be obtained for the benefit




108                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
of their respective nations? A monarch has no more right to disregard the interest and
welfare of his nation, than the constituted authorities of a republic. It was not without incurring vast expenses and sacrifice of much property and many valuable things,
that those nations discovered and possessed themselves of their respective domains
on this continent. Nor did any of them escape the necessity of bloody and expensive
wars to maintain them And if the acquisition of our public domain from Great Britain, by the common blood and treasure of the nation, marks such a right of property
in it as prohibits the Government of the United States from disposing of it, but for
pecuniary considerations, it would seem that nothing could have more imperiously
imposed a similar restriction upon the government of that nation, than the immense
expenditure of her blood and treasure, not only in numerous conflicts with the natives,
but in her ever memorable war of'56, with France, to maintain and preserve it.
The people of Virginia sufficiently participated in the cost of the very lands in
question, to impose an obligation on the Government of the State, not less than
that of the Union, to dispose of them for the common benefit of all her citizens:
yet Great Britain and Virginia never thought themselves restricted from the right
of giving desert places even to strangers who were able to clear the land, and render it valuable; nor absolved from the duty of employing all means of rendering
the land under their obedience as well cultivated as possible, and of avoiding
everything capable of discouraging the husbandman, or of diverting him from the
labors of agriculture. No nation but our own, however it may have acquired its
public domain, whether by discovery, concessions, purchases, or conquests, has
ever avowed or acted upon such principles in regard to it. None could do so without neglecting its duties to itself, violating its obligations to others, and disregarding the intention and will of the Divine Creator and Governor of the Universe.
The whole world, physical and moral, is governed by laws. Nations as well as individuals are subject to established rules of conduct. The former owe the same
respect and obedience to the law of nature, that the latter do to any lawfully prescribed rule of civil action. In its application to nations, it is emphatically termed
the necessary law of nations, because they are all obliged to conform to the precepts it prescribes. And, indeed, so deep and solid, so sacred and eternal, are its
foundations, that they have neither the right to change it, nor dispense with the
duties it enjoins. So far from countenancing the restricted obligations that have
been supposed, it expressly declares that the sovereign ought not even "to allow
either communities or private persons to acquire large tracts of land in order to
leave it uncultivated;" that "every nation is obliged, by the law of nature, to cultivate the ground that has fallen to its share;" that nations who, by retaining an idle
life, "usurp more extensive territories than they would have occasion for, were
they to use honest labor, have no reason to complain if other nations, more laborious and too closely confined, come to possess a part;" and that "no nation can
lawfully appropriate to itself a too disproportioned extensive country, and reduce
other nations to want subsistence and a place of abode."
Great Britain acquired and held the lands in question subject to those obligations,
and not only apportioned the price of them to their qualities and descriptions, and
granted them on terms calculated to invite population, but actually made settlement, cultivation and other improvements, conditions of her grants. France and
Spain did the same with their Territories, so long as they remained in their possession. This practice still prevails in the Canadas, Mexico, and all the South American Governments. Virginia, under whom the United States claim, followed the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    109
example of Great Britain, and consulting both her power and her duty, made sales
at a very moderate price, and liberally granted pure donations to actual settlers.
Had, then, the right of property of the United States in that part of the public
domain which is included within this State, been derived from its acquisition, at
their joint expense, not only in treasure but in blood, it is evident from the law of
nature, and the immutable laws and universal practices of nations, that it should
have been held subject to all those rights, obligations and duties, in the same manner as if it had been in the hands of any other nation in the world. But this
assumption of the derivation of title is not less contradicted by reiterated admissions
and acknowledgments, and various solemn official acts of the Union, than repugnant
to the deliberate and well defined agreement under which all the States united their
common efforts for independence; for the Articles of Confederation not only affirmed
the right of every State to all the lands within its limits, but expressly declared
that "no State shall be deprived of Territory for the benefit of the United States."
Virginia, therefore, acquired as much right, and the United States as little, by the
issue of that glorious contest, to those lands, as to the capital of the State itself.
The title of the United States was, therefore, exclusively derived from the cession
so liberally and magnanimously made by Virginia. In making it, she could not
exempt those lands from any conditions to which they were subjected by the law of
nature in her own hands, nor absolve the United States from any obligations or
duties which their tenure so imposed upon herself. Nations have no more right
than individuals to violate the law of nature; and all treaties, conventions, customs, and practices, contrary to the precepts it prescribes, or that are such as it
forbids, are unlawful and invalid. Virginia, therefore, could neither have required,
authorized, nor justified, any policy contrary to the law of nature, which has for its
object the advancement of the welfare of the original States, at the expense of that
of the new ones, by encouraging manufactures to raise the price of public lands in
the former, and prevent settlement and cultivation in the latter. Nor does her
cession afford the least countenance to doctrines so extraordinary, or objects so
inconsistent with the equal rights of the new States. On the contrary, it clearly
prohibits them; for while it absolutely requires that the lands shall be disposed of
this policy is calculated to prevent and defeat that very disposition of them which
was contemplated by both parties. Admit, as has been too long contemplated, that
this stipulation means that they should be sold for the highest price that can possibly be got for them in cash; still it is doubtless a stipulation that binds the United
States to sell them. Would not, then, any plan, deliberately adopted with a view
to lessen the inducements to agricultural labor, and to prevent purchases, involve
such a palpable violation of good faith as no nation ought to be guilty of?
The stipulation for the division of the territory into distinct States, and for their
admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, would seem
to forbid everything on the part of either of the contracting parties calculated to
retard or defeat these objects, and evidently contemplated, if it did not absolutely
require, all usual and ordinary inducements to settlement and cultivation as means
of their accomplishment within a reasonable period.
The stipulation that the lands should be disposed of for the common benefit of
all the States, imposed no other obligation, except in so far as it prohibited their
being retained in a waste aud uncultivated state, than would have existed without
it; for had they been acquired by conquest, or in any other way, they could not
rightfully have been disposed of, but for the common benefit of the whole nation.




110                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
As the citizens of Virginia had the same right to participate in all the advantages
of these lands, while they remained in her hands, that the State had, after their
transfer to the Union, it is not to be presumed that she either wished or intended,
by this stipulation, to restrict the United States in the right to dispose of them in
the same manner, and upon the same terms, which she herself had done, since she
could not have done so, without an acknowledgment of having committed injustice
to her own citizens. Nor is there anything in the whole history of her conduct,
from that day to this, to warrant the belief that she ever would have consented that
their sett ement and cultivation should be discountenanced by legislative enactments, for the sake of promoting domestic manufactures. However allowable or
expedient such a policy may be in regard to the Territories of the United States,
nothing could be more unreasonable and unjust than its application to that part of
the public domain which lies within the new States. The admission of the State
into the Union ought to conclude all question as to the expediency or duty of permitting, if not encouraging, settlements co-extensive with its limits. Yet even
these, it appears, are to be discountenanced and checked, upon theoretical calculations of increasing the capital of the nation by some more prolific means than agriculture, which are known to have utterly failed in the most distinguished, if not
the only, experiment that has been made upon them by any enlightened nation.
Nothing could be supposed capable of producing "a more rapid accumulation of
capital" than the rich and inexhaustable mines of Spain and her colonies, yet
though the most fertile, she has become, by encouraging the manufacture of bullion
and coin, and by neglecting agriculture, the poorest country in Europe.
It is not intended by these remarks to make any complaint, individually, against
the distinguished gentleman who has been named, and for whose talents, integrity,
and patriotism, the highest respect is entertained; nor will it be denied that the
present administration of the General Government have fully equalled, if not
exceeded, any of their predecessors in the manifestation of a friendly disposition
towards our interests. The views disclosed by the remarks that have been quoted
from the Secretary's Report, are only alarming from an abundance of concurring
proof, afforded by other acts of the Government, that they are not individual, but
common to a majority of the nation, and from a just apprehension, thence arising,
that they will continue to influence the Government. And even in this point of
view, though the experience of their deletetious effects warns us of our duty to use
all reasonable means of averting them, or at least of mitigating their severity, it
should not betray us into a hasty and uncharitable conclusion that our brethren of
other States have been influenced by a deliberate wish or intention to oppress us,
or withhold from us any just right. Bound by our honor, duty, and interest, to
cherish the utmost cordiality, in all our social and political relations and intercourse
with them, the imputation of dishonorable motives would be discreditable to ourselves, and equally betray a want of confidence in the intrinsic merits of our cause.
Great allowances are due to a habit of thinking in regard to those lands, which has
been so naturally produced by the peculiar circumstances under which they were
obtained, and the correctness of which, in its present application to them, has
probably never been sufficiently inquired into, investigated, and tested by principle.
When these lands were originally acquired by the United States, they were without the limits of all of them, and all having then precisely the same interest, they
were at liberty to dispose of them in any manner whatever that might be thought
most to their advantage-since there was no other State to object whose welfare
could be checked, or whose sovereignty, freedom, independence or jurisdiction




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    111
could be violated or impaired by any disposition of which they were susceptible.
The old States appear still to think that the admission of the new ones into the
Union, which contain within their limits considerable portions of the public domain,
confers no rights that create any restriction or impose any new duties or obligations in reference to the original power and objects of disposing of those parts of
the domain. We think differently. The Government appears to think itself under
no obligation to encourage their settlement and cultivation; that, it is only bound
to sell them for the payment of the public debt; that, in reference to every other
object, it may or may not dispose of them, as the particular interest of a majority
of the States may seem to require. On the contrary, we contend that our admission into the Union involved an obligation on the part of the Government to permit, if not encourage, the settlement and cultivation, upon reasonable terms, of all
lands within our limits. And while we should treat the opinions of our brethren
throughout every part of the Union with the utmost deference, we should be wanting in duty to ourselves by forbearing, temperately, firmly, and perseveringly, to
insist that these, and all other questions, growing out of our federal relation to the
Government, should be decided, not arbitrarily, but upon principle. It is not to be
supposed that the Government will not, ultimately, yield to the combined authority
of the laws of nature, and of nations, and of the Federal constitution; and if the
rights for which we contend cannot be sustained upon principles which they all
recognize, we ought to submit, and doubtless will do so cheerfully.
It is contended, on our part, that the Government of the Union is bound, from its
nature and objects, as far as its authority legitimately extends, to act upon national
principles; to look to the general welfare of the whole Union as a unit; to explore
and cultivate every resource of general wealth, power and happiness; to extend the
blessings of freedom and independence to all its citizens in whatever part of its
territory they may reside; to fulfil all the obligations imposed upon it by, the laws
of nature and of nations; to provide for its own interests, and leave the States to
manage theirs; to respect the just claims of every State without regard to any consequences that are not of Federal cognizance; and to do injustice to none, with a
view to promote the interest of others.
If these principles be correct, and they are believed to be undeniable, it follows
that the duties they enjoin cannot be neglected or disregarded, to the injury of any
State, without violating the essential principles of the Union, and furnishing just
cause of complaint. As they necessarily exclude all jurisdiction of the particular
interests of all the States, the Government has no authority to provide for or act
upon them-no right to be influenced by them. And hence it is no legitimate consideration, that any warranted encouragement to the settlement and cultivation of
lands in the new States, might "draw, in an annual stream," inhabitants from the
old ones  Suppose it should do so, no right is violated; such emigrants generally
better their condition, increase their property, render the public lands more valuable,
augment the resources and power of the Union, and still continue as much its citizens as before their emigration. Is, then, the Government to withhold from its
own free citizens means of pursuing their interest and happiness, to which they are
justly entitled, and to forego such benefits to the nation, merely to afford to certain
States a protection which they have no right to claim, and which it has as little right
to grant. This would indeed be to descend from the elevated objects of its institution, and to degrade itself into a mere guardian of the particular interests of States,
and this, too, in direct opposition to those most sacredly committed to its charge.




112                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
It would be still less justifiable, and more impolitic and cruel, to withhold such
rights from its citizens, and forego such benefits to itself, with a view "to enhance
the price of lands" in the old States, since this would be to favor a particular
class of citizens only, and would tend to render the multitudes who are without
lands, less able to acquire them, and thus make the rich richer, and the poor poorer.
As, however, the measures recommended by the Secretary, with a view to these
results, have been adopted by Congress, "our gravest attention may, on this account,
be but the more wisely summoned to the consideration of correlative duties, which
the existence of such a system, in the heart of the State, imposes." And with this
view, let us, with a due consideration "of the magnitude of the interests at stake,"
and with an "earnest desire to arrive at correct opinions," endeavor to ascertain
what right the United States have to the public lands within the limits of this State.
In considering this question, the nature of the Federal and State governments,
and their relation to each other and to the people of the United States, should be
constantly kept in view. Sovereignty, with all its attributes, being an essential and
inherent right of the people, which they may either retain in their own hands or
confide to agents, and governments deriving their existence from the will of the
people only, it follows that no government can rightfully claim or exercise any
powers whatever but such as have been granted it. The Federal and State governments, as essential parts of a great system, and with distinct power which marks the
limits of their respective duties, having therefore been instituted by the people, for
their common security and welfare, they both derive all their authority to act from
the same source, and consequently must, from the nature of things, be, within the
respective limits assigned them, as independent of the control of each other, as
though they were distinct independent nations-as power which is not inherent, but
depends on delegation, can no more exceed the authority given in political than
civil affairs. Both are agents, and but agents, of the people, with separate functions
equally important and essential to the common safety and happiness. Each possesses
the sovereign authority within its own sphere, and none whatever out of it. Neither,
therefore, can transcend the limits prescribed for it, nor invade the province of the
other, without being guilty of an usurpation, which it would not be less criminal to
acquiesce in than to perpetrate. And it should not be forgotten that a State has an
equal right with the United States to judge of all such matters-right which, though it
should be exercised with great moderation and discretion, can never be surrendered
without endangering our liberties. The Constitution of the United States is, at the
same time, the evidence of the terms on which they agreed to form their present
union, and the instrument by which it was effected; and as it contains the only
grants of power to the Federal Government, so it must decide all questions of Federal rights. It might be sufficient to rely upon general principles, and its specific
and limited objects, as declared in the Constitution, to show that the Federal Government has no powers but those that have been granted to it. This, however
happily, is not left to construction, for the jealous caution of the States, not content
with an enumeration of the powers actually granted, but with a determination to
prevent, by securing all others of every description in other hands, the possibility of
its acquiring any more, insisted on and carried the following amendment to the
Constitution, viz: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively,
or to the people."
As, then, every State in the Union, however it may have got there, may, within
its own limits, exercise all the powers of sovereignty that have not been delegated
its own limitsV) tI1-1 11 --        )~-1 -~V~~~d-J I111111 V VYUI~)V




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   113
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to itself, so the United States can neither possess nor exercise the powers of sovereignty over nineteentwentieths of the territory within the limits of a sovereign and independent State,
(as is attempted in this) without being able to show the delegation of such powers
to themselves and their prohibition to the State. These must be shown by the
Constitution alone-for that being the fundamental law, all the powers of the State
and Federal Governments combined are incompetent to change it. All bargains,
agreements, compacts or treaties, to abridge the powers thus secured by the Constitution to every State, or to lessen the restriction imposed by it upon those of the
United States, are therefore perfect nullities. Nor are they less opposed to the
spirit than to the letter of the Constitution. It evidently contemplates a union of
co-ordinate, sovereign and independent States, in which each yields and retains
precisely the same powers, and in authorizing the admission into the Union of new
States, could not have intended that they should be admitted upon any other than
terms of perfect equality-since nothing could have been more averse to the principles of the Union, or dangerous to the liberties of the States, than to have permitted
the Government of the United States to acquire an undue influence, by peopling at
pleasure its immense domain, dividing it into nominal States, introducing into the
Union a host of dependent communities, and overruling the original States by those
who were not their equals. Nor could the equilibrium of powers, thus established
between the State and Federal governments, be altered or destroyed in any other
way, without changing the nature of the Union and violating the Constitution. If,
then, it does not permit the admission of new States into the Union but upon terms
of equality, as to every natural, political and fundamental right, with the old ones,
it follows that no bargain, whatever its consideration, or by whomsoever made, can
so far change this great- fundamental law as to reduce them to a condition of inferiority. The admission of a State into the Union imposes duties as well as confers
rights. At the same time that it secures to the new States an equality of powers
with the original States, it imposes upon them the same restrictions, obligations and
duties, and therefore the Federal Government can no more increase the powers to
which the Constitution has restricted it, by a bargain with a new than with an old
State; for, as no old State could confer upon that Government any part of the
powers "reserved to the States respectively" by the Constitution, so a new State is
equally bound to withhold, retain and exercise all its powers. And if the Government of the United States can make no bargain with a State in the Union for a part
of its sovereign rights, it can make no such bargain with a State out of the Union,
to be executed after its admission into it; for the moment of admission terminates
the power of the Government to enforce and the ability of the State to fulfil it, as no
State, all of whose officers are sworn to support the Constitution, could permit the
Federal Government to usurp and exercise, within its limits, any of the powers of
sovereignty not only not delegated but prohibited by that sacred instrument. All
bargains, therefore, with the people of a Territory, or other communities, not authorized by the Constitution, or restrictive of the equal rights of a sovereign and
independent member of the Union, are, after admission, not only voidable, like civil
contracts made during infancy, but absolutely null and void as being incompatible
with and repugnant to the fundamental law. Had this State, then, been simply
admitted into the Union without any declaration of its equality, the United States
could have had no more power to hold lands within its limits than within those of
any other State in the Union, and could only then hold them for the same purposes.
-15




114                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Its equality, however, has not been left to encounter the dangers of construction, for
on the 3d December, 1818, Congress adopted a resolution, declaratory of its admission into the Union, in the following words:
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America,
in Congress assembled, That the State of Illinois shall be one and is hereby declared
to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal
footing with the original States in all respects whatever."
Human language does not admit of terms more comprehensive or better adapted to
include and secure to the State every right, privilege, power and exemption that
could be claimed, in any respect whatever, by an original State, since "equal footing
in all respects whatever" necessarily excludes inequality in any respect whatever.
And this being an act for the release of the people from the thraldom of a Territorial
Government, and investing them with all the rights of free citizens, in pursuance of
both the letter and spirit of the Constitution, it is entitled, like all statutes made for
the public good, to the most liberal and enlarged interpretation. And hence the preamble to this resolution has no controlling or restraining influence upon it, and ought
to be discarded from all consideration in the investigation of this subject.
It is a general rule of construction, that where any doubt arises on the words of an
enacting part of a statute, the preamble may be resorted to to explain it; but if it be
expressed in clear and unambiguous terms, the preamble cannot control it. Referring
to the rule of construing statutes by their preamble, it is declared by the highest legal authority "that this rule must not be carried so far as to restrain the general
words of an enacting clause, by the particular words of the preamble-and that the
general enacting words of a statute are not to be restrained by any words introductory
to the enacting words." (6 Wilson's Ba. Abr. 380-1.) If such be the rules in regard
to a common act of legislation, which may affect only the civil rights of an individual,
they are much more essential and important, and cannot be less applicable to a great
national act, affecting the entire natural, and political, and fundamental rights of a
whole community.
If, however, the preamble to this resolution were not inefficient on this account,
there are other considerations that should render it utterly so. The constitution having determined the powers that accrue to a State on admission into the Union, they
can neither be increased nor diminished by any subordinate instrument or authority,
and, therefore, as no declaration of the terms of admission could increase the powers
of a State, so no preamble to an act of admission can restrict or diminish them. As,
then, this preamble could not invalidate or repeal the Constitution of the United
States, its reference to that of the State, as having been formed in pursuance of the
law of Congress and in conformity with the ordinance of'87, should not be considered
as a recognition of them, any further than they are consistent with the Constitution of
the United States, and, at all events, can give no validity to such parts of them as
are repugnant to that paramount authority.
It seems pretty evident, therefore, that this State should be considered as having,
in fact, been admitted into the Union on "an equal footing with the original States in
all respects whatever," and this having been done by Congress, must, thenceforward,
operate as a release of the State from all obligations to the United States, inconsistent with its new political condition. It would not, however, be on an equal footing
with the original States in a very important respect, if the United States could hold
more lands, or hold them for different purposes, within its limits, than theirs, since
this would be to subject it to a danger from which they have very prudently
exempted themselves.  But vastly different and unequal, indeed, would be the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     115
footing on which it would be placed, if, while the United States cannot, without the consent of those States, exercise any jurisdiction over or hold one foot of
land, for any purpose whatever, within their limits, and even, with their consent, can
hold no more than may be necessary "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals,
dockyards and other needful buildings," they may hold and exercise sovereignty over
nineteen-twentieths of all the lands within this State, not only without 4its consent,
but in direct opposition to its wishes. But let us see what power has been delegated
to Congress in this respect.
By the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States,
it is declared that Congress shall have power "to exercise exclusive legislation in all
cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by dession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased,
by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the
erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings."
Now, this being the only delegation of power to the United States, in respect to
the acquisition of lands within a State, or in respect to the exercise of sovereignty
over lands so situated, it could only authorize the acquisition of the one or the exercise of the other, in the cases specified and for the objects declared-even if the
anendment of the Constitution, before noticed, had not expressly reserved all powers
not granted; for as no such rights could exist without delegated authority to acquire
them, they can exist only to the extent of the authority conferred.
And hence it seems clear, that as the United States cannot acquire or hold any
lands in an original State, even with its consent, except such as may be necessary
"for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings," they can hold no more in this State. For, besides its declared equality, it is
not less evident from the spirit than the letter of the Constitution, that it is entitled
to be on an equal footing, in this particular respect, with each and all of the original
States; since, whatever may have been the pecuniary considerations which imposed
this restriction upon the power of the United States, they can scarcely be considered
less necessary or applicable to a new than to an old State-to a young and feeble, than
to an old and powerful member of the Union.
But even for those purposes, the United States never having obtained "the consent
of the Legislature of the State," are not, at present, authorized to hold lands within
its limits; for as the right to do so has been made to depend upon such consent, it
cannot exist without it. And here I do not deem it important to insist upon the distinction between a Territorial Legislature or Convention, and the Legislature of a
State, further than as it obviously shows that the Constitution requiring the consent
of the Legislature of the State, must have contemplated the consent of a State after
its admission into the Union as a member thereof. Indeed, it would seem impossible
to doubt that this was the intention, whatever phraseology had been used. For, till
admission into the Union, this State was but a Territory of the United States, without any right to object to their acquiring or holding lands wherever they pleased, and
whose consent or refusal was equally indifferent. It was only by first becoming a
member of the Union and thereby acquiring the right of refusing, that its consent, as
a State, in any case, could be obligatory upon itself or of the slightest advantage to
others. Till its admission into the Union it had no right as a State, under the Constitution, and consequently no competency to act in that character. It was then, for
the first time, that it became a party to the compact or contract of union, and from
thenceforward, being bound by its provisions, became entitled to all its benefits with



116                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
out any offset in consequence of or reference to anything which it might have previously done in a different character or during its political minority. It cannot,
therefore, be said that this State, whatever the dependent people of the late Territory
may have done, has ever consented, in the meaning of the Constitution, that the United States should hold lands within its limits, for any purpose whatever. It will
hardly be contended that they may, notwithstanding the section of the Constitution
above quoted, purchase, without the consent of the Legislature of this State, lands
lying within it, "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other
needful buildings;" and if they cannot, without such consent, acquire and hold a small
quantity of land for purposes so legitimate and so essential to the common preservation and general welfare, it would, indeed, be a singular anomaly, if they could, against
its will, hold millions and millions of acres within the State, for almost every other
conceivable purpose. It is therefore contended that, in both these respects, they
being necessarily included in "all respects whatever," this State has been admitted
into the Union "on an equal footing with the original States."
We will now endeavor, briefly, to consider this subject in reference to the cession
made by Virginia-and the terms on which it was accepted by Congress.
On the 10th of October, 1780, the old Congress adopted the following resolution,
viz: "'Resolved, That the unappropriated lands that may be ceded or relinquished to
the United States by any particular State, pursuant to the recommendation of Congress, on the sixth day of September last, shall be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States,
which shall become members of the Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty,
freedom, and independence, as the original States, &c."
Thus invited by Congress and influenced by elevated sentiments of patriotism and
magnanimity, Virginia, on the 1st of March, 1784, ceded to the United States the
lands in question, on the following, among other terms and conditions, not necessary
here to be noticed:
1st. "That the Territory so ceded shall be laid out and formed into States, containing, &c., and that the States so formed shall be distinct republican States, and admitted members of the Federal Union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom,
and independence as the other States."
2d. "That the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskias, St. Vincents and the neighboring villages, who have professed themselves citizens of Virginia, shall have their possessions and titles confirmed to them, and be
protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties."
3d. And "that the lands so ceded shall be considered as a common fund for the
use and benefit of such of the United States as have become or shall become membe s
of the Confederation or Federal alliance of the said States, Virginia inclusive, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and
shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose and for no other use or
purpose whatever."
Upon these terms the cession was accepted by Congress; and thus was a compact
formed, in relation to the rights of Virginia, the United States, and the then inhabitants of the ceded Territory, obligatory upon the two former by express agreement,
and upon the latter by tacit consent. For, as a people transferred by the sovereign
authority of a country are not obliged to submit to the new sovereign, but are entitled to the privileges of selling their lands, and removing with their other property
elsewhere, so their. declining to exercise that privilege implies their consent to the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    117
transfer, makes them parties to the compact, and entitles them to the benefit of all
its provisions in their favor. There were, then, three parties to this compact. The
moment it became obligatory upon them, each acquired vested rights by it, and no alteration, enlargement or diminution of its terms or conditions could, afterwards, be
made but by common consent. The inhabitants of the Territory were, at that time,
not less numerous, and, it is believed, were much more so than at the period of the
establishment of the temporary government for the "Territory of Illinois." It was
those inhabitants that were entitled to the benefits of this compact; and, being so
entitled, they cannot, in reason or justice, be considered as losing a particle of their
rights, or as coming under any new obligations, in consequence of a constructive
agreement with future emigrants, resulting from a supposed acquiescence in any law
or ordinance of Congress, not warranted by the terms of the original compact.
Admitting, for argument's sake, the power of Congress to impose conditions upon
the settlement of the public lands, still, none could be bound by them, butthose
who, by settling after they were prescribed, might be presumed to have consented to
them; and consequently, they could not impair the vested rights of those who had
previously settled under an entirely different state of things.
The inhabitants of the territory, on the 1st of March, 1784, and their descendants,
having, therefore, acquired rights by the compact then made, cannot have lost or
forfeited them by any implied or even expressed consent of others. Nor could Congress make any agreement with future emigrants or settlers, inconsistent with the
rights thus secured or provided for. And hence subsequent settlers, as well as the
inhabitants of 1784, are entitled to every political right which that compact
authorizes, and are equally free from all restrictions repugnant thereto, since these
could not be insisted on, or enforced, without a violation of the political rights of
those who had never consented, and were not bound to submit to.them. And therefore, all restrictions or limitations prescribed by the ordinance of 1787, not authorized by the compact, ought to be wholly disregarded.
Although none but the civil rights of the inhabitants of 1784 are specially named
and provided for, they are not the less entitled, on that account, to every political
right and privilege contemplated by the compact; for, had those rights been wholly
omitted, and nothing affecting these people included but the single political right
of admission into the Union, at a future day, on the terms proposed, it might,
indeed, have lessened their motives for submitting to the new sovereign, but not
their right of free acceptance or rejection, nor the obligations imposed upon the
government by their consent to remain and submit to its authority, on the terms
submitted to their decision. They, therefore, had an unqualified right, which the
consent of no other persons in the world could impair, to admission into the Union
on an equal footing with the original States, and unrestricted by any conditions or
limitations to which they themselves had not given their free assent.
If it be said that the stipulation in favor of the new States, as above contended
for, is repugnant to that for disposing of the lands for the common benefit of the
United States, let it be conceded-and what does it prove? Why, nothing more
than that the latter is repugnant to the former also. And which should a great
and magnanimous nation prefer? The one involves the most important natural and
political rights of millions of freemen, and the peace and harmony of the whole
Union. The other presents a mere question of dollars and cents. The former
offers no violation to the spirit or letter of the Constitution, and is calculated to
maintain and strengthen the vital principles of the Union, which, like gravitation
in the material world, are intended to confine the State and Federal Governments




118                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
in their respective spheres. The latter is calculated to sap the foundations of the
present system of government, destroying the equilibrium of powers, established by
the Constitution, between the State and Federal authorities; and by bringing into
the Union dependent States, liable to undue influence, and fit instruments in the
hands of the latter for increasing its powers, and usurping the rights of the States.
The surrender of the public lands to the States in which they lie, for the purpose of
promoting their settlement and cultivation, though possibly not the most profitable
mode of disposing of them, would, nevertheless, be a disposition of them for the
common benefit of the nation; since, as has been already shown, this would be a
means of multiplying its commercial resources and augmenting its power, and, therefore, would not, in fact, amount to a violation of the compact. On the other hand,
to deny the new States a perfect equality with the old ones, would equally violate
the letter of the compact, and the fundamental principles of the Government. It
cannot, then, be doubtful which ought to be preferred.
But whatever difficulties ingenuity, or the love of property, may suggest, the
case itself presents none. Neither party has a right to insist upon one of these
stipulations, to the exclusion of the other. Both were clearly within the intentions
of the contracting parties, and equally derive all obligatory force from their will.
They should, therefore, according to an established rule of construction, which has
never been questioned by any enlightened individual, receive such an interpretation as to render them consistent with each other. And this can only be done by
limiting the dominion of the United States over those lands, or the power of disposing of them, to all that period of time preceding the admission of the State into
the Union; in other words, to its political minority. And this would, from the
very nature of things, seem to be the case, had simple admission been provided for,
without any express agreement as to its terms, or the rights to be conferred by it.
But seeing that it is expressly declared, that the new States shall be "admitted
members of the Federal Union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and
independence, as the other States,' it is difficult to conceive any plausible ground
to contend that an undefined discretionary power of disposing of the lands, and
which has been exercised with great latitude, authorizes a restriction of these
States to inferior or fewer rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, than
those of the original States.
As, then, this State is clearly entitled, by the compact, to this equality of rights,
with the original States, it can only be necessary to show that their complete and
exclusive dominion over all public lands within their limits, is a right of their sovereignty, freedom and independence, to entitle this State to the same right to all
the public lands within its limits. For this purpose, then, let us inquire a little into
the nature and objects of those rights. And here it may not be altogether useless
to notice a strange misconception, which has regarded the stipulation embracing
them as securing the civil rights of the people of the late Territory and present
State, when, in fact, they are only political rights, which, instead of affording the
supposed protection, include as well the power of destroying as protecting civil
rights. Being applicable only to communities, and not to individuals, they will be
considered in that point of view exclusively,
The sovereignty of a State includes the right to exercise supreme and exclusive
control over all lands within it. The freedom of a State is the right to do whatever may be done by any nation, and particularly, includes the right to dispose of
all public lands within its limits, according to its own will and pleasure. The inde



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    119
pendence of a State includes an exemption from all control by any other State or
Nation over its will, or action, within its own territory. Now, just so much and so
many of these rights as any of the States of the Union possess, this State is entitled
to, by express agreement. How, then, did Virginia acquire her right to the very
lands in question? She never bought, or paid a cent for them; cannot be said to
have obtained them by conquest; and had no other title to them than such as
resulted from her sovereignty, freedom and independence. The right of any State
or Nation to the public lands that lie within it, is not only a right of independence,
but is inseparable from it; for complete independence cannot exist without it.
And this right is always the same, by whatsoever means independence may have
been effected.
But let us hear Vattel on the subject. He says, " the whole space over which
a nation extends its government, is the seat of its jurisdiction, and called its territory." (p. 157.)
"Everything susceptible of property is considered as belonging to'the nation that
possesses the country, and as forming the entire mass of its wealth." (p. 168.)
" The right which belongs to the society, or to the sovereign, of disposing, in
case of necessity, and for the public safety, of all the wealth contained in the
State, is called the eminent domain" (p. 171.) "which is nothing but the domain of
the body of the nation, or of the sovereign who represents it; (and) is everywhere
considered inseparable from the sovereignty." (p. 226.)
"The general domain of the nation over the lands it inhabits is naturally connected with the empire. Thus we have already observed that in possessing a country,
the nation is presumed to possess at the same time its government. We shall here
proceed farther, and show the natural connection of these two rights in an independent nation. How should it govern itself, at its pleasure, in the country it
inhabits, if it cannot truly and absolutely, dispose of it? And how shall it have
full and absolute dominion of the place, in which it has no command? Another's
sovereignty, and the right it comprehends, must take away its freedom of disposal." (p. 226.)
"Sovereignty is that public authority which commands in civil society, and
directs what each is to perform to obtain the ends of its institution. It is solely
established for the safety and advantage of society. (p. 69.) Every sovereignty,
properly so called, is in its nature one and indivisible." (p. 83.)
"The empire united to the domain establishes the jurisdiction of the nation in its
territories, or the country that belongs to it. It is that, or its sovereign, who is to
exercise justice in all the places under his obedience, to take cognizance of the
crimes committed, and the differences that arise in the country." (p. 226 )
"Every nation that governs itself, without any dependence on foreign power, is a
sovereign State. To give a nation a right to make an immediate figure in this
grand society (of nations) it is sufficient if it be really sovereign and independent,
that is, it must govern itself by its own authority and laws." (p. 58.)
It would be a waste of time to attempt to enlarge upon these clear and well
defined rights of a sovereign and independent State. The several States of the
Union would possess them absolutely and unconditionally, but for the grant of a
part of them to the United States. They should, therefore, be considered as retaining all that they have not so parted with. They have, however, an additional
security for their enjoyment, in an expressed exclusion of the United States from
all interference with them. Besides the right of this State to the equality coatended for, upon those general principles, the express agreement that it should have




120                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, with other States, will
not admit of a doubt that it is entitled to hold the same relation to the United
States; to be equally independent of their control; to have the same exclusive
jurisdiction, the same right to govern itself, and the same freedom of disposing
of the public lands within its limits. For, if it have not these, what rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence has it? And how are they to be ascertained?
Having thus endeavored to show, from the Constitution of the United States, the
resolution of admission into the Union, the compact with Virginia, and the laws
of rations, that this State is entitled to all the public lands within its limits, I proceed to notice the only section of the Constitution of the United States that is supposed to afford the least countenance to their claim to or authority over these lands.
This is the third section of the fourth article, and is in the following words:
"Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the terrritory, or other property-belonging to the United States;
and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of
the United States or of any particular State."
It might be a sufficient answer to every argument that has been or can be predicated upon this section, to show, that one of the most enlightened tribunals in
this or any other country has, on mature consideration, decided that it has no application to the case in question, but that it "is clearly adapted to the territorial
rights of the United States, beyond the limits or boundaries of any of the States,
and to their chattel interests." (17 Johnson's Reports, 223.)
But, if I have been fortunate enough to establish my positions, it follows, that
Congress, by admitting the State into the Union, have released the claim of the
United States to all lands that lie within it, as effectually as could have been done
by any deed of release or conveyance whatever; and, consequently, that nothing is
left for this section to operate upon.
It has been shown, that the whole space over which the Government of the State
is extended, is technically called and legally considered its territory and the seat
of its jurisdiction; consequently no part of this space can be the territory of the
United States-since, as the right of the one necessarily excludes that of the other,
it cannot belong to both at the same time. And therefore, as everything else in this
section relates to mere chattels, it has no relevancy to the present question-the
right of the United States to hold lands, with jurisdiction over them, within the
limits of a sovereign and independent State.
Involving no question as to the means of acquiring, or the right to hold, territory
anywhere, but assuming the right, the power thus granted simply authorizes Congress to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning territory
to which the United States are entitled. Although it neither decides nor affords
any means of ascertaining what shall be so considered, it may, nevertheless, assist
to demonstrate, that the United States have no right to claim, as their own, any
part of the Territory of this State, for as this power applies to all territory of the
United States, without exception, none can be claimed as such that is not as subject to its operation as any other. Whatever, therefore, terminates the power of
Congress over any territory of the United States, must, at the same time, divest
them of all right to it. This section has been long and uniformly considered as
authorizing, and even rendering necessary, the establishment of Territorial Governments. If, then, the United States have the right to the territory they claim in this




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    121
State, Congress have a correspondent power to exercise the rights of sovereignty,
and to establish a Territorial Government, co-extensive with it. And thus, instead
of that equality with our sister States, with which we had flattered ourselves, we
should be reduced to the twentieth part of a State, with little detatched spots of
sovereignty, to be ascertained only by going to the Land Offices, and hunting for
the quarter and half quarter sections of lands represented on the plats, with the
letter "P" marked on them. As domain and empire are inseparable, so if the territory in question belongs to the United States, they have the exclusive right to govern
it, and if they have not this right, the territory cannot belong to them. Both rights
must concur, or neither can exist. If this be not the case, what powers of sovereignty may not the United States exercise over this domain? Where is the limit?
And to what principle is it referable?'"The full domain is necessarily a proper and
exclusive right." (Vattel 225) "Sovereignty gives the empire, or right of commanding in all places of the country belonging to the nation." (Vattel 172.) As
this is, in its nature, an exclusive right, it cannot belong to the United States and
to this State, at one and the same time. If it belong to them, they cannot confer
it upon us. If we are entitled to it, we cannot surrender it to them; for, it is not
less true in political than civil laws, that delegated powers cannot be transferred.
"Every true sovereignty is unalienable in its own nature." (Vattel 87.) Georgia
did not, as has been said, alienate any part of her sovereignty to the United States;
she did what it belongs to a sovereign and independent nation to do: she disposed
of a part of her territory, and lessened her boundaries, but, as a State, remained
as sovereign and independent as ever. And this is the only way by which Congress
can acquire a right to exercise any of the powers of sovereignty over the domain
which lies within this State. We must exclude it from our boundaries, and limit
them to the spots designated by the letter "P."
If these positions be correct, and they are supported by the highest authorities,
t'hey cannot be deliberately and duly considered, without presenting, in fearful
array, consequences of vast importance in relation to the past, to every well informed,
intelligent and reflecting mind. Every future advance upon the principles that
have hitherto prevailed, will increase and aggravate them; and however much
present power may be disposed to overlook or disregard them, the sagacious politician will perceive that the time is rapidly advancing which will give a new tone
to public sentiment in regard to such matters; and that right, whatever it may be,
will ultimately be too vigorously and powerfully insisted on, to be safely resisted.
But without looking to the past, for I shall not be the first to bring the subjects
alluded to into view, let us inquire a little more particularly into the powers which
Congress may exercise, if the United States still hold "all right, title and claim, as
well of soil as jurisdiction," to the public lands within this State. In this case,
Congress has the power to deprive us of the poor privileges of feeding our flocks
and hunting upon their lands, and of fishing and fowling upon their waters; to erect
highways, bridges, and causeways, exact heavy tolls for passing over them, and
restrain us from passing any other way; to build mills, and demand what toll they
please, or to prevent their erection altogether; to establish and regulate manufactories; to erect public granaries, regulate the price of provisions, monopolize the
market, and manage everything with a mercantile spirit; to prevent the settlement
and cultivation of their lands, or rent them at pleasure; to exempt their tenants
from taxation, militia duty, serving on juries, working on the roads, and all other
responsibility to our laws; and, in short, to extend their exclusive authority over
-16




122                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
all persons and things within their limits, and in certain cases, by virtue of incidental powers, even into our little spots of sovereignty.
If they have not all these powers they have none, in virtue of the right of jurisdiction. The exercise of one is, therefore, a claim to all, and a claim to that demands a
dispassionate and respectful, but fearless and scrutinizing investigation. Such a monstrous anomaly could not have been intended by the enlightened statesmen and venerated patriots to whom we are indebted for our present system of government; nor
is it to be readily believed that they have subjected us to it. And such would seem
to be the opinion of the Supreme Court of New York, who, in a very celebrated case,
uses the following impressive language: "We regard it as a fundamental principle
that the rights of sovereignty are never to be taken away by implication. We are of
opinion that the right of exclusive legislation within the territorial limits of any State
can be acquired by the United States only in the mode pointed out in the Constitution: by purchase, by consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall
be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings."
It is not denied that one state or nation may hold lands within the territories of
another, and this is presumed' to be the case with some of the States of this Union;
but lands so held are subject to the jurisdiction and all the rights of eminent domain
that belong to the State in which they lie, and, therefore, may be appropriated to
public use or taxed as the lands of an individual. Nor can they be even exempted
from taxation, but in virtue of such stipulations as Congress has no power to enter
into. According to Vattel, "the useful domain, or the domain reduced to the rights
that may belong to a particular person in the State, may be separated from the Empire-and nothing prevents the possibility of its belonging to a nation, in the places
that are not under its obedience. Thus many sovereigns have fiefs and other properties in the lands of another prince-they therefore possess them in the manner of individuals." If, then, the United States could possess lands within the limits of any
State, they would be subject to its sovereignty, not theirs. But as the Constitution does
not permit them to hold land so situated, for any other purpose than the erection of
forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, they cannot hold
the lands in question, even in the manner of individuals. And if they could, they
would be subject to taxation. Nor is there anything in. our compact with them to
prevent it, particularly if, as the law books say, the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another. The only stipulation in this compact that has any reference to
that matter, is in the following words: "That every and each tract of land sold by
the United States, from and after the first day of January, 1819, shall remain exempt
from any tax laid by order or under any authority of the State, whether for State,
county or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years, from
and after the day of sale; and further, that the bounty lands granted or hereafter to
be granted for military services during the late war shall, while they continue to be
held by the patentees or their heirs, remain exempt, as aforesaid, from all taxes for
the term of three years, from and after the date of the patents respectively, and that
all lands belonging to citizens of the United States, residing without the said State,
shall never be taxed higher than lands belonging to persons residing therein."
The exemptions thus provided for, apply, not to lands of the United States, but to
such only as shall have ceased to be their property; and if the domain actually belong
to them, there would be nothing inconsistent in taxing it while in their hands, and
exempting it from taxation for a limited period afterwards-for, while the latter might
afford encouragement to purchase, the former would not be less efficient in producing




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    123
a willingness to sell, and thus, cooperating, they might be amongst the most effectual
means of promoting the settlement and cultivation of vast bodies of fertile lands, that
now lie waste and useless. But though the power of taxation is one of the unquestionable rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence which belong to the
State, and which Congress has no power to control, it is not to be believed that the
State would ever exercise unjustly, even for the purpose of producing results so desirable. But I forbear to press this subject, from a perfect conviction that the United
States have neither the right of soil nor of jurisdiction to the lands in question, nor
to any part of them, but that they all belong to the State.
* * The surrender of the lands to the States in which they lie is the only means
of effectually quieting the public mind. In this event the States would doubtless
grant liberal donations to actual settlers, dispose of the balance on moderate terms,
and appropriate the proceeds thereof to the making of internal improvements; and
thus, the beneficence of the nation would be turned to its own advantage by providing for and rendering most useful to itself its own poor citizens, facilitating intercourse between its various parts, strengthening the cords of union, and increasing
its resources and power. * * Upon the whole subject of the public lands, it
seems desirable that the General Assembly should transmit to Congress a respectful
memorial, representing their views of the right of the State to those lands, and asking their surrender upon equitable terms. Whatever strict legal right might give
us, yet I do not think we ought to wish to obtain those lands but upon the principle
of assuming the obligations of the United States to the Indians and paying all the
lands have cost. * * I honestly believe the State is entitled to all the public
lands within its limits. My former message and this address, taken together, show
my reasons for entertaining that opinion. I may be wrong; and shall always treat
the opinion of others, who differ with me, with all the respect that becomes a gentleman.
The Legislature almost unanimously sustained him in their memorial to
Congress on the subject. Gov. Edwards was not, however, the first to
assert this right. Gen. Smyth, an eminent statesman of Virginia, in a
speech delivered in Congress, in 1823, asks, "is it certain that admitting a
new State into the Union, on an equal footing, in all respects, with the
original States, would not vest in the State the domain?  Would it not
operate like an acknowledgment of a colony?"
In May, 1826, Mr. Tazewell, Senator of Virginia, offered the following
resolution:
Resolved, That it is expedient for the United States to cede and surrender to the
several States within whose limits the same may be situated, all the right, title and
interest of the United States to any lands lying and being within the boundaries of
such States, respectively, upon such terms and conditions as may be consistent with
the due observance of the public faith and with the general interest of the United
States.
And in 1828, he (Mr. T.) proposed that the lands "remaining unsold
after having been offered at twenty-five cents per acre, shall be ceded to
the State in which the same may lie, to be applied by the Legislature
thereof in support of education and the internal improvement of the State."




124                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
General Jackson, in his message in 1833, recommended the reduction
of the price of the public lands, and that the lands remaining unsold after
having been offered for sale for a certain number of years, "shall be abandoned to the States, and the machinery of our land system entirely withdrawn." The State of Indiana, through her Legislature, also instructed
her Senators in Congress to assert her right to the lands within her limits.
A Senator from Michigan, and also a Senator from Arkansas, as late as in
1841, asserted the same right to the lands within the limits of their respective States; and Mr. Clay, in his speech (in 1842) on the preemption
bill, says that Mr. Calhoun's bill to cede away, "without any just or
certain equivalent, more than a billion of acres of public land" to the States
in which the lands were situated, received the vote of seventeen Senators.
It will be seen that the discussion of this question by Gov. Edwards,
notwithstanding the statement of Gov. Ford that the claim was asserted
without any confidence in its validity, has resulted in securing to the new
States large grants of lands for internal improvements, and a surrender of
the refuse-the swamp lands-to the States in which they were situated.
Whilst making a speech on the Missouri question, in consequence of a
very sore throat he was unable to proceed with his remarks-on which
occasion he received a complimentary note from Mr. Randolph, in which
he expressed great regret at his inability to finish his speech, which, from
the commencement, promised to do him so much credit. He had a very
important agency in bringing about the compromise which resulted in terminating the controversy in regard to the admission of Missouri into the
Union. Although the proviso which passed was proposed by Jesse B.
Thomas, his colleague in the Senate, it was the result of a conference of
public men, before whom it was introduced by Senator Edwards in the
form in which it finally passed.
The following is a sketch of the remarks made by him on the bill for the
admission of Missouri into the Union:
MR. PRESIDENT: Having long been out of the habit of public speaking, and finding myself unable to command that composure of mind and self-possession which
are so essential to the investigation of a subject as important as the one now
under consideration, I should leave the discussion of it to gentlemen who are infinitely more competent to do justice to it, were it not that my silence might seem
to sanction the imputation of an honorable gentleman who has thought proper to
express the opinion, that, by my vote of Friday last, which I thought it my duty to
give, I had abandoned the interest of the non slave-holding States of the West.
If such a suggestion be well founded, nothing can be more certain than that I
have not been misled by personal considerations; for, my permanent residence and
the most of my property being in one of those States, and holding a seat in this
house by the kind partiality of the citizens thereof, which I have also often experienced on other occasions, and for which no one could be more thankful, I should




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     125
be unjust to myself, ungrateful to them, and equally regardless of the dictates of
interest and duty, were I not anxiously disposed to promote the best interest of the
State which I have the honor in part to represent.
Were I to consult my popularity only, I well know that it would be much easier
to swim with, than to resist, the present popular current, which threatens to overwhelm all opposition, and to deluge the non slave-holding States of the West, with
what I consider, with all due deference to the opinions of other gentlemen, political
heresies, replete with mischiefs calculated to impair their present as well as future
prosperity and happiness.
Sir, I love popularity so well, that I would gladly retain it by the utmost devotion
to the interests of my constituents; but I would far rather surrender all pretensions to it, than preserve it at the expense of my conscience. I respect public sentiment as much as any man, and should at all times derive the sincerest gratification
from being able to discharge the trust confided to me, in strict conformity with the
wishes of those whom I have the honor to represent-but never can I consent to
shelter myself even from the tempest and hurricane of popular excitement, by a
violation of that Constitution which I, as well as the gentlemen from New Hampshire, (Mr. Morrill,) have solemnly sworn to support. But more of this by and by.
Were an attempt made to introduce slavery into the non slave-holding States of
the West, then, indeed, might there be just cause of alarm; and I can assure gentlemen that there is no man who would oppose such a proposition with more determined
zeal than myself. But, taking for granted what I shall presently endeavor to prove,
that neither the slave-holding States nor any of us who oppose the proposed restriction upon Missouri, are influenced by a desire to increase slavery in the United
States, and that the proposed restriction is not necessary to prevent, nor its omission calculated to augment the importation of fresh slaves, it is inconceivable
to me how the interest of the non slave-holding States of the West can be compromised by the admission of domestic slaves into Missouri, more than to permit them
to remain in the States where they now are; for, if that portion of political power
which, under the Constitution, arises from the slavery that now exists, is to be
deprecated and dreaded at all, surely it cannot be worse for us, in the hands of
those whose identity of interest with ourselves affords additional security against
its influence being exerted to our disadvantage. As yet, we have had no cause to
regret that a portion of such power has been transferred from some of the Southern
States to Kentucky and Tennessee, whose sympathies, friendship and assistance
have never been withheld from us in the hour of need. Our experience, therefore,
furnishes nothing to cause us to dread the influence of a similar transfer of power
to Missouri.
For my part, considering every part of the Western country identified in interest,
and that its domestic improvements, commercial prosperity, and political influence,
cannot fail to be promoted by every increase of population, it does appear to me to
be the interest of every State in the West, that fair and equal inducements to emigration thither should be afforded to the citizens of every section of the Union,
whether slave-holding or non slave-holding. But, in opposition to this very obvious
policy, with an extent of territory greatly beyond the demands of every description
of emigrants, and affording infinitely more than sufficient accommodation for all,
without any necessity for collisions of interest, feelings, or prejudices, between
them, we are called upon to check the emigration of our Southern brethren, by
those who dread our growth, and would gladly put an entire stop to emigration
from every other quarter. And thus are we invited to let lay waste and uninhabited




126                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
an immense frontier of our country, rather than permit it to be occupied by our
Southern brethren, who certainly would not be less our friends by becoming our
neighbors.
There are other considerations of vital importance to the Union in general, and
to the Western country in particular, which I purposely forbear to press, because I
do not wish to excite any unpleasant feelings, am anxious to cherish harmony, and
most ardently hope that some compromise may take place which will satisfy the
reasonable wishes of all parties.
Mr. President, in attempting to discuss the present proposition, it is not my
purpose to advocate slavery in any shape, or to deny that, in its mildest form, it is
equally inconsistent with the inherent rights of man, and repugnant to every principle of humanity and philanthropy. On the contrary, I rejoice most sincerely,
that an increasing sense of its moral injustice and turpitude, and the happy prevalence of more enlightened and magnanimous views throughout every part of our
common country, as well as in various other parts of the civilized world, are
eliciting the most zealous efforts not only to prevent its extension, but to ameliorate
its present condition, which, with the blessing of Divine Providence, I trust will,
in due season, eventuate in its final extermination.
The present subject of discussion surely is not the expediency of increasing
slavery in the United States by importations from Africa or elsewhere-nor is it a
question of slavery or freedom-and it does not appear to me to be consistent with
candor, to attempt to give to it the imposing and delusive aspect of either. And how
much soever such an artifice may be resorted to in other places, for the purpose of
rendering popular feelings and prejudices subservient to political views, I felicitate
myself in the firm conviction that such unworthy motives can receive no countenance
from this honorable body, and that every member of the Senate would disdain to impute to others sentiments which he does not believe them to entertain.
Were it, in fact, a question whether the further introduction of slavery into the
United States, by importation from abroad, should be permitted, the universal abhorrence in which a practice so disgraceful to humanity is held by all classes of our fellow-citizens, and the cordial cooperation of gentlemen from every section of the Union,
particularly at the last session of Congress, in measures to prohibit it, forbid the belief that such a measure could find one advocate or friend in this house; nor can there
be a doubt that we would all cheerfully unite in such further legitimate means as experience may demonstrate to be necessary to render such prohibition complete and
effectual, which I have no doubt is perfectly praticable.
All of us, therefore, entertaining the same abhorrence and repugnance to the further introduction and increase of slavery, the only point of difference between us relates to the slaves that are now amongst us; and as it is conceded, on all sides, that
Congress possesses no power to abolish the slavery that now exists, it follows that
the question of slavery or freedom is not involved in the present proposition, and that
an opposition to the restriction that is attempted to be imposed upon the sovereignty
and independence of a State, may well exist without any predilection for slavery-for
should our opposition prevail, the new State, notwithstanding, like all others in this
Union, would be left perfectly free to abolish slavery, and I am very ready to admit
that she would consult her best interest by doing so.
I have, Mr. President, viewed, with feelings of the deepest regret, attempts that
have been made to excite local and sectional jealousies, particularly against the slaveholding States, upon this subject, in their nature but too well calculated to sap the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       127
foundation of that spirit of conciliation which produced this great confederacy, and to
interrupt that social harmony and mutual friendship and confidence, which are so essential to maintain and strengthen the bonds of our union.
Experience teaches us that it is much more easy to produce popular discontent,
than to limit its operation and influence to the first exciting causes; and if the proposed restriction upon Missouri is to be carried by arraying popular prejudices in hostility to one principle of compromise, that contributed, in no small degree, to produce
our present happy Union, is it not to be feared that it may be difficult to limit that
hostility by anything short of the power to assail that principle with success? And
if an inequality in the apportionment of representatives in the other branch of the
National Legislature, with a correspondent obligation to pay direct taxes in proportion thereto, is to be rendered obnoxious to our fellow-citizens, what security is there
that the representation in this house, which, without any such correspondent obligation and without regard to numbers, reduces the largest States in this Union to a
level with the smallest, will share a better fate?
I confess, sir, that, while I cannot perceive that the present subject of deliberation
furnishes any adequate motives for those attempts at popular excitement, I cannot
contemplate them without being penetrated with the most awful apprehensions for
the fate of that fair fabric of our freedom which has hitherto been not more our boast
than the admiration of the civilized world. Upon what ground, sir, are those jealousies of our brethren of the slave-holding States predicated? Take, for example, if
you please, the case of Virginia, the largest of those States. Does she wish the extension of slavery? Let her known conduct decide.
While yet a colony of Great Britain she distinguished herself preeminently by a
noble, magnanimous and persevering stand against it, and enumerated its toleration
in the list of grievances, of which she so forcibly and eloquently complained against
the mother country. True to the principles she professed, she was the first State in
the Union to set the example of efficient opposition to a traffic in human flesh, so disgraceful to our country and so abhorrent to the principles for which we ourselves contended, by passing a law to prohibit it, by severe penalties, as early as the year 1778,
in which she has steadfastly persevered from that time to the present day; nor has
she ever, on any occasion, been less prompt in assisting to interpose the shield of Federal authority to protect the devoted sons of Africa from such ruthless oppression.
Having thus, by the most unequivocal acts, so demonstrated the sincerity of her professions upon this subject, as to extort the highest commendation from the most distinguished advocates of the proposed restriction, and deploring, as she must do, the
evils of slavery, what reason have we to suppose that she is now disposed to relinquish those principles and. abandon a policy, which, to her honor, she has, for such a
series of years, pursued with inflexible perseverence, and the wisdom of which is
daily more and more developed? No, sir, depend upon it, Virginia knows too well
what she owes to her own character, ever to descend from the proud preeminence
which she has acquired upon this subject.
The rest of the slave-holding States have also given such proofs of their decided
hostility to the further introduction of slavery among us, as to leave no ground for
even the affectation of incredulity upon the subject.
As then those States, equally with ourselves, are opposed to the further increase
of slavery in the United States, so, with them as with us, the only subject of controversy which the proposed restriction presents, relates exclusively to the slaves that
are now among them. And can they have any motives for opposing that restriction




128                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
which are not truly national and strictly compatible with the principles of our confederation? If they had heretofore desired to increase their political power, and aggrandize themselves upon the basis of a slave population, would they themselves have voluntarily inhibited the importation of slaves, and united in every means which the
wisdom of the national councils has yet been able to devise, for its prevention? Were
they now even tenacious of that portion of political power which they derive from the
slavery that exists among them, would they be the advocates of a measure calculated
to diminish that power, by its tendency to abstract from them and transfer to a different and distant section of the Union a large portion of their slaves? And let it be
remembered that to impute to them a desire merely to diminish the number of their
slaves, is to admit the most conclusive evidence of their opposition to the increase of
slavery, which is the point I have endeavored to maintain.
So far, therefore, from those States being actuated by the motives which, for particular purposes, have been attributed to them, it must be evident that the principles
for which they contend are calculated not only to diminish the power of their respective States, but to promote the abolition of slavery itself-for in proportion as you
permit the slaves now among us be disbursed, so do you diminish their relative numbers to the white population in any one State, and to that extent, at least, increase
their chances of emancipation, as is evinced by the experience of Massachusetts, New
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, &c., and which is also conceded by the
supposition that the prohibition of the further admission of slaves into Missouri would
be favorable to the emancipation of those who are now there, which seems to be a
favorite sentiment with a gentleman (Mr. King of New York) of preeminent talents,
who has distinguished himself by his zealous and able support of the proposed restriction, and who admits that a disposition more favorable to emancipation is gaining
ground in the States where slavery exists, that the disproportionate increase of free
people of color can be accounted for upon no other supposition, and that whatever
would tend to provide more satisfactorily for the comfort and morals of emancipated
slaves, would increase the practice of emancipation-to all which I yield the most
hearty concurrence.
It cannot, however, be denied that the difficulties and dangers attendant upon
emancipation, in any State, must be in proportion to the number of slaves therein;
and it is well known that several of the States have considered emancipation so incompatible with their domestic safety and tranquillity, as to feel the necessity of
absolutely prohibiting it, which is a policy that it is not presumable they will abandon.
While, therefore, confining the slaves to those States is calculated to render their
bondage perpetual, it must be acknowledged that their dispersion into different sections of the Union would remove many of the most important objections to emancipation, at the same time that it would increase the means of providing more satisfactorily for the comfort and morals of those unhappy beings, and would cherish (by
rendering more availing) that increasing disposition to emancipation which imparts
so much consolation to every true philanthropist.
The honorable gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Morrill), whose eloquent
denunciations of slavery we heard on yesterday, and who portrayed its evils and
injustice in the most appalling colors, supports the proposed restriction on the ground
that, if those unhappy victims of oppression were permitted to be carried to Missouri, their natural increase would be greater-in consequence, I suppose, of the
amelioration of their condition and the multiplication of their comforts. But, without pretending to analyze that species of philanthropy which would seek to terminate




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    129
oppression by the destruction of the oppressed-or that bleeds for suffering humanity,
and yet recoils at any alleviation of such sufferings-I beg leave to express my doubts
whether there are any known facts that will justify the gentleman's hypothesis itself.
It is readily admitted that the condition of the slaves in the West would be improved; but at a time when, as all sides admit, the influence of our free institutions
and the progress of public sentiment, have contributed, in an eminent degree, to
mitigate the rigors of slavery in all parts of our country where it exists, it is hardly
to be presumed that the difference of the treatment of slaves in the Western and
Atlantic States would be such as to produce any material difference in their natural
increase. Not only would the obvious interest of the Atlantic slave-holders forbid
the practice of that severe and cruel treatment that would be necessary to produce
such a result, but the abundance of subsistence which every part of our country
affords, and the well established fact that slaves increase faster than the white population, in slave-holding States, or free people of color anywhere, altogether negative
such a supposition. Nor is it better supported by any calculation upon the relative
increase of slave population in the Atlantic or Western States, which makes due
allowances for the effects of emigration upon the latter. But were it otherwise, as
it is fully demonstrated, by undeniable documents, that free people of color do not
increase by pro-creation as fast as slaves, and as the dispersion of the latter over a
greater surface would, under existing circumstances, multiply their chances of freedom, it is but reasonable to suppose that, upon the whole, it would not only tend
eventually to diminish slavery, but to check the increase of our black population
generally.
But, sir, the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Mellen), who has just
resumed his seat, assuming the ground that wherever a market for domestic slaves
exists, the introduction of foreign slaves cannot be prevented, has contended that,
if the proposed restriction should not prevail, African slaves will be introduced
into Missouri. In support of which, great reliance has been placed upon a few cases,
much magnified however, of their unlawful introduction into certain parts of our
country, which were principally, if not exclusively, attributable to causes merely
temporary.
In opposition to the conclusions he has drawn from a special case, we may with
propriety recur to facts and experience better calculated to test the correctness of
his general proposition. It will not, I presume, be denied, that as good a market
for domestic slaves as is ever likely to recur has existed in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, etc., where the facilities of introducing foreign slaves are as
great as could be desired; and yet, it is believed that the experience of those States
furnishes nothing to justify the inferences that have been so confidently insisted
upon, or, at most, nothing more than a mere apology for such inferences.
Cases, however, more analogous in all their circumstances to that of Missouri, as
far as experience can be relied upon, are ample refutation of the argument I am
endeavoring to combat. Slavery has never been prohibited in Kentucky or Tennessee, where slaves have been in constant demand; and yet, although I have lived
many years in the former, and have long been intimately acquainted with both, I
have never heard of the introduction of a single African into either, contrary to law,
and hence I think it fair to infer that either the practice has never prevailed in
those States, or that the instances of it have been so rare as rather to demonstrate
the efficiency of the law to prohibit it, than to justify the apprehensions which the
honorable gentleman seems to entertain.
-17




130                       HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
There are Western States, in the proximity of Missouri, nearer, however, to the
ocean, and possessing equal facilities, at least, for the introduction of foreign slaves.
And if, with a constant market for slaves, offering the most seducing temptations to
avarice and cupidity, either very few or no violations of the law, upon that subject,
have heretofore occurred in those States, is it reasonable to suppose or does any gentlemen really believe that the proposed restriction would materially affect the number
of Africans that, by possibility, may be smuggled into the United States?
It cannot be denied that public sentiment has been progressive upon this subject.
It is admitted by the friends of the restriction upon Missouri that the evils of slavery
have been so constantly unfolding themselves, as to cause it to be more and more deplored, even in the States where it exists, and that an abhorrence of the practice is
gaining ground in every part of our own country; and hence I should infer that we
have more reason to hope for a diminution of the evil than cause to dread its increase,
even if the prohibition of the importation of slaves were left to depend upon the law
that existed previous to the last session of Congress. But seeing that nearly all
Europe, animated by more just and enlightened views and generous feelings, is endeavoring to extirpate that nefarious traffic, and, having imparted additional energies
to our own laws for the same purpose, I flatter myself that, with the additional aid of
public sentiment in favor of those measures, the danger of introducing Africans into
Missouri is not less than it has been in relation to Kentucky and Tennessee, but that it
is wholly chimerical and visionary.
Upon this view of the subject it does appear to me that we, who on the present occasion are the advocates of State rights, cannot, with any kind of fairness, be charged
with either a desire to increase slavery or with any predilection for that which exists.
And if the proposed restriction is not necessary to prevent the importation of foreign
slaves, it follows that the admission of slavery into Missouri is neither calculated to
abridge the power of the non slave-holding States, nor to increase that inequality in
the apportionment of representation which depends upon our slave population; for
whether those slaves be in Georgia or Missouri they must be included in the apportionment of representation, and whatever power they might confer upon Missouri
would be just so much abstracted from the States whence they came. And as an inequality of representation thus produced must necessarily prevail so long as the Constitution remains unaltered, I am constrained to believe that the transfer of a portion
of that advantage to Missouri would be as harmless, at least to the non slave-holding
States of the West, as to let it remain consolidated, with all its influence, on this side
of the Alleghany. And, indeed, although I should greatly regret to see the State
which I have the honor in part to represent participate in it, yet it does appear to me
that the more it is divided (without increasing it) among those States that wish to
receive it, the less will be its evils and the greater the facility and certainty of controlling any sinister influence which it might produce.
Mr. Edwards remarked, that, having endeavored so far to strip the subject of the artifices with which it had most dexterously been clothed, he
would next proceed to submit to the Senate the reasons which induced
him  to believe that the proposed restriction could not be imposed upon
Missouri without a violation of the Constitution. He had, however, made
but a few remarks upon this branch of the subject, when he observed that
he found speaking so painful, in consequence of a very sore throat, with




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               131
which he had for some time past been afflicted, that it was impossible for
him, at that time, to proceed; and expressing a wish to have the indulgence of the Senate to be heard on a future day, he resumed his seat.
In the year 1821 he spoke of retiring from public life, but was dissuaded
from doing so by the advice of Mr. Wirt and others of his friends. Mr.
Wirt wrote to him as follows, on this subject: "With regard to your determination to retire from public life, I should consider myself a traitor
in friendship, if I do not say, in spite of your injunction to the contrary,
that I consider you as standing in your own light, in coming to that resolution, and as committing suicide. No man, who has been for so short a
time in Congress, has more hopeful or brilliant prospects than you have.
This is only a shadow that flits across your path-why should you mistake
it for eternal night? If you are right in your view of things, the rectitude of that view will ere long appear, and your political sun will break
out with redoubled.lustre. Were I constituted for public life as I believe
you to be (with the exception, I fear, of a little too much sensibility),
neither the machinations of enemies nor the mistakes of friends should
lead me to devote myself to voluntary obscurity. Consult your wise and
excellent father and let him decide-by whom I would rather be directed,
after he knows the whole ground, than by a whole battalion of congressmen."
Mr. Calhoun, in a letter dated in 1823, speaks of Gov. Edwards as follows: "Believing that you possess qualities which are well calculated to
advance the interest and honor of the country, on a foreign mission, I
would be highly gratified if the most important of all the appointments of
that kind connected with this continent should be conferred on you. I
must, at the same time, express my belief, that few men are more important, at this moment, as connected with our domestic politics."
In a letter of the same year, Mr. Calhoun says: "You see there is a
new Post Master General. I hope the appointment will give satisfaction.
I did not fail to bring up your name for consideration, and I thought, as
between you and Judge McLean, I could take no active part-believing
you both to be highly qualified; I would certainly have been not less gratified with your appointment than his. I believe that the scale was principally turned by the apprehension that the precarious state of your health
might prevent you from bestowing that incessant labor and attention which
the extensive duties and the greatly disordered state of the Department
render indispensable. You may be assured that there is no one whose advancement would give me more sincere pleasure than yourself. I believe
there is no one whose zeal and abilities give a stronger claim on the administration."




132                   HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Throughout the whole period of his public life, and wherever he resided, he was in favor of facilitating to every man the means of acquiring a
freehold, and of extending the right of suffrage and citizenship to every
free white inhabitant. His correspondence with the Hon. J. J. Crittenden
and others, from Kentucky, shows that no one was more active and used
greater exertions to reduce the price of public lands to the early settlers
of Kentucky. No one spoke more in Congress in favor of the reduction
of the price of lands belonging to the General Government; and the journals of Congress show that he proposed the lowest price that had ever been
previously suggested in either branch of that body. But when it was proposed to accompany the reduction of the price by requiring the entire
payment to be made in cash, and abolishing the credit system, which had
previously allowed the poor man to pay for the land in annual installments,
he was opposed to this measure, because it would have retarded instead of
facilitating to the actual settler the means of acquiring a home.
As early as Feb. 18, 1819, he offered a number of amendments to the
bill making further provisions for the sale of public land-the first of
which proposed to graduate the price, according to the supposed ability of
the different descriptions of purchasers, by reducing it to fifty cents an
acre to the purchasers of not more than eighty acres, seventy-five cents an
acre for any quantity not exceeding a quarter section, and one dollar an
acre for any quantity not exceeding one section. The second proposed
particular indulgencies to actual settlers. The third proposed to reduce
the price in all cases to one dollar; and that failing, to reduce the price to
one dollar and twenty-five cents.
As early as 1820, in a communication to his constituents, he says:
"At the last session of Congress it was my ardent wish that the minimum
price should not exceed one dollar per acre, and my best talents were zealously exerted, on different occasions, to procure such indulgencies for actual settlers, as would have accommodated the poorest of them, and thereby have invited emigration to the State and promoted the settlement and
improvement thereof. These objects failing, I wished the credit system
to remain, and to reduce the price to one dollar an acre, in cash-believing, that while speculators would have no inducement to purchase on credit,
that system might have afforded some accommodation to a portion of our
fellow-citizens who, owing to the present unparalleled scarcity of money,
might be unable to purchase upon any other terms.
In relation to appointments to offices, he believed that the Senators and
Representatives of the State were the proper persons to recommend to office within the State, and proposed in a letter to Mr. Crawford, then Secretary of the Treasury (in 1821), that two of the persons to be nominated
for the land offices created by the act of the last session of Congress should




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              133
be selected by him and two by Judge Thomas, the other Senator. Mr.
Crawford replied to him, that the proposition was deemed by the President inadmissible, as it would in fact be a transfer of the right of nomination, vested by the Constitution in the President, to the Senators of the
State. Mr. Edwards, in his answer, said: "It cannot be supposed that I
wished to transfer the right of nomination to the Senators. If I recollect
rightly, I called upon you and suggested the proposition as one that I
thought calculated to give satisfaction, and I did believe from our conversation that you thought favorably of it-limited, however, by a just regard
to the right of nomination vested in the President, which no one was more
disposed to respect than myself, as was clearly to be inferred from my
remarks; for upon your suggesting such limitation, so far from intimating
a wish that the right of nomination should be surrendered to the Senators,
I expressly declared that I did not wish any one, in relation to any recommendation of mine, to relinquish the right of making objections to any
nomination, and that I would not myself relinquish any such right in relation to nominations made upon the recommendation of others. It was
well understood, however, that two parties existed in Illinois. I presume
the administration did not wish to identify itself with either; and knowing that suitable persons could be selected from both sides for the offices
in question, I did not doubt that the distribution which I proposed could
be made without any violation or surrender of power on the part of the
President, while it was the best calculated to give that general satisfaction
which, next to a conscientious discharge of his duties, the history of his
life proves has been and still is the first object of his wishes. * *  So
far from intending that the President should transfer the right of nomination to the Senators of the State, I never intended to propose that he
should confine his nominations exclusively to their separate or united recommendations."
Mr. Wirt, in a letter to Mr. Edwards, dated January 11, 1821, says:
"I am very sure that the President has the most sincere regard for you.
I do not understand, however, that he feels himself bound by the recommendation of the Senators of the State in which the office is to be filled,
even where the Senators concur. In such a case he has great respect to
their opinion, but he considers himself at perfect liberty to put a different
character in nomination, without giving just cause of offense to them.
The constitutional act of nominating is his; he ought to be free, therefore,
to nominate whom he pleases. Were he bound even by the joint recommendation of the Senators, the nomination would cease to be the act of
the President: it would in fact be that of the Senators-while, by the
Constitution, the responsibility would still rest on the President. You
cannot but admit the correctness of this view of the subject; and I am
told that the practice of the Senators is in strict conformity with it: they




134                    HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
wait till the President calls on them to express their opinion, and retire,
respectfully, from any further interference with the nomination, but with
full liberty to exercise their rights, in their turn, as Senators, when the
nomination is sent in and they have to vote on its confirmation. The President asks no sacrifice of the rights of Senators in opposing and rejecting
his nominations;. and why should they seek to narrow his freedom in making his nominations? * * There is, indeed, another course which he
may take, and which I think he ought to take: which is, to nominate no
person whom either Senator declares unworthy of the office, if he can find
a deserving man in the State free from such objection-unless, indeed,
the objection itself is destroyed by being discovered to proceed from a personal feeling, or weakened by flowing from the animosity of local factions."




CHAPTER VIII.
Gov. Edwards' appointment as Minister to Mexico —His Controversy with
Mr. Crawford-Letters from Judge McLean, Mr. Adams, Mr. lngham,
Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Wirt, and others, in reference to it- False Charges of
Col. Benton-Gov. Edwards' Resignation-Etc.
In alluding to his controversy with Mr. Crawford, it is not the object
nor desire of the writer to say anything that would have the tendency to
affect the reputation of either Mr. Crawford or Gen. Noble, whose testimony he proposes to investigate. Mr. Edwards stated, in his argument
before the Committee, that he did not put in issue, by anything he had
said in his vindication, the Secretary's "intentions" in regard to those
several acts-(meaning the charges and specifications referred to in his
memorial.) He said, in a public communication, that he disclaimed any
other construction of them than the most innocent of which they were susceptible.
In 1824, he received the appointment of Minister to Mexico, from Mr.
Monroe, which appointment was nearly unanimously confirmed by the
Senate. On its confirmation, Gen. Jackson, then a member of the Senate,
wrote him a note congratulating him on that event.
Soon after this, and on the eve of his departure on his mission, the Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Crawford, sent a communication to
Congress, in which he alluded to Mr. Edwards in the following language:
The Hon. Mr. Edwards, late a Senator of Illinois, having stated on his examination before a Committee of the House, on the 13th February, 1823, that the late
Receiver of Public Moneys at Edwardsville had, on his advice and in his presence,
written a letter to the Secretary, inclosing a copy of the publication which Mr.
Edwards represents himself to have made sometime in the year 1819, announcing
his intention of retiring from the Directorship of the Bank at Edwardsville, and
that he had advised the Receiver to withhold his deposits from the Bank until he
could receive a letter from the Secretary directing him to continue his deposits,
the Secretary deems it proper to state that no such letter from the Receiver is to
be found on the files of the Department; that the officers employed in it have no
recollection of the receipt of such a letter; and that, on an examination of the
records of the Department, it appears that no answer to any such letter, directing
the Receiver to continue the deposits, was ever written to him by the Secretary of
the Treasury.




136                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The Secretary of the Treasury, in his reply to the address of Mr. Edwards, says, as "he had no recollection of the communication to which
(Mr. Edwards') testimony referred, he considered himself bound to state
the fact;" and adds, the terms in which the communication was made "will
show that no disrespect towards him was intended." Any one, however,
who will read carefully the communication of the Secretary, cannot fail to
perceive that it had the tendency to create the impression that it was intended as an attack on the evidence of Mr. Edwards. It thus appears,
from his own statement, that the Secretary did not intend to show any
disrespect to Mr. Edwards, and, also, that Mr. Edwards did not put in
issue, by any thing he had said, "the Secretary's intentions" in regard to
the charges and specifications in his memorial.
Mr. Edwards' veracity having, as he supposed, been thus questioned, he
sent a memorial to Congress, in which he preferred certain charges against
Mr. Crawford-among which was one in relation to this letter; and for
the proof of the charges he referred entirely to documentary evidence;
but the Committee to whom these charges were referred thought it important to examine Mr. Edwards as a witness. In the course of the investigation, with a view to impeaching the credit of Mr. Edwards, Gen. Noble
was introduced as a witness to prove that he had denied the authorship of
certain publications over the signature of "A. B," which Mr. Edwards had
avowed himself the author of in his memorial to Congress.
Taken entirely by surprise, by this testimony, Mr. Edwards introduced
a number of witnesses to prove that Gen. Noble was mistaken. For the
purpose of vindicating himself from those charges and insinuations, by the
advice of his friends he voluntarily tendered his resignation of the office
of Minister to Mexico, so as to afford him an opportunity of collecting
further testimony, and also for the purpose, after making his defense, to
appeal to the people of his own State to sustain him.
Besides his reply to Gen. Noble's testimony, which he published in 1825,
it may not be improper for me to give the additional evidence; but before
doing so, it may be proper to state that the only charge against the Secretary, and on which he gave any testimony in which his veracity was questioned, was the one in relation to the letter of Benjamin Stephenson, the
Receiver at Edwardsville. That there was no cause to question his statement in reference to this letter, is evident, from the report of the Committee, in which they say: " In regard to the contested letter of Benjamin
Stephenson, of the 12th October, 1819, the Committee see no cause to
change the opinion which was entertained and which they intended to
express in their former report: that although the letter was written, as
stated by Mr. Edwards in his testimony, there was no evidence that Mr.
Stephenson communicated or transmitted it to the Secretary of the Treasury."




LIFE AND TIMES 01 NINIAN EDWARDS.                      137
The following is taken from Mr Edwards' address, in the year 1825:
As the charges against the Secretary of the Treasury were too well founded to admit of a fair and full investigation, it was deemed prudent by those who dreaded their
application to divert the course of scrutiny from his conduct to my character, and for
this purpose the testimony of the Hon. Mr. Noble was introduced. This operation,
it was hoped, would not only weaken the force of my allegations, which, resting on
public documents, had the united support of reason and record, but would serve to
screen the vulnerable reputation of Mr. Crawford, by drawing off the fire of public
curiosity and censure. The stratagem was not only old, but successful; for the proceeding of the Committee was both loose and summary, and as the testimony of the
witness, in its application to myself, referred to matters of which I was totally unconscious, it was not in my power to foresee or to withstand its force.
That the proceeding of the Committee was loose is sufficiently evident from their
having forced me to testify to facts not embraced in the charges submitted to them,
and which, as they themselves declared, were not material to the investigation-thus,
without reason, extending the surface of my testimony, thereby impairing its force
and augmenting its liability to question, without the countervailing result of presenting more points of weakness in the conduct of Mr. Crawford. In so far, therefore, as
the testimony transcended the limits of the charges, the investigation was a trial of
me and not of Mr. Crawford. And this injurious irregularity was increased; for while
my general reputation was not impeached, the latitude allowed in the examination of
Mr. Noble admitted attacks on special points of my character which I could not have
apprehended, was of course unprepared for, and which, as they derived all their energy from the surprise they effected, were the more formidable in consequence of their
being false.
That their proceeding was also summary arose, probably, from the impatience of
members, natural after a long and laborious session, and is proved by their failure to
summon several witnesses whose attendance I had formally required, while their most
distinguished member was personally active in procuring the appearance of Mr. Noble.
The scheme for diverting the public attention and the weight of the scrutiny from
Mr. Crawford to myself, and thus frustrating the object of Congress in raising the
Committee, having been determined on, a position was speedily taken in the remote
and debatable ground of the "A. B." publications. The first movement was an attempt to prove that I had denied the authorship of these papers in order to secure
the appointment of Minister to Mexico-a proceeding which would have been disgraceful to me, but which, even if proved, it is difficult to imagine could have altered
the meaning of the public documents, affected in the smallest degree the official responsibility of the Treasurer, lightened the fiscal losses of the Republic, imparted fair"
ness and precision to her financial operations, or appeased the offended dignity of her
laws.
It was urged, accordingly, that I had actually secured the appointment by making
the denial, although it was known that of the twenty-seven Senators who voted for
it, all except Mr. Noble (my avowed friend) were political adversaries of Mr. Crawford,
and of course would have been not the less friendly to me on account of my opposition to him. This effort, originating in injustice, terminated in abortion; and the
marvelous memory of Mr. Noble was relied on to prove that although I did not secure
the appointment by disavowing the publication, yet that I endeavored to do so-a
charge which, had it been sustained, would have been equally injurious to my moral
-18




138                       HISTORY OF ILLINOti.
character, more discreditable to my understanding, but as little illustrative of Mr.
Crawford's conduct.
Upon the testimony of Mr. Noble, therefore, it becomes my duty to exercise the
right of self-defense, a right in which all the stronger virtues take root, and to demonstrate that it is neither consistent with facts, nor even consistent with itself;
and that the disastrous effect it had upon my reputation resulted, not from its truth
or veri-similitude, but from the super-sensibility of the public mind, prepared and
heated by party contention, "to trifles light as air," when sanctioned, as Mr. Noble's
testimony was, by the authority of forms and office, and adapted to particular modes
of popular feeling.
As a preliminary to its refutation, it may be fitly observed that if Mr. Noble's testimony be not good against himself, it cannot be operative against another person,
and if it be good against himself it proves that he has violated all those principles of
honor which forbid the breach of private confidence, and that voluntarily.
It is not my province to designate his motives. He, himself, has declared that his
active support of my nomination was blamed by his political friends. That when my
address was afterwards presented to the house, it was urged upon him as practical
demonstration of his impolicy, with so much force as to require an expiatory sacrifice
of friendship and honor, it is more easy to believe than proper to assert. Even if this
be the case, he has made ample atonement; for I am free to confess that the peculiar
circumstances in which his testimony placed me compelled me, from respect to myself, my friends and my country, to resign an appointment which the combined strength
of his friends, in fair opposition, could not, as they well knew, have prevented my receiving.
In regard to that view of his testimony which proposes to consider it extrinsically,
a difference presents itself, between the conduct imputed to me by Mr. Noble and that
which i iis known I pursued, that weighs strongly against its accuracy.
Had I so recently and emphatically denied my authorship of the "A. B." publications, is it reasonable to suppose that I would have been so inconsiderate as to avow
it in my address-especially as I was under no strong inducement thus to ruin my
reputation? Such a naked and unnecessary adsurdity can hardly be credited of any
man, unless we disregard the admitted influence of self-love, and violate those habits
of judgment by which we trace the operations of moral causes and form conceptions
of individual character. To believe it of any man would be difficult, but to believe it
of one who, in an uninterrupted course of public service of twenty-seven or eight
years, had constantly been honored with the distinguished approbation of every people whose public servant he had been-who, in the patriotic and enlightened State of
Kentucky, had served several sessions in its Legislature, and successively filled the
unsolicited stations of a Circuit Judge, a Judge of the General Court, fourth Judge
of the Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice of the State, before he had attained his
thirty-second year-who had administered the government of a Territory between
nine and ten years, with entire satisfaction to two administrations, and at the termination of this service had been elected, almost unanimously, a Senator of Congress
by the State which sprung out of the Territory of which he had so long been the Governor, and who was considered by the President, by the Senate and by the Hon. Mr.
Noble, himself, qualified both as to principle and capacity for the highest appointment
-is impossible!
Again-had I designed, as he insinuates, to carry this denial through him to the
members of the Senate, is it credible that I should neither have requested him to




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    189
mention it, nor ever after inquired of him if he had done so? If the first incident
happened, the second succeeded by necessary connection, and yet Mr. Noble confesses
[see his testimony] that the latter did not take place. Or, is it possible that after I
had thus imposed upon him, by making him consider me "as speaking as an honest
man," while I was uttering a falsehood, he should not of his own accord have communicated my earnest and voluntary denial to a single individual on whom it was calculated to operate either in advancement of me or in justification of himself. Moreover,
if it be insisted that I made the denial in question, it must be admitted that I made
it for some object, and the object imputed is the only one possible; yet it is incredible that I should never have expressed my denial to any Senator but Mr. Noble,
himself, who had previously taken a zealous part in my support, and was known to
have discharged the very act of favor which it must have been the only possible object of denial to induce him to undertake.
Another circumstance, which would be sufficient to discredit a story of much greater
plausibility than Mr. Noble's, is my sickness and extreme'debility at the time in which
he lays its foundation. He swears that, in the conversation in which I disavowed to
him the authorship of the "A. B." publications, that it took place "in his own room
and on the evening of the day on which he called up my nomination in the Senate."
But his memory is evidently false both as to time and place-for the fact is (as the
testimony before the Committee shows) I was too sick on the evening of that day to
leave my bed, much less to be in his room, which was separated from mine by considerable distance and by the intervention of several flights of stairs; and I was too
feeble, in any situation, to make the ample and lively gesticulations which he describes
in his testimony, or to toss my feet, in the athletic restlessness of ease, "high upon
the jambs," as he has frequently asserted, perhaps to corroborate his oath, in familiar
conversation.
It is known to a multitude of gentlemen that I had been confined to my bed, without being able to dress or be dressed, for several successive weeks previous to that,
toward the end of which Mr. Noble came to reside at Mrs. Queen's. In the course of
it, though feeble and exhausted, I had, contrary to the caution of my friends, ventured to ride as far as the capitol in a carriage, and to take some gentle exercise on
foot-to which it is most probable my severe relapse was attributable. The insinuation that my illness, tedious and severe as it was, was simulated, is too illiberal for
notice, and, as it was witnessed by a number of respectable individuals, too contemptible for refutation. It can only be important to show that, on the day of the alleged
conversation (Tuesday, the 24th, or Thursday, 26th February), and for a number of
tedious and painful days thereafter, I was in no condition to visit Mr. Noble in his
room, or to hold the conversation, or to exhibit the gestures he represents.
Mrs. Queen, the lady with whomMr. Noble and myself boarded, and a witness before the Committee, being asked by me what she knows concerning my sickness at her
house, after my removal into the back building-that is after the 21st February, when
I gave up the front room to Mr. Noble-how long I continued sick, and how long it
was after Mr. Noble's coming that I became so ill as to be confined to my room, says,
upon oath, "I know that you were very sick while you lodged in that room-so ill
that the servant was obliged to sit up with you every night;" and, also, that "it was
Tuesday or Wednesday you became so sick as to be confined to your room;" and further, that she "does not recollect having seen Gov. Edwards at the table after Monday, the 23d."
Mr. H. W. Queen (another witness), a young gentleman who is the son of the aforesaid Eliza, and who had the best opportunity of knowing the occurrences of the family,




140                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
upon being interrogated by me, testified as follows: "I am under the impression that
you became confined to your room on a Tuesday. I remember your being at breakfast Monday morning, previous. I do not recollect your being out of your room after
Tuesday, until you recovered." Upon being asked by Mr. Forsyth, in behalf of Mr.
Crawford, "what enables you to fix with so much certainty on Monday and Tuesday?"
answers, "Gen. Noble came on Saturday; was not at breakfast on Sunday, and came
to breakfast, for the first time, on Monday, in company with Gov. Edwards."
Mr. Asa Hough (another witness), after testifying that he recollected having seen
me at Mrs. Queen's after I "occupied the back room," that is after the 21st of February, declares, "you was sick in bed; I cannot remember the precise day; it was sometime towards the latter end of February; I recollect that you was so much indisposed,
that I did not communicate the business for which I had come; I called again, sometime afterwards, but, learning that you were still confined to your room, I did not
go in."
Mr. J. Mason, Jr., a witness on the part of Mr. Crawford, says he "visited me
shortly after my nomination, and shortly after I occupied the back room, and that
he then thought me quite ill.",Mrs. A. Lindsay, another boarder at Mrs. Queen's, "thinks I continued confined
to my room about a fortnight, and does not recollect seeing me at table after Monday, the 23d of February."
The Hon. Jeremiah Nelson, another boarder, says he "lodged at Mrs. Queen's
when Mr. Noble came there, and I removed to a room in the back building; that he
understood, from several members of the family, that Gov. Edwards was very sick;
and that he visited me in my room more than a week afterwards, and found me still
so."
All this testimony was given before the Committee, and represents my condition
as certainly very unfit to square with the oath of Mr. Noble. I have since, however,
received statements which, though not sanctioned by the solemnity of an oath, have
all the force of truth, and render it indisputable that his testimony is not to be relied
on, and that he has done me the greatest possible injustice.
The high character and reputation of George M. Bibb, Esq., one of the nmost eminent lawyers of Kentucky, formerly a Judge of the Court of Appeals of that State,
a Senator in Congress, etc., is known throughout the Union. This gentleman was
well informed in relation to certain subjects, which rendered me solicitous for an
interview with the Hon. Rufus King of New York, on Saturday evening, the 21st of
February. Not being able to go out and see Mr. King, (as appears by my letter to
him of that date, which he has returned to me with his own indorsement thereon,)
and being desirous to have the benefit of what Mr. Bibb knew on the same subject,
I wrote to him on the following Monday morning, requesting him to make the explanations relating to it to Mr. King. The following is an extract of a letter to me,
from Mr. Bibb, in reply to mine calling his recollection to the above transactions:
"FRaNKFOrT, August 2, 1824.
"My Good'riend:
"When I arrived in Washington City, in February last, you were at Mrs. Queen's,
occupying the front room on the first floor. I visited you there several times whilst
you were sick and confined to your room. You afterwards removed to the back part
of the building, where I visited you frequently; you were sick most generally in bed,
but sometimes sat up. The time when you removed to the back room of Mrs. Queen's
I cannot state; I recollect, while your nomination was pending in the Senate, unacted upon, you were confined to your room in the back apartment. I had a con



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   141
versation with Mr. King, of the Senate, on the subject of an anonymous publication
against you some twenty years ago, in Kentucky, which publication I understood was
dug out of the grave and used, or attempted to be used, to your prejudice. I waited
on you at your own room, the same day or the next, and informed you of the conversation; found you sick and confined to your chamber. This was whilst your
nomination was pending. Your note to me on the subject of the anonymous publication is not preserved; by that I could have ascertained the date; my memory
cannot retain dates. I arrived in Washington early in February. You were sick
and confined to your room when I arrived. I left the city in the latter part of March.
I have no recollection to have seen you out of your own apartment during my stay
in the city. I visited you frequently, because of your sickness, and because the
presence and conversation of your acquaintances seemed to cheer your spirits."
It will be seen, by reference to Mr. Noble's testimony, he asserts that previous to
my alleged conversation with him in his own room, I had been informed of his having
called up my nomination in the Senate. This information was communicated to me by
Hon. G. Moore of Alabama, one of my mess at Mrs. Queen's. The following extract
of a letter will show that my confinement to my bed had commenced before I received this information, and, taken in nconnection with the foregoing testimony, must
satisfy every unprejudiced mind that I could neither have been in Mr. Noble's room,
as he swears, on that evening, nor "for six or eight days thereafter":
"As to your indisposition-having made it my business to call to see you every
night and morning, I know I cannot be mistaken. It is also in my recollection, on
that or the day in the evening of which I informed you Gen. Noble had moved to
take up your nomination, I was informed you had experienced a very severe shake
of the ague, and when I gave you this information, you were confined to your bed,
and appeared much exhausted, and continued confined and very much weakened
and debilitated, I think, for six or eight days, and perhaps more."
In addition to this, I submit the following affidavit of a young gentleman, of perfect truth and respectability, which is positive as to my being sick in bed on Tuesday, the 24th February, and for several successive days afterwards:
"Frederick Hewitt, of Madison county, and State of Illinois, and lately a cadet
in the military academy at West Point, deposes and says, that he arrivcd in the city
of Washington from West Point, and put up at Brown's Hotel, on the 24th February
last; that being particularly desirous to see and converse with Gov. Edwards, he
called, for that purpose, at Mrs. Queen's boarding house, on the same day and within
a very short time after his arrival, and found him to all appearances very sick, in bed,
in a room in the back building of the said boarding house; that Gov. Edwards complained considerably-said he was too sick for conversation at that time, and requested
deponent to call again in the evening: upon which deponent took his leave, and
returned again after candle-light, and found the Governor still in bed, and a gentlcman in the room with him, whom Gov. Edwards called'Judge,' but deponent does
not recollect that he heard the gentleman's name, or, if he did, he has forgotten it.
" This deponent remained in the city till the evening of the 28th of February, and
called every day, and sometimes twice a day or more, to see the Governor, who continued sick during the whole of that time, and on the last mentioned day took physic
in deponent's presence.
"On deponent's taking leave of Gov. Edwards, on the 28th of February, aforesaid,
he expressed a great unwillingness that his situation should be known to his family,




142                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
and earnestly requested deponent (who had to pass through Edwardsville, where
they resided,) not to mention his sickness in the neighborhood, lest it should get to
their cars.
(Signed,)                       "FREDERICK HEWITT,
"District of Columbia, Washington county, etc."
[On the 23d day of September, 1824, Frederick Hewitt personally appeared before the subscriber, a Justice of the Peace for the county aforesaid, and made oath, in due form of law, that the
facts stated and set forth in the aforesaid affidavit are true.
WM. HEWITT, Justice Peace.]
Independently of the incoherences of his testimony, Mr. Noble himself furnishes
the means of establishing the fact and time of my confinement, and the impossibility
of his statements being true. He admitted, on the day that the witnesses who testified on this subject before the Committee were examined, and has since reiterated,
that I was "very sick," and that he, himself, brought a letter from Mr. King to me,
"in my room." Fortunately this letter has been preserved. It is dated "Senate
Chamber, Tuesday, 24th February, 1824," the earliest possible period at which the
alleged conversation could have taken place-inasmuch as Mr. Noble states it to
have occurred after he moved to take up my nomination, and the journals of the
Senate show that he could not have made the motion at any time before that day.
This letter is as follows:
" SENATE CHAMBER, February 24, 1824.
"Dcar Sir:
"The nomination was read this morning, and upon the suggestion of a nmember
that an absent Senator was understood to be prepared to submit to the consideration
of the Senate, objections to the confirmation of the appointment to Mexico, and to
afford an opportunity of this being done, I moved to postpone the nomination till
to-morrow, when the absent Senator expects to be able to attend. It was intimated
that it was desirable that some intimation of the nature of the objection should be
given, in order that inquiries could be seasonably made by the friends of the candidate. Nothing particular was intimated, though it was understood that Col. Benton
is the Senator who is to offer objections.    Yours, truly,
"RUFCS KING.
"HoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, of the U. S. Senate."
Not having been present, I cannot say witl absolute certainty whether Mr. Noble
moved to take zip my nomination on the 24th or the 26th of February, (for it appears,
from the journals of the Senate, it was taken up on both of those days,) or, consequently, whether the imputed conversation, which he brings within the same day of
the motion, is alleged to have occurred on one or the other of those days. All the
indications, and his own expressions, however, point to the first, and, by linking his
charge with that day, force it into direct conflict with all the testimony, formal and
informal, above referred to. Give him, however, the utmost possible advantage,
and extend the time of the imputed conversation to the 26th, the force of evidence
against his oath is still but too formidable.
Mrs. Queen swears that "two or three days after Mr. Noble came to her house,
(Feb. 21) I became so ill as to make it necessary for a servant to sit up with me
every night, and continued confined to my room about two weeks." Mrs. Lindsay,
that "I continued confined to my room about a fortnight." The lion. Mr. Moore
declares that I was confined to my bed the evening of the day on which the motion
for taking up my nomination was made in the Senate, and continued confined "six
or eight days and perhaps more."




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     143
Mr. Hewitt swears I was sick in bed on the 24th, and continued so until the 28th,
whereon he took leave of me; and if it were necessary to superadd evidence to the
same fact, the following letter from Mr. King of New York, to a friend of mine, dated
22d June, 1824, would supply it: " Enclosed I send you two letters from Mr. Edwards
to me, dated the 21st and 27th February —the former being subsequent to a note
from me to him, from the Senate, respecting his nomination; the latter, as I conjecture, the day after my visit, when I found him in bed in the back part of the house
where he lodged." The accuracy of Mr. King's recollection is established by the
tenor of my letter alluded to the 27th, the genuineness of which he can vouch for.
It contains these words: "I gave you, yesterday, a brief sketch of my impressions in
regard to, etc. It is, however, a long time since I have seen or even thought of that
letter; and sick as I am with a severe attack of fever, that confines me to my bed," etc.
Plain, fair and strict as I intend this examination of the testimony of Mr. Noble to
be, I will not affect to conceal my conviction that the arguments and exposition already bestowed on it, have completed its discredit. Charity may forgive, but credulity itself can never believe it; yet the chain of proof against it is still longer, and
acquires strength as it extends. Among the memorabilia of that imputed conversation, he swears I mentioned "that I was about to be attacked in the Senate of the United States, for the purpose of defeating my nomination; that party and political spirit
was now high; that I understood that charges would be exhibited against me, and
that it had been so declared in the Senate Chamber; that he remarked to me that I
well knew, according to the rules of that body, while on executive business, secrecy
was required; that he was not at liberty to mention any occurrences or the remarks of
a single member, excepting so far as related to himself; that I then replied that I was
informed almost every day of the transactions and remarks of individuals when my nomination was called up."  Almost every day when my nomination was called up! Astonishing! One would suppose from this statement, and indeed (being given without
any comment or surprise) it is equivalent to a direct affirmation on his part, that my
nomination had, at that time, been repeatedly called up in the Senate, and that different
members had as frequently made remarks in relation to it, of which the rules of that
body interdicted the disclosure; yet let any one consult the journals of the Senate,
and compare the facts with the tenure of this affirmation. I was nominated on Wednesday, the 18th February; my nomination was read on that and the succeeding day,
as a matter of course, and subsilentio; it was called up for the first time on the 24th,
the very day on the evening of which Mr. Noble brought me Mr. King's letter, and
when he found me, as he himself declares, very sick in my own room; the second time
on the 26th, the day on which Mr. King visited and found me, as he himself states,
sick in bed-and was confirmed on the 4th March, following. Every member of the
Senate who was present, except Mr. Noble, will bear me out in the assertion, that no
transactions or remarks of which the rules of that body forbid the disclosure, which
could be likely to excite my curiosity or to require his forbearance, could have taken
place prior to the 24th February; nor was anything ever afterwards alleged in that
body against the nomination, if Mr. Noble himself is to be believed, for he, himself,
says, "the fact turned out that there was no opposition."
It was confirmed without opposition, twenty-seven members rising in its favor, and
none against it. It is, therefore, not only improbable, but hideously incredible, that
the very first day, or even the second, on which a motion was made to take up my
nomination, when it is certain an intimation of future opposition was all that had occurred and of course the most that could have transpired, I should have assured Mr.




144                       HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
Noble "that I was informed almost every day (thereby implying several if not many
days) of the transactions and remarks of individuals, when my nomination was called up."
Believe who can-it is a rule of evidence, founded in reason and justified by philosophy, that when a number of witnesses, testifying to the same fact, contradict each
other, the whole amount of their testimony is diminished in proportion to the degree
of mutual destruction which their opposite assertions effect; but the destruction of
testimony goes much further when a single witness either contradicts himself or encumbers his oath with strong improbabilities and inconsistencies that cannot be reconciled. Both these infirmities are so marked in Mr. Noble's testimony, by the examination already made, that it is hardly worth while to notice the dire contrast between the state of mind ascribed to me by him, and that which, about the same time,
Mr. Seaton swears I manifested.
According to Mr. Noble I deprecated opposition, and aimed at conciliating Mr.
Crawford's friends. According to Mr. Seaton, one of his warmest friends, I was regardless of opposition and confident of success. Both accounts can hardly be true,
and that Mr. Seaton's is most probable, the following extract of my letter to Mr, King
of New York, of the 21st February, affords convincing proof: "That I shall meet all
the opposition you allude to, I know just as well as that it will be utterly unavailing.
I speak advisedly when I say it cannot succeed unless my friends are absent when
the vote is taken." Another pertinent fact stated in my address to Mr. Noble, in the
summer of 1824, which he has tacitly admitted by his answer and cannot deny,
is, that the reason I alleged for being willing to give up to him the front room at
Mrs. Queen's, which, for several successive sessions, I had occupied, and which, it is
well known, I preferred, was, that I expected, in consequence of my nomination, to remain so short a time in the city, that it was no object with me to retain it, and it was
upon that ground, on the 21st February, he himself predicated his application to me
for it. This circumstance, though trivial in itself, is not unimportant in connection
with others already referred to, which afford not only probability but proof, that at
the time of the alleged conversation, I could not have apprehended serious opposition
or been in such a state of mind as to make the declarations imputed to me by Mr.
Noble, so obviously inconsistent, as they certainly were, with the uniform and undisguised tenor of my conduct towards Mr. Crawford for years before-the more especially, as not a single step had been taken in the Senate on my nomination, after I
came to board at Mrs. Queen's, until the day in the evening of which he brought me
Mr. King's letter in my own room, when, as he admits, I was very sick, and from which
time the foregoing testimony incontestably proves, I was confined with severe indisposition until after my nomination was confirmed. I need hardly here repeat my notice of another defect in the testimony of Mr. Noble. It was generally understood, I
believe, after my address to the House of Representatives was presented, that Mr.
Noble and Mr. Elkins were to swear to the same facts and to corroborate each others
testimony. Accordingly Mr. Elkins declared, on his oath, that he had seen an article
in the "Richmond Enquirer," in which it was stated that Ninian Edwards, of "A. B.
plot" memory, had been nominated by the President as Minister to Mexico, an incident which, he says, led to the conversation with me, out of which his evidence grew,
and which, he asserts, happened during the pendency of my nomination before the Senate,
And Mr. Noble says, upon his oath, "I saw an article in the'Richmond Enquirer,'
stating that Ninian Edwards, the author of'A. B.,' or of'A. B. plot' memory,
(I do not recollect which) had been so nominated. The paper I saw at the boarding
house of Mrs. Queen, and, I think, in the hands of Mr. Elkins."




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      140
It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at, and, in truth, it ought to have been expec.
ted, that as Mr. Noble's testimony differed from that of all the witnesses whose
testimony appeared consistent and accurate, it should exactly agree with that of a
witness who certainly swore to the existence of that awhich was not. I have procured
a file of the "Enquirer," and find, after a careful examination, no such article as Mr.
Elkins swears he saw, or as Mr. Noble swears he saw, and saw, he thinks, ill the
hands of 3~rJ. ]Elkins. Such an article, or one in the least like it, I defy either of
these witnesses to show in that paper, during the time my nomination was pending
before the Senate, or at any time after Mr. Noble came to Mrs. Queen's  It is surely
possible that I may have uttered, and that Mr. Noble may have listened to, many
absurd, and, indeed, many politic remarks; for the friends of Mr. Crawford (who,
with an invention superior to Shakspeare's, attribute to him the utmost wisdom
and integrity, while they admit that he repeatedly violated the laws and disregarded
the resolutions of Congress, and make me both Roderigo and Iago) assign to me the
capacity of a sage and at the same time impute to me the conduct of a fool. Mr,
Noble goes so far as to make me a prophet; lie says, upon oath, that I told him I
never had any fear of not being nominated, except for a short time when Pennsylvania
seemed disposed to support Calhoun for the Presidency: then I had some apprehension
of Dallas' success; but the moment that State gave up Calhoun I had no longer any
doubts, as Dallas, I knew, would soon be out of the question. Let us compare the
dates of the events here alluded to, and it will be found that Mr. Noble has rendered
it morally impossible for any rational being to believe him. Pennsylvania "gave up
Mr. Calhoun" on the 4th March, 1824, when the delegates met in convention, at Harrisburg-the very day on which my nomination was confirmed, and fifteen days after'
it had been made to the Senate. To have told Mr. Noble what he swears I did tell
him on the 24th February, it was necessary for me to foresee and assume the fact that
Pennsylvania had then done what she did not do for eight or ten days afterwards, and
to conceive Mr. Noble himself capable of an equal degree of prescience. Until the
mind can be brought to believe that the effect is previous to the cause, no one can
credit Mr. Noble. His cruel anachronism is not mended by the referring to the giving up of Mr. Calhoun, by Pennsylvania, to Mr. Dallas' movement in Philadelphia, for
that happened on the 18th February-the day my nomination was made. It could
not, of course, have been known to me (unless by second sight) and was not known
at Washington, as the editor of the "National Intelligencer" can testify, until several
days after the nomination had been made, and could not possibly have any influence
in removing my apprehensions of "Mr. Dallas' success"-which the nomination itself
must have already quieted.
His testimony in regard to the indecent observations, imputed to me, respecting
the President of the United States, is equally false and equally incredible. The slanders against that distinguished patriot to which it presupposes an allusion, had not
been agitated when I left Washington, nor had any attempt then been made to implicate Mr. Calhoun in my contest, nor had Mr. Hay replied to Mr. Lowne. This mass
of incongruity I might heap still higher. I might show, from the absurdity of the remarks alleged, respecting the currency of Illinois and Indiana, in the testimony of Mr.
Noble, that no person so well informed on that subject as I necessarily was could
have made them, and that they likewise imply a foreknowledge on my part of factsbut I feel for the taste and patience of the reader. In justice to Mr. Noble, however,
one observation must be added. It is that, from the peculiar nature of his testimony,
it is less disgraceful to him to prove it to be false, than to admit it to be true. Such
wide and shocking departures from truth, as he appears to have made, do not neces-19




146                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
sarily suppose the grossest moral turpitude; they may be imputed to a frail imagination, to a feeble judgment, a confused perception, a faithless memory, a flexible
character. Politically operated on, as Mr. Noble was, it is possible that he may have
been, in some degree, innocent of the great injustice his testimony has done me. But
the utmost degree of charitable latitude cannot save his character from abhorrence, if
it be conceded that he has sworn the truth. Unfortunate man! The conviction that
he swore falsely is all that can rescue him from infamy. Not to mention the breach
of private confidence it implies, nor the readiness to turn against an absent friend
which it manifests (for he even professed his friendship for me after my return to
Washington), the detestable disclosures relating to the President and the late Col.
Lane, which he declares he received from me, amount to damning proof that, as a
Senator of the United States, he supported with zeal and activity my nomination,
when he knew it had been extorted from the President by corrupt influence. If I
told Mr. Noble, as he substantially declares I did tell him, that I knew from Col. Lane
(my relation and a member of the President's family) that he, the President, had induced or permitted Col. Lane to mis-spend the public money, and that I calculated,
confidently, on receiving an important appointment in consequence of the hold which
my knowledge of this fraud gave me on Mr. Monroe's prudence, would it not have
been equivalent to information from one Senator to another, that the President of
the United States, in nominating a Minister to Mexico, had been operated upon by corrupt influence, that the Commissioner of the Public Buildings had been his instrument or accomplice in defrauding the public, that I, myself, the person so flagitiously
promoted, and privy to the profligacy by which my nomination had been effected, was
profiting by corruption, which, as a man, it became me to abhor, and, as a Senator,
it was my'duty to denounce? And does not it fix on Mr. Noble the crime of having
concealed this information, of having failed to expose the infamy of the parties concerned, to defend the dignity of the Senate, or to vindicate the rights and property
of his constituents? Was it not his duty, as soon as I gave him the information, to
lay it before the House of Representatives, to have the President impeached and me
summoned as a witness? Instead of this he declares that he considered me "as
speaking as an honest man," vehemently disavowed, on the part of Mr. Crawford's
friends, anything so illiberal as opposition to my appointment, and warmly supported
it himself. How can he justify such conduct to the distinguished gentleman whose
pretensions were confided to him, or to the flourishing State whose sovereignty he
represented, and whose trust he himself swears he betrayed?
The principal object we have, in the publication of many of the letters
to him, is for the purpose of showing that after his resignation as Minister
to Mexico, and the investigation of the charges against Mr. Crawford, he
was held in high estimation by the most distinguished and purest patriots
of the country. Amongst his most devoted friends were Judge McLean,
Mr. Adams, Samuel D. Ingham, (Secretary of the Treasury under General
Jackson's administration,) Mr. Calhoun, Hon. Gabriel Moore of Alabama,
William Wirt, and John J. Crittenden, and they continued so up to the
time of his death. In the year 1825, which was a year after the termination of the controversy with Mr. Crawford, and before Governor Edwards'
election as Governor of the State, Judge McLean, in a very long letter,
commences by saying: " Having a few minutes leisure, I do not know how




LIFE AND TIMES 0OT NINIAN EDWARDS.              147
I can employ it more pleasantly to myself than by communicating to you
the aspect of our political affairs; for I am persuaded it will not be wholly
uninteresting to you," etc. In another letter, referring to the election for
Governor of Illinois, he says: " From the certainty of your success in the
approaching election I derive sincere pleasure; it will be a triumph to
yourself and your friends. I believe almost all of that virulence of feeling
which was so generally evinced by the caucus party against you, has disappeared, and to a considerable extent has been succeeded by feelings of a
very different nature." In another letter, dated in November, 1826, Judge
McLean says: "I do not believe that you and I will differ widely in this
matter; it would be strange indeed, after looking to past scenes, if we
should. * *   Had your letter been received before I reappointed.......
I should, as I have always done, have appointed the person you name. I
felt sincere regret that I had made the appointment before the reception
of your letter. For your success in the late election (although your competitor was an old and, I believe, a sincere friend of mine) I felt a deep
interest. It has been often referred to, by me, as a triumphant refutation
of the scandles which had been so extensively circulated against you."
In a conversation between Mr. Clay and Mr. Wirt, it will be seen, from
a letter of Mr. Wirt as late as 1831, that Mr. Clay says that "the sentiments expressed by Gov. Edwards do honor to his own heart, and I cannot
but hope that he may lend his powerful aid and support, at this crisis, to
the cause which the most enlightened men throughout the community consider as the cause of our country."  Mr. Wirt adds that his motive for
mentioning it is "the pleasure I derived from the light in which he views
you." In a letter from Mr. Wirt, dated in November, 1826, he says:
"Your friends (and I among the foremost) have rejoiced at the recent proof
of respect which you have received from your State; it must have been
balm to your feelings, as it was to ours;" and in a still later letter he says,
"I am much rejoiced, in common with your other friends, at the honorable
demonstration you have received of the confidence of your State, so bravely
and nobly won."
In a letter from President Adams to Gov. Edwards, dated Aug. 22,1827,
Mr. Adams says: "Your recommendation for the appointment of a subagent at Peoria will, in the event of a vacancy in that office, receive the
deliberate consideration to which it is entitled, and a disposition altogether
friendly to him as recommended by you. And your opinion in regard to
any appointment of the General Government, in the State of Illinois, will
be always acceptable to me, whenever you may incline to communicate to
me. Accept my friendly and respectful salutations."
Mr. Wirt, in a letter dated after the report of the Committee, says:
"Very many, whose good opinions are most desirable, think you are right,




148                    TISTORY OP ILtLINOIS.
notwithstanding the report of the Committee: nay, many think you supported by that report to the full extent of all your charges. * * You say
that your resignation has exposed you to imputations, etc. The opinion I
expressed to Mr. Cook, as to your resignation, was that of every friend of
yours with whom I conversed. I learned, from Mr. Cook, himself, that it
was also the opinion of Mr. Adams (and, I think, Mr. Calhoun), expressed
to him; and I know it was the opinion of Mr. Southard. Indeed, I did
not hear one dissenting voice —ir. Cook, himself, concurred in it;-the
opinion being that, with reference to yourself alone, resignation was the
only dignified, the only proper course: so that, if the opinion was wrong,
it was one in which I erred in company with some of the ablest men in the
country, and with all your best friends. It is only because you place your
resignation on my single opinion, that I have referred to the concurrent
and unanimous opinions of all who wished you well-some of whom were
much better qualified by experience, than myself, to estimate the effect of
political movements."
The Hon. S. D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury under Gen. Jackson's
administration, in his letter dated the 20th of July, 1824, says: "I duly
received your favor of the 16th, and the same mail brought the report of
the Committee, which is the first view I have had of your whole defense.
Upon all'the charges and specifications you have made out your case completely. I would not dwell on Noble's testimony; you have already given
it the proper answer. Those who believe him will consider it no unusual
finesse among politicians, and it will have much less effect than you suppose.
I think Mr. Webster must have winced under your exposition of his expert
on the uncurrent funds."
The Hon. Gabriel Moore, in his letter of Aug. 8th, 1824, in reference
to Gen. Noble's testimony, says: "Nothing of a similar nature ever astonished me more than the general character of the testimony given before the
Committee by Gen. Noble, and particularly that part which has relation to
the authorship of the'A. B.' publications; not only because I know that,
among the members, it was generally if' not universally understood and
believed that you were the author, but because I had some conversation
with Gen. Noble, pending your nomination, in relation to this subject, in
which, a reference having been made to the authorship as forming some
objection to the confirmation of your nomination, by some of the friends
of Mr. Crawford, I am clearly and decidedly of opinion that on this occasion I was authorized, from the general tenor of Mr. Noble's remarks, to
infer that whether you were the author or not would have, or had, produced
no influence on his mind."
Mr. Moore was at that time a member of the Iouse of Representatives,
but was afterwards a Senator in Congress and Governor of Alabama.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               149
Judge William Kelly, another Senator of Congress, in a letter dated
Aug. 23d, 1825, says: "I called several times while he [Gov. Edwards]
occupied the latter room [the back room], and recollect to have seen a
gentleman there who was from West Point, as I understood, and bound to
Illinois-but cannot fix the precise date of the transaction; but I well
recollect that the Governor was so unwell, at the time, as to be confined to
his room as he alleged, and his appearance seemed to require it. This was
his condition for several days previous to the confirmation of his nomination. On account of his indisposition, I called frequently-perhaps every
time I was in the nei(ghborhood of his residence. I recollect conversing
with him on the subject of the postponement of the nomination on account
of its being stated that an absent Senator had, perhaps, objections that he
would like to make, and inquired if it could be the'A. B.' affair that bormed
the objection; to which he replied that he could not say or conjecture the
ground or nature of the objection, unless it should be the'A. B.' affair or
a newspaper controversy that had occurred in the West some years before,
neither of which he considered ought to form any ground of objection.
I recollect conversing with him on the subject of his being the author of
the'A. B.' letters, and he did not pretend to deny the fact to me. So far
from it, he told me, upon one occasion, that he had prepared another document of considerable length, of the same tenor."
The above statement of Judge Kelly corroborates the statement of Mr.
Hewitt, whose affidavit we have given; and the correspondence in another
portion of this work shows that the fact that Gov. Edwards was the author
of the'A. B.' publications was known, not only to his friends, but to the
members of Congress generally. Is it probable, then, that he would have
denied it to Gen. Noble, who had previously taken a zealous part in his
support, without asking him to communicate this denial to others on whom
it was expected to have some influence? nor that he should not have inquired of him if he had done so?  Is it probable that he would have made
this denial for the purpose of securing the confirmation of his nomination,
and thus run the risk of exposure and the loss of the support among those
who so generally had understood, from him, that he was the author-and
especially as the majority of the Senators were political opponents of Mr.
Crawford? Or is it reasonable that he should have made those articles a
part of the address, if he had so recently denied their authorship?
The following letter, from President Monroe, shows that no such denial
had ever been made for any such purpose:
OAK HILL, April 30, 1826.
SIR: In reply to your letter of the 23d, requesting to be informed whether Gov.
Edwards declared to me, before his nomination as Minister to Mexico, that he was
not the author of the publications signed "A. B."-on which declaration, it is said,
that his nomination was founded-I feel it due to candor to assure you that he never




150                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
made to me any such declaration, and that his nomination was not influenced in the
slightest degree by any considerations but that the quarter of the Union in which he
resided had claims to an appointment, and that he was believed to be as well qualified for the office as any other person in that quarter who had been brought to the
view of the Executive.
With great respect and esteem,
I am your obedient servant,
JAMES MONROE.
In another letter, to Mr. Cook, on the same subject, dated April 27, 1826,
President Monroe requests Mr. Cook to assure Mr. Edwards "of his good
wishes for his welfare and happiness."
From the letter of his resignation, a copy of which is among the papers
in the possession of the writer, and from the allusions and opinions referred
to in Mr. Wirt's letter, respecting the propriety of his resignation, there
can be no doubt that it was voluntary on his part, and not required by the
President.  That such is the fact is also evident from a letter of Mr.
Ingham, in which he says, "I am not sure that you have done right by
resigning. 
Notwithstanding Mr. Clay was of opinion that he "was not liable to pay
the out-fit and salary he had received," in which opinion he also believed
the administration concurred with him, yet he accounted to the Government for all he had received, except for the time he had held the office and
the losses he had sustained in making his preparations to leave on his
mission. Mr. Clay said, "if it were my case, I would not return one cent
of the amount."
The following is an extract from a letter to Gov. Edwards, dated Oct. 8,
1828, from, the  ion. HIugh Nelson, who was a member of Congress from
Virginia for fourteen years, and afterwards Minister to Spain:
I wrote to you just before I sailed for Spain, and hope you received my letter,
because, having received from you a most kind and affectionate letter, just before
my departure, I should regret that an appearance should have been afforded to the
presumption that I was regardless of your friendship. I have never participated in
the-persecution against you, which was started about that time, and have always
believed you an upright, honest statesman and politician, and have thought you
perfectly right in that affair in which the C —   faction bottomed their efforts to
hunt you down. I always said, too, that your talents would enable you to rise
against the whole host.
Before Mr. Cook presented Mr. Edwards' memorial to Congress, he says
that he submitted it to some of his friends, and states, in his letter in reference to it, that Mr. Adams' friends, Mr. Houston, and all the Tennessee
delegation except Mr. Cocke, would stand by Gov. Edwards.
The object in referring to the causes which led to his resignation, and
to the settlement of his account with the Government, is for the purpose
of proving the falsity of the charges made by Col. Benton and published




LIFE AND TIMES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.                     151
in his "Debates," and also in his "Thirty Years in the Senate," that, in
consequence of the report of the Committee, Mr. Edwards was required by
the President to resign and to return his out-fit and quarter's salary. Col.
Benton is not satisfied with giving a garbled extract from the testimony,
but takes it upon himself to assert as a fact what the accounts in the
Treasury Department prove to be untrue; for the records of the Treasury
Department show that in the settlement, which he voluntarily proposed,
and which was accepted by the Department, he was allowed not only his
salary, for the time he had held the office, but also the loss he had sustained in consequence of his resignation. After the Committee had published their report, and of course after the testimony of Gen. Noble had
been given, in consequence of its being stated in one of the public journals, in Washington City, that directions were given, by a member of a
committee appointed to make arrangements for the celebration of the
Fourth of July, not to receive the subscription of Ninian Edwards to the
dinner, all the members of the Cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Crawford, who were in Washington, refused to participate in the celebrationas will appear from the following correspondence:
[From the Washington Republican, of Saturday afternoon.]
WASHINGTON, 3d July, 1824.
To Messrs. T. Carbery and Jos. Gales, Jr.:
GENTLEMEN: Upon a printed invitation signed by you, we have subscribed our
names, for attendance at a dinner at Mr. Williamlson's hotel, on the 5th inst., in celebration of the anniversary of our national independence. We find it stated, in one
of the public journals of this morning, that one of the members of the committee of
arrangements has called at the places where the subscription papers for the dinner
has been deposited, and, in the name of the committee, has directed, that if Mr.
Ninian Edwards should apply there to join in this celebration of the festival, his subscription should not be admitted.
Our attendance at the dinner, after this notice, would justly be considered as equivalent to an assent, on our part, to this exclusion.
The character and conduct of Mr. Edwards being before the nation, upon the report of the committee of the House of Representatives, yet to be acted upon by. the
House, we should consider it incompatible with our duties as public servants, as well
as with the principles of common justice, to participate in an act which we think
would, in no event, be justifiable before a final decision upon the investigation. We
request you, therefore, to consider this as notice that we have withdrawn our subscriptions for attendance at the dinner.
We are, very respectfully, gentlemen,
Your obedient servants,
JoHN QUINCY ADAMS,
J. C. CALHOUN,
JOHN MCLEAN.
The Secretary of the Navy and the Attorney General, not having expected to be
in the city, have not subscribed to the dinner. We are authorized to say, that if the
Attorney General had received a similar invitation, and had subscribed, he would
now have joined in the above letter.




152                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
[From the Washington Gazette, of Saturday evening.]
We are authorized and requested, by the committee of arrangements for the celebration of the anniversary of independence, to say, that the publication in the "National Journal" of this morning was unauthorized by them, or any one of them, and
that nothing will be wanting, on their part, to make the public dinner on the occasion a national festival, divested of all reference to party politics.
Messrs. Van Ness, Carbery and Gales constituted the committee of arrangement.
[From the National Journal.]
WASHINGTON CITY, 3d July, 1824.
To Hon. John Quincy Adams, J. C. Calhoun and John McLean:
GENTLEMEN: The committee of arrangements for celebrating the approaching anniversary of American independence have instructed us to say, that they regret the
withdrawal of your subscriptions to the anniversary dinner, and the more so as that
withdrawal seems to have been induced by a misconception of the motives which
governed the committee in the course they deemed advisable to pursue in the case of
Mr. Edwards.
We have the honor to be, with great respect,
Your obedient servants,
THoMiAs CARBERY, Chairman.
Jossr-i GALES, Jr., Secretary.
WASHINGTON, 5lh July, 1824.
T'o Thomas Carbery, Chairman, and Joseph Gales, Jr., Secretary of the Committee of
Arrangements, for Celebrating the Anniverlsary of Amzerican Independence:
GENTLEMEN: We have had the honor of receiving your letter of the 3d instant,
and request you to present to the committee the assurance that we cordially regret
the incident which has deprived us of the pleasure we had promised ourselves in uniting with them and the rest of our fellow-citizens, subscribers to the anniversary dinner, at the social board, on the day peculiarly devoted to generous and patriotic feelings. We wish you to add, with the tender of our respect, that the determination to
withdraw our names from the subscription was taken from the conviction of our own
duty, without inquiring into the motives of the committee, or reference to them.
We are, with great respect, gentlemen,
Your very humble and obedient servants,
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
J. C. CALHOUN,
JOHN MCLEAN.
The report of the Committee was never acted upon by the House of
Representatives.   Acquitting Mr. Edwards of the charge against which
he had defended himself, and containing no allegation against him, he
could not complain, and especially as the Committee had been unable to
detect a single inaccuracy in any of the facts he had alleged against Mr.
Crawford.   Mr. Crawford had no motive to demand any further investigation, as he could not hope to obtain a report more favorable to himself.
The charges against him were:
First-That he has mismanaged the national fund.
Second-That he has received a large amount of uncurrent notes from certain banks,
in part discharge of their debts due to the United States, contrary to the resolution
of Congress in 1816.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                  153
Thlird-That, being called on by a resolution of the House of Representatives to
state the amount of uncurrent notes which he received from these banks, he has misstated it-making it less than it really was.
Fboturth-That he has, in his report to the House, misrepresented the obligations of
those banks, or some one of them, at least, and predicated thereon an indefensible excuse for his conduct in receiving those uncurrent notes.
Fifth-That he has acted illegally, in a variety of instances, by making and continuing deposits of public money in certain local banks, without making report thereof
to Congress, according to law.
Sixth-That he has, in several instances, withheld information and letters called
for by the Iouse, and which it was his duty to have communicated.
In regard to the second charge, the report of the Committee shows,
"That althougl the Banks of Tombcckbee and Edwardsville were liable to
account for such deposits as cash, if the construction which the Committee
gives to their contracts be correct, yet, that both the Secretary and the
Banks express a different opinion as to the meaning of those contracts, and
that the Secretary, in receiving fifteen thousand dollars from the one and
twenty thousand dollars from the other of those Banks, appears to have
acted according to what he supposed to be the rights of the parties, and
with a proper regard to the interest of the United States, under the circumstances which then existed."
In regard to the third charge, "That no intentional misstatement has
been made to the House of uncurrent bills received from the Banks, although a sum of two hundred and eight dollars of such bills were omitted
through mistake."
In regard to the fourth, "That although the Secretary may have misconstrued the effects of some of the contracts with the Banks to the extent
before mentioned, the Committee finds no ground for the charge that he
has misrepresented them, inasmuch as the contracts themselves were submitted, with his report, to the House."
In regard to the fifth, "That the Secretary did omit to communicate to
Congress the reasons which led him to direct the deposit of public moneys
in the three local Banks of Chilicothe, Cincinnati, and Louisville, where
the Bank of the United States had branches; but there is no reason for
supposing that any concealment was intended or that the omission was occasioned by design."
In regard to the sixth, "That in some instances papers called for, by
resolution of the House, have not been communicated with other papers
sent in answer to such calls, but that these omissions have happened either
from accident, or from a belief that the papers so omitted were immaterial
or not called for; and that there is no evidence that any document or information had been withheld from improper motives."
-20




154                    HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
That in regard to the contested letter of Benjamin Stephenson, "Although the letter was written, as stated by Mr. Edwards in his testimony,
there was no evidence that Mr. Stephenson communicated or transmitted
it to the Secretary of the Treasury."
With regard to the first charge, the Committee content themselves with
saying, that, in their opinion, "nothing has been proved to impeach the
integrity of the Secretary, or to bring into doubt the general correctness
and ability of his administration of the public finances."
If the reader will bear in mind that in making the charges Mr. Edwards
stated, in his memorial, that he "disclaimed any other construction of them
than the most innocent of which they were susceptible," and that, in pointing out palpable omissions or neglect to lay before the House letters which
ought to have been communicated, and that various misstatements had
been officially made, he "attributed them to nothing more than forgetfulness, inattention, inadvertence, or some erroneous but innocent views of
the subject," it will be seen that the report of the Committee fully sustains
him in all his statements, but excuses the Secretary because he acted according to what he supposed to be his duty, had made no intentional misstatements, had misconstrued the effect of some of the contracts, and, in
his omissions to make important communications and papers that were
called for by Congress, no concealment was intended or occasioned by design, or any information withheld from improper motives.
Mr. Edwards, in writing the articles over the signature of "A. B."
against Mr. Crawford, claimed that he had the right, wisely guaranteed
to every freeman of the Union, of investigating the official conduct of a
public officer. Mr. Crawford had been a prominent candidate for the
Presidency, for some time previous to the commencement of their publication, and was subsequently nominated for that office, to succeed President
Monroe, by the Republican members of Congress, in caucus. In one of
Mr. Wirt's letters to Gov. Edwards, dated January 4, 1820, he says:
"You may remember that four years ago, when Mr. Monroe was presented
to the public for the Presidency, Mr. Crawford was extremely pressed to
oppose him. I was in Washington, by chance, at the time mentioned,
and I remember that it was extremely dubious whether Mr. Crawford would
not have a majority in the caucus of Congress; but he withdrew from the
opposition, and I remember he gave great disgust to many of his friends by
doing so. He withdrew, too, with the declaration that Mr. M. had the
best title to the office."  The caucus system had become very unpopular,
and the friends of General Jackson, Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay were rallied
against Mr. Crawford, and the result was that, for the first time, the candidate thus nominated was defeated.




CHAPTER IX.
Laws of the Territory and State, from 1809 to 1830.
THE JUDICIARY SYSTEM.
On the organization of the Territorial Government, the Governor and
Judges adopted the laws which were in force in 1809 in the Indiana Territory. Among these acts was one entitled "An act organizing courts of
common pleas." This act established a court of record in each county, to
be styled the court of common pleas, consisting of three judges (any two of
whom shall form a quorum), to be appointed by the Governor. The jurisdiction of said court extended to all crimes and misdemeanors, committed
within their respective counties, the punishment whereof did not extend
to life, limb, imprisonment for more than one year, a forfeiture of goods
and chattels, or lands and tenements. and to all pleas of assize, scire facias,
replevins, and to all manner of pleas, suits, actions and causes, real, personal and mixed.
The said judges, and each of them, had power, in and out of court, to
take all manner of recognizances; and all recognizances for the peace, behavior, or for appearance, were to be certified to the proper court. All
fines and amercements taxed by the court of common pleas were required
to be yearly estreated by the clerks of said courts into the general court, to
the intent that process may be awarded to the sheriff of the proper county
for levying such of their fines and amercements as shall be unpaid to the
uses for which they were appropriated.
The fines that were levied by the court of common pleas went to the
county, and those that were assessed by the general court went to the territory.
Appeals and writs of error were allowed from the judgment in said court
under the restrictions and regulations of the law regulating the practice of
the general court.
When the defendant had no property in the county, or could not be
found in it, the plaintiff, by making an affidavit that the defendant lies hid
or skulks, or hath property in another county in the territory, can require
the court to issue execution to the sheriff of the county where the defend.
ant was or where his property could be found.




156                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The clerk of said court held his appointment from the Governor, during
good behavior.
The judges, or any of them, had power to send writs to other counties to
take persons who were indicted in any courts, and also to issue subpoenas
for witnesses to other counties.
This law remained in force until Dec. 19, 1814, when the Legislature
passed an act abolishing the court of common pleas, and created courts to
be called county courts, to consist of three judges, (who shall be conservators of the peace, any two of whom shall form a quorum,) to be appointed
by the Governor. This act conferred on the judges and court the same
jurisdiction that the judges and court of common pleas had a right to exercise, except that the jurisdiction for the trial of causes, both civil and
criminal, was taken away from the county courts.
The judges were required to hold three terms annually, in each county,
and were entitled to receive two dollars for every day they shall sit-to be
paid out of the county levy. They were authorized to take every species
of recognizance, and, on proper affidavit, to order bail in civil cases.
By a supplemental act, passed Dec. 24, 1814, the county courts and the
judges thereof had a right to exercise, and were invested with all the jurisdiction, and were required to perform all the duties, heretofore vested in
or required of the courts of common pleas or the judges thereof, except
such as had been transferred to the supreme court or the judges thereof.
Another act passed, on Sept. 17, 1807, which made it the duty of the presiding judge of the several courts of common pleas in the territory, and of
the first judge of the general court, to examine the respective clerks' books
and see what fines were due thereon to the territory or county, and to report those due to the territory to the Auditor, who was required to report
the same to the Legislature. For failure to pay the fines, the act directed
the Attorney-General to obtain judgment by motion against the defaulting
clerks.
TIlE GENERAL COURT.
By an act, passed Dec. 10, 1813, regulating the general court, it was
required that there should be holden and kept, at the seat of government,
a supreme court of record, to be styled the " General Court."  This court
had jurisdiction of all causes, matters and things, and also to hear and determine all manner of pleas, plaints and causes which might be removed
from any of the inferior courts by appeal or writ of error, as well all pleas
in the United States as in all pleas real, personal and mixed, and thereupon
to reverse or affirm the judgments; and, also, to examine, correct and
punish the contempts, omissions, etc., of any justice of the peace, sheriff,
coroner, clerk or other officers, within their respective counties. It had




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                157
exclusive original jurisdiction of the higher criminal offenses, and of all
cases in equity where the value of the matter in controversy exceeded the
sum of one hundred dollars. It had power to award process for the collection of such fines as were estreated into the general court, and the judges
thereof had the power to issue writs of certiorari, writs of habeas corpus,
injunction, and writs of error, and remedial and other writs and process,
returnable to their court and grantable by said judges.
The grand jurors sworn before the county courts were required to inquire
into offenses cognizable by either the county court or general court, and, in
special cases, the judges of the general court had power to direct the sheriff
to summon a grand jury for offenses exclusively cognizable in the general
court. In cases of a criminal kind, except for offenses in violation of the
laws of the United States, the trials were to be had in the counties in which
the offenses were committed.
By this act it was provided that, in cases taken to the general court by
appeal or writ, the court should take cognizance only of errors in law.
By a subsequent act, passed Dec. 13, 1814, the general court was superseded by the establishment of a supreme court, consisting of the same
judges, who were required, in addition to the jurisdiction conferred upon
them, to hold circuit courts. As circuit courts they had jurisdiction, in
each county, over all persons therein, and in all causes, matters or things
at common law or in chancery, arising in each of said counties, except in
cases where the debt or amount shall be under twenty dollars; and, also,
in all cases of treasons, felonies, misdemeanors, and other crimes; and, also,
in all cases against public debtors, sheriffs, clerks, and collectors of public
money. This court was also invested with all the powers and the common
law jurisdiction, whether of a civil or criminal nature, previously vested in
the several courts of common pleas or county courts.
It'was also required, by this act, that all suits should be tried in the
counties in which they originated, unless in cases specially provided for;
and in all cases, except where, in cases of conviction; the offender was punishable with death or burning in the hand, one of the judges might constitute the court.  This act was amended, but not materially, in 1817,
except the reorganization of the territory into circuits.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
By an act, which passed Sept. 17, 1807, it was provided that a sufficient
number of justices of the peace should be appointed for each county, by the
Governor. Besides the usual power to cause to be arrested all persons
charged with violating the criminal laws of the territory, and to take all
manner of recognizances, they had power to hear and determine, according
to the course of the common law, petit crimes and misdemeanors, wherein




158                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
the punishment shall be by fine, only, and not exceeding three dollars, and
to assess and tax the costs; and, also, to require sureties for the good behavior of idle, vagrant and disorderly characters, swindlers and gamblers,
as well as of dangerous and disorderly persons. They had, also, jurisdiction
in cases of debt or other demand, except in actions of debt on bonds for
the performance of covenants, actions of replevin, or upon any real contract,
actions of trespass upon the case, for trover and conversion, or slander, or
actions of trespass in et amis, or actions wherein the title of lands shall in
anywise come in question; and suit might be commenced in the township
either where the debt or cause of action was contracted or arose, where the
plaintiff resided, or where the defendant might be found. This latter provision was repealed by an act which passed in 180S, after which no suit
could be commenced except in the township where the debt was contracted
or cause of action arose, or where the defendant resided or might be found.
In 1814, it was further provided that they should have jurisdiction in
all cases wherein the demand should not exceed twenty dollars-which
amount was afterwards increased, by an act passed in 1817, to forty dollars.
This latter act also required that, where the demand should exceed twenty
dollars, either party should have the right to a trial by jury; and that, for
the trial of such causes, the justice should hold his court monthly-to
which court he should issue his venire to the constable, directing him to
summon twelve good and lawful men to try all such suits before him.
CRIMINAL LAWS OF THE TERRITORY.
By an act of the Indiana Territory, in force in the Territory of Illinois
in 1809, murder and treason were punished with death by hanging; and
persons guilty of manslaughter, as the common law had previously punished.
It was declared that persons convicted of burglary should be whipped
with not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, and should find sureties for good
behavior for a term not exceeding three years; and upon default of sureties should be committed to jail for a term not exceeding three years, or
until sentence be performed, and should also be fined in triple value of
the articles stolen-one-third of such fine for the use of the territory and
the other two-thirds to be paid to the party injured. If the defendant
committed or attempted to commit any personal abuse, force or violence,
or was armed with any dangerous weapon or weapons, so as to clearly indicate a violent intention, he forfeited all his estate and was subject to be
committed to jail for a term not exceeding forty years; and if the death
of any innocent person should ensue from any burglarious act, it was declared to be murder. Robbery was punished in the same manner as burglary.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                159
Persons guilty of plots and unlawful assemblies were punished by being
fined in the sum of sixteen dollars, and were required to find surety for
their good behavior for the space of six months; and persons found guilty
of obstructing any authorized persons in attempting to cause rioters or unlawful assemblies to disperse, were liable to be fined in a sum not exceeding three hundred dollars, or to be whipped with not exceeding thirtynine lashes, and were also required to give surety for their good behavior.
Perjury and subornation of perjury were punished by a fine not exceeding sixty dollars, or by whipping with not exceeding thirty-nine stripes;
and persons found guilty of those offenses were required to be set in the
pillory for a space not exceeding two hours, and were ever after incapable
of holding any office, or giving testimony, or being a juror.
Larceny was punished, for the first offense, by requiring the offender to
restore to the owner the thing stolen and to pay to him the value thereof,
or two-fold the value thereof if the thing stolen was not returned, and also
by a fine not exceeding two-fold the value of the thing stolen or be whipped with not exceeding thirty-one stripes, at the discretion of the court.
Upon a second conviction it was provided that restitution and payment
shall be made to the owner as aforesaid, and the offender shall be whipped
with not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, and in like manner upon every succeeding conviction; and in case such convict shall not have property
wherewith to satisfy the sentence of the court, it shall be lawful for the
sheriff, by direction of the court, to bind such person to labor, for any term
not exceeding seven years, to any suitable person who will discharge such
sentence.
For the offense of forgery it was enacted that every person, found guilty
thereof, shall be fined in double the sum he shall thereby have defrauded
or attempted to defraud another-one-half of which should be paid to the
party injured or intended to be injured; and shall, moreover, forever after
be rendered incapable of giving testimony, being a juror or holding any
office, and shall be set in the pillory not exceeding the space of three
hours.
Usurpation of office was punished by a fine of not exceeding one hundred
dollars.
Assault and battery was punished by a fine of not exceeding one hundred dollars, and the court might also require the offender to enter into recognizance with surety for the peace and good behavior, for a term not
exceeding one year.
All bonds, bills, deeds of sale, gifts, grants, or other conveyances, made
with intent to deceive or defraud creditors, were declared to be null and
void, and the person so offending was required to be fined in a sum not
exceeding three hundred dollars and to pay double damages to the injured
party.




160                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
For disobedience of children or servants to their parents or masters, upon complaint made, it was lawful for a justice of the peace to send the offender to jail or the house of correction, there to remain until he or she
should humble himself to the parents' or master's satisfaction;. and if any
child or servant assaulted or struck his parent or master, two or more justices of the peace, upon conviction thereof, might cause the offender to be
whipped with not exceeding ten stripes.
Persons obtaining goods by fraudulent pretences were subject to the
same punishment as in cases of larceny.
Arson was punished with death by hanging.
Horsestealing was punished, for the first offense, by requiring the offender to pay the owner the value of the animal, and to receive not less
than fifty nor more than two hundred stripes, and to stand committed to
jail until such value, with the costs of prosecution, were paid. Upon the
second conviction the offender had to suffer the pains of death.
For stealing a hog, shoat or pig, or marking the same with the intent
of stealing, the offender was subject to pay a fine of not less than fifty nor
more than one hundred dollars, and also receive on his bare back any
number of lashes not exceeding thirty-nine nor less than twenty-five.
For altering and defacing marks and brands the offender was required
to pay the sum of five dollars, over and above the value of the animal
whose mark or brand was altered, and was also punished by whipping with
forty lashes, well laid on, on his bare back; and for the second offense to
pay the fine aforesaid, to stand in the pillory for two hours, and be branded
in the left hand, with a red-hot iron, with the letter T.
To prevent killing cattle or hogs in the woods, the offender was required
to show within three days the head and ears of such hog, and the hide
with the ears on of such cattle as he may have killed, to a magistrate or
two freeholders, under the penalty of ten dollars. Every person was required to mark ot brand his hogs, cattle, etc., and to record the same with
the clerk of the county court.
Maiming or disfiguring was punished by fine and imprisonment.
Rape was punished with death.
Sodomy was punished by fine, imprisonment, and by whipping with not
less than one hundred nor more than five hundred stripes on the bare back.
Bigamy was punished by whipping on the bare back with not less than
one hundred nor more than three hundred stripes, and by a fine of not
less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars, to and for the
use of the party injured, and imprisonment of not less than six nor more
than twelve months, and disqualification for giving testimony or holding
office.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                161
For forcibly taking away any female, for the purpose of marrying her
against her consent, the offender was declared guilty of felony. Stealing
and marrying females under 14 years of age, was punished by fine and
imprisonment.
Persons who were unable to pay their fines were required to be hired
or sold, to any person who would pay the fine and costs, for such term as
the court might think reasonable; and if the delinquent should abscond
from the service of his master, he was liable, on conviction before a justice
of the peace, to be whipped with thirty-nine lashes, and required to serve
two days for every one so lost.
By an act for the prevention of vice and immorality, it was provided1. That any person found reveling, fighting or quarreling, doing or
performing any worldly employment or business whatever (with some exception in favor of ferrymen) on the first day of the week, or who shall
use or practice any unlawful game, sport or diversion, or shall be found
hunting or shooting on said day, shall forfeit for every such offense a sum
not exceeding two dollars nor less than fifty cents, to be levied by distress;
and in case the fine could not be collected in that way, he was required to
work on the highways for two days.
2. Any person, of the age of sixteen years and upwards, found guilty
of profanely cursing, damning or swearing by the name of God, Christ
Jesus or the Holy Ghost, was punished in like manner with Sabbathbreakers.
3. Swearing and disorderly behavior before a court of justice was punished with a fine of not less than five nor more than fifty dollars; before
a judge, justice of the peace, or congregation assembled for Divine worship,
with a fine of not less than three nor more than ten dollars.
4. Any person, of the age of sixteen years and upwards, found in the public highways, or in any public house of entertainment, intoxicated by drinking spirituous, vinous or other strong liquors, and making or exciting any
noise, contention or disturbance, was imprisoned in the county jail for a
term not exceeding forty-eight hours.
For a violation of the preceding sections,'any judge or justice of the
peace might proceed to try the offender in a summary way, and on failure
to pay the fine and costs the judge or justice sentenced the offender to work
on the public highways.
Cock-fighting, gambling or running horses in the public highways were
punished by fine, and justices of the peace had jurisdiction over such offenses.
Keeping E. 0. tables or other devices, in any place whatever, except
in private houses for amusement in their families, was punished by a fine
of fifty dollars.
-21




162                   HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Securities and contracts entered into for gaming were declared void,
and money lost at gaming might be recovered back within thirty days.
If a person sent a challenge to fight or box at fisticuffs, or if, with intent to bring on a match at boxing, by words or gesture any person should
provoke others to commit an affray, whether an affray ensues or not, the
offender was fined in a sum not exceeding five dollars nor less than one
dollar.
Duelling was punished. For sending, accepting or delivering a challenge to fight a duel, or consenting to be a second in any intended duel,
the offender was subject to a fine or imprisonment.
Tearing down or defacing publications set up by authority, the offender
was subject to be fined, and for failure to pay the fine was set in the pillory for three hours.
Lotteries were prohibited by requiring a forfeiture of the whole sum
proposed to be raised or gained thereby.
Vagrants, and persons suspected of getting their support by gaming,
were required to be hired out for a term not exceeding nine months; and
if no person would hire the offender, or take him only by furnishing such
diet and clothes as were necessary during his servitude, the vagrant was
punished by whipping with not exceeding thirty-nine lashes.
In 1810, a law passed to suppress duelling, by enacting that if any person should be killed in a duel, the offender, his aiders, abetters and counselors, being connected thereof, should be guilty of murder; and for challenging or accepting a challenge to fight a duel, the offender was declared
incapable of holding or being elected to any post of profit, trust or emolument under the government of the territory; and every person receiving
any appointment to any office, either civil or military, in the territory,
was required to take such an oath as is prescribed in our present State
Constitution on the same subject. It was also declared, in this law, that
persons leaving the territory for the purpose of eluding this law, should
be punished in the same manner as if the offense had been committed in
the territory.
The laws of the territory were very rigid in relation to the collection of
debts. All the debtor's property, both personal and real, could be sold
under execution; and if the land did not sell for want of bidders, the plaintiff had the right, at his option, to take it at its appraised value by twelve
men. If there was not sufficient property, the body of the debtor could
be taken and committed to the county jail, or to the prison bounds by giving security that he would not depart therefrom. Prison bounds were required to be laid off by the county courts, by metes and bounds, so as not
to extend in any direction more than two hundred yards from the jail.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               163
The laws for the collection of rents, and for the recovery of the possession of land, have not been materially changed by our present laws from
what they were under the territorial government. Underthe laws of the
terrritory, property taken on the premises, let by execution, was liable to
be applied, first, to the payment of the rent due; and no property except
such as might be found on the premises, unless the tenant had clandestinely removed the same, could be taken by distress.
The law regulating elections provided that if any candidate, or other
person for him, should attempt to obtain votes by bribery, or treating with
meat or drink, the person so offending should be incapable of holding a
seat in either branch of the Legislature for the space of two years next
thereafter.
The road laws require that the supervisors should hire and employ a
sufficient number of laborers to work upon, open and amend, clear and repair the roads in their township, and to take care that the same should be
effectually opened, cleared and amended or repaired.
All male persons, of the age of twenty-one years and not exceeding fifty,
who had resided for thirty days in any township, were liable to work for
any number of days not exceeding twelve in each year.
The entire jurisdiction over ferries and roads was given to the county
courts; and if the court thought a bridge to be of public utility, but too
expensive to be borne by the district, they might make an allowance, for
the purpose of building such bridge, out of the county treasury. Specific
directions were given in the law for the opening and altering of private
and public highways, and the mode pointed out for the assessment and
payment of damages caused by roads passing through improvements.
Laws were passed at a very early period, similar to those now in force,
in relation to the support of the poor; for the payment for improvements
on lands claimed by persons who were evicted from land which they claimed
by a title deduced from the record of some public office, without notice of
any adverse claim; for the partition of land and assignment of dower;
concerning the militia; and the regulation of grist mills and millers.
In 1814, an act passed to promote retaliation upon hostile Indians. It
provided that if any Indians should make an incursion to our settlements,
with hostile intentions, and shall commit any murder or depredation, and
any citizen or ranger shall pursue and take prisoner or kill any Indian
that may have so offended, such person shall be entitled to a reward of
fifty dollars for each Indian so taken or killed; and rangers or other persons, engaged at the time in the defense of the frontier, shall be entitled
to receive twenty-five dollars for every Indian so taken or killed. If any
party of citizens, having first obtained permission of the commanding officer, should go into the territory of any hostile Indians, they shall be en



164                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
titled to one hundred dollars for every warrior, squaw or child that may
be taken prisoner or killed.
A law was also passed at this session prohibiting, under very severe penalties, any person from selling liquor or giving liquor to the Kaskaskia
Indians, or trading without license with said Indians, and providing that
if the offender was a negro slave or servant, should be punished with
whipping on his bare back, unless the owner of such slave or servant, or
some other person for him, should pay for each offense the sum of twenty
dollars. A law had previously passed on the same subject, prohibiting
the sale of intoxicating liquors to other Indians.
COUNTY LEVIES.
For the purpose of raising a county revenue by the county court, the
following rate of taxation was prescribed by law:
On each horse, mare, mule or ass, of three years old and upwards, a sum
not exceeding fifty cents.
On neat cattle, of three years old and upwards, a sum not exceeding
ten cents per head.
On every stud horse of the above age, a sum not exceeding the rate for
which he stands at the season.
On every bond-servant or slave, between the ages of sixteen and forty
years, except such as the county court may exempt for infirmities, a sum
not exceeding one dollar.
On every able-bodied single man, of the age of twenty-one years and
upwards, who shall not have taxable property to the amount of two hundred dollars, a sum not exceeding one dollar nor less than fifty cents.
Town lots, out lots, houses in town, and mansion houses in the country, which shall be valued at two hundred dollars and upwards, wind and
water mills, a sum not exceeding thirty cents on each hundred dollars of
their appraised value.
On ferries, a sum not exceeding ten dollars for each year.
For the sale of any merchandize, other than the produce or manufacture of the territory, the owner had to procure a license from the sheriff,
for which he was'taxed at the rate of fifteen dollars per annum for each
store. Two persons were appointed in each township to value the property
required to be-appraised.
To defray the expenses of the territorial government, a tax was levied
and collected on land-which was divided into three classes:
On lands of the first class, which included all lands situated in the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi river bottoms, the rate of taxation was one dollar on every hundred acres.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                165
Lands of the second class included all the uplands, and were taxed at
the rate of seventy-five cents on each one hundred acres; and all unlocated confirmed claims were taxed at the rate of thirty-seven and a half cents
per hundred acres.
The sheriff was also required to collect from each owner of a billiard
table an annual tax of forty dollars.
A list showing the amount of tax due by each person, and also one showing the amount of tax collected by the collector of each tax-payer in his
county, were required to be posted up at the door of the clerk's office, in
order that each individual might know the amount of his tax, and also
whether the same had been paid by the collector.
The entire jurisdiction in relation to the settlement of the estate of deceased persons, the appointment of guardians, etc., was conferred on the
county court; but the clerks might take proof of bills and testaments and
grant letters testamentary and administration, subject to be repealed by
the court.
In 1816 an act passed, amendatory of the "act to encourage the killing
of wolves," under which act, as amended, any person was entitled to two
dollars for every wolf he killed.
At this session an act passed to prevent attorneys-at-law, residing in the
State of Indiana, from practicing in any of the courts of the territory.
The reason for the passage is given in the preamble, as follows: "Whereas, by a law now in force in the State of Indiana, persons who do not reside therein are not permitted to practice in the courts of the said State;
and whereas that restriction is illiberal, unjust, and contrary to those principles of liberality and reciprocity by which each and every state or territory should be governed; therefore," etc. The law was to continue in
force until the laws of the State of Indiana, referred to, should be repealed,
and no longer.
At this session no laws of a general nature passed, with the exception
heretofore alluded to in relation to the division of the territory into circuits; a law for the incorporation of the Bank of Illinois; and a law making it the duty of the county court to appoint a Commissioner in each
township to assess the property therein, abolishing the office of county
treasurer, and requiring the sheriff to collect the revenue and to pay out
the same on the order of the county court.
The Bank of Illinois was a private institution, was located at Shawneetown, and was so well managed that neither the Government nor any one
else lost by it.
In consequence of the scarcity of gold and silver coin, the Legislature
also passed, at this session, laws postponing the collection of debts unless
the debtor would receive the bank-notes of any of the chartered Banks of




166                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Cincinnati and Chilicothe, in the State of Ohio, and of any of the Banks
of the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, and of the Banks of Vincennes,
of Missouri, of St. Louis, and of Illinois.
At the next session of the Legislature, commencing in December, 1817,
acts were passed incorporating companies for improving the navigation of
the Little Wabash River; an act to incorporate medical societies, for the
purpose of regulating the practice of physic and surgery in the territory,
(under which act no person was permitted to practice medicine or surgery,
without obtaining a diploma or license from this society); acts authorizing
the erection of mill-dams and a fishery on the Kaskaskia River; an act
directing the mode of'perpetuating testimony; an act declaring the Big
Muddy a navigable stream; acts incorporating the Banks of Edwardsville and Kaskaskia, and the town of Kaskaskia; an act incorporating the
stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company; and an act incorporating
the City and Bank of Cairo.
The following is the preamble to the act incorporating the Illinois Navigation Company: "Whereas Henry Bechtle and his associates, citizens of
the United States of America, and proprietors of the town of America, in
the county of Johnson, and territory of Illinois, purpose to improve the
navigation of the waters near the mouth of the Ohio River, in said territory,
by cutting canals, erecting locks, and other works, as to them shall seem
necessary. And whereas it is proper and advisable to encourage so laudable an undertaking. Therefore-Be it enacted," etc.
This act conferred upon said company authority to cut any canal from
the Mississippi to or near the said town of America, on. the Ohio River,
and erect such locks and otherwise improve as to them shall seem advisable
and necessary to complete the objects of said corporation, to build wharves
and to collect tolls under certain restrictions, etc.
The following is taken from the preamble of the act to incorporate the
City and Bank of Cairo: "And whereas the said proprietors represent that
there is, in their opinion, no position in the whole of the extent of these
Western States better calculated, as it respects commercial advantages and
local supply, for a great and important city, than that afforded by the junction of these two great highways-the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers; but
that nature, having denied to the extreme point formed by their union a
sufficient degree of elevation to protect the improvements made thereon
from the ordinary inundations of the adjacent waters, such elevation is to
be found only upon the tract above mentioned (the present site of Cairo),
so that improvements made and located thereon may be deemed perfectly
and absolutely secure from all such ordinary inundations, and liable to injury only from the concurrence of unusually high and simultaneous inundations in both of said rivers-an event which is alleged but rarely happens,




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               167
and the injurious consequences of which it is considered practicable, by
proper embankments, wholly and effectually and permanently to obviate.
And whereas there is no doubt but a city, erected at or as near as is practicable to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers-provided it be
thus secured by sufficient embankments, or in such other way as experience
may prove most efficacious for that purpose, from every such extraordinary
inundation-must necessarily became a place of vast consequence to the
prosperity of this growing Territory, and in fact to that of the greater part
of the inhabitants of these Western States. And whereas the above-named
persons are desirous of erecting such city, under the sanction and patronage
of the Legislature of this Territory, and also of providing for the security
and prosperity of the same, and to that end propose to appropriate the onethird of all the moneys arising from the sale and disposition of the lots into
which the same may be surveyed, as a fund for the construction and preservation of such dykes, levees and other embankments as may be necessary
to render the same perfectly secure-and also, if such fund shall be deemed
sufficient thereto, for the erection of public edifices and such other improvements in the said city as may be from time to time considered expedient
and practicable, and to appropriate the other two-thirds parts of the said
purchase moneys to the operation of banking. And whereas, etc.-Be it
enacted," etc.
The proprietors of said city were John G. Comyges, Thomas H. Harris,
Charles Slade (who was afterwards a member of Congress from the State),
Governor Bond, Michael Jones, Warren Brown, Edward Humphries, and
Charles W. Hunter. It was provided that there should be not less than
two thousand lots, each lot being not less than sixty-six by one hundred
and twenty feet, and the streets to be not less than eighty feet wide, and
to run as nearly as may be at right angles to each other; and that the
price of the lots should be fixed and limited at one hundred and fifty dollars each, and that the moneys arising from the sale thereof should be
appropriated as follows: Two-thirds parts thereof-that is to say, the sum
of one hundred dollars on each and every lot-shall constitute the capital
stock of the Bank, which capital stock should be divided into twice as many
shares as there were lots, one of which shares should belong to the purchasers of the lots in proportion of one share to each lot, and the remaining
shares to the proprietors; and that the remaining one-third part of the
purchase money should constitute a fund, to be exclusively appropriated to
the security and improvement of said city.
By the practice act any one could, by himself or agent, sue out a writ,
by filing with the clerk a declaration, or petition, or other statement, in
writing, containing the true nature of his, her or their demand or complaint,
accompanied with a copy of such writing or account.




168                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
It was also provided, in 1812, that an action on the case might be brought
for any fraud whatsoever, and that the plaintiff in any such suit might file
written interrogatories, which the defendant was bound to answer, in writing, at the time of filing his plea; and the defendant, in all cases wherein
he suggested fraud in the demand of the plaintiff, had also the right to file
in like manner written interrogatories, which the plaintiff was required to
answer and file with his replication.
No appeal could be taken from an inferior court to the supreme court,
unless the judgment or decree was final, and amounted, exclusive of costs,
to fifty dollars, or relate to a franchise or freehold.
In 1818, a law passed for the establishment of circuit courts, dividing
the State into two circuits, and conferring upon the courts all the jurisdiction which had previously been conferred on the supreme or general court,
with the exception of its appellate jurisdiction.
The county court system was also changed, by conferring all its jurisdiction on a court consisting of all the magistrates of the county, any three of
whom could constitute a quorum to do business.
A very important act, in relation to the sale of real estate, also passed
at this session, and the adoption of its principles are well worthy of the
consideration of our legislators of the present time; and so thoroughly
convinced am I of the justice and importance of its provisions, that I can
not pass it by without further notice. I am convinced that if such a law
had been in force, it would have saved much litigation. It provided that
whenever the sheriff shall levy upon lands of the defendant, and any other
person should claim the same, it should be the duty of the sheriff to return
the execution to the next circuit court, in order that there might be a fair
trial of the right of property. This act also provided for the sale of the
equitable interest of the defendant in lands purchased from the United
States, and on which part of the purchase money was still due.
The principle might be extended so as to allow an injunction against the
sale of property in cases where it is now denied, because a party may have
his remedy at law after a void sale. At the first session of the Legislature
after the admission of the State into the Union, the Legislature re-adopted,
with but few exceptions, the acts at that time in force, adapting them to
the provisions of the State Constitution; and, as a system, the laws thus
modified continued, with but few alterations, until the time which I propose
to close the result of my investigations. The judiciary system in all its
ramifications was not changed in its organization or details. The supreme
judges were elected in the manner pointed out in the Constitution, and the
judges were required to discharge the duty of holding circuit courts in
their respective circuits. The revenue laws were changed so as to provide
that the lands of non-residents and two-thirds of the tax on lands of resi



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              169
dents, together with the tax on bank-stock, should be paid into the state
treasury, and that the one-third of the tax on lands of residents should be
paid into the county treasury.
Lands, without regard to their locality, were divided into three classes.
Those of the first class were valued at $4 per acre; of the second class, at
$3 per acre; and those of the third class, at $2 per acre. Before the expiration of Gov. Edwards' term as Governor of the State, all the taxes of
the residents' lands were paid into the county treasury, and the State government was supported from the revenue derived from the property of nonresidents.
In the years 1819 and 1821, a number of acts passed for the incorporation of academies and towns, and lotteries were authorized for the purpose
of raising funds to drain the bottom lands, and the improvement of the
navigation of the rivers. Besides a general law for the incorporation of
towns, a law passed in 1821 including in one charter such as desired special provisions not contained in the general act.
Soon after the adoption of the Constitution, Commissioners were appointed to select a site for the State government. They selected the site
on which Vandalia was located, and the seat of government was removed
in 1819. The land belonged to the State, and lots were sold, the proceeds
of which were applied to the erection of the public buildings.
At the session of 1822, a law was passed authorizing the Governor to
appoint Commissioners, to act in conjunction with Commissioners on the part
of the State of Indiana, to report on the practicability and expediency of
improving the navigation of the Wabash River, from the point where the
eastern boundary of the State leaves the river to its junction with the
Ohio River. An act also passed, at this session, entitled "An act to provide for the improvement of the Internal Navigation of this State," appointing Emanuel J. West, Erastus Brown, Theophilus W. Smith, Thomas
Sloo, Jr., and Samuel Alexander, Commissioners, to consider, devise and
adopt such measures as may be requisite to effect the communication, by canal and locks, between the navigable waters of the Illinois River and Lake
Michigan, to determine the most eligible route for the canal, to cause all
necessary surveys and levels to be taken, and accurate maps, field books
and drafts thereof to be made, and to adopt and recommend plans for the
construction of the canal, to make estimates of the expense, and to make
a full report of all their proceedings to the next General Assembly. This
act, which passed February 14th, 1823, also appropriated six thousand
dollars to defray the expenses of the Commission. It was also made
the duty of the Commissioners to recommend to the Governors of Ohio and
Indiana and the Legislatures of those States, the importance of adopting
measures to connect the waters of the Wabash and Maumee Rivers. The
-22




170                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
importance of these great works had, at a very early period, engaged the attention of all our prominent men. Gov. Bond and Gov. Coles had both
urged their importance in their several messages to the Legislature. Congress had, about this time, passed an act granting the right of way over
the public lands for its construction, but no measures were taken by the
State for its commencement, until after the report of the Commissioners
was laid before the Legislature.
At the subsequent session of the Legislature a law was passed, on January 17, 1825, incorporating the "Illinois and Michigan Canal Association,"
with full powers for the construction of the Canal. It was also provided,
in the 7th section of the charter, that "all cessions, grants and transfers
made or that may hereafter be made, by the Government of the United
States, for the purpose of promoting the completion of the canal, shall pass
and vest in said corporation." Owing to the passage of this law, the State
came very near losing the benefit of a grant of lands from Congress; and
Mr. Cook, who was then our only member of Congress, not only found it
necessary to address a long communication on the subject to his constituents, but he deemed it of importance to return to the State and use his influence with the members of the Legislature to have the law, making this
grant to a company, repealed. He contended that as nothing had been
done under the act of incorporation, there was no vested right which would
prevent its repeal. The corporators afterwards voluntarily surrendered
their charter and the act was repealed.
It is remarkable that our members of Congress found it necessary to have
a law repealed making a similar grant of whatever public lands Congress
might grant to the State, for the purpose of making the Illinois Central
Railroad, to a company consisting of D. B. Holbrook & Co., who had obtained a charter for the construction of the Central railroad.  This obstacle to the passage of an act of Congress, making a grant of lands to the
State, having been removed, and the Commissioners having reported the
practicability and expediency of the work, the Legislature, at its special
session in 1826, adopted the following memorial to Congress:
The memorial of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois respectfully represents: That the construction of a canal, uniting the waters of Lake Michigan with
the Illinois River, will form an important addition to the great connecting links in
the chain of internal navigation, which will effectually secure the indissoluble union
of the confederate members of this great and powerful Republic. By the completion of this great and valuable work, the connection between the North and South,
the East and the West, would be strengthened by the ties of commercial intercourse and social neighborhood, and the union of the States bid defiance to internal commotion, sectional jealousy, and foreign invasion. All the States of the Union
would then feel the most powerful motives to resist every attempt at dissolution. To
effect so great and desirable an object your memorialists believe to be of sufficient importance to engage the attention and awaken the munificent patronage of a Govern



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    171
ment whose principle of action is the promotion of the general welfare. Your memorialists are sensibly alive to the spirit of improvement, that manifests itself in almost
every section of our extensive country, and would fain lend a helping hand in so great
and good a cause; their situation, however, forbids their doing much, without the
aid of the Federal Government-into whose treasury almost all the funds, whether
brought hither by immigrants, or earned by the industry of their citizens, are paid,
for the purchase of the public lands. While this state of things shall continue, and
the money thus paid into the treasury of the Union is taken out of our State, our
people will not be able to engage in the glorious work of improving our common country. Ought the people of this State stand by, with folded arms, and belold the great
work of internal improvement progress in other States, without making an effort to
improve their own condition, and at the same time advance the interest of our beloved country? A condition thus paralyzed is at war, not only with our interests,
but with the best feelings of our hearts. Did this State possess the public domain
lying within its bounds, as is the case with the older members of this confederacy,
your memorialists would not appear before your honorable body to solicit aid in this
important work. If, as your memorialists believe, the construction of the canal would
be highly beneficial to the Union at large-if the receipts into the treasury of the
United States would be augmented by the increased sales of the public lands, and if
the interests of the State would be also advanced thereby, is it unreasonable to apply
to a paternal government for assistance in the promotion of such beneficial ends? It
is unnecessary for your memorialists to enlarge on the great advantages of this canal
to the Union, in the facilities to be afforded in the event of a war either with the
Indian tribes inhabiting our frontier, or the British nation. Your honorable body is
aware that this State is situated on the borders of an Indian country, filled with numerous and powerful tribes of the sons of the forest. If our country should be again
engaged in war, the saving of expense in the transportation of the munitions of war
would alone defray the expense of the contemplated canal, and justify the United
States in making a liberal appropriation for its construction. Your memorialists do
not, however, ask your honorable body to appropriate money out of the treasury to
aid them in this work. They only ask for a tract of land, through which the contemplated canal may pass, and which for a series of years will be wholly unproductive to
the Government, unless the canal shall be commenced under auspices favorable to its
construction-in which event all the land in its vicinity would immediately become
available to the United States. Your memorialists sincerely believe that a liberal
appropriation of land for this object would, even in a pecuniary point of view, be of
immense importance to the treasury of the Union. The public lands in the vicinity
would not only sell, but at a considerable advance of the minimum price. Should this
opinion be correct, (and does not experience justify it?) the United States would be
gainer by the proposed donation to the State. Your memorialists further state, that,
at their last session, they passed an act of incorporation, upon very liberal terms, authorizing a company to construct the projected canal; but the remoteness of the
country from the residence of capitalists has prevented them from engaging in the
work. At their present session your memorialists have repealed the charter, and
their only hope of soon beginning the work depends upon the liberality of your honorable body. Your memorialists have caused the route to be explored, and estimates
to be made of the probable expense of the work, from which it appears that the cost
of constructing the canal will not be less than $600,000, and may possibly amount to
$700,000. To the end, therefore, that your memorialists may be enabled to commence
and complete this great work, we pray your honorable body to grant to this State the




172                    HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
respective townships of land through which the contemplated canal may pass-the
avails of which to be appropriated exclusively to the construction of said canal, upon
such terms and conditions as to your honorable body may seem proper.
Gov. Edwards, in one of his communications to the Legislature of Illinois, says: "In 1816, a tract of land bounded on Lake Michigan, including Chicago, and extending to the Illinois River, was obtained from the
Indians, for the purpose of opening a canal communication between the
lake and the river. Having been one of the Commissioners who treated
for this land, I personally know that the Indians were induced to believe
that the opening of the canal would be very advantageous to them, and
that, under authorized expectations that this would be done, they ceded
the land for a trifle. Good faith, therefore, towards these Indians, as well
as the concurring interest of the State and of the Union, seems to require
that the execution of this truly national object should not be unnecessarily
delayed, and nothing is more reasonable than that the expense should be
defrayed out of the proceeds of the very property which was so ceded for
the express purpose of having it done."
In 1817, Major Long made a report on the subject of a canal to connect
the waters of Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, which was printed
by order of Congress. [See Vol. 2, No 17, of the Reports of the session
of -     Congress.]  He says: "A canal, uniting the waters of the Illinois
River with those of Lake Michigan, may be considered the first in importance of any in this quarter of the country, and at the same time the construction would be attended with very little expense compared with the
magnitude of the object."
It will be seen from the same document that another favorable report
was made by Richard Graham and Chief Justice Phillips, of the State of
Illinois. Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, recommended, in 1819, in a
report to Congress, the attention of the Government to this point as being
important in a military point of view. [See Vol. 4, Pub. Doe., 2d session,
15th Congress.]
In 1820, a law was passed by Congress, authorizing the State to open
a canal through the public lands. The State appointed Commissioners to
explore the route and prepare the necessary surveys and estimates, preparatory to its execution, but being unable, out of its own resources, to defray the expense of the undertaking, it was abandoned until some time after Congress made the grant of land for the purpose of its construction.
In 1825, a committee of Congress reported in its favor, and among other
reasons urged "that, in a political point of view, its importance will be
found not less imposing than in either of those in Which it has already
been viewed. In uniting and drawing together the interests of the remote
extremities of the Eastern, the Southern, and the Western sections of our




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               173
Union, no work of the same magnitude, it is believed, can be more effectual. The geographical position of Illinois and Missouri-the two States
particularly interested in it-is such, that they will, under the advantages
of this communication, have a common and almost equal interest in preserving their connection with the North and the South. Their trade will
ultimately flow through the lakes and the Mississippi, and the advantages
of a choice of market will be so important to them, that they must ever be
unwilling to surrender it. By a reference to the map of our country, it
will be seen that these States will have it in their power at all times, in
the event, should it unfortunately ever occur, of any internal commotion,
to command the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi. From their commanding position, therefore, as well as from their capacity to sustain a dense,
and it must mainly be a free population, they will always hold the balance
of power in deciding every effort that may be made to separate the West
from either or both of the great geographical divisions of the Union; and,
if from no other cause, their interests will direct their exertion of that
power in favor of the Union. Nor is the interest of these States in preserving a free outlet for their commerce, both through the lake and the
Mississippi-the latter of which opens to them the New Orleans, the West
India and South American markets-stronger than must be that of the
North and South in being united with them."
Daniel P. Cook was the author of this report.
Gov. Edwards, in a letter in 1825, to Mr. Clay, thus alludes to the canal:
"A favorite object, and indeed, a political hobby, that supercedes all
others, in this State and Missouri, is a canal to connect Lake Michigan
and the Illinois River. Nothing could sustain the administration or its
friends in these two States so effectually as its countenancing this measure.
Connecting the waters of Lake Erie and the Wabash, is also a desirable
object in a part of the State of Indiana. Ohio is executing a similar project. Now, do I venture too far that it might be very judicious in the
President, without descending to any particular case, to introduce in his
message to Congress some sentiment favorable to the connection of our
great lakes with the Atlantic and Western waters? This might probably
satisfy the friends of these different projects. I know it would contribute
greatly to the support of the administration."
In an address of Mr. Cook to the people of the State of Illinois, dated
October 28th, 1825, he says: "But this is a work in which the nation is
interested and which the General Government should, therefore, aid in executing. As a ligament to bind the Union together, no work of the same
magnitude can be more useful. Occupying, as Illinois and Missouri do, a
central position in the great semi-circle of States on the North and West,
and commanding, as they do, the commerce of the three great rivers of




174                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
the West, the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri, they may well be called
the keystone of the widely projected arch. From New York to Louisiana,
following the frontier curve of that portion of the Union, in the event of
any political commotion or attempt at separation, the influence of these
States would, ere long, be sensibly felt, and would even decide the contest.
And their interest will be so happily balanced, by their desire for a free
outlet through both the Mississippi and the lakes, that so long as commercial advantage continues to influence the policy of the States, they must
and will decide against disunion. The friends of the Union, therefore,
have a strong interest in this communication.'
Among other inducements to assist in this work, Mr. Cook urged that
there was no position combining greater advantages for an extensive National Armory than at the rapids, either on the Illinois or Fox Riversboth points being within a few miles of the place where the canal must
have its southern termination. "In the midst of exhaustless beds of stone
coal, and surrounded by a country of almost unparalleled fertility as well
as great salubrity, with a water-power adequate to all necessary purposes
in the manufacture of arms, as well as fabrics for domestic purposes, I believe those points are destined to become the seat of as extensive manufacturing establishments as any in the whole Western country. And from
their local position, with a view to convenience in distributing arms and
clothing to a large portion of our frontier posts, no place can be more desirable for such establishments."
Congress, on the 2d of March, 1827, made the grant of lands to the
State " for the purpose of aiding her in opening a canal to connect the
waters of the Illinois River with those of Lake Michigan," and the Legislature passed a law, on the 22d of January, 1829, for the appointment of
three Commissioners, whose duty it was "to consider, devise and adopt
such measures as may be required to facilitate and effect" the construction
of the canal. It was made their duty to fix the route of the canal; to select
the alternate sections of land granted to the State by Congress; to cause
the surveys and levels to be taken, and accurate drafts, field-books and
maps thereof to be made; and as soon as they could command sufficient
funds, and should deem it expedient, to commence the work. They had
power to lay out towns, and to dispose of the lands and lots upon the same
terms and conditions as the lands of the United States were sold, and it was
provided that the Commissioners might sue and be sued in the name of "The
Board of Commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan Canal," with full.
power " to enter, take and use any lands, waters and streams necessary for
the prosecution of the work." The canal was required to be forty feet in
width at the summit water-line, twenty-eight feet wide at the bottom, and
of sufficient depth to contain at least four feet of water, and so constructed




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               175
as to insure a safe and convenient navigation for boats of at least seventyfive feet long, thirteen feet six inches wide, and drawing three feet of water.
Although this act was subsequently amended, and that too before any sales
of any consequence had been made, as in express terms to reserve the right
of the State, in all sales of lands, to take, "free from any cost, charge or
liability whatever," any stone, timber, ground, water, or other material,
necessary for the construction of the canal, and although Congress had
expressly granted to the State the right of way, thousands of dollars were
claimed and paid as damages for what was so expressly reserved.
Dr. Gershom Jayne of Springfield, Edmund Roberts, then of Kaskaskia,
and Charles Dunn of Pope county, but who was afterwards one of the
IUnited States Judges in Wisconsin, were the first Commissioners. They
selected the lands, surveyed the route of the canal, laid out the principal
towns, and performed every other act that was necessary for the commencement of this great and important work-the history of which I profess
to be familiar with from its commencement up to the present time; but,
having only intended to bring down the history of the legislation of the
State to the close of Gov. Edwards' administration, I must reserve many
important facts for some future occasion.
On the 27th March, 1819, an act passed for the incorporation of the
subscribers to the State Bank of Illinois. The law was repealed, and
another act passed in 1821 establishing the State Bank of Illinois-the
capital stock of which was not to exceed the sum of five hundred thousand
dollars, to be owned exclusively by the State. The notes or bills of the
bank provided, on their face, for interest at the rate of two per centum per
annum, and loans were made chiefly on real estate security, at the rate of
six per cent. interest. The only fund for the redemption of the bank notes
was the land, town lots, and other property belonging to the State, and the
funds and the resources which then or thereafter might become payable to
the State. The directors were to be appointed by the Legislature. For a
more particular history of this bank-which in a very short time exploded,
involving in its winding up a great loss to the State-the reader is referred
to Gov. Edwards' speeches and messages to the Legislature. The law was
declared to be in violation of the Constitution of the United States, which
prohibited a State from the emission of bills of credit, and many of the
debtors took advantage of this decision to avoid the payment of their just
debts. For further information in relation to the finances of the State from
that time until the year 1830, the reader is also referred to the communications from Gov. Edwards.
Resolutions were passed at this session requesting our Senators and Representatives in Congress to use their exertions to have the national road
extended from Wheeling through the seats of government of Ohio, Indiana
vr~vrrv~,  rvu  rr~vr0~




176                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
and Illinois; thence to St. Charles on the nearest and best route. And,
also, to use their exertions to secure a grant of land, for the opening and
improving the same, to the extent of the unappropriated sections through
which the road would pass.
At the subsequent session resolutions passed approving of the proposed
amendment to the Constitution of the United States, by the State of Pennsylvania, "that Congress should pass no law to incorporate any bank or
moneyed institution, except within the District of Columbia;" of the proposed amendment by Vermont in favor of single districts for the election of
members of Congress and electors of President; and, also, a resolution asking the State of Kentucky to grant to the State concurrent jurisdiction on
the River Ohio.
By the seventh section of an act supplemental to the act establishing
the State Bank, Auditor's warrants were made receivable in payment of
bank debts. These warrants having been issued for three times the amount
for which they were paid out, bank debtors could get off by the payment
of one-third of their debts, and the other two thirds were of course taken
from the pockets of the people, who had nothing to do with the bank.
For the purpose of relieving bank debtors, an act was also passed declaring
that no other real or'personal estate should, in a proceeding to foreclose
the mortgage, be liable to satisfy a debt secured by mortgage, but the
mortgaged premises. Previous to the passage of this law, in such cases a
general judgment was rendered, and if the mortgaged premises were not
sufficient to satisfy the debt, execution could he issued and any other property sold for the payment of the balance; and it does seem to me that
there cannot be any good reason, especially in cases where there has been
personal service, in requiring the expense of an additional suit in such
cases.
In consequence of the depreciation of the paper of the State Bank, in
which the State officers received their salaries, an act was passed, at the
session of 1822, authorizing the Auditor to issue his warrant in their favor
for a sum, to each, not exceeding fifty per centum upon their established
salaries; and the appropriation bill appropriated, to be paid to the Speakers of the House and Senate, the sum of nine dollars per day, and to each
member such sum as he should designate, by writing the same on a piece
of paper, he was willing to receive per day for his services, not exceeding
seven dollars per day. No other measures of importance were passed at
this session, except resolutions declaring: 1. That the appropriations made
by Congress to certain States, in the South and West, of lands lying within
said States, for the purposes of education, were made for National and not
for State purposes. 2. That the public lands do not form a fund out of
which appropriations may be made, for the use of schools, to any State other




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              177
than such wherein said lands lie and are offered for sale, except upon a
good and valuable consideration given therefor. 3. That it would be derogatory to State sovereignty, and tend to disturb the harmony and peace
of the Union, to give one State jurisdiction over or a right of property to
lands lying within another State, without the consent of the State in which
the same might lie.
In February, 1823, an act passed for the election, by the Legislature, of
a judge of probate in each county, and conferring upon the judges the
same jurisdiction, in their respective counties, as the judges had who were
elected under the act which had previously passed for the establishment of
courts of probate.
At the regular session in December, 1822, the circuit court system was
established, but it was repealed at the next session, and the supreme judges
continued to discharge the duties of holding circuit courts, except in one
circuit in the military district, of which the Hon. R. M. Young was elected
judge.
In January, 1825, the revenue law was so amended as to authorize the
lands of residents to be sold by the Auditor for taxes. Residents were required to pay their taxes annually, while for some reason non-residents were
not compelled to pay their's oftener than once in two years. The lands in
the military district were to be sold in January, 1826, and every two years
thereafter; and those belonging to non-residents, in other portions of the
State, were to be sold in January, 1827, and every two years thereafter.
The salt springs within the State, and the lands which had been reserved
for the same, were granted to the State on its admission into the Union,
on the condition, however, that the State should never sell nor lease the
same for a longer period than ten years.
The U. S. Government had realized a considerable sum, annually, from
leasing the salt works in Gallatin county, and it also appears, from the reports of the State Treasurer, that the State had also derived a considerable
amount of revenue from the same source.
An act was passed, in 1827, appointing Commissioners to dispose of thirty
thousand acres of the least valuable of the salt lands, provided that Congress would consent to their sale; and also, to designate, at each situation
suitable for water-works, within the reserve, twelve acres of land, and so
much of the ripple and water-course and the banks thereof as may be necessary for the erection of dams and water-works-to be constructed so as
to promote, but not obstruct, the navigation of the Saline creek. The
proceeds arising from the sale of'the site for the water-works were to be
applied to the improvement of the navigation of the Saline creek, the improvement of the road across the Maple swamp between Equality and Carlyle, and to the erection of a bridge across Eagle creek on the road from
-23




178                    IISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Equality to Ford's ferry, on the Ohio River. One-half the proceeds arising from the sale of the thirty thousand acres were appropriated for the
erection of a penitentiary at Alton, one-fourth to improve the navigation
of the Saline creek, the improvement of the road across the Maple swamp
and the erection of the bridge across Eagle creek, and one-fourth to improve the navigation of the Little Wabash River by canaling around Robinson's mill-dam, in White county, and to remove other obstructions in
said river-provided, that neither of the two last appropriations should
exceed five thousand dollars.
By the same act Shadrach Bond, William P. McKee and Gershom Jayne
were appointed Commissioners to select a site for a penitentiary, on the
Mississippi, at or near Alton.
Provision was also made for selling ten thousand acres of the Vermilion
saline reserve, and to apply the proceeds to the improvement of the
navigation of the Great Wabash River. Appropriations were also made,
out of the proceeds from the sale of these lands, to the improvement of the
Big Muddy River, and the building of a bridge in Pope county.
At the subsequent session additional appropriations were made, out of
the same proceeds, for local purposes in a number of other counties in the
State, among which one thousand dollars was for the improvement of the
Sangamon River, and two thousand dollars for the improvement of the
Kaskaskia River.
Congress, in the meantime, had assented to the sale by the State.




CHAPTER X.
Slavery-Gov. Edwards' Views on the Slavery Question —The Attempt to
Introduce Slavery into tie State- Education-Proprietors of Upper
Alton the first to establish Free Schools-State Laws on the subject of
Schools —Gov. Edwards' Speeches during his Canvass for Governor of
the State.
Notwithstanding the sixth article of the ordinance of 1787 provided,
that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said
territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted," an act was passed by the Legislature of
the Indiana territory, on September 17, 1807, which was continued in
force in the Illinois territory, authorizing the owner of any negroes above
the age of fifteen years to bring them into the State, and to have them
bound to service for such number of years as might be agreed upon between
the negro and his master. The master was required to take his negro before the clerk of the court of common pleas, and to have him indentured
and registered within thirty days after bringing him into the State; and
if the negro would not consent, sixty days more was allowed the master to
take him back into any State where slavery was allowed.
By another section of this law any person could bring negroes under
the age of fifteen years, and hold them to service or labor-the males until they arrived at the age of thirty-five, and females until they arrived at
the age of thirty-two years.
It was also provided, by this law, that the children, born in this territory, of a parent of color owing service by indenture, shall serve the master or mistress-the male until the age of thirty years, and the female until the age of twenty-eight years.
Another act was passed, in 1814, providing that slaves might, with the
consent of their masters, voluntarily hire themselves within the territory,
for any term not exceeding twelve months; and that his continuance in
the territory according to such hiring should not operate in any way whatever to injure the right of property in the master in and to the services of
such slave.
This last act was accompanied by the following preamble: "Whereas
the erection of mills and other valuable improvements in this territory can



180                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
not be made from the want of laborers; and whereas, also, experience has
proved that the manufacture of salt, in particular, at the United States
saline, cannot be successfully carried on by white laborers; and it being
the interests of every description of inhabitants to afford every facility
to the most extensive manufacture of that article, so necessary to them all
-as the most natural means of obtaining a certainty of the necessary supplies thereof, at the lowest prices," etc.
On the 20th December, 1813, an act also passed to prevent the migration of free negroes into the territory. This act provided that if any such
negro should not leave the territory after fifteen days' notice, he should be
whipped on his bare back not exceeding thirty-nine nor less than twentyfive stripes.
It was also provided that free negroes, then in the territory, should register themselves and their children with the clerk of the county court, on
the failure of which they were subjected to severe penalties.
There was another class of colored persons who were held and recognized as slaves, both under the Territorial and State governments, until
1847. These were held by the French and others, previous to the adoption of the ordinance of 1787, and the following are the reasons for contending that such persons and their posterity were bound to perpetual servitude:
1. It was contended that, under the Governments of France, England
and Virginia, slavery was permitted; that the then inhabitants of the country lawfully acquired and held slaves; and that each of the governments,
in surrendering the rights of the soil and jurisdiction of the country, respectively, made ample provision for the protection of the inhabitants in
the enjoyment of all their property, of which slaves constituted a large and
valued portion.
2. After the conquest of the country by Gen. George R. Clark, the jurisdiction of Virginia was, by act of their Assembly, extended over it,
and afforded as much protection to this description of property as any
other, until the first of March, 1784, at which time Virginia ceded its
right to the soil and jurisdiction of the country to the United States, upon
the following, among other conditions, viz: that the French and Canadian
inhabitants and other settlers, etc., "should have their possessions and
titles confirmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights,
and of which rights that to hold their slaves was as perfect, according to
all existing laws, as to hold any other species of property."
3. By the ordinance of Congress, passed the 23d of December, 1784, the
existence of slavery within the ceded territory is impliedly acknowledged
by the repeated mention of free males of full age being entitled to certain
privileges therein mentioned; and this ordinance, so far from imposing




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               181
any restriction as to slavery, actually gave to the free male settlers the
right "to adopt the laws of any one of the original States," and of course
to sanction slavery (if it had not previously existed) as far as it was then
sanctioned by the laws of any State in the Union. In this situation things
continued under the Government of the United States until the 13th day
of July, 1787, a period of about three years, when the last ordinance was
passed.
4. As slavery existed under the Governments of France, England and
Virginia, if not expressly authorized by Congress, until the last mentioned
period, the right to this species of property was as perfect within the ceded
territory as in "any one of the original States," and for any violation of
this right, the settlers, up to that period, were as much entitled to an
action of detinue, or for damages, as if they had resided in "any one of the
original States."
5. Congress, in 1784, and 1785, had refused to prohibit slavery in the
territories.
6. Slaves, therefore, were property, and to hold them as such was a legal
right, secured by the existing laws, with adequate remedy for its privation at the date and for three years after the compact between Virginia
and the United States, and of course was among those rights which, according to one of the express conditions of the deed of cession, the United
States became bound to protect the French and Canadian inhabitants and
other settlers "in the free enjoyment of"-a condition which Congress,
even, with far less limited powers, could not violate.
7. But Congress has not violated this condition by the ordinance of
1787, and if not, all the rights, of whatever character they may be, which
previously existed, are unaffected by that instrument. Independently of
the phrases "free males of full age," so frequently used in it, and so clearly
implying a knowledge of the existence of other males of full age, who were
not free, it cannot be supposed and no lawyer will assume that Congress
was ignorant of the fact that slaves were lawfully held by the settlers of
the ceded territory at the date of the ordinance, and that, being so held,
they were emphatically property.
Taking it, then, for granted that Congress understood the state of the
facts on which they were legislating, and the evident meaning of their own
language, it will be seen that, instead of violating any of the conditions
in relation to the inhabitants of the ceded territory; to which the United
States had bound themselves, that body intended faithfully to fulfil them.
The very first section of the ordinance embraces all the property, both real
and personal, (not excepting and of course including slaves which those
inhabitants possessed) and prescribes the manner in which both descriptions
might be disposed of-thereby recognizing not only the right to hold, but
to dispose of the very property in question.




182                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Besides other recognitions of the rights of those inhabitants, and with
a view to protect them in the enjoyment thereof, according both to the obligations of the compact and the principles of justice, it is expressly declared in the first of the articles-made unalterable except by common
cpnsent-that no man shall be deprived of his property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land; and that it shall not be taken
away from him, even for the common preservation, without full compensation being made for the same. Slaves were, at that time, property, to
which the ordinance referred, and on which it must be considered as intended to operate as much as upon any other property whatever, since no
discrimination was made. As, then, this property has neither been taken
away, nor paid for, in the manner prescribed by the article last referred
to, all right to it that ever existed must still remain.
What, then, is the meaning of the article which declares that "there
shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" in the said territory?
Presuming that it is an acknowledged rule of construing all laws, that effect shall, if possible, be given to every part thereof-a rule which more
emphatically applies to constitutions, or other written instruments, intended to prescribe the general principles on which government is to be
administered-it would seem that the article should receive a construction
consistent with those previously noticed, and, particularly, since it cannot
be supposed that the United States in Congress assembled intended to
violate the compact, or to do themselves or to permit others to do that
which they declared should not be done. Adopting this rule of construction the conclusion is irresistible, that while Congress intended to protect
the inhabitants of the territory in the enjoyment of their rights to their
slaves, they equally intended to prevent the increase of slavery without
violating the vested rights of any individual whatever. And this would
be the case even if the last article referred to were to be taken without its
context. It is, however, by considering it in this point of view, as an isolated sentence, that so much misapprehension has prevailed in regard to
it. It should be taken in connection with the preamble, which equally
applies to all and each of the six articles, and shows conclusively that its
operation was intended to be prospective and not retrospective-to prevent
a failure, and not to destroy a previous sanction-to guard against the further introduction of slavery, and not to object to that which then existed
-to prevent future authorized requisitions of slave property, and not,
without a moment's notice or any equivalent whatever, to take away from
the inhabitants of the country that which they had lawfully acquired.
Taking this article with so much of the preamble as applies to the question, it would be substantially as follows: To fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws which forever hereafter shall be formed in




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                183
the said Territory, it is hereby ordained and declared that the following
article shall be considered as an article of compact between the original
States and the people in the said Territory, and forever remain unalterable
unless by common consent, to-wit: "There shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude in the said Territory."
Here it is plainly declared that the object of the article in question was
to establish the basis of laws thereafter to be formed in the said Territory.
Taking into consideration that this ordinance was designed to enable the
people thereof to legislate for.themselves, under prescribed limitations, this
article can only be considered as a restriction upon the legislative power of
the people, and not as an act of legislation by Congress, operating upon and
destroying vested rights for the protection of which they had pledged the
faith of the nation. Believing that Congress has never freed a slave, and
never even intended to legislate on the subject further than to prescribe
limits to the power of the local Legislature, and the latter having done
nothing to change the common law principle of partus sequitur ventrem, it
is in full force, and the posterity of those born since the ordinance were
subject to its operation.
It is evident that the people of the Territory and the Territorial Legislature considered that there were slaves legally held under the ordinance
and deed of cession from Virginia, from the fact that by the revenue laws
of the Territory provision was made for the taxation of slaves and servants;
and although the laws adopted by the Governor and Council, recognizing
the right to hold these slaves, were passed subject to be disapproved by
Congress, the very fact that they were not disapproved implies that Congress also recognized this right. That they were so regarded by the framers
of the first State Constitution must be conceded, from the language which
they used in the following provision: "Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude shall hereafter be introduced into this State."
If this article had not been intended to operate prospectively, the words
"hereafter introduced" would have been omitted, but being inserted in the
article, they imply that slavery existed at that time in the Territory; and
that such was the case, the first Legislature which met after the adoption
of the Constitution proved, by passing laws for the taxation and punishment of slaves, as well as indentured servants.
The above were some of the arguments which were urged by those who
believed that the French, and settlers previous to the date of the ordinance
of 1787, were entitled to hold their slaves. The Constitution of the State
recognized the right to hold indentured servants, and also provided that
the children of such, who might be born after the adoption of the Constitution, should serve-the males until they arrive to thirty-five years of age,
and the females until they arrive at thirty-two years of age. The supreme




184                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
court of the State, however, in the year 1846, decided against the right to
hold those persons as slaves; and since that time the State of Illinois has
been freed from the evils of slavery.
I cannot imagine how Gov. Ford could have committed so great a mistake in ranking Gov. Edwards among those who were in favor of making
this a slave State. His sentiments on that subject were well known, for
no one individual in the State had been so active in his opposition to the
introduction of slavery. In a message to the Territorial Legislature, in the
year 1817, returning a bill entitled "An act to repeal so much of an act
entitled'an act concerning the introduction of negroes and mulattoes into
this Territory,'" he says: "I am no advocate for slavery; and if it depended upon my vote alone, it should never be admitted into any State or
Territory not already cursed with so great an evil. I have no objection to
the repeal which I suppose was intended, but there being no such law as
that which is described in the preamble and referred to in the enacting
clause of the bill which has been referred to me for my approval, the proposed repeal would be a mere nullity, and with every possible aid of legal
construction and intendment would leave in full force the act of 1812."
The above bill was intended to repeal so much of an act as authorized negroes to be brought into the Territory for the purpose of being indentured,
to the passage of which Gov. Edwards says he would "have no objection."
During the winter of 1819-20, a plan was formed at Washington City
for the establishment of a press at Edwardsville, for the purpose of advocating slavery. General Joseph Sheet, who was to have been the editor,
spent the winter at Washington City, for the purpose of making the necessary arrangements; and it was believed, from the fact that he at that time
held one of the most lucrative offices in the State, which he would have
been compelled to relinquish on his removal to Edwardsville, that nothing
less than "a very formidable combination could have afforded him sufficient inducements to make the sacrifice."  The following communication
from Gov. Edwards will more fully develop their plans:
To MESSRS. BLACKWELL & BERRY,
Editors of the Illinois Intelligencer.
GENTLEMEN: Mr. Kane having publicly insinuated, if not explicitly declared, that
I had some agency in the editorial remarks which appeared in the "Edwardsville
Spectator" of the 11th inst., upon the subject of a real or supposed plan to introduce
slavery into this State-and having also declared himself "well convinced" that no
such measure was ever "thought of"-I beg leave to assure the public that all and
every suggestion that I advised or even wished the publication of those remarks, or
that I ever saw a line or letter of them till they were published, or that any of the
statements contained therein originated with me, are utterly destitute of even the
shadow of truth to support them. And in repelling such foul and malicious imputations, I am happy to have it in my power to afford Mr. Kane himself ample proof
of their injustice, and to place him in a situation to feel compelled, if he is disposed




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                         185
to preserve even the semblance of regard for truth or honor, to acquit me-or otherwise, by failing to retract his own gross slander, when deprived of every pretext for
persevering in it, to give a public manifestation of that disingenuousness which for
years past has characterized his conduct towards me. And for that purpose, besides
other gentlemen of this place and St. Louis, to whose testimony I might appeal, I
refer him to Dr. Todd, Edward Coles, Esq., Major Theophilus W. Smith, Joseph
Conway, Esq., Mr. McKenney, Major Winchester, Mr. May and Mr. Watkins, of this
place, and to Mr. Hart and Col. Riddick, of St. Louis, for proof that statements had
been made and were believed, weeks before my return from Congress, that a new
press was to be established at this place, with the avowed object and design of advocating the introduction of slavery into this State, and that it was to be edited by the gentleman who is mentioned in the editorial article above referred to as having been
selected for that purpose
Various as are the sources of these reports, it can be most satisfactorily proven,
and no one will deny, that they did not originate with any person friendly to Mr.
Cook, or disposed to support his election.
Some of the gentlemen referred to can testify that a change of our Constitution in
regard to slavery has at least been "thought of" pretty seriously; and knowing as
much as I do upon the subject, in relation to certain individuals who are intimate
with and support Mr. Kane, I am truly surprised that he should know so little as to
believe that the change spoken of had "never been thought of."
I have, however, written testimony in my possession, which at present I do not
feel at liberty to publish, but which I will cheerfully show to Mr. Kane, that will
prove to his satisfaction that "a change or modification of our Constitution, in relation to slavery," has recently been contemplated, and that there are some men of
intelligence, and well acquainted with our situation, who "think the period not remote when the slave side of the question will be the most popular in this State."
But for further exculpation of myself I refer to the annexed extract of a letter to
myself, from a gentleman of first respectability, in St. Louis, who was at the city of
Washington during the discussion of the Missouri question, but left there before its
determination, and who was and I believe still is decidedly hostile to Mr. Cook.
This letter, however, was procured for a very different purpose, and I regret that
Mr. Kane's ungenerous attack upon me has rendered it necessary for me to use it on
the present occasion, or to make any remarks whatever upon the subject.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
EDWARDSVILLE, July 24, 1820.
[EXTRAOT.]
ST. Louis, June 27, 1820.
I recollect of frequently hearing it said, and perhaps while in Washington may have made the
remark myself, that it "would be doing nothing more than justice to Illinois (as its citizens were
so violently opposed to Missouri, as a State, without restriction) to create a reaction by engaging
your side of the river in a contest at home, which would prevent them from soparticularly interesting themselves in our concerns; and that, to effect this, it would only be necessaryto establish
a press at Edwardsville that would admit and favor a free discussion of the advantages that would
result to the State by admitting slavery," believing that a large proportion of the State was inhabited by emigrants from the Southern States, who would be favorable to such a state of things.
I also understood that a gentleman, highly distinguished on former occasions for his editorial
talents, might be prevailed on to establish a press in Edwardsville, and if so, from his sentiments
on the subject of slavery (which was then debating at large in Congress) he would most certainly
advocate such a course. I afterwards understood that the gentleman alluded to did intend to
visit Edwardsville, preparatory to such a step, but I never understood that you had any knowledge
of it, or in any way countenanced it
-24




186                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
In his special message to the Legislature, at the session of 1826-7, may
be found the following paragraph:
As there is some reason to believe that the loans, referred to in my last message as
having been made to Thomas J. McGuire, Emanuel J. West and Theophilus W. Smith,
were somewhat connected with the establishment of a press at Edwardsville, which
was intended to promote the introduction of slavery into this State, they probably
merit particular notice. I have been informed, by authority which is presumed to be
unquestionable, that Mr. Kinney, the president of the bank, obtained his loan to reimburse Mr. Kinney; that Mr. West gave his bond of indemnity to Mr. McGuire,
and Mr. Smith is known to have been the editor of the paper.
Besides the documentary evidence of Gov. Edwards' sentiments on this
subject, it is well known to Judge Lockwood, Wm. H. Brown of Chicago,
George Churchill, Hooper Warren, and many others, that he was never
associated in politics with the gentleman alluded to by Gov. Ford. At this
very time Mr. Cook, his son-in-law, was the candidate of the anti-Convention party, against Gov. Bond.
In his speech in the Senate of the United States, on the bill for the admission of Missouri into the Union, he said: "Were an attempt made to
introduce slavery into the non-slaveholding States of the West, then, indeed, might there be just cause of alarm, and I can assure gentlemen that
there is no man who would oppose such a proposition with more determined zeal than myself......In attempting to discuss the present proposition, it is not my purpose to advocate slavery in any shape, or to deny that,
in its mildest form, it is equally inconsistent with the inherent rights of
man, and repugnant to every principle of humanity and philanthropy. On
the contrary, I rejoice most sincerely that an increasing sense of its moral
injustice and turpitude, and the happy prevalence of more enlightened and
magnanimous views throughout every part of our common country, as well
as in various other parts of the civilized world, are eliciting the most zealous efforts not only to prevent its extension, but to ameliorate its present
condition, which, with the blessing of Divine Providence, 1 trust will, in
due season, eventuate in its final extermination."
At a still later period, in a letter to the Postmaster General, dated Aug.
20, 1829, in which he complains that superior mail facilities have been
granted in the State of Missouri to those afforded to the people of Illinois, he says: "Collisions on such subjects are as unpleasant to me as
to any other man, but I have never seen the day that I would not risk any
personal consequences rather than submit to have the affairs of my own
State controlled by members of Congress from other States, or to see it degraded and overlooked as though it were an inferior. Though older in
every respect, and superior in the number of its free population and the
extent of agricultural improvements and productions, to Missouri, the interest, convenience and accommodation of the latter have of late years




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    187
been so much more favorably regarded by the Government, that certain
magnates of St. Louis, who are in the habit of speaking of us, reproachfully, as'the free State,' seem to consider us unworthy, on that account,
of the equal regard of the Government, and hope, by their influence with
the present administration, to impress upon us the stamp of degradation."
After alluding to other conspicuous instances of the preference to Missouri over this State, he says: "It would be easy to demonstrate that better and more eligible locations for the troops at Jefferson Barracks, and
for the arsenal near St. Louis, than the sites of either, might have been
had in the vicinities of Alton and Kaskaskia, and had we not been the'free State,' they would doubtless have been preferred.    We claim   an
equality of rights with the citizens of Missouri, and this nothing shall induce me to relinquish-for great is the debt of gratitude which I owe to
the people of this State; and they have never been seen to shrink when
their rights and interests have been called into question, and, with the permission of Divine Providence, they never shall."
Again, he says: "I can conceive of no reason for this preference, unless
it be supposed that because the people of Missouri have negroes, to work
for them, they are to be considered as gentle-folks, entitled to higher consideration and superior privileges to us plain'free State' folks, who have
to work for ourselves."
Although this letter was written while he was Governor of the State,
yet it was not in his official character. It nevertheless portrayed, in such
striking colors, the partial and injurious nature of the contemplated changes in the mail routes, for the purpose of accommodating the State of Missouri at our expense, as to secure to the State its just rights.
Although opposed to the introduction of slavery in Illinois, he believed
that Congress had no authority to pass the ordinance of 1787, and that it
was unconstitutional and void. His opinions on this subject were as follows:
At the time Virginia made her cession, there was a numerous and wealthy population within our limits, all citizens of Virginia, owing to her allegiance and entitled to
her protection, and whom, therefore, she had no more right to dismember from the
State, and transfer to another Government, than she would have to transfer the citizens of her counties of London and Fairfax. Vattell, a distinguished writer on the
"Laws of Nations," says: "A nation ought to preserve itself. It ought to preserve
all its members. It cannot abandon them; and it is under an obligation to them of
maintaining them in the rank of members of the nation. It has not, then, a right to
traffic with their rank and liberty, on account of any advantages it may promise itself
from such a negotiation. They are united to the society to be its members. They
acknowledge the authority of the state to promote, in concert, their common welfare
and safety, and not to be at its disposal, like a farm or an herd of cattle. But the
nation may lawfully abandon them, in a case of extreme necessity; and it has a right
to cut them off from the body, if the public safety requires it. But this province or




188                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
city, thus abandoned and dismembered from the state, is not obliged to receive the
new master attempted to be given to them. The people, being separated from the
society of which they were members, resume all their rights; and if it is possible for
them to defend their liberty against him who would subject them to his authority,
they may lawfully resist him." (Pages 1'7-8.)
It was doubtless from the obligations which these universally acknowledged principles imposed, as well as from other benevolent and political considerations, that Virginia so particularly stipulated that we should be admitted into the Union, not shorn
of a single attribute of sovereignty, not humiliated by dependence, not degraded by
inferiority, nor deprived of any right which we should have enjoyed, in common with
herself, had no dismemberment taken place-but with the very same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the original States.
Though the people so dismembered and transferred were not bound to submit to
the new sovereign, yet they might do so; and the moment they yielded an express or
tacit consent to the compact of cession, they became parties to it, and acquired vested
rights to all and everything stipulated in their favor, of which they can no more be
deprived than the people of Louisiana of the rights secured to them by the treaty with
France, which ceded that country to the United States. Their consent, also, subjected them to all authority which, as a consequence of the terms of cession, could be
lawfully exercised over them, and no more. It warranted no usurpation. In giving
it, they must be presumed to have taken into view the powers both of the government
that transferred, and that which received them; and in submitting to a government
of specified and limited powers, they subjected themselves to no undelegated authority. When, then, had the United States a right to govern them? Never, till their
admission into the confederation; and then only as a member thereof. Why so?
Because no such power was delegated to them by the articles of confederation; and
these restricted their authority to the powers expressly granted. How, then, wene
they governed? Cut off from Virginia, and owing no other allegiance to the United
States than they had previously owed as citizens of Virginia, they had a right to govern themselves, and were in the meantime entitled, by the terms of the cession, to
the same protection from the United States as Virginia herself. As citizens of Virginia, which the cession acknowledges they were, they had vested rights and privileges. By what authority, then, could the Legislature of Virginia disfranchise them?
By that of their State Constitution? But this was intended to secure those rights
and privileges; and all who had submitted to its authority were entitled to its protection. How, then, could the United States do it? Under the articles of confederation? But these gave no such authority, and were intended to protect the rights
of all and every citizen of each State in the confederation, so far as they had cognizance of them. If this monstrous power of degrading any portion of the citizens of a
free, sovereign and independent State to colonial thraldom, without their consent, or
any other act of theirs to justify it, may be exercised over a population of fifteen or
twenty thousand, why may it not be extended to one-half or any other number of the
citizens of any State in the Union? The principle is the same, however few or many
its victims.
The powers of the United States are far greater and more national under the present Constitution than they were under the confederation; yet, it will not be pretended
that they could govern the District of Columbia, though ceded to them by the States
of Maryland and Virginia, but for that clause in the Constitution that specially authorized them to do so. The Legislature of Virginia could not, with the consent of




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    189
every State in the Union, without an amendment of the Constitution, transfer the
county of Fairfax, which adjoins the district, to the United States, and subject the
citizens of that county to their authority; nor could the United States, with all their
enlarged powers, receive such a transfer. What, then, gave the Legislature of Virginia greater power over her citizens in the organized county of Illinois than it now
has over those of the county of Fairfax? And how, then, did the transfer of the former give to the United States more power to govern them than a transfer of the latter would now give? A delegation of power for such purposes was as necessary then
as now, and none having been granted, the ordinance of 1787 was, therefore, as to us,
unauthorized, unconstitutional and void.
Whatever the people of Virginia might have done in their sovereign capacity, it is
contended that their Legislature had no right to dismember the State, and curtail its
jurisdiction. And why? Because no such power had been delegated to them by the
Constitution of the State, and it could be derived from no other source. Their's was
the power of legislating for the whole State, as it then stood, and was intended to be
exercised by them and their successors forever. For what end? For the preservation
and security of the whole territory, and all its inhabitants. To suppose, then, that
they could transfer any part of the State, or its jurisdiction, is to admit their power
to annihilate rights as effectually secured to their successors as to themselves, and to
destroy the whole ends and objects of their own institution-for if they could dismember a part, they might have transferred the whole; and as to the question of power,
might as well have surrendered it to the King of Spain, who, about that time, was
very anxious to obtain a part of the United States. As well, it might be contended,
that the Legislature of a State, the Constitution of which establishes the boundaries
thereof, could change the territorial limits, as to maintain that the Legislature of Virginia could have made this transfer of a portion of her territory. What right, then,
it may be asked, had the Legislature of Virginia to cede that portion of the territory
which is now included within the District of Columbia? The question is easily answered. It was derived from the Constitution of the United States, and its ratification by the Convention of the State; and the admitted necessity of a clear delegation
of power to authorize that cession is, of itself, a good argument to show that nothing
less than such authority could authorize any other. As it is agreed, on all sides, that
Virginia cannot now transfer to the United States an acre of her territory, except for
certain purposes specified in the Constitution, it is for those who contend that the
cession under consideration was not a perfect nullity, to show that her Legislature had
greater power to dismember the State than at present.
As to the right of the United States to hold, dispose of and govern the territory,
and to enact the ordinance of 1787, they all depend upon the powers delegated by
the articles of confederation, and involve the question whether that feeble Confederation, which was limited to powers expressly granted, among which these were not
included, could do more than the present powerful National Union, with all its train
of incidental powers. It is admitted thgt the United States cannot now, even with
the consent of every State in the Union, purchase or hold a foot of land within any
State, except in the few cases permitted by the Constitution, and this merely because
no such power has been delegated to them; and that they could neither dispose of
any part of the public domain, nor make any rules or regulations concerning it, but
for the powers that have been specially delegated to them for these purposes. How,
then, could they do all these things under the confederation which granted no such
powers, and the second article of which prohibited them from exercising any sover.




190                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
eignty, power, jurisdiction or right which was not therein expressly delegated to them?
It would seem that every candid mind must admit that the exercise of these powers
by the Confederation was not only unauthorized, but expressly forbidden. It follows, then, that the United States acquired neither the territory, nor the jurisdiction
over it, by the cession of Virginia. To whom, then, it may be asked, did the right
of jurisdiction belong? Like all countries abandoned by their owners, it was subject
only to the laws of nature and of nations, and belonged to the people that possessed
it. They owed allegiance to no other state or nation than Virginia, and were entitled to her protection; and as they could not transfer the right of protection, so,
neither, could she transfer the right of allegiance. When, therefore, they were
formally abandoned by the only government that had any claim to their obedience,
they were of course independent. It was upon this very principle that the Swiss
declared their independence, and maintained it, with all the rights of domain and
empire, against the Emperor of Germany. "The country of Zug, attacked by the
Swiss in 1352, sent for succor to the Duke of Austria, its sovereign; but that Prince,
being employed in talking of his birds, when the deputies appeared before him, would
scarcely condescend to hear them; upon which this people, thus abandoned, entered
into the Helvetic confederacy," (Vattell, 155) and were rightfully lost to their former
sovereign forever, by his failure to afford them that support which, from the reciprocal obligation of allegiance and protection, they were entitled to.
Well, then, if neither Virginia nor the United States had any right to govern
these people, and the ordinance of 1787 was void as an act of the Congress of Confederation, have they gone all this time without any government at all? Certainly
not. They have been constantly governed, and under the ordinance, too; but then
it derived its force not from the authority of the United States, but the consent of
the people themselves. Being free to choose what government they pleased, they
had as much right to submit to this as to any other. Their own consent was all that
was wanting, and this was equally valid whether given tacitly or expressly. But,
however given, it could impart no power, right or jurisdiction to the United States
which had not been delegated by the articles of confederation. Consent cannot give
jurisdiction to a court, and still less to a government prohibited from exercising
any power, jurisdiction or right which had not been expressly delegated to it.
Although the State Government had only been in operation for four
years, under the Constitution, the whole State was again thrown in commotion in consequence of efforts being made to elect members in favor of
calling a'Convention to amend the Constitution. Those in favor of the
Convention not being able, at that time, to point out any particular defect
in the form of government, were strongly suspected to have for their object
the amendment of the Constitution so as to allow the introduction of slavery.
This party was afraid to openly avow such a change to be their object, but
failing to point out others sufficiently important to incur the expense and
inconvenience from too frequent a change of the fundamental law of the
land, the anti-slavery party was aroused; and never was a people more
agitated than were the voters of the State, for the period commencing the
latter end of 1821 and terminating after the election of 1824, which
resulted in a triumphant majority against slavery. The anti-Convention




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                191
party, through their newspapers, hand-bills, public addresses of candidates,
politicians, and from the pulpit, proclaimed the object of the Convention,
and opened their batteries against the evils of slavery. Those in favor of
its introduction, although more secretly engaged, were more active in whispering into the ears of the settlers from the Southern States the advantage
the State would derive from an immediate and rapid immigration from the
Southern States. They referred to Missouri, into which, at that time, the
emigration from the Southern States was very large; they appealed to
their sympathies in favor of a population whose habits, manners and customs were more assimilated to their own; they endeavored to excite their
prejudices against the'Yankees,' by representing them to be a close, mean
and niggardly set of people. Strange as it may seem, the most talented
advocates of the proposed change were from the free States, whilst Gov.
Edwards, Judge Pope and Daniel P. Cook, the avowed leaders of the antiConvention party, were from slave States, and two of whom were slaveholders. There were, however, able co-operators with them from the free
States, among whom were Judge Lockwood, Hon. David J. Baker, William
H. Brown, Alfred Coules, and others. The prejudices among the Southern
and Western people were, at that time, very great against the'Yankees;'
and to such an extent did this sentiment prevail, that it was generally believed that nearly all those seeking public favor, from that portion of the
Union, denied that they were'Yankees,' but claimed to be New-Yorkers!
I have heard Mr. Cook say, that, on one occasion, he stayed all night with
a farmer, in the southern portion of the State, and, during a conversation,
he inquired of him the news; to which question the farmer replied that
"there was none, except they were afraid that d —  little yankee, Cook,
would be elected to Congress!"  The conversation continued, on various
subjects, during the evening; and on Mr. Cook's taking leave of him, in
the morning, the farmer was so much pleased with him that he inquired of
him his name. Mr. C. replied that he was "that d   yankee, Cook," he
alluded to the previous evening! From that time the farmer became his
devoted friend.
From the fact that nearly all of the Northern and Eastern inhabitants
were the friends of Gov. Edwards and Mr. Cook, they lost many supporters
from the Western and Southern States.
In the year 1818, Gov. Coles came to Illinois, bringing a letter of introduction from President Monroe to Governor Edwards. The following is a
copy of the letter:
WASHINGTON, April 13, 1818.
Dear Sir:
Mr. Edward Coles, intending to pass through Illinois, probably to remain some
time there, I take much pleasure in introducing him to your acquaintance and kind
attention. I have long known and highly respected him for his excellent qualities




192                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
and good understanding. He was, several years, Private Secretary to the late President, and employed by him in a confidential message to Russia-in which trusts he
discovered sound judgment, great industry and fidelity, and is generally beloved by
those who know him best. Should he settle with you, you will find him a very useful acquisition-and I understand that is not an improbable event.
I hope that the arrangement made this winter will avail our country of your services, in the proposed treaty with the Indians, in a manner satisfactory to yourself;
for success, on just principles, is the object of my most ardent wishes.
With great respect and esteem,
I am, dear sir, very sincerely yours,
JAMES MONROE.
In a very short time afterwards, Gov. Coles received the appointment of
Register of the Land Office at Edwardsville. In this way he had a good
opportunity of making the acquaintance of the people, and, being very polite and gentlemanly in his manners, he had a great many warm friends.
On his arrival in the State, he also brought with him a very large family
of negroes from Virginia, to whom he not only gave their freedom, but also
aided in furnishing their houses. These circumstances, and his opposition
to slavery, contributed in a great degree to his success in the election for
Governor of the State, in 1822. He was afterwards sued, and judgment
obtained against him, for the penalty imposed for a violation of the statute
which prohibited the introduction of negroes into the State. The Legislature remitted the amount of the penalty for which a judgment had been
obtained against him in favor of the county of Madison. The circuit court,
over which Judge McRoberts (afterwards Senator in Congress) presided,
denied the constitutional power of the Legislature to remit the fine, but the
supreme court reversed this opinion.
At the session of 1822, a resolution passed recommending the electors,
at the next election for members of the General Assembly, to vote "For"
or "Against" a Convention for the purpose of amending the Constitution.
I have already alluded to the object of calling the Convention, and to the
arguments that were advanced in favor of making this a slave State. As
the friends of slavery had succeeded in electing a very large majority of
the members of the Legislature, they were confident, if they could succeed
in securing a sufficient number of votes in favor of the Convention, they
could also elect a majority of delegates in favor of amending the Constitution so as to allow the introduction of slavery. It, then, became a matter
of great importance to point out the evils of the Constitution, and the necessary amendments to remedy them. Gov. Coles having called the attention of the Legislature, in his message, to the fact that slavery still existed
in the State, notwithstanding the ordinance of 1787, the Convention party
had so much of his message as related to that subject referred to a select
committee. The committee, composed of those in favor of the Convention,
made an elaborate report, sustaining the right of the settlers at the time




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   193
of the cession of the territory, by Virginia, to the United States, to hold
their slaves.  They also contended that the descendants of such slaves
could be held in perpetual bondage, and that there was no way by which
slavery could be even gradually abolished, without an amendment to the
Constitution. Their report, with resolutions sustaining this view of the
subject, was adopted by a large majority of the House of Representatives.
Thus we see that the right of the French to hold their slaves was conceded
by the Legislature, not only by resolutions declaring this right, but by laws
on various subjects referring to this class of our population as slaves.
These resolutions and reports were intended to entrap the friends of frecdom to vote for the Convention, by inducing them to believe that the
Constitution could be amended so as to abolish instead of establishing
slavery. The people were not so easily imposed upon, and the result was, as
I have already stated, that the call for the Convention was defeated by a
very large majority.
William H. Brown, Esq., of Chicago, at that time one of the editors of
the "Illinois Intelligencer," in an editorial article of the 15th Feb., 1823,
thus refers to the extraordinary proceedings of the Legislature that were
adopted for the purpose of calling the Convention:
Since the commencement of the present General Assembly, the subject of calling
a Convention to amend the Constitution has been a topic of conversation in and out
of the State House; and although I knew that the sole aim and avowed object of
this measure was to introduce into this State, by a legislative provision, that worst of
all evils, the evil of slavery-for reasons best known to myself, during the pendency
of this question, I have never penned one single sentence either for or against this contemplated change of policy. And even at this time, had not extraordinary means
been resorted to, to effect the object, I am not prepared to say that, in my editorial
capacity, I should have called in question the expediency or propriety of the measure.
It may be remembered by the reader that some days since, a resolution, recommending the people to vote for or against a Convention, was introduced into the
House of Representatives, and found twenty-two votes in its favor and fourteen
against it. At that time, there not being a constitutional majority, it was reconsidered and laid upon the table. From this period down to Tuesday last (by means
which it does not become me to state) a change of two votes was effected, and on
that day the House took up and proceeded to consider the resolution upon this subject from the Senate, which had passed that body by a bare constitutional majority.
When the question was put in the House of Representatives, Mr. Hanson, the member from Pike county, who had on a former occasion voted for, now voted against it,
and the question was lost. Mr. Darnwood of Gallatin, who had voted for the resolution, and was, of course, one of the constitutional minority, moved to reconsider
the vote; which the Speaker correctly and promptly decided to be out of order.
An appeal was taken from his decision, which was sustained by a decided vote.
It will be recollected that, during the first days of the session, John Shaw, a
citizen of Pike county, contested the election of Mr. Hanson, and, after a full and
fair investigation, the committee of elections recommended the right of Mr. Hanson,
in which recommendation the House concurred. Mr. Hanson continued to occupy
25




194                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
his seat, thus solemnly confirmed to him, until Wednesday last, when Mr. Ford, one
of the committee on elections, moved to reconsider the vote taken on concurring in
the report, and resolutions accompanying it, of the committee on elections, on this
contested election; The question was put and decided in the affirmative, by a vote
of 22 to 13. Upon Mr. Field's motion, John Shaw was permitted to a seat in the
House, and the documents were again read. An additional document was introduced,
purporting to be the affidavit of Levi Roberts, Esq., and sworn to the 28th of January
last, (no notice of the taking of which was even pretended to be given,) which affidavit
gave it as the opinion of the affiant that John Shaw received a larger number of
votes than Mr. Hanson. Mr. Field then moved to strike out the name of "Nicholas
Hanson," and insert in lieu thereof the name of "John Shaw." Mr. Hanson was
turned out and John Shaw admitted to his seat. The question was soon taken upon
concurring in the resolution, from the Senate, recommending a Convention, and carried by a constitutional majority-John Shaw supplying the place of Mr. Hanson.
At the next session, the General Assembly adopted the following resolutions, on the subject of slavery, to-wit:
WHEREAS the General Assembly of the State of Ohio did, on the 17th day of January, 1824, pass the following resolutions, by way of propositions to the States and
Congress, viz:
"Resolved, That the consideration of a system providing for the gradual emancipation of the people of color, held in servitude in the United States, be recommended
to the Legislatures of the several States of the American Union and to the Congress
of the United States.
"Resolved, That, in the opinion of this General Assembly, a system of foreign colonization, with correspondent measures, might be adopted, that would, in due time,
effect the entire emancipation of the slaves in our country, without any violation of
the national compact or infringement of the rights of individuals, by the passage of
a law by the General Government, (with the consent of the slaveholding States,)
which would provide that all children of persons now held in slavery, born after the
passage of such law, should be free at the age of twenty-one years, (being supported
during their minority by the person claiming the service of the parent,) provided, they
then consent to be transported to the place of colonization.
"'Resolved, That it is expedient that such a system should be predicated on the
principle that the evil of slavery is a national one, and that the people and the
States of this Union ought mutually to participate in the duties and burthens of removing it." Therefore,
Resolved by the General Assembly'of the State of Illinois, That it is expedient to concur in the plan proposed in the aforesaid resolutions.
By an act which passed in January, 1829, negroes and mulattoes, not
being citizens of the United States, could gain a residence in the State by
producing to the county commissioners' court a certificate of his or her
freedom, and also by giving bond, with security, in the sum of $1,000, that
would not become a charge upon the county, and would demean themselves
in strict conformity with the laws of the State. If such persons were found
in the State without a certificate of their freedom, they were liable to be
taken up and sold for one year-on the expiration of which time, if no person claimed them, they were entitled to a certificate which would allow them
to remain in the StAte, as free persons, until their owner claimed them.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               195
FREE SCHOOLS FIRST ESTABLISIED IN UPPER ALTON.
The proprietors of Upper Alton having donated one hundred town lots,
one-half for the support of the gospel and the other half for the support of
public schools in said town, an act passed, in 1821, incorporating trustees,
and authorizing them, in addition to the powers usually granted to towns,
to lay a tax not exceeding seventy-five cents on each lot, (not including the
one hundred lots donated by the proprietors,) to be applied to the support
of teachers and the erection or repairing of buildings. This school was
declared to be open and free to all, of a suitable age, within the limits of
the town. Up to this period no school system had been adopted, and no
provision had been made for the support of schools-with the exception of
the small amount that might be realized from leasing the school lands-until the session of 1825, at which time an act passed for the establishment
of free schools throughout the State.
As it will doubtless be interesting to the friends of education and free
schools, I will give the outlines of that act. The preamble to the act,
which was entitled "An act providing for the establishment of free schools,"
is as follows, viz: "To enjoy our rights and liberties, we must understand
them: their security and protection ought to be the first object of a free
people; and it is a well established fact, that no nation has ever continued
long in the enjoyment of civil and political freedom, which was not both
virtuous and enlightened. And believing that the advancement of literature always has been and ever will be the means of more fully developing
the rights of man-that the mind of every citizen in a republic is the common property of society, and constitutes the basis of its strength and happiness-it is therefore considered the peculiar duty of a free government,
like ours, to encourage and extend the improvement and cultivation of the
intellectual energies of the whole. Therefore"SEC. 1. Be it enacted, etc., That there shall be established a common
school or schools in each of the counties of this State, which shall be open
and free to every class of white citizens between the ages of five and twentyone years: Provided, that persons over the age of twenty-one years may
be admitted into such schools, on such terms as the trustees of the school
districts may prescribe."
Section 2d provided that the county courts should form school districts,
upon a petition for that purpose, by a majority of the qualified voters within the proposed district: Provided, that such districts shall contain not
less than fifteen families.
Section 3d provided for the election, by the voters of the district, of three
trustees, a clerk, treasurer, and assessor and collector, who were required
to take an oath of office faithfully to discharge their respective duties.




196                   HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The trustees were required to superintend the schools; to examine and
employ the teachers; to lease the land; to call meetings of the voters
whenever they deemed it expedient, or at any time when requested by five
legal voters, by giving to each one at least five days' notice of the time
and place of holding the same; to make an annual report, to the county
court, of the number of children in their respective districts between the
ages of five and twenty-one years, and the number of them actually attending school, with a certificate of the time a school has been kept in the district, and the probable expense of the same; to purchase or receive any
property, real or personal, for the use of the district; to give orders on the
treasurer for all sums expended in paying teachers, and all other expense
incurred in establishing and supporting schools in the district; and at the
regular meeting of the inhabitants, the trustees, as well as all other officers,
were required to settle their accounts which accrued during the year for
which they were elected. The duties of the respective officers were clearly
defined, and the assessors were required to assess all such property, lying
within and belonging to the inhabitants of the district, as he was directed
to assess, by a vote of the majority of the voters of such district.
The legal voters of each district had power to appoint a time and place
of holding annual meetings; to select school house sites; to levy a taxeither in cash or good merchantable produce, at cash price-upon the inhabitants of the district, not exceeding one-half per centum, nor ambunting to more than ten dollars per annum on any one person; and to do all
and everything necessary to the establishment and support of schools within the same.
The State appropriated, for the support of schools, two dollars out of
every hundred received into the treasury, and five sixths of the interest
arising from the school funds-which was divided annually between the
different counties, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in
each county under twenty-one years of age. The treasurer of the county,
to whom was paid the amount belonging to the county, was required to
make a like distribution among such districts of the county as had kept a
school in actual operation at least three months in the year, for which the
appropriation was made.
The rents arising from the school lands were directed to be divided
among such of the inhabitants of the township as had contributed, by tax,
subscription or otherwise, to the support of a common school in or near
the township, for at least three months within the last twelve months preceding the time of making such dividend; and such division was made in
proportion to the sum contributed by each person to the support of such
common school.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              197
The commissioners of the school fund were directed to invest the same
in the purchase of the indebtedness of the State, at its market value..
The county clerks were required to make an extract of the reports
of the trustees, stating the number of children within each district, the
number actually sent to school, the time a school had been kept in operation in each district, with an account of the expenditures of the sameand forward it to the Secretary of State on the 1st day of December, annually.
The inhabitants of the district were required to make regulations for
building and repairing school houses, and for furnishing the same with
furniture and fuel. They had power to class themselves, and agree upon
the number of days each person or class should work in making improvements, and to make such other regulations as they might deem necessary
for that purpose: Provided, that no person should be required to work,
unless he had the care of a child who attended the school for the purpose
of receiving instruction.
The collectors and treasurers were required to give a bond, with security, for the faithful application of the money received by them.
The free school system which had been adopted in 1825 was modified
by an act which passed on the 17th February, 1827, in several important
respects:
1. On the application of the inhabitants of any settlement which was
partly situated in two counties, the commissioners' court of both counties
could lay off a district to be formed out of territory taken from each of
their counties.
2. The legal voters had power to cause either the whole or one-half of
the sum required to keep a school, in such district, to be raised by taxation; and if only one-half shall be raised by taxation, the remainder might
be required to be paid by those who sent pupils to the school: Provided,
that no person could be taxed, for the support of any free school in the
State, without his consent first had and obtained, in writing. No person
was, however, permitted to send any scholar to such school as was supported either wholly or partly by taxation, unless such person had either
consented to be taxed, or had obtained the permission of the trustees.
3. By an act, which passed on the same day, it was made the duty of
the county court to appoint trustees for each. township, whose duty was
in most respects similar to that now conferred upon the trustees of schools.
At the session of 1829, an act passed-on the condition that Congress
should assent to the sale of the sixteenth section -for the appointment, by
the county court, of a school commissioner, who, on the petition of ninetenths of the freeholders of any township, was authorized to sell the sixteenth section, in tracts of not greater than eighty acres, at public sale,




198                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
and for any price not less than $1.25 per acre. After the lands had been
offered at public sale, they could be entered at private sale by the payment
of $1.25 per acre, in cash. It was the duty of the school commissioner
to loan the money at as high an interest as he could get, by taking good
security, for the use of the schools of the proper township-the interest
of which was to be distributed, under such restrictions and regulations as
the county court should deem right, by the trustees of schools, among the
schools of the township. This was the origin of the present township fund.
An act also passed, at this session, for the sale of the seminary lands.
The free school system was also virtually destroyed by the repeal of the
appropriation, out of the State treasury, of two dollars out of every one
hundred paid in, annually, by taxation, and by the law which prohibited
the levy of a tax without the consent of the inhabitants.
Having given a general outline of the legislation of the Territorial and
State Governments, the reader will be better prepared to understand and
properly appreciate the following speech of Gov. Edwards, during his canvass for Governor, at the election held on the 1st Monday of August, 1826:
By the eighteenth section of the eighth article of our Constitution, it is declared
that "a frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of civil government is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty." The experience of the whole
world bears testimony to this great political truth. Unfortunately, such is the nature
of man, that, in the fruition of the greatest blessings, he is most apt to become insensible to their intrinsic value, forgetful of the source from whence they emanate, and
careless of the means of preserving them. As the individual who has always enjoyed
uninterrupted health is, of all others, the most likely to forget its natural tendency to
deterioration and decay, so communities, long blessed with the highest perfection of
civil and religious liberty, are too prone to indulge in a false security against those
dangers to which all human institutions are liable. The warning voice of experience
admonishes us to guard against this disposition of our nature. However prosperous
our condition, such are the wise dispensations of an overruling Providence, that our
own exertions are necessary to preserve it; nor can the most vigilant precautions for
that purpose be pretermitted with impunity. And hence arises the necessity of reviewing those great events which have contributed to the establishment of our liberty,
and of frequently recurring to the fundamental principles of civil government, on
which it is founded, to enable us to maintain it in its greatest purity, and to hand it
down unimpaired as the most precious legacy to a grateful posterity.
No time seems to me more suitable for those purposes than an occasion which has
a direct reference to the great and inestimable right of election-the vital principle
of all free representative governlments and the solid foundation of the mighty political
fabric which we have erected. I therefore trust that a few general remarks, on those
subjects, will not be unacceptable to you on the present occasion.
In the contemplation of our present prosperous and happy condition, compared with
that of all other nations of the world, it seems to be impossible for any human heart
not to dilate with gratitude to that Almighty Being, who has so signally smiled upon
our efforts, and irradiated with the light of His countenance the path that has conducted us to our present glorious preeminence. Equally difficult is it for a rational




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     199
and reflecting mind to resist the belief that we have been thus peculiarly favored,
protected and supported for some great and wise purpose of His inscrutable providence. In the long period, of more than fifty-eight hundred years, which have elapsed
since the creation of the world, neither tradition nor history furnishes any example
of a nation that has been so blessed with every rational means of comfort and happiness, as we have been; and did our gratitude bear anything like a just proportion to
these transcendent blessings, we should undoubtedly be the most moral and religious
people on earth.
About two hundred and twenty years ago, these United States were one immense
forest-the haunt of savage beasts and still more savage men. Deprived of their civil
and religious liberties in their native land, our hardy ancestors sought, in these wilds,
an asylum from persecution; and notwithstanding the awful dangers and appalling
difficulties of settling in a savage and uncultivated country, at the distance of three
thousand miles from the abodes of civilization, such was their invincible love of liberty, that, relying upon Divine Providence, they freely encountered overy peril, and,
by surprising efforts of constancy and valor, overcame every obstacle. This noble
and undaunted spirit, inculcated by precept and animated by example, was transmitted through all the succeeding generations to the period of our Revolution, when it
produced that determined resistance of British aggression which secured to the American name imperishable renown, and made us a free and independent nation. It is
consolatory to every patriotic bosom, in looking back through the vista of a few past
ages only, to observe that, from a band of persecuted exiles, this mighty nation has
arisen, of limits larger than those of any other, with a population now sufficient to defend us against the whole world, and still increasing with amazing rapidity; and whose
progress in all the arts of civilized life, in science, in refinement, in physical and
moral power, and in every species of national prosperity, transcends that of any that
now is or that ever existed.
Having learned practical wisdom in the school of adversity, and moderating their
views by the sober dictates of experience, our forefathers, equally avoiding the Charybdis of monarchy and the Sylla of anarchy, laid the foundations of civil liberty which
have hitherto secured our happiness, and by which we have been enabled to exhibit
to the world the sublime example of the entire practicability of a government founded
upon the just and equal rights of man.
True, genuine, rational, well-regulated liberty may, therefore, be almost said to
have had its birth in America. Matured and cherished by the affection and sustained
by the blood of the first adventurers of this happy land-guarded by the patriotic vigilance and protected by the valor of their descendants-it has, by the care, integrity
and wisdom of our Washingtons, Franklins, Jeffersons, Madisons, and their compatriots, been brought to that unparalleled perfection in which it is now our felicitous
lot to enjoy it.
Our own direct interest, therefore, a proper respect for the memory of our virtuous
and valiant ancestors, duty to our posterity, and our obligations to that Divine Providence by whose behests we seem to have been destined to become a shining light
unto the world, all conspire to demand our most sedulous and devoted exertions to
merit, to preserve and to perpetuate to all future generations the blessings of that
precious boon which has thus descended to us; and, by the moral force of our example, to dispel the mists of error, to vindicate the rights of man, and to burst asunder
all those chains of bondage that enslave the rest of the world.
Think you, my countrymen, because there is no enemy now thundering at our gates
and demanding the surrender of the citadel of our liberties, that there is no danger?




200                      HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
If so, discard the dangerous, fatal delusion. Remember, that although all mankind
were created with equal rights and with the love of liberty implanted in every human
bosom, yet all, with the exception of ourselves, have, sooner or later, by the supineness and folly of themselves or their ancestors, fallen from this high estate and been
compelled to bend their necks to the galling yoke of thraldom. Recollect, also, that
although, for a nation to be free, it is only necessary that she herself wills it, yet ours
is the only really free nation on the earth. Let us, therefore, look to the experience
of others, as warning beacons, to guide from the dangerous vortices that have engulfed them in ruin. Just, as is the cause of free principles and equal rights, we should
not forget that there is, at this day, an alliance (nicknamed holy) of some of the greatest potentates of the earth, to prevent its progress, and that, of all the nations of
the old world, there is not one that is not arrayed against it.
Mankind has long been divided in opinion as to what form of government is best
calculated to secure the welfare and promote the happiness of a nation; and, strange
as it may appear, there is too much reason to believe that, great as has been the triumph of our system over prejudice and opposition, it has not been sufficient to convince even all of our own fellow-citizens of its superiority.'Men of sinister motives
and inordinate ambition, disposed to aim at uncontrolled power, there ever have been
and ever will be, whose talents will be united to compass the destruction of equal
rights and to establish exclusive privileges and arbitrary power. Availing themselves
of the unsuccessful experiments of all the ancient republics and of the disastrous issue
of the late French revolution, the enemies of our system have labored and are incessantly laboring to demonstrate that it is Utopian, visionary and impracticable, and
that we shall ultimately have to exchange our sentiments of liberty for the chains
that hold other nations captive.
But while I admit that there is enough of similitude between the ancient republics
and our own to induce us to take warning from their experience, and to awaken our
vigilance to guard against their errors, I contend that we are not in the same imminent danger that they were-not only because we have all the advantage of their
experience, but because our government is free from those inherent defects and
imperfections which mainly contributed to the unfortunate catastrophies of theirs.
These were not self-balanced, like ours, and of course were more liable to yield to
violence and power-to the strategems of popular demagogues and to the momentary
infatuation and sudden commotions of the people themselves; but, above all, they
lacked that pure and genuine representative principle which constitutes the perfection of our system.
Ours is a compound republic, composed of two descriptions of government: the
one federal, the other local and municipal-both being necessary to and instituted
for the safety and happiness of the people, and equally dependent upon their will.
The principal objects of the former are the common defense against internal convulsions and foreign aggression, the maintenance of a just and friendly intercourse
between the different members of the Union, and the management of all our affairs,
political and commercial, with foreign nations. The objects of the latter are all
those domestic affairs that relate to the personal interests of the people and to the
internal tranquillity, improvement and prosperity of the respective States.
This division of powers between the two governments renders them much less
capable of being perverted to purposes of usurpation and oppression than if all those
powers were concentrated in any one government, and, moving within their respective orbits, the barriers of our liberty are strengthened by their mutual tendency to
prevent any dangerous aberrations by either. The powers surrendered to them,




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     201
respectively, by the people, have been happily separated and distributed into different departments, which, mutually checking each other, insures cautious inquiry and
deliberate investigation-while the people, who are the acknowledged source of all
legitimate power, have a right to sit in judgment upon the conduct of all their public servants, and, by the power which they have retained by changing them at certain stated periods, can effect any other change they please-either in the Federal
or State Government-in a tranquil, pacific and constitutional mode. This system,
which is adapted to almost any extent of territory, already embraces such a widespread population, and such a multiplicity and variety of interests, as to render any
dangerous internal combinations against our peace, safety and happiness extremely
difficult. In all these respects, as well as in many others arising from the physical
situation of our country, we possess decided advantages over all the ancient republics.
Nor can our situation be justly assimilated to that of the late French republic. It is
true that, when that nation commenced its republican career, the recollection of
their past services to us in our struggle for freedom, sympathy for their situation, and
a virtuous desire for the progress of our own principles, caused every American
bosom to swell with anxiety for their success, and inspired us all with the animating
hope of their emancipation of millions of our fellow creatures, and of seeing another
bright and impressive example of the justice and practicability of free government.
But if our disappointment has been mortifying, there is something consolatory and
encouraging in the contrast between their conduct and ours, for while theirs affords
an admonishing lesson of the danger of a nation's trusting to its own self-sufficiency
to accomplish its happiness, it equally evinces the superior wisdom of ours, in looking to an overruling Providence, who holds the destinies of nations in the palm of
His hand, to guide us'in our duties and to crown our efforts with His blessing.
If any one doubt that wickedness and impiety have an inevitable tendency to the
destruction of any nation, he need take very little trouble to find enough, both in
profane and sacred history, to remove all his scepticism on this subject. He may
find, in the histories of Babylon and Ninevah, and even in that of the highly favored
Jews, themselves, such signal instances of Divine chastisements, as will leave him
at no loss to account for the unfortunate issue of the French revolution. Suddenly
emerging, as they did, from the lowest depths of despotism into uncontrolled liberty,
and indulging all its licentiousness, their system itself had Its origin in popular
frenzy; and, relying upon their own self-sufficiency, instead of looking to Divine
Providence for assistance, they endeavored to establish a new era, to be denominated
"the age of reason"-and with an inconsiderate eagerness to explode all old systems
and to free themselves from all those restraints which ever will be found necessary
for the government of mankind, they impiously though vainly attempted to undermine the very foundations of religion itself. By which means, after shedding oceans
of human blood, and passing through all the horrors of anarchy, they have been
compelled to surrender that liberty which they had so grossly abused, and to sink
again into the degrading condition of abject slavery.
On the other hand, throughout our whole revolutionary contest, our old Congress,
our illustrious Washington, and all the distinguished actors upon the theater of our
revolution, were in the constant habit, as may be seen by the records of that period,
of imploring the aid of the Almighty, and of attributing their success to His divine
beneficence. And oir system of government, which was the result of steady habits,
sedate reflection and progressive developments, is not only predicated on the reality
of religion, but relies upon its sanctions for the faithful administration of our affairs.
Comment surely cannot be necessary, either to demonstrate or to enforce the great
-26




202                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
moral lesson which this striking contrast teaches. But, my countrymen, although
there is nothing in the cases referred to to produce despair in regard to the eventual
success of the great cause in which we are engaged, there is yet enough to premonish us against supineness and inattention to its interests. Secure as it may be, at
this time, in this favored land, against open assaults, it is not exempt, even here,
from the danger of the insidious arts of the designing and ambitious, and we should
at all times bear in mind that, as all our institutions depend for their support upon
public virtue, whatever tends to lay the foundations of the latter, proportionably
endangers the former. Our liberty should not be regarded as a mere exemption
from bondage, but as a means of usefulness placed within our power, and imposing
upon us the highest obligations to endeavor to improve our own condition and to
advance the interests of mankind. Many talents have been committed to our charge;
the opportunities of improving them are highly propitious. Let us, then, not act
the part of the wicked and slothful servant, lest our unfaithfulness should provoke
a similar condemnation. We have, indeed, a high destiny to fulfill. Liberty, though
driven from all her abodes in the Old World, is, happily, extending her empire over
this hemisphere. Twenty millions of the inhabitants of the southern part of this
continent are beginning to enjoy her benign and happy influence. The most of them
have adopted our system as their model. Our continued example is necessary to
their permanent success; and if they and we act well our respective parts, we may
reasonably indulge the pleasing, cheering hope that it is reserved to the New World,
by the moral force of her example, to regenerate and reform the Old. Great, therefore, is our encouragement to persevere in that prudent and virtuous course by
which we have attained our present happiness and glory. Having "tried it," and,
by long experience, proved it to be "good,;' let us "hold fast to it."
Our local, not less than the general government, demands our care and attention;
and with such abundant causes of felicitation in regard to the latter, I wish it were
in my power to congratulate you upon an equally auspicious aspect of our domestic
concerns-but this neither truth nor duty will permit. On the contrary, it is not
to be disguised, we have, for some time past, and now are laboring under the paralyzing influence of a system of measures, equally oppressive to the people, ruinous
to the resources of the State, and disgraceful to its character-results which must
appear the more extraordinary and difficult to be justified, by contrasting our situation immediately after we became a State, with what it has subsequently been.
At that time, owing to the paucity of our population and the limited objects of tax -
ation, arising partly therefrom and partly from the exemption from taxation of the
military bounty lands for three years after the date of the patents, and of the public
lands for five years after the sale of them, there was a necessity for subjecting us to
higher taxes than had ever been imposed upon any other part of the Western country, to enable the State to discharge certain Territorial arrearages, to defray the
expenses of our Convention, and to meet the current demands of the Government.
The taxes then imposed, however, were found sufficient for all these purposes; and
nothing was more confidently anticipated than their speedy reduction.
At that time the expenses necessarily required, by the organization, are objects
of the Government-with the exception of a trifling amount arising from the addition of a few members to the Legislature-were precisely the same that they were
in the early part of last year, or at any intermediate period. Yet, notwithstanding
the vast increase of our population, the great augmentation of our personal property, and the accession of the whole of the county and a considerable portion of other




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    203
lands to the objects of taxation, our taxes have not yet been reduced; but our revenue, as if diminishing in an inverse ratio to the multiplication of our financial resources, was, at the close of the session of the Legislature in 1825, and before a
single expense had been incurred in consequence of the new organization of the judiciary, found deficient in the means of meeting the demands on it to a very large
amount, which had to be supplied by an emission of Auditor's warrants. Even now
the current expenses of the Government do not exceed $25,000, which must be much
less than the revenue arising from the military bounty land, alone, every acre of
which has, for several years past, been subject to taxation. Of these lands there
are 3,500,000, which, at one cent per acre, or one dollar per hundred acres, the lowest rate of taxation, amount to $35,000. Rated in the second class the amount
would be $52,500, and in the first $70,000. What proportion has been entered in
the first class, or whether any, I know not. It is certain, however, that a very large
quantity has been listed in the second; so that it may be fairly inferred that the
revenue which they ought to have yielded cannot be short of $40,000, which is $15,000 more than the whole amount of the current expenses of the Government.
It is evident, therefore, that with judicious management this source of revenue
alone would have been sufficient to have defrayed all our necessary expenses, and
left in the treasury, a large amount surplus, available for the purposes of internal
improvement, or any other object of domestic prosperity.  But when, with this
source of revenue, we take into view all others that have accrued, in addition to
the original objects of our taxation, which, of themselves, had been found sufficient
to pay off all our Territorial arrearages and to defray the expenses of the Government, they not only increase the difficulty of accounting for so large a deficit in the
treasury, but greatly highten the very reprehensible character of that wretched system of policy, which had its origin in the legislation of last year, of paying out our
State paper at the enormous discount of three dollars for one.
By this wonderful expedient, our financial resources have been subjected to the
same exhausting operation as if the Legislature had actually borrowed money, at two
hundred per cent. interest, to pay the debts of the State and to defray every item of
public expenditure-as will appear by the following consideration. According to the
charter of the State Bank, the State has bound itself to redeem all the notes of the
bank that may be presented to it, in gold and silver coins, in the year 1831, and in the
meantime, to receive them in discharge of any debts to the State; and for the fulfilment of this contract the public faith, and all the lands, town lots, funds, revenue
and other property of the State, have been solemnly and effectually pledged. This,
then, is the contract between the State and the holders of the notes of the bank, and
as the Constitution has expressly declared that "no law impairing the validity of contracts shall ever be made," it follows that all these notes must be redeemed with gold
and silver within five years from this time, if not sooner done. When, therefore,
they are thus received at par and paid out at three dollars for one, the public loss
must necessarily be equivalent to the payment of 200 per cent. interest. To illustrate
this subject to the entire conviction of any rational mind, a few examples of the practical operation of the system are all that can be necessary. The salary of a circuit
judge is $600, for which he receives $1800 in State paper. In like manner a judge
of the supreme court, whose salary is $800, receives $2400 in State paper, and the
Governor, whose salary is $1000, receives $3000 in State paper-so that the people
will have to pay $1800 for every circuit judge, $2400 for every supreme judge, and
$3000 for the Governor. Upon the same principle, supposing the expenses of the




204                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Government, including those for rebuilding the State House, for the twelve months
ending with June last, to have amounted to $15,000 (and I am informed they were
more), a debt of $150,000 for the payment of those expenses has been imposed upon
the people which will eventually have to be wrung out of them by taxation, thereby
producing a clear loss to them of $100,000 in one year, and this with no other consolation for it than that of a little indulgence as to the time of payment-at the expiration of which they may find it just as inconvenient to pay as it would now be.
Now, my countrymen, what is the effect of this system upon you individually?
Stripped of its disguise, nothing is clearer than that it must render the taxes of each
one of you three times as much as they would otherwise have been-for as a community is but an aggregate of individuals, so the debts of the former are due and payable
in just and fair proportion by the latter; and as the State reserves a lien upon every
man's property for its proportion of taxes, this unwisely accumulated debt attaches
to the property of each of you, operating as a mortgage upon it, to secure the payment of your respective proportions thereof.
Are you, then, willing to have your property thus subjected, unnecessarily, to a
triple tax? No State, whatever its energies and resources, could long withstand the
destructive power of such a system. Nothing could more effectually check the population and prosperity of our own-for emigrants to a new country are generally of that
description of people who are neither the most able nor the most willing to pay high
taxes; and a public debt, increasing in this ratio, would soon swell to such magnitude
as would not only be outrageously oppressive to our present inhabitants, but would
effectually deter others from coming to reside among us.
Our situation at this time, though better than it was last year, is yet too bad to be
patiently endured. Our Government is now receiving State paper at par, and paying
it out at two dollars for one, which is equivalent to borrowing money at 100 per cent.
interest; yet there are not wanting those, and of pretty high authority too, who profess to entertain and endeavor to inculcate the opinion that the State is not interested in the appreciation of its own paper-the absurdity of which is sufficiently manifest from this consideration, alone: that for every dollar paid out by the Government
at fifty cents, we become liable to pay one hundred. And, who does not perceive
that, as our government is now carried on with State paper, worth only fifty cents on
the dollar, its appreciation to par value would render only half as much necessary,
and of course would admit of the reduction of our taxes to one-half of the present
amount, without producing the slightest diminution of our financial capacity.
A simple fact is sufficient to present a striking and impressive view of the wasteful,
injudicious and humiliating character of those measures. It is this: that our revenue
derivable from non-residents, alone, has, for years past, amounted to between $40,000
and $50,000-double, or very nearly double the whole amount of the current expenses of the Government; and yet, with this resource, and all the contributions that
have been exacted from the inhabitants of the State, those deplorable defalcations
as sacrifices, before mentioned, have taken place-and surely nothing can be more
humiliating to our pride or disreputable to our character abroad, than that, with an
income from non-residents, alone, sufficient to take up all our paper in about four
years, it should have depreciated to one-half of its nominal value-since this can only
be accounted for on the assumption of our want of good faith and moral honesty.
There has been, fellow-citizens, another feature in our anomalous'revenue system,
so abhorrent to my feelings that I find it difficult to speak of it, either with the moderation which becomes my years, or is due to the present occasion. This is odious, in



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    205
jurious and indefensible discrimination between the citizens of the State, and nonresidents-whereby, while the last article of personal property, not exempt' from execution for debt, which the poorest man among us owns, has constantly been liable
to be taken and sold for his taxes every year, non-residents have not been compelled
to pay theirs oftener than once in two years, and even then always leaving those due
for one year uncollected. Now, although I should be one of the last men who would
wish to disturb that fair equality, as to taxation, which they are entitled to, under
our compact with the General Government, I must be permitted to observe that if
any difference had been proper, reason and justice would have required that it should
have been in favor of and not against the actual settlers of the State, on whom its defense, safety and prosperity depend.
Whether this measure was the result of design or proceeded from oversight, the
want of foresight, or no sight at all, I will not pretend to decide. It is demonstrable,
however, that its tendency has been to create, cherish and support speculation to the
manifest detriment of your interests.
As the principal part of our revenue arises from the taxes of non-residents, human
ingenuity could not have devised a more effectual scheme for producing an annual
deficit in the treasury than by permitting these taxes always to remain one year in
arrear; and this, by creating the necessity for new issues of Auditor's warrants, has
constantly afforded opportunities of speculating on them, by which the public have
lost precisely what the speculators have gained-whilst the two years indulgence has
afforded to the purchasers of lands sold for taxes an opportunity of disposing of them
at a profit, for that length of time, without being subject to the inconvenience of paying taxes upon their property, as you are bound to pay on yours. How, then, is this
discrimination to be justified? Are speculators more meritorious and useful than the
honest cultivators of the soil? If not, why should they have been so much more
highly favored?
But these are not the only objections to this measure. It was calculated to withdraw State paper from circulation among us, to accumulate it in the hands of non-residents and speculators, and, ultimately, to insure to them the benefit of discharging
their taxes in that medium, while the great body of our people would have been compelled, for the want of it, to pay theirs in cash. Depreciated, as our paper had been,
by our legislation, to less than one-third of its nominal value, and thereby increasing
the inducements to buy it up, so much of it had, in the early part of last year, passed
into the hands of non-residents, that its scarcity was greatly felt throughout every
part of the State. Judging of the future by the past,.it is reasonable to infer, from
the competition which has taken place at everypublic sale for taxes, and the evidently
increasing disposition to engage in that speculation, that our paper would have been
hoarded up for the purpose of being laid out in the purchase of lands, or in the payment of taxes on them, at the next sales. These were to have taken place in January, 1828, when there would have been three years taxes due, which would not have
amounted to less than between $120,000 and $150,000. Taking into consideration,
then, that the whole amount of our State paper is less than $200,000, and that, of
this, $60,000 are required by law to be burnt before that time, you may well judge
how much of it would have remained in circulation, available to our own people in
the payment of their taxes.
Regarding the subject in this point of view, and happening to be at Vandalia, at
the last session of the Legislature, I spared no pains to get this unwise and unjust
distinction between our own citizens and non-residents abolished; and I am happy to
have it in my power to say, that the sales for the taxes of the latter are hereafter to




206                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
be annual, which (better late than never) will cmmpel them to disburse, and enable
the Government to get into circulation a large amount of paper, which, in the course
of next year, cannot fail to afford great relief to the people, but which would otherwise have remained hoarded up for at least one year longer.
The taxes of those non-residents and speculators, for the last year, as well as our
own, became due on the first day of last October; but while you have been compelled
to pay yours, not a cent was exacted from them. Had they, like you, been required
to pay them, there would have been no necessity for a new emission of Auditor's warrants; the State would have saved all the loss consequent upon the increase of its
paper and paying it out at $2 for $1, and $40,000 more, at least, would have been
paid into the treasury, which, by the operations and disbursements of the Government,
would have been diffused throughout the State, thereby increasing our circulating
medium and facilitating to you the means of paying your present year's taxes. But
then this would have withered if not annihilated that speculation which has so long
been luxuriating upon the spoilations that have been committed upon the resources
of the State and the honest earnings of the sweat of your brows. Such impositions
as these, upon a free, high-minded and independent people, I boldly assert have no
parallel in the annals of free government, and they are only to be borne by that charity which hopeth all things, believeth all things, and endureth all things.
Nor are the innovations that have been introduced into our new-fangled revenue
system, in regard to the listing of our lands and the payment of our taxes, among the
least of our grievances. Visionary and impracticable, as their injurious effects upon
the revenue and the confusion they have created have proved those new regulations
to be, it is much to be feared that, by their preventing us from listing our own lands
and at the same time subjecting them to be sold in the names of other persons, many
an honest man may lose his land before he is apprised of his danger; but to say nothing of those other novelties and eccentricities which have given many of us much
trouble, and puzzled the best informed among us to know how to act to save our
property according to legal requirements, what reason, justice or propriety is there in
requiring the lands of residents to be sold for taxes at Vandalia? If necessary to
sell them at all, why not, as heretofore, permit them to be sold in the counties in which
they lie? The taxes could be collected with equal certainty. An advertisement at
the court house door would notify more of the inhabitants of a county than its publication for a whole year, much less three weeks only, in a paper printed at Vandalia;
the lands would be less likely to be sold without the knowledge of the owners, and,
being sold where they were known, less of them would probably be sacrificed. Is it
not, then, outrageously and insufferably oppressive that a citizen residing at the
mouth of the Ohio, or in the extreme northern parts of our settlement, should be subjected to the expense and trouble of going all the way to Vandalia, either to prevent
the sale of his lands, to pay the taxes on them, or to redeem them? For my part, I
can conceive of no one reason, in favor of this measure, except that it might multiply
the chances of buying our lands for a trifle. And are we to be converted into "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to pamper a set of merciless speculators?
I had intended to have brought into review some of the topics of our domestic policy, but I fear I have already trespassed too long upon your patience. I will, therefore, in conclusion, only add, that with a sincere desire to preserve the blessings of
liberty, and to assist in relieving our State from its present difficulties and embarrass.
ments, I offer myself to your consideration as a candidate for the office of Governor,
assuring you that if I shall be fortunate enough to be honored with the approbation of




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    207
my fellow-citizens, now peculiarly desirable to me as well from personal as public considerations, my poor abilities shall be faithfully excited to protect your interests and
to advance your happiness and prosperity-which is all I can promise.
It is, fellow-citizens, only in the sunshine of his prosperity that any man can boast
of his trumpeters.  In general all such auxiliaries are dead to him who has been
overwhelmed by the rough storms of adversity; no time is more unpropitious for finding "a friend, indeed," than when "a friend's il need." With those, therefore, who
consider me a prostrate man, I might be excused from saying a little in my own favor;
but as I have never been put down by the people, and will not believe that I shall be
until I am compelled to realize it, I shall not attempt to avail myself of that privilege.
My public conduct is before you. It is not to be doubted that, in a long, uninterrupted course of public service of nearly twenty-eight years, in various highly important and responsible stations, I must have committed many errors which are liable to
serious objections. Hoping, however, that your generosity will regard them with all
those charitable interpretations and indulgencies which are due to human frailty, I
shall rely exclusively upon your own recollection of such parts of my conduct as may
have appeared to you meritorious and acceptable.
I must beg leave, however, to notice one objection urged against me, which
relates entirely to the future, and, if true, involves no culpability on my part for its
existence. This is that I am too.old. Now, although I freely acknowledge that I
am old enough to be much better and wiser than I am, and were it not for a very
contented spirit with which I have been blessed, might even wish to be younger,
yet if small things may be compared to great ones, I may be permitted to say that I
am not as old, by between two and three years, as Gen. Washington was when he
was appointed to the command of our revolutionary army; and, with all due deference for the more disinterested judgment of others, I cannot think that I am so
entirely frail, leaky and unseaworthy as not to be trusted on one more voyage at
least. I am indeed too old to be captivated or misled by the ruinous prospects and
dangerous novelties which I have animadverted upon; and I am much mistaken if I
shall not be found quite young enough to convince my fellow-citizens generally of
the expediency, if not absolute necessity, of a thorough reform in all these particulars. There are many things, both in the moral and physical world, that grow
better as time waneth. Even wisdom herself is often improved by the experience
which age brings to her aid.  Old whisky, old wine, old bacon, old servants, old
acquaintances and old friends are quite agreeable to us all, and I should not be surprised if you should even like some of the good old ways by whith we contrived to
get along somehow or other while I had the honor of being your Governor. Everything, therefore, is not to be rejected merely because it is old; and among those
good old things which you may not consider the less worthy of your regard on
account of their age, I hope you will not forget to include the Old Ranger.
On another occasion, during the canvass for Governor in 1826, Governor Edwards, in a speech to his constituents, after making a few introductory remarks, proceeded as follows:
It is evident, however, that in connection with other measures adopted by our
Legislature, it was calculated to render our miserable banking system almost exclusively subservient to the interest of non-residents and speculators, by its tendency
to withdraw State paper from circulation among us, to accumulate it in their hands,
and ultimately to insure to them the benefits of paying their taxes in that medium,




208                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
while our own citizens would have been compelled, for the want of it, to pay
theirs in cash.
As there could be no inducements to purchase our paper if it were at par, so it is
only as it depreciates that it admits of any speculation whatever.  The greater,
therefore, its depreciation, the greater the speculation, and consequently the
stronger must be the inducements of those who have money at command to purchase
it, because, while they risk less, they have a fair prospect of gaining more than they
could make under different circumstances. Upon whom then are these inducements
calculated to operate the most powerfully?  Most certainly upon those non-resid.ents who hold such immense tracts of land within our State, and whose taxes alone
would be sufficient to take up all of our paper within about four or five years at
most. The great amount due by them is sufficient to awaken their vigilance to provide themselves at the earliest possible period with the means of discharging it; and
thus while our own citizens, owing but comparatively small sums, and being generally scarce of money, think only of providing for the payment of their taxes about
the time the sheriff is expected to demand them, these non-residents and speculators
have had the opportunity of engrossing nearly all the State paper which in the
meantime had been in market. Having once got it in their possession, either for
the payment of their taxes or for the purchase of lands to be sold for taxes-the only
uses that have heretofore rendered it valuable-they could have but little inducements to part with it, even for a much higher price than they gave for it, since they
could have no certainty of obtaining adequate future supplies, and of course would
be subjected to the danger of having themselves to replace it with specie. It has,
therefore, constantly been their interest to hoard it up till they could apply it to
the objects for which they obtained it, and you might just as well talk of catching
birds by putting fresh salt upon their tails, as to expect to force men who have
engrossed our paper for these purposes to part with it by reducing its value.  This
would, in fact, only throw so much more into their power. Were there any doubts
as to these results, the woful experience we have already had is sufficient to remove
them. The experiment of making our State paper more plenty and more accessible
to those of our fellow-citizens who stand in need of it by depreciating it, has been
fully tried, and the result of the experiment has been that it has almost entirely disappeared from among us. Depreciated, as it was by our legislation, to less than
one-third of its nominal value in the early part of last year, non-residents having a
large amount of taxes to pay, and well knowing that the State was and always will
be bound to receive it at par with specie, employed so many agents and used such
exertions to purchase it up, that its scarcity was soon perceived, and has been ever
since severely felt throughout every part of the State.  Judging of the future by
the past, it is reasonable to conclude, from the great competition that has existed
at every sale of lands for taxes at Vandalia, and from the evidently increasing disposition to engage in that speculation, as evinced at the last sales, that our paper
would, as it has heretofore been, be hoarded up for the purpose of being laid out in
the purchase of lands or in the payment of taxes on them at the next sales. These
were to have taken place, according to the law under consideration, in January,
1828, when there would have been three years taxes due, which, according to the
estimate in the report of the last Legislature, could not have amounted to less than
$120,000. Taking into consideration, then, that the whole amount of our State
paper is less than $200,000, and that of this amount more than $60,000 are required
by law to be burnt before that time, you may well judge how much of it the policy
of our legislation would have left in circulation available to our fellow-citizens in




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   209
the payment of their taxes, or to the unfortunate bank debtors in the payment of
their bank debts, whom the Legislature determined rigorously to coerce at the very
time that its injudicious measures were so well calculated to lessen their means of
payment, if not to render it utterly impracticable.
Experience has ever proved that a paper currency tends to prevent the circulation
of the precious metals. A proof of this is found in the fact that not a cent of specie
is now or has been for years past paid into our treasury.  And thus, while we are
deprived by this means of a sound circulating medium, the benefits of our miserable
State currency are almost exclusively enjoyed by non-residents. The greatest evil
we now labor under is the want of an adequate circulating medium of any kind.
How unwise, then, must have been the policy of this extraordinary indulgence to
non-residents which has so clearly tended to aggravate that evil? Seeing that our
paper must have been hoarded up in their hands, the most natural and obvious
policy would have been to have compelled them to disburse it in the payment of
taxes as often as we could, consistently with our stipulations to place them upon a
fair equality with ourselves. They might, indeed, have purchased it again, but not
upon the same terms they did last year. They bought it then at an average of not
more than 30 cents to the dollar: they would now have to give at least 50 cents;
and as when once received into the treasury it could only get into market again
through the medium of our citizens, its re-purchase would have been a clear gain
to them of 20 per cent. upon the whole amount.
This extraordinary indulgence to non-residents has been practically extended to
the purchasers of lands sold for taxes wherever they may have resided.  The taxes
of these non-residents and speculators, as well as our own, for the last year, became
due on the first day of October last, but, while you have been compelled to pay
yours, not a cent has been exacted from them, nor did the law to which I am objecting require them to pay a cent till January, 1828-an indulgence of two years
and three months longer than has been allowed to you.
Unnatural as this partiality for non-residents and speculators seems to be, and
unjustifiable upon principle as it surely would be, even if productive of no public
loss, it is infinitely more reprehensible in consequence of its having been extended
to them, as I shall presently show, at the sacrifice of your pecuniary interest.
It must indeed be humiliating to your pride to find that the sympathies of your
own Legislature have been so much more strongly enlisted in favor of non-residents
and speculators than yourselves.  Such a predilection cannot fail to surprise all
who are unable to penetrate the mysterious motives which have produced it. Congress, judging from the general disposition which the members of a Legislature
would naturally be expected to cherish towards their immediate constituents, and
aware of the ordinary springs and motives of human action, deemed it necessary to
guard against what they supposed a much more probable bias-a partiality in favor of
our own citizens-and hence insisted upon a stipulation, which we agreed to, for
placing non-residents upon a bare equality, as to taxation, with ourselves. How much,
then, must that enlightened body be surprised to find, not only that their precaution
was wholly unnecessary, but that our Legislature, not content with placing non-residents upon a fair equality, and disdaining the maxim that "charity begins at home,"
have distinguished them by extraordinary indulgencies denied to our own citizens.
Such conduct certainly appears somewhat inexplicable.  It is, however, susceptible of the clearest demonstration that a further tendency of this indulgence has
been to create, to cherish and to support an abominable system of speculation to
the manifest detriment of the public interest.
-27




210                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Let it be remembered that the principal part of our revenue is derived from the
taxes of non-residents. This being the case, human ingenuity could not have devised a more effectual scheme for producing an annual deficit in the treasury than
by permitting these taxes always to remain one year in arrear; and this, by creating the necessity for new issues of Auditor's warrants, has constantly afforded
opportunities of speculating on them, by which the public have lost precisely what
the speculators have gained, while the two years' indulgence, allowed to the purchasers of lands sold for taxes, has afforded them the opportunity of disposing of
their lands so purchased at a profit, for that length of time, without being subjected
to the inconvenience of paying taxes on their property as you are bound to pay on
yours. How, then, is this discrimination to be justified? Are speculators more
useful, more meritorious, more worthy of the forbearance, lenity and encouragement of the Government than the honest farmers and mechanics of the country,
who make their livings by the sweat of their brows? If not, why should they have
been so much more highly favored?
Had those non-residents and speculators been required to pay their taxes last October, as you were compelled to pay yours, there would then have been no necessity
for new issues of Auditor's warrants, the State would have saved all the loss consequent upon the increase of its paper, and paying it out at two dollars for one, and
forty thousand dollars more at least would have been received into the treasury, which,
by the disbursement and operations of the Government, would have been diffused
throughout the State, thereby increasing our circulating medium and facilitating to
you the means of paying your present year's taxes; but then, this would have withered
if not annihilated that speculation which has been too long luxuriating upon the spoilations that have been committed upon the resources of the State and the honest
earnings of the sweat of your brows.
Were I to assert that you are taxed to support this indulgence to non-residents and
speculators, would you not consider it too monstrous and incredible for belief? Or,
believing it, would it not betray a mean, servile and abject spirit, which every independent freeman must abhor, to regard such oppression with anything short of the
most indignant reprobation? It was not the trifling amount of the tax on tea, imposed by the British Parliament, but an opposition to the principle imposed by the
elevated sentiments of freedom, that roused the spirit of resistance and animated the
exertions of our noble sires in our glorious contest for independence. We should indeed disgrace our lineage, and deserve to be considered their degenerate sons, if we
could feel reconciled to be placed, in our own State, and by our own Legislature, too,
on inferior grounds to that of non-residents and speculators. But to be willing to be
taxed to support a humiliating discrimination between them and us, which violates
our just claims to a fair equality, would prove us worthy only to become their "hewers of wood and drawers of water."
Incredible, however, as it may appear, it is nevertheless true that you are, in fact,
taxed to support this unjust inequality. The amount of the tax due last October, by
non-residents, as assumed in the report of the Legislature, before alluded to, is $40,000. They had, then, this amount of our State paper in their hands, or like our own
citizens they should have had it, which is the same thing to us. It bears an interest
of two per cent., which, on $40,000, is $800 per year. The interest, therefore, for
the two years' indulgence extended to non-residents, over and above what has been
allowed to our own citizens, amounts to $1600, not a cent of which is chargeable to
them, according to the practical operation of the system, provided their taxes be paid
at any time within that period. Now, had those taxes been paid last October, as they




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     211
ought to have been, the State would have saved that amount of interest, as our paper, when once received into the treasury, ceases thereafter to bear interest; but,
instead of this, this sum of $1600 has been virtually offered as a premium to non-residents and speculators not to pay their taxes as you have been compelled to pay yours
-for they will be allowed precisely that much more, as interest upon our paper, at
the expiration of the two years' indulgence, than they would have received if they had
paid it last October. Could it, then, be expected that they would be guilty of the
egregious folly of overlooking and disregarding this singular advantage? And who,
let me ask, has to pay for it? The interest thus allowed them, every man of common
sense will see, must be made up by the State. I have already shown that the debts
of the State are due and payable, in just and fair proportion, by the people of the
State; and as the State has no means of raising revenue, paying debts or making up
any losses whatever, but by taxation, which must necessarily fall equally upon all, it
is evident that each one of you will be compelled to pay your respective proportion of
the interest thus gratuitously allowed to non-residents and speculators. And if you
are willing thus to be taxed to maintain a distinction which degrades you below their
level, and from which no public benefit can possibly arise, it is hardly to be expected
that you will, hereafter, feel or manifest any repugnance to the unnecessary multiplication of offices, or the addition of a few hundred dollars more or less to the salaries
of our officers.
But this, my fellow-citizens, is but a bagatelle-a mere atom in the great mass of
losses that have been sustained by this unfortunate measure, and for which you have
been and still are, and for years to come must be taxed. I do not intend to be understood as assailing the motives of any particular individual for the projection of this
measure, for I neither know nor have I sought to find out who was its original author;
but believing it to be not less my duty than my right, as a free-born citizen, to point
out its consequences, I will say that the powers of the human mind are utterly incapable of devising a more adroit and artful scheme for perpetrating and increasing the
evils of our present paper system, and involving the State in hopeless bankruptcy and
disgrace, than this indulgence to non-residents and speculators, with the auxiliary
measures that have accompanied it. Nor can a stronger proof of the dextrous nature
of this destructive policy be desired than is to be found in the fact that, although it
has been in operation for years past, its ruinous consequences have hitherto escaped
the general notice of the people.
Soon after the establishment of our State Bank, its deleterious influence on the
prosperity of the State and its injurious effects upon our revenue became so manifest,
that no one who had any reputation to hazard could have been found bold enough to
have encountered the strong public sentiment against it, by even proposing to issue
the additional $200,000 which the charter admitted; but our Legislature have stolen
a march upon you, and have done infinitely worse in issuing Auditor's warrants, both
because they never can answer the purposes of a circulating medium as well as the
bank notes, and be.cause the loss upon them to the State must necessarily be greater.
According to the charter of the bank, it never was intended that the State should
have sustained any loss. If the law had been executed in good faith, by taking security to double the value of the sums borrowed, it might have sustained none. In
many cases it will sustain none. But in issuing Auditor's warrants, and paying them
out at $3 for $1, a loss of two-thirds of their whole amount is realized on their issue,
without any hope of receiving or any right to claim any indemnification whatever.
Besides, all those warrants have tended to keep down the value of the notes of the




212                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
bank, and of course to subject the State, which is bound to make them good, to all
the eventual loss of their depreciation.
Every real friend of the State must deplore these accumulating evils; and while
every patriotic bosom has been cherishing the fond hope of their gradual diminution
and final termination, what has been the result? In five years about $100,000 of
these bank notes have been withdrawn from circulation, but in a single year a larger
amount of Auditor's warrants have been substituted in their place; for during the
last year, only, warrants to the amount of $107,000 were issued. When, then, are
our embarrassments to end, if as fast, only, as our bank notes are withdrawn from circulation, Auditor's warrants, at a much greater loss, are to be made to supply their
place?
It has been supposed that this wretched policy was intended to favor bank debtors.
If so, it would have been far better to have given up those debts altogether, for it can
be demonstrated with mathematical certainty that an annual loss, equal to that which
was produced last year by this policy, would, in less than five years, amount to onethird more than the whole sum due by bank debtors, and it would surely be wiser to
give this up than to sacrifice one-third more on their account in so short a time, and
this, too, without any additional assurance of making ultimate collections from them.
It would, inde2d, have been less grievous if this loss to the State had been the gain
of the bank debtors, for then it would have been among our own citizens; but we
have, unfortunately, no grounds to solace ourselves with this consolation, for the most
of these warrants, like our State paper, were soon caught up by the agents of nonresidents and speculators, who, like the eagle ready to pounce upon its prey, stood
waiting and prepared for that purpose.
Let us, then, inquire whence arose the necessity or what furnished the pretext for
issuing those warrants. Certainly, nothing else created the one or furnished the other
than those deficits in the treasury which arose from the indulgence, granted to nonresidents and speculators, in regard to the payment of their taxes. This pretext, thus
obtained, may be made to operate with equal force forever, and keep us constantly
issuing warrants and receiving nothing else from non-residents in the payment of their
taxes-while they may hold our State paper, bearing an interest of two per cent., until
the State is bound to redeem it with gold and silver.
In consequence of those non-residents and speculators not having been compelled
to pay their taxes last October, it became necessary, as before observed, to issue warrants to the amount of those taxes. These warrants, bearing no interest, and the
payment of them not being quite as well secured as that of our State paper, could of
course be bought cheaper. What, then, was to prevent those non-residents ard speculators from buying them up to pay those very taxes in January, 1828, which ought
to have been paid last October? The warrants being thus paid into the treasury,
the State would only have redeemed them, the treasury would still be as destitute of
funds as ever, and the Government under the same necessity to issue new warrants
as when these were issued. And again, new warrants might be paid and substituted
in like manner, and thus, instead of gradually diminishing our responsibility for the
notes of the bank, and saving at the rate of $800 a year in interest, the warrants so
issued in advance might be made to pay the taxes of those non-residents and speculators, till the expiration of the charter of the bank, when our whole bank debt will
fall due.
Let us now inquire how much has been realized to the State, by this system of policy, out of the taxes of non-residents, for the last three years. At the close of the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    213
Legislature of 1825, neither their taxes for the year 1823 or 1824 had been required
to be paid. Supposing them to have amounted, for these two years, to $80,000.
This may be assumed as the amount of the warrants that were issued to supply the
place of those taxes. These warrants being paid at $3 for $1, of course the State could
only realize one-third of the amount of those taxes, which is but $2,666 66 out of the
$80,000. The taxes due last October being $40,000, this may be assumed as the
amount of the warrants to supply their place. These warrants being paid at $2 for
$1, $20,000 only of these taxes can be saved to the State-thereby, without making
any deduction for the loss of interest, as already explained, realizing only $46,666 66
out of $120,000, being at the average rate of a little upwards of $15,000 per year,
which is not half the amount of last year's expenses. But nothing is more easy than,
with a few strokes of the pen, to supply every deficiency, however produced, by Auditor's warrants at $3 for $1, which, however sportful to others, I am afraid you will
find death to you, unless it can be speedily and effectually checked.
But let us further inquire how these warrants affect our interest in other respects.
They were made receivable in payment of bank debts, at par, though issued at three
times as much as they were paid out at. The amount of the bank debts collected annually is $20,000. Supposing this sum paid in warrants of the same nominal value,
but issued at $3 for $1, the State would receive only $10,000 instead of $30,000, and
from these $10,000 at least $5,000 must be deducted for the salaries of five cashiers,
and other incidental expenses of the bank, so that the State would, in fact, receive
only $5,000 out of the $30,000 for which it is accountable, and of course would still
be liable on this account for the remaining $25,000, which, let it be remembered,
could only be raised by taxation.
Supposing the whole debt settled in the same way, and what would be the loss
which the State would sustain? The original amount was $300,000, which the State
agreed to redeem, at the expiration of ten years, with gold and silver coins, and, to
indemnify it for this responsibility, the borrowers were required to pay one-tenth of
it, to-wit: $30,000, annually. But if, instead of receiving this sum, the State should
only secure $5,000 per annum, these for ten years would amount to but $50,000, which
would leave the State in debt, at the expiration of that period, for the remaining
$250,000, which, if paid as our Legislature have paid our other debts of every description, in Auditor's warrants at $3 for $1, would involve us in a debt of precisely $750,000. If paid in Auditor's warrants, at the rate at which they are at present issued,
to-wit: at $2 for $1, (and there would be the same apology and justification for paying this as any other debt in this way,) it would leave us involved in a debt of $500,000, which, let it not be forget, could only be raised by taxation.
Our losses necessarily arising from the policy that has been pursued by our Legislature are precisely in this proportion. And upon whom do they fall? You, who
have had no agency in this indulgence to non-residents and speculators, nor anything
to do with the bank-old residents, new settlers and future emigrants-will all have
to be taxed to pay your respective proportions of these losses. Are you, then, willing to be taxed to support a partial and unjust system, or to pay other people's
debts? If not, you must speak with the voice of authority, and at least forbid the
issuing of any more warrants upon the ruinous terms upon which they are even now
daily issued-for, independent of other losses, they must, on these terms, render
your taxes twice as high as they would otherwise be. Such impositions as these
upon a free, high-minded and independent people, I boldly assert have no parallels
in the annals of free government, and they are only to be borne by that Christian




214                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
charity which hopeth all things, believeth all things, and endureth all things; but
with whatever fortitude they may be borne, truth and reason must forever consign
them to the indignant reprobation of a people who have the judgment to discern,
the sense to feel and the spirit to resist injustice and oppression.
Regarding this indulgence to non-residents and speculators with the objections
which I have pointed out to you, and happening to be at Vandalia during the last
session of the Legislature, I spared no pains and provoked no little hostility to myself in trying to get this unwise and unjust distinction, between them and our own
citizens, abolished; and, although I could not accomplish all I wished in this respect,
I am happy to say that the sales for their taxes are hereafter to be annual, which
(better late than never) will compel them to disburse, and enable the Government
to put into circulation a large amount of our paper-which cannot fail, in the course
of next year, to afford great relief to the people, but which would otherwise have
remained hoarded up for at least one year longer.
There is no danger, fellow-citizens, that I shall ever be deprived of the credit of
having been the means of effecting this change, for this injurious measure had been
in operation for years, and no member of the Legislature can acknowledge that he
foresaw the consequences I have pointed out, without pronouncing his own condemnation for not having at least attempted its repeal at an earlier period. I ought to
receive this credit at your hands, for my interposition on this subject has been denounced as an undue interference with the Legislature, and has elicited against me
the angry, persecuting and relentless opposition of all those who, by such means,
have promoted their own ambitious views or satiated their craving avarice. This
is no wonder, since I have deprived them of the means of feasting sumptuously upon
the spoils that have been committed upon your interest. But, whatever may be the
consequences to myself, I glory in what I have done, and only long for an opportunity to complete the work of reformation, thus begun, by putting an entire stop to
the issue of Auditor's warrants upon terms which now daily subject you to be taxed
twice as high as you ought to be, or as there is any necessity for. I denounce the
whole system of warrants, and never will give my consent, in any situation, either
private or public, to the issue of one dollar's worth at any sacrifice whatever of your
interest. I have ever been a fearless politician-probably too much so, on some
occasions, for my interest-but I thank my God that I am not to be deterred by the
log-rolling caucuses of big men assembled at Vandalia, who, arrogating to themselves
the right of deciding for you, and undertaking to determine whom you shall be permitted to raise up and put down, issue their orders accordingly to their instruments
throughout every part of the State. It is true that painful experience has taught
me not to undervalue the power of such combinations, but I would infinitely rather
be put down by them, in a manly struggle, than meanly succumb to them. And you
may be assured the time has arrived when, if you do not set your faces against such
bargaining systems, you will find your most essential rights bargained away from you.
My appeal from the self-constituted tribunals is directly to the people, in whose
virtue, intelligence and ultimate justice I have the most implicit confidence, and on
which I have ever found the safest dependence. It is, happily, your right to decide
for yourselves, and whatever may be your decision, I shall be one of the last men
in this world to complain of it. These powerful combinations hope to influence you
to oppose me. They may succeed; but why should they? Few of those individuals,
if any, have any just cause of hostility to me. Some of them may even owe much
of their present power to injure me to my unrequited kindness to them. It would




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   215
not be the first time that I have raised up a stick to break my own head with. It
may be my misfortune to be considered as standing in the way of the gratification of
their own views of personal ambition; but it would be asking too much of independent freemen, whom I have never injured or even intentionally offended, to become
my enemies merely because this and that big man happen to be so from their own
selfish motives. I have always taken the greatest pleasure in rendering any assistance in my power to my fellow-citizens. I am not conscious of ever having turned
my back upon any man who has endeavored to seek justice, or the redress of any
grievance, through my instrumentality. I may have offended some of you, but inexorable, indeed, must be the vengeance I have provoked, if the power of combinations
have not already prostrated me sufficiently to satisfy it.
Have the people any interest to advance by assisting those who have brought them
to the very brink of ruin, to keep down a man who boldly and fearlessly advocates
their own cause, which each one of us knows to be just? What have I ever done to
deserve your hostility? Let the time, place, and circumstances-the when, and
where, and how-be distinctly stated, and I am ready to answer for myself. I disdain to notice the petty, contemptible, gossiping tales which falsehood and malignity
are constanting inventing and circulating against me; but I challenge my enemies
to show a single act of my whole public life that is as reprehensible as this indulgence to non-residents. I go further: I defy them to show that all my official mis.
deeds, throughout my long public service, put together, have been as injurious to the
public interest as this single measure, with its auxiliary of Auditor's warrants at
three dollars for one, or even at two for one. Could they do this, they would not
spare me, for it has been my misfortune to owe as little as any man in the world to
the courtesy and forbearance of my enemies. You do not hear them complaining
against and denouncing the authors of those measures. Why, then, am I so much
more obnoxious to their opposition than those whom they are obliged to admit have
done worse than I have? I leave you to decide upon the motive.
Some of them pay me the compliment (probably an undeserved one) of admitting
that no man in the State is more capable of devising the ways and means of freeing
it from its present calamitous situation than myself; but then, with sinister premonition, they inquire, "Is he to be trusted?" I am willing for you to decide this
question-am I to be trusted. I have been tried for many years-and when, or
where, or how have I ever deceived the people? Was it during those Territorial
times, that tried men's souls? was it when our frontiers were smoking with the blood
and strewed with the mangled bodies of our men, women and children, iidiscriminately slaughtered by ruthless savages? Did I then consult my own ease and comfort and interest, or shrink from the highest responsibility? Did I wait for authority to act? Did I not unhesitatingly act without it? and freely risk my commission, my reputation, my property and my life to defend my fellow-citizens and
punish barbarian aggression? I have letters in possession from some of my present
persecutors that contain satisfactory answers to all these questions. Did I, then,
betray or deceive you on any of those great questions, so vitally affecting your interest, which were agitated in Congress during the period of my service in that
body? Let my published speeches and the journals of the Senate answer.
No, my fellow-citizens, my enemies do not fear that I shall deceive you.  They
well know that if I were to try my best I could not possibly effect any measures
more injurious to your interest than those which are now In daily operation before
your own eyes, but they believe I possess the capacity to produce reform and they
fear that I shall obtain the credit of effecting it-and this is a credit which, if my




216                     HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
life and health is spared, they shall not deprive me of, for, so long as oppression
continues to stalk through our land with such gigantic strides, you shall find one
man, at least, in the State, whether you reject me or not, bold enough to cry aloud
and spare not. You may abandon me, but I will not desert your cause; for an ambition to deserve to be considered as the people's friend is engrafted in my very
nature, and no man can more strongly confide in their ultimate justice.
I am charged with attacking the members of the Legislature; but it is not my
object to assail any individual whatever. I have explored no journals to see who
voted this way or that way. It is measures, and not men, that I wish to be understood as opposing. I firmly believe the great majority of our Legislature to have
been honest, virtuous and patriotic. Many of them, I know, have anxiously desired
to get rid of all the evils of our paper system; but I have no doubt that, tired and
discouraged by unavailing efforts for that purpose, and yielding to a listless despair,
they have been deceived, and that few of them, if any, ever foresaw the consequences I have pointed out; nor is it to be wondered at that they should not. It falls
to the lot of but few men to be good financiers; and did they possess the highest
financial capacities, the opportunities of ascertaining the true state of our treasury,
and the effects of particular measures upon it, during the session of the Legislature,
when they have so much other business to attend to, are too limited, and hence it
has been made by our constitution the duty of the executive, who has the requisite
time for attention to these subjects, to communicate to the Legislature, from time
to time, the true state of the government-besides all which, those measures have
generally been adopted near the close of a session, in all the hurry and bustle usual
about that period. If the evil consequences which I have portrayed escaped their
notice, I cannot hesitate to believe, as true patriots and real friends to the State,
they will rejoice, for the sake of the public good, that I have discovered and disclosed them. But, whether or not, if the measures are wrong, as I contend they
are, I disclaim the authority of any gag-law, legal or moral, to restrain my animadversions upon them.
The combined powers of his political opponents, of the bank party, of
the advocates of the circuit court system, aided by the co-operation of
some of the most powerful men and purest patriots of the State, who then
took an erroneous view of his course, but who were afterwards numbered
among his warmest friends, were all brought to operate against his election.
In attacking the policy of previous Legislatures, he also dissatisfied many
of his warmest friends who had supported and voted for many of those
measures. Against this powerful host he contended almost single-handed.
But deploring the ruinous measures that had formerly prevailed, and the
enormous taxes with which the people were at that time oppressed in consequence thereof, he determined, regardless of personal consequences, to
produce reform; and neither consulting nor soliciting the aid of any individual, he took such bold grounds in all his addresses, that the politicians and many of his friends thought it too hazardous to be identified
with him —yet he succeeded, though the candidate for Lieutenant-Governor and for Congress, on the same ticket, and many of his political friends,
were defeated at the same election, and a majority opposed to them and
himself were returned to the Legislature. This election, when it is con



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               217
sidered that Mr. Cook, his son-in-law, was the candidate to represent the
only Congressional district in the State; that both of them had represented
the State, the one in the Senate and the other in the House of Representatives of the United States, for nearly the whole period since the admission of the State into the Union; that Judges Pope, Alexander, and Abner
Field, relatives of Gov. Edwards, had also filled important offices-was,
indeed, in the language of the Hon. William Wirt, "a noble victory."  It
proved to the nation at large that he was sustained by the people of his
own State. Among his warmest supporters in this election may be numbered such men as Judges Lockwood, Wilson, Breese, Brown, Gov. Ford,
George Forquer, William H. Brown and Hon. David J. Baker. For a
history of the financial condition of the State, and other measures of policy
which he advocated, the reader is referred to his messages and speeches;
and, indeed, his correspondence and publications furnish such a complete
history of his times, as to make it unnecessary to write much on the subject.
In his messages to the legislatures, he recommended the measures which
he had advocated in his public addresses-most of which were adopted
without much opposition.
In the year previous to his being elected Governor, Auditor's warrants,
which the State was bound to redeem with gold and silver, to the amount
of $107,000, were issued and paid out at three dollars for one, whereby
the State sustained a loss in one single year of more than $70,000-a sum,
at that time. sufficient to have carried on all the necessary operations of
the government for three years, The result of the measures which he
proposed, and which were adopted by the Legislature on his recommendation, were as follows: The taxes on lands of residents of the counties in
which they were situated, which had previously been paid into the State
treasury, were given up to those counties; the State was not losing one
cent by its financial operations; and the taxes could be reduced to at least
one-third of the amount previously levied. All of these measures were
effected without the aid of any resources which were not in the power of
the State previous to the commencement of his administration. Governor
Ford, in his history of the State, says that he broke down all opposition to
his administration, carried all his measures, and succeeded in having all
his candidates elected.
Judging from the friendly and cordial feelings manifested towards him
by the Legislature, at the close of his term of office; from letters he received from every portion of the State; from the kind and affectionate treatment he met with from his fellow-citizens, wherever he went among them,
and from the undoubted fact that many who had opposed him were then
his friends and supporters-he never stood better with the people of the
State than he did at the close of his administration.
-28




CHAPTER XI.
The Winnebago ancl Black Iawzk Wars.
During Gov. Edwards' administration, as Executive of the State, the
Indians upon the North-Western frontier began to be very troublesome.
The different tribes not only commenced a warfare among themselves, in
regard to their respective boundaries, but they extended their hostilities
to the white settlements. A treaty of peace, in which the whites acted
more as mediators than as a party, had been signed at Prairie du Chien,
on the 19th day of August, 1825, by the terms of which the boundaries
between the Winnebagoes and the Sioux, Chippeways, Sauks, Foxes, and
and other tribes, were defined, but it failed' to keep them quiet. Their
depredations and murders continued frequent, and in the summer of 1827
their conduct, particularly of the Winnebagoes, became very alarming.
There is no doubt, however, that the whites, who at this period were immigrating in large numbers to the North-West, and earnestly desired their
removal further westward, purposely exasperated the Indians, at the same
time that they greatly exaggerated the actual hostilities committed.
According to a letter written at this time, by Gen. Street, from Prairie
du Chien, to Gov. Edwards, the Winnebagoes had been soured by the conduct of the adventurers flocking to and working the lead mines of Fever
River and vicinity. Of those who went there by land, by far the greatest
number passed through the country occupied by the Winnebagoes, and no
doubt behaved very badly towards them. As to the right of that tribe to
the lands in question, there seems to have been a misunderstanding. It
appears, by a treaty made by Gen. Harrison, in 1804, that all the lands
between the mouths of the Wisconsin and Illinois Rivers were purchased
by the United States from the Sacs and Foxes. In 1816, Gen. Clark,
Col. Chouteau and Gov. Edwards, as Commissioners of the United States,
ceded, with certain reservations, all those lands which lie north of a due
west line from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi,
to the Ottaways, Chippeways and Pottawottamies, (denominated the Indians of the Illinois River,) and who therefore appeared to be the real
owners of the lands. But, according to the treaty of August 19th, 1825,
the Commissioners seemed to have recognized the right of the Wiunebagoes




LIFE AND TIMES O   N3ITIAN EDWARDS.            219
to this same land. Certainly, whether rightfully or not, the latter tribe
were, and had been for years, in possession of the territory, and fully believed it belonged to them. But without regard to this claim, Mr. Thomas,
the agent at the mines, freely granted permits to the miners collected there,
and numerous diggings were industriously pushed far east of the line between the Winnebagoes and the Indians of the Illinois River. These
trespassers procured and took away great quantities of mineral to the
smelters. The Winnebagoes complained of this as an open violation of
the treaty; no notice was, however, taken of their complaints.  The
permits continued to be given and the diggings progressed. At last the
Indians attempted force, which was repelled; and very angry feelings, by
consequence, were produced on both sides.
In this state of excitement some of the Indians left the neighborhood of
the mines and made a journey above Prairie du Chien, for the purpose, as
was supposed, of consulting some of their chiefs and influential men there,
and also to invite the co-operation of the Sioux. They were there met by
a Sioux Indian, called Waw-zee-kootee (he that shoots in the pine-tops),
who told the Winnebagoes that the U. S. commander at Fort Snelling had
delivered up several Sioux Indians to the Chippeways, by whom they had
been cruelly murdered, and that at the same time two Winnebagoes, in
confinement, charged with murder, had been butchered by the whites. It
appears that just before this time a party of twenty-four Chippeways, while
on their way to Fort Snelling, had been surprised by a band of Sioux and
eight of them killed. The murderers had been captured by the U. S.
commandant and turned over to the Chippeways, by whom they had been
properly punished; but that there was no foundation whatever for the rest
of the exaggerated story detailed to the Winnebago Indians. However,
they were prevailed upon to seek revenge for the alleged murder of their
two men -Waw-zee-kootee promising them that the Sioux would assist
them, so soon as the first blow was struck. It is further evident that Red
Bird, the chief of the Sioux, (who wished to retaliate on the whites for having, in the Fort Snelling murders, sided with the Chippeways,) was at the
bottom of this contemplated alliance. The plan was to kill or drive off all
the whites above Rock River.
With this understanding the Winnebagoes, on the 24th of July, killed
two whites, in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien, and on the 30th of the
same month they attacked two keel boats, which were conveying military
stores to Fort Snelling-in which attack two of the crew were killed and
four severely wounded. These murders greatly alarmed the frontier settlements at Galena and the mining country around that post.
As soon as intelligence of the hostile attitude which the northern Indians
were manifesting, towards the whites, reached Gov. Edwards, and even




220                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
before any blow was struck, as early as the 14th of July he issued an order
to the commandants in Gen. Hanson's brigade, located on the east side of
the Illinois River, (except the Twentieth Regiment,) commanding them to
take immediate steps for detaching into service one-fourth of their respective regiments. Should any part of the frontier south of Rock River be
found to be invested by the savages, the officer in command of the detachment was directed, with the least possible delay, to march to the support
of any point attacked, without further orders.
On the same day he wrote to Col. Thomas M. Neale, of the Twentieth
Regiment, mostly from the Sangamon country, in the course of which he
said:
You will accept the services of any number of mounted volunteers, not exceeding
600, who will equip themselves, find their own subsistence, and continue in service thirty days unless sooner discharged.  They will rendezvous, as soon as possible, at Fort Clark, where you will organize and take the command of them, and
march, with all possible expedition, to the assistance of our fellow-citizens at
Galena, where, if you find an officer of the United States army entitled to superior
command to yourself, you will report to him and receive his orders.  In your progress you will avoid rashly exposing your men to unequal contests, but it is expected
that you will not overlook any proper opportunity of repelling any hostile incursions
of the savages.
You will order the officer next you in command to take immediate steps for drafting from your regiment, according to law, and with the least possible delay, six
companies of infantry, which are to be held in readiness to march, at a moment's
warning, to any frontier that may be invaded; in which event, he is immediately to
march them to the support of the point attacked, without further orders.  None of
the citizens, however, in the vicinity of the immediate frontier, are to be drafted.
On the 9th of August, Gov. Edwards wrote to Gen. Clark as follows:
There being the strongest reason for believing that the Pottawottamies of the
Illinois River have been depredating upon the property of some of the citizens of
this State, and the official communication of Dr. Wolcott, Indian agent at Chicago,
leaving no doubt of their hostile dispositions, it is my duty to inform you that, if
any future depredations should be committed by them, and immediate reparation
refused, I will not hesitate to drive them from their present residence, which you
know they have no right to occupy.
On the 20th of August, Gov. Edwards wrote to the Secretary of War
as follows:
Gen. Case, and other officers of the United States of great respectability, and with
the best of opportunities of forming correct opinions on the subject, all concurring
in the belief that the neighboring Indians intended making war upon us, and these
Indians having committed several daring robberies and other depredations between
Peoria and Galena, and commenced actual war in other parts, I have felt it my duty
to call out about five hundred mounted volunteers to defend our frontiers.
I suppose not less than 1,500 men have been driven by these acts from the vicinity
of Galena; and, but for the measures I adopted, several other parts of our frontier,
from their defenceless situations, would have been depopulated. I, therefore, beg




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    221
leave to ask how far it may be the pleasure of the President to recognize the defensive measures which I have been thus compelled to adopt, and what provisions will
be made for paying the militia which have been called into service.
My power to act in such cases is limited to sudden emergencies.  The defense of
every State belongs to the General Government. I now beg leave to ask, in behalf
of this State, of the President of the United States such measures of protection
to our extensive frontier as its peculiar weakness demands. The measures adopted
by Gen. Atkinson are, I presume, sufficient to insure safety to our western boundary;
but they are not the least calculated, nor has he the kind of troops necessary to
protect these settlements, which extend from the mouth of the Illinois River to
Chicago.
I need scarcely remark to you what all experience has proved, that whenever the
Indians have once made up their minds to commit hostilities, or have actually committed such as deserve chastisement, their pacific dispositions never can be safely
relied upon until they have begged for peace-and begged it so earnestly as to leave
no doubt of their sincerity.  Nothing of this kind has yet occurred. The latter
part of next month is, of all others, the most favorable time for concentrating their
forces and striking the most formidable blow. I will add that I should be very
happy to render, on the present occasion, any services that would be acceptable to
the President.
The services of the men I have called out will expire in a few days, and until I
hear from you I shall not adopt any other measures, but leave it to the General
Government to provide for such protection and safety as the people have a right to
expect from it.
In this crisis, Col. Abner Field, a gentleman of much intelligence and
high respectability, was deputed by the population of Fever River Mines
to apply to Gov. Edwards for further assistance to repel the hostilities of
the Indians, with which they considered themselves daily threatened. He
arrived at Belleville on the 2d of September, bringing very unfavorable
news from the exposed frontier, which was fully confirmed by another
express which arrived the next day from Peoria.
It appeared that the Winnebagoes had ultimately refused to come to any
arrangements with Gov. Cass and Col. McKenney; that information had
been received, which was believed, that a part at least of the Pottawottamies had determined to unite with the Winnebagoes in the war; and it
was apprehended that the people of Fever River would be attacked before
it would be possible to send them any aid; that Gen. Atkinson had sent
an express to that place asking for all the mounted riflemen that could be
spared from it, and had marched towards Green Bay with about 600
infantry and 130 mounted riflemen, to attack those Indians. Upon this
information, Gov. Edwards wrote to the Secretary of War, on the 5th of
September, as follows:
No doubt Gen. Atkinson will accomplish all that can be effected with the force
under his command; but it is much to be regretted that he has not more mounted
men; for if the hostile Indians are as numerous as Gov. Cass supposes, it is not possible that he can march such a distance through their own country, without having




222                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
a hard fight at least. Should he be defeated or driven back, it may well be imagined that the consequences must be truly disastrous to our very extensive and
exposed settlements all along the Illinois River and its waters. Whatever may be
their fate, however, if you will only cast your eye upon the map and consider that
all the hostile Indians, with the exception of one small band, reside between the line
of march and those settlements, it must, I think, be obvious to you that there is
either no danger at all, or that they are in very great danger. Regarding them in
the latter point of view, I feel it my duty to reiterate my former application to the
President for that protection which their situation demands-a protection, the
necessity of which is just as apparent as that of any movement which has been made
under the authority of the government, and which cannot be doubted without an
utter disbelief of any hostile disposition on the part of those savages, nor without
questioning the propriety of all those measures of the government which have been
adopted upon that suggestion.  For if the Indians are hostilely disposed, as they
can attack no where else with the same prospect of success and so little risk to
themselves, so none can be in more danger than these settlements.  Besides their
lives and property, the people, I humbly conceive, have a fair claim upon the Government for protection against those interruptions of their tranquillity by the savages, which are reasonably calculated to prevent them from resting under the
shade of their own vines and fig trees without any one to make them afraid.
I learn from Col. Field that about 3,000 men have been driven from the mines,
and but for the measures I adopted upon the first alarm, it is scarcely to be doubted
that other parts of our frontier would have been entirely depopulated. I need not,
I am sure, attempt to point out to a gentleman of your practical knowledge and
experience the immense losses and sacrifices that must have resulted, both to individuals and the State, from this state of things.
My authority to act being limited to a sudden emergency, my measures were
adopted with a view to such duration only as would be sufficient to enable the Government to get its own into operation; and I have now only between sixty and
seventy men in service. Nor had I intended, under any circumstances, to have done
more on my own responsibility, in consequence of there being no money in our
State treasury; the impossibility of doing without it and the risk of pecuniary embarrassment, of which I had some experience during the late war, being greater
than I have felt under any obligations to encounter.  These views, however, have
never been communicated to a single individual; and looking to consequences to
the administration from adhering to them, which can scarcely escape your sagacity,
I have concluded, should actual hostilities be committed on our frontier, immediately to repair to it, make it my headquarters, and endeavor, with my own funds
and at my own risk, to provide subsistence for such volunteers as I may be able to
call to my aid until I can receive your answer to my letter of the 20th ult. Whatever that may be, if it only shall afford reasonable ground to expect I shall be sustained, I will continue to do the best in my power until I receive your answer to
this letter; otherwise, unless all danger shall entirely have disappeared, I shall be
compelled to convene the Legislature and lay the case just as it is before them.
I beg leave to observe that the experience of three years' hard service on our
frontiers, during the last war, has convinced me that no other force of any reasonable amount is available for such protection as they require than that of mounted
riflemen.  Your infantry on the Wisconsin is too remote to afford the least assistance. It would be scarcely less available to us if it were at Washington City.




LIFE A ND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    223
On the strength of the information communicated by Col. Field, on the
same day (5th of September), Gov. Edwards issued a further order to
Brig. Gen. Hanson, commanding him immediately to take all legal measures necessary for enrolling in the militia all persons subject thereto, on
Fever River or in the vicinity of the mines, and for organizing them according to law.
Before, however, this order was fully executed, intelligence was received
that Gen. Atkinson, who had marched into the Winnebago country, in
pursuit of the offending Indians, had returned to Prairie du Chien with
Red Bird, a chief of much prominence, and six other Indians, among whom
was Black Hawk, who became famous afterwards. They were all committed to jail, under the criminal charge of having committed the murderous attack upon the boats. They were kept in jail many months, awaiting
their trial, and many threats were made by the Indians that if Red Bird
should be executed, it would be the signal for a general uprising among
the different tribes. In regard to Red Bird's capture and imprisonment,
a letter from Gen. Street to Gov. Edwards, dated at Prairie du Chien, December 28th, gives the following account:
Red Bird is a favorite with his people and had obtained a high reputation among
the whites previous to the late unprovoked murders. You, I doubt not, have had a
particular account of his voluntary surrender of himself This manly, chivalric act,
his open, free and high bearing at the time, has something more than ordinary in it.
Dressed in his Yanctonuni form of white, unsoiled skins, with a fine, white, dressedskin robe cast loosely across his shoulder, and mounted on a fine mettlesome horse, with
a white flag in his hand, and marching into the camp of Whistler, unconfined, with
a pleasant, unclouded brow, to deliver himself up as a murderer, is a little out of the
ordinary course of such things amongst us. You perhaps have seen him. He is a
tall, well-made, straight Indian, about thirty or forty years old, and has a very pleasant countenance. There is nothing remarkable about the six other prisoners, if you
except Red Bird's son, a lad of twelve or fifteen. Ie is a pleasant, smiling boy.
Confinement goes hard with Red Bird, and he does not have good health, but if a
white man calls to see him, all the nobility of a great savage appears to light up his
fine and intelligent features, and a stranger would point to him as no every-day character.
I wish the trial and execution of the murderers was over. If a strong force is not
present when Red Bird is to be hanged, if convicted, (of which I see no reason to
doubt,) I shall not feel free of apprehensions of danger. There is an opinion prevalent
at St. Louis, and amongst some here, that the Winnebagoes are greatly alarmed at
the late events. They were much alarmed at the time Gen. Atkinson and the Illinois
volunteers were in their country. The movement was sudden, beyond what the
Indians had been accustomed to, and the expected reinforcements from Illinois, under
your order for one-fourth the militia, was calculated to take them by surprise, and at
the time it had its effect. Since then the Indians seem to be gradually awakening,
as it were, from a deep sleep, until their fears are given to the winds and there is
dead stillness-a portentious calm that all my secret endeavors cannot interpret.
They cannot be induced to talk on the subject, and they come and go, ask no ques



224                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
tions about the prisoners, and if told of their health, ansv er, to any mention of them,
"Ugh." Say they are well, or sick, is immaterial-"Ugh!" is the answer, and it is
evident they wish to avoid the mention of them. At the same time, the wives and
and relatives of the prisoners are properly attended to. The wife of Red Bird, however, does not come near. I learn she is rich, as Red Bird was the best hunter in
the nation, and great attention is paid to her by the nation.
But before his trial took place, the chief, Red Bird, whose lofty spirit
could not brook confinement, died in prison. Of the other prisoners, a
part were acquitted and a part convicted and hung.  Their execution took
place on the 26th of December, of the following year. Black Hawk, who
was one of those acquitted, afterwards acknowledged his guilt and openly
boasted of it.
With the death of Red Bird ended the Winnebago war.         The tribe
seemed to be thoroughly humbled by the result of the campaign; and although fears of further hostilities from them were for sometime after entertained, they continued peaceable. In regard to the lands, about which
the difficulty with them originated, until the question of ownership could
be adjusted amicably, they promised to keep away from the mines entirely.
In regard to their disposition at this time, a letter from Gen. Street to
Gov. Edwards says:
The chiefs who have visited me proffer their friendship, but anxiously inquire when
they may expect their Great Father will settle the line, and mark it, between their
country and the whites at the mines. They say they have left their country to keep
their young men from having anything to do with the people at the mines, until they
hear from their Great Father. "This," say they, "is our promise to Gen. Atkinson,
and we will keep it." They add, "Gen. Atkinson promised us that next summer persons should come from our Great Father to consult with us about this matter, and we
will wait and see them."
A talk was subsequently held with them, in which they abandoned all
the country south of the Wisconsin River. After this there was a general peace with the Indians throughout the Western frontier.
Meanwhile, however, Gov. Edwards, who placed no confidence in Indian
promises or Indian friendship, was not idle in his endeavors to rid the
State of the different Indian tribes still within its borders. Having got
rid of the Winnebagoes, he continued with much persistency to urge upon
the War Department the pressing necessity for removing all the Indians
beyond the State.   He saw very clearly, from  the events of the last few
years, that the red and white men could not live together, in the same vicinity, without committing reprisals upon each other and provoking hostile
feelings.  His first communication to the Department, on the subject of
the removal of the Indians, was written as early as the 4th of September,
1827, in the course of which he said that "the occupancy, by the different tribes, of the ceded lands, and their constantly traversing every part




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              225
of it at their pleasure, without any right to do so, could no longer be submitted to." He particularly mentioned the Pottawottamies who resided
near Peoria, on lands which had not only been ceded but actually granted
by the Government to individuals. He regarded it as "a grievance inconsistent with the rights of the State," and the respect of the President for
those rights ought not to permit him to hesitate to do his duty in the
premises.
The Indians who resided at this time on the ceded lands, within the
State, were the Kickapoos, Pottawottamies, Ottaways and Chippeways, of
the Illinois River, and the Sacs and Foxes. These Indians, and occasionly
large parties of Shawnees and Delawares, were in the habit of hunting extensively through the settled parts of the State, to the great annoyance of
the citizens. They not only.in a great measure exterminated all the wild
game, or drove it from the State, but in their marauding expeditions they
did not hesitate to kill the tame animals belonging to the settlers.
The Kickapoos were within the agency of Major R. Graham of Missouri.
The Pottawottamies, Ottaways and Chippeways of the Illinois River were
within the sub-agency of Mr. Peter Menard, Jr. The Sacs and Foxes
were within the agency of Thomas Forsyth of St. Louis. The Shawnees
and Delawares were within the sub-agency of Major Peter Menard of Kaskaskia; and the whole were within the superintendency of Gen. William
Clark.
On the 13th of September, 1827, Gov. Edwards addressed a confidential
letter to President Adams, on this subject, and proceeded to show that
the Indians had no right, either by treaty or otherwise, to any of the lands
in the State, and proceeded to assure the President that "their removal
could not fail to give the greatest satisfaction to the people of the State;
as being both popular and right."
On the 29th of October, following, Gov. Edwards received a letter from
the Secretary of War, Gen. Barbour, informing him that "Gov. Cass had
been instructed to take such measures as would fulfill the wishes of the
State in reference to the removal of the Indians occupying the ceded
lands." The order, he said, was that "the Indians should be removed
with the least possible delay, consistent with humanity," and in case of insuperable difficulties he was to report forthwith to the Department.
Gov. Edwards replied, acknowledging the prompt attention on the part
of the General Government to the interests and tranquillity of the State;
but, at the same time, on account of the remoteness of Gov. Cass' residence
and'the Indians not being within his superintendency, he doubted if the
proposed measure promised as speedy a redress of the grievance complained
of as seemed to be anticipated or was desirable. He wrote that the people
of Illinois would hope much more from the interposition of the Indian
-29




226                   HISTORY OP ILLINOIS.
agents on the spot, or from General Clark (the Indian Superintendent for
Illinois), than from that of any one at so great a distance from the State as
Gov. Cass.
The measures adopted by the Government resulted almost as Gov. Edwards had predicted. The Indians still remained in the State, and kept
up their marauding incursions through the settlements. On the 25th of
May, of the following year, he wrote to Gen. Clark, Indian Superintendent,
inquiring whether any and what arrangements had been made for removing the Indians in pursuance of the directions of the War Departmentthe letter of the Secretary having given the people of Illinois reason to believe that that measure would have been accomplished long before. The
continued delay caused much indignation, and Gov. Edwards wrote, rthe
General Government has been applied to long enough for its own action
to have freed us from so serious a grievance. If it declines acting with
effect, it will soon learn that those Indians will be removed, and that very
promptly."
Gen. Clark, (as would appear, also wearied with the want of energy displayed by Gov. Cass, or rather the General Government) had begun to use
his personal exertions to prevail upon the Indians to remove, as the best
means, in the excitement which prevailed, of preserving tranquillity between them and the citizens, and he did all he could to that end without
using actual coercion. They continued to promise to go, but still remained.
Gov. Edwards argued that as pursuasion would not accomplish it, force
should be substituted. He wrote again to Gen. Clark, on the 29th, that
"however justifiable might be a temporizing course on the part of the Government, were Illinois one of its territories, it has no right to authorize
or permit, even temporarily, an invasion of the rights of a sovereign and
independent State."
On the 17th of June he again addressed the Secretary of War, in which
he stated that the former promises of that Department had justified a reasonable expectation, on the part of the people, that the energies of the
Government would long before that time have been exerted to protect the
State from further annoyance. He concluded by saying: "This grievance
still continuing, and aggravated as it has become by recent occurrences, of
which I am bound to presume you are informed, I feel it my duty to ask
you what further measures, in regard to this matter, may be expected from
the General Government."
It appears that, upon the urgent request of the Indians-who made all
manner of fair promises-twelve months further time, within which to remove from the State, was accorded to them by the General Government.
This extension was greatly deprecated by Gov. Edwards, who did not believe the Indians would, even at the end of that time, remove, without the




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              227
employment of force; and he wrote to Gen. Clark that, at any rate, if any
act of hostility should be committed on the frontiers, he [Edwards] would
not hesitate to remove them on his own responsibility, as Governor of the
State.
About this time the President issued his proclamation, according to law,
and, in pursuance thereof, all the country above the mouth of Rock River
(the ancient seat of the Sauk nation) was sold to American families, and in
the year following it was taken possession of by them. To avoid difficulty
with the tribes another treaty, confirming previous ones, was made with
the Sacs and Foxes, on the 15th of July, 1830, by the provisions of which
they were to remove peacefully from the Illinois country. A portion of the
Sacs, with their principal chief, Keokuk, at their head, quietly retired across
the Mississippi. With those who remained in the village at the mouth of
Rock River, an arrangement was made by the Americans who had purchased the land, by which they were to live together as neighbors, the
Indians still cultivating their old fields as formerly. Black Hawk, however,
a restless and uneasy spirit, who had ceased to recognize Keokuk as chief,
and who was known to be still under the pay of the British, emphatically
refused either to remove from the lands or to respect the right of the
Americans to them. He insisted that Keokuk had no authority for making
such a treaty, and he proceeded to gather around him a large number of
the warriors and young men of the tribe, who were anxious to distinguish
themselves as "braves," and placing himself at their head, he determined
to dispute with the whites the possession of the ancient seat of his nation.
He had conceived the gigantic scheme, as appears by his own admissions,
of uniting all the Indians, from the Rock River to the Gulf of Mexico, in
a war against the United States, and he made use of every pretext for
gaining accessions to his party.
In the spring of 1831, he recrossed the river, at the head of five hundred
warriors of his own tribe, besides some allies from the Pottawottamies and
Kickapoos, and, bringing with him his women and children, he declared
his intention of re-establishing himself on the ancient hunting-grounds and
in the principal village of his nation. He ordered the whites to leave, and,
destroying their fields, tearing down their fences, and killing or driving off
their cattle, he threatened the settlers with instant death if they remained.
The whites complained to the Governor, who thereupon declared the acts
of the Indians to be a hostile invasion of the State, and he immediately
called upon Gen. Gaines for troops to protect the Illinois frontier. At the
same time, he ordered out seven hundred of the militia of the State, to be
mounted, and report themselves immediately for service. They were placed
under the command of Gen. Joseph Duncan, who marched them directly




228                   HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
to Rock River, where they arrived on the 25th of June. Six companies
of regular troops were also dispatched, by Gen. Gaines, from Jefferson Barracks, to the Sauk village, early in the same month.
Black Hawk and his party, alarmed at this formidable array of troops,
fled across the river, and on the 26th the army took possession of the village without firing a gun. On the next day the Indians sent over a flag of
truce. A parley ensued, and a treaty of peace was made on the spot-by
the terms of which the Indians promised to remain forever on the west
bank of the river, and the Americans guaranteed to them the payment of
a large supply of corn in lieu of that which they were compelled to abandon
in their fields.
But the trouble did not end here. Notwithstanding the treaty, early in
the spring of 1832 Black Hawk recrossed the Mississippi, and commenced
his march up Rock River Valley. Gen. Atkinson, who was stationed at
Fort Armstrong, warned him against this aggression. His aim was to reach
the countries of the Pottawottamies and Winnebagoes and make them his
allies.
Upon being informed of the movements of Black Hawk, Gov. Reynolds
issued an order for a thousand mounted volunteers, from the Central and
Southern parts of the State, to rendezvous at Beardstown, on the Illinois
River. In a short time (April 15th, 1832) a brigade, armed and equipped
for service, under the command of Gen. Samuel Whiteside, accompanied,
also, by Gov. Reynolds, commenced their march directly for Rock Island,
where they joined Gen. Atkinson, with about four hundred regular troops
under his command. From that point the mounted volunteers proceeded
at once up Rock River, on the south side, by way of the Prophet's town,
which, although deserted, they burned on their march. At the same time
Gen. Atkinson ascended the river with the regulars, in boats, taking with
him supplies for the entire army; but not reaching Dixon's Ferry as soon
as the command under Gen. Whiteside, the latter were for several days
entirely destitute of provisions, which rendered their position most embarrassing.
At Dixon's Gen. Whiteside was reinforced by a body of volunteers from
the counties of Peoria, Tazewell, etc., under the command of Major Stillman. Immediately upon being mustered into service, at their own request,
they were permitted to start on a tour of observation several miles up the
river, but instead of returning to the encampment, as they were directed
to do, they continued their "hunt for Indians" some twelve miles still
further up. On the evening of the 14th of May, while making preparations
to encamp, they discovered a body of a party of Indians, five in number.
Black Hawk says they were the bearers of a white flag, but this is denied.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             229
However this may be, Stillman's men immediately charged upon them in
grand style; but just as they came up with them, a band of warriors, numbering several hundred, who were lying in ambush, with a terrible warwhoop suddenly sprang up, with Black Hawk at their head, and gave fight
with so much energy and determination, that the whites faced-directly
about and fled in utter consternation and confusion, not stopping till they
reached Gen. Whiteside's encampment, thirty miles distant-leaving their
tents, camp equipage, baggage wagons, ammunition, and some of them even
their saddles and bridles, to whomsoever chose to appropriate them. In
this hasty and shameful retreat eleven whites were killed and several
wounded. The Indians lost four or five killed.
Gen. Whiteside, convinced, from the exaggerated stories of the panicstricken men, that an Indian force a thousand or two strong must be in the
vicinity, immediately called a council of war, and determined to march
forthwith to the fatal field of the previous evening's disaster. But although
scouting parties were dispatched in all directions, no track or trace of the
Indians could be fouhd. The whole command then returned to Dixon,
being almost famished from want of provisions. Here, after another day,
Gen. Atkinson arrived with the boats, bringing reinforcements and supplies.
The affair at "Stillman's run," exaggerated as it was, alarmed the whole
State, and Gov. Reynolds forthwith issued orders for three thousand volunteers, to rendezvous at Hennepin, "to subdue the Indians and drive
them out of the State."
Peace was now hopeless, and both sides prepared for retaliation and reprisals. On the 21st of May, a party of Indians attacked the Indian Creek
settlement, in LaSalle county, killed fifteen men, and took two young women
prisoners. The latter were, however, afterwards, through the'interposition
of the Winnebagoes, given up. On the following day a party of spies were
attacked and four of them slain. A number of other murders and outrages
followed, in rapid succession; and several engagements between the Indians
and armed bodies of whites took place at different points.
Gen. Whiteside marched immediately towards Ottawa, but the term of
service of his brigade having expired, they were discharged, and Gen.
Atkinson was compelled to await the arrival of the three thousand militia
ordered by Gov. Reynolds.
On the 20th of June, the new army rendezvoused near Peru, and were
organized into three brigades, of about a thousand men each, under the
charge, respectively, of Gen. Henry, Gen. Alexander, and Gen. Posey.
They marched forward directly to Rock River, where they were joined by
the United States troops-the whole being under the command of Gen.
Atkinson. Congress, also, in June, ordered out six hundred mounted men,
to be raised for the defense of the frontier; while Gen. Scott, with nine




230                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
companies of artillery, hastened from the seaboard, by way of the lakes, to
Chicago.
A spy battalion of one hundred and fifty men, sent forward from Dixon's,
under the command of Major Dement, in advancing towards Galena, was,
on the 25th of June, attacked near Buffalo Grove by a party of two hundred warriors, under Black Hawk. The fight was hotly contested, and at
one time the Americans were driven back, but, getting possession of the
block-house, they finally made a stand against the Indians and after a fierce
struggle, in which great bravery was displayed, they compelled them to
retreat; but not being sufficiently strong they did not pursue them. In
the fight several were killed on both sides.
The army continued its march up Rock River, near the sources of which
it was represented that the main body of the Indians were collected. As
provisions and army stores were scarce and difficult to convey in such a
country, a detachment of a hundred and sixty men was sent, under the
charge of Gen. Henry, to Fort Winnebago, at the' portage between the
Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, to procure supplies. This detachment, learning that Black Hawk's army was encamped up on the Whitewater, thirty
miles distant, resolved to start in immediate pursuit, and overtook them on
the evening of the 21st of July, near "Blue Mounds."  Gen. Henry
formed his troops into a hollow square, the opening being in the rear, and
in this manner received the attack of the Indians. The latter first charged
upon the right (Col. Fry's battalion), where, being repulsed, they attempted
to break through the left (Col. Collins'), where they were again repulsed.
The whole line was then ordered to charge the Indians, which order was
promptly executed, both sides rushing to the rencounter with terrible yells
and war whoops.  The Indians were immediately driven from the field,
leaving fifty-two of their number dead upon the spot, while only one
American was killed and eight wounded. It being now quite dark, the
Americans encamped upon the field without pursuing the enemy. The
next day they marched to Blue Mounds, twenty-five miles distant, and
two days after they were joined by Gen. Atkinson and the main body of
the troops-Gen. Henry having, before the action, sent them word of his
movements. On the 28th of July, the entire army crossed the Wisconsin
River in pursuit of Black Hawk, who, with his forces, was hastily retiring
towards the Mississippi.  Upon the banks of that river, nearly opposite
the Upper Iowa, the Indians were, on the 2d of August, again overtaken.
Here a decisive action, called the battle of " Bad Axe," took place,
which resulted again in the defeat of the Indians. Gen. Atkinson, in his
official account of the battle, says the loss of the Indians was about one
hundred and fifty killed and thirty-nine women and children taken prisoners. The whites lost eighteen men. The remnant of the enemy, cut up




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                231
and disheartened, crossed to the opposite side of the river and fled into
the interior. This battle entirely broke the power of Black Hawk.  He
attempted to make his escape, but was seized by the Winnebagoes, (who,
during the war, were allies of the Americans,) and, on the 27th, delivered
up to the officers of the United States at Prairie du Chien. He and his
family were afterwards sent as hostages to Fort Monroe, in the Chesapeake,
where they were retained till June, 1833.
In September, the Indian troubles were closed by a treaty, which relinquished to the whites thirty millions of acres of land, constituting what is
now the eastern portion of the State of Iowa. For this, stipulated annuities were to be paid, though it was well understood at the time that the
Sacs and Foxes had no rightful claim to the land. Thus ended the Black
Hawk war and the Indian troubles in the State of Illinois. The various
tribes yet remaining found homes beyond the west bank of the Mississippi River.
The "Sangamon Journal," at Springfield, Illinois, published a letter of
Gov. Edwards to our Senators in Congress, of June 5th, 1832, in reference
to the distressed situation of the frontier settlements during this war with
the Indians, accompanied with the following notice: " We give the communication of Gov. Edwards, above referred to. It shows that he is alive
to the welfare of the State. Would to God that she could boast of more
of such men, who are willing and able to sustain her rights.......  The
citizens of this State, and more especially of those of the northern counties, will feel themselves deeply indebted to Gov. Edwards for the able
and independent manner in which he has stated to our Senators in Congress the distressed situation of our frontier settlements, and the causes of
those distresses."




CHAPTER XII.
Gov. Edwards' Correspondence with the Secretary of the Treasury on the
Subject of the Three Per Cent. Fund-His Private Character-His Pursuits-iManagement of his Personal Affirs-l-is Usefulness as a Citizen
and Neighbor-Funeral Discourse of the Rev. J. M. Peck.
THREE PER CENT. FUND.
On the 9th of March, 1829, Gov. Edwards addressed a letter to the
Commissioner of the General Land Office, advising him of his having
drawn bills on account of the three per cent. fund due to the State, and
requiring payment at the treasury. The letter was referred to Samuel D.
Ingham, the Secretary of the Treasury, who replied to the Governor that
the act of Congress directs " that an annual account of the application of
the money shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and in
default of such return being made, the Secretary of the Treasury is required
to withhold the payment of any sums that may be due until a return shall
be made as herein required.  This provision of the act not having been
complied with on the part of the State of Illinois, and the act seeming to
leave no discretion, I have been constrained to decline the payment of one
of the bills mentioned in your letter, which has this day been presented;
but the holder has at the same time been informed that the bill is for
part of a sum now due to the State of Illinois, and that immediately upon
the receipt of the return required by law, payment would be made." On
the receipt of this letter from Mr. Ingham, Gov. Edwards, on the 2d of
July-and subsequently the Governor and Commissioners of the School
Fund-wrote to the Secretary, inclosing an account of the disposition of
the sums which had been paid to them for the encouragement of learning
within the State of Illinois, under the act of the 12th of December, 1820.
Mr. Asbury Dickens, the Acting Secretary, replied "that it would have
afforded great satisfaction to the Department to have found in that account,
and in the explanation presented, a justification for the payment of the
drafts of the Commissioners, but the law must be the rule of action; and
as the Department cannot consider the investment which the account shows
to have been made of the moneys hitherto paid in purchasing the State




LIFE AND TIMES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.                   233
debt, as an application of those moneys according to law, it deems itself
prohibited by law from making any further payment until an account is
presented showing the application of the sums already paid to the purposes
for which the law declares they shall be applied......I have submitted the
whole subject to the notice of the President, who has been pleased to approve of the course which has been adopted."
Gov. Edwards, considering the doctrines and assumptions in the letter of
the Acting Secretary, although sanctioned by the President and Secretary
of the Treasury, as subversive of the just rights and derogatory to the dignity and honor of the State, contended that Congress had no more right to
confer such a power on the Secretary than the State would have a right to
authorize the Auditor to require of the Government of the United States
an annual account of the application of the money stipulated to be disbursed
under the direction of Congress in making roads leading to the State.
The following reply to the letter of the Secretary is an able exposition of
the rights of the State, and satisfactorily demonstrated that no such power
could be delegated to the Department as to authorize the withholding of
this money:
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, June 4, 1829.
SIR-I had the honor, a day or two ago, to receive your letter of the 13th ult.,
acknowledging and informing me that it would afford great satisfaction to the
Department to have found in that account, and the explanation presented in my
communications, a justification for the payment of the drafts of the Commissioners
for the amount which has subsequently accrued; but that the law must be the rule
of action, and as the Department cannot consider the investment which the account
shows to have been made of the moneys hitherto paid, in the purchasing the State
debt, as an application of those moneys according to law, it deems itself prohibited
by law from making any further payment until an-account is presented showing the
application of the sums already paid to the purposes to which alone the law declares
they shall be applied; that it is a cause of sincere regret to the Department; that
with the strongest desire to regard as correct such a disposition of the funds in
question as the authorities of the State of Illinois might have deemed proper, it has
not found grounds to concur in the views which they have taken of the subject;
and that, anxious on an occasion of so much delicacy and interest, that the State
should not suffer by any error of judgment on your part, you had submitted the whole
subject to the notice of the President, who has been pleased to approve of the
course which has been adopted.
Not doubting in the least that it would have afforded you great satisfaction to
have found in the account of the Commissioners a justification for a different decision, in a case of so much delicacy and interest to the State, and how great soever
may have been your regret at finding yourself compelled, by your construction of the
law referred to, to refuse the payment of the drafts in question, I can truly say it
cannot have exceeded that which I sincerely feel at finding myself compelled, by a
due regard to the high responsibilities which your decision devolves upon me, to
endeavor to justify the part I have had in this business, and to protest in behalf of
-30




234                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
the State against the doctrines and assumptions of your letter, as equally subversive
of its just rights and derogatory to its dignity and honor.  In doing this, I must be
understood as combatting your opinions only-for as the duty enjoined upon the
Secretary of the Treasury in this case is purely ministerial, his responsibilities are
so exclusive that even the President himself has no right to control, no power to
justify him; and so long has this principle been established by the highest judicial
decisions, so universally acquiesced in, and so uniformly acted upon by the Treasury Department itself, that I can but regard it as an extraordinary inadvertence
that you, who have so long and often witnessed and participated in its practical
operation, should have introduced the President's opinion with an official communication on a subject so clearly without the sphere of his authority.
The injuries which the State has already sustained by the decisions of the Department, and losses, greater than the whole amount drawn for, which must inevitably
result to it, from an adherence to the determination expressed in your letter, will, I
trust, fully justify the frankest examination, on my part, of the grounds you have assumed, and invite to a review by the Department of a decision too disastrous, in its
present and ultimate consequences, to be insisted upon under every doubtful authority, or without the clearest, most perfect and irresistible conviction of its justice
and propriety. In pursuance of a practical exposition which had been given to the
compact between the United States and this State, and to the law you refer to, both
by Mr. Crawford and by Mr. Rush, as Secretaries of the Treasury, and in conformity to
the advice and every previous requisition of the Department, the drafts in question
were drawn-none of the Commissioners anticipating that the Government or any department thereof would disown its own acts, and, by a sudden change of its conduct,
without any previous notice thereof to the State, subject it to the severest losses consequent upon the protest of those drafts. These losses, however, it has sustained, by
the decision of Mr. Ingham. Those which must result from yours, are far greater. He
determined that the drafts could not be paid till "the return required by law" should
be made; but by informing the holders of them that, immediately upon the receipt of
such return, (knowing at the same time that annual ones were then impossible) payment
would be made, he gave assurance that a strict compliance with the law would not be
insisted upon. You say, "the lawi must be the rule of action." He only decided that a
return should be made. You claim the right to decide upon its consistency with the obligations of the State, and thereby to control its action and cause its submission to your
own views of its duty. His decision amounted to no more than that payment should be
postponed. Yours is equivalent to a determination that it shall never be made. For
knowing, as you did, that the State had authorized and that the Commissioners had invested the moneys, hitherto paid, in purchases of the State debt-determining this to be
illegal, insisting that "the law must be the rule of action," and requiring returns which
those purchases have rendered utterly impossible, can amount to nothing less than an
absolute refusal to pay at all. Nothing was less anticipated than this result. Mr. Ingham's letter, with a perfect knowledge that no returns'had been made for years past,
and with the law of the State, authorizing those investments in the Department, containing an assurance that immediately upon the receipt of an account of the application
of the moneys heretofore received, "payment would be made," and such amount having been transmitted, no danger was perceived in renewing the drafts; and they were
renewed under a confident expectation that no further difficulty would occur. Your
decision, however, has not only, a second time in the same year, subjected the State




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                      235
to an additional loss of ten per cent. upon the whole amount drawn for, but must, if
persevered in, force it to incur the expenses of a call of the Legislature, far more considerable than the whole amount which you have thought fit to withhold. For as no
doubt was entertained that the Legislature of the State might authorize this fund to
be loaned upon interest, for the purpose of rendering it a productive source "for the
encouragement of learning," or that it might authorize the Governor to borrow it
from the Commissioners, for the use of the State, upon like terms, and for the same
purpose, its appropriation in that way was so confidently relied on, as a provision for
defraying the current expenses of the Government, that its operations must necessarily be suspended, without other resources-which the Legislature alone is competent
to supply.
Is, then, the State to be subjected to such inconveniences, its interest to be thus
sacrificed and its dignity prostrated at the feet of an acting Secretary of the Treasury
-however distinguished for his intelligence, integrity and patriotism-merely because,
"with the strongest desire to regard as correct such a disposition of the funds in question as the authorities of the State of Illinois might have deemed proper," he has
not found grounds to concur in the views they have taken of the subject? Such results could hardly have been expected at any time; much less at a time and under
circumstances so generally regarded as peculiarly auspicious to State rights. It must
be admitted that there can be no more legitimate object of State authority and jurisdiction than the "encouragement of learning."  What, then, could be more humiliating to the just pride of a free and independent State, than that its legislative action
upon a subject, so unquestionably within the sphere of its sovereign powers, should
be subjected to the supervision, control and negative of a subordinate officer of a different government? The degradation cannot but be most painfully felt in the present
case. As none could have a deeper interest in or higher motives to the "encouragement of learning" than the State itself, the compact, with no more than reasonable
confidence, has, without exacting security or providing any means of coercion whatever, submitted this business to the sound discretion and good faith of the Legislature
of the State. The Legislature, with a disposition that has never been complained of
but as too favorable to this object, has, in the exercise of its best judgment, endeavored to render this fund as available as possible to the purposes for which it was
granted. The measures adopted with this view have been and still are approved by
the people of the State, and their success is sufficiently evinced by the extraordinary
augmentation of the fund itself. Yet, your decision, assuming that the Legislature
was either too ignorant to perceive its duty or too faithless to perform it, requires
that the State shall retrace its steps, and in default thereof denounces against it consequences only due to a faithless violation of the most solemn promises and engagements. And all this because it so happens that you cannot concur in the views that
have been taken of this subject by those whose peculiar province it was to decide
upon it.
If such a decision is to be persevered in, it will not, I trust, be without a favorable
reception and a deliberate consideration of the objections which painful but imperious
duty calls upon me to make against it. I will not urge the force of precedents. I
will not rely upon the practical exposition of Mr. Crawford and Mr. Rush, and the acquiescence of the Government for eight successive years; but I may be permitted to
say, that, if you are right, they must have been guilty of flagrant violations of their
duty, and it is left to the Department to decide how far this serious inculpation of




236                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
such distinguished and enlightened public officers should furnish an additional motive
to that deliberate reconsideration which I have the honor most respectfully to solicit.
I am perfectly willing to consider the case as res integra, and to test your decision
upon principle.
And here let me be distinctly understood as not intending to include any objections
to the decisions of Mr. Ingham. On that branch of the subject, I have nothing to add
to the views contained in my letter to him of the 2d of April, last. But I contend
that the Government of the United States is incompetent to confer upon the Secretary of the Treasury the right, which you have assumed, of deciding upon the validity
of the account of the application of the fund in question, which the State is required
to return; that no such power was intended to be or has been delegated to him, by
the law referred to, and that, if it had been, your decision is erroneous.
The propositions offered by the United States were accepted and agreed to by the
State on certain conditions. Now, sir, I need not, I am sure, quote authorities to
show a gentleman of your intelligence that all treaties, conventions and agreements,
however denominated, made between sovereigns, are public engagements, which, in
regard to their validity, their execution, the dissolving of them, the rights they confer, the obligations they impose, are all subject to precisely the same rules. This
compact, therefore, cannot be considered in an inferior light to that of a treaty, and
a treaty, too, between equals: because, however different in splendor, pomp and power, equal in point of independence-which is all that is essential to sovereign equality.
This equality, then, at once explodes your doctrine that the "law must be the rule
of action," as applied to the rights and obligations of the State; for as law is nothing
less than a rule of action prescribed by a superior to an inferior, whence can either
party derive authority to give law to the other. The power of the United States to
disengage themselves from their promises and nullify a compact, is not intended to be
questioned; but the right, on their part, to interpolate into it conditions for which it
has not provided, and to prescribe the duties of the State by law, cannot be conceded
without dishonor. Sovereigns acknowledge no competent authority to decide between
them, and have nothing to rely upon for the fulfillment of their mutual engagements
but the faith of promises. Neither party has a right to construe the compact at its
own pleasure, and any difference between them, growing out of it, necessarily becomes
the subject of negotiation or must eventuate in its nullification. How, then, could
Congress delegate to you the power to supervise, control and negative the legislative
action of the State upon this subject? How authorize you to require the State to
retrace its steps, and enforce its conformity to your own views of its duty, by a violation of the promises of the United States and the exaction of conditions which it had
never bound itself to perform, and yet recognize the existence of the compact? The
refusal of one party to fulfill its stipulation places them in a new attitude towards each
other, from the very nature of things puts an end to the compact, and is only to be
justified on the ground of a faithless violation of the promises of the other. The obligations of the compact are perfectly reciprocal; the rights of the parties under it
equal. If, then, the United States can authorize their Secretary of the Treasury to
require of the State an annual account of the application of the money, stipulated to
be appropriated by the Legislature thereof, for the "encouragement of learning," and
to withhold payment if he should think the money misapplied, permit me earnestly to
ask of you (or of Mr. Ingham, if this letter shall be referred to him,) why may not the
State authorize its Auditor of Accounts, or any other officer, to require of the United
States an annual account of the application of the money stipulated to be disbursed,




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     237
under the direction of Congress, in making roads leading to the State, and to suspend
the execution of all the promises of the State if he should think this money misapplied?
To me, it appears that the rights of the State, and the propriety of such a requisition on its part, are far the most obvious and reasonable, because both these
stipulations appear to have been offered as inducements to the State, were obviously
intended for its benefit, and were granted only upon the condition of an ample
equivalent, which it has faithfully rendered.  Should this right be conceded to the
State, there is every reason to believe the compact would be of short duration,
since it is not probable that there is a single individual within its limits who
really believes that the disbursements of this fund which have been made under the
direction of Congress have been in conformity to the compact. At all events, they
are not less questionable than those appropriations under the authority of the
Legislature of the State, which you have denounced.  It cannot be pretended
that the State has not strictly complied with every condition on which the engagements of the United States were made to depend. Is it, then, reasonable to expect
that the State should continue to perform those conditions, whilst the stipulated
equivalents for them are thus arbitrarily withheld? I think not. Every article of
a treaty or compact has the force of a condition, which, by a default of the party
promising, is nullified-for neither party is bound by its promises but upon the
honest and faithful fulfillment of the engagements of the other.  The State may,
therefore, rightfully and legally absolve itself from its.obligations whenever the
promises in its favor are violated, or the benefits intended to be secured to it are
withheld; and as the bargain was a very disadvantageous one on its part, it is
scarcely to be doubted that it will avail itself of this right, if this extraordinary
refusal of payment shall be persisted in.
It cannot, therefore, be presumed that Congress could ever have intended to delegate to the Secretary of the Treasury power whose exercise involves such awful
consequences; and the nature and importance of the case forbids any derivation of
the power you have assumed from implication. Let us, then, see whether the power
you claim has been conferred upon you. The law declares that the Secretary of
the Treasury shall pay the money in question for the purposes mentioned in the
compact; that an account of its application by the State shall be transmitted to
him; and that in default of such returns being made to him, he shall withhold the
payment of any sums that may then be due, or which may thereafter become due,
until the return shall be made.  All, theni that the Secretary is authorized to demand of the State is that it shall exhibit to him an account of its application of the
money.   This being done, whether he may think the application right or wrong,
wise or unwise, he is bound to pay, since he has no right to withhold payment but
in default of such return being made to him.  The State is not required to account
to him for its conduct, to satisfy him that the money has been properly applied; to
submit to his control or dictation in a case confided to its own judgment by the
compact itself, and undeniably included within its legitimate power.  Nor has the
law given him the power to decide upon the validity of the application of the
money, to arraign the State for its ignorance, or to denounce it for its treachery,
and subject it to punishment or force it to abandon measures which it knows to have
been adopted in good faith and believes to be in conformity with the compact, and
better calculated than any other to advance the very interest for which it was intended to provide.  Had such an awful power been intended to be granted to the
Secretary, its great importance and the obvious consequences to which it might lead,




238                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
forbid the belief that it should have been left to any kind of implication, or that it
would not have been distinctly expressed and guarded by every prudent precaution.
It is far more reasonable to suppose that Congress intended to provide the means of
ascertaining how the money should be disposed of, and to reserve to themselves, and
not transfer from them to the head of a Department of the Government, the right
of deciding upon such measures as should thereupon appear to be expedient and
proper.
But if this extraordinary power has been granted to the Secretary, it is, with all
due deference, confidently believed that you have decided erroneously.
Previously, however, to entering upon this branch of the subject, that I may not
be personally involved in the censure implied by your decision, I may be permitted,
in justice to myself, to remark that, as I never participated in the investment of
the money in question in the purchase of the State debt, I am not entitled to any
share of the merit or demerit of that measure. It is due, however, to candor to say
that I have never seen, nor can I now see, any objection to the whole policy that
has been pursued by the State in regard to this fund, than an over-anxiety to augment it for the purposes for which it was granted, and premature efforts to aid the
interests of learning at the expense of other interests having equal claims.
In a new State, with a very sparse and greatly dispersed population, it may well
be imagined that there may have been a time when a regular system for the encouragement of learning had not been adopted, and that with the utmost anxiety to
effect so desirable an object, it may have been unavoidably retarded by circumstances which could not be controlled. This was, in fact, the situation of this State at
the time the money in question was received.  There were no existing institutions
of learning to which it could properly be applied. Should it, then, on this account,
have been withheld by the Secretary? If not, was it absolutely necessary that it
should lie idle and unemployed, when it could be made to yield an increase that
would greatly facilitate and accelerate the object for which it was intended? Or
how should it have been used so as to have enabled the State to render an account
of its application that would have satisfied your construction of the law? If I
understand rightly the remarks in your letter, with the reference you make to mine
of the 2d April, it is just as necessary to exhibit an account to satisfy you that the
money had actually been literally applied to " the encouragement of learning," as
that it had not been misapplied to any other object. And, indeed, if you have the
right to decide upon the consistency of the return with the obligations of the State,
there seems no reasonable distinction between those cases, since the cause of learning could not be less injured by withholding this fund from its aid than by otherwise
applying it.
What then is the consequence of this construction? Being unable, and likely to
continue so a long time, with its own funds exclusively to establish those institutions of learning which should be the objects of the stipulated appropriation, the
State in the meantime, though held to a strict and continued performance of the
equivalent conditions on its part, is to be altogether deprived of the use of this
money. And this notwithstanding the law itself has declared that it shall be paid
to it quarterly. Is it to be supposed that such a state of things could be acquiesced
in by a free, highminded and independent people?
I had the honor to state to Mr. Ingham, in my letter of 2d April, to which you
refer, as follows: "The several sums heretofore received, however, on this account,
being as yet inadequate to the objects for which they were granted, have not been
appropriated otherwise than in the purchase of the notes of the State Bank of Illi



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   239
nois and warrants upon its treasury at a great discount, which has considerably
augmented this fund, all of which is deposited in the treasury of the State, to be
appropriated in due time exclusively to the objects for which it was granted." Instead of a justification for making further payments, you find enough in this statement, and in the account of the Commissioners, to prohibit them. Why? Because
you cannot regard as correct such a disposition as has been made of the fund in
question, which as well includes the deposit of the whole amount of it, augmented
as it has been, "in the treasury of the State, to be appropriated in due time exclusively to the objects for which it was granted,' as the means by which its augmentation was effected.  Speaking of the latter, as you do, in such close connection
with the obligations of the State to appropriate the money to " the encouragement
of learning," you seem to contend that it should, at all events and under all possible
circumstances, be confined to a specific appropriation, that should directly and immediately and exclusively operate upon learning only; and hence it would appear
that no deposit in the treasury of the State of any sum, under any circumstances,
till the sums received should be adequate to the intended objects, would meet your
approbation, since the deposit of the actual sum received could scarcely be more
satisfactory than that of a much larger amount for the same purposes; and especially
as the acknowledgment, by the State, of the receipt of the former from the Commissioners could afford no greater security than its acknowledgment of the receipt
of the latter, with the most solemn pledges of its faith to appropriate it exclusively
"to the encouragement of learning," and to no other object.
By the Legislature of the State, it has been supposed that this fund was intended
to aid it in the establishment of institutions of learning, as well as to support them
after their establishment; that it was under no imperative obligation, whether prepared or not, expedient or otherwise, to exhaust every cent received by immediate,
direct and exclusive appropriations to "the encouragement of learning;" that it was
under no absolute necessity to "rip open the goose to get the golden egg;" but that
it might invest the money in any safe and productive funds, or loan it upon interest,
and apply the proceeds to those objects.  You would have the whole amount received annually exhausted, at all events. You would not permit it to be invested
even in the stock of the Bank of the United States, since you object to its more
profitable investment in the debt of the State, unless upon the degrading assumption
that the former is worthy of all credit and the latter of none.  It would seem that
it could not be more safely loaned than to the State, whose honor and interest
equally conspire to insure its fidelity to such an engagement; but you would not
permit it to be loaned at all, since you refuse to allow the State to use it upon far
more profitable terms, unless your objection arises from a particular want of confidence in the ability or good faith of the State.  What, then, would you have the
Commissioners of this fund to do? Would you wish them to release the State from
its solemn and explicit obligation to pay the whole amount for which it has receipted
in the lawful currency of the United States, and to diminish the fund so greatly increased, by accepting, in discharge of its obligation, the amount only which has been
received from the United States? And can you believe that this would advance
the interest which you are so careful to protect? How would you have that part of
the fund which is required to be appropriated to a college or university disposed of 
I confess, I cannot ever conjecture what, with your construction of the law, would
satisfy you; and I would take it as a favor to be enlightened on the subject by the
Department.




240                      HIISTORY OF ILLINOIS,
By the compact, it is declared that one-sixth part of the money contracted to
be paid by the United States "shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." Now, suppose the amount received within the past year, after the passage
of the law, to be one thousand dollars, one hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixtysix and two-thirds cents of this amount would be applicable to a college or university; but no such institutions were then in being, nor was the existence of either,
at that early period, contemplated by either of the contracting parties. The money,
therefore, could not be directly bestowed on a college or university.  It would be
insufficient for the erection of a suitable building for either; the annual application of such a sum to such a building could scarcely be expected to eventuate otherwise than in its entire loss; and you will not permit it to be idle or suffer it to be
employed in any other manner than the strict letter of the compact; for the State
is under precisely the same obligations to apply and account for the application of
this part of the fund as the balance of it.  What, then, should be done with it?
The State will be greatly interested in being informed on the subject, should it find
itself compelled to abandon its own, and adopt your views of its rights and obligations.
The Legislature of the State, composed, as it has been, of men who claim no exemption from the fallibility and imperfections common to all mankind, may, doubtless, have erred, but the most rigid scrutiny is defied to detect a single ground to
justify the imputation, or even the faintest suspicion that it has in any manner
whatever acted upon the subject without the most scrupulous regard to good faith.
Influenced by its own construction of its rights and duties, and animated by an
ardent, if not a rather too exclusive disposition to advance the interests of education,
it seized with avidity the opportunity to make the investments to which you object,
as the best possible expedient for rendering this fund the most available for those
purposes. It authorized all the notes of the State Bank purchased by the Commissioners, to be canceled, and required the Auditor of Public Accounts to give them a
certificate for their whole amount, payable in the legal currency of the United
States-which certificate was delivered to and kept by the Commissioners "' as an
evidence of their claim upon the.treasury of the State." It has sufficiently evinced
its determination to appropriate this fund exclusively to the encouragement of
learning, and to prevent its diminution in any other way, by having caused a sum
of which it had been robbed, while it was in deposit for safe keeping in the Bank of
the State, to be reimbursed to it; by providing by law that " no part of the said
three per cent. fund shall ever be applied to any other purpose than the encouragement of learning in this State, and the expenses attending the receipt of any portion
thereof shall be paid out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated;"
by establishing a system of free schools, and providing by law "that for the encouragement and support of schools respectively established in this State, according to
this act, there shall be appropriated, for those purposes, two dollars out of every
hundred hereafter to be received in the treasury of this State; also, five-sixths of
the interest arising from the school fund (meaning the one in question), which shall
be dividel, annually, between the different counties of this State, in proportion to
the number of white inhabitants in every county under the age," etc.
But I will press the subject no further. The whole case resolves itself into this
simple question: Whether the State is to be compelled to abandon its own opinions,
in which there is, probably, not a single dessentient within its limits, and to adopt
yours? If this must be so, it cannot be less than a mortal blow to State rights;
and whatever the consequences, I, for one, can never yield my assent to it.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                  241
I have only to add that, whatever may have been the freedom of the remarks
which I have felt myself called upon to make, I beg leave candidly to assure you
that they have proceeded, not from any unfriendly disposition, but from a sincere
and anxious desire to avoid a collision but too well calculated to interrupt the peace
and harmony of the Union itself.
I need not urge that the peculiar circumstances of the case render it extremely
important to the State that I shall receive as early an answer to this communication
as may suit the convenience of the Department.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS.
To ASBURY DICKENS, Esq., Acting Secretary of the Treasury.
Having given a history of Gov. Edwards' character as a public man, and
of his public services, I propose to say something of his private life-of his
pursuits in the management of his personal affairs-and his usefulness as
a neighbor and citizen.
At a very early age, as has been previously stated, he was sent by his
father to Kentucky to take charge of his landed estate.  Although only
nineteen years of age, he took charge of the farm hands, opened and improved a farm upon which his father afterwards removed, with his numerous family, from the State of Maryland, built distilleries and tan-yards,
and gave all the necessary instruction in relation to their construction.
It was at this time that he indulged in habits of dissipation, from which,
by a determined resolution, he was snatched like'a fire-brand from the
fire. He broke loose from his associates, removed to Logan county, Kentucky, where he devoted himself to the study and practice of his profession. Very soon after his appointment to the office of judge, he resided
on a farm, and successfully carried it on until his appointment to the office
of Governor of the Territory.
After the reformation of his habits, he was intrusted by his father with
funds to locate lands in Kentucky, and his success was such that he laid
the foundation for the fine estate which was afterwards realized by his
brothers and sisters. Though his father was anxious to divide his property
by giving him an equal share with his brothers and sisters, he insisted upon
receiving nothing under the will. It appears, from a letter to Mr. Wirt,
that he declined receiving anything from his father, as early as 1808. Mr.
Wirt, in a letter of that year, thus alludes to it: "Your delicacy in relation to your father's will does you honor; but you are amply requited for
it-for a testamentary compliment from such a man and such a father is the
richest of legacies."
Although, in the year 1799, he was left without a dollar he could call
his own, by his practice for the short space of only four years, and his prudent investment of the money realized from his profession, he amassed
what was considered in that day a large fortune, consisting of lands, notes,
-31




242                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
farms and stock, previous to his leaving Kentucky for Illinois, in the year
1809. Many of his friends expressed surprise that he should leave Kentucky for the office of Governor of the Territory of Illinois.  Speaking
of his success in Kentucky, Mr. Wirt, in a letter written about that time,
says, " I had supposed the Presidency of the Court of Appeals, connected
with the society of your relatives and friends, and its dignity, upheld by
your own splendid fortune, was an office much more desirable than that
for which you have exchanged; and although it gave me great pleasure
to state to Mr. Madison, at large, my impression of you, yet, I must confess, in secret, I half wished the application might fail, principally on your
father's account, whose old age, I believed, reposed in a great degree on
you. But of all these considerations, you, who was on the ground, are
certainly best judge, and I will not doubt that you have decided correctly."
For a considerable portion of his time, after his removal to Illinois, he
resided on his farm near Kaskaskia, to which he brought with him, from
Kentucky; an improved stock of horses, cattle and sheep, from which the
agricultural interests of the Territory were much benefited. He also had
a choice collection of fruit trees, grape vines and shrubbery.  He established saw and grist mills, and engaged extensively in the mercantile business-having no less than eight or ten stores in as many places in Missouri
and Illinois; and, notwithstanding the arduous duties of his office, he
almost always purchased his goods himself. He established stores in Kaskaskia, Belleville, Carlisle, Alton and Springfield, in this State; and in
St. Louis, Franklin and Chariton, in Missouri.
He was equally useful to his fellow-citizens and neighbors as a physician; for, although he did not practice medicine as a profession, yet he
was devoted to the study of it, and the writer knows of hundreds of instances of his visiting and prescribing for the sick without any charge; and
it was not unusual for persons to come several hundred miles to consult
him with regard to cases that were considered of a dangerous character by
other physicians.
As in his'public life righteousness and faithfulness were the rules of
his conduct, so in his private affairs was he influenced by a love of justice,
benevolence and truth. He was sued but once in his life, and in that he
was successful. He was kind and compassionate to the unfortunate, never
turned away the needy from his door, and was the friend of the widow, the
fatherless and the poor.  I know of widows and ministers of the gospel
who were indebted to his liberality for their homes.  A more affectionate
and devoted husband, father, brother, or a kinder neighbor, never lived.
His children so respected and loved him, that it was unusual for either of




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                   243
them ever to incur his displeasure by doing any act which they believed
would not meet his approbation.
He resided at and in the vicinity of Kaskaskia from 1809 to 1818; in
Edwardsville from the time of his removal from Kaskaskia until 1824;
from which time, his place of residence was Belleville, St. Clair county,
where he died on the 20th July, 1833.
In closing this memoir of Gov. Edwards, I may be permitted to say,
what indeed can be said of few men who have been engaged so long in the
public service, that his political opponents were never able to point to a
single measure which he had supported which did not meet with almost
the unanimous approbation of his fellow-citizens; nor to any measure, calculated to advance the interests of his constituents, which he did not propose or favor. At the time of his death, he had scarcely an enemy in the
State, Gov. Bond, John McLean, (Senator in Congress from this State,)
and nearly all his former political opponents, were his warmest personal
friends. In the year 1828, he received a letter from the Hon. John McLean, of Illinois, in which he says, "But that you have always been true
to your friends and faithful to your engagements, I am and have for a long
time been fully satisfied; and it has always been to me a source of regret
that we were, either with or without cause, in a state of collision.  But
that is over, and, on my part, I assure you that I only recollect it to regret
that it ever existed."
The following sketch of Gov. Edwards' life, extracted from a discourse
delivered by the Rev. Dr. J. M. Peck, on the 22d of December, 1833, is
inserted here as embodying, not only some of the leading traits of his
character, but facts of his history:
FUNERAL DISCOURSE.
"Her strong rods were broken and withered."-EzEKXIAL-xix: 12.
Figures of speech were common in ancient times; the scriptures abound with them.
Hence, to a right understanding of such expressions of scripture as my text, it is necessary to notice the application of the phraseology, and its connection with the subject over which the prophet was lamenting. He was here bewailing the ruin of the
royal family of Judah, and the great calamities that had fallen upon the nation of
Israel.
In the connection, the Jewish commonwealth is represented by the figure of a lioness-her whelps ensnared and taken.-(Verses 3-9.) Allusion appears to be had to
Jehoahaz, whom the people had made king after Josiah was slain, and whom Pharaoh
Necho carried, in chains, into Egypt. The people, seeing no hopes in his return, submitted to Jehoiakim, whom Pharaoh had made king. Like a young lion he used his
power with great cruelty, till he fell under the provoked hostilities of the king of
Babylon.
The next figure, to represent the condition of the Jewish nation and their rulers, is
that of a vine, planted in a fruitful soil.-(Verses 10-14.) Their magistrates and




244                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
chief men are compared to "strong rods."-(2-11.) The judgments of heaven had
passed over the land. "The east wind had dried up her fruit." What the prophet
alludes to here is not so readily determined. Was it the pestilence from the east that
swept off the people and withered the strong rods? Or, was it the allusion to the
invasion of Judea, by the king of Babylon?
"Strong rods" metaphorically denote leading men-rulers of the nation. This is
manifest from the eleventh verse: "And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them
that bore rule." Such a metaphor would describe those who had superior talents, and
in other respects were well qualified to rule.
It is deserving of remark that such a rod should grow out of a weak vine; but God
raised up from the Jews, even when the nation was in a low condition, many distinguished and mighty men. For there were periods, in the history of this nation, when
the people had excellent and wise magistrates for their governors.
It is affirmed in the text that these strong rods were broken and withered. Death
had removed them. Imbecility and corruption, or tyranny and cruelty, then characterized her rulers.
The loss of such public men, as were fitly described by the figure "strong rods,"
was deplored by the prophet as a public calamity. Hence, I regard the text as expressing this sentiment: that the death of an able statesman is a public calamity,
First-I shall contemplate the use and application of the metaphor.
A parent is a strong rod to his family. The companion of his bosom leans on him
for support and happiness, and his children look up to him for counsel and example.
A minister of the gospel is a strong rod to the church over which he has been placed
as overseer.
A man eminently qualified for public business and usefulness in a political community, is a strong rod to a nation or a state.
We will proceed to notice some of these properties in public men, which entitle
them to the application of the figure "strong rods."
1. Great natural talents. These are to be found in strong reasoning powers and a
vigorous understanding; a peculiar aptitude and genius for public business; a keen
penetration into the tendencies of measures towards the welfare or injury of the community, and the speediest means to advance the one and counteract the other-with
clear perceptions of right and justice, and the false colors in which unjust measures are
often disguised. Though these abilities are susceptible of great improvement, by education, self-discipline and experience, yet their foundation seems to be laid in a naturally vigorous intellect.
2. In an educated or well cultivated mind. When great natural talents are well cultivated by close, systematic study, observation and experience, and by these means
the mind has become enriched with a large fund of useful knowledge, the foundation
is laid for a great man.
Public men should possess considerable knowledge of the history of men, nations
and governments-knowledge of the whole circle of human affairs, (particularly of the
condition, resources, policy and designs of neighboring nations)-that they may know
how to direct the affairs of their own with advantage; and more particularly of the
constitution, principles, history, laws, and peculiarities of their own Government.
The peculiar organization of our National Government, with the coordinate and
subordinate relations of each -State-the different circumstances in which each are
placed in relation to others, and to the Confederate Republic-make it indispensable
for a well qualified statesman to bring to this subject a mind habituated to severe and
patient investigation, and well stored with previous reading.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    245
Considerable knowledge of the nature, sources and obligations of law, and especially'
of the fundamental laws of our country, is a most important acquisition; so is the
knowledge of human nature, in general-of our own hearts-of the human passions,
and especially the power of influencing others to the adoption of important measures.
A statesman must not only be capable of forming wise plans, but he must be able to
carry them into effect by bringing the people to coiperate with him. He must also
possess competent knowledge of the condition and resources of the country he serves,
and skill to direct those resources to the best advantage.
It will now be perceived that, without an educated and well cultivated mind, a man
can never become an eminent statesman, however great may be his native powers.
Like that potent agent that propels our commerce and drives our machinery, a vigorous mind, without cultivation and discipline, may do great injury.
I am not here depreciating the properties of those minds who have not been classically or scientifically educated, or whose names have not been recorded on a college
diploma. Shall I be told that eminent men, profound statesmen and able commanders
have done honor to our own country and that of other nations, and yet have never
entered the walls of a literary or scientific institution? Will the names of Washington, Franklin, Sherman, Rittenhouse, Patrick Henry, and a hundred more in the last
or present generations, be arrayed before me to confute the position that an educated
and well cultivated mind is necessary to eminence in public life? Let it be remarked
that I have not made a collegiate education and the attendance of able instructors, in
all cases, indispensable to these attainments. But it is denied that Washington,
Franklin, and other sages and patriots of like character, were uneducated men, and
that they attained to eminence and usefulness by mere natural genius, with uncultivated minds. They possessed, most unquestionably, great intellectual powers, but
these were highly cultivated. They had not the advantages that many others possessed, in the means of acquiring their education. By pressure of circumstances they
were forced, in a considerable degree, to educate themselves. Did such men ever.arise by the mere flight of unaided genius? No; it was only by patient and long
continued study-aided by much practical observation-that their mental powers became developed and exhibited such vigor.
We admonish young men to beware of the delusion that they can ever become
"strong rods" in a political community, or eminent in any pursuit, without close study.
Your partial friends may flatter your vanity by indiscreetly praising your genius and
natural talents; but never expect to arise above the common level, without study and
observation. "Give attendance to reading" is no less applicable to the young patriot
than to the young preacher.
3. Self-government is an important requisite in the character we are contemplating. This
implies the subjugation of our appetites and propensities-equanimity of temper-and
such power over the passions as will enable the judgment and reason to retain the
ascendency on every emergency. He who cannot rule himself, will rarely succeed in
governing others and retaining their confidence.
4. A noble, high-minded and generous disposition. Nothing servile, base and cringing. Men of small talents, uncultivated minds and bad tempers are apt to be jealous,
envious, malignant and revengeful, and are often guilty of low and mean conduct, especially towards their rivals.
In the collisions of party and the heat of political excitement, men of character and
talents often say and do that which, in their sober and reflecting moments, they deeply
regret; but the real statesman never will suffer such feelings to become habitual. A
noble mind, conscious of its own tendency to undue excitement, makes allowances




246                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
for the same infirmity in others.  Such a character will possess self-respect; and
the tendency of a due regard to one's own character will manifest itself in a proper
respect to that of others. A man of real greatness of mind abhors those things that
are mean and sordid. Artifice and clandestine management, to promote his own selfish designs, cannot be the governing principles of his soul. A just regard to fiture
character is the duty of every one. This is far removed from the vices of pride, vainglory or ambition. It arises from self-respect. A man is as much bound to respect
and preserve his own character, as he is to preserve the members of his body or his
life; and he is equally bound to transmit the odor of a good name to posterity as to
provide for the future happiness of his children. This duty devolves preeminently
upon public men; and not only are their personal friends and families immediately
concerned, but their services and their characters are alike the property of the nation.
5. Firmness and decision of character are also important qualities. In all governments
there are broad, fundamental principles, which must be regarded and maintained,
whatever may be the risk. On these principles the course of a statesman should
never vacillate. The right of the people to instruct their representatives is unquestionable-for they in the aggregate, and not a privileged few, possess the governing
power; but there may be occasional emergencies when a public man has to take the
responsibility, and risk his popularity, for the benefit of his country. Such instances
occurred in the gloomy period of the Revolutionary war. In some districts of the
country a majority of the people fainted in the day of adversity, and would have sub
mitted to British domination; but there were men of uncommon nerve who threw
themselves into the breach and saved the country.
It is admitted that this call is not upon the topics of ordinary and common legislation,
much less for the promotion of party designs. It is only when constitutional principles are at stake, the national compact to be preserved, or great and paramount interests are in jeopardy, that the firmness and integrity of the patriot should be brought
in collision with the will of his constituents. Yet he should never be obstinate or
self-willed, but proceed with due deliberation and make up his mind to fall a sacrifice
to popular resentment, rather than betray his country or violate his conscience. There
is a moral sublimity in the conduct of a public man who will risk this much for the
public good.
He should also be firm and immovable in the administration of law and justice.
Hence, unbending integrity and an inflexible regard to righteousness should mark
his course under all circumstances. He should not be "a terror to good works, but
to the evil." (Rom. xiii, 3 )
6. Patriotism is the last quality I will notice as belonging to a statesman. A patriot is
one who is actuated by love of his country, and who will sacrifice his own interests
rather than the interests of the people.  Private interests are merged in public
good.
True patriotism does not annul or counteract the duty of universal benevolence,
for it does not call us to regard our country's interest exclusively, at the expense of
the general happiness of mankind. It does not abrogate the Divine injunction to
love all mankind-to love our enemies. The laws of universal justice and equity
require no one to promote the interests of the country, state, town or neighborhood
where he resides, at the expense of justice, humanity and the happiness of mankind.
A nation is exalted only by righteousness, and not by rapine, injustice and artifice.
"Equal justice to all " has been recognized as the sentiment of this nation.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    247
True patriotism in a citizen displays itself in zealously supporting the honor, interests and prosperity of our country and government on principles of equal justice.
It never engages in plots or conspiracies to overturn or pervert constitutional principles-though individuals, equally patriotic, may honestly differ in opinion about
the extent and application of those principles. It never seeks to bring the government or its constituted authorities into contempt; and though it may approve of
one set of measures and disapprove of another-it may seek to elevate this man as
more fitted to rule than that-yet it never takes pleasure in exposing the errors of
rulers, or in defaming their characters.  A dutiful son may see faults in his father,
and affectionately remonstrate, but until all affection is extinguished, and self-respect
is lost, he will not take pleasure in exposing him.
So with the real patriot. He delights not in exposing his country's faults.
But the man in office, above all others, is expected to be a true patriot. He must
exhibit that unquenchable love of country that will prompt him to a cheerful sacrifice of his own interest when placed in competition with the public good. This will
appear the more necessary when it is noticed that men of wealth as well as influence are frequently selected for the higher and more important offices. If such persons arc not influenced by the spirit of the real patriot, the temptation to sacrifice
the people's interest to their owrn will too easily prevail.
It is unnecessary here to particularize instances where the most elevated patriotism existed. Their names are found scattered over the records of antiquity.  One
of the most brilliant examples is that of Moses. For in renouncing the pleasures of
Egypt, and his title, as the adopted son of the king's daughter, to the throne, and in
preferring the interests of the Hebrew nation in their vassalage, his patriotism was
not less conspicuous than his piety was elevated.  The page of our revolutionary
history furnishes evidence of entire devotion to the welfare of the nation. He, then,
onlv deserves the name of a patriot who enters into public office with the fixed principle of promoting the good of his country and his fellow-men, and who continues to
be governed by that principle. And, however important are natural talents, a well
cultivated mind, self-control, magnanimity and high-souled feelings, and decision of
character, if patriotism is wanting, he may be a great man, but we dare not pronounce him a great statesman.
Secondly-The death of such a man is a public calamity.
1. Because such men are great benefits to society and government. The prosperity of a
nation depends much more on the character of its public men than is commonly
imagined. They not only give direction to public sentiment, but, from the constitution of our natures, and the unavoidable habit of suffering ourselves to be influenced by those in whom we repose confidence, they often originate that sentiment.
All the great, and many of the minor interests of society, are under their care and
subject to their influence; and their opportunities to promote the public interest
are great in every respect.
The direction they give to public affairs has a tendency to promote the wealth
and prosperity of the nation, or to impoverish and cover it with the thick cloud of
adversity.
The interest and happiness of the whole community, not excepting the humblest
and most obscure, are materially affected by the character and conduct of those who
are chosen to rule over the people. And as it is the intention and tendency of all
good and upright governments to be a terror to all evil-doers and a protection to




248                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
those who do well, public and private morals and virtue are promoted or retarded
by the character of public men.
And while, in accordance with the principles of our national and state constitutions, we protest against all interference, on the part of the civil government, with
the high and holy attributes of religion, as a subject entirely beyond its province,
yet it is obvious to every reflecting mind that the character of public men cannot
but affect materially the influence and prevalence of religious principles.  Public
virtue and sound morality are always affected by the course of human legislation.
A most striking illustration of this truth is to be found in the history of France,
when the national convention, controlled by a band of unprincipled atheists, denounced all religion, set up the Goddess of Reason, severed every bond of moral
obligation, placed over the gates of the public cemetery the inscription, " Death is
an eternal sleep," and thus broke over all the restraints that accountability to the
Divine Being, and the influence of religious principles, have erected as a barrier to
the depraved passions.
The butcheries and enormities which followed have furnished the world with a
dreadful comment of a government without religious principles and moral ties.
Without belief in the general and leading principles of religion-such as the existence of a God, our accountability to him, and a future retribution-no laws, penalties or oaths will have efficient influence on mankind. Not to enlarge upon the
importance of religion in exciting fear in the human heart of temporal judgments,
passing by its high authority in communicating sanctity to oaths, and in restraining
that class of offenses which human laws can neither detect or punish, we maintain
it is of the utmost importance in softening the turbulent passions of men. and collecting them together in friendly society.
Thus, the prosperity and safety of the people, under God, depend very much on
such public men as we have described as " strong rods."  Hence, when these are
broken and withered, it is to be regarded as a mark of Divine displeasure, and submitted to as a public calamity.
2. Wise, upright and talented men are, in a great degree, the defense of a nation.
Innumerable and great are the evils to which nations, states and communities are
exposed in this sinful world. A people without government are like a city without
walls or the means of defense, and yet encompassed on every side by enemies. They
become unavoidably subject to confusion, misery and destruction.
Government is necessary to defend communities from intestine discord, injustice
and violence. Its necessity springs from the ignorance, depravity and selfishness
of human nature. It is equally indispensable to protection from the injustice or
violence of other nations, and from those individuals who have thrown off the restraints of national government, and, as pirates or robbers, depredate upon the
property of individuals and communities.
Qualified statesmen and rulers are equally indispensable to the administration of
good government. They are the bulwarks of a people in time of war, and the chief
instruments of their prosperity in time of peace. They see the evil approaching and
throw themselves into the breach.  They survey the resources of the country and
aid the people in their.development.
Strong rods are necessary to good government.  Such was the virtuous Josiah to
the nation of Israel, who probably was one of the " strong rods" alluded to by the
prophet. When he fell in an unequal contest with the king of Egypt, "they brought
him to Jerusalem, and he died and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers,




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    249
and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah."  With him fell the glory and
strength of the nation.
APPLICATION.
It will be readily perceived by this audience that, in many particulars, our late
distinguished fellow-citizen, Gov. Edwards, was a strong rod to this community and
State. He was justly entitled to the appellation of Father of Illinois.
After giving a very brief sketch of his life, not materially different
from that I have given in another part of this work, Dr. Peck proceeds
as follows:
From the time of his first election to the Legislature of Kentucky, before he had
quite attained his majority, up to this period, he had not been out of public office,
and in every station he had acquitted himself with honor, and to the satisfaction of
the people.
It was not to be expected that he would be permitted to remain long in retirement. The people of Illinois, who, in various ways, had expressed their acknowledgments of the value of his public services, still had claims upon him. He was elected
Governor of the State in 1826, and whatever might have been the feelings of political opponents upon his entrance into this office, we believe few persons could be
found who did not approve the general course of his administration. A candid and
dispassionate review of his correspondence as Governor of the Territory, his speeches
in Congress, and his messages to the Legislature, would convince even his opponents
of the entire devotedness on his part to the interests of the State. History and
posterity will pronounce him a true patriot, and point out many official acts in which
private interest was sacrificed on the altar of the public welfare.
Upon the expiration of his constitutional term as Governor, it was his intention
not to appear before the people again in any public capacity. Enjoying some share
of his confidence and friendship, I feel authorized in this declaration. But he consented to suffer his name to be used as a candidate for Congress, at the election in
1832, by the repeated and urgent solicitations of many friends whose wishes he felt
bound to respect. This was the first and only election he ever lost before the people, and at this time there were four other respectable candidates for the same
office-two of whom were considered by the people as belonging to the same political party with himself, to whom many had committed themselves previous to the
annunciation that Gov. Edwards was a candidate.
Much of the latter period of his life was devoted to the adjustment of his private
affairs, and to acts of humanity and benevolence.  And he possessed such method
and system that, notwithstanding his estate was large and his business complicated,
his affairs were left in such order as to admit of easy adjustment.
His neighbors and fellow-citizens can give ample testimony to his humane, liberal
and benevolent character.  Possessing considerable medical knowledge, with a
sound discriminating judgment, he frequently administered and prescribed for the
sick, visited the couch of the dying, and gave consolation to the afflicted.  To the
poor and distressed he was liberal in his personal services and benefactions. The
poorest man in the State was as fully welcome to the hospitalities of his house and
table as the most opulent and distinguished.
In his benefactions to purposes of benevolence and charity, Gov. Edwards was
liberal without ostentation.  It is known to the speaker that in many instances he
gave liberal sums of which the public knew nothing.
-32




250                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
He never made a public profession of religion, yet he was a believer in its doctrines, and there were times in the latter period of his life, known to the speaker,
when he became unusually interested in its weighty truths, and was anxious about
his personal salvation. On these occasions, his conversation was free and evinced
deep feeling.
When that dreadful disease, the cholera, to which he fell a victim, first appeared
amongst us, Gov. Edwards was indefatigable in obtaining the most valuable and
accurate information of the nature of the disease, and the most successful mode of
treatment, and in diffusing it among the people.  When it approached the village
where he resided, his anxiety for the preservation of others was great.  Though of
feeble health and of impaired constitution, and forewarned by his friends that an
attack of the cholera in his system would prove fatal, yet, night and day, he was
with the sick and dying, till he fell a victim to his humane and charitable exertions
for the relief of others. The first attack on himself was in the form of dysentery,
which greatly weakened his system, but produced no alarming symptoms.  From
this attack he recovered so far as to leave his room, prepare some papers on business, and converse with his family and friends, which he did for two days, with
cheerfulness and with the prospect of a speedy recovery.
On Friday evening, July 19, he was attacked with the cholera in its regular form,
under which be sunk rapidly till about seven o'clock on Saturday morning, July 20,
when he expired. He left three sons and one daughter, to feel and mourn the irreparable loss of a kind father.
Were I to attempt a portraiture of his character, in its various colorings, I could
say nothing new nor do it ample justice. Yet, it may be necessary to call into remembrance some of its prominent features, to excite your minds to profitable reflection:
First. Contemplate him again as a youth, a minor-ardent, impetuous, aspiring,
and sent forth upon the world; journeying several hundreds of miles from his paternal guardian and home; entering upon a new and unformed state of society on the
frontier of Kentucky, and exposed to all the temptations incident to youth in all
places, with those peculiar to a new country. See him, falling before the tempterthe structure of a noble mind about to be thrown down in ruins-yielding to the
seductive influences of youthful follies-lured on to the precipice by giddy and
thoughtless companions-the hydra monster about to encircle him in his scaly and
voluminous folds. Pause a moment! Here are brilliant prospects-promising talents-a fine imagination-a cultivated mind-a father's hope, a mother'sjoy-about
to be crushed and withered in this deadly embrace, and, as worthless things, thrown
down the precipice into the gulf of oblivion. And is escape from such toils common?
Ah, no! Where one has escaped, thousands have perished. Gaze here, ye young
men, accustomed to your nightly orgies! Look at that immolation about to be
offered! And yet, from this horrid embrace, and these fascinating toils, he did
escape-marvellously escape!
We pause again. A silent, secret resolution begins to heave his youthful breast;
it wavers-it struggles-it falters, and struggles again. The hopes of father, mother,
brother, sisters, and a long line of friends, are flickering-sending forth the last
feeble rays. The voice of filial love is not quite silent. The voice of conscience is
upraised. The cheering gleams of hope appear above the distant horizon. The
struggle is renewed, and victory crowns the conqueror!
Let our young men here be admonished. Your success depends, not in imitating
his youthful follies, but in escaping from the snare and devoting your minds to the
acquisition of useful knowledge and forming habits of virtuous industry.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     251
We know not which to admire the most-the merciful providence of God to this
young man, or the uncommon decision and energy of character put forth. Now view
him as a close, laborious and successful student, determined to qualify himself for
the profession he had chosen. Breaking away from the fascinations of his youthful
companions, he puts forth the vigor of manhood and enters upon a life of honor and
usefulness.
Second. View him as a public man-ardently devoted to the interests of the people; receiving their confidence; chosen by them to important trusts, and, from the
midst of a constellation of legal talent, placed on the bench of the circuit court at
the age of twenty-seven-rising, both in the confidence and respect of the people
and in the judicial station, till he reaches the elevated position of Chief Justice of
the State of Kentucky before he is thirty-two years of age. Is here imbecility of
mind, fickleness of purpose, neglect of study, time wasted in gossiping and listless
folly? Is here anything like indecision? indolence? waywardness? Far otherwise.
Here are talents of no common order-moral energies that press through every obstruction-steadiness of purpose that never fails of success-mental discipline that
will cause the mind to grow brighter and brighter-time husbanded as an invaluable
treasure. Here is decision of character sufficient for the noblest purposes, industry
that never tires, and a soul subjected to the government of reason.
Contemplate him through his future public life. The same traits of character ifncrease in vividness-the same intellect accumulates strength. All the virtues we
have contemplated are called into active exercise in forming the character, modeling and administering the government of this Territory.
View him as a Senator. His weight of character and influence command the
respect of the nation. His suggestions are listened to as the voice of wisdom and
experience, while, through all his public services, the people cling to him, as a
strong rod, for support.
Third. But it is not in the ardor and buoyancy of youth, nor in the halls of legislation, nor on the bench of justice, nor yet in the executive chair, that a man's
whole character is exhibited to the best advantage. Go to the domestic circle, see
him by the fire-side, around the family altar, and in the every-day dress of his character, if you wish to gain a full and distinct view of the picture of a man. Let us
contemplate our friend in this interesting aspect. As the head of a family and a
father, few persons have manifested stronger affections in the family circle-few
fathers were more beloved by their children. Ask that desolate widow, whose affections have been scathed as with the lightning's blast, to count up the sum of her loss.
Ask those disconsolate children how much they loved him. Let the circle of relatives, with the long line of personal friends, draw near, estimate his worth, and the
loss they have sustained.
Fourth. Contemplate him as a neighbor and citizen. Though elevated to high
offices and rank, he was truly your equal. Few men of his station in life ever possessed less of the pride of ostentation and greatness. While all trifling and mimicry
were despicable in his eyes, it was his nature to be sociable, conversant and friendly
with every class of citizens. As a neighbor, he was kind and obliging.
Were I to mark the prominent traits of his character, I would place in high relief
great decision-determined, resistless perseverence-quickness in dispatch of business-sagacity to the public interest-a liberal and philanthropic disposition-and
a sense of his accountability to God.




252                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
We have thus, fellow-citizens, attempted to give you a brief but imperfect sketch
of the life and character of our distinguished friend; and while we are taught, from
Divine revelation, to submit with humility to that calamity which a wise and mysterious Providence has brought upon this State, in the death of a fellow-citizen of such
eminent abilities and usefulness, we shall close this discourse with a single reflection.
"For none of us liveth to himself," is the declaration of an inspired apostle. We are
not insulated beings. Our. example, influence, wealth, talents and prayers are all to
be employed for useful purposes, and should be directed in that way that will lessen
the most misery and promote the most happiness in the world in which we dwell.
Whatever be our rank-whether as legislators, jurists, magistrates, ministers of the
gospel, or private citizens-we are capable of doing immense harm or immense good,
and the influence of this good or evil is not expended upon the present generation,
merely: ages to come will feel the effects. It will follow in the continuous line of
succeeding generations; and future millions will arise to call us blessed, or invoke
anathemas upon our memories. The laws that are now framed-the moral influence
exerted-the national or state improvements attempted-the schools establishedthe churches gathered-the preachers ordained-the appointments to office-the
public and private example of all-the humblest walk of the humblest citizen of this
State-will prove the means of happiness to individuals and the community for years
to come.
Filled and overwhelmed with a sense of this weighty responsibility, let each one
act well his part in life, that blessings may water his memory when his ashes have
commingled with their kindred dust.




CHAPTER XIIIL
Memoir of the late Bon, Daniel P. Cook.
The following memoir of the late Hon. Daniel P. Cook, who had been
a member of Congress from the State from 1819 to 1827, which, by the
permission of William H. Brown, Esq, I give a place in this work, gives
a brief sketch of the able and distinguished men who had been the prominent political opponents of both Mr. Cook and Gov. Edwards.      Two of
them, the Hon. Elias K. Kane, and John McLean, were the successors in
the Senate of the United States of Gov. Edwards and Judge Thomas, and
were both distinguished for their talents and usefulness to the State and
the Nation. They both died while holding their seats in the Senate.
MEMOIR OF THE LATE HON. DANIEL P. COOK.
To the Members of the Chicago Historical Society:
At your request, I have prepared a brief memoir of the late Hon. Daniel P. Cook,
our second representative in Congress from this State, and in honor of whom the
county of Cook was appropriately named.  I have undertaken the task the more
readily because I deem it desirable and important to preserve our early statistics,
and some facts of history in connection with this gentleman, and because I take
pleasure in perpetuating the memory of one of my first and constant friends, and
vindicating his character from some of the aspersions cast upon it in times of high
political excitement. Though confessedly a labor of friendship, it is believed that
no partial coloring has impaired the truthfulness of the picture; and certainly no
attempt is made to underrate the character or talents of Mr. Cook's competitors to
enhance his merits or exalt his virtues.
An interval of thirty years is a potent anodyne. It gives time for many "second
sober thoughts," and clears the vision of prejudice and passion. It obliterates the
rough and angular points of character, and brings out the milder virtues of your
adversary. Gradually and imperceptibly his failings and foibles are forgotten, and
memory dwells only on what was lovely and of "good report."
Mr. Cook was born of very respectable parentage, in the county of Scott, in the
State of Kentucky, about the year 1794. In his early youth, he enjoyed only such
means of education as were afforded by the common schools of his native State. If
he studied the classics at all, it must have been in the later years of his life, and
after he had entered upon its arduous duties. It is, however, certain he pursued no
collegiate course.




254                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
When quite young, he was placed by his parents in a mercantile establishment,
but continued therein but a short time. This sphere was too limited for his high
aspirations, and leaving trade and commerce to minds less ardent than his own, he
commenced the study of the law with the late Hon. John Pope, of Kentucky, then
in the zenith of his fame, and engaged in a large and lucrative practice.
Mr. Cook came to the Territory of Illinois in the latter part of the year 1815, and
established himself in business at Kaskaskia, the seat of the Territorial Government,
and the only considerable town in the country, embracing a population of from
seven hundred to one thousand inhabitants, two-thirds of whom were native French.
He entered successfully into the practice of the law, attending the courts in all the
then organized counties* (except those upon the Wabash), and in the lower counties in the Territory of Missouri.  The business of the courts at this period was
comparatively small, owing to the few inhabitants in the Territory, and the limited
business transacted by them. It is probable that few, if any, of the profession, at
that day, supported themselves exclusively by their practice. Many were engaged
in agricultural pursuits, and others occupied a portion of their time in land speculations.
In the early part of the year 1816, Mr. Cook became ajoint owner in the office of the
"Illinois Intelligencer," the only newspaper and printing office in the Territory, and
assumed the duties of an editor. Unfortunately, the files of the paper of that period
were not preserved, and no opportunity is now afforded to form an opinion of the manner in which those duties were discharged; but, from the known talents and industry
of Mr. C., it may be safely assumed that, while under his management, the paper took
a high rank amongst its contemporaries, and exerted a healthy influence in the community. With the printing of the laws and journals of the Territorial Legislatures, and
blanks for the public offices, at prices which would now astonish a practical printer, it
is certain the business was lucrative and yielded a competent support to its conductors.
It appears, by the record of appointments, that Gov. Edwards conferred upon Mr.
C. the office of Auditor of Public Accounts, in the month of January of that year.
If the office was accepted by him, he could have continued in it but for a short time.
Late in this year, or early in 1817, President Monroe selected Mr. C. as bearer of
dispatches to the late John Quincy Adams, then Minister at the English Court, to recall that gentleman, preparatory to his assuming the office of Secretary of State, to
which office he had been appointed upon the formation of Mr. Monroe's cabinet. Mr.
C. performed that duty, and in due time returned and resumed his practice and other
duties.
Shortly after his return, Mr. Cook was appointed a Circuit Judge. His district
embraced the counties of Bond, Madison, St. Clair, Randolph and Monroe, containing
a large territory of nearly one-third of the present limits of the State. He retained
this office but a short time, and could have held but one or two terms of his courts.
He acquired, however, an enviable reputation as a Judge, evincing talent, energy and
promptness, and was as popular as a judicial officer as when pursuing his profession
at the bar.
Upon the organization of the State Government, in December, 1818, Mr. C. was
elected, by the Legislature, Attorney General for the new State, which office he held
until October in the following year.'These counties were Bond, Madison, St. Clair, Monroe, Randolph, Jackson, Franklin, Union,
Johnson, Pope, Gallatin, White, Edwards, Crawford and Washington.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       255
The State of Illinois was virtually admitted into the Union in October, 1818; but,
by a provision in the Constitution, an election for State officers, and for a representative in Congress, was to be held on the third Thursday of September of that year, for
the short session, expiring March 3, 1819. Mr. Cook became a candidate, and was
opposed by the late Hon. John McLean, then a resident of Shawneetown. It is hardly
necessary to say that, during the administration of Mr. Monroe, there was a remarkable political calm throughout the entire country. The great questions, which before
had been eagerly and acrimoniously discussed by the people, and had divided the nation into the two great political parties of Democrats and Federalists, had either been
decided, or, by general consent, postponed to an indefinite future. The course pursued
by Mr. Monroe gave universal satisfaction, and the people enjoyed, for six or eight
years, a political millennium. That quietude and peace, in common with others, was
enjoyed by our early settlers. It is not, however, to be forgotten, that early in the
territorial history, as well as in the first six years after Illinois became a State, the
disturbing question of slavery formed an important element in the politics of that
period. There was a strong party in favor of introducing slavery at the election of
delegates to the Convention which formed the Constitution; but it is well known that
the principles of liberty prevailed, and the whole question was set at rest by the decisive vote of 1824, when this subject was brought directly before the people.
Another element of division in our politics was personal preferences, or the existence of parties for the advancement of particular individuals or their friends. Thus
there were the Edwards party and the Bond party, the respective adherents of either
warmly contending and struggling for office and supremacy. The leaders of these
parties were Gov. Edwards, Judge Nathaniel Pope and Mr. Cook, professed antislavery men (though the two first were slave-holders) on the one side, and Gov. Bond,
Elias Kent Kane, his Secretary of State, and John McLean on the other. The former,
of course, supported Mr. Cook, while the latter naturally fell into Mr. McLean's ranks.
This gentleman was a Kentuckian by birth, and a leading member of the bar, in the
south-eastern part of the State. Possessed of fine talents and an unblemished char.
acter, he was at that time, and continued to be until the day of his death, one of the
most popular men in the State. He was subsequently speaker of our House of Representatives, and, in 1826, was elected a Senator in Congress. He died at an early
age, possessing, in a rare degree, the confidence and esteem of all who enjoyed his
personal acquaintance.
The election thus held in September, seems not to have excited general interest.
The State ticket was a compromise one-composed of Col. Bond, for Governor, from
the one side, and Col. Pierre Menard, an excellent and worthy French citizen, from
the other. The contest was mainly for Congress, and Mr. McLean succeeded by only
fourteen majority.
At the special election, in the summer of 1819, the same gentlemen were candidates for Congress, and great exertions were made by the candidates, themselves, and
their respective friends. No election, before or since, caused more feeling and effort.
The exciting Missouri question had, at the previous session, been brought into the
halls of Congress, and, upon preliminary votes, Mr. McLean had favored the proslavery party, and indicated his desire that the State should be admitted without the
proposed restriction. In addition to this, he had been so unfortunate, in some of his
addresses before the people, as to offend some of the more recent immigrants from the
Eastern States, and, as a'general thing, lost their votes. Mr. Cook was elected by a




256                        HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
fair majority. As in former contests, the old question of slavery wTs prominent. The
anti-slavery party rallied around Mr. Cook's standard and insured his success.
In 1820 the contest was renewed. Mr. McLean, satisfied with the efforts of the
previous year, and unwilling to risk another defeat, declined to be a candidate. The
Hon. E. K Kane was brought out as Mr. Cook's competitor.
The question of the admission of the State of Missouri as a slave State was still
more directly before the people. The old pro-slavery party, represented by Mr. Kane,
were against imposing any restriction upon the proposed new State-while the other
party were, to some extent, divided. Many, who theretofore had acted in our local
struggles as anti-slavery men, were disposed to leave the question to the decision of
those most immediately interested; others, and perhaps the larger portion, looked upon
the admission of another slave State as a great evil, to be resisted at all hazards. Both
candidates, however, were understood to be in favor of the admission of this State
with a constitution admitting slavery-Mr. Kane from choice, and Mr. Cook from policy. The contest, therefore, in 1820, was mostly a personal one, depending mainly
upon the popularity of the candidates. Mr. Kane was badly defeated, obtaining a majority in only one county in the State  Mr. Cook's majority was two thousand four
hundred and eighty-two, in a vote of less than eight thousand, or nearly two to one
in his favor.
On his first entrance into Congress, Mr. C. was placed upon the committee on Public Lands-the most important to the people he represented.  At this period, and before, the government lands were in market at two dollars per acre, one fourta in cash
and the residue upon a credit of five years. The comparatively prosperous years, immediately before the formation of the State Government, had induced the wildest
speculations in public lands. Every man who could command the sum of $80 (the
cash payment upon 160 acres, then the smallest subdivision), became a quasi land
holder, and a debtor to the government. The financial revulsion throughout the
country, soon after the close of the war of 1812, reached the West in 1819. Men
who had supposed themselves possessed of large wealth; suddenly discovered their
error. They had, it is true, an equitable claim to many quarter sections of land, but
the claim was valueless, and the land unsalable; and in addition to this embarrassment, they were largely indebted to the government for the sums remaining unpaid
upon their purchases. It may be safely stated that, from this cause, at least one-half
of those who had been considered the men of capital in the country, were reduced
from supposed wealth to positive bankruptcy.
To relieve the country from this load of debt, Mr, Cook warmly advocated plans of
relief, which resulted in a general law, abolishing the credit system and reducing the
price of land to $1.25 per acre.* Former purchasers were permitted to consolidate
their entries and relinquish the surplus quarter sections to the government  By the
operation of this law individuals secured, in fee simple, the number of acres of land
they had actually paid for, at the rate of $2 per acre, and were released from their
liabilities for further payments.  Mr. Cook introduced and advocated, at the session
of 1820-21, a resolution giving preemption rights to settlers on the public land. It
was the first effort made in this direction, and failed of success. It was, however,
the germ of the policy thereafter adopted, and from which our citizens have derived
great and incalculable advantages.
*At a subsequent election, Mr. Cook, a considerable land owner, under the $2 per acre law,
was charged with opposition to the new law. The writer has abundant evidence in his possession to prove the falsity of this charge.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                     257
Mr. Cook voted in Congress against the admission of Missouri. As he had given
the people to understand, during the canvass, that he would favor that measure, his
vote excited surprise, and called forth from his opponents unmerited abuse and bitter
denunciations. Bribery and corruption, the violation of pledges, deception and double-dealing, were rung upon all their various changes, and, for the time being, Mr 0.
apparently lost his hold upon the confidence and affections of the people.
His reasons for his change of mind were given in his speech in Congress when the
bill was before that body; and, inasmuch as this is one of Mr. Cook's acts which has
been loudly denounced, it is proper he should be heard in his defense and in his own
words. The following extracts, it is thought, will place this subject in a proper
light, and enable the reader to form an opinion as to the propriety of the course he saw
fit to adopt:
*  *  *  "When," said Mr. C., "he first arrived at Washington, he, for the first
time, met the objection which was now urged against the Constitution of Missouri;
and, perhaps, under the influence of a strong anxiety for her admission, had examined
the question, as he thought, thoroughly, and for a considerable time saw no reason to
change his determination. Under the conviction produced by that examination he had,
as he hoped he always should do, fearlessly expressed his opinion in favor of her admission. He even now, notwithstanding his opinion was changed, freely declared that
all his predilections were in favor of such a vote.'Missouri, he said, was the near
adjoining neighbor of Illinois; and, notwithstanding an unhappy difference of opinion
upon political subjects, had created, between their respective citizens, a rancor and
animosity which he well knew the vote he was about to give would not in the least
allay-a vote at which he also knew many of his constituents would be greatly disturbed when they heard of it-yet he should be glad to see her admitted and placed
upon an equal footing with the State he had the honor to represent.
* *   *  " In order to be a State in the Union, or to be entitled to become such,
he considered it an indispensable pre-requisite, on her part, to form a constitution
in conformity to the principles of the Federal Constitution, and in conformity to
the conditions presented by the act in virtue of which her constitution, upon its
face, professed to have been formed. That she had not formed such a constitution,
he thought, was fairly deducible from the argument he was about to make.
"The constitution of the United States, said he, gives to'Congress the power to
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and
other property of the United States.' This, said Mr. C., is a general power; and in its
exercise, he apprehended that Congress had a right to dispose of that territory to
whomsoever they pleased. He said it had been admitted, by gentlemen on both
sides of the question, that free negroes and mulattoes were competent to hold real
estate; and that they did hold it in almost, if not quite, every State in the Union.
They are, therefore, competent, he observed, upon the admission of all parties, to
purchase such estate from the United States. But the constitution of Missouri declares,'that it shall be the duty of the Legislature, as soon as may be, to pass such
laws as may be necessary to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and
settling in that State, under any pretense whatsoever;' a provision, said he, which,
notwithstanding their competency to purchase, and the indisputable power of Congress to sell to them, clearly asserts a controlling power over the rights of these
individuals, and the paramount authority of Congress. * * * * Mr. C. said
there was another view of that clause of the Missouri Constitution, under which it
seemed still more obviously in violation of the Federal Constitution. Congress, he
-33




258                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
said, by virtue of the general power which it possessed to dispose of the territory of
the United States, for the purpose of obtaining the military services of persons, as
well of this as every other description, had offered them a land bounty-to many of
whom, and embracing free negroes and mulattoes, patents had already been issued
for lands in Missouri. He said persons of this description, to his own knowledge,
had purchased land in Illinois, and he had no doubt such was the case in Missouri.
Whether they had, or not, however, did not vary the case-the principle was the
same. In the soldier, as well as the purchaser, therefore, he begged leave to say,
the Government of the United States vested a fee simple estate in those lands. This
title he considered to consist of the possession, the right of possession and the right
of property; and he thought, when he asserted that the Government had guaranteed
all these features of the right which it vested both in the soldier and purchaser, that
no honorable member would hazard a denial of that assertion. Under this guaranty,
he contended the United States incompetent, unless for public purposes-and then
only by paying a fair equivalent therefor-to deprive them of this property.  And
yet Missouri, through a subordinate Legislature, if her constitution be allowed to
operate, does virtually take it away without paying any equivalent whatever; for
if a person be not allowed to enjoy the possession of his property, he is virtually
deprived of it.
But the United States are bound, both to the soldier and purchaser, to protect
him in the enjoyment of his property. It constitutes, by every principle of law and
reason, a part of the original contract.  The Government, for this obligation, has
received a full consideration;'and yet Missouri, in direct violation of that provision
of the Federal Constitution which forbids any State to pass any'ex postfacto law, or
law impairing the obligation of contracts,' has virtually provided that those contracts, which have been completed by the issuing of patents, shall, by the ex post
facto operation of her constitution, be annulled, and the force of the contract wholly
impaired; and, by its prospective operation, as virtually impairs the obligation of
those contracts which are as yet executory for the want of patents.
* * *    "Mr. C. repeated that his feelings were in favor of the admission of
Missouri-that both personal and political reasons combined to render it a desirable
event-and were it consistent with his sense of the duty which he owed to the country and the Constitution, to give such a vote upon the resolution under consideration, he was sure no member on that floor would do it with more pleasure.  But,
while he considered the Constitution the rock upon which our temple of liberty must
stand, and having sworn to support it, he felt himself called upon to forego all such
considerations, and defend it against infringement.  Should we suffer, said Mr. C.,
our individual feelings and wishes to enter into our deliberations and discussions, so
far as to govern our public conduct, those feelings and wishes, like the imperceptible
rising of the tide, will finally run over every principle of the Constitution, and we
shall ultimately find ourselves floating at large upon the open sea of uncertainty,
without a single landmark to guide us."
In the summer of 1821, Mr. Cook was united in marriage with Miss Julia Edwards
(the eldest daughter of the late Gov. Edwards), a young lady of great personal
charms and finished education-and in all respects fitted to be the companion of a
statesman who bid so fair to attain high and commanding positions in the councils
of the nation. Mrs. Cook survived her husband about three years, and died at Belleville, in the year 1830.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       259
At the general election of 1822, Mr. McLean again run as a candidate for Congress
against Mr. Cook. His hopes of success were, doubtless, predicated upon the "noise
and confusion" consequent upon Mr. C.'s vote upon the Missouri question. So great
was the clamor of interested partisans, that, at the commencement of the canvass,
the chances of the respective candidates appeared to be nearly equal. In its progress, Mr. C. satisfied the people of at least the honesty of his intention in giving
this vote, if not the propriety of the vote itself. His constituents triumphantly sustained him, giving him forty-seven hundred and sixty-four votes, and Mr McLean
thirty-eight hundred and eleven-a majority of nine hundred and fifty-three.
The project of a canal, to unite the Illinois River with Lake Michigan, was started
soon after the organization of the State Government.  The Legislature of 1820-21
took initiatory steps in this matter, and it was brought before Congress by a report
from the topographical corps, giving the results of a partial survey, and demonstrating its practicability. The canal project was a popular one in the eastern and
western part of the State (there was no north at that period), and was opposed by
representatives from the southern counties.  Indeed, it found some opposition in
the then great counties of Madison and St. Clair, growing out of sectional preju.
dices; for a Senator from one of those counties, in the Legislature of 1822-3, opposed it upon the ground that it would be an inlet for hordes of " blue-bellied
Yankees," as he termed our eastern people.*  The fears of that Senator have been
realized, and the results are the extensive commerce of our lakes, our rich and
populous north, and our young and enterprising cities, teeming with life, activity
and business.
In 1822, this subject was brought directly before Congress. Mr. Cook labored to
secure such aid from the General Government as would enable the State to prosecute this important work. He asked for bread and received a stone. The utmost
extension of Congressional liberality was a grant of a strip of land, ninety feet wide,
through the public domain, from the Illinois River to the Lake; and lest, by any
means, the Congress of the United States, after such a munificent grant, should be
further committed, a saving proviso was added, that the United States should in no
wise become liable for any expense incurred by the State in " surveying or opening
said canal."
In the intervening years, from 1822 to 1827, Mr. Cook urged this measure in
Congress, as a national work, in which other States were as directly interested as
his own, and affording to the Government, in time of war, great facilities in the
movement of troops and transportation of stores. The result of his labors was the
passage of the act of 1827 (the last session of his Congressional career), granting,
in fee simple, to the State, and without any reservation, the alternate five sections
upon each side of the canal, amounting to more than three hundred thousand acres
of land, and embracing the site of the city of Chicago. This act was worthy of a
Congress representing a great nation, and is wonderfully in contrast with that of
*To defeat or embarrass the canal bill, then before the Legislature, the Senator from St. Clair
introduced a bill to drain certain lakes in the American Bottom, alleged to be injurious to the
health of the people in their localities. In committee of the whole, the friends of the canal were
adroit enough to include in the bill, by the aid of southern Senators, almost every inconsiderable
pond in what would now be called Southern Illinois. Having thus loaded it to its utmost capacity, an amendment was proposed, by a canal man, to appropriate some thousand dollars to drain
Lake Michigan, which also was incorporated in the bill. This was a little more than bargained
for by the Senator, and he was compelled to aid in the destruction of his own bantling.




260                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
1822. But its greater and more enduring value was the precedent for future grants,
embracing that for railroad purposes, the effect of which we now feel in the enhancement of the value of property, the increase of business, and the general prosperity of the State.
Upon the passage of the canal bill, that great and long desired improvement was
considered as "a fixed fact," and the northern part of the State soon began to be
settled by an enterprising class of people. It was not commenced until 1836, and,
under many difficulties and adverse circumstances, was not completed until 1848.
The proposed national road, intended to have been built by Congress, from Washington through the several seats of governments of the Western States, excited
great interest in the middle and eastern parts of the State. At this time, the road
(a perfectly macadamized one) had been completed nearly to Wheeling, Va., upon
its way to Columbus, O. It was a splendid undertaking on the part of the National
Government, and, in the absence of railroads, would have been a very important and
desirable improvement.
Mr. Cook urged appropriations to continue the surveys westward of Columbus,
through Indiana and Illinois, to St. Louis. He succeeded to such an extent that the
line of the road was located to Vandalia, in this State, the streams bridged, and the
road partially graded. Before this great thoroughfare was fully completed, even as
far west as the seat of government of Ohio, its use was suspended by the construction of railway lines, so much in advance of the best constructed carriage roads,
that, by universal consent, the work was abandoned, and the portions finished and
unfinished conveyed to the several States through which it run. Though never
completed, enough work was done on that part of the road passing through this
State, to render it useful to those residing in its vicinity, and to the public generally. Extensive and durable structures were thrown over all the streams it crossed,
the low bottom lands raised to the proper grade, and the wet ground thrown up, so
that a line of stages was put upon the road in 1837, and continued thereon to this
day.
At the general election in 1824, Mr. C. was again a candidate for re-election to
Congress. His uniform success and his great popularity rendered him a formidable
competitor.  None of his political adversaries were very desirous to enter the lists
against him. He had twice beaten Mr. McLean, one of the strongest men in the
opposition, and almost distanced the real leader of the Bond party, Mr. Kane.  It
was thought necessary, however, to preserve the integrity of the party, to bring out
a candidate against him in the person of Gov. Bond-the ostensible head-who, two
years before, had vacated the gubernatorial chair. This latter gentleman had spent
the most of his life in the Territory and State, residing, until elected Governor, in
tne present county of Monroe. He was a man possessed of strong natural abilities
but little improved by education.  He stood deservedly high in the community,
and, in his administration of the State Government, there was nothing particularly
worthy of condemnation, unless that, in his appointments to office, his political
friends, sometimes not the most capable, were the general recipients of gubernatotorial favors.
Gov. Bond, though far behind Mr. McLean in talents and oratorical powers, had
this advantage over him, in that, by a judicious bestowment of his patronage, he
had created many political friends, who were bound to do battle in his behalf, and
expend their energies, influence and time in securing his election.  It was appa



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    261
rently the last card that could be played against Mr. C., and like desperate gamesters, a disposition was evinced to risk all upon the stake.  A presidential election
was also in progress, which might pass into the House of Representatives, and vest
the vote of the State in its single representative.  The Governor and his friends
took great interest in the success of Mr. Crawford-then a candidate for the Presidency-who, though a member of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, had given evident tokens
of opposition to the administration, and had created an active party of politicians,
more intent, it was then believed, upon a division of the " loaves and fishes," than
the promotion of the great interests of the country. Whoever Mr. C. might be for,
in the contingency the vote came into the House, it was certain he would vote
against Mr. Crawford. Thus impelled by personal and political motives, the Governor and his friends entered warmly into the canvass, and labored zealously, but
without success. The vote for Mr. Cook was 7,460, while Gov. Bond received only
4,374.
It is well known that the presidential contest of 1824 resulted in the failure of
the people to unite a majority of the votes on either of the four presidential candidates* before them. The question was therefore determined in the House of Representatives, and the vote of Illinois was given by Mr. Cook to Mr. Adams.
It is natural for those disappointed in their political aspirations, either by their
own defeat or that of their favorite candidate, and the consequent loss of power and
office in expectancy, to give vent to their wounded feelings and crushed hopes. Mr.
C. had reason to expect that so important a vote as he gave upon this occasion
would not escape notice or animadversion. Nor was he disappointed in this regard,
for he was charged with betraying his constituents, of violating his pledges given at
a previous election, and having basely sold his vote for office. It is, therefore, due
to his memory, that this matter should be placed in a proper light, and facts substituted for reckless assertions-the more especially as, at a subsequent election, he
was beaten for Congress, thus giving some color to the charges preferred against
him.
The electoral college of this State, in December, 1824, gave two votes to Gen.
Jackson and one to Mr. Adams;t and as Mr. C., when before the people in the
summer of that year, had promised to be governed by the expressed will of his constitutents at the November election for electors, it was claimed that, as Gen. Jackson had obtained two electoral votes, he was therefore entitled to the vote of the
State in Congress  The fallacy of this assumption is a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of Mr. C.'s pledge.  He was too wise a man to make such a promise
as would trammel his action in any given state of the electoral vote; for he well
knew that, though a large majority of the people might favor the pretensions of one
candidate, yet, by the division of the electoral districts, a comparatively small
minority might secure the election of two electors, who would give their votes in
opposition to the will of that majority.
What was the promise made by Mr. C. in relation to his vote in Congress? is
the first question to be determined.  It is contained in an address to his constituents, dated May 30th, 1824, and is in these words:
"On the subject of the approaching election of a Chief Magistrate of this country,
inasmuch as it has become fashionable: for members of Congress to endeavor to dic*Messrs. Adams, Jackson, Clay and Crawford.
tThe presidential vote in 1823, was given by districts-the State being divided into three.
tAlluding to the nomination of Mr. Crawford by eighty odd members of Congress.




262                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
tate to their constituents for whom they shall vote, you probably may expect me to
say something  Influenced by the principles which govern me as your representative,
I do not consider it my duty to attempt such dictation. You are as much interested
as I can be in making a judicious choice. It is over your interests, as well as mine,
that he is to preside. To each of you, therefore, as well as to me, it belongs to make
a free and voluntary choice for yourselves. In voting, in my individual capacity as a
citizen, for an elector in the district in which I reside, I shall surely vote for him who
will, in the electoral college, support the individual that I believe to be the best calculated properly and faithfully to administer the executive government; but, should
the electors chosen by the people fail to unite a majority of their suffrages on any individual, and thereby devolve the duty on the House of Representatives of choosing
one for them, I shall feel it my duty to vote, as a representative, in accordance with
the clearly expressed sense of a majority of those whose will I shall be called upon to
express. This is all I have to say on that subject."
Mr. Cook, then, was to be governed by the "clearly expressed sense of a majority
of those whose will" he was called upon to declare. Not, certainly, the will of the
electors, who were but three of the many thousands of his constituents.
The next inquiry is, was the "sense of a majority" of his constituents clearly expressed, or was it expressed at all?
At the election in August, 1824, the aggregate vote for Congressmen was 11,834,
and the aggregate vote upon the Convention question (for this was settled at this
election) was 11,612.*  The aggregate vote at the election in November, for all the
candidates for electors, was 4,707-making a difference of 7,127 from the highest vote
given in August, and showing that that number of voters had no will to express, or
were so indifferent as to the success of the presidental candidates as to fail to express
it at all. But if we take the number of votes given in November, 4,707, as an expression of the will of the people, "a clearly expressed sense of a majority" would
have required 2,354 votes to have been given to one of the candidates, to have brought
him within the rule laid down by Mr. C. for his future action. Did any one of the
candidates receive that number of votes?
Of the clear and undisputed votes given upon that occasion, Mr. Adams, through
his electors, received 1,541; Gen. Jackson 1,273; Mr. Clay 1,046; and Mr. Crawford
218. There were also given, at that election, for James Turney, Esq., who run in
the first district professedly for Clay and Jackson, 629 votes. If Mr. Turney, and
those who voted for him, were sincere in their preference for either Clay or Jackson,
in such a calculation as the present one it would be but fair to divide these votes between those gentlemen, increasing Gen Jackson's vote (giving him the the odd one)
to 1,588, and Mr. Clay's to 1,360; but giving Gen. Jackson all of Turney's vote, it
would amount to but 1,901-leaving him in a minority of 453 votes.+
But it was contended, at the time, that Mr. Turney's candidacy, though ostensibly
for Jackson and Clay, was really for Mr. Crawford. It was well understood that Mr.
Adams' strength was mainly in the first district, embracing Fayette county on the
south, and Sangamon on the north, and that no honest voting could prevent him from
obtaining the electoral vote of that district. The friends of Mr. Clay and of Gen.
* The vote upon the Convention question was, For-4,972; Against-6,640.
t Gov. Reynolds, in his "Life and Times," p. 254, says Mr. Cook promised to "give the vote of
the State for the presidential candidate who received from the people the most votes throughout the State." Comparing this dictum A ith Mr. Cook's address, shows that the Governor sometimes writes ad libitum.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                       263
Jackson had brought out candidates for electors in the first district for each of these
gentlemen-Dr. John Todd of Springfield representing Mr. Clay, and Messrs. J. W.
Scott and Jon. Berry, candidates for Gen. Jackson. Mr. Turney was nominated by a
convention of politicians, convened at Edwardsville in October of that year, in which
the principal Crawford men of the first district figured. The following is a part of
one of the resolutions adopted at that meeting, disclosing, to some extent, the object
desired to be obtained: "And this meeting, reposing their full confidence in the
well-known republican principles and character of James Turney, Esq., the Attorney
General of this State, do earnestly recommend him to the democratic-republican citizens of this district as a suitable person, to be supported at the ensuing election as
an elector, whom the friends of Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson ought to support,
with the fullest confidence that he will, in the electoral college,'vote [not for either
Clay or Jackson, but] for the one who, at the time of voting, will seem most likely to sutwceed against Mr. Adams.' "'That part of the resolution italicised was evidently intended to pave the way for a
vote for Mr. Crawford, if he was the one "most likely to succeed against Mr. Adams."
It was a notorious fact that, in the first district, Mr. Crawford had many strong
and influential supporters, especially among the politicians* of that day; for, in addition to his supposed strong bias to recreate a new political party proper, it was deemed
certain, from his appointments as Secretary of the Treasury, that the patronage of
his administration would flow through the Gov. Bond party channel, and that those
who gathered under the Bond banner would be the recipients of the many offices in
the gift of the President. Notwithstanding, it was not considered politic by the
leaders of that party to run a candidate in the first district for their chief, or make
any open demonstration in his favor t  The true friends of Mr. Clay and Gen. Jackson would have been slow to complicate the chances of either, by bringing out a candidate to run for both, while each had separate candidates in the field. The inference
is considered a fair one that Mr. Turney was brought before the people, by the Crawford party, either to secure a vote for Mr. Crawford or lay the foundation for future
attacks upon Mr. Cook, should he be called upon to vote, in Congress, for any of the
presidential aspirants, and especially for Mr. Adams, whom he was known to favor.
It is conceded that, after the election, in January, 1825, Mr. Turney made a publi.
cation in one of the newspapers of the day, that, if elected, he should have given the
electoral vote to Gen. Jackson. And,ino doubt, he then would; for at the date of
his publications, and, indeed, for some time before, the votes of the States had been
ascertained, and though Mr. Crawford was, with Mr. Adams and Gen. Jackson, returned to the House of Representatives, they having the highest electoral vote, yet
public sentiment had narrowed the contest to these latter gentlemen, and Mr. Crawford was virtually out of the question. Had Mr. Turney been as free to declare his
preferences in October as he was in the following January, after the attempted election by the people was over, all doubts, in relation to the views of those who voted
for him, would have been removed, and the question would have been one of figures
only.4
* Amoig these were the Hon. Jesse B. Thomas, then one of our Senators in Congress, Hon. T.
W. Smith, late one of the Judces of the Supreme Court, Emanuel J. West, and others.
t Samuel Allen offered himself as a candidate for Mr. Crawford, and received one vote only.
t "Keep dark, Boone," was a common slang expression, and will be familiar to the older residents of the State. It originated from Mr. Turney's course in this election.




264                        HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
It may, therefore, be safely said that Mr. Cook, in giving his vote for Mr. Adams,
violated no pledge previously given, nor did he act in opposition to the will of his
constituents, as declared at the November election. The whole subject was referred
to the people. They determined nothing.  He was, therefore, left free to exercise
his own judgement, and to vote for the man who, in his opinion, would best execute
the functions of the Presidential office.  If the doctrine of pluralities was to guide
him, he was bound to vote as he did-Mr. Adams stood highest. His vote was clear
and undisputed; that given to Gen. Jackson was complicated and doubtful.  And
was not the comparatively high vote given to Mr. Clay worthy of consideration in
forming an opinion of the "sense of a majority" of the voters? If one vote might
be transferred to another, was not the "elective affinity" of Clay and Adams stronger
than that of Clay and Jackson?
It must also be remembered that, in 1825, Gen. Jackson was a new man for the
Presidency. Though he had developed extraordinary military talents, his capacity
for the civil administration of the Government was as yet untried and uncertain,
and by many doubted.   He certainly was not then the Gen. Jackson of 1832. Mr.
Adams, on the other hand, had been educated as a statesman. The great powers of his
mind were understood and acknowledged; and, from former precedent from     the
days of Jefferson, as Secretary of State, "he was the presumptive heir to the succession."  Under all the-e circumstances, the error of Mr. Cook, if error at all,
must be accounted as only venial-an error of the judgment, and not of the heart.*
*List of candidates for electors in 1824, as announced in the papers of that day:
FoB HENRY CLAY-Doct. John Todd, 1st Dist.; James Gray and Samuel H. Clubb, 2d Dist.;
William H. Bradsby and H. B. Jones, 3d Dist.
FOu JOHN QuINOY ADAMs-William H. Harrison, 1st Dist.; Leonard White, 2d Dist.; Col.
Pierre Menard, 3d Dist.
Fou GEN. JACKsoN-Jon. Berry and J. W. Scott, 1st Dist.; Henry Eddy, J. M. Street, A. Ramsey and Daniel Boatright, 2d Dist.; A. P. Field and James S. Smith, 3d Dist.
FoR MB. CRAWFORD-A. G. S. Wight, 1st Dist.; Wm. M. Alexander, 3d Dist.
Fo JACKSON AND CLAY- James Turney,
The following shows the vote, at the November election, for electors for President in 1824:
FIRST DISTRICT.
Counties.    Harrison.   Scott.    Turney.   Berry.     Todd.     Allen.
Pi e..............  193        6          1....................................
Fulton..............   27         1          4         7         4............
Sangatnon..........    125        17         9        20        123............
Mor an............    86         12        21         3        11...........
Fayette............    38............     45........       12............
G; eeue.............  85............   214         1         8............
Madison............    243        5        198         1        49............
St.' Clair.1....................  104   6        119        1
Bond.............    75         10        13        13         6............
Montgomery..............  21............  1          7        11...........
Total...........   1063       51        629        58       343         1




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN          EDWARDS.                 265
The last of the charges intimated, viz: that Mr. Cook sold his vote for office-is
sufficiently answered by the fact, that Mr. C. neither sought nor received any post
of honor or profit from the new administration. Had his valuable life been spared,
it is hardly possible that a man of his industry and commanding talents could have
remained long in private life.  His views for the future were disclosed in the following extract of a letter to the writer of this article, dated April, 1827: " Of the
proceedings of Congress, it is not necessary to say anything.    You are already
informed of all that has been done. Whatever of censure or credit I may be entitled,
I leave to the calm decision of the people; and when they shall make that decision,
with the knowledge of all the facts connected with each act, I shall not quarrel with
them for it. But I am now on a tour to recover my health, if possible-and it may
be that the voice of praise or censure will be alike unheard by me before any opinion shall be formed.   The probability of such a result, however, does not repress
the hope that I may yet pass, with the people of the State, through many changes
of increasing prosperity; and, finally, before the curtain be drawn, see Illinois what
even in one man's life she may be, and what my feeble exertions have always aimed
to aid in making her.
SECOND DISTRICT.
Counties.       Eddy.      Grav.     White.     Clubb.   Boatright.  Screet.
W ayne.............   62         18          6....................................
Lawrence..........     31        65         16..............................
Gallatin............   199        41         47          1         1         28
Crawford..........   64         64         18..................................
W hite..............    111       129         58.................       30
Hamilton...........     36         25          4.........................  6
Clark.............                5         13....................................
Edgar..............    37        26         31....................................
Edwards............55       103         29............      5...........
Total..........    596        476        225         1          6         64
THIRD DISTRIOT.
Counties.            Field.    Menard.    Jones.   Alexander,  Bradsby.
Pope................            41         11         3............
Monroe........................ 2      35                   11         30
Randolph..................        47        149          2        177        12
Jackson............4........... 46            6                    7         39
Unio.........................  158       15...........      3         10
Alexander......................  28          3........................     1
Johnson.........................   40          2........................     4
Franklin.......................  49          1............      5          9
Jefferson........................  62         1............      1          9
Washington..................       29         30............     14         79
Total........................  497        253        84        218        193
REOAPITULATION.
Adams.    Jackson.     Clay.   Crawford. Clay and Jackson (Turney.)
Ist Dist..........   1063      1l9         343............                 629
2 Dst                           667        476.......... I...........................
d Dt.........       253        497                  218..........................
Total            1541       1273      1046        218                     629
-34




266                      HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
"Should I recover my health, so as to feel able to embark.in the business of my
profession, or any other business for which I am qualified, within a few months. I
shall return to the State. But should it continue feeble, and yet improve, asIhope
it will, in the mild and genial climate of Cuba, the place of my destination, I
shall probably remain there a year or two, or till, at least, I have fairly tested its
virtues."
Mr. Cook was a candidate for re-election to Congress in 1826. His old opponents
would, doubtless, have suffered this election to go by default. No candidate was
brought forward to oppose him.  In the course of the summer, the people of the
State were astonished at the temerity of a young gentleman, then but little known,
in announcing himself as a competitor with Mr. Cook for this office.
Gen. Joseph Duncan was then a resident of Jackson county, and engaged in mercantile business. He had served in the regular army as a Lieutenant, in the war of
1812, and had acquired some distinction in the humble post he occupied. He had
also been a member of the Senate of this State, from the county of his residence, and
probably held that office at the time he announced himself for Congress. He was,
however, but little known beyond the few counties adjacent to Jackson; and no one,
at the time, supposed he was fitted, either by education or experience, to exercise
the duties of the office to which he aspired. His chances of success were apparently
hopeless; and it is supposed that a betting man, at that period, would not have
risked one to one hundred dollars upon his election. He canvassed the State, however, with diligence and assiduity, and presented as bold a front as if assured of
success. He was unaccustomed to public speaking, and in this respect compared
very disadvantageously with Mr. Cook.  Yet he had the faculty of presenting.his
ideas in a plain and simple way, easily understood by the masses, and, to a great
extent, effective in such a population as then constituted the State.
The old opponents of Mr. Cook, of course, united upon him. As a candidate, he
was a perfect God-send to them. Ii he failed in his election, it would be attributed
not to the weakness of the party, but to the absence of all claims on the part of
Gen. Duncan to such a position. To these were added the real friends of Gen.
Jackson, who were dissatisfied with Mr. C. for his vote in Congress. Gen. Duncan
received 6,321 votes, and Mr. Cook but 5,680.
No event excited greater surprise and amazement than the result of this election
-it was totally unexpected to friends and foes.  It may be safely said that if an
election could have been held immediately after the result was known, the vote
would have been materially changed.  "We did not intend," was a very common
remark, " to beat little Cook, but so to lessen his majority as to make him feel his
dependence upon us." It is but just to Gen. Duncan to say, that his constituents
were happily disappointed in his subsequent development of talents and tact, rendering him a worthy successor to our second representative.*
It may be confidently asserted, that Mr. Cook's defeat was not attributable to his
vote upon the Presidential question. The small majority of 641 obtained by Gen.
Duncan would indicate this fact. For if, as contended by many at that day, the
choice of two electors for Gen. Jackson determined the political character of the
State, a much larger majority would have attended Gen. Duncan's election. Taking,
however, the votes castfor electors in 1824, as a test of the sentiments of the people,'General Duncan remained in Congress until 1834, having been elected Governor in that year.
Before this time, his original supporters had left him, and he was sustained mainly by Mr.
Cook's old friends.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                    267
had the election of 1826 turned upon the Presidential question, it will be seen, that
by adding the vote given to Mr. Clay, 1046 (nearly equal to that given to Gen.
Jackson), to Mr. Adams' vote, 1541, Mr. Cook ought, upon this issue, to have
received a majority as 2587 is to 4707, or over four-sevenths of the vote cast, giving to his opponent the excess of votes, 167, over the votes given for congressmen
in 1824.
Matters of interest in Congress, connected with this State, have been briefly
intimated in the foregoing pages. At the commencement of the session of 1825-6,
Mr. C. was transferred from the Committee on the Public Lands, to that of the
Committee of Ways and Means. The late Mr. McLane, of Delaware, was chairman
of that committee, and the name of Mr. C was the second on the list of members.
During the whole of the session of 1826-7, Mr. McLane was absent, and the duties
of chairman devolved upon Mr. Cook. It was one of his cardinal principles to do
well and thoroughly whatever he attempted; and naturally inclined to overtask his
physical powers, and a desire to acquit himself with honor, led him to devote the
hours of rest and recreation to examination and study. Occupied during the day in
explanation of the varied and important measures presented to the House through
this committee, every interval of time was spent in preparation for the public conflict. His feeble frame could not long endure the vast amount of labor he performed,
and the last days of his Congressional life found him confined to a sick room. At
the close of the session, he embarked, as before intimated, for Cuba, trusting to
recover health and strength in the mild climate of that island. The journey was a
vain one-and early in the month of June Mr. Cook returned, with his family, to his
home at Edwardsville. During the summer, his health gradually declined; and he
determined to return to the home of his nativity, and die upon the spot that gave
him birth. He breathed his last on the 16th day of October, 1827, at the early age
of thirty-four, and his remains repose in the soil of his native State.
From this brief statement of some of the incidents in the life of Mr. Cook, it will
be seen that he was a self-made man. Without the aid of the schools, and by the
mere force of the native powers of his mind, the few brief years of his public life
developed intelligence and talent of no ordinary character. His powers seemed to
expand with the occasion that called them forth. His mind was active and clear,
and his command of language ready and copious, so as equally to interest the
scholar, and enlighten the illiterate hearer. But few men, then constituting the
Congress of the United States, notwithstanding his youth, stood higher in public
estimation, or were listened to with more attention and interest. His voice, though
soft and melodious, was of great compass and tone, equal to addresses in the open air
or in the halls of legislation.
It has been said that Mr. Cook was a popular man. His popularity was not based
upon the artifices of the demagogue, or upon assumed traits of character. His
urbanity of manner and gentlemanly deportment were natural and constant. No
one doubted his truthfulness or sincerity, and his benevolence and kindness of heart
was universally conceded. Mr. Cook's conversational powers were remarkable, and
he made himself an agreeable companion with all classes of society, preserving at
the same time the dignity and attributes of a well bred gentleman. In all the exciting contests through which he passed, his manner toward his opponents was such as
never to disturb social relations or friendly feelings. However strong the opposition for the time being, it ceased when the conflict ended; and if defeated, they
preferred Mr. Cook's success to any other political opponent. Mr. Cook was generous to a fault. He was often imposed upon by the unworthy and deceived by the




268                       HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
recital of imaginary sufferings. His kind heart forbid the withholding of pecuniary
assistance whenever demanded; and he thought it safer to err, in his charities, on
the wrong side, than fail to bestow them upon worthy objects.*
In his personal appearance, Mr. Cook was a small spare man, considerably under
the ordinary hight. His usual weight did not, probably, exceed one hundred and
twenty pounds. He was straight and erect in his person, and quick and active in
his movements. His features were plain but marked-and so indicative of intelligence and kind feeling as to render them agreeable and pleasing. He left behind
him but one child, a son, now a resident of the city of Springfield in this State, and
late Mayor of that city.
In estimating the labors of Mr. Cook, it must be remembered that he was virtually the first Representative in Congress after the admission of the State: and that
the settlement and arrangement of the various matters contained in the act of Congress changing our territorial to a State government, devolved mainly upon him.
It is believed that all questions arising out of the change, through his tact, talent
and perseverance, were decided more favorably to our interests than they probably
would have been, if entrusted to other hands. Neither must it be forgotten, that in
obtaining valuable concessions from the General Government, he had no precedent
to urge, or landmark to guide him. It was subjecting the powers vested in Congress by the Constitution, to new tests, and applying them to new objects. It was an
untried field of effort, in which every obstacle was to be overcome. The prejudice
of opinion was to be combatted, and perhaps honest, but mistaken constitutional
objections to be removed. To devote the public lands to any other purpose than
that of replenishing the public treasury, was then deemed by many a political
heresy. It is now a settled principle, mainly through Mr. Cook's efforts, that the
public domain is to be used for public purposes, and devoted for the promotion of
the general interests of the whole people-a principle which, as we have seen, in
1827, invigorated.our waning energies, and in 1851 placed us in the front ranks of
the States composing our Union, and promises us a future, unless marred by our
own folly or effeminacy, prolific in all the sources of material wealth, and the
highest moral and christian civilization.
Mr. Cook supported other measures, of great importance to his State,
besides those alluded to in Mr. Brown's memoir.
On seeing, in the year 1820, an advertisement, in the public prints of
Baltimore and Washington, over the signature of a Mr. Bond, announcing
that he was not only authorized by the Treasurer of the State to receive
the non-residents' land tax, due to the State, but to give receipts therefor,
he addressed a letter to Mr. McLaughlin, the then Treasurer, admonishing
him of the danger and impropriety of giving such authority. He said:
"If Mr. Bond receives a considerable sum (the land tax from non-residents
being then upwards of $20,000, annually,) and then refuses to pay it over,
*In one of his journeys to Washington, upon the Ohio River, as the steamer approached
Wheeling, the point of debarkation, a well dressed person accosted Mr. C., a perfect stranger,
and apologizing for his intrusion, said, "Sir, 1 am yet some distance from my home, and am out of
money. I know no one on board the boat. 1 have closely scanned the countenances of my feliow
passengers, and have discovere no gentleman more likely to assist me than yourself. Will you
please, sir, make me a loan of $50?'1 "Certainly," Mr. C. immediately replied, and suiting the
action to the word, opened his pocket book, and handed him the desired sum.




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               269
I cannot see by what means the State is to reach it, otherwise than by a suit
against the Treasurer, which, in these times, might be a very precarious
remedy. From the deep interest which I feel for the safety of the public
money, and being in a situation to warn the Treasurer of the danger he is
encountering, I conceive it both my right and duty to address a letter to
him on the subject."
Congress had, in 1819, pledged the fund reserved to Indiana and Illinois, for the laying out and making roads to those States, for the repayment of the money advanced by the United States for constructing the
Cumberland road to the Ohio River. On a resolution offered by Mr. Cook
for the repeal of this provision, and asking its appropriation for the construction of roads to this State, he addressed the House as follows: " In
offering this resolution to the consideration of the House, I beg leave to
ask its attention to the act referred to. By that act, the fund reserved for
the improvement of roads leading to the States of Indiana and Illinois has
been pledged for the repayment of the money appropriated by Congress
for the completion of the Cumberland road. This road was commenced,
I believe, ten or twelve years ago. By the acts of 1816 and 1818, authorizing the admission of Indiana and Illinois, respectively, two per cent. of
the net proceeds arising from the sale of the public lands in those States
was reserved, by Congress, to the laying out and making roads leading to
those States, respectively; and for the consideration of this appropriation,
made by Congress, with others, which were understood, on all hands, to be
for the benefit of those States, they respectively surrendered a part of their
sovereignty: they agreed that the lands of the United States, then remaining to be sold, should be free from taxation for five years after the day of
sale-and in Illinois, the bounty lands, given to the soldiers of the late
army, were also to be exempted from taxation for three years from the date
of their patents. This surrender of the sovereign right of Illinois to tax
the lands thus exempted, was the consideration given for the fund now
under consideration, as well as some other advantages which were granted
to her, and for which she is grateful to the Government. This, with the
other propositions made by Congress, are now matters of compact between
Illinois and the United States, and to divert this fund from the channel in
which I can but think it was intended to flow, Illinois will consider a violation of that compact. To appropriate that fund to the making a road
terminating at Wheeling, a point several hundred miles from the borders
of the State, never can be an appropriation in unison with the intention of
Congress or of the State of Illinois. As well might you appropriate it to
the making of a road leading from Missouri to Santa Fe, uniting those two
sovereignties, as to the object for which it stands pledged-for that would
be a road leading towards Illinois. From an examination of the subject,




270                   HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
I find that the revenue which Illinois would derive from a tax on the lands
which may be sold within the State, and on the bounty land-which she
cannot now derive in consequence of this compact-would, at a reasonable
rate, amount to about $280,000, a large proportion of which would now be
subject to be called into her coffers, and of which she really stands in great
need. Can it be contended that this fund, which is reserved to Indiana
and Illinois, respectively, to make roads leading to them-in the one case
about ten and in the other twelve years after the Cumberland road was
commenced-was at that time intended or understood, either by these States
or by the United States, to be subject to defray the expenses of that road?
It cannot be possible. It seems much more likely to have been reserved
for the purposes contemplated by the resolution which I offered: to extend
that road to the borders of those States; and unless it is so appropriated,
or at least in making roads leading to and not towards them, I think they
will have just cause of complaint against the Government. Since the
admission of those States, I believe, a fund of about $50,000 has already
accrued from the sale of lands, which should now be lying in the National
treasury. This sum, although it would -not complete the road, would defray the expense of marking and laying it out, and go far towards opening
it so as to render it passable; and, as the fund continues to increase, it
might be employed to complete it. Indeed, it seems to me to be so obvious
that the intention of Congress was, that this money should be appropriated
to the improvement of roads, to facilitate the entrance into those States,
that reasoning cannot make it plainer; and any diversion of it to any other
object, therefore, is a violation of the compact between those States and
the United States. I trust the resolution will be considered and adopted."
The resolution was then considered and unanimously adopted.
On the same day he offered the following resolution:
Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire into the
expediency of providing, by law, for the payment of so much of the money arising
from the sale of the public lands in the State of Illinois, since the 1st day of January,
1819, as has been reserved by law for the encouragement of learning, to said State.
Mr. Cook observed that "the object of this resolution is, simply, to enable the State of Illinois to obtain the three per cent. fund arising from the
sale of the public lands, which has been reserved by Congress, to be appropriated by the State to the encouragement of learning. This course has
been considered necessary, since the Secretary of the Treasury might not,
otherwise, feel authorized to pay it over."
This resolution was also adopted, and a law passed in accordance with
its provisions.
After Mr. Cook's return to the United States, in 1817, with Mr. Adams,
he remained for some time in Washington City, undetermined what busi



LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                271
ness he would engage in. His health was not good. Mr. Adams had
applied to the President to give him the appointment of Secretary of Alabama. Mr. Cook, in a letter to Gov. Edwards, dated October 2, 1817, says:
"Had not my application for that office been too late, the President said,
it would have received that attention which it merited, but that he had
previously promised it to another. I could get into the State Department
as a clerk; but experience tells me it will not do for me to engage in close,
laborious writing, and it would not satisfy my ambition to be buried in an
office, merely as a servant, where the world, perhaps, would never hear of
me. Mr. Adams assures me he will, at any time, take pleasure in bringing
me before the Government, when an opportunity offers. I am advised by
my own judgment, as well as his, to return to the West, and remain there
until an opportunity presents itself for my advancement."
Mr. Cook was, indeed, a very ambitious man. As early as 1824, he had
a very high standing in Congress. In one of his letters to Gov. Edwards,
during that session of Congress, he says: " There are none of the opposition
but Forsyth, and McLane of Delaware, that I will meet, as deserving my
special notice. This will be taking high ground, to be sure, but I will
take it. Forsyth and I have had some sparring on the tariff. I think,
although he has'been in Spain,' I need not-I certainly do not-dread
him."
Hon. John C. Calhoun, as early as 1821, spoke of him thus: "For Mr.
Cook I have a most genuine respect, both for his character and talent. I
have read his circular with pleasure; its independence and sound sense do
him much honor. He has adopted the proper mode to build up a lasting
popularity."
And again, in a letter dated August, 1822, he says: "I take much interest in Mr. Cook's election, and shall wait with great impatience to hear
the result. He is honest, capable and bold-just such a man as the times
require. His absence from Congress would be a serious loss."
Judge McLean spoke of him as follows: "He stands well with all parties, and is not excelled, in weight of character, talents and influence, by
any member from the West. For his success in the late election (that of
1826) I felt a stronger interest than for the success of any other individual,
not excepting my own brother. Mr. Cook's name is before the President
for Minister to Columbia. It was placed there by me before the commencement of the session. If the President does not appoint him, he will forfeit
all the claims of friendship and gratitude. So far as I have been informed
no appointment could be made, in the same quarter, more acceptable to the
friends of Gen. Jackson. I have heard many of them express great kindness for him, and some of them have expressed a strong wish for his success.
The duties which devolved upon him, as Chairman of the Committee of




272                    HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Ways and Means, were very arduous. The labor was more than his health
could bear, independently of the long confinement every day to the unwholesome atmosphere of the hall. He, however, continued to exert himself until his physical powers gave way, and he was consequently confined
for some weeks-the greater part of the time to his room. We were favored
with his company, as one of the family, shortly after he became unwell,
and I hope contributed, in some degree, to his comfort and restoration."
On hearing of his death, Judge McLean wrote to Gov. Edwards "that
all my family were distressed at his loss, and deeply sympathise with his
disconsolate partner. I fear your State cannot supply his place by a man
equally useful and respected in public life. His race was short, but it has
been honorable to himself and useful to his country. No man in Congress,
from the West, had a higher standing or could exercise a more extensive
influence."
The Hon. Tristram Burgess, in a speech delivered by him in Congress,
on the 15th of January, 1831, speaks of Mr. Cook as follows: "Our relations with Cuba have long since been interesting and important. Gentlemen will call to mind that we have frequently heard, from Europe, that
Cuba might be transferred from Spain to some other sovereignty. Such a
report was rife in this country in the winter of 1826-7. It was believed,
by the friends of the last administration, that a confidential agent was, by
Mr. Adams, sent to Cuba, to ascertain, if possible, the truth of this report,
and that Daniel P. Cook was that agent. * * Permit me to speak a word
concerning Daniel P. Cook, because every man who hears me did not know
him as many of us who sat in this House with him. Ile was a man whom
the gentleman from New York would probably not call a genius; but his
mind was of that cast and capacity, in the transaction of human affairs, to
which every man would wish to commit the management of his own. His
sense was that of the every-day intercourse of men, and would pass, like
the most precious or useful metal, wherever such a commodity could be in
request. A man, in whatever may be required of manhood; a child, in all
that singleness of heart and purity of purpose which renders childhood so
amiable-with those who knew him well, he had so fixed himself in their
hearts, that, though they might wish to forget the pain of their loss, they
can never cease to remember his useful public labors and many endearing
social qualities.
"Mr. Cook, it was known, was in delicate health, and was about to visit
Cuba for the benefit of the climate. In the examination of witnesses, the
whole labor of the gentleman from New York was directed to prove that
the state of his health would not permit his doing any public service.
The gentleman was discontented by the result; for it came out in evidence
that, feeble as was his health, he had performed all that was required of




LIFE AND TIMES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              273
him. * *   Mr. Cook was in delicate health, but that served to place him
above suspicion of any sinister motive in visiting Cuba. His acquaintance
with Gen. Vires (the Intendant-General of Cuba), while in this country,
the known integrity and obvious simplicity of his character, the amenity
of his manner, and even his delicate health, all combined, must have placed
him at once in relations of entire confidence and frank intercourse with
the Intendant, and enabled him to obtain speedily, from that Governor, all
which it was proper for him to communicate or for our Executive to know.
The man at whom the gentleman from New York magnanimously aimed
his arrow, sleeps quietly in the green bosom of his own beloved Illinois."
Gov. Edwards, in a letter to Mr. Clay, says that Mr. Cook's defeat was
not attributable to his vote for Mr. Adams, but that "he lost his election
because both he and his friends felt too sure. None of them, with the
exception of myself, could be induced to believe there was the least danger. His opponent did nothing else, for many months previously, but
ride through the State and visit the people at their own houses. Mr. Cook
was confined by sickness and could only visit a few counties. The greatest possible efforts were used to turn to both his and my disadvantage the
circumstance of the father-in-law and the son-in-law being before the people
at the same time for the two highest offices in their gift; but the circulation
of thousands of hand-bills, ingeniously contrived, to produce the impression that both he and I voted against the reduction of the price of public
land, at a period too late to be answered or contradicted, had far more influence than all other considerations united. A strong proof that his defeat was not produced by his vote on the Presidential election, is to be
found in the fact that, in the strong Jackson counties (as they are called)
which he visited, he obtained majorities. Gallatin, Pope, Greene and
Morgan are the counties most highly distinguished by their partiality to
Gen. Jackson, and there are no four counties in the State that would give
him so large a majority-yet, Mr. Cook obtained decided majorities in all
of them; while in some of the strongest Administration counties he got
scarcely any support. Neither Mr. Cook's friends nor his foes believed
that he would be defeated. The result has surprised everybody. The
people are already disabused as to the land vote. A powerful reaction
has already taken place, and very many that opposed him are anxious that
he should become a candidate for the Senate. Should he do so, I think his
election beyond doubt.
"As to myself, it is utterly false that I owed my election in the slightest
degree to my forbearance, or any kind of temporizing in regard to the candidate for the Presidency. On the other hand, I openly declared that I
would reserve to myself the right to vote for or oppose whom I pleased,
and bid defiance to all kind of opposition."
-35




CHAPTER XV.
Letters and Speeches of Ninian Edwards.
Letter to his constituents during his canvass for Congress against Matthew Lyon, in 1806.
I have been as busy as you ever saw any man about an election. My prospects in this quarter seem to brighten every day. I have just returned from
Muhlenburg county, and I cannot tell what changes may take place hereafter,
but at present I am well satisfied that Lyon cannot get thirty votes in that
county. The circumstance of his neglecting his duty, the session before last,
in going to Frankfort and spending a month there, merely for the purpose of
getting the Legislature to remove the court house of his county from the
centre of his own town in one corner, and thereby showing that he would let
his private interest not only cause him to wish to do an injury to his own
county, but to neglect his public duty by losing nearly two months during
the session of Congress, is operating most powerfully against him; and at
the last session he lost, about his gun-boats, near another month.-having
only arrived at the city about the last of December. Now, suppose every other
Western member had done the same thing, our country might have suffered
greatly, for he himself declares that there is a strong party against us; and
as we had a difference with Spain, which affects the Western country more
than any other part of the Union, surely every member ought to have been
at his post, and the people through these counties are of opinion that there
need not be any greater objection against him than neglect of public duty.
There has also been much said about his being a contractor under the Postmaster-General and the Secretary of the Navy,-and still holding a seat in
Congress. Even in the corrupt government of England this thing is not
allowed, as you will see by the first volume of "Blackstone's Commentaries,"
page 178. Whether our Constitution will admit of it, has been tried by
Congress. The subject was most lengthily discussed. A majority, however,
were of opinion that they could not expel such members, but every man who
spoke on the subject, both those in favor and those against the expulsion,
unanimously agreed that such conduct was highly improper, unjustifiable and
dangerous to liberty, and that it ought to be prohibited by some means, and
the thing has ended in a proposition to amend the Constitution. At first the
people seemed to think that those were objections merely raised by Lyon's
enemies; but now they find all the best Republicans in Congress disapprove
of such conduct in any member, and think it it necessary to amend the Con



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             275
stitution. They begin to think seriously about it. Do the people agree that
such amendment should be made? If they think it ought, surely it would
not be safe to send Col. Lyon back, because, if he thinks so, his conduct is in
direct opposition to his opinion, and, for the sake of his interest, he has
sinned against light and knowledge. It is wrong for contractors to be members of Congress, for many reasons. In the first place the great officers of
State, those who are the President's council, have the making of those contracts; they have the power of favoring the members of Congress, and they
have a chance of buying up the whole of them-for there are contracts enough
for all of them. Suppose that these officers should greatly sacrifice the public
interest and their duty, by granting such favors-where is the check upon
them? By whom are they to be called to account? By Congress-by those very
persons on whose account the malpractice took place-by those they have befriended by the very act of their friendship to them. If this were the case,
there would be very little chance of impeaching a public officer. But further,
if these officers are allowed to contract with members of Congress, the members of Congress may be disposed to favor them in various ways. It is well
known that Col. Lyon voted to give the Postmaster-General $500 more than
Congress would allow him, for he admits it in one of his circulars.
Further, if members of Congress are allowed to take contracts, they themselves have to vote for the compensation-for all money bills must originate
in the House of Representatives-consequently they are voting for their own
interest; and if a surveyor among us could not be allowed to hold a seat in
the Legislature, because it would be blending the Executive and Legislative
Departments, and would allow a vote for his own compensation for services,
surely a member of Congress should not place himself in such a situation as
to vote upon his own interests or disqualify himself from voting at all. But
this is not all. Suppose a member of Congress should fail to comply with
a contract, or apply for more money-alleging some unforseen occurrence.
Congress must legislate upon the subject; they may grant more money, or
free the person delinquent from suit for his failure. Will not everybody see
that they would be voting directly upon their own interest? And where is
the candid mind that will not admit it is wrong? But, you may depend on
it, Lyon is more deeply engaged in contracts than is generally supposed-for
it is pretty certain that he has some not in his own name, and to a great
amount. This is improper in another point of view: it is taking an undue
advantage of his constituents-for these contracts are generally made by
them. He ought to give them notice that such contracts were to be made,
that they might have an opportunity of getting them in the first instance —
for if they are able to perform when contracting with him, they might as
well do it with the Government at once, and let them derive the advantage
of it, not himself, because he gets well paid for all his services, and it is his
constituents who befriend him, and surely he ought to befriend them so far
as to serve them in this way; but it is certainly taking an undue advantage,
when he gets a contract for a certain sum, and lets it out to one of them for
$500 or $1,000 less than he gets it at-for, if he gets more than it is worth,




276        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
he actually wrongs the Government, and there is very little hope of his trying to right it, whilst he is himself the instrument of doing the wrong and
derives the advantage of it; he would scarcely move to have a committee
appointed to consider a proper remedy. If, on the other hand, he gets the
contract at its actual value, he does a wrong and injury to the individual to
whom he lets it, by letting it to him at so much less. This is a kind of
speculation which, however pardonable in an individual, is clearly unjustifiable in a member of Congress. He is presumed to have enough to attend to
the duties of his station; he cannot perform such contracts himself, and
ought not to meddle with them on his own account.
But there is a charge of still greater magnitude than all those against him.
The vast importance of the Floridas to us is universally admitted; without
them we cannot enjoy the long navigation of the Mobile Bay and Tombigbee River. It is through that channel that we must expect all our imports to
this country; and so soon as the country between the Tombigbee and Tennessee Rivers is settled, so that wagonage can be procured, there is no doubt
but that all our goods will be imported that way. We are all equally sensible of the necessity of settling the country between Natchez and Orleans,
for the purpose of defending our trade-for the whole proceeds of the sale
of all the Western produce must return through that country; and, while it
remains unsettled, we shall ever be subject to great inconveniencies and be
infested by bands of robbers. A great part of this very country, and a part
of that if not the whole that lies between the Bigbee and Tennessee, belongs
to the Indians. By getting the Floridas, we remove entirely from our country
any foreign nation which can have it in its power to set the Indians on us, or
cause them to refuse to treat with us for such a part of their country as is
absolutely necessary to us for the purpose of trade. When we shall be their
only neighbors, it will be no difficult task to manage them. We shall, by the
acquisition of this country, connect our disjointed territory, avoid the calamities of war, remove all danger of collision with Spain in future, and be able
to command the whole West India trade-among which islands is the best
market the United States enjoys for flour and all kinds of provisions. The
secret proceedings of Congress are now published. It was this very business
they engaged in with closed doors. They determined to try to purchase the
Floridas of Spain, and thereby put an end to all disputes with that power;
for which purpose they passed a law, appropriating two millions of dollars.
To the astonishment of everybody, Col. Lyon is joined with every Federalist
in Congress, without exception, opposed to the laws. Uniting with all those
who were opposed to the purchase of Louisiana, at a former session, he is the
only solitary Western member who opposed it. Findley and Smiley, two distinguished, well-tried Republicans from the western part of Pennsylvania,
with others from the same quarter; Jackson, a leading member from the
western part of Virginia; the representation from the State of Ohio; all
from the State of Tennessee, and every one from this State except Col. Lyon,
were in favor of the law, and surely no Western man of sound discernment,
if he meant to do right, ought to have opposed this. purchase. Each of the




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              277
United States will have to contribute its just proportion towards the payment.
The Western country will exclusively enjoy the benefit of the purchase.
By a war (the other alternative) our citizens would have been drafted, put to
much difficulty and great inconveniencies, and stationed in a most unhealthy
climate, where disease alone might have vanquished them; and probably we
might have been greatly delayed, at least, in obtaining possession of the
country, if not defeated altogether, and had the mouth of the Mississippi
blocked up by a ship or two of war. Particularly are we likely to be embroiled
with England. But a war would have afforded many persons an opportunity of making contracts for gun-boats, victualing the army, etc. It would
have been an advantage to persons engaged in such pursuits, but surely not
to the people at large; they always have to bear the burthen, and get the
least benefit from it. Is it possible the people will prefer Col. Lyon's opinions to all the other Western members? That they will suppose him entirely
right, and the Republican members who voted against him wrong? Is it
possible that, after they have lavished plaudits upon the present administration, who certainly were warmly in favor of this measure, that they will still
think Col. Lyon's opinion superior to the whole of those I have mentioned?
Is it possible that they will suppose that he has the prosperity of the Western
country more at heart than the rest of the members from every part of itparticularly as they are not engaged in contracts under the government, are
not supplying any garrison with provisions, or building any gun-boats and
wishing to build more, etc. The people have now to judge for themselves.
If they elect Col. Lyon, they say we are opposed to the purchase. Strange as
this conduct may be thought, by those who have always considered the
Colonel an intelligent, disinterested representative, yet it is no less true, that
he did actually give this vote on the 14th day of last January, as may be seen
by the journals.
But were these all the acts of inconsistency in the Colonel, he might still
be thought, by his corresponding society, an unchangeable Republican, as
they in their nocturnal essays describe him. In his circular of the 20th Dec.,
1804, he says: "There is an old proverb which says,'he that does evil hates
the light.'" This, as it respects the Government, is perfectly correct. Everything that concerns the government of a nation, may be with safety as plain
and simple as that of a family; and a nation should always be considered as
a large family. Such is the true science of politics; and it is in governments,
only, where the benefit of the few is aimed at, that the people are prohibited
from knowing its minutest movements.
What will those say who have applauded the Colonel for this statementwho have professed to believe it correct-provided they should find that he
has departed (most inconsistently, too,) from it-has actually violated the
very principle that he contended for? Will they stick to him through thick
and thin-right or wrong? Surely, if they will not, they must say, if he deserved credit for the above statement, he deserves condemnation if he has
acted counter to it. And those who have been attached to him from principle, seeing his contradictions, will not feel bound to adhere to him any longer.




278        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
No! Honest, independent men will think and act for themselves, and will
not steel their minds against conviction. Let such persons, then, know, that,
notwithstanding the sentiment contained in his circular, Col. Lyon did, on
the 31st March, 1806, vote against.taking off the injunction of secrecy from
the proceedings of Congress; did then vote against letting the people know
what Congress had been doing, as appears by the journal itself.
Will the people not let his own words apply to him, "that he who does
evil hates the light?" And that it is only those who aim at the benefit of
these few very contractors, etc., that wish to prohibit the people from knowing the minutest movements of Government? For my own part, I am very
strongly of the opinion contained in his circular: if the members of Congress
conceal from the people what they have done, how are the people to know
whether they have done right, or whether it would be proper to change them
for others; and if they conceal one of their acts, what is to prevent them
from concealing one-half of them, and finally all? It is a bad precedent, and
I should like to see a representative, if he errs, err in favor of the people, not
against them. For this vote of the Colonel there is no apology, and strong
suspicions that he was afraid to let the people know what he had been doing
-for on the 15th day of January he voted for taking off the injunction of
secrecy; on the 16th, the law passed by a large majority. Finding, then, that
he stood opposed to all the Western representatives, and united with those
whom he has hitherto represented as the most hostile to our interests, he
afterwards refused to take off the injunction of secrecy. Those on the Republican side who voted, with him, against letting the people know what had
been done, except himself, urged, as their reason, that they were afraid that
if they gave publicity to the proceedings, it might defeat the very object of
the law. And this is the very reason, if he meant to be consistent and candid, that he should have voted for the measure-for as he voted against the
law, if he did it upon proper principles he must have thought it wrong, and
therefore should have tried to defeat it. From these considerations I infer
that he was really afraid to let the people know how he had voted; that he
really feared the light.
But since Col. Lyon has commenced to build gun-boats, his sentiments about
a navy and commerce are entirely changed. In his magazine (commonly called
his blue-book), where his sentiments are fully stated (pages 16, 17, 18, 19,
118), he represents commerce as merely the interest of merchants-of the few
-and that we had better give up the carrying of goods than go to war for
it, which must affect the people at large; that back-country people are not
so much affected by a loss of commerce, and that it is folly to build a navy,
and states the experience we had in this navy business at Lake Champlain
and Penobscot, for which, he says, we are in debt many millions, although
millions had been paid for the interest. And in the same book (pages 104-5)
you will find that Mr. Jefferson, our beloved President, is of the same opinion; and, also, that we ought never to think of war unless invaded by land.
You will find in a newspaper (the "Expositor," No. 212, circulated by the
Colonel himself) a speech of his, made in Congress, the 25th of March, in




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              279
which he defends commerce as the interest of the farmers; and that, instead
of giving up this same carrying trade, we had better fight for it; and that
back-country people are deeply interested in commerce; and that we ought
to have a navy, and to look forward to the day when we shall be the greatest
naval power on earth.
Formerly, as observed above, he determined not to go to war with England
or France, although they were then practicing worse treatment'on us, or to a
greater amount, than we have lately received; and yet, in another speech
which he made in Congress, (appearing in the same paper, No. -, circulated by himself through his district) he declares himself in favor of war, in
the most pointed terms, in direct opposition to all his former declarations.
And what is there to have changed his sentiments? The debt of the last war
is not paid off, we have incurred a debt of thirteen millions for Louisiana,
and are about to purchase the Floridas.
Let the people examine for themselves-they have the books and the papers; and let them candidly ask themselves if the Colonel has not completely
turned about! Surely an inquiry of this kind is worth the trouble, and the
people have the means of knowledge. Now, I ask, if the Colonel deserved
credit for his former conduct, what must be said as to his present motives? If
he was right before-and the people have all contended he was-must he not
be wrong now? A war would now be an advantage to him individually.
Let the midnight corresponding society look to these things, and say how unchangeable their friend is.
Letter to William Wirt, on the subject of the Expedition of Col. Burr.
COLLINA, LOGAN COUNTY, KY., 
January 5, 1807.     l
Dear Sir:
When I wrote you last I promised you another letter shortly, not doubting
but that you would be anxious to hear further particulars relative to Col.
Burr's enterprise, and expecting, before this time, to -be able to communicate
to you something interesting upon that subject; but in the latter I have been
considerably disappointed, owing, as I suppose, to three successive failures in
the Orleans mail, which the public voice attributes to Burr's machinations.
He has excited so much suspicion and such feelings in this country, that everything improper in any of our civil or political relations, that cannot be otherwise readily accounted for, is attributed to him; and, however unjust such
suspicions as exist against him may be, the promulgation of them is infinitely
more injurious to the interest of our country than to him, individually-for,
by magnifying his power, it fortifies him in the confidence of his adherents
and well-wishers, strengthens their hopes,' and gives more energy to his assertions; and I believe it is with this view, and for this purpose, that Gen. Wilkinson made such a pompous display of patriotism before the Chamber of
Commerce in Orleans, about the 10th ult. He well knew that a great proportion of the population of Orleans Territory was disaffected to our Govern



280        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
ment, anxious for insurrection, impatiently waiting for a favorable conjunction, and devoted to Col. Burr; that, by giving to the conspiracy such uncommon extension and vast resources, and altogether such dangerous magnitude, he was most effectually cherishing the fondest hopes of the disaffected
and preparing the minds of others for the moment of a successful attack upon
them, and causing them to believe that, should he withdraw his support from
them, their case would be hopeless-in order that when he determined upon
this step, their efforts might become completely paralyzed. What greater
encouragement could Burr's ignorant partisans require, than a knowledge
that the brave and patriotic Gen. Wilkinson, being well-informed upon the
subject, thought there was great danger of his succeeding-the forces of the
United States, the non-erected fortifications, the little navy, the union of merchants, and the embargo, notwithstanding.
But there was something in the General's propositions extremely insidious,
if he is not actually a patriot. He wishes to leave Orleans, march up the
river, and meet Burr. He knew exactly the number of men Burr was to
have had with him, which nothing but the vigilance of our Government deprived him of, and that could not have been foreseen by the General. He also
expected forces up the river to attack Orleans, and still was for drawing out
all the forces from Orleans to attack the malcontents descending the river.
Suppose his scheme had been adopted. He had no ground to march his men
on for 150 miles up the river, except the levee, about wide enough for twenty
men to walk abreast. He could not have expected to have fought to advantage on such ground. He had no naval force adequate to the purpose of
stopping or destroying Burr's fleet of boats. If he had, it was only necessary
to have sent forward the gun-boats, without risking his land forces in such
disadvantageous ground. If he had actually thought that fighting was necessary, he would have acted most injudiciously. A decisive battle in Burr's
favor would have rendered him truly formidable, and if he thought there
would be no fighting, it was a deceitful affectation of patriotism. Knowing,
as he declared he did, that Burr had many friends in Orleans, he must have
known that his design of marching up the river would have been communicated to Burr before his army and fleet could have reached their destination,
and he could not have expected that Burr would have been so weak as to
have rushed headlong upon his own ruin, or have been taken by any strategem that he could have devised in that situation. Such a project promised
no solid advantage; the objections to it and the danger of it are self-evident.
Wilkinson had to ascend the river; Burr was descending. The former could
not travel in the night; the latter as expeditious as in the day time. In a
dark night the latter, knowing the position of the former, could have descended
silently and unobserved; or, if he chose to have landed in the night, what
havoc might he not have made upon the General's encampment on the levee,
A victory or a rout, which might have been effected had Burr been allowed
to take down his recruits, would soon have made him master of Orleans. In
fact, had Wilkinson's plan succeeded, there could not have been one so admirably devised to have insured success to Burr. The object was to take the
Orleans volunteers and the well affected on the expedition-none others would




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             281
have gone. The disaffected remained in the city, ready to receive him with
open arms; and there was nothing to prevent the forces which were expected
from New York, and some of the Southern States and the Floridas, from
making a successful approach to the city from the Gulf of Mexico, even if
the forces descending the river had been checked in their progress; and it
ought to be remembered that the General declared he expected an attack in
both directions. With Consul O'Brian, I think such a plan looked "squally."
No doubt any longer exists in this and the adjacent States that Burr and
his partisans have meditated a deadly thrust at the prosperity of our happy
country; and, however flattering.his prospects appeared at first view, his
scheme is now almost universally execrated, and both he and his satellites
have sunk into merited contempt, though some of his supporters, his advocates and real friends have been among the most choice characters in our
State. What his success has been in the lower territories, we have not
heard a word, since his departure from the mouth of the Cumberland. Much
speculation exists as to the part Gen. W. will now take. Some fear he will,
at all hazards, join Burr, notwithstanding all his declarations to the contrary.
Others, and probably the majority of those acquainted with his character,
think his conduct will be entirely regulated by Burr's prospects of success;
that if he should conceive that the enterprise can succeed, all his talents and
energies will be devoted to it; if he sees that it will fail, he will be the most
prompt to suppress it. But let him act as he may, he never can acquire the
confidence of this Western country. He is, too, well known to have commenced an intrigue with the agents of Spain for a separation of this country
from the Atlantic States, some years ago. No one that I have ever conversed
with, on the subject, doubts his being a Spanish pensioner, and his conduct
of the last two years has not lessened the suspicion of the present existence
of his former intrigue. That he was known to have been upon the most intimate and friendly terms, and to have had many closetings with Col. Burr,
when he made his first tour through this and the adjacent country; that he
was one of Burr's partners in his Ohio Canal Company, an ostensible scheme
to divert the attention of the public from the real object; that his greatest
favorites, those whom he distinguished most by his patronage in the Territory
over which he presided as Governor, have proved themselves Burr's warmest
adherents-are circumstances very unfavorable to his excellency's character.
The appointment and continuance of this man in so important an officea man whose private character is as exceptionable as his public character
is suspicious-a bankrupt, devoted to every species of pomp and pageantry,
without an income adequate to his style of life-and as ambitious as Napoleon
the first-is the only trait in the present Administration which does not meet
with the approbation of the Western country. But this I think is the cause
of universal regret. It is extremely unfortunate that this man should now
be at the head of our army, even if he is as pure a patriot as I believe the
President to be-for should any force be necessary from this country, for the
purpose of either acting against the malcontents, insurgents or the Spanish
troops below, the ardor of the true friends to their country would be consid.
-36




282        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
erably abated by the consideration that they would be subject to the command of a General in whom they have no confidence; and this circumstance
would be a stimulus to those we should have to oppose-for they would de 
rive encouragement from our suspicions and jealousies, even if they had no
other assurances from the General or his friends. But these misfortunes they
would actually hope for and expect from his defection as much as we would
dread it. Were it not for this cause, should events render it necessary, the
people of Kentucky would, by one universal impulse of patriotism, tender
their support to the present Administration, and hosts of volunteers would
be ready to suppress any insurrection or frustrate any traitorous scheme that
may make its appearance in any part of the Western country; but I should
really fear, if Wilkinson retains the command, that there would be but few
volunteers who could be depended on. One description only could be procured with facility, and they would be those who are mere adventurers, whose
circumstances cannot be worsted in any event, and whose principles would
not restrain them from taking any side. And this is an opinion I entertain,
not merely from what very probably would happen, but from what I know
has actually happened. I know many who have already volunteered themselves, and I know them so well, that I should be extremely unwilling to be
associated with them in defense of my country in opposition to Aaron Burr.
They have been too sanguine for his success against Mexico, too ready to
assist him in all his propositions, and too clamorous about arresting him
after they knew that it was in vain to attempt it-after he was perfectly out
of their reach. He, however, very narrowly escaped at the mouth of Cumberland; had he waited one day longer, I am well convinced we should have
had no further trouble with him or about him. When the militia of Livingston county were ordered out, a certain Col. Benj. Hardin, of that county-a
South Carolinian, who had been accustomed to killing tories in the American
Revolution, and who, about five years ago, killed two men in this country
for horse-stealing-ignorant enough to think it best, on such occasions, not to
trouble the civil authority, hardy and bold enough to attempt anything that
an uninformed mind or a misguided zeal should point out as beneficial to his
country-had prepared himself and did actually go to the mouth of Cumberland for the express purpose of shooting Burr, having communicated his design to only a single individual; and I am confident he experienced a considerable chagrin and mortification at his disappointment, when he found
the little apostate had left that place the day before his arrival.
The public mind is all impatient to hear from Orleans. Almost everybody
expects to hear of some great action-some mighty revelation. This is not
my case. My opinion is a singular one, such as it is. I hazard it with all the
rest of my conjectures. I expect to hear nothing more important from Burr
or Wilkinson than such a show of patriotism by the latter, with the consent
of the former, as they conceive necessary to quiet suspicion and give more
time for maturing and perfecting their plan. It is probable that Wilkinson
will attempt to take Burr, or that Burr will surrender himself for trial at
Orleans, where no testimony will be procured against him sufficient to con



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             283
vict him, unless the courts should put off his trial till Gen. Eaton could be
procured-in which case every attempt will be made to excite the sympathy
of the people in his favor, or by ingeniously portraying him as an innocent
and persecuted man-thereby rendering them more favorable to his views,
and firnishing an apology for any steps he may take. I cannot think he has
explained himself to any man who can be procured (except Gen. Eaton) in
such a manner as to render proof against him practicable; for I entertain an
opinion similar to what he expressed at Nashville, viz: that Mr. Daviess, the
attorney for the United States in this district, must think him a much greater
fool than he really was, if he thought he had any unlawful enterprise in view,
and had conducted it in such a manner as to give an opportunity of proving it
upon him. Whether he may be acquitted, or any uncommon appearance of
rigor be exercised against him in Orleans, the effects, I am confident, will be
astonishing; for I think I am well acquainted with his standing in Orleans.
All my information from that quarter-except such as is through the public
agents-leaves no doubt upon my mind that his popularity is immensely
great and dangerous to the Government; and I depend much more for correct information, as to the state of public sentiment in any particular place,
upon men in the common walks of life, and who are disinterested, than I do
upon those who move in superior circles, who are interested or who are
placed in such a situation as to render concealment towards them indispensably necessary to the success of any intrigue. No man can conceive what an
effect Burr's second acquittal in this State had upon the public mind in his
favor for some time. To have any correct idea of it, a man must have witnessed it, and it will be proportionably greater at Orleans, as his popularity
there is greater and his adherents more numerous than here.
Should either of the events I have suggested take place, and should Gen
W. not apprehend any danger of removal, nothing decisive, I think, will be
attempted for' some time. Burr's men, owing to the vigilance of our Government, will not be able to join him shortly. They must have time and opportunity to collect. The prospect of a Spanish war will delay their operations.
Should it take place, it will furnish all his adherents an opportunity of
joining him unmolested and without much reproach. Should it not take
place, they will await the event of another scheme-which is the proposed
population by Congress of a tract of land on the west side of the Mississippi.
Certain I am that unless Congress does encourage the settlement of that country, to a certain extent, with the natives of the United States, with men
attached to the principles of our Government, those lower Territories will
produce one continued scene of insurrection. I am sensible it is necessary at
this time. But I know it is at this time dangerous, and any law for that
purpose ought to be extremely well guarded; for, unless it is made so, the
moment such a law passes is the moment at which Burr's adherents will set
out for that country under the authority of that law, and will be collected at
a proper point for action before the least hostility towards the United States
will be indicated.




284        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Upon this subject, I feel an uncommon solicitude, and extremely regret my
want of personal acquaintance with any of the departments of the administration that would justify communication of such circumstances as have or
may pass under my observation, with my sentiments upon them. I acknowledge that one of Burr's greatest and best informed friends calculated highly
both upon such a law and the want of such a law, paradoxical as it may appear. If no permission to extend the settlements was allowed, he thought
the old subjects of Spain would always be instruments to produce revolution.
If such permission was given, it would afford the means of collecting individuals that would be favorable to the views of Col. Burr. Any law, therefore, for this purpose at this conjuncture, ought to be most cautiously enacted,
for even if the present conspiracy should be crushed, the scheme will not be
laid aside.
Truly your friend,
N. EDWARDS.
To WM. WIRT, EsQ.
ELVIRADE, June 18, 1811.
Sir:
I acknowledge the receipt of your letter by your son, Major Whiteside, and
entirely approve the whole of your conduct.
Continue the party you have ordered out until further orders.  I presume
they will be sufficient for the purpose for which they were intended, being
numerous enough to make discoveries and to resist mere stragglers.
Have the militia under your charge immediately classed out and prepared
to march at a moment's warning.
Order every Captain-at least those on the frontiers-to be ready, should
any depredation be committed within the bounds of his company, to repel
the attack, or to follow and take those Indians who may commit those outrages. Should circumstances clearly justify a reasonable belief of an invasion
by any tribe of Indians, you will designate such officers and such force as you
may think adequate to repel it, and transmit an account thereof to me.
Should immediate pursuit be made after any Indians who may have stolen
horses or committed murders, etc., and they be overtaken with the property
in their possession, or be otherwise clearly ascertained to be the indentical
persons who committed those offenses, your orders must be for the men
to take them peaceably, if possible, that they may be brought to trial in a
legal way, and be made examples of; but if they cannot otherwise be taken,
not to let a single man escape alive.
As many men might be disposed to take advantage of the latitude here
given, I shall request you to select as officers (where it is in your power) those
in whose discretion you can best confide.
Enjoin it on the officers not to make an attack on any party of Indians,
under any of the above orders, without being fully prepared and determined
to make it successfully.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF'NINIAN EDWARDS.           285
I wish you to employ some person as a spy, to go amongst the Indians most
likely to have committed the late outrages-particularly those near Peoria,
calling themselves Pottawottamies, under Main-pock. I wish to ascertain
their numbers, their character, disposition, etc.-every information relative to
their present settlement.
I wish particularly to ascertain who have committed those recent hostilities, which are the subject of your letter.
I am, sir, very respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. WM. WWHITESIDE.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, June 7, 1811.
Sir 
I have the honor to represent to you that, as Superintendent of Indian
Affairs in this Territory, I have frequently been under the necessity of obtain -
ing the aid of an interpreter, who deserves and expects some compensation
for his services, but between whom and myself no positive stipulations have
existed, nor do I know whether I should be authorized to draw for any sum,
and, if any, how much for his use.
I have also the honor to represent to you that, on some occasions, I have
been visited by Indians who reside in the upper parts of this Territory, on or
near the Mississippi River. I have on those occasions detained them as short
a time as possible, but have necessarily incurred some expense (which I have
hitherto paid out of my own pocket) in furnishing them with provisions
during their stay and making them some presents on their departure.
As, from the aspect of affairs with the Indians up the Mississippi, it is
likely I shall have much more to do with them, I should be happy to receive
some instructions from you on the subject of the Indian business under my
superintendence.
I have good reason to believe that not less than forty horses have been
recently stolen from this Territory by some of those Indians, the most lawless
of whom is a small tribe calling themselves Pottawottamies, but principally
composed of outcasts and vagabonds of the neighboring tribes, who seem to
live by depredations, and whose audacity in them is unequalled.
Yesterday, I was informed, by unexceptionable authority, that one young
man on the frontiers, in the county of St. Clair, had been killed and his sister carried off by some Indians, who also stole some horses.
I have been applied to send a belt of wampum and a talk to the chiefs of
some of the tribes, for the purpose of obtaining restitution of some horses.
I shall do the best I can in the business, but am not supplied with wampum
or any other article usual and necessary in intercourse with Indians, nor can
I procure any of them here.




286        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
The movements of a part of the Indians, in the uppermost part of this
Territory, seem strongly indicative of a hostile disposition toward us, but the
extent of it cannot yet be ascertained, though every means is pursuing for
that purpose.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, June 20, 1811.
Sir:
I have the honor to transmit to you a copy of an affidavit of Rebecca Cox
-a respectable woman and a resident of St. Clair county-containing an
account of the murder of her brother, the plundering of her father's property,
and her being taken a prisoner and carried off by a party of Indians.
As soon as the outrages, which are the subject of the affidavit, were known,
a party of our citizens were raised, who pursued the Indians and retook the
young woman, but did not succeed in regaining any of the property that was
taken with her.
In the engagement that took place one of our men was wounded, and an
Indian was certainly killed or else badly wounded.
Of the truth of the foregoing facts there is no doubt, and I myself have entire confidence in the following statement: A young man, by the name of
Lindley, was to have joined the party who pursued the Indians, but did not
arrive at the place of rendezvous in time. On his return home, he states that
he was pursued and overtaken by two Indians (supposed to be those spoken
of by Miss Cox in her affidavit); that after running until he was nearly exhausted, he stopped in the midst of a fallen tree, from which he shot the
foremost Indian and seized his gun, and with it shot the other Indian as he
came up, and actually killed both.
From the character I have of this young man, and, among others, from the
circumstance of his fetching in a gun which he did not carry with him, I
strongly incline to the opinion (which seems very generally entertained) that
he has told the truth.
Since my letter to you of the 7th inst., I have received more circumstantial
accounts of the horses that were said to have been stolen by a party of Pottawottamie Indians settled near Peoria, under a chief named Main-pock or
Man-shot.
Those complaints of the people are corroborated by statements made to
Gen. Clark by some Pottawottamies now in St. Louis, by similar statements
of other Indians to the United States Indian interpreter at Chicago, and by
the testimony of an Indian trader, who saw some of those Indians in possession of about eighteen horses which they have stolen at one time. The information which the interpreter at Chicago has received, induces him to sup



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.            287
pose that the principal actors in these depredations are two brothers of the
wife of Main-pock, the chief. These are the same Indians who committed
the depredations about which I had the honor to write you last summer.
They are certainly gaining confidence from impunity, and their conduct is
getting entirely insufferable.
As nothing can be a stronger indication of determined hostility than the
taking of prisoners, and it is reasonable to suppose that the Indians will be
disposed to resort to retaliation in consequence of the death of those who
were killed, and the people on the frontier are getting very much alarmed, I
deemed it proper to order out a few men, who would be sufficient merely to
make discoveries or resist stragglers-and issued orders, of which the inclosed
is a copy, to the Colonels of St. Clair county. In the meantime, I have dispatched a spy, and am taking every means in my power to ascertain what
Indians they were who committed the outrage upon Cox's family and property.
We have every reason to believe that the celebrated Indian Prophet is but
too successful in exciting hostility toward the United States, in various tribes
of Indians.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, June 22, 1811.
Sir:
I have this moment received a communication from Col. Wm. Whiteside,
of the county of St. Clair, of which the annexed is a copy, and by which it
will appear that one more of our citizens was actually killed and the other,
though living, mortally wounded by some Indians.
Great alarm exists among the people, and many are quitting their farms
and seeking safety in the most populous settlements.
I shall immediately order out a full Captain's company, to protect the frontiers of St. Clair county and quiet the alarms of the people.
I have the honor to be,
With the highest respect, etc., etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
June 22, 1811. 
Sir:
I have this moment had the honor to receive your letter of yesterday. I
must repeat my wish, that the militia under your command be immediately
organized, so as to be ready to march at a moment's warning.




288        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
If Major William B. Whiteside is willing to take command as a Captain,
stipulating only for Captain's pay, and Samuel Judy should be willing to
take command under him as a Lieutenant, with the same stipulation, they
may select any other officer to act as their ensign, and raise as many volunteers, not exceeding a full Captain's company, as they can. In that case you
are hereby required to order them to the frontiers, with instructions to resist
all invasions, repel all attacks and aggressions from the Indians, and afford
protection to the settlers on the frontiers in the most effectual manner in their
power-to remain in service for thirty days, unless sooner therefrom discharged.
Should it not be possible to raise volunteers enough, you must direct a draft
according to law.
Should this arrangement not be agreeable to Major Whiteside, then order
Capt. Judy to take the command of a company, to be raised in like manner,
and for like service.
Should the arrangement not be satisfactory to Capt. Judy, Major Whiteside is, nevertheless, (if willing) to take the command of the company, and in
that case you will select two subalterns to act under him.
I have the honor, etc., etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. WM. WHITESIDE.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, October 16, 1811.
Sir:
I have the honor to inclose you the proceedings of the citizens of St. Clair
county, and their address to you-all of which I am convinced is the result
of apprehensions of danger entertained, not merely by timid minds, but by
men well acquainted with the geographical situations, habits and dispositions
of the Indians alluded to-experienced in Indian warfare, and as much distinguished by their valor as any other citizens in the Western country.
The principal facts stated in the address, I have already had the honor to
communicate to the War Department.
The Indians residing about Lake Michigan, and on the Illinois River and
its waters, are those who have committed the depredations which have so
much alarmed and agitated this Territory, the north-western parts of which
are very much exposed to their attacks. Whether those Indians visit our
frontiers by land or water, they pass through Peoria or its immediate vicinity
both in coming and returning. A garrison, therefore, at that place, would,
in my opinion, hold in check all those from whom we have most danger to
apprehend, and in several respects be attended with very beneficial consequences.
Believing the proposed measures to be expedient and necessary to the safety
of the Territory, I have thought it my duty thus far to support the prayer of




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                 289
the inclosed petition; but I had no knowledge that any such was contemplated, till I received the inclosed papers.
I have the honor to be,
With the highest respect, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To the President of the United States.
Proceedings of Citizens of St. Clair County, Illinois, and their Address to the President of the
United States.
At a large meeting of the inhabitants of St. Clair county, Illinois Territory,
where Col. Whiteside was conducted to the chair, and Samuel Davidson, Esq.,
appointed SecretaryResolved, unanimously, That the following memorial be presented to Ninian Edwards,
Governor of the Territory aforesaid, as the joint sense of the meeting, to be signed
by the chairman: which humbly showeth that we are highly gratified in the prompt,
speedy and prudential manner in which your excellency has issued your orders for
the defense of the exposed frontiers of said county, to oppose the repetition of Indian
hostilities; and that we have the utmost and incontrovertible confidence in your abilities and patriotism for our safety in the present alarming times, as the constitutional
channel between the General Government and us.
Wherefore we do confidingly request your excellency to forward the annexed memorial to the President of the United States, with such statements
as may appear reasonable and just to gain the object prayed for-as we are
confident your excellency must feel and see, with us, that one or more garrisons, established and defended by veterans of the United States, would be of
the utmost safety to the extensive and exposed frontiers of both the Louisiana and Illinois Territories-in a more particular manner, as the great ani
numerous tribes of Indians, who had the hardihood and insolence to wage
war against the United States (and in some instances with effect) a few years
since, infest this region.
That, by the treaty of Greenville, and other subsequent treaties, they have
relinquished their title to their former hunting grounds, (which is now transformed into substantial plantations,) and are changing their habitations fast,
from the lakes and waters of the Ohio, down the Illinois River to the Mississippi, where undoubtedly it would be necessary to establish a fort, in order
to set reasonable bounds to their savage fury and unprovoked disturbance.
We beg leave to refer your excellency to a view of the great and manifest
benefits lately obtained by the garrisons established far up on the two great
rivers, several hundred miles above their junction, where, before the establishing these strengths, there did not a season pass by but some innocent person fell a victim to their savage barbarity on both sides of the river; and we
confidently believe it would have the same salutary effect in establishing one
fort or block-house on the first eminence above either the mouths of the Missouri or the Illinois Rivers, and another in the seditious village of Peoria-the
great nursery of hostile Indians and traitorous British Indian traders.
We hope it will not be thought superfluous to mention that the above request is not to gratify our pride or avarice, in obtaining military pomp to
-37




290         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
decorate our streets, or the expenditures of the public money to buy our produce; but it is to keep the improving citizen in peace in a remote region of
the United States, who is now working to convert the fertile and extensive
plains of the Mississippi into the fairest portion of the Union. From different circumstances the inhabitants of this county are not in possession of a
sufficiency of arms to repel any attacks that may be offered; owing to the
present alarm it is not in our power to buy any, and a considerable portion
of the militia are not circumstanced to buy.   If your excellency will be
pleased to make use of your good offices to obtain from the General Government the use of what rifles and muskets as may be thought, in your wisdom,
needful, it certainly would be of great service to this frontier country.
WILLIAM    WHITESIBE, Chairman.
SAMUEL D. DAVIDSON, Secretary.
To His EXCELLENCY NINIAN EDWARDS.
At a numerous meeting of the militia officers, and other inhabitants of St.
Clair county, Illinois Territory, at the court house, the -   day of -,
1811, to take into consideration the alarming situation of the frontiers of said
county, from the numerous and horrid depredations lately committed by the
Indians, Col. Whiteside was conducted to the chair, and Samuel Davidson
was appointed secretary.
Resolved, That there be a memorial immediately signed by the chairman of this
meeting, and countersigned by the secretary, stating to the President of the United
States the necessity of his ordering what regular troops he, in his wisdom, may think
requisite, to be stationed for the defense of said county.
Resolved, That said memorial be sent to the Governor of said Territory, requesting
him to forward the same to the President of the United States, and make such statement (to accompany said memorial) as the urgency of the subject may require.
To JAMES MADISON, President of the United States-Greeting:
The memorial of the inhabitants of the aforesaid county most humbly showethThat the inhabitants residing on the frontiers aforesaid have sustained frequent and
repeated damages from the different and numerous tribes of Indians on and in the
neighborhood of the Illinois River, these five or six years past, by stealing their
horses and other property, as well as the cruel murder of some few of the citizens.
In lieu of retaliation, that said citizens have curbed their passions and restrained their
resentment, lest they should be so unfortunate as to draw a stigma on the Government by punishing the innocent for the transgressions of the guilty, and in one instance
restrained the vindictive spirit by taking two Indians prisoners, in possession of
stolen property, after a chase of one hundred miles, and gave them up to the law.
We have become the victims of savage cruelty in a more hasty and general manner
than what has lately been experienced by the citizens of the United States. The last
spring there have been numbers of horses stolen. On the 2d of June, the house of
Mr. Cox was robbed and plundered of valuable effects, five horses stolen, a young man
massacred, and his sister taken prisoner (sad and conclusive effects and presages of
war), and likewise one other man severely wounded when following said Indians.
On the 20th of the same month, one other man was killed and scalped and another
mortally wounded, which can be more fully stated by the Executive of said Territory




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              291
-all those who suffered being no intruders, but living on their own farms, on the
north-western frontier of said county.
From our knowledge of the danger we are in and our long sufferance, we think we
ask nothing but what is reasonable, and what will be advantageous to the United
States, when we implore you to station what number of soldiers you may think sufficient to establish a garrison at the village of Peoria (commonly called Opea), on the
Illinois River, and one other on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, at or near the place
once viewed and adopted by Captains Stodard and Bisswell, six or eight miles below the
mouth of said Illinois River-both sites being covered by treaty. We beg to refer
you to the Governor of said Territory, concerning the urgency and necessity of the
above calamities, not doubting but that you will grant our request if you think it will
be for the good of the Union.
WILLIAM WHITESIDE,
SAMUEL D. DAVIDSON.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, October 22, 1811. 
Sir:
I have had the honor to receive the proceedings of a meeting of the citizens
of St. Clair county, at which you were chairman, and have transmitted the
papers to the President of the United States, supported by my opinion in
favor of the measure which you solicit.
I beg leave to express to you, and through you to those who united with
you, the peculiar gratification which I feel at finding the measures I had pursued, for the safety and protection of the Territory, so highly approved by
gentlemen of experience, valor and patriotism.
This answer has been delayed only by my indisposition.
I am, very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. WM. WHITESIDE.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, October 29, 1811.
Sir:
I have the honor to inclose you a receipt from the Kaskaskia tribe of
Indians, including all the payments that have been made them for their
annuities since I have had the honor to administer the government.
I have, also, the honor to inclose you a receipt from the priest who was,
according to treaty, employed to preach to the Kaskaskia Indians, including all
th' payments that have been made to him by me. The first year's annuity to
him, I paid in one hundred dollars which were sent me by Governor Harrison, and the second payment was made out of the proceeds of'a draft of one
hundred dollars, which I had the honor to draw on you for. I am not enabled
to ascertain whether or not he is entitled to another year's annuity, because
I cannot ascertain how many he has received.




292        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Not having sent forward the receipts last year, because I thought it possible I might receive some instructions on the subject, I have thought it advisable to send them now in their present form.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. WM. EusTIs, Esq., War Department, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, ILLINOIS TERRITORY, I
December 14, 1811.
To the principal Chiefs of the Pottawottamies residing on the Illinois River and
its waters:
My Children, there seems to be some misunderstanding between you and
your white brethren. I wish to prevent any bad consequences, and, if possible, to cause you and your white brethren to unite your hands in friendship.
This is the wish of your Great Father, the President of the United States.
You have seen that he does not fear war, because his strength is great; but he
loves peace, and will always do justice to those who treat him well.
I have many things to say to you, which it would be inconvenient to write.
I therefore wish Gomo, and one or two more chiefs, to come and hear ndy
words.
Capt. Hebert will conduct you, and he will prevent any one from hurting
you.
It is your own safety that makes me wish to see you. I will send you back
again safely.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, December 14, 1811.
To the principal Chiefs of the Kickapoos:
My Children, I wrote you last summer that your Great Father, the President
of the United States, wished to be at peace with you. You must know that
he is too strong to fear war; but I tell you again he still wishes for peace,
because it is a good thing, in itself, and is best for your happiness and that
of your people.
That great deceiver, the Shawnee Prophet, has misled some of your people, and caused them to make war on their white brethren. Your people
were told that the Shawnee Prophet was a bad man-that he was hired by
the British to tell lies-but they had no ears to hear those things. Their
eyes must now be opened. They know the Prophet deceived them, and, if
they will now abandon that bad man, all will still be well. They may have
peace or war-which they please.
Many of you, I have reason to believe, did not join the Prophet, but hated
him the more for deceiving your friends and brothers.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              293
I wish a few of you to come and hear my words, because then I can say
more than it is convenient to write. This may explain all things and place
us again on the footing of confidence as well as friendship.
Major Whiteside will conduct you, and I will send you back safely.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Jan. 18, 1812. 
Sir:
I have the honor to state to you that the militia, who were called out by
me to defend this country during the last summer, are constantly importuning
me on the subject of their pay.
The unexampled unhealthiness of the season, and the attention necessary
at that time to their crops, made the sacrifice on their part very considerable;
and it is now no longer doubted by the most incredulous that their services
were important to their country, by preventing the savage attacks with
which it was menaced. Under these circumstances, I fear, if those people
cannot obtain some remuneration, it will have a most unhappy effect upon a
population too weak, at best, at a time when there is the strongest probability
that similar services will again be wanting.
I therefore should be happy to be informed whether they will be paid,
and, if so, what steps are necessary to be pursued for that purpose.
I have the honor to be, etc., etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EuSTIS, War Department, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, t
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Jan. 10, 1812. 
Sir 
I have the honor to state to you, that Col. John Grant, formerly of the
State of Kentucky, desires, through me, to apply to the President for a lease
of a tract of land at the lower ripple on the Saline Creek, where he now
resides, with a view to prepare houses for the reception of salt, which is
constantly sent to that place for deposit till the rise of the water is sufficient
to carry it out of the creek.
He states that he has made a contract to receive and take charge of very
considerable quantities of salt at that place, that the contract is to continue
two years, and that the houses are necessary to secure it from the weather
and from thieves, and that he wishes to erect them at his own expense, provided he can be permitted to do so.
For my own part I see no injury that would arise from such a lease, and
think it very probable that, if it were sufficiently guarded, it might be
attended with great public conveniences. But I suppose that a permission




294        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
to remain as tenant at will would be sufficient for him, and would most
effectually guard against any injury to the public interest, etc.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To ALBERT GALLATIN, ecretary, etc.
ELYIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Jan. 25, 1812.
Sir:
I have the honor to inform you that, from a knowledge both of the exposed
situation of our Ndrth-western frontier and of the disposition of Indians to
retaliate upon the white people for the loss of their friends and relations, I,
shortly after Gov. Harrison's battle, thought it necessary to send out a few
spies, who have since been kept out in consequence of the hostile threats
which the Indians are known to have made, and the proximity of the hunting ground they were about to occupy to our frontiers.
Such have been the apprehensions and irritation of the people of St. Clair
county (those most exposed), that it has been found very difficult to restrain
them from commencing hostilities, as you may perceive from the inclosed
letter from Col. Whiteside, who, though not blessed with a good education,
possesses a strong discriminating mind, is highly distinguished as an Indian
fighter, and has all the influence that such characters never fail to command
on a frontier, in times of danger. Upon the receipt of the letter, I immediately dispatched the Brigade-Major (express) with orders to put a stop to the
contemplated expedition. He, however, did not arrive in time, and eightysix well mounted riflemen actually started in search of the Pottawottamies,
who, either suspecting an attack or having some previous intimation of it,
had removed and could not be found. Otherwise there certainly would have
been a hard fight.
In this state of things I thought it advisable to send for some of the
Kickapoos and some of the Pottawottamies of the Illinois River, as well to
ascertain their disposition towards us as to make arrangements that would
conduce to their safety, provided they should be disposed to be friendly.
Neither of my messengers have yet arrived, although more than two weeks
have elapsed beyond the time appointed by each of them for his return. This
delay occasions great uneasiness among their friends and much speculation
among the people at large.
I have also the honor to inform you that I have received information
(which I am very certain may be relied on) that the Puants, or Winnebago
Indians, on the 1st inst. attacked the trading establishments on the Mississippi, below Prairie du Chien, plundered them of their property, killed several men, and declared that they would kill every American that they could
find-alleging that they had lost a number of their men at the late battle
at the Prophet's town.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.             295
Perilous is the situation of a great portion of this Territory, at least; but
the danger is greater from the negative state in which we find ourselves,
being neither at peace nor at war.
Notwithstanding the repeated depredations of the bands of Indians on the
Illinois River, the murders they have committed, and their refusal to deliver
up the offenders or make any satisfaction, though solemnly demanded of them
-and notwithstanding the daily expectations universally pervading the
country of a renewal of these hostilities-we cannot legally take any measures of offense against them, but must wait for another attack, not knowing
when or where it may be made. For my own part I have not a doubt that our
north-western frontier at least will be greatly annoyed as soon as the weather
becomes a little more moderate. Many of these Indians certainly contemplate joining the British. They are in the habit of visiting Fort Maulden,
annually, and as soon as they are prepared for their departure thither, they
will (as I believe they have already declared) make inroads upon our settlements, as well to take scalps as to steal horses.
If, under these circumstances, we could be authorized to breakup their settlements on the Illinois River by volunteer expeditions of mounted riflemen,
taking them by surprise, as was the case in Kentucky during the former
Indian war, it would, in my opinion, be attended with the most salutary consequences. Without this, or a garrison at Peoria, or some other measure of
offense, a great number of our inhabitants will without doubt be forced to
abandon their settlements. Peoria is the great highway through which all
the Illinois Indians and all those about Lake Michigan make their incursions
into this country, and the latter Indians derive great encouragement from the
asylum which the villages on the Illinois affords them.
I beg you, sir, to believe I have felt myself constrained to make these
observations from the perfect conviction I feel of the dangers to which the
people of this Territory are exposed, and my knowledge of their defenseless
situation.
I have the honor, also, to state to you that I have received a letter from the
Military Agent at Newport, Ky., advising me that he had forwarded me 116
muskets, bayonets and cartridge boxes, and 46 pairs of pistols. He stated
to me that Gov. Harrison had drawn for the rifles, which you had authorized
me to receive.
I should be happy to have your order for some rifles and some more arms
for cavalry, particularly swords, of which there were none forwarded to me.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War.




296        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, January 26, 1812.
Sir:
Although I am sensible of the claims which the most important business
must have upon your attention at this time, I beg leave, most respectfully, to
solicit of you any information which you can, with propriety and convenience
to yourself, communicate to me relative to the probable period when the land
office in this district, for the sale of public lands, will be opened; and I flatter myself that a plain statement of facts will convince you that neither an
indecorous or impertinent curiosity forms any part of my motives in requesting this information.
At no time have the people been better satisfied with their Territorial officers than at the present period; yet a combination of interests and of views,
differing materially in their ultimate object, have united the majority of the
freeholders of all parties in wishing for the second grade of Territorial Government, that they may thereby obtain a delegate to Congress, through and
by whom they may make known and support their various wishes, complaints
and demands. The memorials upon this subject are not yet delivered to me,
but I am in the daily expectation of receiving them.
The freeholders of this Territory are a very inconsiderable portion of its
population. Of the respectable farmers of the country who have made arrangements and appear to be disposed to be permanent residents, they do not, I am
sure, constitute the one-tenth-yet they can decide upon the change of government, with all the accumulation of taxes it will bring with it. Afterwards, they
have the exclusive right of voting for the representatives in the Legislafure,
who will be elected for two years, with the right to nominate the Council to
be appointed for five years. By which means, a small minority will have the
power to fix upon a very large and respectable majority of their fellow-citizens a course of measures which may not be changed, however disagreeable
to the majority, for five years. Although this danger may be considered problematical, yet such are the jealous and independent dispositions of freemen,
that they will never be satisfied to depend for the security and protection of
their rights upon the mere courtesy of others.
The situation of the settlers on the Ohio, and between it and Kaskaskia, is
peculiarly unfortunate at this juncture.  They are in general respectable,
independent in their circumstances, and anxious to have an opportunity to
purchase the lands on which they reside, and to be admitted to an equal participation in all the rights of citizens. They constitute nearly one-third of the
whole population of the Territory, and ought shortly to have a new county,
yet, among them, there are not more-as far as I can ascertain-than three or
four freeholders; so that, while the other counties will have representatives
by reason of freeholders living interspersed through them, this portion of
the Territory will have none.
I, therefore, have thought that if the public sales should be likely to
commence shortly, it would be proper in me, as a necessary means of conciliating the affections of those people to the Government, when I come to act
on the contemplated change, to defer the elections till, after the public sales




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              297
are over, and thereby afford them the opportunity to become freeholders, in
which light they would be considered by purchasing at the sales.
I beg leave, also, to suggest that, if it be possible to make some provision
by law, favorable to settlers, previous to the commencement of the sales,
such a measure would tend greatly to tranquilize the Territory, already
extremely agitated upon this subject, and to which the principles and doctrines contained in the printed papers herewith sent, inculcated and enforced
by means of associations already formed, have greatly contributed.
The appointment of a Register and Receiver to this district created a general impression that lands would shortly thereafter be exposed to sale, and
many persons settled with the belief that they would have the opportunity
to purchase land before their improvements of it would so far enhance its
value as to render it an object with others to bid against them; and since
then, either from necessity or with a hope that something would finally be
done for their security, they have increased these improvements till they have
become objects of real importance.
As the United States would not wish to receive more than the value of the
land in its unimproved State, or that its increased value from the improvements of others should fall into the hands of speculators, the public interest,
I think, cannot suffer by giving to the settlers the pre-emption right to purchase at the price fixed by Congress. Admitting that they, by having the
first choice, had occupied the best lands, still the price is high enough; for
land of the first quality in the Mississippi Bottom, with indisputable titles,
has been and now can be bought at that price, with liberal credit. Judges
Stuart and Thomas, Secretary Pope and myself, have purchased first rate
tracts and elegant situations, in the American Bottom, adjoining each other,
without giving more.
But the supposition, as it relates to the settlers, is not true.  Proximity to
springs and what is called good range for stock-objects not generally found
in the richest lands-have had a much more decided influence upon them
than the fertility of the soil or the intrinsic value of the land.
If, however, it should not be deemed proper to extend to the settlers this
or some other indulgence, it might be advisable-their numbers being so considerable-for the agents of the sale to make such arrangements as would
enable those people, with the least inconvenience to themselves, to attend to
bid for the lands they occupy. As the sales must continue six weeks, the
district offered for sale might be divided into six parts. Each division could
be well described, and the week in which it would be offered for sale might
be specified-of all which, notice might be given, and every man be thereby
freed from the necessity of attending longer than one week.
Since writing the above, I have ascertained for the first time, from Gen.
Rector, the tract of country which was last summer recommended by the
commissioners for satisfying unlocated claims, and believe it will include
nearly every settlement in the county of St. Clair, and also the principal part
of those in this county, with the exception of those toward the Ohio.
-38




298        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
I am far from wishing to suggest anything to the injury of the holders of
unlocated claims; for, although those rights have sometimes been purchased
at low rates, yet it is very certain some of them are in the hands of the original bona fide holders. Many others have been traded for adequate and valuable considerations; and all, I presume, have passed a rigid scrutiny by the
commissioners-notwithstanding which, I cannot refrain from communicating
the facts and expressing the apprehensions I feel for the tranquillity of the
Territory, hoping that the wisdom of Government may thereupon be able to
devise and adopt such measures as ought to satisfy the reasonable demands of
all persons, and, at the same time, preserve peace and harmony in the
Territory.
In an abstract point of view, it may be considered that the settlers were
trespassers, and that no claim upon the Government could grow out of their
own wrong. But may not an evil, when suffered to increase too long, render
the application of mere unbending, abstract principles inconsonant with the
dictates of true practical policy?
At a time when delusive theories and captivating plans are dispersed
among the people with success, when, also, the interest of so many is involved,
while their services are absolutely necessary to repel the attacks of savages,
and in the crisis in which we find ourselves in regard to foreign nations, I
cannot but think it true policy to conciliate attachment to our Government,
if it can be effected without too great a sacrifice of the public interests.
If, sir, in this communication, I shall be considered as having improperly
made any suggestions or transgressed any rules of propriety, I sincerely hope
it will be attributed to the true cause-to an anxiety, honest and sincere, for
the welfare of my country.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, February 10, 1812.
Sir:
The arms, which you advised me that you had forwarded, are not yet
arrived, but I expect them very shortly.
As soon as it is in your power, I shall be very glad if you would send on
some more arms for cavalry-particularly swords, without which I cannot
equip a single man.
If you feel authorized to do so, and if it is in your power, I should also be
very glad to receive rifles enough for one complete rifle company, at least.
I wish, also, to be furnished, as soon as possible, with powder. I am at a
loss about the quantity that may be wanting, but that some will be required
I have every reason to think more than probable. Lead is cheaper here than




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             299
with you, and I shall have no difficulty in procuring a sufficient quantity for
bullets, but I wish to be furnished with shot for muskets.
Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
MAJOR THos. MARTIN, Military Agent, Newport, Ky.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, February 10, 1812. 
Sir:
Understanding that Congress is about to authorize the President of the
United States to raise several companies of rangers for the protection of the
frontiers, I beg leave to recommend Major William Boling Whiteside, of
this Territory, as pre-eminently qualified to command one of those companies.
He has been raised on our northwestern frontiers, with which he is well
acquainted; and on several occasions of the greatest danger and difficulty,
he has manifested so much prudence, self-command and intrepid bravery,
that he has both acquired the confidence of his fellow-citizens and become a
terror to the savages.
In times of danger, he is one of the most active and useful men in the Territory-his reputation and influence enabling him to associate his fellow-citizens with him in the most hazardous enterprises, in which he is always foremost to volunteer his own services-and I do him but justice to acknowledge
that I myself have received essential aid from him in the protection of this
country.
In recommending him, I am alone influenced by a knowledge of the satisfaction which his appointment would give to the exposed parts of the Territory, and a firm belief that no other man's services will be more useful
I have never spoken to him or one of his friends on the subject, but I have
no doubt he would accept the appointment with pleasure. And I sincerely
hope that if this application should not be successful, he may succeed in
obtaining some other military appointment of the grade of Captain.
If it should be deemed advisable to station a company at Peoria, during the
existence of the present dangers, for the protection of our northwestern frontier, he, I think, would be well qualified for the command-could soon raise
the proper kind of men for that service, is well acquainted with the country,
and extremely dreaded by the Indians in that quarter.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WILLIAM EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.




300        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, February 10, 1812. 
Sir:
Understanding that it is probable several companies of rangers will shortly
be raised for the protection of the frontiers of the United States, I have recommended Major Boling Whiteside, of this Territory, for the command of
one of them. I shall be happy to have your aid in procuring the appointment for him.
In times of danger, he is one of the most useful men in the Western country,
is distinguished for his bravery, possesses as great qualifications for Indian
warfare as any man I ever knew, and has been accustomed to it from his
infancy.
I never spoke to him on the subject. I really recommend him for the good
of the country, and from no other motive. I refer you to John Rice Jones
for further particulars concerning him.
The chiefs whom I sent for to meet me in council have evaded my request,
which augurs badly. The principal chief on the Illinois River sent me word
that he wished for peace, but that the Winnebagoes would attack our frontiers. This may be true, but I am sure he also intends it as a cover to the
depredations which his own party will commit.
The people are in great alarm, and if troops are not immediately sent to
our exposed frontier, I repeat again to you, this country will in two months
lose nearly one-half of its inhabitants. Every day, I hear of their removing in
all quarters.
Your friend,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. JOHN POPE.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, February 10, 1812. 
Sir:
I have the honor to inform you that the messengers whom I sent for the
chiefs of the Kickapoos and Pottawottamies of the Illinois River have returned
without being able to prevail on them to visit me according to my request.
Gomo, the principal chief of those bands on the Illinois, sent me word that
he could do nothing until he could have a conference with all the Indians
who are connected, by alliances and friendship, with those of his own particular party.
In the meantime, he advises me to be on my guard against the Winnebagoes,
who, he says, will certainly attack our frontiers to revenge themselves for the
loss and injury of many of their men, who were killed or wounded in the late
battle at the Prophet's town.
His thus evading my request augurs unfavorably. If he is not sincere in
wishing a previous consultation with the chiefs, etc., his conduct is an evidence of settled and decided hostility. If he actually thought such a consultation necessary, it clearly indicated his opinion that hostility was contem




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              301
plated by others, if not by himself. And it evidences that their dispositions
towards us are of so doubtful a character, at least, that we have no security
against their attacks.
He had no inducement to conceal the hostile intentions of the Winnebagoes,
since they had not only openly and boldly avowed them, but had, in part,
carried their threats into execution, by attacking the trading establishments
below Prairie du Chein; and I strongly suspect his admonition, to be prepared for them, was designed by him as a cover to the depredations which
he expected his own party would commit.
His sincerity cannot in the least be depended upon; for, notwithstanding
all his declarations to the contrary, the Indians who committed the murders
in this Territory last year are.certainly of his party-were present at the time
I demanded them-have continued to reside with him since, and were seen
and conversed with by my late messengers.
The alarms and apprehensions of the people are becoming so universal, that
really I should not be surprised if we should, in three months, lose more than
one-half of our present population. In places, in my opinion, entirely out of
danger, many are removing.  In other parts, large settlements are about to
be totally deserted. Even in my own neighborhood, several families have
removed, and others are preparing to do so in a week or two. A few days
past, a gentleman of respectability arrived here from Kentucky, and he
informed me that he saw on the road, in one day, upwards of twenty wagons
conveying families out of this Territory. Every effort to check the prevalence
of such terror seems to be ineffectual, and although much of it is unreasonably
indulged, yet it is very certain the Territory will very shortly be in considerable danger. Its physical force is very inconsiderable, and is growing
weaker, while it presents numerous points of attack.
The.Winnebagoes, Kickapoos and Pottawottamies comprise the principal
strength of the Prophet's army, and are certainly greatly irritated by their
losses. The two former, and a large portion of the latter, reside in this Territory, and can, with great facility, make hostile incursions into our settlements, and they will most certainly do so unless our differences with England
are speedily adjusted; for, till that event, whatever professions they may
make, I am convinced we need not flatter ourselves with safety, unless, by
waging war against them and perpetually harrassing them, we convince them
that it is their interest to sue for peace. Independent of their present causes
of irritation, it is very certain that the British emissaries, who are certainly
among them, have infinitely more influence with them than we have.
Under these circumstances, I cannot forbear to solicit a portion of the regular force for the protection of this Territory.
My own opinion, which I submit with great deference, is that two complete companies at least are necessary, and if they were composed of what is
commonly called backwoods' riflemen, they would furnish the cheapest and
most effectual defense by having stations somewhere on the frontier, from




302        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
which parties should be constantly detached, in different directions, as spies,
always leaving enough to defend the station.
If, with this, we should be authorized to carry on some offensive operations,
and the communication between the Indians and Fort Madison could be intercepted, and all our own traders be withdrawn from among them, their wants
and necessities would soon constrain them to ask for peace.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, February 13, 1812.
Sir:
Gov. Howard and myself have recently received information from various
quarters, which convinces both of us that formidable combinations of the
savages will very shortly attack the frontier of this and Louisiana Territory.
Under these circumstances, I shall wish-if it shall eventually appear to be
necessary-to raise some volunteers in the southern parts of Kentucky,
provided the measure meets your approbation, which I most respectfully
solicit.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
His Excellency Gov. SCOTT, Frankfort, Ky.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, t
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, February 15, 1812. 
Sir:
I think it my duty to transmit you the inclosed proceedings, as they tend
strongly to corroborate the statements I have heretofore had the honor to
make relative to the apprehensions of the people of this Territory.
Their extreme uneasiness seems to have led them into an opinion that I had
not made the proper representations on the subject, as it appears by their 4th
resolution; and, therefore, I inclose copies of my letter of the 16th of October last and its inclosures.
For my own part, I have never flattered myself with the belief that Gov.
Harrison's victory would produce permanent peace with the Indians. It may
produce a momentary impression upon the neighboring tribes, but I have no
doubt but this will eventually yield to British policy and British influence.
The British emissaries, who are constantly among the Indians, will endeavor
to cause our frontier to be attacked by distant tribes, over which we have no




LETTERS AND SPEECHES O0    NINIAN EDWARDS.          303
influence, hoping that our people may become so irritated that they will not
-if they could do so-discriminate between those who are friendly and
those who are hostile, and that, therefore, all may be compelled to fight in
their own defense.
I have the honor, etc.,
N. EDWARDS.
To the SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington City.
Circular.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
February 15, 1812. 
Sir:
You are hereby requested to take a census of all the free male inhabitants
in your county, above the age of twenty-one, and return the same to me as
soon as possible after the last day of March next.
I request that you will use the utmost diligence to take in all persons of
the above description.
If, however, any whom you take in should hereafter, and before you make
your return, remove, and this should come to your knowledge, you will take
especial care to make the correction, as it is my object to know, precisely as
possible, the number of actual inhabitants above the age of twenty-one at the
date of your return.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To JOHN HAYS, Esq., Sheriff of St. Clair County.
Extract of a letter to Gov. Howard and Gov. Clark.
ELVIRADE, 16th February, 1812.
* * * By the exercise of the plainest common sense I had foreseen, contrary to the general expectation, that Gov. Harrison's victory would not be
attended with all the good consequences that were fondly anticipated. I
regret very much that the President seems to have fallen into the same error.
It is in vain to attribute all the hostility of the Prophet's associates to
fanaticism. Facts do not justify the conclusion. Religion was totally out of
the question with many of them, and I doubt very much whether all the
Prophet's praying and priest-craft had half as much influence in exciting the
enthusiasm of the Indians as the enterprising spirit, the undaunted valor and
the bold designs of Tecumseh, who, in conjuncture with British emissaries,
has long been endeavoring to inspire them with the opinion that we had
wronged and oppressed them and would continue to do so, unless they boldly
resisted our encroachments.




304         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Admitting this supposition to be true, how is their unfriendly disposition
towards us to be affected by the exposure of all the Prophet's juggling arts.
They may hate him for deceiving them, but it will not make them love us,
who have not yielded them the lands they claimed or conceded to them any
other demand.
The Prophet's pretended conversation with the Great Spirit did not generate those hostilities; only gave a new spring to it, not more efficacious than
British presents, arms, ammunition and promises may be hereafter.
A defeat may have dampened their ardor for a while, but the momentary
terror over, revenge, the predominant passion, will occupy its place, and they
who have so valiantly relied upon their own strength alone, will hardly dispair when flattered with all the British nation can furnish, nor will they who
have reposed so much faith in the necromancy of an impostor, have less reliance on British power and resources.
I am convinced, in consequence of the momentary impression that may have
been produced in the neighboring tribes, the British policy will now be, to
set upon us those who are more distant and over whom we have no influence,
hoping that by these means our people may become so irritated that they
will not (if they could do so) discriminate between the innocent and the
guilty, and that eventually all may be found to fight in their own defense.
Such have been the views which I have fully communicated to the Secretary of War. I have portrayed, in the strongest colors, the dangers of the
negative state we are in (being neither at war or peace); I have pressed the
necessity of an expedition against the bands of Illinois, who still retain among
them the murderers, and refuse to deliver them up, or make any satisfaction for their depredations; I have advised that there should be a strong
garrison at Peoria; I have stated the universal terror that pervades and is
desolating the Territory; I have solicited the aid of two regular companies
of back-woods riflemen, with a view to put them in two stations on the fron.
tiers, from which parties as spies, in all directions, shall be constantly detached,
always taking care to leave enough to defend the stations; in fact, I have
said so much on the subject of danger and the necessity of preparations, that
I derive great consolation from being fortified by your opinions, for I was
growing afraid that my representations might be attributed to timidity,
seeing that the papers, in all directions, held a contrary language.
For several weeks I have been endeavoring to organize a force for active
service, and I am assured that there are three companies of volunteers on the
Ohio awaiting my orders. I have also written to Gen. Scott for his approbation to raise a few men, if necessary, in the southern parts of Kentucky.
Major Whiteside has directions to raise a company for immediate service. I
have kept out a few spies, since Harrison's battle, and you may rely on it
that I am willing to enter on any danger, risk or responsibility for the safety
of our exposed frontiers.
I am, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
P. S.-I shall be at St. Louis in a day or two-this week at all events.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             305
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, t
February 18, 1812. 
Sir:
I have the honor to inform you that Indian hostility remains no longer a
matter of conjecture.
You will have seen, from one of my last communications, that the Winnebagoes were collecting their forces to attack Chicago, Fort Madison, the
settlements on Salt River, and those below that place.
On the 10th inst. they attacked and killed a family, consisting of ten persons, residing about thirty miles below the mouth of Salt River. An express,
coming from Fort Madison, was also fired at, and several traces of Indians
have been discovered in that quarter. Of all this there is no doubt. I have
seen and conversed with people who have been at the very place where the
murders were committed, since that unfortunate event.
I have also heard of another encounter that those Indians have had with
seven white men, but cannot learn the particulars. We have not heard from
the settlements on Salt River, but I have great fears on account of those
people.
All these hostilities will now be charged to the Winnebagoes exclusively,
like the depredations of last year were wholly charged to the Prophet's own
proper party; but I am convinced that the bands of Pottawottamies on the
Illinois, and some of the Chippeways, Ottaways and Kickapoos, will be
equally guilty, and I should not be surprised at a general and open combination among them.
Under these circumstances Gov. Howard and myself have thought it would
be improper in us to remain inactive, waiting for orders, and permit those
fellows to murder our fellow-citizens with impunity. We have therefore
determined to order out a force, consisting of rangers, sufficient to protect
the frontiers; and I trust, sir, if our conduct in this particular shall not be
disapproved, that provision may be made to meet the expense that may be
necessarily incurred, as we have been obliged to pledge our words for the
payment of it.
I have the honor to be, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To WILLIAM EUSTIS, ESQ.
P. S.-If you should wish to acquire any information relative to this
country, with a view to any military establishments, there is now a gentleman in
your city who is probably better acquainted with its history and geography
than any other person you can meet with. This is John Rice Jones, who, I
presume, has very probably been introduced to you.-N. EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, February 21, 1812.
Sir:
Every information I have received indicates the hostile disposition of the
neighboring Indians. In consequence of which you are hereby required to
cause to be enrolled and classed every militia man in your Regiment, and to
-a




306         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
make such preparations in giving notices according to law, as will enable you
to detach at least one-half of your Regiment into actual service at a moment's
warning.
The necessity that compels me to go immediately into the upper country,
to put it into a proper attitude of defense, will greatly increase your responsibility, because, should circumstances require it, it will be your duty to call
out the militia and defend this country, during my absence, as you will perceive by a reference to the law.
The danger at present is considerable, but I expect it will be of short duration, as every effort in my power has been used to procure assistance. I
doubt not those efforts will be crowned with success.
At present it is not proper that either you or I should merely content ourselves with issuing orders. We must turn out actively and help to execute
them.
Yours, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. THOS. LEVINS, Commanding 1st Regiment Militia, R. C.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,?
March 14, 1812.
Dear Sir:
I hope the sincere desire which I feel to serve the people of this Territory,
and their having no delegate in Congress, will be accepted as an apology
for the trouble which this letter will give you.
At no time, since the organization of this government, have the people, as
far as I can learn, been better satisfied with their Territorial officers than at
the present juncture. But a variety of different wishes and motives have
combined to induce them to wish to enter the second grade of Territorial
government, merely for the purpose of obtaining a delegate to Congress,
which I always supposed might with as much propriety have been allowed
them, without their being obliged to incur, for that purpose alone, the expenses of the second grade-more especially since, if the same rights should be
extended to them that are enjoyed by the Indiana Territory, the delegate
will be wholly independent of the Legislature.
The population of this Territory, as appears by the late census, amounts to
12,282, in the whole of which there does not exceed between two and three hundred freeholders, (two hundred and twenty, I am convinced, is the extent.)
This is owing to the sale of public lands being postponed much beyond any
period that was anticipated, from the appointment of a Register and Receiver
to this District. This very small portion of freeholders have the exclusive
right of determining upon the contemplated change of government, after
which they alone will have the right to vote for the members of the Legislature, who will be elected for two years, with the right to nominate the Council, who will be appointed for five years, by which a small minority will have
the power to fix upon a very large and respectable majority of their fellow
citizens a course of measures which may not be changed, however disagreea



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              307
ble to the majority, for five years. Even if the danger to be apprehended
should be problematical, still such is the jealousy and independence of freemen, that they never will be satisfied to depend for the security of their
rights upon the courtesy of others.
A number of petitions have been presented to me, by the freeholders, in
favor of organizing a General Assembly, and not one against the measure has
been received-so that there is no doubt that the change will very soon take
place; and I have this day issued a proclamation for taking, in a formal
manner, the sense of the freeholders on this subject.
Under these circumstances I am sure I do not miscalculate, when I suppose
your attachment to republican principles will lead you to wish to extend their
salutary influence to the people of this Territory, by enlarging the right of
suffrage. It is the more just and necessary because it is not the fault of the
people that they are not freeholders, for many of them are able and anxiously
waiting to buy land, as soon as the public sales shall be opened. These sales
will certainly commence shortly, and the number of freeholders will thereby
be greatly augmented. Yet, unless immediate provision be made for them,
they may, for the reasons before given, be excluded from the benefits of representation for five years.
These considerations also demonstrate the propriety of giving the people of
this Territory the right to elect their delegate to Congress, as was done for
Indiana whilst this Territory was an integral part of that. A delegate was
designed to represent thewhole people of the Territory, and not any particular
description of citizens only. Except as to the right of voting in Congress, he
stands precisely in the same relation to the people of a territory that any
representative in Congress does to the people of his district. Why, then,
should the election of the one be made by the Legislature, and the other by
the people themselves? It is more necessary that the people here should have
this right secured to them, than any where else; for, owing to the peculiar
situation of this Territory, in consequence of the sale of public lands being
so long delayed, one hundred and thirty freeholders, having an interest distinct from that of the great body of the people, by uniting would constitute
the majority of the freeholders, and could elect the delegate in opposition to
the interest and wishes of all the rest of a population consisting of 12,382
persons. It surely is enough that such an inconsiderable minority should
possess the power of legislating for the whole Territory; but to secure, also,
the additional advantage of a delegate to Congress, is a reason strongly urged
to pass into the second grade of government before the public sales shall
open, and thereby increase the number of persons who could participate in
the equal rights of free government.
Independent of the reasons growing out of the peculiarity of our situation,
in favor of the measure, it is strongly recommended by considerations of
justice and polic~, upon general principles. Our House of Representatives
will consist of seven members, the Legislative Council of five-making, in
the aggregate, twelve. While these men have the sole right to elect the delegate, scenes of intrigue will constantly present themselves, which, while they




308        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
may gratify the ambition of individuals, will greatly disturb the repose and
tranquillity of our Territorial government, and hazard much of the best interests of the best citizens thereof.
The situation of the settlers between Kaskaskia and the Ohio most cogently
demands consideration. The appointment of. a Register and Receiver to
this District, several years ago, induced the people to believe (as the obvious
and common duty of such officers is to sell lands and receive money) that the
sale would very shortly thereafter commence-by which means they were
induced to settle on the lands they proposed to buy. They now constitute
at least one-third of the whole population of the Territory, and a great portion of them will become freeholders as soon as the sales shall be open. Yet,
unless Congress interposes to extend to them the rights of suffrage, etc., they
must be deprived of the benefits of representation. The ordinance, and laws
amendatory thereof, require that so soon as the Governor shall receive satisfactory evidence that the organization of the General Assembly in the Territory is the wish of the majority of the freeholders, he shall order an election
for representatives, whose numbers shall not be less than seven or more than
nine, and these he shall apportion to the several counties in the Territory
according to the number of free males above the age of twenty-one years.
At present there are but two counties in the Territory, so that I must give at
least four representatives to one and three to the other. This power is given
to the Governor for the purpose of getting the second grade of government
into operation, after which he has no power to apportion the representation
by taking a member from one or both the counties to which he had previously given them. This must depend on the Legislature, which will consist
of the representatives of two counties only, and it is not a safe calculation
that they will have magnanimity enough to relinquish all that justice would
require. The people of whom I have spoken as residing between Kaskaskia
and the Ohio, in Randolph county, will be counted for it in the apportionment of representatives, and yet will have no vote. If I separate those
people from Randolph by laying off a new county, (which I have only been
prevented from doing in consequence of their being, in legal estimation,
intruders on the public land,) and should apportion to them their share of
representatives, still I do not know that there is one man among them who is
qualified to be a representative by having a freehold of two hundred acres
of land, and not more than three or four qualified to vote by having a freehold in fifty acres-which are the qualifications fixed by the ordinance.
Convinced, as I am, that nothing more than a fair representation of the
situation of the people of this Territory, at the present time, to Congress,
can be necessary to procure the justice which their situation imperiously calls
for, I beg leave in this behalf most earnestly to entreat your aid in procuring
the passage of a law to extend the right of suffrage in all cases, and for the
election of a delegate to Congress by the people at large, instead of by the
Legislature. An early passage of the law, alone, can secure the advantages
which it may propose, or otherwise the second grade will be forced on, so as
to defeat its beneficial purposes. The business of Territories, however urgent,




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              309
it is understood is too often postponed, when they are unfortunately not
represented, because no one particularly feels sufficient interest to take upon
himself, exclusively, the trouble of preparing and attending to it.
If, under such circumstances, the people should be fortunate enough to
obtain your aid, I am sure they will feel and be proud to acknowledge
everlasting obligations to you. I would thank you to inform me what may
be the prospect of having the right of suffrage extended, because, should I
be assured that that event would certainly take place, I would postpone the
elections a little beyond the period I should otherwise appoint for them. I
therefore shall be greatly obliged if you can find it convenient to write me
on the receipt hereof.
Your friend,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. R. M. JOHNSON, in Congress.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, f
March 15, 1812.
Dear Sir:
I received your letter yesterday, by Mr. Moore, and although it furnishes
no ground to question the correctness of your motives, yet I learn with extreme regret that you should have felt it necessary to have called any courtmartial for the trial of any officers, for speaking disrespectfully "of the Executive of the Territory and their superior officers," without intending any
reflection of the least unfriendly nature. I am fearful that a little too much
hastiness of temper, or too much zeal if possible, or the want of due reflection
as to the nature of the late orders, have had rather too great influence on your
mind.
At a time when the pressure of circumstances require much individual sacrifice, it is natural that feelings and not reason should predominate among
those from whom those sacrifices are necessarily required; and, being one of
the defects of our natures, great allowance should be made for it. For my
own part, I feel such sensibility to the privations, inconveniences and sacrifices that a call on the militia always produces on my fellow-citizens, however
necessary it may be, that I can bear their complaints without the least resentment.
As to the late orders-so far as they were for the purpose of raising volunteers, their very essence and nature implied a liberty as free as air itself, and
no opposition from any quarter whatever could, therefore, in this view of
the subject, be at all illegal, nor consequently any offense. Being a matter
of mere choice, one man had as great a right to advise against it as another
in favor of it; and when men exercise a right, however injudicious it may
be, they are liable to no official censure.
As to myself, I certainly desire very much that no charge may be exhibited
against any man for any abuse of me.
If I am misrepresented, time and the uniform tenor of my conduct will
prove a corrective. Many a worthy man, seeing my actions through a false




310        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
medium, may innocently mistake my views and motives. Many may have
had erroneous information, and all are liable to the. domination of prejudice
in a greater or less degree. Force always aggravates these errors and false
views, but never corrects them; and from any opinion the people may be led
to entertain, concerning me, I can apprehend no danger-for whenever it may
become actually necessary, I shall completely have it in my power to silence
clamor and convince them that their substantial interests have, at all times,
occupied my thoughts and engaged my most industrious exertions.
These things are always best attempted when clamor has exhausted its utmost fury. The times are now pretty hard at best, and, from the most friendly
motives, I advise great moderation and forbearance, having no doubt that my.
candor and frankness will not be misconstrued by you.
Your most obedient,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. WM. WHITESIDE.
P. S.-I am informed that the militia were greatly dissatisfied at not seeing
me on the 3d of March. I had certainly not promised to attend, but there
is nothing that would have gratified me more, had I not been obliged to return home to send off for arms, which I actually did. It must be understood
that when my duty calls, I must obey; and no reasonable man can be dissatisfied, on reflection. I wish this thing understood.-N. EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
March 15, 1812.     1
Sir:
I am gratified by the faithful and attentive manner in which you have executed my orders in your town up the Illinois River. If Major Whiteside
has any thoughts of going to Peoria, or invading the Indian territory at present, I certainly wish him stopped. This would have a very bad effect, when
I have sent a messenger to the Indians who reside there, and might jeopardize his life.
I wish Major Whiteside strictly to execute the orders I gave him, but not
to exceed them.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. WM. WHITESIDE.
ST. Louis, February 27, 1812.
Sir:
I have had information that a Mr. Lucas is now trading with the Indians
on the Mississippi, at a point nearly opposite the mouth of Jefferson, and that
certain other gentlemen are trading on the Illinois River-with all or some
of whom, I am informed, you are interested. Not being at home, I cannot
now ascertain whether those gentlemen have a license from me, and, if you
have any interest in their adventure, I should he glad to hear from you on
the subject.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.            311
Whether those gentlemen are licensed, or not, our relations with those Indians are of such a character that a continuation of further intercourse with
them, for the present, is wholly inexpedient and must be discontinued. A
letter addressed to me at Cahokia will reach me, as I shall continue there
some days.
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To Gov. HOWARD, St. Louis, Mo.
ELVIRADE, March 23, 1812.
Sir:
I have the honor to inform you that I have this moment received communications from Chicago, Peoria and Fort Madison, which leave no rational
doubt of the decidedly hostile views of the major part of the Indians between
the Lakes and the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.
Strong circumstances are stated which seem to justify a belief that the
Sioux have joined or are about joining the hostile confederacy, and, if so, it
will be the most formidable one with which the Western country has had to
contend.
One of the soldiers at Fort Madison was murdered on the 3d inst., in the
most barbarous manner, within a mile and a half of the fort. An attempt
was also made to shoot one of the guard. No one dare venture out of the
fort; and every one within believes it in danger of being taken.
Yours, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War.
P. S.-I have a company of rangers still out to defend the frontiers, cooperating with those that Gov. Howard has ordered into service. I have
taken this measure upon my own responsibility, from the urgency of the case,
and I stand personally pledged to pay the men. My situation is very unpleasant, and unless I shall be shortly authorized, they will abandon the service,
in spite of every effort I can make. —NINAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,?
March 2, 1812.
Sir:
Herewith I send you the commission which I have just received from Hon.
William Eustis, Secretary of War, appointing you a Captain of Rangers.
Accompanying the said commission was a letter from the Secretary, from
which I give you extracts.
If you accept the commission, you may take the oath of fidelity to the United States, and the oath of office, before some judge or justice of the peace.
You must return a'muster-roll and pay-roll of all the men that have been
in service, under any order, from the 3d of March to 14th of April, at which
time you were directed to organize your company under the law of Congress.




312        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
From the 14th inst. you will consider your company as enlisted, according
to the forms herewith sent. These, certified by you and countersigned by
myself, will constitute the proper voucher for payment.
You may discharge those men who were enlisted, by any order, for three
months, as fast you can supply their places by the enlistment of others for
twelve months, according to the foregoing instructions-always observing to
muster your men when you discharge any, upon receiving new recruits, and
be very particular to note the term of enlistment of each man.
You are so to arrange matters as to subject the three months' men to as
little inconvenience in discharging them as possible. You may discharge any
of them who wish it, provided your company will not, in your opinion, be
too much weakened by it.
Considering the service you are, by existing orders, required to perform,
your company must not exceed sixty-eight men, including the non-commissioned officers. As often as you have an opportunity, let me hear from you.
I presume opportunities will frequently occur from Fort Madison. Request
Mr. Payton to keep notes of everything remarkable in the geography and situation of that part of the country in which you are now stationed. He is
very competent, and the information will be useful to me.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To CAPT. WM. B. WHITESIDE.
ELVIADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
M2ay 6, 1812.
Sir:
About four weeks ago I had the honor to receive your letters of the 28th of
February and 11th of March last, just as I was starting to the county of St.
Clair, to hold a council with the Ottaways, Chippeways, Kickapoos and Pottawottamies. After the council was over I found it absolutely necessary to
visit our extreme frontiers, from which I returned only two days past, considerably indisposed and enfeebled by fatigue and a severe attack of intermittent fever. On my return home I had the honor to receive another letter
from you, of the 16th of March, and shall proceed to reply to the whole of
them as well as my health and strength admit.
For the leading features of the council I beg leave to refer you to the inclosed newspapers, which also contain other important information that can
be relied on. In my speech to the Indians I intended, also, to operate on the
traders (many of whom attended) by convincing them that their trade depended on the preservation of peace. I was, so far, successful, and I have no
doubt all of them will use their utmost exertions to promote our views in regard to the Indians. I endeavored to satisfy them that we had no intention
or wish.to take their lands from them. Upon this subject they had great
uneasiness, and I fear that our policy of buying their land too frequently has
given rise to it. My own opinion is, that no contract of the kind ought to
be attempted with the chiefs, unless the whole tribe had previously manifested a willingness to it.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             313
On the receipt of your letter, of the 11th of March, I at once determined to
take Captain Whiteside's rangers and a company of militia with me to the
River Sainquemon, and to have built a fort where the trail from Cahokia to
Peoria crosses the river, This I designed, for the present, as a station for
the rangers. It is about one and a half day's march from Peoria. I could
have thrown any quantity of provisions into it, and the whole body of troops
intended to build the fort at Peoria, without giving them the least ground
to suspect my intentions. I also intended to direct Mr. Forsyth (the subagent), or some other reliable person at Peoria, to procure a quantity of logs,
for the apparent purpose of building for himself two large cabins, and to
have them all collected at a proper point, when, everything being in readiness, I contemplated a forced march to Peoria, to seize the logs, split them,
and instantly have erected a fortification that we could have defended. From
this plan I was diverted by the necessity I found myself under of giving an
entirely different direction to the rangers to repel the attacks of the Winnebagoes and others.
I am now using all the address in my power to get the Indians to consent
to the erection of the contemplated fort without being seen or suspected in
it. If they do not consent, I can assure you that one thousand picked men
will not be sufficient to effect it. It might have been easily done in the spring,
before the Indians returned from their hunt, but they are all now concentrating their forces about Peoria, and, with five days' previous notice, can rally
a force of 1000 warriors, independent of any assistance from the Prophet,
whose village is only four days' march from theirs; and it ought to be observed that, though the Prophet cannot prevail upon all those Indians to
unite with him on the Wabash, because they have not taken a decided part
against us, yet there would be no difficulty in their procuring his aid, and he
would gladly change the seat of war, in consequence of the prospects which
their invitation would hold out to him.
Whatever may be the difficulties of building the- fort, the advantages will
be in proportion to them-which will be obvious to you from the rough
geographical notes I intend to send herewith, if I shall be able to set up long
enough. I have heretofore taken great pains to acquire necessary information for any object the Administration may contemplate in this quarter, and
shall continue to do so; that which I intend to transmit I am sure is substantially correct. Information from the Indians with whom I held the council, from the Sacs and Foxes, from Prairie du Chien, from Peoria, Chicago
and a number of traders in different directions, confirms the hostile machinations of the Prophet and the determined hostilities of the Winnebagoes, who,
it was agreed, were approaching our frontiers in different directions with hostile intentions, which the Indians above mentioned say nothing but death
can prevent them from executing.
Under these circumstances, Gov. Howard and myself held a conference and
concerted measures of cooperation: his rangers to guard the usual ingress to
Louisiana, about 120 miles above St. Louis, on the Mississippi, and Capt.
Whiteside to occupy the ground from the same point on the Mississippi to
-40




314         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
the mouth of Sangamon, on the Illinois River-the point on the Mississippi
and that on the Illinois, required to be occupied, not exceeding a day and a
half's march. To complete the measure of defense, I was obliged to order
out a volunteer company of mounted riflemen, to range from the mouth of
Sangamon, up it and in an eastern direction to the heads of the Kaskaskia, a
distance of between 70 and 100 miles, covering our north-western frontier.
With one-half of the company of mounted riflemen, the Captain regularly
commences his route from the mouth of Sangamon, while the Lieutenant,
at the same time, with the residue of the company, commences his from the
heads of the Kaskaskia, and they alternately pass to each others. The
ground thus occupied by Whiteside and the mounted riflemen, by an arrangement with the Indians, was agreed on as the boundary for them, and us also,
till some change of circumstances should take place.
I could have no difficulty, if I could have a personal interview with you, il
convincing you of the propriety and absolute necessity of those arrangements;
and even in the imperfect mode of satisfying you that is alone allowed me, I
still hope I shall not have much difficulty. But it will not long be possible
for me, without I shall be enabled to give the people some assurance that they
will be paid by the Government, to turn out, upon any sudden emergency, a
force sufficient to meet it. Already have I had great difficulties, independent of performing almost the drudgery of a corporal, to effect as much as I
have done, and in organizing Whiteside's company upon my own responsibility, I had to pledge my private fortune for the payment of them. It is
now well understood that had not Gov. Howard and myself taken those
measures on our own responsibility, our frontiers would have been deluged
with the blood of our fellow-citizens. About that time a party of Indians,
(under White-hair, a Pottawottamie chief,) consisting of about sixty, were
within thirty miles of the frontier, and had actually agreed to commence
hostilities and retreat to the head of the Illinois River. One hundred and
fifty warriors were below Peoria, on the river, many of whom would have
followed White-hair's example. The Kickapoos certainly did murder O'Neal's
family on the Mississippi, thus affording melancholy evidences to fortify the
opinion, that I have constantly maintained since Gov. Harrison's battle,
that the danger was not over, and that all the benefits of that battle would be
lost unless it should be succeeded by measures to coerce satisfaction for all
past aggressions. Should we have war with England, peace with the Indians
need not be expected till, by excluding them from all British trade, withdrawing all our own traders and pushing a vigorous campaign against them,
they shall be brought to their senses-which these measures would soon
effect. None of the rangers destined for the defense of the frontier have yet
arrived. The present is the time when, of all others, we have cause to apprehend most danger, and I hope, under such circumstances, I shall stand justified in calling out the company of mounted riflemen and continuing them in
service till the arrival of some company of rangers. I feel anxious on this
subject. Had I a right to exercise any discretion, I should have no dread of
the responsibility; but I have no such right.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             315
Whiteside, under my order, mustered into service seventy-two men on the 3d
of March, enlisted for three months. These continued until the 14th ult.,
when I received your letter and directed the organization of the company
conformably thereto.
It is impossible for the rangers to supply themselves with rations and be as
serviceable as they otherwise might be. I have already had to become responsible for a deposit for them at their station on the Mississippi, which they
agree shall be deducted out of their pay-a measure they at all times prefer.
I most sincerely hope those men called out by my order may be paid: without
which, either they or myself must be greatly injured; and I believe Gov.
Howard and his rangers are in precisely the same situation.
Capt. Whiteside accepts his commission, and I think will do honor to it.
I recommended William Savage as First and Isaac Hill as Second Lieutenants. They were chosen by the company, and I have since become acquainted
with them and approve the choice. Mr. Greene, whom I mentioned in my
last letter, was chosen Ensign. He is a very brave man, but I cannot recommend him as an officer. For Ensign I recommend Craven Peyton, who was
one of the first men who joined the company, has already distinguished himself, and, in my opinion, will make a first rate officer. Should a commission
come for Greene, I shall not deliver it till I receive an answer to this letter,
hoping that Peyton's will not be delayed for the return of Greene's.
I have a relation living with me, whom I have been educating-the son of
a man who spent his best days and his whole fortune in the American Revolution. This youth is between seventeen and eighteen years of age. His
name is Benjamin Sanford Edwards. I am very desirous of getting him into
the military school, and will thank you to inform me whether my wishes in
this particular can be gratified.
I have the honor, etc., etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. W.r. EUSTIS, Secretary of War.
P. S.-Two rangers of Louisiana a few days ago attacked and killed two
Indians, on the east of the Mississippi, without receiving any injury. The
Indians are said to be Winnebagoes.-N. E.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, May -, 1812. (
Sir 
The Pottawottamies of the Illinois River are divided into three bands, viz:
That of Gomo, the principal Chief, consisting of about one hundred and
fifty men, who now reside on the Peoria Lake, seven leagues above Peoria.
Pepper's band, at Sand River, about two leagues below the Quin-que-que,
consisting of about two hundred men, of different nations-Pottawottamies,
Chippeways and Ottaways. Little Chief was, last year, head of this band.
He is now dead, and Pepper has succeeded him. Letourney and Mettetat, brothers, both Ottaways, are war chiefs of this band, under Pepper.
Their village is fifty leagues above Peoria and twenty below Lake Michigan.




316        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Main-pock's band, consisting of fifty men, residing seven leagues up the
Quin-que-que. This chief is reputed brave and desperate, although his
number of men is less than either Pepper's or Gomio's. He is said to have
more influence, in collecting followers for an enterprise of any kind, than
both the others. His influence is very considerable with some of the bands
on the south and east of Lake Michigan.
At Little Makina, a river on the south side of Illinois, five leagues below
Peoria, is a band, consisting of Kickapoos, Chippeways, Ottaways and Pottawottamies. They are called warriors, and their head man is Lebourse or
Sulky. Their number is sixty men, all desperate fellows and great plunderers.
On Fox River, which empties into the Illinois River at the Charboniere, or
Coal-pit, about thirty-five leagues above Peoria, there is another band, consisting of Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways. Wa-bee-sous is their
leader. Their number is not less than thirty. The river on which they reside
takes its source from Mil-waa-kee. The principal part of the other Pottawottamies reside on the River St. Joseph, that empties into Lake Michigan,
and they have on that river three or four villages.
The Kickapoos in the Illinois Territory are divided into three bands.
Pam-a-wa-tam is the principal chief. His band consists of one hundred and
fifty men. They have left their old village, and are now building a village
on Peoria Lake, three leagues from Peoria.
Little Deer has also left the great village, and is now building one opposite Gomo's village. His band consists of one hundred and twenty.
The other Kickapoos are those above described, who live at Little Makina
below Peoria. From these three bands of Kickapoos there are now with the
Prophet about one hundred men.
At Mil-waa kee, thirty leagues from Chicago, just on the west of Lake
Michigan, there are several villages of Pottawottamies and Fulsowines.
At Sauk River, on the same side of the lake, is a village of Ottaways and
Chippeways. At Sha-boi-ee-gan is another village of Ottaways and Chippe
ways. From this river to Green Bay it is twelve leagues. At Two Rivers
there is another village of Ottaways. Between Two Rivers and Little Detroit
there are two villages of Ottaways. At the Little Detroit there is another
village of Ottaways. This is fifty leagues from Michillimacinac. At MIaniste6, thirty leagues from Michillimacinac, is another village.
The Winnebago village of Rock River is between thirty and forty leagues
above the mouth of the river; it is about two days' march from Peoria. The
country is prairie, or very fine, open woodland.
From the village of Rock River to the old Winnebago village on Lake
App-quay, or the Fox River of Green Bay, it is one day's journey; and to MIilwaa-kee, can be traveled in one day and a half.
From Peoria to the villages of the Sacs and Foxes, it can be traveled in
three days at most. The Sacs have eight hundred and the Foxes six hundred
warriors.
From Peoria to the Prophet's town, it is about four days' journey, over fine,
high, dry country.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              317
At the carrying place at Chicago, three leagues from the fort, is a village of
Pottawottamies and Ottaways, of three hundred men.
Five leagues from Chicago, on the south side of Lake MIichigan,.is a river
called the Little Calamick, on which there is a village, consisting of about
one hundred men, of Pottawottamies, Chippeways and Ottaways.     Old
Cam-pig-nam was their chief last year.  One of his hands has been greatly
injured by a burn, and his nose has been broken or cut to pieces.  It was
reported that he was killed this spring in going from Detroit to Niagara.
Nan-non-quy was the second chief, and, probably, will be the first.
Thirty leagues from Chicago is the river St. Joseph. Ten leagues up that
river is a village of about ten Pottawottamies; no particular chief to lead
them.
At the Terrecoupe is a village of about one hundred Pottawottamies. This
village is ten leagues, by land, to the lake. It is also about thirty leagues to
Chicago, over fine, open country and good traveling.
On the St. Joseph, about forty leagues from its mouth, is another small
village of Pottawottamies, at the mouth of a small river called the Riviere
Pivellee (or Speckled River.) The chief is called Nan-neck-quai-bee.
On Stag-heart River, ten leagues from its mouth, is another small village of
Pottawottamies. Their chief is Nan-quai-sai. Stag-heart River empties into
the St. Joseph.  The most of those Indians described as being on the south
of Lake Michigan and on the St. Joseph or its waters, are now with the
Prophet, on the Wabash.
At the mouth of the River Kick-kaa-la-maa-zo, which empties into the
lake fifteen leagues beyond St. Joseph, is a village of seven or eight men.
About twenty-five leagues up the river is a village of Pottawottamies and
Ottaways, of sixty or seventy men.
On Grand River, which empties into the lake ten leagues beyond the Kickkaa-la-maa-zo, there are four villages of Ottaways, altogether containing
about two hundred men. The first village is about three leagues from the
mouth, the second about fifteen, the third about twenty-five, and the fourth
about forty leagues. This last is on a small river called Riviere des Plains.
Grande Riviere goes near Detroit.
On Mush-kee-gom River, which is four leagues'beyond Grande Riviere,
there are two villages of Ottaways. The first, about fift.een leagues from the
mouth, numbers about ten men. Peck-keoo-nai (or The Snake) is their chief.
The others are about fifteen leagues up, and number about twenty-five men.
Wampum is their chief.
On the bluffs, one league beyond White River, which itself is four leagues
beyond the Mush-kee-gom, is a village of Ottaways, called the Bluff Village;
number of men about seventy or eighty. On Pierre Marquette River, which
is twelve leagues beyond White River, is another small village of Ottaways;
number of men about ten.




318        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
The total number of the Indian3 of the Illinois, including those of the portage of Chicago, is, therefore, 790 men, viz:
At the Portage..........................................  30  men.
Pepper's  band.............................................. 200 "
M ain-pock's  band.......................................  50 "
Wa-bee-sau's band........................................... 30 "
Gomo's band..............................................150   "
P.'s band.....................................................150 
Little Deer's band.............................................120  "
At Makina, under Sulky.................................... 60  "
In all..................................... 790 men.
Those Indians, in the late council I held with them, told me they were
about to settle themselves together in a large town at or near Peoria.
The facility with which those about the lake and St. Joseph's can join
them is obvious, as they can transport themselves in canoes all the way, are
constantly in the habit of passing in that manner, and most decidedly prefer
it to any other mode of travel.
The proximity of the Indians between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi
to Peoria, would enable all those bands to unite their forces in a very few
days. If the Prophet should be driven from his present ground, or the Illinois Indians become decidedly hostile, he will rally all his forces on the
Illinois River, from which he can do more injury to our people, with less
danger to himself and his followers, than from his present station.
These notes already show that this is the most vulnerable frontier that
belongs to the United States. But I will add further ones in regard to the
Illinois River and its waters.
Names of the rivers emptying into the Illinois: River Fouchai is the first
on the south side, and two leagues above the mouth of the latter; River Makapinn two leagues above Fouchai, south side; River Lenois four leagues
from Mee ka-pinn, south side; River A'la Pomme two leagues from Lenois,
south side; River Cha-bot two leagues above A'la Pomme, north side, (from
here to the mouth of Salt River, on the Mississippi, the Indians can go and
come in a day on foot); Mouse River four leagues above Cha-bot, south side,
(one day's march, on foot, to the Mississippi-fine, open country); Blue River
two and a half leagues above Mouse River, north side; Arrowstone River
two leagues above Blue River, south side; Mauvaisterre River one and a half
leagues above Negro River, north side, (from here near ten days' march to the
Mississippi-fine, open country); Le Ballanson four leagues above Mauvaisterre, south side; Mine River, two leagues above Le Ballaneon, north side,
one and a half days' march to the Mississippi.
N. EDWARDS.
To the SECRETARY OF WAR.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN jDWAItDS.             319
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, May 12, 1812. 
Sir:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 7th ult.,
but as yet I have heard nothing from any of the companies of rangers that
you informed me were to repair to this quarter for the protection and defense
of the frontier.
This is particularly unfortunate at the present conjuncture, because a great
part of the very object contemplated in providing this force will be lost by
the delay.  Every person acquainted with the Indian customs and habits
knows very well that the present is the time to apprehend the most danger
from their predatory parties.  Their hunt is over, they are done making
sugar, their women are all collected at their villages and preparing to make
their corn.  The men lhave now nothing to do but make war, and a thick
foliage favors their mode of warfare-objects at all times appreciated by
them.
Hitherto, with nothing to mislead or guide me beyond very humble pretensions to common sense, I have invariably held the opinion that there was no
prospect of peace with tile Indians, and that nothing could produce it but
rigorous coercive measures on the part of Government.  Others of superior
information and experience have thought otherwise, and I find a difference of
opinion must still prevail-not as to the existence of danger, but as to the
nature of it. IMy own opinion is that the war will be carried on by the
Indians, for some time to come, in small parties, who will infest the frontiers,
attack all exposed parts, and surprise and murder men, women and children. A
general attack upon some of our towns and villages may possibly happen, but
I do not consider it a probable event at the present time. The Indians would
not undertake such a measure without collecting a great force; and, although
they can live on very little, yet I cannot foresee how they could calculate on
providing enough for their support when collected together. They cannot
depend on hunting; this is the time to supply themselves by plundering.
The Prophet's store of corn was destroyed last fall. His ammunition and many
guns were taken, and so serious were the consequences of the battle, that his
party had enough to do to keep themselves from starving, and, therefore, had
very little opportunity, by their hunt, tot supply provisions sufficient for a
campaign against one of our towns.
If, however, such a measure as this should be adopted, and the Illinois
Indians should become decidedly hostile, the greatest danger is to this or
Louisiana Territory. Many of these Indians were not in the battle of Tippecanoe.  All of them cultivated their corn and none of them lost any, nor
had they to encounter any extraordinary difficulties in their hunt. They are,
therefore, better prepared.  Their force is superior to the Prophet's, and, if
the facility of traveling by water is any temptation to them, the Illinois is
more easily navigated than any other water-course that could be used, and
has no garrison on it to command or guard it. If they travel by land to St,
Louis, of Louisiana Territory, and Cahokia of this, both are nearer to the




320        LETTERS AND SPEECHES O     NINIAN EDWARDS,
Illinois villages and to the Prophet's town than Vincennes is, as I am well
informed; and it is well known that neither of those Territories can, with
the same facility, obtain assistance from the neighboring States; and, moreover, a considerable portion of our population cannot so far lose sight of old
customs and their former government, as to be sincerely friendly to ours.
The danger of these Territories will be greatly increased should the Prophet
be driven from his present ground, and the Illinois Indians be hostile; for
they will most certainly unite on the Illinois, from which they can do us immense injury. This consideration has led me to exert myself as much as
possible to maintain peace with those on the Illinois, and nothing would contribute so much to aid those efforts as the display of military force.  With
that, I do believe they would be decisively successful.  Otherwise, those
Indians will openly declare war against us.
I may be wrong in all my conjectures, and the respect I feel for the opinions
of others of more experience induces me to entertain my own with great diffidence; but till convinced of my error, I feel it my duty (although I may be
mistaken) to suggest, most respectfully, to you, those opinions and impressions that I have deliberately formed, not upon a few isolated facts, but upon
a combination of all circumstances that have come within my knowledge.
I do not think we have the less danger to apprehend in consequence of
believing that a general attack will not be made on our towns, for already I
think it highly probable that as many have been killed in this year as we
lost in Gov. Harrison's battle. I do not recollect the exact number of either,
and I cannot ascertain our late losses; but since I wrote you last, I have ascertained an additional account of murders committed in this Territory, containing men, women and children.
I am informed by a Colonel of militia that considerable mischief was lately
done within between forty and sixty miles of the United States saline. By a
letter of the 3d inst., he states that two militia Captains in that quarter had
raised a party and had pursued the murderers, but had not returned on the
date of his letter. In this way, we shall lose more than we should lose by a
battle. Such repetitions of outrages will, I fear, embolden the hostile and fix
the wavering against us. We have no security against those attacks but by
carrying the war into the Indian country, and this we shall, in a few weeks,
be unable to do; for then, the hot season comes on, and during its continuance it is utterly impossible to carry on any expedition on horseback through
the prairies. Unless the Indians should be arrested in this kind of warfare,
they will continue it till the corn begins to ripen, and then, I have no doubt,
they will embody and attempt to strike some decisive blow.
I am extremely much in hopes that the protection, which has hitherto been
contemplated for this quarter, will not be withdrawn. The people have been
led to calculate on it, which has prevented many from leaving the country;
and were it withdrawn, I should be charged with exciting false hopes, and
rendering them victims to those expectations.
Our north-western frontier, I presume, is well understood. We are now
very much imposed on by our eastern frontier. The settlements in this coun



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.            321
try generally extend up the Mississippi, with the exception of those on the
Ohio; those settlements extend no where very far from the Mississippi. Their
width is very inconsiderable, being bounded on the one side by the river, and
on the other by the great prairies, that cannot be inhabited for want of
wood and water. Every part, therefore, appears to be equally exposed; and
so great and so just are the general apprehensions of danger, that it is impossible to draw out and embody the militia for any general measure of defense
-each particular part being so much exposed, that it has no men to spare
from its own defense.
The notes I promised to send you, by the last mail, I was then unable, from
sickness, to prepare. I now send them-and, if it is desired, I will continue
to send all such information as I may be able to collect hereafter. The ignorance which I labored under, on those subjects, when I first came here, has
rendered me indefatigable in exploring all the sources of information that
were accessible to me; but it is hardly probable that it can be equally important to you, and I have some fears that, from an anxiety, honest and sincere, to discharge my whole duty, I have sometimes been rather troublesome.
If so, in my motives I hope you will see some apology.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WILLIAM ECSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, May 16, 1812.
Sir:
I have completely ascertained that the murder of the family, mentioned in
my letter of February 18th, was perpetrated by a party of Kickapoos, residing near Peoria; the Indians acknowledge the fact. The great chief of the
tribe has frankly communicated it to one of my agents, with a request that I
should be informed of it. Gov. Howard has demanded these murderers of
me, and I now await directions how to proceed. A demand at present, under
existing circumstances, would, I think, be attended with no good effect and
much expense. It might aggravate hostility and hasten the war, when we
are totally unprepared to meet it-no troops of any description having yet
arrived. Nothing but a display of military force can induce the Indians to
surrender such number of murderers.
Yours, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War.
P. S.-Finding it necessary, I appointed Jacques Mette a resident interpreter, on the 17th of last month, at a salary of one dollar per day and one
and a half rations.-N. E.
-41




322        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, May 20, 1812.
Sir:
Some time last month I had the honor to receive your letter of the 10th of
October last, requesting me to forward to the War Department a statement
of the articles which the Indians under my superintendence wished to receive
as their annuity for the present year.
Although I supposed the letter had reached me too late to answer the intended purpose, I immediately dispatched a letter to the Kaskaskia tribe, but
could receive no answer in consequence of the absence of the chief, who had
gone to the Delaware villages in Louisiana. They will, however, be content
with the same articles they received last year. Hitherto no annuities have
been sent to me for any other tribe, and really great confusion exists in our
Indian department in this country. All except a small band of the Kickapoos
reside in this Territory, and also a very large portion of the Pottawottamies,
as you will perceive by the notes I have forwarded by the last mail. I am,
ex-officio, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in this Territory, and I am destitute
of that control and influence which the payment of annuities always produces,
and the Indians themselves are distracted by the confusion of having a Father
here and another at Vincennes. I beg leave to suggest that it would, in my
opinion, be best to combine the whole business in the hands of Gov. Harrison
or myself exclusively.
The annuities can be very conveniently sent to the Indians from this quarter, and I dare say they would prefer receiving them here.
Gen. Clark can give you every necessary information on the subject, etc.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WILLIAM EUSTIS, Secretary of ra?:r.
P. S.-I have, as yet, heard nothing from the companies of rangers that you
informed me were ordered on. The appearances of hostilities continue to increase. Some of our people have killed, as I am informed, about five Indians.
The particulars I have not yet learned. I have removed all the Indians from
this quarter who had not a right to reside here; and, to protect the Kaskaskia tribe, I have been obliged to call them in, and am now furnishing them
rations at the public expense. This measure is absolutely necessary for our
safety, as well as theirs.-N. EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, BMay 20, 1812.
Sir:
I had the honor, a short time ago, to receive your letters of the 26th and
27th of March. Not a moment was lost in complying with the requisitions
contained in the first, and the contents of the latter have been communicated
to Col. Grant, etc.
N. EDWARDS.
To HON. ALBERT GALLATIN, Secretary of Treasury.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             323
ELVIRADE, _ay 22, 1812.
Sir 
An express from the United States Saline has just reached me, with the inclosed communications, which tend to show the embarrassing situation in
which I am placed-having no authority from the President to call out the
militia, and believing the whole country to be in imminent danger. Acting,
however, for the best, I shall sanction the order of Col. Trammul, and continue the men in service until I can hear from you on the subject, etc.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, Jay 24, 1812.
Sir:
You will pay great attention to the movements of the Illinois Indians and
all those in the neighborhood.
You will take every means in your power to ascertain when MIain-pock will
return and what his disposition may be towards the United States, and, if
hostile, what forces he will be likely to raise. You will, on your return, employ Mr. LeClair to make a tour through the country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, visiting all the villages that you may deem necessary, particularly those of Milwaukee and the Winnebagoes. You will apprise him that it will be expected that he ascertain the dispositions and intentions of the Indians, as far as possible, and that, on his return, the best
geographical description he can give of the country will be expected.
You are also to collect information, as far as practicable, of the designs of
the Prophet's party-their operations and their force. You will transmit to
me, as often as possible, such information as you may be able to collect. If
anything important should transpire, you will hire an express, taking care
that the news shall reach me in the least possible time.
You will have to incur some expenses for friendly Indians who may visit
you. In all these things you will make the best contracts that you can, and
be as economical in your expenditures as possible, consistently with the pub
lie interest and advantage. Those expenses I shall pay. Transmit to me, as
often as possible, a list of your contracts and expenses.
Yours, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To THos. FORSYTH, Esq.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 1
May 26, 1812.
Sir:
I have the honor to inform you that, since'my last letter to you, I have received communications from TerreBlanch, on the Peoria River, about thirty
miles from the Prophet's town, dated the 3d and 27th of April, from which it
appears that a large majority of the Indians of that quarter were at that time




324        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
decidedly in favor of war with us, and that, within the space of a month,
they had carried to that place about fifty stolen horses.
I have also received communications from Chicago, containing the account
of the murder of two men at that place, and other hostile indications on the
part of the Indians. By these communications I have also been informed
that, on the first of this month, a man by the name of Francis Keneaum, a
subject of Great Britain, and an inhabitant of the town of Maulden, in Upper
Canada, with two Chippeway Indians, arrived at Chicago, where he was arrested as a spy or British emissary; and I now have in my possession a copy
of on affidavit, made by him, in which he swears that, about the 14th of
April, a Mr. Innis, a merchant, and brother-in-law to Capt. Matthew Elliott,
Indian agent in Canada, applied to him to go to Green Bay on secret business, which he then refused; that afterwards he was employed by the same
person, and was then on his way to Green Bay to meet Mr. Robert Dixon,
merchant, of Mackina; that the two Indians were provided as guards for him;
that he received a quantity of wrought silver, of British manufacture, consisting of brooches and ear-bobs (or ear-rings), was promised ~25 in cash for his
trouble, and that he believed the nature of his journey was relative to Indian
affairs and sanctioned by Capt. Elliott. The Indians also acknowledged that
they had been employed to accompany him.
I have also received a great deal of information from Peoria, consisting of
movements at the Prophet's town, the passage of a number of Indians on their
way to join him, etc., etc.-all tending to prove the intentions of hostility
and the increasing strength of the Prophet's party. Every account I have
received, lately, makes his number greater than it was last year.
The chiefs of the Indians on the Illinois are wavering-they do not take a
decided part. I hope for the best; but I know there is no trusting to professions or appearances among them. In consequence, however, of some expressions contained in a letter I received from them since I wrote, I have determined to start my interpreter to them to-morrow with a demand for the
murderers of O'Neal's family.
Mr. Forsyth, of Peoria, left my house yesterday. He thinks the murderers
will be delivered up. He is a very intelligent, gentlemanly man, has a perfect
knowledge of the Indians, and would make a first rate agent; but he positively refuses to take $700 per annum and one ration per day for his services
as sub-agent, which, I understand, was what Gen. Clark was authorized to
offer him. Finding him decided on this point, and determined to go to Detroit on his private business, I offered to pay him an increase of $200 per annum and two rations per day, out of my private funds (provided the Government would not increase his salary), if he would stay-believing, as I do,
that Peoria is now a most important point to collect information of every
kind calculated for our success, and to facilitate our intercourse with and
command a control over the Indians. I am not bound for the above mentioned increase of salary any longer than I can hear from you on the subject;
but I should be very happy if you would take the trouble of making some
inquiries of Gen. Clark, whom you will shortly see. He is personally ac



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             325
quainted with Mr. Forsyth, and knows the importance of the point at which
the services are required.
I believe Peoria to be the most eligible point, at or near the frontiers of
the United States, that could be occupied. It is more central to a great num
ber of Indians, and it is not so remote from our settlements but that they
would derive nearly as much security from troops there, as if they were nearer
-thus combining the usual advantages of troops at such places with the positive protection of our frontiers, which is never the case where garrisons are
fixed too far in the interior of the Indian country.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,    1
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, June 2, 1812.
Sir:
I have the honor to transmit, herewith, a "talk," which I sent a few days
since to the Kickapoos. So much depends on the proper management of those
Indians and their confederates on the Illinois, that I believe it is to be both
an embarrassing and critical business, and, therefore, I feel desirous to exhibit to you not only what I have done, but the manner of doing it.
I should not have made the demand, but that it appeared so evidently
invited by the chiefs, that silence might have been mistaken by them for an
abandonment of any requisition for satisfaction. The whole of their professions may be, however, designed to lull us into a false security, whilst they
are concentrating their forces and preparing for hostilities.
If they do not surrender the murderers, I am convinced they will immediately commence war. If they should comply with my demand, it will make.
an everlasting breach between them and the Prophet's party, and confirm
them in a pacific disposition towards us.
If the Illinois Indians become hostile, they will over-run this Territory.
They are able to do so, for our population is very much dispersed, and cannot
be drawn out to any one point of danger; and in an enumeration which I
caused to be made, some time since, there were only about 2,000 male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one in the whole Territory, and since that time
the population is considerably diminished.  Great alarm exists in the Ohio
settlements, in consequence of an extraordinary assemblage of southern
Indians, on the opposite side of that river. I have heard many particulars
about these Indians, and have received some expresses from that quarter;
but the accounts I have heard are not sufficiently authenticated to be depended on.
I have sent out spies to make discoveries, and shall probably be able, by
the next mail, to transmit correct information on this subject.




326        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Our danger does not seem in the least diminished, and, as yet, no company
of any kind has arrived.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, War Department, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, l
June 16, 1812.
Sir:
Two days ago I received the answer of the Kickapoos to my demand for
the murderers of O'Neal's family, consisting of ten persons. It abounds with
complaints and recriminations, and contains a decided refusal to deliver up
the murderers, contrary to expectation which they themselves had authorized
by their previous communication to me, and by their conversations with Mr.
Forsyth and Mr. MIette, my interpreter.,
The Indians with whom I held my late council have failed to comply with
the promises they made me.  Large numbers are now collected together at
the head of Peoria Lake. They have killed a number of cattle belonging to
the inhabitants of the village, and have exhibited strong indications of a
hostile disposition towards us.  This change in their conduct is attributable
to their communications with the Prophet's party, and to the influence of a
party of Miamis that have lately joined them.
From the above and other circumstances, I am convinced they will commence hostilities as soon as they hear of a declaration of war against England, or as soon as they may be told that such an event will certainly happen;
and with only about 1,700 militia men in the whole Territory, dispersed from
one end of it to the other, I can see but little prospect of opposing them with
success. But nothing in my power to do shall be left undone.
For further particulars, I beg leave to refer you to Mr. Forsyth's letter
which I have the honor to inclose.
I have the honor to be yours, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HIoN. WILLIAM EUSTIS.
P. S.-Gov. Howard and myself have sent out a force to oppose three parties
of Indians that have lately been discovered on the Mississippi River. One
party below where O'Neal's family was killed, one on the east and the other
on the west bank of the river, above Fort Madison, on which they are supposed to have some design.-N. EDWARDS.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.             327
ELVIRADE, ILLINOIS TERRITORY, 
June 17, 1812.
Sir:
Some time past, I had the honor to receive a letter from the Honorable Secretary of War, stating that a force would be organized for the defense of our
frontiers, which he supposed would remove the apprehensions of the people
of this quarter, etc.
I lately received another letter from the same gentleman, informing me that
you were to take the command of five companies of the rangers, authorized
by law to be raised for the defense of the frontiers, viz: those of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and this Territory. And having understood that you left
Frankfort, a short time since, for Vincennes, I address you at that place,
supposing it probable my letter may reach you there.
I have, within a few days, received very interesting information relative to
the Indians, which induces me to believe that not only our frontier, but the
whole Territory is in great danger-on which account as well as another, your
presence here, if convenient, would be very desirable. In five days, my functions as Governor expire.  The Secretary is not here, and if he were, could
not act till it is known whether I shall be re-appointed or not. Intending to
do the best I can, I do not wish that my want of power to act should be
known at a time when it may be highly important to act at all hazards.
I shall be very happy to hear from you, and would be much pleased to see
you at my house.
Your most obedient,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. RUSSELL.
ELIVIRADE, June 23, 1812.
Sir 
On Saturday last, I received official notice from Col. Russell that he had
arrived at Vincennes for the purpose of taking measures for defending the
frontier-in consequence of which, I have issued orders for discharging the
force I have had in service, and which I had previously ordered out from the
necessity of the case, till the measures contemplated by the Government could
be got into operation.
The Colonel having stated that he was directed to confer with me, I have
given him the best and most candid view which I was able to take of our
situation, and have promised all the aid and co-operation in my power. My
powers as Governor of the Territory have, however, expired.
The Prophet and his emissaries have been latterly very active in endeavoring to stir up all the Indians between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi.
Several general councils have been held. The Chippeways and Sioux have
been applied to.
Dixon, the British trader, has returned, with a considerable number of
Indians, to Green Bay.
I have reason to believe that the point of communication between the British and the Indians, from whom we have everything to apprehend, will be




328         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
on the St. Mary's, between Lakes Huron and Superior. This, together with
the movements of the army in Michigan, will add to the inducements (now, I
think, strong enough) to the Prophet to unite his party with the Illinois
Indians; and if so, the whole weight of the hostile confederacy will be thrown
on this Territory.
How such a number can remained embodied with the Prophet, I know not.
The difficulty of procuring provisions must be very great, much more so than
on the Illinois, for at the latter place the lake abounds with fish, on which the
Indians can and do live' and if they should find it necessary to take the
cattle that belong to the people of Peoria, there are enough to last them a
long time.
Hitherto I have apprehended most danger from mere predatory parties; and,
knowing the effects which the movements of troops have upon the Indians,
I have kept my small force constantly in motion, ranging generally from the
Mississippi to the Kaskaskia, and sometimes between the latter and the
Wabash. These measures have been, so far, very successful, and, I think, in
consequence, their small parties will be deterred from coming in; and as
it can hardly be expected such extraordinarily large numbers of Indians can
remain much longer assembled together without attempting something, a
general attack is rendered much more probable than I have heretofore
believed it.
By a communication I received since I forwarded Forsyth's letter, it
appears that the number of Indians now embodied near Peoria is not less
than seven hundred, and with the boats now in the river and the canoes in
their possession, they could transport themselves to Kaskaskia in four or five
days.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, June 30, 1812.
Sir 
I had the honor to inform you, in my letter of May 6th, that I had found it
necessary to call out a company of mounted riflemen to co-operate with the
rangers in guarding our frontier. I presume.the number of men, women and
children who have fallen, bleeding victims, to the ruthless ferocity of the
savages, and the concurring testimony of various spies, agents and sub-agents
in support of the further hostile intentions of the Indians and their preparations to invade us, must be considered as having rendered the measure I have
adopted not only justifiable, but ah act of positive duty, independent of any
sanction it might seem to derive from the law of Congress, which admits the
danger upon less authority, by providing for our protection. A personal
influence which I was fortunate enough to have with the volunteers I called
into service, together with the most solemn pledges to exert myself to procure
them compensation, alone enabled me to effect my plan. I soon found that




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             329
it would be impossible to keep out any one company for any length of time,
and. organized two volunteer companies, one under the command of Capt
M[oore and the other under Capt. Short-two as meritorious militia officers as
I ever knew.  These have regularly relieved each other every fifteen days,
except during Capt. Short's last term, which was longer than usual.  I was
obliged to call out Capt. Moore's company to oppose a party of Indians who
had collected near a different part of our frontier.
These men, I will venture to say, have performed as arduous services as
ever were performed in the same length of time. They have ranged to a great
distance-principally between the Illinois and the Kaskaskia rivers, and
sometimes between the Kaskaskia and the Wabash-always keeping their line
of march never less than one and sometimes three days' journey outside of
all the settlements. They have sometimes been divided-one part marching
in one direction and the other in an opposite way-with a view to distract
the attention and produce the greatest possible effect on the Indians. And
while the danger was only to be apprehended from small bands, intending to
approach us from different directions, this plan was the only one, of a defensive character, that could insure any security. Its propriety is sufficiently
tested by its success; for since it has been in operation, not a life has been
lost on an extensive and the most exposed frontier that belongs to the United
States.
By the arrangement of each of these companies relieving each other, it
will be the same in effect as if only one company had been in the service; but
as they had necessarily to keep in a state of preparation, and always lost
time in collecting at the place of rendezvous, they may possibly be considered by you as having a claim to more compensation than for the actual time
they were ranging. Many of them had to incur debts in equipping themselves, and their pay ought to pass through the hands of their Captains, one
of whom has incurred expenses to the amount of about three hundred dollars
for his men, depending on their receiving pay to reimburse him.
I have the honor to send, herewith, muster and pay-rolls for those companies-although in the pay-rolls the amount due is not stated, because I knew
not what would be allowed.
After the depredations were committed on the Wabash, a company was
ordered into service from the neighborhood of the United States saline, under
circumstances which I have had the honor to communicate to you.  From
that company I have not yet received the muster and pay-rolls.
My measures having been wholly precautionary, and adopted till those contemplated by the Government could be got into operation, were abandoned
and the whole force discharged as soon as I received a notification from Col.
Russell that he had arrived at Vincennes for the purpose of defending the
frontiers.
Very respectfully, yours, etc.,
N. EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS.
-42




330        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELYIRADE, June 29, 1812.
Sir 
Since my letter of the 23d inst., I have received information, which I am
sure can be relied on, that the plan which the British now mean to adopt for
introducing their goods into the Indian country is to send them from their
deposit in the Straits of St. Mary's, between Lakes Huron and Superior, by
Indians in canoes, to Green Bay, where an agent will remain to receive them.
The Indians who went on with Dixon are to be employed in this service, and
it is supposed the non-importation will not be enforced against them, if they
should even happen to pass undiscovered. If, however, this plan fails, the
same Indians are to be employed in carrying the goods by land to some point
on Lake Michigan.
A few days past, I received a communication from Gov. Harrison, stating
that he had received information that twenty Pottawottamies had left their
village to commit depredations "on the Kaskaskia road."  I know not what
road is meant; but from the manner in which Gov. H. received the information, I think it very probable that I shall hear of mischief being done somewhere in a few days.
Yours, etc.
N. EDWARDS.
To HoN. WM. EUSTIS.
CAIIOKIA, June 29, 1812.
Governor:
Since I had the honor of writing you last, I have seen it stated, in the
"Argus of Western America," of the 10th inst., that sometime previous Col.
Wm. Russell had received orders to go to the Indiana Territory for the purpose of taking command of the six companies of rangers and the regulars of
the U. S. Army. It is also stated that he is requested to correspond with
Gov. Harrison, etc., on the subject relative to the situation of our affairs with
the Indians. As all the information that can be procured, on that subject,
will be desirable, I humby submit to you my observations-especially as it
affects the community at large.
It appears to me that the great and principal object has been overlooked,
to which you may probably procure some remedy. I think if all those Indians that I mentioned in my last to you, living about Lake Michigan,
cannot be supplied by the British traders according to the President's proclamation, all their traders will therefore retire to their own country, and then
all those tribes, amounting to some thousands, will consider themselves as
abandoned and as it were, dead, and through despair immediately they will
assemble all the nations around them, determined to conquer or die, and destroy us, our wives and children, before necessary assistance can be obtained.
Thank God I may be mistaken, and if I am, it will be when the United
States will send factors or traders among those Indians to supply them with
merchandise and powder, etc., to support them and their families, for which
they will exchange their peltries-then and not till then will they be peaceful.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             331
But under our present regulation, we have not only taken from them our
traders, but in their place we have supplied them with no others.
This far I have ventured to give you my opinion, and
Remain, with due rcspect,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
JARROTT.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,    i
IIINOIS TERRITORY, July 7, 1812. (
Sir.
I had the honor to receive yours of the 4th ult., by the last mail.
Nothing new has occurred since my last letter, except that one of the Captains was ranging fell in with a trail of Indians, near the settlements, which
is supposed to have been made by the Pottawoottamies. The trail was pursued without success, the Indians having separated, and very heavy rains having fallen about that time.
I have the honor to inclose you a letter from MIjor Jarrott, of Cahokia, to
myself. Ie is one of the most intelligent, wealthy and respectable French
citizens; was at Prairie du Chien when Mr. Dixon left there on his return.
The letter to which the inclosed refers I cannot now lay my hands on. It,
however, states that there were collected at Prairie du Chien, of different
tribes of Indians, 3,377, and these I suppose are the Indians he speaks of as
being collected on Lake Michigan.
I have forwarded returns from the militia, etc., agreeably to your instructions. Some of them were transmitted, under cover, to yourself, having been
sent off before I received directions to send them to the paymaster of the
army in the city of Washington.
The militia who have been in service have performed the duties of mounted
rangers, and furnished themselves at their own expense with every thing.
Very respectfully, etc.,
NNIIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. WVr. EUSTIS, W(tr Department.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, 
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, July 2Q, 1812. 
Sir:
I had the honor to receive by the last mail your letters of the 11th and
19th, to the contents of which I lost not a moment in giving the necessary
attention. On the same day I dispatched a messenger to Peoria with a "talk,"
to the Indians assembled near that place, and urged them, by every inducemeit which I thought likely to succeed, to visit the Commissioners from the
President at Piqua-town, in the State of Ohio. I also enjoined on my messenger to exert his influence with them to the same effect. I sincerely hope
they will comply with the request; but I cannot flatter myself with a belief
that they will certainly do so.




332        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWAR DS.
As some objection might be made, on their part, to the want of timely
notice, I requested that they should set out as soon as possible, and go on,
even if they should not be able to arrive by the 1st of August, but in this I
have not, in the least, committed the President.
The Indians have, for some time past, been in real want of powder. They,
however, are induced to believe that they will receive all their supplies at
the British Fort of St. Josephs, between the Lakes Huron and Superior; and
the British traders calculate upon carrying goods from Montreal to that place.
It is owing to these circumstances, most probably, that such uncommonly
large numbers are collected and collecting on the western borders of Lake
Michigan.
I continue to believe that we may expect an attack in this quarter as soon
as corn gets into roasting ears, which will be very shortly. The Indians
remain embodied near Peoria, and have lately killed about twenty head of
cattle, belonging to the inhabitants of that village.
Should Congress have passed a law for raising additional companies of
rangers, and it be considered advisable to raise them in this quarter, I could
have at least two companies raised and organized in a week's notice.
The situation of the principal settlements in this Territory and Louisiana,
in relation to the Indians, is such as to require a concert and union of operations; for the danger of the one is completely identified with the other,
which all former experience has proved, and which is sufficiently obvious
from the Mississippi being the great highway of the Indians and the residence of those from whom we have most danger to apprehend-being either
on it or some.other river which empties into it above St. Louis-and wherever
they can transport themselves by water, they will not travel by land.
I beg leave to recommend Capt. James Moore, of this Territory, as a gentleman well qualified to command a company of rangers.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. W31. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY, )
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, August 4, 1812.,
Sir:
On the receipt of the information which I had the honor to transmit to
you with my last letter, I immediately proceeded to organize some companies
of militia to oppose the threatened invasion, and went to the upper county
of the Territory for the purpose of putting that force in operation, in which
I succeeded with great ease, although I had no legal authority to act at all.
Whiteside's company of rangers has gone up to the Illinois River, in a well
fortified boat, with a view to prevent the Indians from descending the river.
This measure was rendered necessary by the impossibility of watching the




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             333
river any other way, as, for miles above its mouth, swamp lakes and ponds
prevent any access to it by land, and the well known habits of the Indians
and the history of the country render it almost positively certain that, if
they invade us, they will come by water.
Since my last letter I have received information from every quarter with
which we have any communication, on either side of the Mississippi-all of
which is confirmatory of that which was forwarded to you.
In April last I informed you that Dixon, the celebrated British trader, who
spent the last winter on the river St. Peters, calculated with certainty that
in the event of a British war, he could make peace between the Chippeways
and the Sioux, and bring both these powerful nations into the hostile confederacy against us, and that of course all others in this part of America would
be coerced to join it, if they were not inclined to do it as a matter of choice.
It now very satisfactorily appears that those nations have made peace, and
tie Sioux are making a very conspicuous figure in the hostile confederacy.
The two Chippeway Indians who were apprehended at Chicago, as I
informed you in my letter of May 26th, had taken the precaution to put their
letters in their moccasins and bury them in the ground. After they were
discharged they proceeded to Green Bay, where they delivered the letters to
Dixon. A Mr. Frazier, of Prairie du Chien, who accompanied Dixon from
that place, states that the latter was informed, in the letters alluded to, that
he might expect to hear of the British flag flying on the American garrison
of Michilimacinac.
Dixon wrote to his clerk, a Ir. Anderson, in Prairie du Chien, that the
Indians had collected on Lake Michigan to receive guns, ammunition and
merchandize, from the British.
Letters from Fort Madison, dated 21st ultimo, state that the Indians frequently threaten hostilities as soon as their corn is ripe, and that the Sacs set
out for their villages on the 19th to make sweet corn-so, as they say, the
critical time is drawing near.
I send herewith a speech that was made, in a late council which was held
at the Sacs' village,' by a Kickapoo, who spoke for the Winnebagoes, Kickapoos, Pottawottamies, Shawnees and Miamies, who were present.
The messenger whom I sent to Peoria to invite the Indians on the Illinois
River to Piqua-town, returned last night with the answer of Gomo, the principal chief. He tries to evade the request, and states that if they go, they are
afraid that if their Great Father should give them presents, he will say he
has bought their lands.
He acknowledged to my messenger that the Indians had all tendered their
services to the British. It is now well understood at Peoria that the Indians
are for war, and are only waiting for directions from the British.
They contemplate an attack upon four different points at the same time:
one party (and a very strong one, too,) is to attack the settlements on the
Mississippi; another party (those east of Lake Michigan) to join against Gen.
Hull's army; another to attack Chicago; and another to attack the Indiana
Territory. Those near Peoria are now constantly killing and eating the cattle of that village.




334        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
The Sacs, Osages and Winnebagoes have all made peace, which itself is a
very striking circumstance in considering our situation.
The Indians on the Illinois are well supplied with English powder, and
have been selling some of it to the white people. A few days ago, they sent
some of their party with five horses to the Sac village, for lead. Pamwotam,
the great chief of the Kickapoos, was hourly expected to return from Canada.
In consequence of having received information from Fort Madison, Peoria
and the Ohio, of some of the southern Indians intending shortly to join the
hostile confederacy, and the report also being confirmed by information from
a Shawnee at St. Louis, I dispatched a confidential Indian to the Shawnce
village, near Cape Girardeau, in Missouri Territory, to collect all the information in his power. He returned last night, and informed me that there are
now about 1,000 Indians on White River, and another river that empties into
the Arkansas, consisting of Cherokees, Chickasaws, Chocktaws, Catawbas,
and Creeks; that they are shortly to have a great meeting on White River,
within about three days' journey from St. Genevieve; that the southern Indians who joined the Cherokees, in the course of the present year, crossed
the Mississippi near Chickasaw Bluffs; that about two months ago the Creeks
were carrying belts of wampum among the Shawnees, Delawares, Osages,
Cherokees, etc., and that all of those Indians had been very friendly and had
lately been intermarrying. He also states that the Shawnees have left their
villages, and are going up the Missouri to hunt with the Osages; that the
Cherokees expect to go shortly to the same place, with the same intentions,
but he could not learn that they had any hostile views. These facts, when
combined with others, admonish us to be prepared for the worst.
At the same time that I received the information that the Prophet and his
companies were active in stirring up the hostility of the Indians between
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, which was communicated in my letter of
June 23d, I was informed that a party of Creeks had left the Prophet's town
and gone down the Wabash; and, from the coincidences of time and circumstances, I suspect they are the same persons who were engaged in carrying
the belts of wampum among the Indians on the west of the Mississippi. The
conduct pursued on each side of the river seems to be exactly similar; and
another fact furnishes strong evidence that the belts of wampum were carried
by hostile Indians-for the confidential Indian I employed also stated to me
that it was some of those Creeks who were carrying those belts that committed the murders near Chickasaw Bluffs.
The Sacs are known to be decidedly hostile; and the Osages, with whom
they were so lately at war, are, at this time, freely mixing with them, as I am
positively informed by my messenger just from Peoria. This union certainly
does not augur anything favorable to us; and to the same course that has
produced it may be attributed the close connection or intimacy that has lately
been cultivated between those Indians west of the Mississippi, which now appears to be leading them all to the same hunting ground. The suspicion I
entertain derives some support, also, from the circumstance of the discontent
manifested last year by the Osages, concerning their treaty with us.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             335
About two weeks ago I was informed, by two Indians, who I think can be
depended on, that the Cherokees of White River had proposed to the Shawnees and Delawares to remove and settle among them, and unite in the war
against us; that the Shawnees and Delawares had refused, and the reply of
the Cherokees was, that, if they would not join them, they should share the
same fate of the white people. Connecting this circumstance with the silence
of the Shawnees on the subject-their leaving their villages at this season of
the year-their going among the Osages, where the Cherokees also propose
shortly to go-and the conduct that has been practiced among the Indians
generally, of late-suspicion is unavoidable with me.
In short, I believe there is a universal combination among the Indians. It
has, in a great measure, been g  e  produced by the jealousy excited among the
British fur companies by companies that have been organized among ourselves for similar purposes, and by the state of war.
Dixon, and the most intelligent of the British traders, have openly declared
that, as they have been exclusively in the habit of supplying the great bodies
of Chippeways and Sioux, all they had to do, to make them take part in the
war, would be to threaten them that they would withdraw all their traders.
Independent of the Indians west of the Mississippi and three hundred lodges
of Sioux on the Wisconsin, we may certainly count on 4,400 who can reach
the settlements on the Mississippi in six or eight days, and come all the way
by water. Our danger is, therefore, very evident, and it is equal on both
sides of the river.
The principal settlements of this Territory being on the Mississippi, are at
least one hundred and fifty miles from those of Indiana, and immense prairies
intervene between them. There can, therefore, be no concert of operations
for the protection of their frontiers and ours. I have been obliged to write
in great haste.
I have the honor to be, etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. Wvri. EUSTIS, Secretary o/ WLar.
P. S.-No troops of any kind have yet arrived in this Territory, and I think
you may count on hearing of a bloody stroke upon us very soon. I have
been extremely reluctant to send my family away, but, unless I hear shortly
of more assistance than a few rangers, I shall bury my papers in the ground,
send my family off, and stand my ground as long as possible.-N. EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, August 8, 1812. (
In my letters of May 6th and 12th, and June 23d, I suggested the probability of the Prophet's uniting his force with the Illinois Indians, in the event
of their becoming hostile.
In my letter of June 16th I informed you of a party of Miamies having gone
to Illinois-since which, I have been informed, at different times, that more
Miamies, the Kickapoos, Ottaways, and Pottawottamies have also left the




336        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Prophet, and collected at the same place. Still later I was informed that
the Prophet's party had dispersed; and all the above information is fully
confirmed by a communication which I have seen from Mr. Wells, at Fort
Wayne, dated July 29th.
He states that, on the 17th June, Tecumseh passed that place, on his way
to Malden, to receive from the British twelve horse-loads of ammunition. He
arrived at Malden a few days before Gen. Hull reached Detroit, and immediately declared he would join the British against the United States.
On the 12th of July, the Prophet arrived at Fort Wayne, with about one
hundred of his followers. Seven days afterwards an express from Tecumseh
arrived at the Prophet's camp, with directions to him to rally his adherents,
send their women and children towards the Mississippi, and strike a heavy
blow upon Indiana Territory, stating, also, that he (Tecumseh), if he lived,
would join the Prophet in the country of the Winnebagoes, which is on Rock
River between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, and in this Territory. The
succeeding day the Prophet dispatched two Kickapoos to execute the orders
of Tecumseh, and they stole two of Mr. Wells' horses. Mr. Wells states that
he has received the above information from a quarter that cannot be doubted.
He thinks that if the Prophet should fail in rallying his followers, he, with
some of them, will meet the Commissioners at Piqua-town. Whether he does
so or not, and whatever his professions may be, I can place no reliance on
him. He will probably attempt to temporize at that place, whilst his partisans on the Illinois and Mississippi are waging the most bloody war. My
reasons for thinking so are, that such has been his insidious course hitherto.
He will send off his women and children to the most hostile Indians, who
refused to meet the Commissioners. Tecumseh is the real efficient man of the
Prophet's party. He is going, also, to those Indians, having declared his hostility. The Prophet will not be our friend while Tecumseh is our enemy;
and we have traced the Prophet in his hostile machinations in every quarter,
in the course of this year, and it is hardly presumable that he will peaceably
abandon the measures that he has been so diligent and laborious in maturing.
But this information, together with that which has been hitherto transmitted, proves that the great danger from the Indians is in this quarter. Particular circumstances have rendered the Wabash more conspicuous as a point
of danger, but there never was a worse selected spot for the Indians, and they
well know that they cannot, in a time of war, maintain it. It is too near
Kentucky and it is too far from the residence of the most hostile Indians.
Nothing hitherto has induced the Indians to rally there but because it was
the only place where the hostile standard had been erected. The Prophet's
main strength was composed of Winnebagoes, Kickapoos and Pottawottamies.
They joined him whilst the tribes to which they belonged professed to be at
peace; but, once let those tribes raise the standard, and there ceases to be
any inducement for any part of them going elsewhere for the mere purpose
of war.
This opinion is well fortified by the present movements of the Indians and
the evidences they give of an intention to abandon the Wabash.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               337
So intimately connected is the danger of this and Mississippi Territory,
that Gov. Howard has requested my permission to remove a part of his troops
into this Territory, which I, have consented to, knowing it to be absolutely
necessary to the safety of that Territory.
Col. Russell has arrived with his company of rangers, from Kentuckyabout one-third of them sick. Some new recruits-less than a company-are
expected daily to arrive. This is all the force we can calculate on in this
quarter, as those at Vincennes are wanted at that place.
I have the honor, etc., etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON. WILLIAM EUSTIS, S'ecrettry (f I1War.
ELVrnalADE, August 15, 1812.
Sir:
By Col. Rector, who is just from St. Louis, I am informed a report had
reached that place that (en. Hull had taken Fort Malden, and that information has also been received that it had rendered the Indians very pacific, particularly the Sacs. For my own part I hope for the best, while I think it
indispensably necessary to be prepared for the worst. I cannot flatter myself
that the capture of Malden, which is seven hundred miles.at least from the
Mississippi, will afford us any security, whilst Fort St. Joseph remains in possession of the British, who can keep up their communication with it by the
Ottawa River, without the least danger from our troops. At the latter fort
large deposits of Indian goods have been made, and you may be assured that
the Indians have all received their present year's supplies. I confess, however, that I am greatly embarrassed by the prevalence of a general opinion,
on this subject, adverse to mine; and I am extremely unwilling to incur unnecessary expenses to the General Government. But, relying upon my own
judgment, which I cannot honestly abandon, and believing that the critical
moment is rapidly approaching, I avail myself of your letter, received by the
last mail, so far as to ask Gov. Scott for a regiment of infantry for our protection, although I have had no opportunity of conferring with Gov. Harrison
on the subject.
Ever since June 24th, I have been acting as Governor, without any commission; and as I had the honor to communicate my situation to you, I am lost
in conjecture as to the cause, etc., etc.
N. EDWARDS.
To HON. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
ELVIRADE, August 25, 1812.
Sir 
Last evening I received a letter from dov. Harrison, covering a copy of his
of the 10th inst. to yourself, and I am sorry that I cannot concur with him in
recommending what he calls the Fort Wayne Expedition. I cannot believe
43




338        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
that Gen. Hull's situation, when he receives the reinforcements marching to
his aid, can be as bad as is supposed, and I do believe that the very best
means of preventing the collection of Indians from which the danger is apprehended, would be to march directly into their own country, to which they
would immediately return to protect their property and their women and
children. But suppose the expedition to march to Fort Wayne. It would,
of course, deter the Indians from that quarter and turn their attacks upon
this, where they might easily take several villages equally as important as
Detroit; but for reasons which I have given in my letter to Gov. Scott, of
which I inclose a copy, I have no apprehensions that our Indians will travel
so far to unite with the British. As to the establishment of the chain of
forts, it would be probably a good plan, provided we were not able to fight
the Indians; but it would be vastly expensive to the United States.
I would recommend a different one. I would march an army to Peoria and
there establish a fort; thence to the Wisconsin and establish another, and
thus cooperate with the Michigan army, whose operations will tend to check
the British fiom going amongst the Indians, while ours would effectually
prevent the Indians from going to them.
By the plan of the chain of forts we would gain no ground, and it would
be more expensive than a vigorous campaign, which, in my opinion, would in
a short time dissolve the whole hostile confederacy and produce permanent
peace with the Indians.
Something, however, I think, must be done, or the country will suffer
greatly. Even if we were authorized to attack the Indians, it would be some
security. And I cannot see what ought to prevent us from attacking them,
for I will pledge myself to prove that all those now collected on the Illinois
River have declared their hostility. They have the advantage of a declaration of war, whilst we are obliged to wait for the first stroke, lowever deadly,
before we can attack them.
I am so unwell that I can add nothing further.
I have the honor to be, sir, etc., etc.,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
ToIloN. WN. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
P. S.-If it were proper in me to do so, I could, I think, assign many reasons to prove this: The defense of this Territory, Indiana and Missouri
should be combined, and intrusted to some one person, provided a campaign
should be directed.-N. E.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, August 26, 1812.
Dear Sir:
My own inclinations, as well as the directions I have received from the
Honorable Secretary of War, combine sufficient inducements with me to comply with your particular request, of opening myself freely to you on the
subject of your letter.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             339
As to what personally concerns myself, I must say, I do not understand the
Secretary's letters to you, Gov. Scott and myself, exactly as you appear to doI conceive the power given to me to call for assistance from Kentucky for the
purpose of mere defense, precisely equal to yours, which seems to be contrary
to your opinion, so far as I can infer it from the manner in which you express
yourself relative to Col. Barbour's regiment. So long as those troops remain
in this Territory, and are engaged in its particular defense, I claim the right
of the exclusive control of them. Whenever the defensive system shall be
exchanged for offensive operations-for a campaign or expedition-then it
will be my duty to comply with the Secretary's request.
Giving this construction to the Secretary's letter-and I highly approve of
your being selected for the purpose contemplated-I well know that I have
no claims which could be put in competition with yours. But if I am wrong
in my construction of the letter, much as I appreciate your merits, and willing
as I have always been to do the most ample justice to them, I am free to declare that I will not consent to anything further than I have suggested.
Believing that my frankness will not be considered inconsistent with the
friendship I profess, I will as candidly state my wishes, provided a campaign
should be determined on-hoping that you will, if it should be inyour power,
aid me in the gratification of them,
I am extremely anxious to accompany you as second in command, whereby,
with your assistance, I flatter myself I should soon supply by my industry
the want of experience.
You will perceive, by copies of my letters to Gov. Scott, that my opinion
must be, that what you term the Fort Wayne Expedition would leave this
country too much exposed, or, in other words, that an expedition is more
necessary in another quarter.
I cannot believe that Gov. Hull's situation, when he receives the reinforcements going to his aid, can be as bad as you suppose; and I do believe the
very best means of preventing the collection of Indians from which the danger
is apprehended would be to march directly into their own country, to which
they would immediately return to protect their property and their women
and children.
Suppose the expedition to march to Fort Wayne. It would, of course, deter
the Indians from that quarter and turn their attacks upon this, for if they
are hostile, they will attack somewhere; and if they are formidable enough
to endanger Gen. Hull, they could easily take several villages on the Mississippi equally as important as Detroit. But, for the reasons mentioned in my
letter to Gov. Scott, I have no apprehension that our Indians will travel so
far to unite with the British at Malden.
As to the chain of forts, it would probably be a good plan, if we were not
able to fight the Indians; but it would be a very expensive one to the United
States.
Nothing will, I think, sufficiently guard against their hostile incursions,
but one of two plans-an actual attack upon them, or such an exhibition and
display of military force as will constantly keep up the apprehension of an




340         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
attack on their villages, and thereby induce them to concentrate their forces
for defense.
The plan which I should prefer would be to march an army to Peoria,
establish a strong garrison there, and thence to Wisconsin and establish another, and thus cooperate with the Michigan army, whose operations will tend
to check the British from going among the Indians, while ours would effectually prevent the Indians from going to them.
By the plan of the chain of forts we could gain no ground, and it would
be more expensive than a vigorous campaign, which, in my opinion, would
still dissolve the whole hostile confederacy, and produce permanent peace
with the Indians.
Those of Illinois River have openly declared their hostility; and I do think
that a just regard for the dangerous situation of our Territories commands
prompt and decisive measures with regard to them.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Yours respectfully,
NINTAN EDWARDS.
To Gov. HAnRIsoN.
ELVIRADE, August 26, 1812.
Brig. Gen. Rector is hereby required to take the most prompt and effectual
means for calling into actual service, according to law, four classes of the
militia from each Company in the First, Second and Fourth Regiments of the
Militia of this Territory.
All those now enrolled as volunteers are to be excepted froim the draft.
The detachments from the First Regiment will rendezvous at Kaskaskia;
that from the Second at the station in St. Clair, now occupied by Col. Russell,
and that of the Fourth at the United States Saline, at which respective places
those detachments will be mustered according to law, and await further
orders.
The Commander-in-Chief requests to be notified of the earliest period at
which those respective detachments can be prepared to march.
NINIAN EDWARDS,
Cormmander-in- Chief.
CAMP RUSSELL,       e
FRONTIERS ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Sept. 6, 1812.
Sir:
I am now at this place at the head of a considerable detachment of militia
that I have ordered out for the defense of the Territory. In consequence of
an order from Gov. Harrison, Col. Russell, with Capt. Moderal's company of
rangers, start this day for Vincennes, and thus leave us without the aid of a
single man who has not been raised in the Territory, whilst there seems to be




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              341
a large force concentrated at Vincenncs. I cannot perceive the propriety of
such a procedure. Vincennes has never appeared to be in a particle of
danger from any quarter except the Prophet's town. That danger is too
inconsiderable to justify the claini of that place to such a proportion of the
rangers. The Prophet's town is not a place that the Indians will pretend to
maintain in time of war. Many years ago the Kentuckians destroyed the
town at Tippecanoe twice in one year, and the force now collected there is, I
am convinced, very inconsiderable. Hitherto it was a rallying point to all
of every nation who wished to go to war, because no hostile standard had
been erected elsewhere. But let the war become genuine, all will find a rallying point among their own tribes, and will have no inducement to go to the
Prophet's town for the purpose of war.
It is well known here that Vincennes is not in as much danger as this
country; and if it be asked from what Indians the danger to that place is
apprehended, I will venture to assert that, if they are once specified, it can
be shown that they are inconsiderable, or that a vast majority of them are so
situated as to be able to attack the settlements on the Mississippi with infinitely more ease, and with better prospects of success, than those on the
Wabash; and, if so, it is inconceivable why they should prefer Vincennes.
Gov. Harrison and myself do not understand your letter of the 9th. I-e
takes it for granted that the Government had determined upon offensive
measures against the Indians, whereas it appears to me that that question was
left to rest upon future events. I have thought the President might prefer
our acting on the defensive till it shall be seen what effect will be produced
on the Indians by the operations of Gen. Hull's army.
Gov. II. seems to consider you as intending to supersede my military command altogether in this Territory, by saying that his may be extended to it
with my consent. I consider you as having contemplated no such thing, but
in the event of a campaign, and then only in so far as might be necessary to
the most effectual operations of the campaign alone. With this I am content.
But if his construction be correct, I am free to declare that I never will lose
sight of self-respect so far as to subscribe to my own disgrace by consenting
to anything so humiliating; and I trust that such injustice to my feelings has
never been contemplated by the President, having always been, from principle, not only an approver, but a zealous supporter of his administration. My
communications to you prove the diligence with which I have discharged my
duty in my present situation; and I have it in my power to prove, by fact";
which have subsequently developed themselves, that the opinions which I
have given you relative to the Indians have been consistent and uniformly
correct.
And it cannot be denied that my measures so far, for the defense of the
Territory, have been planned with much good judgment, and executed with
as much success as those of any other Governor. If all this be true, the distinction supposed to be made between Gov. Harrison and myself seems to me
to be too degrading to have been really intended.




342        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
I beg leave to tender my testimony in favor of Col. Russell's conduct in
this quarter. It has gained him the esteem of all who have had an opportunity of knowing him; and I should be very happy if he could be ordered
back here. Indeed, I should have been well pleased if he, having the defense
of the frontier under his particular charge, had been permitted to have carried on all the hostile measures against the belligerent Indians. As a really
practical military man, there are few, if any, who are his superiors. He was
one of the heroes of King Mountain, and has had as much or more experience in Indian fighting than any man in the Western country; and he has
profited by his experience.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WAN, Washington City.
HEADQUARTERS, CAMP RUSSELL, 1
ST. CLAIR COUNTY, September 8, 1812.
Sir:
Gov. Harrison writes to me that you had put Col. Russell under his command; that he has ordered him to repair to Vincennes, and that he must go
there.
The Colonel has gone and has now three companies of the rangers with
him at that place, leaving but one company here, viz: the one that was raised
here; and these, as well as all the regular troops in this Territory, lie considers
he has a right to call off at any time he pleases. Under such circumstances I feel
most awkwardly situated, and I cannot persuade myself that it was intended
to vest Gov. Harrison with such exclusive control in this quarter, whilst he
is discharging the most important duties in another, far distant. And I
would wish to be informed whether I have a right to take any control over
the rangers and regular troops within my own Territory.
By a letter received yesterday, from MAr. Forsyth, of Peoria, it appears that
the Indians are coming in considerable force to attack us.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
ST. CLAIR COUNTY, Selpt. 12, 181t.
Sir.'
I am extremely apprehensive that you will fail in supplies for the troops
under my command. In peaceable times it will do to trust a little to chance,
but in war times, absolute certainty is requisite.
I wish you always to keep a supply which will be sufficient for any service
that may be required. I shall want, in a very few days, to be furnished, at a




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.            343
moment's warning, rations sufficient for a detachment of five hundred men,
who may be ordered on a tour of duty for fifteen or twenty days.
I sincerely hope that the public service will not suffer for the want of provisions. Suppose the whole body were now to move, have you a store
sufficient for their supply? I shall expect you to be able, at any moment,
to supply the whole of the troops under my command, during their present
tour, with thirty days' provisions.
In haste,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To MAJOR WMI. MORRISON.
EADXQUARTERS, CAMP RUSSELL,,\ADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Oct. 4, 1811. 
Sir:
We are considerably harrassed by the Indians in this quarter. Two nights
ago a party attacked a fort on Shoal Creek, into which I had but the day
before thrown a reinforcement. They attempted to tear down the pickets,
wounded two of our men, stole eight horses, and then retired.  Several
other parties have made their appearance within a few miles of this place,
and are now hotly pursued by detachments of mounted riflemen.
Large numbers are embodied within a day's ride of this place. The Illinois is now and always has been as dangerous a point as the Wabash, and yet,
while there are more men in that quarter than can be advantageously employed, not a single man from Kentucky has arrived to our assistance, I have
had to depend wholly on the local militia and the volunteer companies, which
I have had influence enough to raise. The latter are mounted and kept constantly ranging; but their spirit is a good deal broken, having had to lead the
life of rangers by being almost constantly in the woods, and neither they nor
Capt. Whiteside's company of rangers having as yet received a cent of pay.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HIoN. WM. EUSTIS, Secretary of War, Washington City.
KASKASKIA, ILLINOIS TERRITORY, )
December, 25 1812. 
Sir:
I had the honor to receive your letter of the 24th October last, on the 20th
inst. In saying that it was my fault that there was not a sufficient force in
this quarter, Gen. Harrison has said what cannot be supported. According
to the authority given me by you, I called upon the Governor of Kentucky
for a regiment of infantry, but before it could reach this place it was called
off to Vincennes. Col. Russell came on with one company, in the month ot




344        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
August, but before the expiration of this month they were also called away
to Vincennes-leaving me no alternative but to rely on the citizens of this
Territory for its defense. With such limited means I defended it against a
formidable invasion, and finally carried on an expedition against the Indians
with as much success as has been accomplished under similar circumstances in
the Western country; and even after being reduced to the necessity of encountering the most uncommon difficulties and of acting upon my own
responsibility for the salvation of the country, I discover that some pitiful
attempts are making to deprive me of the credit I am entitled to, by giving
it to Col. Russell, who happened to join me (about three days before I commenced my march) with fifty rangers. The injustice of this is known and
attested by the whole of my little army, and there is not a man of common
sense in this country who does not believe my measures have saved it, nor a
a man of common honesty who will not acknowledge it.
The letters alluded to by Gen. Harrison never reached me till the 9th of
October, when I was busily engaged in preparing tfr my expedition, and
when the season was too far advanced to derive any advantage from trools,
for whom I should have had to send all the way to Knoxville.
Several British traders, with large quantities of goods, are now on the
Mississippi and St. Peters Rivers. The consequences of this fact you will
readily perceive. Col. Menard, the President of the Legislative Council, has
received information from one of his correspondents that Dickson is now
at St. Josephs preparing to head a large body of Indians and British subjects
in an attack upon this country, as soon as the weather will permit.
I have received a letter from his excellency, Gov. Blount, stating that two
regiments are ready to march here upon my requisition, but that they are not
yet furnished with arms. If called for, he requires that I shall provide for their
march, after they pass the limits of Tennessee. I have requested that one
regiment should be sent on immediately, and have agreed to supply it with
provisions on its march from any point on the Ohio. In requiring these
troops, I have acted more from necessity than the dictates of my own judgment. Troops are, certainly, necessary; but these are not the kind I prefer.
Mounted men I could have raised if authorized so to do. In a Territory of
this description, half the number would have been more useful, and taking
into consideration the length of time consumed and the great expenses incurred
in those long marches, they would cost the United States less. Infantry
may do to build and guard forts-horsemen alone can pursue invaders. If,
however, these troops arrive, I will, so long as I have anything to do with
the frontier, endeavor to turn their services to the best advantage, and at
present I propose, with their aid, to build a fort on the Illinois River, about
one hundred miles above its mouth. The advantage of this position cannot
be properly appreciated without a correct knowledge of the geography of
the country. The course of the Illinois is most erroneously represented on
every map that I have seen; and you may rely upon it, that Peoria lies about
due north of Kaskaskia.
The Legislature of this Territory has petitioned the President for a battalion of mounted men, and has proposed a plan for raising them, I would




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.            345
not, in any event, wish tbo make any objections to the gentlemen they recommend; but if I were to have anything to do with the military operations of
this frontier in the approaching season, I should dislike to be embarrassed by
any such plan. I would prefer raising the men in my own way, because I
know I could succeed. I would. ask for a regiment and would be glad to
command it in person.
Mr. B., one of the unfortunate men who was wounded on the late expedition, is since dead. Mr. Teter, another of the wounded, is and always
will be disabled in the arm, and it is hoped provision will be made for the
latter and for the family of the former.
Some wagons and teams were employed and some kettles and axes were
purchased for the use of the late detachment of the militia of this Territory.
I should be glad to be informed how they are all to be paid for. The horses
that were lost in the service of the United States are returned on the muster
rolls, which have been transmitted to the paymaster of the army of the
United States in Washington City.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,   f
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, January 2, 1813.
Sir:
On the 26th ult. I had the honor to receive your letter of Oct. 7, with its
inclosure. The delay in its reaching Kaskaskia was so extraordinary, that I
required the postmaster at that place to indorse the time of its arrival, which
was accordingly done.
Upon a review of my letter with your answer, it appears that you must
have considered Gov. Harrison's arrangements as amply sufficient for the protection of this Territory, and consequently could not have received in a
favorable manner the representations which I thought the obligations of duty
and patriotism imperiously called upon me to make to you. It is.very probable that I may have manifested too much sensibility and have been rather
importunate upon the subject. If my conduct has appeared to you in that
light, you may be assured my motives were both honorable and patriotic,
which, added to the history of facts now before you, will, I persuade myself,
arrest any unfavorable impressions which you might have previously conceived',
Very far indeed is it from my wish to criminate any one, but of nothing do
I feel more confident than that I can completely justify my own conduct,
and nothing do I desire more ardently than a fair and honorable opportunity
of doing so.
Of the contemplated operations of the army at Vincennes, I never received
any information till the 9th of October, when I was preparing for my expedition to Peoria Lake. At that time I received a letter from one of Gen.
Hopkins' aids, and another from Gen. Harrison. By the first I was informed
that the army would march (I could hardly tell where) on the 30th of Sep-44




346        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
tember or 1st of October, and that if I wanted aid it should be sent to me.
By the last I was authorized to call on the Governor of Tennessee for forces,
with a view to a particular object, which Gen. Harrison, as early as September 6th (the date of his letter), thought it would be too late to attempt (this
was building a chain of forts, recommended in his letter to you of August
last). He, however, referred it to Gov. Ioward and myself, who, I believe,
thought alike upon the subject.
These propositions came, indeed, a little too late.  One-half of the local
militia had been engaged in repelling a most serious invasion.  That force
would not have been sufficient, if I had net contrived to make an impression
upon the minds of the Indians that we had several other companies in service.
Not a man from the Kentucky militia had arrived, and Gov. Shelby writes
me that he is sure the force ordered by him for my assistance was prevented
from coming by dishonorable steps. The danger of invasion was over, the
season began to promise security, and it really would have appeared a Quixotic attempt in me to have sent for the aid promised by Gen. Hopkins' aidde-camp, when, judging by his letter, the troops from which it was to be
furnished should have marched nine days before I received the notice.
Sir, I have had serious difficulties to encounter.  With as ardent a desire
as any man ever felt to serve his country, I have the consolation of knowing
that my exertions have been useful as well as honorable to it; but I know I
must calculate on being misrepresented-and although I am not indifferent
to the opinions which my Government and country may entertain of me, yet
I feel all the support of conscious rectitude and am prepared for the worst.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington City.
KAKASKASIA, RANDOLPH COUNTY,   l
ILLINOIS TERRITORY, Miarch 27, 1813.
Sir:
That state of things which was to be expected, from the communications I
have had the honor to make to the department over which you preside, seems
about to be dreadfully realized.  The savages have already committed murders within the bounds ofc every regiment in this Territory.  This week a
party of twenty or thirty killed live persons in this county, and camped on
the ground the whole of the succeeding night. One of the volunteer companies is in pursuit of them. Another party of Indians las been discovered be
tween this place and the United States saline. It is-so dangerous traveling
to Kentucky, that the mail has been delayed several days and will start tomorrow morning with a guard. In this state of things, I feel considerable
regret that I have not only never received a word of approbation or disapprobation of my conduct, since I adopted measures of defense last year upon
my own responsibility, but that I am now totally without any instructions or
authority to act.  I have, however, eight volunteer companies, from  the
militia, in service, and have them as well employed as possible.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              347
Hitherto the defense of this and Indiana Territory has been combined;
but there has been and still is a most unjust division of the force provided
for that object. I never have asked more than an equal division, although I
am very able to prove that this Territory is much the most exposed —and I
will prove it if any high official agent of the Government, in any of these
Territories, will hazard his reputation by asserting the contrary. It is a fact
-which of itself is enough-that whenever a force shall be marched from
Vincennes or St. Louis against the most threatening and hostile confederacy,
it must march through this Territory, which is cqually exposed with the neighboring ones to an invasion by water, and more so to one by land. Should an
army march to the mouth of the Wisconsin, it must go by Peoria and the
mouth of the Rock River.
The Indians of the Illinois and its waters amount to about fifteen hundred
warriors. Rock River, the residence of the Sauks and Winnebagoes, is two
days' journey from Peoria. The Sauks are eight hundred and the Foxes six
hundred strong. The Winnebagoes about four hundred and fifty.  Besides,
there are a great number of bands of Pottawottamies, Ottaways, Chippeways
and Menominics residing between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, all of
whom can attack this Territory more conveniently than either of the adjoin
ing ones, and all I ask is an equal share of the force so long as it shall be
confined to defensive operations.
If the British erect a fort at the mouth of the Wisconsin, and should be
able to retain it two years, this and Missouri Territory will be totally deserted
-in other words, conquered.
I have the honor to be,
Your obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WARl, WNashington City.
ELVIRADE, RANDOLPH COUNTY,
ILIINOIS TERRITORY, M[ay 4, 1813. i
Sir:
A short time ago I received a letter from Col. Bond, informing me that
you had authorized him to request me to raise and organize three additional
companies of rangers. I immediately wrote you that I supposed what had
been done would be sufficient, and that those three companies who, through
me, tendered the President their services as rangers, would be accepted.
They have been notified by me that they were accepted, but, lest some accident may have prevented my letters from reaching you, I will here give the
names of these officers-all of whom have been chosen by their companies
and are approved of by me.
James B. Moore, Captain; David Robinson, First Lieutenant; Arthur Morgan, Second Lieutenant; John Huitt, Ensign.
Samuel Whiteside, Captain; Joseph Borough, First Lieutenant; Samuel
Gilbaur, Second Lieutenant; Arthur Armstrong, Ensign.




348        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Jacob Short, Captain; Nathaniel Jorvey, First Lieutenant; Andrew Bankston, Second Lieutenant; John Journey, Ensign.
These officers, and those of the companies raised here last year, are all
exceedingly anxious to be commanded by Benjamin Stephenson as their
Major. With the exception of an Ensign and a Lieutenant, who were absent
at the time, they have unanimously petitioned me on this subject.  The
privates composing the battalion are equally desirous of it, and I can most
conscientiously say that, in my opinion, the Territory does not admit of a
better choice.
The Legislature of this Territory, at its last session, by the solicitations of
certain individuals, was induced to ask for this force and to recommend John
Murdock to be authorized to raise and command it. But I beg leave to observe thlit the force which I have raised has been upon a different plan
altogetiher. Murdock has not raised a man, and has endeavored to throw
every impediment in my way.  lie is not qualified, either by his knowledge
or experience,;)r the command; and those who have recommended himl
will not pretend to say that his habits do not furnish a most important
objection.
I have the honor to be,
Your obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington City.
IMOUNT VERNON, July 14, 1827.
The commanders of the different regiments and odd battalions of Gen.
Hanson's brigade, on the eastern side of the Illinois River (except the 20th
Regiment), will take immediate steps for detaching into service, according to
law, one-fourth of their respective commands. And should any part of the frontier, south of Rock River, be invaded by the savages, the Colonel entitled by
law to command the detachment will march it, with the least possible delay,
to the support of the point attacked, without waiting for further orders.
NINIAN EDWARDS,
Commander-in-Chief, etc.
MOUNT VERNON, July 14, 1827.
Sir:
I have this moment received, by express, intelligence of the Indian depredations, to which your letter of the 11th inst. refers, and I lose not a moment
in transmitting, by express, such orders as appear to be most indispensable.
Promptness and energy are all that are necessary to meet every danger
which can possibly threaten the frontiers. Your letter gives me reason to
expect that neither will be wanting in your regiment. You will accept the
services of any number of mounted volunteers, not exceeding six hundred,
who will equip themselves, find their own subsistence and continue in service




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             349
thirty days, unless sooner discharged.  They will rendezvous, as fast as possible, at Fort Clark, where you will organize and take the command of them,
and march with all possible expedition to the assistance of our fellow-citizens
at Galena, where, if you find an officer of the United States army entitled to
a superior command to yourself, you will report to him and receive his orders.
In your progress, you will avoid rashly exposing your men to unequal contests, but it is expected that you will not overlook any proper opportunity of
repelling any hostile incursions of the savages.
You will order the officer next you in command to take immediate steps
for drafting from your rcgiment, according to law, and with the least possible
delay, six companies of infantry, which are to be held in readiness to march
at a moment's warning to any point of the frontier that may be invaded, in
which event he is immediately to march them to the support of the point
attacked, without waiting for further orders. None of the citizens, however,
in the vicinity of the immediate frontier are to be drafted.
Your obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS,
Commander-in- Chief.
To COL. THOS. M. NEAL, (Co'It1Znladig, 20t() Regiment Illinois Militia.
BELLEVILLE, August 9, 1827.
Dear Sir 
There being the strongest reasons for believing that the Pottawottamies of
the Illinois River have been depredating upon the property of some of the
citizens of this State, and the official communications of Dr. Wolcott, the
Indian Agent at Chicago, as well as a variety of circumstances, leaving no
doubt of their hostile dispositions, I think it my duty to inform you that if
any future depredations shall be committed by them, and immediate reparation refused, I will not hesitate to drive them from their present residence,
* which you well know they have no right to occupy.
I have also to request that measures may be adopted for removing all the
Indians who, without any right, now occupy any part of the ceded lands of
this State, and to prevent further intrusions of all others on them. I have no
confidence in any of them, and will not, by a hazardous forbearance, jeopardize the property or lives of my fellow-citizens. I trust, however, that you
will find it proper and convenient to adopt such measures as may render my
interposition wholly unnecessary.
I have the honor to be,
Your most obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS.
To GEN. CLARK.




350         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS,.August 20, 1827.
Sir:
Gov. Cass, and other officers of the United States of great respectability,
and with the best opportunities of forming correct opinions on the subject,
all concurring in the belief that the neighboring Indians intend to make war
upon us, and those Indians having committed several daring robberies and
other depredations between Peoria and Galena, and commenced actual war
in other parts, I have felt it my duty to call out about five hundred mounted
volunteers to defend our frontiers. I suppose not less than 1,500 men have
been driven by those acts of hostility fiom the vicinity of Galena, and but
for the measures I have adopted, several other parts of our frontier, from their
defenseless situations, would have been depopulated. I, therefore, beg leave
to ask how far it may be the pleasure of the President to recognize the
defensive measures which I have been compelled to adopt, and what provisions will be made for paying the militia that have been called into service.
MIy power to act in such cases is limited to sudden emergencies-the defense
of every State belonging to the General Government. I now beg leave to
ask, in behalf of this State, of the President of the United States, such measures of protection to our extensive frontier as its peculiar weakness demands.
The measures adopted by Gen. Atkinson, are, I presume, sufficient to insure
safety to our western borders, but they are not the least calculated, nor has
he the kind of troops necessary to protect those settlements which extend
from the mouth of the Illinois River to Chicago.
I need scarcely remark to you what all experience has proved, that whenever the Indians have once made up their minds to commit hostilities, or
have actually committed such as deserve chastisement, their pacific disposition never can be safely relied on till they have begged for peace, and begged
it so earnestly as to leave no doubt of their sincerity. Nothing of this
kind has yet occurred. The latter part of the next month is of all others the
most favorable time for concentrating their forces and striking the most
formidable blow.
I will only add that I should be very happy to render, on the present occasion, any services that may be acceptable to the President.
Hoping for as early an answer as possible,
I have the honor to be, sir,
Very respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
N. B.-Presuming that you must have been informed, by official communications of officers of the United States, of the danger that has, at least,
threatened us, and that no one could be more sensible of the necessity of a
force different from that under the command of Gen. Atkinson, to afford the
necessary protection of such a frontier as that of this State, I have constantly
expected to hear from you on the subject. The services of the men whom I
have called out will expire in a few days, and, until I hear from you, I shall




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              351
not adopt any other measures, but leave it to the General Government to provide for such protection and safety as the people have a right to expect from
it.-N. E.
BELLEVILLE, SetpItembe'r 3, 1827.
Dear Sir'
Your account of the situation of our fellow-citizens on Fever River would
induce me to risk much for their protection, but as this cannot be adequately
provided for according to strict law, the influence of an organized opposition
to all the measures I have already adopted for that purpose leaves me little
ground to hope that I shall be able to furnish the necessary assistance in
time, and therefore my advice is that they should rely upon their forts, during
the present moon. In the meantime I will see what I can do.
Very respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To COL. ABNiER FIELD.
BELLELVILLE, ILLINOIS, Sept. 4, 1827..Sir:
Col. Field, a gentleman of much intelligence and high respectability, having been deputed by the population of the Fever River Mines to apply to
me for assistance to repel the hostility of the savages, with which they consider themselves daily threatened, arrived at this place night before last,
bringing very unfavorable news in regard to that and other parts of our
frontier, whichis fully confirmed by another express that reached here last
night from Peoria.
It appears that the Winnebagoes had ultimately refused to come to any
arrangements with Gov. Cass and Col. McKenney; that the Governor had
received information, which he believed, that a part, at least, of the Pottawottamies had determined to unite with the Winnebagoes in the war; that he
apprehended the people of Fever River would be attacked before it would
be possible to send them any aid; that Gen. Atkinson had sent an express to
that place, asking for all the mounted riflemen that could be spared from it,
and had marched towards Green Bay with about six hundred infantry and
one hundred and thirty mounted riflemen to attack those Indians. No doubt
the General will accomplish all that can be effected with the force under his
command, but it is much to be regretted that he had not  more mounted men,
for, if the hostile Indians are as numerous as Gov. Cass supposes, it is not
probable that the General ca'n march such a distance through their own country without having a hard fight, at least. Should lie be defeated or driven
back, it may well be imagined that the consequences must be truly disastrous to our very extensive and exposed settlements all along the Illinois
River and its waters. Whatever may be his fate, however, if you will only




352        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
cast your eye upon the map, and consider that all the hostile Indians, with
the exception of one small band, reside between his line of march and those
settlements, it must, I think, be obvious to you, that there is either no danger
at all, or that they are in very great danger. Regarding them in the latter
point of view, I feel it my duty to reiterate my application to the President
for that protection which their situation demands-a protection, the necessity
of which is as apparent as that of any movement that has been made under
the authority of the Governor, and which cannot be doubted without an
utter disbelief of any hostile disposition on the part of those savages, nor
without questioning the propriety of all those measures of the Governor
which have been adopted upon that supposition. For, if the Indians are
hostilely disposed, as they can attack no where else with the same prospects of
success and with so little risk to themselves, so none can be in more danger
than those settlements. Besides their lives and property, the people, I humbly conceive, have a fair claim on the Government for protection against those
interruptions of their tranquillity by the savages which are reasonably calculated to prevent them from resting under the shade of their own vines and
fig-trees, without any one to make them afraid.
I learn, from Col. Field, that about 3,000 men have been driven from the
mines, and, but for the measures I adopted, upon the first alarm, it is scarcely
to be doubted that many other parts of our frontier would have been entirely
depopulated. I need not, I am sure, attempt to point out, to a gentleman of
your practical knowledge and experience, the immense losses and sacrifices
that must have resulted, both to individuals and to the State, from this state
of things.
Iy authority being limited to a sudden emergency, my measures were
adopted with a view to such duration only as would be sufficient to enable
the Government to get its own into operation; and I have now only between
sixty and seventy men in service. Nor had I intended, under any circumstances, to have done more on my own responsibility, in consequence of their
being no money in our State Treasury-the impossibility of doing with ut it
and the risk of pecuniary embarrassment, of which I had some experience
during the late war, being greater than I have felt under any obligations to
encounter. These views, however, have never been communicated to a single
individual; and looking to consequences to the administration from adhering
to them which can scarcely escape your sagacity, I have concluded, should
actual hostilities be commenced on our frontier, immediately to repair to it,
make it my headquarters, and endeavor, with my own funds and at my own
risk, to provide subsistence for such volunteers as I may be able to call to my
aid, until I receive your answer to my letter of the 20th ult. Whatever that
may be, if it shall only afford reasonable ground to expect that I shall be sustained, I will continue to do the best in my power until I receive your answer
to this letter; otherwise, unless all dangers shall have entirely disappeared, I
shall be compelled to convene the Legislature and lay the case, just as it may
be, before them.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             353
I beg leave to observe, that the experience of three years' hard service on
our frontiers, during the last war, has convinced me that no other force of
any reasonable amount is available, for such protection as they require, than
that of mounted riflemen. Your infantry on the Wisconsin is too remote to
afford the least protection. It would be scarcely less available to us, if it were
at Washington City.
I must beg leave to call the President's attention to another grievance,
somewhat connected with this subject, that has been borne by the people
for a few years past with great impatience, and cannot be submitted to much
longer: that is the occupancy by different tribes of Indians of various portions of the ceded lands of this State, and their constantly traversing every
part of it at their pleasure, for the purpose of hunting, without any right so
to do. A large number of Pottawottamies, particularly, have been for several
years past residing within about twenty miles of Peoria, on lands not only
ceded, but which have actually been granted by the Government to individuals-an illegal occupancy which has been in some measure countenanced by the
Government, by making it the seat of an Indian agency-the place of paying
those Indians their annuities, etc. I now, sir, have to ask of the President that a
grievance so inconsistent with the rights of the State may no longer be permitted, and that these Indians, in particular, be removed with as little delay
as possible. I shall be happy to assist in the accomplishment of this object
by the most pacific means, if they will answer. I will not say what would
probably be the result if the President were to decline a compliance with
this specific request, because I do not believe his respect for the rights of the
State will permit him to hesitate about it.
Respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To THEl SECRETARY OF WAR.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, Sept. 5, 1827.
Brig. Gen. Hanson will immediately take all legal and necessary measures
for enrolling in the militia all persons subject thereto, who are now residing
at the Lead Mines on Fever River or in that vicinity, and for their organization according to law.
NINIAN EDWARDS, Governor,
Commander-in- ChiVf.
Confidential.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, ~Sept. 13, 1827.
Dear Sir:
I perceive that the " Louisville Public Advertiser," in announcing the arrival of Gen. Gaines at that place, states that the administration has determined
that the Winnebagoes shall surrender all those of their tribe who were concerned in the murders at Prairie du Chien, the attack upon the boats, etc.,
-45




354         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
and that to prevent a recurrence of similar enormities, they shall abandon
all the country on this side of the Wisconsin River. If this is the case, it
cannot fail to give the greatest satisfaction to the largest portion of this
State. In fact nothing could be more popular-nothing is more just. Even
the "Advertiser" highly applauds this course and assigns the best of reasons
in its favor.
As to the lands themselves, I believe there has been some great oversight
or misunderstanding at Washington concerning them. I have only time for
a hint or two on the subject.
In 1803 or 1804, Gen. Harrison purchased of the Sacs and Foxes all the lands
between the mouths of the Wisconsin and Illinois Rivers. In 1816, Gov,
Clark, Col. Choteau and myself, as commissioners of the United States, ceded
all those lands which lie north of a due west line from the southern extremity
of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, to the Ottaways, Chippeways and Pottawottamies (all making one nation and generally denominated the Indians
of Illinois River) with certain reservations. These Indians derive their claim
from the United States, and are the real owners of the land about which the
Winnebagoes have made so much disturbance. The latter have no claim to
any part of these lauds, unless some right has been recognized to them inadvertently by the United States since 1816, of which I know nothing, but
which, if it exists, was a clear and palpable violation of the treaty with the
Ottaways, Chippeways and Pottawottamies aforesaid, unless their consent was
previously obtained, which I do not suppose was the case. It would in fact
amount to nothing less than this-that the United States, after having made
a solemn cession of certain lands to those Indians, involving a pledge of good
faith to protect them in the enjoyment thereof, have violated their treaty.
Respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
INNIAN EDWARDS.
To PRESIDENT ADAMS.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, Septenmber, 1827.
Sir:
The rumor of eighteen men having been killed at Fever River, by the
Indians, as mentioned in my last letter to you, was brought to this neighborhood by a decent looking man, who professed to have left that place the second
day afterwards. I hasten, however, to inform you that the whole story has
proved to be a sheer fabrication. No news from Gen. Atkinson has reached
here since he commenced his march.
I cannot but observe that it appears somewhat singular that, while the
Indian agents and other officers of the Government have been writing to the
citizens of different parts of this State, warning them of their danger, recommending this and that precaution and mode of defense, and the General in
command has even called for mounted riflemen from one of our organized
counties, I have not received a single line from any one of them (except Gen.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             355
Clark, of St. Louis,) nor from yourself, nor any other officer of the Government. Should the same course be pursued by Gen. Gaines, who arrived at
St. Louis some days ago, I shall owe it both to the State and to myself to
ask of you an explanation of a course of conduct as little to be expected from
the General Government as disrespectful to the State.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, October 29, 1827.
Sir:
I have just had the honor to receive your letter of the 9th inst., in which
you inform me that you had instructed Gov. Cass to take such measures as
will fulfill my wishes in regard to the removal of the Indians occupying the
ceded lands of this State, with the least possible delay consistent with
humanity, or, if insuperable difficulties present themselves, to report to you
forthwith thereon.
The prompt attention, on your part, to the interest, rights and tranquillity
of this State, in the cases referred to, is duly appreciated.  But I must beg
leave to remark that the remoteness of Gov. Cass' residence, and the Indians
alluded to not being within his superintendency, do not promise as speedy a
redress of the grievance complained of as seems to have been anticipated, or
as is desirable.
The Indians residing on the ceded lands within this State are the Kickapoos, Pottawottamies, Ottaways, and Chippeways of the Illinois River, and
the Sacs and Foxes. These Indians, and occasionally large parties of the
Shawnese and Delawares, are in the habit of hunting extensively through the
settled parts of the State, to the great annoyance of the citizens thereof. It
would seem strange that; while the old States have found it expedient, for the
sake of preserving their game, to restrain their own citizens from hunting at
pleasure, we should be expected to permit large bands of marauding savages,
without any right whatever, to be constantly traversing this State, for the
total destruction of ours. But the evil more immediately felt, and which has
been too long practiced with impunity, is that they scarcely ever take this
liberty without killing tame animals-an evil which cannot and will not be
endured, though we shall patiently await the result of those measures of the
General Government which you authorize us to hope for.
The Kickapoos are understood to be within the agency of Major Richard
Graham of Missouri; the Pottawottamies, Ottaways and Chippeways of
the Illinois River, within the sub-agency of Mr. Peter Menard, Jr.; the
Sacs and Foxes, within the agency of Mr. Thomas Forsyth of St. Louis; the
Shawnese and Delawares, within the sub-agency of Major Peter Menard of
Kaskaskia; and the whole, within the superintendency of Gen. William




356        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.
Clark. We should hope much more from the interposition of these gentlemen, or from the latter alone, than from that of any one at so great a distance
from us as Gov. Cass.
I hlave thle honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HON, JAMEs BARBOUR, Setcretat'y of iWr.
BELLEVILLER.   TITINOT, October 29. 1827.
Sir 
I have received your letter of the 15th inst., and lest certain inferences,
which seem obviously deducil)le from it, may be erroneous, I have to request
that you will, as soon as practicable, furnish me a statement:
1st. Of the date and amount of each loan made to the Directors of the
Brownsville Branch Bank, and tle names of the members of the Board which
granted the same.
2d. A copy of the orders under which they respectively drew the money.
3d. The date and amount of each note and mortgage; the description of
the property mortgaged to secure each of said loans; the amount at which it
was valued, and by whom valued.
4th. The date and amount of eachl payment made by the said Directors,
respectively; and if any of them were otherwise than direct payments into
the Bank of its own notes,. by the said Directors, or any one of them, how
such payments are made.
5th. The amount now due by each of said Directors, the steps that have
been taken to coerce paymlent from them, the dates when commenced, how
long continued, how terminated, and all and every circumstance which has
retarded and is likely to retard the collection of said notes, respectively.
If you know, or in the course of your business have found reason to believe, that any of said Directors did, either directly or indirectly, render himself or themselves responsible for, or crone under any obligations to pay the
debt or delts of any other person to thle Bank, which debts remain unpaid,
I trust that a due regard for the interest of the institution which is committed to your charge will induce you to commnunicate to me all the information you possess on the subject, since you must be sensible that the knowledge of such a circumstance would be more likely to insure payment to the
community-whose agent you are-tha-n any other measure of coercion that
could be adopted. Nor can you doubt that, while it wrongs no one, it is
just and right that the Governor of the State should be made acquainted
with every circumstance that affects its interest even in the slightest degree.
And from whom should such information so naturally be expected as from
him to whose agency the uparticular interest affected has been specially
intrusted?




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               357
You will please direct your answer to this place, and I hope it will not be
long before I shall have the pleasure of receiving it.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To the CASHIERi OF THIE BROWTNSVILLE BRANCH BANK.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ILLINOIS, 1
J.tll.uary 28, 1828. 
Sil:
It is understood that a letter from you, to my pedecessor or myself, prescribing the lmanner in which the President required the unlocated part of
the lands granted by the United States to this State, for the use of a seminary
of learning, to be selected, was received at the State Department of the Gov.
ernment, and has been subsequently mislaid or lost.  I regret exceedingly
that it cannot be found, and have no other alternative than to request the
favor of fresh instructions —hoping that since MIissouri has been permitted to
locate her lands, granted for a similar purpose, in unconnected sections, the
President will extend the same indulgence to this State, which is now the
more necessary to its interests from the long postponement of the location of
these land:s, an I the consequently diminished range of selection.
I have the honor to be, etc.,
N. EDWARDS.
To THE SECRETARY OF TIIE TREASURY.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, August 20, 1829.
Sir:
The mail has just now brought mne Mr. P. Bradley's letter, of the 1st inst.,
in answer to mine, to you, of the 16th inst.  In addressing myself to you, in
reply to his letter, I beg leave to premise that, as I entertain no other feelings
towards you than those of respect and friendship, I trust that the remarks
which I feel myself called upon to make will not be considered inconsistent
with either the one or the other.
Great as your capacities may be, and no one appreciates them more highly
than I do, you must necessarily have been dependent, in some degree, upon
others for information as to localities and topography essential to the correct
operations of your Department.  It is not to be imputed to you as a fault
that you may have been misinformed by designing individuals, or that, for
the want of information, which it was the special duty of others to lay before
you, this State is made to exhibit a degrading contrast which none of its
citizens, who are worthy of its confidence or friendship, can regard with
indifference.  Collisions on such subjects are as unpleasant to me as to any
other man, but I have never seen the day that I would not risk any personal
consequences rather than submit to have the affairs of my own State con



358        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
trolled by members of Congress from other States, or to see it degraded and
overlooked as though it were an inferior.  Though older in every respect,
and superior in the number of free population, and the extent of agricultural
improvements and productions, to Missouri, the interest, convenience and
accommodation of the latter have, of late years, been so much more favorably
regarded by the Government, that certain magnates of St. Louis, who are in
the habit of speaking of us, reproachfully, as "the free State," seem to consider us unworthy, on that account, of the equal regard of the Government;
and hope, by their influence with the present administration, to impress upon
us the stamp of degradation. It is to be hoped, however, that our own members of Congress will not permit their machinations to succeed without a
vigorous struggle, at least.
It would be very unnecessary to exhibit in this letter the palpable partiality
alluded to in all its different phases; but besides the conspicuous instances of
it in relation to Indian affairs, I will venture to say it will be difficult to find
any one equal to the task of demonstrating that better and more eligible
locations for the troops now stationed at Jefferson Barracks and for the arsenal erecting near St. Louis, than the sites of either, might not have been had
in the vicinities of Kaskaskia or Alton, and had we not been "the free
State" they would doubtless have been preferred. Without, however, referring to any other subjects than the mail arrangements themselves, enough
may be found to furnish just ground of complaint. The manner in which
the accommodation of our seat of government has been postponed to that of
St. Louis, and the shabby two-horse vehicles in which the mail is carried to
and from it, contrasted with the superior style in which the mail is transported from St. Louis to Franklin (an inconsiderable, dilapidated town on the
Missouri River), is calculated to inflict a deep wound upon the just pride of
the whole State. If it be necessary that the mail be thus transported twice
a week to this last mentioned town, on account of the population west of St.
Louis, it is inconceivable why it should not be transported in like manner
through Vandalia to our northern settlements, which are far more populous
and equally respectable. Considering the proximity of numerous tribes of
restless savages to the upper Mississippi, the superior facilities which British
traders and agents there possess of operating upon them, the vast extent of
the mineral country, the rapidity with which the Northwestern Territory is
settling, the important Indian agencies located within it, and its bordering
upon the territory of the only nation in the world from whom we have anything to apprehend, it cannot be contended with the semblance of plausibility
that the Government is not more interested in a direct communication on the
latter than the former route. It is evident, then, that the Government has
no interest of its own to advance by this discrimination. As little is it to
be justified by any reference to St. Louis as a place of trade or commerce, for
no man of information, that has any regard for his reputation, will deny that
the people of our northern settlements have much more direct commercial
intercourse with St. Louis than those of the Missouri River. As, then, the
former are more numerous, equally respectable, and can be accommodated as
consistently with the interest of the Government, it would seem due to them




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              359
that the mail should be carried direct from St. Louis, through the counties of
Madison, Greene, Morgan and Sangamon, and even to Jo Daviess county, as
often and in the same manner that it is carried to Franklin. There are no
counties through which it passes to the latter place that are to be compared,
in point of population and agricultural productions, to these; nor is there any
reason to believe that, if, instead of the go-carts that figure in this State,
equal accommodations were afforded, there would not be more traveling in
the stage on the route here suggested than upon that one.
These, however, are not the only instances in which this mortifying discrimination and humiliating contrast are exhibited.  Shawnectown, as to
mail arrangements, is probably far the most important point in this State.
Besides the multitudes of people who have occasion to go from a distance in
all directions to the extensive salt works in its immediate vicinity, being the
great landing place of traders, emigrants and travelers who come by water, it
is to this State and Missouri precisely what you have known Maysville to be
to Kentucky and Tennessee. A moment's reflection would therefore seem to
be sufficient to satisfy any one that stage accommodation must necessarily be
more in demand there than from St. Louis to the westward; and that a line
of stages from thence through the interior of the State to the northern parts
thereof, into which the streams of emigration are pouring their copious currents in a manner that never has been more successful in any country, is as
necessary, and would afford greater accommodation than the line from St.
Louis to Franklin. Yet there is nothing but a two-horse vehicle to fetch the
mail from Shawneetown once a week; and this poor accommodation is not
permitted to extend even to Vandalia, but is required to stop at Carlyle, the
first point of intersection with the line to St. Louis, so that travelers and
others visiting our seat of Government or our most populous settlements are
to be forced from fifty to one hundred miles out of the way, to be deprived
of such stage accommodation as is extended to other places with inferior
claims to it.
But limiting our views of the discrimination made between the two States
to a smaller circle, it will appear sufficiently striking by comparing the accommodation which your advertisement proposes for the village of St.
Charles, in Missouri, with that which it contemplates for this place. Much
superior in the number of its population and the amount of its agricultural
productions, and importing more extensively from Atlantic cities, this county
has not only far more trading and commercial intercourse with St. Louis than
that of St. Charles, but more, in fact, than any other county in the two States;
and this no respectable man in St. Louis will deny. And yet, while a fourhorse mail stage is to run three times a week between St. Louis and that
village, the mail is to be carried but once a week between this place and St.
Louis, and this on an entirely unnecessary and circuitous route by Cahokia;
and we are to have no stage at all, or be subjected to the delay and additional
expense of traveling between six and seven miles out of the way. But what
is, if possible, still more extraordinary, this four-horse stage, "of sufficient




360         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
size to accommodate seven passengers," is, for the convenience of different
neighborhoods in St. Louis county, to make its three trips a week on three
different routes-one by Florisant, one by Jamestown, and one on the direct
road, departing from its regular direction, for the first of these places,
five miles, and for the second ten or eleven miles-all of which has been procured through the influence of some of the most conspicuous of those individuals out of the State alluded to by Mr. Bradley, who have been but too
successful in convincing you that a much less deviation from the "direct
road" should not be admitted in this "free State" in favor of the county seat
of its oldest and one of its most populous and important counties.
But even if it be right to distinguish the people of St. Louis and St.
Charles counties, in Missouri, by this marked preference, it is not easy to
perceive on what just grounds the plain, reputable "free State" farmers,
merchants and mechanics of this county, who, from their cxpcrtations, importations, commercial and other pursuits, are more interested in receiving
the mail from St. Louis than any other quarter, should not be entitled to
equal accommodation with a few gentlemen-officers at Jefferson Barracks, for
whose benefit the mail is to be carried three times a week between that place
and St. Louis. Similar comparisons might be made with Edwardsville and
other places; but this is particularly referred to, because in withdrawing
from us, at the instance of individuals residing out of the State, and probably
a few of our own misguided citizens (who, on reflection, will be sorry for, if
not ashamed of it), an accommodation deliberately granted by your predecessor, and which has not cost an additional cent, as documents in your Department will show, the expenses of the Government must necessarily be
increased by the arrangements which you have deemed necessary in consequence of the change.
In accounting for this measure Mr. Bradley says: "An objection has been
made by many individuals, in and out of your State, to the Department sending the important western mail out of its way or regular direction, to the
inconvenience of the traveler and delay of the mail; and in consequence of
those objections the route has been advertised, as it was heretofore, to the exclusion of Belleville."
As it is to be presumed that you would not have determined to reverse the
deliberate decision of your predecessor and deprive us of a convenience and
accommodation conceded by him on due consideration, merely because certain
individuals have thought proper to object to it, or without being satisfied of
the validity of their objections, it must have been proved to your satisfaction,
or gratuitously assumed, that the departure of the mail from its regular direction, the inconvenience of the traveler, and the delay of the mail itself,
have all been so great as to render the change necessary. Deeply affected as
we are by this decision, it is hoped that a few brief remarks upon the several
objections on which it is predicated will not be deemed too obtrusive. First,
then, as to the sending the mail out of its way or regular direction. Whatever
may be the principle adopted in regard to this matter, if equal in its operation none has a right to complain; but if it is to be made to tend to the con



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             361
venience and accommodation of the citizens of one State, and to be rigidly
and inflexibly inforced to the exclusion of the equal claims of the citizens of
another, it degrades the latter, and stamps upon them an odious distinction
which they would well deserve if they could meanly acquiesce in it. As a
freeman, entitled to equal rights, I would, if I stood alone and unassisted, resist it by all proper means to the last extremity; and I should consider myself
a traitor to the good people of this State if I could stand by with folded
arms and patiently see it fixed upon them. What idea was meant to be conveyed in speaking of the " regular direction" of the mail, I do not clearly
comprehend. But be it what it may, it cannot affect the comparisons I had
made and intend to make between this and other places, since it must equally
apply to them all. If it was intended to refer to the ordinary route on which
the mail has been heretofore carried, then the answer is, that since the first
establishment of the line it has never been transported more than two years
on any other route than through this place, and that it has regularly been
brought this way ever since the stage commenced running three times a week.
If the phrase " regular direction" was meant to refer to a straight line, then,
sir, the maps in your Department will show that there is no -town through
which the mail passes as near to a straight line between Louisville and St.
Louis as this; and really it does not appear very reasonable that a departure
from the "regular direction," so considered, for the accommodation of other
places, should interpose such insuperable objections to a half an hour's delay
in returning to the regular direction for the accommodation of the large and
respectable population that inhabits this county.
But let us see how far the mail now comes out of the way. There is no
dispute about its coming through Lebanon, nor would I, if in my power, prevent its passage through that flourishing village, nor any other place through
which it is now transported. The road from Lebanon to St. Louis-and the
only road-passes a Mr. Westfield's, where it forks, the one going directly to
St. Louis, and the other coming this way. Measuring straight lines from
Westfield's to the ferry opposite St. Louis, and from the same point to this
place, and thence to the ferry, and comparing the distances, the difference is
only three and three-tenths miles, as appears by the inclosed statement of
John Messenger, Esq., our county surveyor, one of the most respectable men
and the best practical mathematician in the State. If, however, there should
be any doubt of the correctness of his calculations, my letter of the 16th ult.
will enable you to have its accuracy completely tested by the maps in the
General Land Office. This is presumed to be as fair a way of ascertaining
the difference in the distance as our opponents could desire, because this route
is at least as susceptible of being shortened as the other; and contemporaneous
efforts are nowi making to shorten both. The improvement upon this route
is certain to be made; that upon the other is, by an act of our Legislature,
made to depend upon Congress "granting to this State scrip or other means
expressly to improve said road," of the probability of which grant you can
judge as correctly as any one else. On the direct road there is no postoffice;
and running as it does through a very thinly settled part of our county, the
-46




362        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
mail in that way (if my recollection is correct, and I think I cannot be mistaken,) would pass by only four little houses or colonies between Westfield's
and the little village through which both roads pass; and it is not probable
that the occupants of these houses ever subscribed for a newspaper in their
lives. The present route passes through the heart of the thickest settlement
in the State, and accommodates this village, which imports more goods direct
from Atlantic cities than all the towns through which the mail passes from
Vincennes to St. Louis, and supplies one of the most important postoffices on
the whole of the line through the State.
But supposing the difference of the distance to befour miles. The change
upon your plan, even if, contrary to every reasonable expectation, you should
continue to refuse more than one mail a week to St. Louis, would considerably increase the expenses of the Government, for by continuing the present
arrangements there would be no necessity of carrying the mail by Cahokia to
St. Louis, or twice a. week between this place and Lebanon, as contemplated
bly your advertisement. By the change you can only save the expense of
transportation on twenty-four miles, at most, a week, while you incur it on
eighty-eight miles for the same length of time, the distance of the first of
these new routes being twenty and that of the latter being twelve miles.
But it is not believed that there would be any necessity for giving one cent
more for the transportation of the mail on the present route than on the
direct road(, tle difference in the number of stage-passengers on the former
being more than equivalent to the distance. If I am not greatly misinformled,
your I)epartmlent will showtltht the proposals of the present contractor were
to earry it on either of these routes for the same price. It lhappens that I
well know that your predecessor could have made other contracts for carrying it on this route without any additional expense; and with the same disposition it is in your;pwer to d(1 the slme   thing. Why, then, should we,
undelr s( cl circulllstances, 1e Cdeprived of 1an accolmmodation extended to
others with cven inferior claims to it? AVWhy apply to the people of this
State one rule, and to those of Missouri another? Fort Osage is the termination of the western mail.
The maps, including the whole of the line you have advertised, are before
you. You can easily see extraordinary instances of its sinuosities, from St.
Louis to its termination; but it would be difficult to show a single one of
them more justifiable than the slmall deviation from "the regular direction"
which has brought the mail through this place. It wvonld be a waste of time
to specify the multitude of cases in which deviations from "the regular direction" have been and now are sanctioned by law, or authorized by your
Department. They are numerous not only in Missouri, but in your own
State. The slightest reference to a few of them will be fully sufficient to portray, in striking colors, the partial and injurious nature of the exception
which is made in our case. If this be right, why should the mail, in its transit
to Fayette, the county scat of the most important county on the Missouri, be
made to go so far "out of its way or regular direction," and travel a much
worse road, merely for the sake.of passing the decaying little village of Frank



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               363
lin? Why require it to go so circuitously from Franklin to Chariton? And
upon what principle are the people of the nominal village of Florisant, or of
the almost houseless Jamestown, in M3issouri, more entitled to have tlhe mail
in a "fiour-horse stage," "suitable for seven passengels," sent "out of its way
or regular direction," than the people of this village, the seat of justice of
one of the most fertile and flourishing counties in the Western world? Human irnagination, I should think, can conceive none, unless it may be supposed that because the people of 5Missouri have negroes to work for themn
they are to be considered as gentlefolks, entitled to higher consideration and
superior privileges to us plain "free State" folks, who have to work for ourselves. That such is the opinion of a distinguished "individual out of the
State," who has taken a very active part in this business, is scarcely to be
doubted-nor is it intended to question his right to entertain and act upon
it; but if any of our own citizens have countenanced and cooperated in his
efforts to fix such a stigma upon the State, their labors will doubtless, in due
time, be properly appreciated by an indignant people, conscious of their rights
and too proud and high-minded to acknowledge inferiority to the citizens of
any State in the Union. I hope I shall be pardoned for respectfully referring
to a single one of the instances of departure of the mail from its "regular
direction" in your own State. It will not be denied that, even in its transit
from Frankfort to Paris, it is sent more "out of its way or regular direction,"
for the convenience and accommodation of your own county, than in our
case. It is true that your county has at present more population than ours —
an advantage, however, which it cannot long retain; but, bordering, as this
does, on the Mississippi River, navigable at all seasons of the year-possessing superior commercial facilities-being of greater extent, and, incredible as
you think it, of superior fertility —its want of mail and stage accommodations
is scarcely less at present, and ere long must be greater, than that of yours.
And if the convenience of "the traveler," or such alleged "delay of the mail,"
is to control its direction, its deviation from its "regular direction," through
your county, would appear far the most objectionable, in consequence of the
greater number of persons to be affected by it-which must be in proportion
to the difference in the population west of Lexington and that which is west
of this place, or to the inducements to traveling or demands for the mail
westwardly of these points, respectively; but, without extending the comparison to all the places to which it is applicable, I beg leave to ask, why,
if the people of St. Louis have a right to demand a change in the one case,
those of Frankfort and Louisville have not at least an equal right in the
other?
As to "the inconvenience of the traveler," it is an entirely new idea that
the convenience of travelers is to control the direction, arrivals or departures of the mail; but were it otherwise, where is the proof that a single
traveler has had to pay an additional cent, or been delayed a moment beyond the periods fixed by your Department for arrivals and departures to and
from Vincennes and St. Louis, respectively, or that any change has ever been
made in either, in consequence of the mails being sent through this place? It
is confidently believed that no such proof has been or can be made; and it




364         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
does not appear to be just that we should be subjected to such serious deprivations upon a mere naked, unsupported allegation, which the very returns,
officially received, both by law and the practice of your Department, sufficiently falsify. But suppose some travelers have been kept on this road a half an
hour longer than they would have been on the other: many others, equally
entitled to the favors of the Government, have been accommodated by this
arrangement; for it is susceptible of the clearest proof, and I pledge myself
to produce it, if required, not only that the number of passengers between
this town and St. Louis has been double if not quadruple what it has been
on any other part of the line, but that this place has produced more traveling
in the stages than all the towns and every other place through which the
route passes, from one extremity of it to the other. But, whatever may be
the force of this objection, it is equally applicable to any of the places to
which this has been compared, and is much more so to some of them. It cannot, therefore, be considered harmless as to them, and so disastrous to us, without fixing upon us "free State" people an ignominious mark, which, I trust,
the "distinguished individual out of the State," before alluded to, with all
the strange and unaccountable assistance which he has hitherto got or may
hereafter receive, in this State, will not be able ultimately to effect.
As to "the delay of the mail," this is a grave objection, and should not be
assumed upon slight grounds, since it cannot have existed, to such an extent
as to render the intended change necessary, without seriously implicating the
official integrity of your distinguished predecessor, whose administration of
the Department has commanded such universal approbation and applause,
and whose popularity in this and the adjoining States is second only to that
of the illustrious patriot who fills the Presidential chair. If such an evil has
existed, it was his unquestionable duty to have corrected it. If it has been
gratuitously assumed, it is not less unjust to him than injurious to us. How,
then, stands the fact? It is known to you that the times of arrival and departure of the mail had been arranged and prescribed for the whole route
without any reference to this place, and that none of them had been changed
or Any additional delay authorized in consequence of sending the mail this
way. The contractor was just as liable to forfeitures for delays, as if the mail
had been sent on the direct road; and it has been the constant duty of every
postmaster throughout the whole route to report all failures. Did a single
one of them make any report, during Mr. McLean's administration, to justify
this assumption?  Have any of them done so since you succeeded him-or a
single forfeiture been enforced for a delinquency of this kind? It is unhesitatingly assumed, that all these questions must be answered negatively. Unless, then, all those postmasters have violated their oaths, this alleged objection is utterly unfounded. Nor, sir, will there be the least difficulty in fulfilling all the arrangements proposed in your own advertisement, should the
mail continue to be transported as it has been under the present contract?
But, were it otherwise, what would be the hardship of requiring it to start a
half an hour sooner from some one of its night stands, or a few minutes earlier




LETTERS AND SPEECIES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.            365
from more than one? Or, what important interest is to be jeopardized should
it even arrive at St. Louis a half an hour later?
In addition to this view of the subject, though I feel the greatest deference
for your superior legal attainments, I cannot avoid thinking your decision illegal. I take it that no executive can lawfully do that which the Legislature
clearly intended should not be done-or disregard, control or set aside that
which it obviously intended should be done; and nothing is clearer, to me,
than that Congress, by' establishing a route from Shawneetown to this place,
intended that it should not be extended any further, and that it should here be
connected with the line from Vincennes to St. Louis; and, therefore, I doubt
your authority to destroy the whole of this intended arrangement by extending the line from Shawneetown to St. Louis, adding a new route to Lebanon,
and withdrawing "the important western mail" from that on which it was
then transferred.
Connected with the efforts to induce you to change the present route, there
seems to have been a corresponding plan, of which you were doubtless unapprized, to destroy all the important objections of another one-which plan is
calculated to subserve no interest, unless it may be that of a company who
may intend to bid for the transportation of the mail on the whole line from
Vincennes to St. Louis, and whose interest, should they succeed in obtaining
the contemplated contracts, would be greatly advanced by the destruction of
a rival establishment. The mail is now, and has been for some time past,
brought from Louisville to Shawneetown in stages. It was intended by your
predecessor to extend that stage line to this place, and, by connecting it from
Equality to Centreville, in Kentucky, with the line from the mouth of Cumberland to Nashville, to establish a direct stage route from the latter to St.
Louis, on the best and usually traveled road between those places. Your own
personal knowledge of the country will enable you to judge of the vast population in the southern parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, etc., which
this route would accommodate; and, considering the prodigious emigration
which Missouri and this State are both receiving from those States, the markets they afford for our surplus horses, mules, beef cattle and hogs, and the
considerable and increasing commerce between them and this country, there
seems to be no reason to doubt that a stage line from Nashville to St. Louis
would be fully as important and not less desirable than the one from Louisville to St. Louis; and that such a line has been contemplated by yourself is
inferrable from the stage route you have advertised from Frankfort, in this
State, to Salem, in Kentucky.
Let us, then, see how this route is provided for. Beginning at St. Louis,
it comes six or seven miles out of the way, by Cahokia, to this place, and
thence, departing from the State road to Georgetown, the seat of justice of
Washington county, at the passage of the law establishing the route, and
through which it was intended to pass, it goes to Covington; thence, without
any reference to the State road, on which the law intended it to be carried,
to Frankfort; and thence to Salem, in Kentucky. Now, sir, had human ingenuity been taxed to the utmost to preserve the appearance of intending.to




366        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
run stages on this route as established by law, and yet to disappoint that expectation, nothing more effectual could have been devised than this arrangement; for the route, as advertised, is impracticable for stages, and if it were
not, its course is so zigzag that no one would travel it. That you have been
most awfully deceived, misinformed and imposed upon, as to the localities
and topography in reference to this route, there can be no doubt; and it is
to be deplored that there should be found "individuals in this State" so regardless of its interest, and the convenience and accommodation of their fellow-citizens, as to be willing to sacrifice or postpone them all for the sake of
a personal interest in reference to the line from Vincennes to St. Louis, which
never can be a commercial route nor half as important to this State as would
be one from the town of America, on the Ohio River, to our northern settlements, corresponding with the great and only channel of exportation for
this whole country.
But to return to the change under consideration. Mr. Bradley says: "Yet
propositions may be so favorably made as to induce the Postmaster-General
to forego partial engagements made to individuals on the subject."
As the experience of nearly two years affords abundant proof that sending
the mail by this place need not delay its arrivals or departures a moment
beyond the times prescribed by yourself and it is demonstrable that the
contemplated change cannot fail to increase the expenses of the Government,
it is rather difficult to imagine the nature and objects of such propositions as
Mr. Bradley supposes might be "so favorably made" as to induce you to
change your present determination.  But, be this as it may, since our just
equality of rights has been drawn into question, and a celebrated member of
Congress from another State, backed by certain individuals in this, is understood to stand pledged to deprive us of it, I, for one, am inclined to rely
exclusively upon the intrinsic merits of our case, trusting that, upon a review
of it, you yourself will do us ample justice, or, if not, that more good will
result from letting the people see and feel how our affairs are permitted to
be managed by members of Congress from other States, than could be obtained by occupying less elevated ground.
Although no consideration could induce me to withhold this remonstrance,
I should be very happy not to be misunderstood.  It is not my object to
impute blame to your Department; for had the rights of this State been
pressed with the same energy that those of other States have been, we all
have had reason enough to'feel assured that they would have been equally
respected by your predecessor, and I have not the least doubt of a disposition
equally just and favorable on your part.
Identified, as we are, with all great interests, with Missouri, and particularly so in reference to the prosperity of St. Louis, we entertain no other
feelings towards our brethren of that State or city than those of friendship,
nor do we doubt the candid reciprocation of the great body of them; and as
to myself, far rather would I contribute, with the best of my poor abilities,
as I have often endeavored to do, to advance their interests, than deprive
them, if in my power, of any accommodation that has ever been extended to




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.              367
them or any part of theml; but we claim an equality of rights with them.
This nothing shall induce me to relinquish; for great is the debt of gratitude which I owe to the good people of this State, and they have never been
seen to shrink when their rights and interests have been called into question,
and, with the permission of Divine Providence, they never shall.
I have the honor to be,
Your most obedient servant,
N. EDWARDS.
To THE POSTMIASTER-GF.NERAI., \.ashington City.
BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, June 11, 1832.
31,. Breath 
At a period of such intense interest to all who have hearts to feel for the
calamities which now afflict, and must, without prompt relief, finally overwhelm a large portion of our population, the inclosed letters, though not
intended for publication, have been freely submitted to the inspection of all
who have desired to see them, and particularly to many who have been disposed actually to cooperate in the objects they have in view. This has produced solicitations and importunities for their publication which I am bound
to respect, and do not feel at liberty to refuse, and hence they are transmitted
to you for that purpose. It is to be hoped that they may contribute to afford
to our fellow-citizens of other States such information of our actual situation
as may be sufficient to induce them to follow the example so laudably set by
the city of St. Louis. Whatever the carnage and desolation which savage
ferocity may inflict upon our northern counties, they cannot equal the calamities which are threatened by famine. Tllis is our greatest danger. The
General Government will doubtless provide for it as soon as expedient; but,
in the meantime, great suffering, if not the nmost dreadful catastrophies, can
only be prevented by active individual benevolence and charity. Unless they
can see some other means of saving our suffering fellow-citizens from actual
starvation, humanity requires that every editor in the State should spare no
pains to make their situation known in its true colors.
NINIAN EDWARDS.
LOWER ALTON, ILLINOIS, April 19, 1832.
Gentleen:
Ere this reaches you, you will doubtless have heard of the hostile deportment of the Sauks, Winnebagoes, etc. Even if no blow should be struck, the
consequences cannot fail to be extremely disastrous to our northern settlements. The alarm is universal, the northern frontier weak and exposed and the
inhabitants thereof are fleeing into the interior for protection. This, at this
time of putting in their crops, will be ruinous and afflictive to many. If it
should not reduce them to absolute starvation, they will be left without any
resource but the bounty of others, who, in this new country, have enough to




368        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.
do to support themselves and their own families. I deplore this state ot
things, as well on those accounts as its inevitable tendency to check immigration. Such conduct ought to be submitted to no longer, and I trust that
the wonted energy of the President will promptly apply the proper corrective. Those Indians were let off too easily last year, and they will for a long
time to come continue to annoy us, if we do not utterly abandon the unwise
policy of regarding one part of the tribe as friends while another part is
warring upon us. I opposed this policy during the whole of the late war,
and all subsequent experience has strengthened the opinion I then entertained.
I doubt whether there is one informed candid man, who witnessed the events
of the late war on the frontiers of this State and Missouri, that does not
believe we suffered more from the peace party than from the war party.
Nothing will do but to consider the whole tribe as answerable for the conduct of its members-unless, indeed, there was a permanent separation between, as well in peace as in war.
The Government ought to afford such adequate protection as would relieve
the State from the necessity of calling out the militia so frequently, and particularly at such a seasonof the year as the present.  The losses they must
sustain by being taken from their farms at the time for planting corn are too
serious and oppressive to be slightly regarded. Yet there is no other alternative at present-and this should powerfully recommend the employment of
a mounted force, as proposed by the present Secretary of War.  Should this
plan be adopted, I cannot forbear, on the present occasion, to present to your
consideration the preeminent qualifications of Gen. Samuel Whiteside for a
service of this kind. His assistance is ever ready to be afforded, and can
never be dispensed with on occurrences like the present.  He will doubtless
have a high command on the present expedition. It will be some reparation
for the injuries they must sustain by the present call, if our militia be
promptly paid; and as Congress is now in session, it is to be hoped that you
may be able to obtain provision for that purpose.
I have only time to add that, although I am a decided tariff man, I highly
approve your course on that subject, and will sustain it with the best of my
poor abilities.
In great haste,
I am, respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. ELIAS K. KANE and HON. I. M. ROBINSON, Senators int Congress,
Washington City, D. C.
A letter of Gov. Edwards in relation to the Black Hawk War, in 1832.
BELLE;VILLE, ILLINOIS, June 5, 1832.
Dear Sirs:
Nothing can be more deplorable than the dreadful situation to which the
failure of crops last year and the present Indian war have reduced our fellow



LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              369
citizens in the northern part of the State.  Equally threatened with starvation and the ruthless tomahawk, they have, of themselves, no means of
escaping the latter without encountering all the horrors of the former. Fanciful as these alternatives may seem to some, none can doubt their appalling
reality who are acquainted with the circumstances and situation of those
people, and know the undeniable fact that, owing to the severity of the two
last winters and the failure of the last year's crop, there was not within the
State, even before the present disturbances commenced, a sufficiency of provisions for our own consumption.  No part of the State has escaped great
difficulties and privations in consequence of this extraordinary scarcity, but
so much greater and more universal has it been in the northern counties, that it
was scarcely to be hoped, under the most favorable circumstances, that many
of their inhabitants would not suffer such melancholy consequences of an
actual deficiency of subsistence as humanity must shudder to think of. Dependent upon their own labor for the means of obtaining articles of the first
necessity, the failure of their crops had left them penniless. But no amount
of money could command, in those counties, the requisite supplies. Not a
solitary inhabitant having more than enough for himself and his own family,
none had any to spare to his neighbor.  In this situation, these unfortunate
people have, at the very time for commencing their crops, been driven from
their homes by savage atrocities that have never been surpassed, leaving all
their cattle, hogs and other property behind them, which have fallen into
the hands of the savages, and compelled to seek refuge in forts where they
cannot earn a cent, and must remain till the time for making their crops will
have entirely elapsed.  This is literally the situation of the people of JoDaviess county. Not a man remains on his farm, nor, from present appearances, can return to it for many weeks to come.  Multitudes are in a like
situation in other counties. How, then, are they, with the losses of property
which they have already sustained, to be saved from actual starvation? Certainly by no other means than the interposition of Government, or the benevolence and charity of our neighboring States.
Shall, then, such a number of meritorious men, women and children be
permitted, in this great Republic, this Christian land, to starve to death?
Can the Government hesitate a moment to afford them all the relief which
their distress and suffering so loudly demand?  I should think not, for it is
difficult to conceive of a more legitimate object for its action, or one that
could impose upon it a more indispensable duty, than that of providing
against a famine too extensive to be controlled by individual exertions, and
which threatens calamities too awful to be safely trusted to the gratuitous
relief of others. It has ever been the practice of all nations to afford relief
in such cases. The citizens of Alexandria, who had suffered by fire-the subjects of a foreign power, reduced to want by an earthquake-and the starving
Indians of the South-have all received the bounty of our own; and shall it
be denied to our own suffering citizens, whose calamities have, in a great
degree, been produced by measures which the Government itself has found
it necessary to adopt?
-47




370        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Not only has this portion of our population suffered by those measures,
but they have so injuriously affected every part of the State as to give us
just and fair claim to remuneration from the General Government; all of
which have been produced by the failure of Congress to provide for the raising of a corps of mounted rangers, as recommended by the Secretary of War.
No other description of force is adequate to protection against Indian hostilities; and if anything could justify the placing of such a corps at the disposal
of the President, as a measure of reasonable precaution, nothing could have
more powerfully recommended it than the unsettled state of affairs on our
northern frontier, the universal discontent of the Indians, and the disposition
which they have constantly manifested to break out, upon the slightest encouragement, into their usual horrid excesses ever since the first settlement of
Galena.
Forbidden by the Constitution to provide for their own safety, every State
is entitled to the protection of the United States, and has an indisputable
right to claim ample indemnity for injuries and losses sustained for the want
of it. Were it otherwise, the Union would be scarcely worth preserving.
But instead of that protection which we had a right to claim, and of the
want of which the events of the last year had given sufficient warning, their
measures have involved us in dangers and require us to fight, not our own,
but their battles-for the immediate cause of the present war was the insult, indignity and outrage offered to the United States by the attack upon
the Menomonies and murdering twenty-eight of them at Prairie du Chien, by
Black Hawk and his party. To submit to an offense so heinous, would have
been disgraceful to the United States, and hence it was very properly determined to demand those murderers for punishment. But atrocious as was this
conduct, having been committed upon the lands of the United States and
within their jurisdiction, it constituted an offense to them exclusively, and
not to this or any other individual State. They, therefore, being at peace
with all the rest of the world and having an overflowing treasury, should,
without relying upon drafted militia from any State, have proposed not only
to avenge their own injuries, but to protect the citizens of this State from all
dangers justly to be apprehended from a conflict with the Indians about their
own affair.
That a severe conflict should have been expected does not seem to admit of a
doubt; for, while the pressing of the demand for the murderers, with threats
of coercion, could not fail to increase the hostile disposition of the Indians
there was as little reason to believe that they would comply with it, as that
the President would abandon it and permit those to escape with entire impunity. Who were demanded? Black Hawk, the most influential man of the
tribe, and those distinguished chiefs and warriors who have been united with
him ever since the commencement of the late war. For what purpose were
they demanded? Not as hostages of peace, but to be tried for murders. As
well might it have been expected that the whole tribe would consent to its
utter annihilation as that these men would be surrendered for such a purpose.
And it is not to be supposed that the President would be satisfied to permit




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              371
these principal offenders to escape the punishment due to their crimes by the
delivery of a few of their humble and comparatively innocent instruments.
But be all this as it may, the United States had no more right to devolve
the burthens and hardships of this contest upon this State than upon Maine
or Louisiana, and might just as well have required our militia to fight their
battles for an attack offered to them in Arkansas or Florida, as in Michigan.
Should it become necessary to fight for our north-eastern boundary, Maine,
though directly interested in the cause of the war, if ever so competent to
the task, would hardly be left to do all the fighting merely on account of her
proximity to the scene of action. I therefore trust that, if the war is to be
protracted, as it seems likely to be, our militia will no longer be exclusively
required for that purpose.
Great are the losses which they must necessarily sustain by the requisitions
that have already been made upon them. Called out and kept in service
during the whole time for making their crops, they will be thrown out of
business for the balance of the year, and deprived of all opportunity of providing food for their families and provender for their horses, cattle and hogs,
many of which must inevitably perish in the course of the coming winter.
But the losses occasioned by these heavy requisitions are not confined to
those who are detached into the service of the United States. Citizens who
remain at home are taxed more than twice as much for, every drafted man, as
the United States pay him, and are obliged to make prompt payment-for no
man can, according to our laws be drafted, whatever the term of service,
without having a right to recover $50 of the class to which he belongs; so
that while the United States are only bound to pay for the services of
drafted men at the rate of $6.66 per month, some four or five private individuals are responsible to him for $50, which, according to the term of service
of the late detachment, requires the latter to pay for each man $36.68 more
than the former-a burthen not only unjust, but intolerable and oppressive.
Disastrous, however, as have been all these events, the savage barbarities
that have been perpetrated in the face of the large force that has been in the
field, clearly evince that our situation would have been infinitely worse had
not the Governor so promptly called out the militia. But for this all the settlements beyond the Illinois River must have been precipitately abandoned,
in which case universal terror and consternation would have pervaded and to
a great extent depopulated all the counties bordering on that river on this
side, and thus, by accumulating vast supplies of all kinds, have enabled
them to protract the war at their own pleasure. As it is, there is reason to
believe the cattle and hogs that have fallen into their hands will enable
them to continue it beyond the present year. That it will not end shortly,
at any rate, is much to be feared, since, though Gen. Atkinson may march
through every part of the country they occupy, such is its nature and extent
that he cannot force them into a general engagement; and fighting them with
such detachments of raw militia and inexperienced officers as they would
not seek to elude, cannot but be extremely hazardous.




372         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
In these overwhelming difficulties, great consolation is found in the long
experience and unrivaled judgment and energy of the President in such
affairs; and trusting that he will be made fully acquainted with our actual
situation, we confidently look to him for all the relief which it is in his province to afford-hoping, at the same time, that Congress will immediately
provide for the raising of a competent number of mounted rangers and for
relieving the wants, repairing the wrongs and adequately compensating the
services and losses of our distressed and harassed population.
It is much to be feared that the appropriation proposed by the House of
Representatives for defraying the expenses of that bloody war, will be insufficient. Any mistake of this kind would be extremely unfortunate, for
nothing could be more unjust and oppressive than to withhold from our
militia prompt payment for services rendered at such monstrous sacrifices.
Those who were detached into the service of the United States last year, have
not, as yet, received a cent of pay. Poor men, dependent upon the sweat of
their brows for the support of themselves and their families, cannot withstand such delays, and, as might have been expected, the most of these have
since been compelled to part with their claims for about one-half their
amounts-for which losses, thus inflicted upon them by the Government at a
time of profound peace and with a full treasury, justice cannot deny them
equivalent compensation.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NINIAN EDWARDS.
To HoN. ELIAS K. KANE and LON. I. I. ROBINSON, Senator8s in Congress,
Washington, D. C.
Speech when a Candidate for Congress against Matthew Lyon, in 1806, in Kentucky.-His opinions on "treating" at Elections, and on Secret Societies.
If there is any gentleman here who has indulged himself in secret whispers, in saying he has secrets to tell that will astonish my friends, let him
speak them out. If they lessen my pretensions, the public should know them;
if they do not, they must be told to gratify malignity.
Open attacks can be openly met, but the obscure insinuation, like the worm
that penetrates the ship, proceeds without the possibility of resistance. The
poisoned arrow is shot in the dark, so that no abilities can repel the blowno innocence shield from its approach. If he will not do this, I hope you
will say, let the weak and ill-natured enjoy the poor pleasure of whispering
calumny and detraction, and let the man of sense display his wisdom in disregarding it. The dog bays at the moon, but it still shines in all its beautiful benignity and moves in its undisturbed regularity. There are some who
see my acts with a jaundiced eye, and represent them to others in the same
color in which they behold them. Their tale of slander passes over my mind
as the shadow over the earth.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NINIAN EDWARDS.            373
It may be asked, why I offer my services? The reason is, I have been
solicited and not a man has requested me to decline. It is said that I can do
the most good, but that I will not. Compare my conduct with that of my
opponent's. Have I not, by my.acts, promoted the population of the country?
Did I not, while a lawyer, try to put an end to controversies? Have I not a
general interest in common with the rest of you? Have I not been faithful
as a lawyer and did I not faithfully represent your interests in the Legislature?
I wish not this mushroom, this ephemeral popularity, which ends the day of its
birth! You are are instructed by a corresponding society how to act. They
declare that they have had a general meeting and that they came to unanimous resolutions, and yet they do not give the sanction of one name to their
proceedings-were they ashamed? If they meant to make no improper impressions-if they meant the public good and not the gratification of private
malignity, or the attainment of certain selfish, interested views-why conceal
their names?'Tis only the insidious, the treacherous and designing that
shroud themselves with darkness or mystery. They mean to dictate to you,
to control you, and yet they are ashamed to let you know who they are, lestyou should blush to find yourselves following such blind or self-interested
guides into the ditch, or as the instruments by which they obviously intend
you shall advance their interests, being separate and distinct from that of
yours and the public at large. Let them unmask themselves, and how many do
you think you would find among them whose profession is agriculture? Not
one; you will find them men of soft hands, active fingers, with fine clothes
and always living in the shade. Are you willing to believe that they tell you
the truth in what they say? Do you know them? Do you know whether
they are entitled to credibility? Surely, if you do not, the act of concealing
their names is a very unfavorable evidence of it. If a man intends to tell a
truth which the public ought to know, and therefore which is his duty to tell,
surely he should not be ashamed or refuse to give up his name and be considered as the author; and if he has not independence or integrity enough
to give up his name, is it safe in you to confide in him? No; I am sure you
will spurn from you, with contempt, the man who obtrudes his counsel on
you and tells you he is led to it from patriotism, and yet would not let you
see his face or tell his name. The great prototype of this society assumed the
mysterious shape of a serpent, to deceive Eve, and those men are attempting
to beguile you in the same way. They are known; and depend upon it, if
you shall ever find them out, you will then be satisfied that they had your
and the public good about as much at heart as the serpent had the happiness
of Eve. They express their joy at the independence of the people; I rejoice
at it, also. It is the only foundation of my hopes that they will not suffer
themselves to be lead and deceived by men who have so little of that virtue,
that they are unwilling to let their names accompany their acts. Would they
only avow their names, you would have as little difficulty in discovering the
motives of their conduct as if they were before the celebrated Temple of
Truth. You would then discover the predominancy of a peculiar and separate interest, totally distinct from the public good, and circumscribed by particular views of private emolument.




374        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
They wish for the purity of election, yet they have attempted to misguide
the public mind-for they speak of information they never possessed, of communications they never received, of a meeting that never took place: and
this can be proved to the satisfaction of any candid mind; and if the contrary is contended, they are now challenged to come from their hiding places
and contend the point before those upon whom they intended to dictate to,
and for whose welfare they felt such disinterested sensibility. If they cannot do this, let them come forth and show the propriety of attempting to
deceive the people for their good. What! shall they attempt to deceive the
people, in order to make them do right? Such is sometimes the method of
treating children-such conduct might suit the degraded slaves of the Eastsuch may be justifiable conduct in monarchical governments; but in this enlightened age-in a Government predicated upon the information, integrity,
independence and virtue of the people-every independent freeman must
recoil at such an idea. His mind must be filled with an honest indignation
at an attempt to feed him with pap-this slave-like, this childish victuals.
An independent man has no palate for it. What! not trust you with naked,
open truth, lest it might not answer the purpose? Not rely upon the strength
of your own minds? They pay a poor compliment to your understanding,
when they suppose you are to be influenced by them merely from the words
" general meeting," " unanimous resolves," etc.-as if they possessed all the force
and efficacy of a magical rod. But if it is admitted that they have a right
to deceive you for your good, they will next claim and exercise the right of
deceiving you for other purposes. This is the best apology that can be made
for this attempt to deceive you with the magnitude of their meeting and the
unanimity of their resolves; but are you willing to admit its truth? To
concede this point, finding that they have deceived you on one or two points,
what security is there that they have not done so throughout, and have intended to deceive you for their own and not your good? Let them remember
the fable of the little boy who cried "wolves!" and you can make the application. I cannot, for my part, confide in any man who I know has attempted
to deceive me; nor can I ever believe that any man's object is a laudable one,
when he attempts to attain it at the expense of truth and sincerity, and on
the ruins of the best principles of sound morality. They might as well contend for the right of taking off my head to prevent me from going to Congress,
or deprive you of a vote because you were not disposed to vote as they wished,
as to contend that they have a right to deceive and mislead you in order that
you might vote as they wished. They deprecate the idea of converting the
election into a mere trick, as they call it; and yet, you never discovered a
greater disposition to make use of tricks than they have attempted-and
all they lacked is the power of executing it with success; and the only
obstacle to it is the good sense of the people. Men who discover, with
ease, unworthy motives in others, are very apt to be led into the belief
from the operations of their own minds. Thus we find these men endeavoring to practice the most shallow trick, which they are charging
upon others-like the thief, when pursued, cries "stop thief!" to direct
the attention of the people from himself. This trick, they say, will be




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                375
produced, if the people give up their right to a "circling junta."  I confess that, although the epithet circling, as applied to junta, is borrowed, I
cannot discover its beauty or force in this case; but I am not disposed to dispute about terms. The members of this society are not, I presume, perfectly
free from superstitious notions, or they could not have calculated so much
from  the talismanic operation of "general meeting" and "unanimous resolves;" and as a circle was familiar to the magic art, and indeed, according
to vulgar ideas, necessary to its operation, they may have very naturally
associated the idea with juntas of which there are none, and I sincerely hope
there never will be any but their own. That their society has every requisite appertaining to junta, is evident. It is a clandestine association, composed of not more than five members, and has for its object certain ends, to
which any means will be subservient. It is not necessary for me to point out
the danger to be apprehended from such an association; they have done it
themselves. They confess it will convert elections into a "mere trick," by
which ambitious men may pass silently into power. The people, being thus
warned, I hope will at least be on their guard, and prevent this junta from
effecting their object, unless they will come forward unmasked, like the rest
of their fellow-citizens. They say they are afraid their brethren may relax
in their efforts to serve their friend, and they stimulate them by an assurance
that they are determined to support him with all their influence; and still
they say he does not need it, because he has gained ground. Do you believe
this? If they thought so, why their extraordinary efforts-why their uncommon exertions? But then, they say, the people are determined to vote as
becomes freemen, and will not be influenced by any man or set of men. If
they think so, where is the necessity for the efforts of their brethren? Surely
it would be absurd for them to try to influence the people, if they were determined to disregard it. How do they intend to support his election, if the
people are determined not to listen to their arguments? If, as they say, the
people are determined to do right, why not let them alone? The truth is,
they think all do right who do as they wish them; they will not allow any
other man to support his friend, but they must be allowed to support theirs;
they are opposed to all juntas but their own; they claim the exclusive right
of forming a junta, and I seriously hope none others will follow so pernicious
an example. I hope they will be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of plots,
tricks, etc.; but I also hope that the good sense of the people will not be
misled by them. I hope they will first show their claim to the privilege of
directing the people how to vote-and, if it is not unfounded, that they may
be left to the enjoyment of their own creed, and the people to their inde
pendence.
But it is not only the interest and the duty of each individual to act correctly himself, but also to use his influence in society to prevent any violation
of the letter and spirit of our Constitution. That the success of our Government and the preservation of liberty depend upon the purity of election, is
self-evident. Our greatest patriots, and best and wisest men, have proven
incontrovertibly that such was their belief; and the influence of their opinion
should be very great-for we find that there is scarcely a Constitution in the




376        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
United States under which treating at an election, or anything like it, is not
made a disqualification to the person guilty thereof from holding a seat in any
body to which he might be elected. Is there any one that does not consider
this a wise regulation? If it is a wise regulation, it is surely your interest
that it should exist in practice, and not merely have a place on paper. It will
bind the virtuous and conscientious man; for I can scarcely conceive how any
man, who has sworn to support the Constitution of his country, can reconcile
it to himself to violate it in its most essential provisions. It is evident that
it will bind the virtuous men; for them no such provision is necessary. It
was intended to restrain the vicious and ambitious, who would be disposed to
make use of any means to attain their end; and unless it is made to operate
as a check on them, the provision will be perfectly nugatory, and this will be
the same thing as if it did not exist at all; nay, infinitely worse, because it
gives to those who have no conscience an advantage over those who. have, inasmuch as the restraint of the virtuous adds additional strength to those of
the other class. If, then, you do not discountenance those who are disposed
to practice this corruption-if you do not withhold from such men your confidence, and teach them that it is their interest to act otherwise, in order to
gain your approbation-instead of inspiring the minds of your fellow-citizens
with a laudable and patriotic ambition to serve their country and excel in
virtue, you cherish their vices by rewarding them; you establish a school of
vice and depravity in our country, tending to contaminate not only the present, but succeeding generations; you foster in your own bosoms the deadly
adder, which, sooner or later, will sting you to death. The deadly poison
will insinuate itself into the heart of society, and from thence diffuse itself
throughout all parts of it. Let it be once conceded that you are willing to
see the practice of " treating" for an election once introduced among us, and
what will be the consequence? The precedent, once established, will become
less and less objectionable by becoming more familiar to you-it will finally
become fashionable, and ultimately necessary to success. I ask you, then,
where is your boasted equality? Where is the fair and open field in which
talents and merit may successfully exert themselves and receive their just reward? It will vanish forever, or only remain as a dream upon the mind. All
distinctions will then be confined to the rich-for they alone will be able to
meet the expenses of an election. A man in moderate circumstances, be his
talent ever so great, will not be able to contend with his more wealthy competitor; and we shall find ourselves completely under the dominion of an
aristocracy, while we are only amused with the name of a free government!
He who has paid the least attention to the current of events, or histories ot
other countries, may be satisfied that unless this most formidable enemy to
freedom, corruption, is successfully repelled, by the virtue and wisdom of the
people, in his first attempt to invade us, he will rise in his strength, like a
mighty torrent, and tear down everything before him.
Even in England treating for an election to the House of Commons, that
branch of the legislature of that country which consists of the immediate
representatives of the people, is severely prohibited, and made, also, a disqualification of the person guilty thereof; and had the regulation been strictly




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             377
adhered to, that country would have been free compared to what it now issuch oppression as their people now feel could not have reared its gigantic
head among them. The treating in England commenced, in the first instance,
as it seems to be commencing in the United States: as a harmless thing. It
was thought that the independent minds of the Britons were not to be influenced by it. It was practiced by the most indirect means-it was masked
under various pretences-till at length it has become the only engine of procuring an election; and it is no extraordinary thing, now, to hear of an election costing a candidate ~500.
Such has been the progress of it in England. Most dearly have the people
there paid for their toleration of it, till it became so formidable that they
cannot now resist it. Such will, I fear, be its progress in this country, unless
the people at large are disposed to benefit by the example and fatal experience of others. For the sake of guarding against the evils that have befallen
them-for the sake of public virtue on its own account-they should therefore
discourage the practice in any shape in which it can make its appearance. No
man in England ever said to another, "I give you this treat to vote for me,"
but, on the contrary, were he charged with it, he would deny it; he would
speak of his right to spend his money as he pleased, and resort to many other
evasions. So it is in this country. But inquire into the case as rational men.
If you find a man profusely spending his money in treating, while an election
is pending, what construction can you put on his conduct than that he is,
indirectly, attempting to buy your votes? You should ask yourself, "would
this man practice so much liberality, unless he had some object in view? Is
it his constant habit on all occasions?" If so, you must think him immensely
rich or very prodigal and imprudent, and very little calculated to manage his
own business; and surely a man incapable of managing his own affairs is not
very well qualified to manage the affairs of a nation. Therefore, if you find
him prodigal, there is no hopeful presage of his rendering the nation any
great services; for we can scarcely expect that a man who is very prodigal of
his own money, will be very careful of yours-at least there is danger. If,
on the other hand, you find his profusion only to exist during the pendency
of an election, you can draw no other conclusion than that it is for the purpose of advancing his election. Let it, then, be conceded that it must be to
promote his election-for surely he would not do so unless he had some
object in it, and this can be the only one-with whom does he expect to
advance his election, by this means? Surely, with those who drink his
whisky! He could not think it would benefit him, unless it was to do it in
this way. How, then, is it to benefit his election, unless he supposes that
more people will vote for him, in consequence of his whisky, than otherwise
would do so? Does he not, then,'attempt to buy their votes? Certainly;
for he buys the whisky, and this he gives for the purpose of getting votes,
and all he receives in consequence of it are as much bought as if, instead of
the whisky, he had paid the value of it in money. Whether he succeeds, or
not, it must be evident to all thinking men that this is his object; for his
giving the whisky does not render him any better qualified to serve you, and
-48




378        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
he evidently shows that he considers that your minds are to be influenced by
it. Would he give it unless he thought so? and is there anything that ought
to fill the minds of enlightened and independent freemen with more indignation, than an attempt of this kind? Is there anything more degrading to
them than such a supposition? Can a man insult them more than to show
that he conceives them so mean and mercenary? And can you suppose that
a man is not influenced by other motives than the public good, when he endeavors to succeed in his election by purchasing it-in other words, by bribery
and corruption?
This is the only view I am capable of taking of the subject, and I hope my
observations will be received as a sufficient apology for my not falling into
this too common practice. I cannot but feel too great respect for my fellowcitizens to show that I conceived them capable of being, either directly or
indirectly, corrupted; and if I did conceive them so, I cannot reconcile it to
my conscience either to practice it upon any one, or to violate that Constitution which I have sworn to support. I love rational liberty; I esteem the
practice of which I am speaking as the most formidable engine of attacking
it; and if we ever do lose our liberties, I will venture to predict that it will
only be effected by destroying the purity of elections.
No man is fonder of the approbation of his fellow-citizens than I am. My
disposition and habits have always led me to cultivate their friendship; I
esteem it a most distinguished honor, and a most valuable and desirable
acquisition; I am anxious to attain the honor of serving my country; I have
endeavored to qualify myself for it. But I am not disposed to attain this
honor by any other than the most honorable means! I can never sacrifice
my integrity, my ideas of propriety, or my independence, to procure it. I do
most sincerely wish your approbation, but I only wish it upon proper principles; and I am sure it is not your interest to give it upon any other. I therefore submit myself to your consideration, as a candidate for the honor I
solicit, upon the very small stock of merit you may conceive I possess.  I
pretend to no superiority over any other gentleman; I am sensible of my
own deficiency; I am influenced by no personal opposition to any man; nor
shall I attack the pretensions of any other person or say anything against
him, unless it shall be rendered necessary to my own defense. I will hold
myself ready to repel, and not commence, any attack-for this is the office of
the people, and not the candidate; it is your province, and not his, to decide
to whom the preference ought to be given.  But, being a freeman, I have a
right to offer myself to the district, and this I hope is not just cause of offense
to any one. It should not be to the people, for I enlarge their choice-and if
they do not choose to accept my services, I will cheerfully submit; and I do
sincerely hope that those who cannot reconcile it to themselves to vote for
me, will not consider me as their enemy on that account. I assure you I shall
consider no man my enemy merely because he does not prefer me, on this
occasion; but I may even indulge the hope that, though he cannot now prefer me, yet, probably, at some future period, when we may be better acquainted,
or with some other competitor, I may have his approbation.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              379
It is generally known throughout this country that I have exerted myself
on all occasions, hitherto, to promote the real interest of this district.  This
I did while I was a representative from Nelson county, before I ever came
among you; and I was then influenced by the purest republican views. My
wish was that every man might have an opportunity of procuring a freehold
of his own-that there might be as few tenants as possible-as I have always
considered tenants too subject to the influence of their landlords, and landlords in general so much disposed to abuse that influence, as to render it
dangerous and highly inimical to republicanism.
With these views I have zealously persevered in exerting the small portion
of the influence I possessed to ameliorate the situation of all the citizens of
this district, and to promote its general prosperity in every point of view
whatever; and I indulge the pleasing hope, the animating expectation and
the firmest persuasion that, from the particular manner in which our district
has been settled-from the facility with which the people could get and have
procured lands of their own-we shall be amongst the last people in America
to surrender our liberty and independence. And in whatever way I may be
treated by the people-even if I should not get a single vote at the approaching election-it shall not diminish in the least degree my zeal for the welfare
of the district, or my exertions to promote the public good. I hope I shall
be permitted to say that, if such was my conduct before I came among you,
or possessed the least interest in the country, it is unreasonable to suppose
that I should depart from it, after I had identified my interest with yours, by
having permanently settled among you and concentrated in the district every
particle of property I possess in the world. No, sirs; my interest being
similar to that of the great mass of my fellow-citizens-having no interest
separate and distinct from theirs-deriving my principal support, at this very
time, from the cultivation of the earth-there is no measure that could be
adopted, that would be oppressive upon them, but would be equally so upon
me. You have, therefore, the best security for my fidelity-inasmuch as, by
promoting your interest in the best manner possible, I at the same time
should, in equal proportion, advance my own. As to my qualifications to serve
you, I say nothing-you must judge for yourselves; but, as far as they extend,
they shall be exerted with the utmost zeal to promote yours and the public
good. More I cannot promise.
Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the bill to abolish Credit in the sale of
the Public Lands.
Mr. PRESIDtENT:
It has not been nor is it now my object to defeat the bill, as it has been
suggested.  Indeed, I am so far reconciled to its principles, that, if liberal
and equitable provisions were contained in it in favor of persons actually
settled upon public land, it should have my support; but these I have not
deemed it practicable to obtain, and therefore I have limited my views to
the proposition which I have submitted, not hitherto doubting that, from its




380        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
reasonableness, it would succeed; and in that event I have felt disposed,
during the whole of the present session, to acquiesce in the proposed arrangement.
The objects of my proposition are to dispose of public lands which will not
sell for cash; to accommodate actual settlers who have not cash to give; and
to promote the settlement of the public lands. I cannot but feel astonished
that objects so just and reasonable should excite any serious opposition, more
especially with gentlemen from that section of the country in which those
lands are situated. I am not one of those who are disposed to contend that
the law of nature is paramount to and should control the positive institutions
of society; but I do contend that those institutions should, as far as practicable, be predicated upon and consistent with this law; and that as all men
have a natural right, according to the beneficent intention of the Creator of
the world to a portion of the land which lie has made for their benefit, no
government, having large tracts of waste and unappropriated land, can,
without acting flagrantly unjust, and contrary to the Divine intention and
will, withhold from those of its citizens who are unable to advance cash, such
a portion of land as they may need, upon the terms proposed by my amendment. The case might be put in a much stronger point of view, but this is
sufficient for my present purpose, and I hope it will not be denied by those
whose veneration and respect for natural law and the Divine will have been
so recently exhibited before this house.
In opposition to the amendment which I have submitted, it has been stated,
by the Honorable Chairman of.the Committee on Public Lands, that the
object of it is to defeat the bill, and that, if agreed to, it would produce a
mongrel system  I can assure the gentleman that I had no hopes of defeating
the bill, that I had no intention of attempting it, and that I had reconciled
my mind to submission upon the subject, with a sincere desire that the change
might not excite those discontents and evil consequences which I feared it
might produce. But, sir, fhere is not that incongruity between my amendment and the bill, which the gentleman seems to suppose. His plan is to sell,
for prompt payment, all the lands that will command cash; mine is a limited
appropriation of a small part of those lands which will not sell under his
system, and to extend credit to those poor people who may be actual settlers
thereon, and who are otherwise unable to acquire a home.  And really, considering the quantity of land in the gentleman's own State, which he himself
knows will not sell for cash, and supposing it probable that there might be a
portion of the population of that as well as other States who might be accom.
modated by the measure I propose, I was somewhat surprised to find that the
gentleman was not equally anxious with myself to extend the settlement of
his own State, and provide as far as practicable, consistently with natural justice, for all classes of the citizens thereof
As to its being a mongrel system, because a part of the public lands will
be sold for cash and a small portion upon a credit-if experience can be
relied upon, there is nothing very substantial in this objection. I need not,
I am sure, remind the honorable gentleman that for many years such a mou



LETTERS AND SPEECIIES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             381
grel system has prevailed, and under the present law more land has, from
time to time, been sold for prompt payment, than will probably be sold on
credit if my amendment should prevail; and that hitherto experience has not
demonstrated any very great inconvenience or objection from selling lands at
the same office for cash as well as upon credit.
When I had the honor, a few days since, of submitting to the Senate the
amendment now under consideration, I expressly declared my intention to
abstain from all discussion of the merits of the proposed change in the manner of disposing of the public lands —not because I did not think that
weighty and important considerations forbid the contemplated change, particularly in the present crisis of our affairs, but from the resistless conviction,
which was forced upon me by circumstances not necessary to be repeated, that
all efforts to arrest the measure in this house, at the present moment, would
l)e utterly fruitless. Strong, however, as was that conviction, I did not expect to witness that impatience and anxiety to precipitate the measure, which
I thought was evinced not less by the manner of pressing it than the nature
of the opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Alabama,
as well as the one offered by myself. His amendment, having the most natural affinity to several provisions contained in the bill itself, embraces the very
debt from which so much is apprehended-proposed a natural and rational
remedy for the very evil which is said to demand the contemplated changeand related directly to the sale of the public lands, the object of the bill
itself; yet gentlemen seriously contend that it would be better and more appropriate to engraft it in a bill hereafter to be acted upon, whose sole object
is to extend certain additional credits upon installments now due, and with
which object no other has hitherto been permitted to be united on any of the
similar occasions that have presented themselves in the course of several years'
legislation upon the subject.
Little did I expect such an innovation upon all former precedents to be
recommended by gentlemen whose transcendent abilities have so lately been
exerted to advocate what has been called single legislation, and to demonstrate the impropriety of uniting two distinct objects in the same bill. But,
were their recommendation to be followed, I do not think it more probable
that their objections to the union of Maine and Missouri would have vanished, if the restriction they so much desired had been imposed upon the latter, than that they would then be as zealous to defeat the object of the
amendment as they now are; for while, without attempting to impugn the
merits of our amendments, or to show that they have not a natural connection
with the subject of the bill, they earnestly advise us to change our position,
they do not, even in that event, promise us their support-and for my own
part I cannot consent, in these inauspicious times, to camp upon the ground
selected by my enemy. Let it be remembered that I have as much reason to
believe that their object is to defeat my amendment, as they have to assert
that my object in offering, the amendment is merely to defeat their bill.
I am sorry that the honorable gentleman from Alabama thought proper to
withdraw his amendment, and am happy to learn that it is his intention again




382        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
to offer it.  I am decidedly of the opinion that the cases which it presents
loudly call for the interposition of the National Legislature. All of us must
be convinced of the folly and delusion with which those persons for whose
benefit it was intended were misled. Nothing, since the days of the celebrated South Sea and Mississippi schemes, has been more fallacious and visionary
than the calculations with which those deluded persons have been betrayed;
and the Government I hope will be too magnanimous to wish to profit by the
folly of its own citizens, or to take advantage, like a ruthless sharper, of those
indiscretions which it has, in a great degree, been instrumental in encouraging-especially when it can abstain from doing so without being placed in
a worse condition than it would have been in if those sales had never taken
place. I cannot, however, think that the gentleman's amendment has any
suitable connection with the bill in which it has been proposed to incorporate it; and I apprehend the gentleman would find himself greatly mistaken,
if, either in a separate or any other bill, he should suppose it would be more
likely to succeed than in the one now under consideration, which relates toand provides a mode of disposing of the very lands for which his amendment
was intended to provide. 
The alleged ground for all this eagerness to change the present system of
disposing of the public lands is, that our fellow-citizens, during a period of
extraordinary and general delusion, purchased more lands than it is supposed
they can conveniently pay for-and, therefore, to save others who are wholly
guiltless of such indiscretion, you determine to abolish the system, lest they
should hereafter be tempted to injure themselves in like manner.
Following up those principles with the same parental care, and I ask
whether they would not equally admonish you to abolish foreign commerce
abandon manufactures, and prostrate all your banking systems which have
demoralized and disgraced your country?  Have the temptations presented
by these objects, during the period alluded to, been less alluring and seductive, or less disastrous to individuals or the Government, than those of your
land system? So far from it, your commerce and your banks may be justly
considered as the primary cause of the evils that are supposed to have resulted
from that system, as well as of many others of infinitely more importance;
but it seems that the lessons of experience are thought to be sufficient to produce every requisite correction on this side of the mountains, whilst it is
presumed that all its admonitions will be totally lost upon the people of the
West, unless it be kindly aided by the interposition of your coercive guardianship over them-which is indeed a species of kindness that gentlemen in
a certain quarter of our country would have been very willing to have dispensed with, in certain restrictive and embargo times, when. it was thought
that people should be permitted to judge of and pursue their own interest
according to their own notions.
That excessive purchases, as they were called, of foreign goods, as well as
land, have been made, and that the former have been attended with consequences much the most injurious, will, I presume, hardly be denied; yet, I




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               383
believe there is very little prospect of withholding that positive encouragement which is given to the purchases by the credit on merchants' bonds, from
which the Government is liable to lose, and no doubt has lost greatly-whereas it is impossible to lose by the credit given under your land system, because
the land is always liable for the debt that may be due upon it. And really,
sir, I think that large debts due by merchants to the Government are aslikely
to produce an influence upon its councils, as debt due by the plain and honest
agriculturists of the West.
The gentleman from New York foresees great political dangers from the
debt now due and to become due for public lands, and has frequently endeavored to illustrate his apprehensions by a reference to the case of the settlers on the south side of Green River, in the State of Kentucky. No man is
is more minutely acquainted with that case than I am; and did I not know
how hopeless a task it is to try to convince gentlemen against their wills, I
think I could most satisfactorily demonstrate that his apprehensions are without foundation, and that, in the very case alluded to, the lands could neither.have been kept out of the market, nor disposed of in any other way, so as to
have produced more general satisfaction or less injurious political consequences. Sir, it is the public land, not the debt, which is the most liable to
create those political dangers that are so much to be deprecated; as an illustration of which, I can refer the gentleman to a case much less equivocal than
the one on which he relies-I mean the celebratedicontests relative to the
agrarian law, from their first commencement throughout all the convulsive
struggles to which they gave rise. In spite of the theories to the contrary,
the best practical expedient to guard against those dangers is to facilitate the
acquisition of land to all those who are disposed to purchase. But, supposing the debt now due to be as ruinous to individuals and as dangerous to the
Government as the gentleman presumes-what could be a more appropriate
remedy, or more just and politic on the part of the Government, than to cancel the contracts as proposed by the gentleman from Alabama, when it can do
so and still be placed in a better situation than it would have been if those
debts had never been contracted? Surely, sir, we ought not to be alarmed at
dangers that are capable of being so easily avoided by so small a sacrifice.
Resolutions, prepared by Gov. Edwards, against relinquishing to Great Britain any part of the
provinces of Canada that we may acquire by conquest.
Although, at the time, a citizen of Illinois, Gov. Edwards prepared the
following resolutions, to be submitted at a public meeting of the citizens of
Logan county, in the State of Kentucky, convened upon previous notice, for
the purpose of taking into consideration our difficulties with Great Britain
during the late war:
WHEREAS, in the prosecution of the present just and necessary war, which
has been forced upon these United States by the persevering injustice of Great
Britain, it has pleased the Almighty Disposer of Events to crown our arms
with success in the province of Upper Canada-and confidently relying upon




384         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
the justice of our cause and the blessing of the same Almighty Being, we
anticipate like success in Lower Canada; and whereas, we have seen, in the
newspapers published in different parts of the Union, strong remonstrances
against relinquishing to Great Britain any part of their provinces which we
either have conquered or may conquer, during the war; tlereby implying a
doubt of the steadfast determination of our Government to retain the same;
we deem it not less our privilege than our duty to express our opinion upon
the subject. And, therefore,
Resolved (as our opinion), That the entire conquest of tile Canadas is required by the injustice of Great Britain towards us. That their acquisition
is expedient for us, by opening to us new sources of wealth and prosperity in
the vast fur trade of North-western America; in facilitating intercourse
between the waters of the Rivers St Lawrence, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio;
in expelling from our border an unprincipled neighbor, whose hostility has
even increased with our increase of prosperity, and who, regardless of his
own honor, and callous to the dictates of humanity, has heretofore employed
and would on any future occasion employ and encourage his merciless savage
allies to commit their ruthless barbarities upon wounded prisoners, unoffending citizens, and helpless women and children. And, therefore, it is our opinion, that the relinquishment of the Canadas (or any other of their provinces
which we may conquer) to Great Britain, after the treasures that have been
spent and the precious blood which has been and must be profusely shed, in
obtaining them, would forego all those advantages, produce recurrence of
those calamities which we have witnessed and deplored, be injurious to
the character of the United States and particularly oppressive upon the
Western country, whose citizens would ere long be called on to make the
same conquests, then rendered more difficult by those precautions which the
enemy's late experience would teach him to adopt.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions, signed by the (hairman and
countersigned by the secretary of this meeting, be transmitted to our brave
and patriotic Governor, to the representatives of this county in the Legislature, and to our representatives in Congress-all of whom are respectfully
requested to take such measures as to them may appear most proper, to give
to the foregoing sentiments permanency and efficiency.
The substance of the remarks of Mr. Edwards, of Illinois, in the Senate of the United Stales,
on the following lesolution, viz:
"Resolved, That appropriations of territory, for the purpose of Education, should be made to
those States, in whose favor no such appropriations have been made, corresponding in just proportion with those heretofore made to other States in the Union."
3Mr. PRESIDENT: Notwithstanding that any opposition to the resolution upon your table, on the part of the representatives of the new States, has been
denounced as "disreputable to their characters for honesty and justice," not
only by many of our most distinguished and patriotic public journals, but
also by one of the most respectable States of the Union, yet, sir, a sense of
duty will not permit me to decline an investigation of the subject, hopeless




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.               385
as it may be, to oppose my feeble efforts to the transcendent abilities with
which the proposition under consideration has been supported, and, unpleasant as it is, to subject myself to imputations which the zeal of many of its
ablest advocates affords me but little prospect of escaping. I shall, however,
carefully endeavor to follow the example of the honorable gentleman who
has just resumed. his seat (Mr. Lloyd), in treating the subject with such deference to the feelings of others, as to furnish no ground of exception to any
gentleman with whom it may be my misfortune to differ in opinion. And
permit me to say, sir, that, equally with the gentleman from Maryland, appreciating the advantages of education-regarding it as a most efficient means
of increasing the virtue, knowledge and happiness of mankind and of imparting additional moral power, stability and embellishment to our republican institutions-it would afford me the sincerest gratification to unite with him in
any just and proper measure for the advancement of that important object.
But, sir, it appears to me to be doubtful, at least, whether Congress can rightfully adopt, for that purpose, the measure now under consideration.
The appropriation which we are asked to make is avowed to be for a mere
State purpose, and in that point of view I shall proceed to consider it under
every modification of which it is susceptible. The question, then, is, can twhe
resources of this nation be thus applied? This should be tested by principle,
rather than by the " precedents upon precedents" referred to and relied upon
by the gentleman from Maryland, for this Government is much too young to
acknowledge the force of any precedents, not founded upon, and much less
of those which are in opposition to, principle; and gentlemen who are disposed to avail themselves of an argument deduced from mere precedents, in
the present case, ought to recollect how little inclined they would be to respect
such authority, in a variety of other cases that might be referred to.
In discussing this subject, I may, I presume, safely premise that the duties,
powers and objects of the Federal and State Governments are separate and
distinct, and that the success of our whole govermental experiment, and the
prosperity and happiness of this nation, depend upon the fidelity and wisdom with which those governments respectively discharge their appropriate
functions. Each government has, for those important purposes, and as necessary thereto, its own particular resources, which cannot be yielded up or misapplied without impairing its capacity to fulfill the objects of its institution,
for nothing could be more nugatory than a grant of powers without the
means of executing them. The resources of this Government are found from
experience to be, at this time, inadequate to its wants; any measure, therefore,
whose tendency would be, further to embarrass and cripple its operations,
must be deemed highly inexpedient at least.
Mr. President, the gentleman from Maryland appears to have reviewed,
with critical accuracy, all the events connected with the acquisition of the
national domain, and he has with great perspicuity traced out the origin and
demonstrated the validity of our title to it. But, sir, whether it has been acquired by conquest, cessions from particular States, or purchases from foreign
powers, one thing is undeniable-it has doubtless been acquired by and exclusively belongs to the Confederation or Union. It must, therefore, be con-49




386         tETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
sidered as National and not State property, and by fair inference is applicable
only to National and not State objects. It is true, as contended by the honorable gentleman, that it is a common fund, in which all the States are interested.
So, sir, is the revenue, and every other species of property belonging to the
United States, in relation to all of which the interest of the States is precisely
the same. Being a common fund, applicable to the use and support of the
General Government, the States can enjoy the benefits of it only in its just
and legitimate application to national purposes. I hold, therefore, that no
State can rightfully claim, and of course to none can be granted, the separate
and distinct use and enjoyment of the property or funds of the nation, in consequence of a right to a common participation therein.
Independent, however, of these general considerations, the adoption of the
proposed measure is, I think, forbidden by a just regard to the positive stipulations of the United States with the States which ceded the public domain
on the cast side of the Mississippi River.  Let us, for a moment, attend
to the circumstances under which those cessions were nmade, which have
been so eloquently narrated and commented upon by the gentleman from
Maryland.
During our revolutionary struggle, which eventuated so happily in the establishment of our liberty and independence, the pecuniary resources of the
nation had been exhausted; and, at the close of the contest, it found itself
loaded with a heavy debt, incurred in the prosecution of the war, which it had
not the means of discharging, but which every dictate of justice, honor and
gratitude required should be provided for, at the earliest practicable period,
by every means which the nation could command.
Several of the States claimed large tracts of waste ant unappropriated territory, in the Western country, as being within their chartered limits. These
claims had long been the subject of much animated and somtimes irritating
discussion, as is sufficiently obvious from the authorities read by the gentleman from Maryland. The States which had no part in those lands had earnestly insisted that, if the dominion over them should be established by the
common force and treasure of the United States, they ought to be appropriated as a common fund for defraying the expenses of the war. Congress, appealing to the generosity, magnanimity and patriotism of the States having
those claims, had recommended and solicited liberal cessions of a portion of
them, for the same purpose-promising, as inducements thereto, by the very
resolution which the honorable gentleman has read to you, that all the lands
which might be so ceded or relinquished, should be disposed of for the common
benefit of the United States; that they should be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which should be admitted into the Federal Union;
and, that the regulations for granting and for settling those lands should be
prescribed by Congress.
The States thus appealed to yielding, at length, to a laudable spirit of harmony and conciliation, made the cessions which had been requested of them
-not, however, without stipulating, very explicitly, that those lands should
be considered as a common fund for the use and benefit of the Union, as it
then was or thereafter might be; and that they should be faithfully and bozna




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              387
fide disposed of for that common purpose, "and for no other use or purpose
whatsoever."
The United States, therefore, having solicited and accepted the cessions
upon such terms-under such circumstances-having bound themselves, by
solemn compact, to dispose of those lands for the use and benefit of the Union,
"and for no other use or purpose whatsoever," Congress cannot now, I think,
consistently with good faith and honor, disregard those solemn engagements
by withdrawing the whole or any part of the fund so surrendered from the
use of the Union, and appropriating it to that of any one or more States.
Sir, the stipulations of the United States embrace the whole of those lands.
If, then, you can withdraw any part of them from the use for which they
were specially solicited, ceded and accepted, where, I beg leave to ask the
gentleman from Maryland, is the limit to your power over them? Why may
you not as well make partition of the whole of them among the several States
of the Union? And how, then, would you fulfill the stipulations of the United States? First, that the regulations for granting and for settling those
lands should be prescribed by Congress. Secondly, that they should be settled. Thirdly, that being settled, they should be formed into distinct republican States, and admitted into the Federal Union. It cannot be contended
that we are competent to delegate powers for such purposes to the States;
for, if that lbe the case, there are no powers with which we are invested that
might not, with equal propriety, be transferred.
Mr. President, it is no answer to these objections to contend, as the gentleman from Maryland seems to do, that the claims of the ceding States were
not just and valid, for, however defective they may have been originally, the
United States, by accepting the cessions upon special conditions, must be
considered as having admitted the right and bound themselves to comply
with the conditions-otherwise there could be no faith and confidence reposed
in any adjustment, arrangement or contract with the Government. [Here Mr.
Lloyd rose and explained the remarks he had made; and, having resumed
his seat, Mr. Edwards again proceeded.]
Mr. President, in consequence of the explanations of the honorable gentleman, I shall forbear the remarks I had intended to make upon this part of
the subject. But, sir, let it even be admitted that the claims of those States
were wholly defective-that they had never made any cessions whateverthat the United States had never entered into any stipulations in relation to
the subject-and that the public domain had actually been conquered by the
united valor of all the States-still it would have been an acquisition, made,
not in their State but in their Federal character, in which latter character,
only, could they participate in the use and benefits of it. For, being a Federal acquisition, it could not, without a total prostration of our whole system
of Government, be annihilated as such, by being partitioned out, in due proportion, among the several States of the Union. Where, sir, is delegated the
power that is competent to make such a division, either of the whole or a
part? The State Governments most assuredly have no control over the subject; and surely those, to whom the powers of the Federal Government are




388         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
entrusted, never could, rightfully, annihilate its own resources for any such
purpose.
If, however, sir, the gentleman from Maryland is correct in the opinions
which he has supported with equal zeal and ability, then, indeed, sir, may
the States rightfully claim and Congress rightfully grant partition of all the
territory purchased of France and Spain with the common funds of the nation, to be appropriated to objects to which powers of Federal legislation are
not pretended to extend. Then, indeed, sir, may the revenue, and every other
species of property belonging to the United States, receive a similar destination: for they all constitute "the common funds of the nation," in which the
States are interested; and the powers and objects of appropriation, as granted
to Congress by the Constitution of the United States, are equally precise,
defined and limited, in relation to all the funds of the nation, without dis
crimination.
In the specification of those powers, there is none, either expressed or implied, to warrant the appropriation now asked for. It cannot be inferred,
from the general power to make all needful rules and regulations for disposing of the territory and other property of the United States; for candor must
admit that the plain and natural inference from this want of power is, that
the property of the Union should be disposed of for the use and benefit of
the Union-and that, too, in strict conformity with the legitimate powers of
Federal legislation-and, solely, in aid of the great objects thereof. If, then,
the States, respectively, have no right to the separate and distinct use and
enjoyment of the common property and funds of the nation, whence do we
derive the power to confer such a right upon them? And if the control over
those funds be intrusted to the Federal Legislature for National and not for
State purposes, I beg leave, also, seriously to ask gentlemen whether we can
appropriate them to the latter without a most palpable violation of the trust
confided to us?
In addition to all these objections, there is one more which cannot be disregarded, so long as we retain the slightest respect for the just and lawful acts
of our predecessors, or consider the high character for justice, honor and good
faith, which this Government has hitherto so justly acquired and maintained,
both at home and abroad, as worth preserving.
The first Congress, composed principally of the venerable sages and patriots of the revolution, duly considering the purposes for which the public
lands had been ceded, and disposed fairly to fulfill the stipulations of the
United States in relation to them, by the act of 1790, solemnly pledged, not
only those, but all other lands which the United States might thereafter acquire, for the payment of the public debts, expressly declaring that they
should be applied solely to that use, until those debts should be fully satisfied.
By the act of 1795, this pledge is again repeated in language still more
energetic, for the faith of the United States is therein also expressly pledged
that those lands shall remain inviolably apppropriated to the payment of
those debts, until the same shall be completely effected.




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.                389
At various other periods, between 1790 and 1817, inclusive, has this subject
been brought under the review of different Congresses, and as often has the
same pledge been renewed. And thus has been created a solemn compact between the United States and the public creditors. Seeing it, then, supported
by so many repeated enactments, and sanctioned as it has been, to this day,
by the public sentiment of the nation, shall we now violate it? lave our
predecessors acted unjustly or unwisely in making it? If not, we ourselves,
though bound by no previous obligations, ought, for the sake of justice, to be
willing to do the same thing, if it were now to be acted upon for the first
time; for the Government ought to be just before it pretends to be generous,
especially at the expense of others.
[Mr. E. here read several sections of the laws containing the pledges referred
to, and contended that the faith of the United States being pledged that the
whole of the public lands should remain inviolably appropriated to the payment of public debts, they should be appropriated solely to that use, until
those debts should be fully satisfied; and a vast amount of them   still
remaining unpaid, no part of the national domain could be rightfully
appropriated to the purposes contemplated by the resolution under considera -
tion.]
And if, indeed, sir, we have on any former occasion, through inadvertence
or from other causes, misapplied any part of this fund, so far from furnishing
an argument in favor of persevering in a course so unjustifiable, I appeal to
the candor of the gentleman from Maryland, as he does to mine, to say
whether it does not, incontestably, give to the public creditors an additional
claim upon us to forbear all further willful misapplications?
But, sir, let us inquire into the extent of the application we are called upon
to make. Instead of the " small slice," as described by the gentleman from
Maryland, it is to the enormous amount of about ten millions of acres of the
national domain; which, at the average price at which those lands have
hitherto been sold, would produce a sum nearly equal, if not entirely so, to
the whole amount of the net proceeds of the sale of public lands received
into the treasury of the United States, during the last nineteen or twenty
years. It would be needless to review the extraordinary circumstances which,
in this period, so powerfully contributed to augment the receipts of the
treasury, from this source of our revenue. Similar causes are not likely to
recur for many years to come, and calculating upon the sales that have been
made since those causes have ceased to operate, a much longer period, probably
not less than double that length of time, would be requisite to effect sales to
the same amount.
What, then, Mr. President, is to be the consequence of granting this quantity of land to the States, in whose favor it is applied for? It surely cannot
be, seriously, intended to vest the old States with power to plant colonies of
tenants in the new ones. This would be impracticable, and to those States
utterly useless. Waiving other important considerations, which I forbear
even to allude to, the vast extent of the national domain, and the cheapness
of unimproved lands, thank God for it, afford but little prospect of renting




390         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
such lands to advantage, or even of having them settled and improved for
the use of them.
The object, then, must be either to authorize the States to dispose of the
land, or that this Government shall become their auctioneer for that purpose.
The ifrmer would be transferring to those States a power exclusively delegated to Congress; a right to do that, which, according to the stipulations
before referred to, can only be performed by Congress. For I take it for
granted that, if you cannot vest in the States the right to dispose of their
respective interests in the whole of the public lands, you can transfer to them
no power to dispose of any part of them. But, sir, supposing there is nothing solid in this objection, what is to be the effect upon your treasury, of
authorizing the States to sell the land proposed to be granted to them?
They must enter into competition with you. In proportion to the extent of
their sales, whatever they may be, yours must be diminished, because not
only the price, but the sale of land must depend upon the relation which supp)ly bears to demand; for if the price be so low and the supply so great that
it ceases to be an object of speculation, there can be no motive to purchase it
but for cultivation. As the Government, however, would still have an infinitely greater variety of lands to select from, the States could not sell at all,
to any extent, without underselling the Government. This, therefore, they
must do-otherwise their lands would be of no use to them. Recollect, sir, the
millions of acres which you have granted in military bounties. These have
already come into competition with you at the reduced price of from twenty
to forty dollars a quarter section, and have most materially curtailed your
sales. Add to them the ten millions of acres now proposed to be granted,
you must abolish your present system of sales, and abandon your minimum
price altogether or close up your land offices for twenty, thirty or forty years
to come.
Take, then, sir, if you please, the other alternative, that the Government
shall dispose of the land for the benefit of those States. To this, some gentlemen seem to think there can be no objection, because the Constitution has
delegated to Congress the power of disposing of the property of the United
States, though that power is, by express stipulation and plain and obvious
inference, coupled with the positive duty of disposing of such property for
the benefit of the Union. By this plan, however, the injurious effects of
competition might be avoided and the present minimum price preserved.
But, as has already been shown, it would require some twenty years at least
to dispose of the land, though not an acre should, in the meantime, be sold
for the benefit of the Union. This would, indeed, be transforming Federal
into State agents; abstracting them from duties for whose performance they
were solely created, and devotinig them to a pretty long servitude to mere
State purposes. Now, sir, admitting we have a right to give away land to
the States, whence do we derive the power to constitute ourselves, and our
successors too, their agents and trustees? Or to convert this Government into
such State machinery?




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              391
But, sir, putting the best possible aspect upon this plan, it can amount to
nothing less than a virtual grant of money, to be paid out of the public treasury, with a pledge of our already pledged, repledged, triple, quadruple,
quintruple pledged public lands for its payment. Is, then, that a proper
time for making such an appropriation, when the receipts of the treasury are
not more than adequate to the current expenses of the Government? when
the Government has to support itself by loans of five millions at a time?
and when every man in the nation, of ordinary sagacity, must be convinced
that we must soon resort to a permanent system of internal taxation. Sir, it
cannot be disguised from tle people of this nation that, in proportion as we
misapply or impair any of the ordinary sources of revenue, additional burthens must be imposed upon thelm; and can it be supposed that they will be
reconciled to an appropriation to such an amount-attended with such consequences-without even the pretense of power on the part of Congress to
enforce its application to the objects for which it is to be granted?
But, sir, what is to be the extent to which the new doctrines upon which
the present proposition is supported are to lead us? One false step begets
another. If, because one thirty-sixth part of the national domain in the new
States has been appropriated to the support of education therein, the States
in which there is no public land are entitled to an appropriation of equal
amount, as contended by the gentleman from Maryland, why may they not,
with equal propriety and justice, claim a much larger proportion of the net
proceeds of the sale of public land for a different purpose, and one, too, which
has not escaped the attention of the honorable gentleman, but has been several times referred to by him in the course of his remarks. By stipulations
with the new States, one-twentieth of those proceeds is appropriated to the
making of roads in and leading to them. Are not roads, as well as education, equally necessary to every State in the Union? And if you grant the
proposed appropriation for the support of education upon the principles
contended for by the gentleman from Maryland-not asked as a favor, but,
according to his own language, " demanded as a right"-upon what ground
can you refuse the suggested appropriation for public roads? If the latter
be granted, then will not only this source of national revenue be completely
annihilated, but other sources must be rendered tributary to the States; for
if a sum equal to one-twentieth of the proceeds of the sale of public land is
to be granted to each State, then as certainly as twenty-twentieths are the
whole, those proceeds can only satisfy twenty States, and the balance must
be paid out of some other branch of the revenue.
In short, sir, it appears to me that we have no more right to grant to the
States the funds than the powers of this Government, for take from it its
pecuniary resources and destroy its character for good faith, and it would be
idle mockery to pretend to talk about its powers.
Mr. President, in the remarks which I have lad the honor to submit to
your consideration, I have attempted to show that, upon principle, the proposition under consideration ought not to be acceded to. But, says the gentleman from Maryland, similar donations have been made to the new States.




392        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
Admit it, sir-what then? If the cases be analogous, and my argument be
well founded, that also is wrong.  And can we derive from one error a just
and lawful right to commit another of still greater magnitude?  If our predecessors have violated the fundamental principles of the Government, disregarded its most sacred obligations, prostrated its faith, and assumed powers
never delegated to them, does this confer upon us the right of further usurpations?  If that be the case, then truly have we discovered a most convenient means of acquiring power-after which, man at all times lusteth a
little too strongly. Such a principle, however, never can be recognized by
this enlightened Senate. The precedent referred to therefore, if in point, I
contend is destitute of all authority, because, as such, it would be most palpably erroneous. But it will not, I think, upon a fair and candid examination, be found to warrant the argument that is attempted to be drawn
from it.
I shall endeavor to show that the parallel between tlose cases does not run
quite as far as seems to have been imagined by the gentleman from Maryland,
but that there are striking diversities in them, affording ground for such antlonest difference of opinion, at least, as requires the exercise of a very moderate
portion of common charity to believe that gentlemen may support the one and
oppose the other, without intentional injustice or inconsistency.  The one,
sir, is a case decided upwards of thirty-six years ago, by the gentleman's own
showing; confirmed by repeated subsequent decisions, and universally acquiesced in. The other is a case purely res integra, never before acted upon, or
even agitated. In supporting the former, we are, therefore, fortified with the
concurring sentiment of the nation, and the positive approbation of all our
predecessors since the year 1785.  In forbearing to adopt the latter, we are
equally supported by their example-and opinion, too, sir, as far as it can be
inferred from their conduct; and it would not, I think, be a very modest
pretension, on our own part, to claim for ourselves more wisdom to discern or
virtue to execute our duties, than was possessed by so many of the wisest
heads and best hearts that ever adorned any nation.  Appreciating the advantages of education, as they must have done, and not less devoted to the
interests of their respective States than ourselves, had they considered those
cases as presenting equal claims upon them, they never.would have provided
for the one so promptly, and have postponed and totally neglected the other
so long. The gentleman from Maryland, therefore, in his eloquent appeals
to the magnanimity of the members from the new States, ought not to forget
that, whatever disapprobation is fairly due to their opposition to the particular
measure which he presses with so much ardor and ability, equally applies to
those distinguished sages and patriots who have retired from the stage of
public action with so much honor and glory, or whose souls have fled to
anothcr and better world to receive the rewards of the virtues they practiced
in this.
Sir, the great and leading distinction between those cases is, that the one
had for its object the common benefit and advantage of all the States, in their
federal character; the other is intended for the particular use and benefit of




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             393
certain States in their State character.  The former was conformable to the
powers and objects of federal legislation, and consistent with the stipulations
of the United States with the States which ceded their lands, and can only
be justified upon such grounds; the latter is warranted'by no delegation of
authority whatever, either expressed or implied, and would be in direct contravention of those stipulations, and, therefore, cannot be supported at all.
The one involved no breach of engagements with the public creditors, since
the pledge of the proceeds of the sale of public lands imposed no obligation
to change a mode of disposing of them, which had then been five years in
operation; the other would be a most flagrant violation of the faith of the
United States, solemnly pledged to those creditors.
The gentleman from Maryland contends that there has been no contcmporaneods construction to warrant a distinction between those cases.  But, sir,
never, perhaps, was there a case in which the evidences of such a construction
were stronger, or its authority entitled to more respect, than is evinced by
all the circumstances attending the cessions of our public lands-the mode of
disposing of them which was shortly afterwards adopted —and the constant
adherence to the same system from that time to the present period.
In the adoption of this system, under which the reservations for the support of education were made, the most enlightened patriots of the nation,
who had taken an active part in relation to those lands, the States which insisted that the cessions ought to be made, the States that made them, and
Congress which accepted them, all concurred.  This general concurrence,
therefore, was the best possible practical exposition of the intentions of all
parties in relation to the manner in which this fund might be fairly and
justly disposed of for the common use and benefit of the Union.
Sir, it cannot be supposed that the States which had so strenuously insisted
that those lands should be appropriated as a common fund for defraying the
expenses of the war-the States which stipulated, with such jealous caution,
that they should be faithfully disposed of for the common use and benefit of
the Union, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever-and Congress, which
accepted them upon that express condition, should so soon afterwards have
intended to make a partial disposition of any portion of them.
Virginia, sir, had made much the most important and valuable cessionnot, however, without some apparent hesitation at least. If then the system
for disposing of those lands had been understood to contain any unjust and
partial appropriation of them, in favor of any State or States, to the exclusion
of Virginia, it is particularly extraordinary, not only that her wise and sagacious representation, by which she has always been eminently distinguished,
should have acquiesced in it, but that, two years afterwards, two of her most
distinguished representatives-and Mr. Madison himself one of those twoshould have united in a report to Congress strongly recommending the same
system, with the additional reservation of the twenty-ninth section of each
township to be given in perpetuity for religious purposes. It is evident, therefore, that the system was adopted for the common benefit and advantage of
all the States, and that it furnishes neither precedent nor apology for an
-50




394        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
appropriation of the national funds to the particular use and benefit of any
State.
Sir, it must be manifest, from this view of the subject, that the distinction
I have endeavored t6 draw between those cases is supported by the practical
exposition which has been given to all the cessions of public land and the
stipulations connected therewith by those of all others best qualified to interpret them-by the parties themselves; while, on the other hand, the forbearance of all of them to insist upon, or any of them to adopt, such a measure
as the one now proposed, with the most powerful inducements thereto, had
it been proper, affords the strongest ground to believe that they considered
any such disposition of the national funds as wholly inadmissible.
Independent, however, of the very high authority of a decision thus given
by those who were so eminently qualified to judge correctly upon the subject,
it is easy to demonstrate, not only that the reservations for the support of
education were justifiable upon strict national principles, but that even much
greater encouragement to the settlement of the national domain, had circumstances required it, might have been afforded by the Government with perfect
fairness and impartial justice.
In vain, sir, would Maryland and the rest of the States, which originally
set up no claim to those lands, have insisted that they should be appropriated
as a common fund for defraying the expenses of the war, or the States that
ceded them have stipulated that they should be disposed of for the common
use and benefit of the Union, and fruitless would have been the pledge of
them to the public creditors, if they had been permitted to remain in the
condition in which they were received-waste and unappropriated, the haunts
of ferocious beasts and the habitations of blood-thirsty savages.
In this situation, neither the Union itself nor any State whatever could
derive any possible benefit from them; hence, it became not less the interest
than the duty of the Government to encourage emigration to them. And if,
for this purpose, it had been necessary to have actually given away a moiety
of them to settlers thereon, according to the policy pursued by some of the
older States in similar cases, such a measure would have been equally demanded by the engagements of the Government and the real interest of every
State.
But, sir, without insisting upon what might have been done, it is sufficient
for my purpose to show that the reservations which have heretofore been
made for the support of education, were proper, expedient and just, in relation to all the States. This I shall endeavor to do.
The conditions which the United States bound themselves to perform, in
relation to the ceded territory, seem to have had two principal objects in
view.
First, that those lands should be rendered available, as a common fund, for
paying the debts, defraying the expenses, and advancing the interest of the
United States. And, secondly, that they should, at the same time, be so disposed of for those purposes as to promote the formation of new States within
their limits, to be admitted into the Federal Union. Both these objects




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              395
equally depending upon the same stipulations, neither could properly be provided for to the exclusion of the other; for, as the new States could not, consistently with the conditions agreed upon, be formed and admitted into the
Union without previously disposing of a suitable proportion of the territory,
so, neither could the territory be disposed to a foreign power or in any other
manner so as to prevent the formation of new States.  Nor could any other
measure have been correctly adopted in relation to one of these objects without a correspondent regard to the other. The first contemplated a transfer
of the land; the second was intended to provide the means of enjoying it
with the utmost safety, comfort and happiness. Thus understood, they were
calculated mutually to aid each other.  The promise to establish distinct
republican States, and to admit them into the Union upon an equal footing
with the original States in all respects whatever, as soon as might be practicable, could not fail to promote the sale and settlement of the land; whilst
every other inducement that could be afforded to the latter would equally
contribute to hasten the accomplishment of the former.
It would, therefore, have been a violation of good faith, if, in disposing of
the lands, due regard had not been paid to the formation of the new States;
and a most culpable neglect of duty, if all necessary and practicable means
of rendering them useful members of the Union had not been adopted. This,
evidently, was the opinion of the old Congress, and hence we find one ordinance for disposing of the Territory, and another for the government of its
inhabitants. The former, among other things, provides for the support of
education-doubtless with a view to promote both of the objects referred to.
The latter contains an explicit avowal of the moral benefits expected from
those reservations; for, in one of the six articles, which are declared to be
articles of compact between the original States and the people of the ceded
Territory, unalterable, unless by colmmon consent, it is expressly said, " that
religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and
the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of education, shall forever
be encouraged."
As, then, it was not less the duty of Congress to provide for the establishment of the new States than to dispose of the lands, it may be considered a
fortunate circumstance that those two objects were so well calculated to harmonize with each other; since, had it been otherwise, the obligations to
provide for both would not have been the less imperative. Nor would any
of the original States have had just cause of complaint if the formation of
the new ones had even required sacrifices on the part of the Union; for that,
being one of the conditions of those grants or cessions, must be considered
as a part of the consideration thereof, and none could, fairly or honestly,
claim the benefit of the one without contributing in just proportion to the
other.
In order, therefore, to do justice to the wisdom, foresight and profound
policy which dictated the reservation of a part of the national domain for
the support of education, it is necessary that that measure should be considered in relation to both of the objects referred to.




396        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
I will not, Mr. President, consume your time by attempting to demonstrate
the general political considerations which must have recommended its adoption. The influence o'f education upon the happiness, moral power, good
government and prosperity of any community, is too obvious to require illustration. Nor, indeed, sir, could any one, much less myself, add anything
upon the subject more eloquent and convincing than what we have already
heard from the honorable gentleman from Maryland.
Considering the measure merely in relation to the sale of the lands, it derives equal justification from the intentions with which it must have been
adopted and the success that has attended it; for it can neither be doubted
that it was intended to render those lands more valuable and available to the
Union, nor that it has been eminently successful in producing those effects.
But, sir, in whatever point of view it can be fairly considered, it seems to
me to be difficult, at least, to discern any principle, upon which it can be
justified, that can support, or which, indeed, does not exclude the claim now
contended for on the part of tlhe original States.
That the encouragement of education, as a means of diffusing useful
knowledge, of suppressing vice and immorality, and of promoting religion,
would, as contended by the gentleman from Maryland, be eminently calculated to insure the safety, happiness and prosperity of our common country,
is most readily admitted; but it does not therefore follow that we have a
right to adopt the proposed measure for such purposes; for, if that be the
case, the powers of Congress must be admitted to extend to all those objects,
and Would equally authorize any other means calculated to promote the
same ends.
It is quite a familiar axiom, in politics as well as in law, that a grant of
power includes an implied authority to adopt the necessary means of executing it. But it would really be somewhat novel, I think, to contend that
Congress has a right to adopt the means of promoting, advancing, or providing for objects over which all power has been withheld from the Federal
Government, and retained exclusively to the States. And I trust, sir, that the
Republicans of the school of 1798, now dominant, are not themselves about
to revive the exploded doctrine of a general, undefined power in Congress to
provide for the general welfare. No, sir, recent demonstrations of increasing
vigilance over State rights, and strong indications of a jealousy of Federal
encroachments [alluding to an argument made by a gentleman of the Senate,
a day or two before] forbid any such supposition. I therefore discard from
my view of the subject all arguments deduced from any such supposed grant
of power.
The power to provide for such objects in the new States results from the
engagements of the United States, under the old confederation, and from that
clause of our present Constitution which declares that all engagements entered into by them, before its adoption, shall be valid against them. These
engagements were, first, with the States which ceded their lands, as has been
already explained; and, secondly, with the inhabitants of the ceded Territory, to whom a promise, declared to be irrevocable, unless by common con



LETTERS AND SPEECIIES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.             397
sent, had been made in the ordinance for their government, "that schools,
and the means of education, should forever be encouraged."
Congress having a right to legislate for those inhabitants, and being bound
to provide for their admission into the Union, unquestionably must have had
the power to adopt the necessary means of training them up in correct principles; and, in the language of the ordinance, religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, it
was fit and proper that education should have been encouraged for such purposes in the cases referred to.
But, sir, the original States, having the exclusive right to legislate for
themselves upon such subjects, and Congress having no superintendence over
morals, religion, education, or other objects of municipal regulation within
the several States, has no authority to interfere with them in any manner
whaltever. Such objects are, as to Congress, corcam non judice, and therefore
we can neither legislate upon them to their benefit or to their injury. Let us
not forget, sir, that the power to do the one admits the possibility, at least,
of doing the other, since all power is liable to abuse. And if ever the day
shall arrive when the authority of this Government shall be admitted to extend to such subjects, then adieu to all State sovereignty. It will be completely swallowed up in the great vortex of a grand consolidated National
Government. In this point of view, therefore, it is evident there is no analogy between those cases, and that the claim of the original States can derive
no possible support from any of the considerations that have been referred to.
Let us now, Mr. President, inquire whether the claim of the original States
can be better supported upon any other principles that could have led to the
adoption of the present system of disposing of the public lands.
By this system, all those lands are divided into townships of six miles
square. These, again, nare subdivided into thirty-six sections of one mile
square, one of which is reserved to be granted to the inhabitants of the
township, for the use and support of a common school therein. But, sir, as
all settlements upon the public lands are prohibited, under severe penalties,
the township must be sold before it can be inhabited. The citizens of the
new States, therefore, can only enjoy the full benefit of a reserved section
upon the condition of purchasing the remaining thirty-five sections of the
township. Would it, then, comport with "impartial justice" to grant such
a benefit to the citizens of other States, without requiring any condition
whatever? Would it be right, sir, to punish the citizens of the new States
for daring to intrude upon a reserved section, without having previously purchased thirty-five sections, and at the same time to bestow a section gratuitously upon others, merely because you had allowed the former the privilege
of acquiring one upon the terms I have mentioned? Surely not, sir.
I contend that those reservations have, undoubtedly, increased the intrinsic
value of the residue of the land-and that, on the other hand, its value and
productiveness, as a national fund, would as certainly be greatly deteriorated
by the proposed donations to the old States.
I acknowledge, sir, that the proportion in which the reserved sections have
enhanced the value of the residue cannot be ascertained with anything like




398        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
mathematical certainty, but, judging from all the lights which many years'
experience have shed upon the subject, there seems to be no doubt that townships with those reservations have commanded and will continue to command
a higher price than they would sell for without them. And considering how
highly the gentleman frol  Maryland estimates the value and advantages of
education, it is surprising that he should have any doubt of the correctness of
this conclusion. If, then, such be the fact that those reservations lose all the
character of donations because they are more than paid for in the sale of the
residue of the land, of course they furnish no precedent for the putre donations now proposed to be granted.
Again, sir, no citizen of the new States can enjoy or derive the slightest
benefit from the reserved sections without paying for it, since no privilege,
interest, right or title in them, can be acquired, without purchasing land at a
higher price than it would sell for without them. This difference, therefore,
whatever it may be, is the price actually paid for the interest acquired in
them, which must be in exact proportion to the quantity-of land purchased.
Even upon the improbable supposition, that the consideration thus given
were an inadequate one, still, I presume, it can hardly be contended, by the
honorable gentleman from Maryland, that this circumstance can justify
grants in favor of the citizens of other States, without any consideration
at all.
But, sir, settlement, as well as purchase, is an indispensible prerequisite to
the right of enjoying the use and benefit of the reservations. Its importance
to the Union may well be imagined by contrasting the present value of the
national domain with what would probably have been its value had it remained to this time waste and uninhabited. And this is certainly but a fair
and just view of the subject; for if the new States are to be charged with
the reserved sections, they surely ought to have credit for the value which
their settlements and improvements have imparted to the residue.
Sir, with the settlement of the country its improvements must progress.
These, by multiplying the comforts, conveniencies and advantages of a residence in it, will continue to render the vacant residue more desirable, more
valuable and available, till the whole of it shall be disposed of. The policy,
therefore, which has hitherto required the condition of settlement, must continue to prevail so long as the United States retain any of those lands, and
are desirous of disposing of them to the best advantage. But this requisite,
also, is to be dispensed with in favor of the citizens of the original States,
without requiring anything whatever of them to counterbalance it. Would
this be "fair and impartial justice?"
According to any correct view of the subject, it is manifest that the citizens of the original States participate largely in the benefits of the present
reservations in support of education. But those of the new States can have
no such corresponding interest in the proposed donations; these are intended
for the exclusive benefit of the former. Nor is anything proposed, in favor
of the latter, as a counterpoise or equivalent for this want of reciprocity
and glaring inequality-and surely, they who have reposed in perfect safety




LETTERS AND SPEECIES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              399
under their own vines and fig-trees, at their native homes, are not entitled to
be placed in a more eligible situation, in relation to the national domain,
than those who braved the dangers, encountered the difficulties and submitted to all the privations incident to the settlement of it.
It is admitted, sir, that one of the principal objects of the reservations was
to encourage emigration, and the policy of the measure, in that respect, is not
questioned; yet, it is contended that the right of the original States to an
equal portion of the public lands, for the support of education within their
respective limits, grew out of the adoption of that measure, is coevil with it,
and is not at all impaired by the delay in asserting it. But, really, sir, it appears to me that those cases not only do not rest upon the same foundation,
but that the latter is entirely incon'istent with and calculated to defeat the
very policy of the former. To adopt a measure to promote emigration, and
at the same time to grant equal advantages to all those who might not choose
to emigrate, would be very much like a sport which many of us have witnessed in our younger days: building up with one hand for the mere pleasure
of knocking down with the other. No one could be attracted to a remote
wilderness by advantages which he could equally enjoy without going there.
In this respect, therefore, the policy of those measures is so directly hostile to
each other, that the one must necessarily exclude the other.
But, sir, with whatever objects or motives the presentsystem for disposing
of the public lands may have been adopted, let it be remembered that, though
now complained of as if it had been the decision of some partial, unjust
corrupt, foreign tribunal, it was a measure of the original, now complaining
States, themselves-and unless communities, when the sole arbiters in their
own cases, are infinitely more liable than individuals to lose sight of their interests altogether, and be unjust to themselves, it must have been adopted for
their own benefit, and fully have they realized all the adva ntages anticipated
from it. It could not have been intended to operate upon persons who had
gone to the public domain, if there were any such; but only upon those who
could be induced to go there. All the advantages and inducements which it
tendered were then, constantly have been, and still are offered alike to the
free acceptance of every citizen of the Union, and consequently it was in its
origin, has continued to be, and still is, equally fair and just in relation to all
of them. Nothing, therefore, can be more unreasonable than to consider
those reservations as partial donations to States that had no existence, or to a
Territory unpeopled but by savages, to be subdued and expelled.
Permit me here, sir, to avail myself of the example of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, in referring to that portion of the national domain
that lies upon the Pacific Ocean. In its present situation, as a source of revenue, it is not now nor can it ever be of any manner of use to us. As was
correctly stated by the gentleman to whom I refer, a project for establishing
a colony upon it has already engaged the deliberations of one branch of the
National Legislature. Suppose, then, that Congress, with a view to revenue,
to commercial advantages, to the security of our traders, and to prevent the
encroachments of rival powers, should determine to colonize this section of




400         LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
our territory, and for that purpose should, with universal consent and approbation, tender to every citizen of the United States any inducements whatever to emigrate thither: for whose, but the benefit of the Union, would this
measure be adopted? How,, and in favor of whonm, could it be considered
unjust and partial, even before the terms of it had been accepted by a solitary individual? If fair and just in its origin, how could it become otherwise, merely by effecting the very objects it was intended to accomplish?
Could mere inducements to emigration, in this case, be considered as originating a claim to equal advantages in favor of all those who might not choose
to emigrate? How wonderfully efficient, sir, would be a measure for such a
purpose, which should promise every citizen the same benefits for staying at
home, with which it intended to tempt his removal to a distant, unsettled
country, through a trackless wilderness of vast extent. As well, sir, might
every citizen of the United States now demand of you a quarter section of
land, because you gave that quantity to the soldiers of your late army. Nor
could anything be more outrageously unjust than to promise your fellow-citizens a gratuity for settling upon the public land, and then to make them
pay for it by deducting its fuli value from their proportion of a common
stock, as is proposed to be done by the proposition upon your table.
Sir, the claim of the original States has been particularly insisted upon,
because, in the encouragement which they themselves afforded to emigration,
for the sake of their own interests, too, they have, forsooth, lost a part of
their population and wealth. An argument so sectional and anti-national in
its character surely comes with a bad grace from those who, with a perseverance threatening the most disastrous consequences to our common country,
at a most awful crisis, insisted that those lands should be ceded, settled and
formed into separate States, for the purpose of paying the debts, promoting
the interest and advancing the security of the Union. How, sir, could any
one of these objects be accomplished without disposing of the land? Who
would have bought it without a view to its settlement by himself or others?
And by whom, but citizens of the United States, was it intended to be settled? It is not to be supposed that any of the States could, for a moment,
have yielded to a policy so contracted and selfish, as to have wished to have
exempted themselves from the disadvantages common to all of them in consequence of those cessions; or to have enjoyed the full benefits of them at
the exclusive cost of others. No State, in fact, would have submitted, or
would now submit, to the exclusion of her citizens from the right of emigrating to the public lands. The original States, therefore, cannot justly claim
an equivalent for a privilege which they themselves secured to their own citizens, and which they would not now be so unjust as to relinquish, were it in
their power to do so.
The motive, sir, to encourage emigration being the advantages expected to
be derived from it, these must have been the only equivalent contemplated
for any encouragement given to it. The benefits, therefore, offered to emigrants, depending upon a condition from which the States expected correspondent advantages, at least, when that condition was fulfilled, the




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OP NNIIAN EDWARDS.             401
consideration of those benefits was fully discharged, and no other equivalent
can in reason or justice be demanded.
Nor have the original States any reason to complain that their citizens
have exercised and enjoyed the benefits of the privilege thus secured to them,
for such were not only the necessary and intended consequences of their own
measure, but they were the very essence of the contracts upon which the public lands were ceded. Sir, you took them upon those terms, "for better, for
worse," and have infinitely less reason to complain, than the man who sought
to be absolved from his matrimonial obligations because he had found his
wife all of the worse and none of the better. You have realized important
advantages in the increased value and utility of the land, the improved condition of your population, the development of the resources of your country,
the extension of your commerce and navigation, the augmentation of your
revenue, the support of public credit, and the security of your borders.
These advantages, however, are much less the result of your own liberality
than of the bold, enterprising, adventurous and aspiring character of your
population, and the superior liberality of some of the States whose lands
adjoined yours. No Government, I will venture to say, has ever yet established a distant colony, similarly situated, upon terms more advantageous to
itself. None has ever given less to emigrants or exacted more from them.
England, France and Spain have all held a part of our present domain,
and, by their superior regard to the law of nature and the Divine will in the
distribution of those western lands, whilst they held them, have exhibited a
contrast between monarchies and the freest government in the world which,
I am sorry to say, is by no means favorable to the latter.
Mr. President, had Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky
delllanded two dollars per acre, in good money, as the minimum price of their
lands, and subjected all intruders to legal prosecution and removal by military force, much of your great north-western territory now so thickly populated-so highly cultivated and improved-so richly embellished with cities,
towns and villages-every where exhibiting monuments of the advance of
science, the progress of the arts, and the multiplication of the comforts and
elegancies of civilized life-would still have been a waste, uncultivated wilderness. The territory of those States being. unoccupied, yours could never
have been inhabited. They, therefore, by the population which they attracted
to theirs, and by their wars to maintain it, expelled the savages from a large
portion of yours, and thereby contributed more to its settlement than all that
you have ever done towards it.
Yet, sir, some of the States seem to think they have had a hard bargain in
taking the land at all, because they have lost a part of their population by
it. But, sir, had it been retained by England, France or Spain, it is by no
means certain that those States would have lost less. Had it remained the
property of Virginia, owing to her superior liberality in such cases, as is
evinced by her uniform conduct, there is every reason to suppose they would
have lost more and gained nothing.
-51




402        LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.
I know, sir, it has been very gravely asserted by one most respectable State
that, if the. original States had been governed by a selfish policy, they would
have thrown every impediment in the way of emigration to the national
domain. This, however, does not appear to me to be very consistent with
the motives which induced them so zealously to insist upon its being surren(lered as a national fund; and, besides the breach of faith involved in such a
policy; it would have been just about as rational as the Japanese mode of
duelling, in which one man rips open his own bowels for the pleasure of imposing an olligation on another to follow his example.  None could have
lost more or gained less by such a measure than those very States; and little
can be known of the immense tracts of land in the Western country which yet
remain to be settled, if it can be supposed that any measure of that kind
could have had any other material effect upon emigration than to have
changed its direction and swelled the population of some of the other Western States. It is evident, therefore, that the inducements afforded to emigration by the original States have neither been so purely gratuitous, nor its
effects, which they so deeply deplore, so exclusively the results of their
liberal forbearance to impede it, as seems to have been imagined.
In the enumeration of the grievances and injuries for which they demand
indemnification, we find them complaining that the sale of their western
lands ( "has prevented an increase in the price of lands in the Atlantic States,"
though they have not a single acre of land of their own to dispose of in those
States.  Regretting exceedingly, sir, that my remaining strength does not
admit of my entering into a full investigation of this singular ground of complaint, I will barely remark that the high price of land so much desired can
only result from a density of population, from which much dependence and
wretchedness would be inseparable; that there is nothing in the history of
our own or any other country to authorize the opinion that it would be more
auspicious to the interest and happiness of the great mass of our population
or to the preservation of the free principles of our Government; that its tendency would be to advance the interest of the few that have land to sell at
the expense of the many who have it to buy; and that, instead of impeding,
it would be calculated to increase emigration-since, in proportion to the
difficulty of obtaining lands in the old States, there would be additional
motives to seek it elsewhere.
[Mr. Edwards here remarked that, being greatly fatigued, and fearing he
had exhausted the patience of the Senate, he should be compelled to omit or
postpone to a future stage of the discussion, other views of the subject which
he was anxious to present to the consideration of the Senate.]
I have, sir, contrasted the relative situations of the citizens of the new and
the old States in relation to the proposed appropriation. I had intended to
have presented similar contrasts between the claims of the new and the old
States themselves, and between the grants made to the former and those proposed to be made to the latter. I had also intended to have shown that, even
admitting the principle contended for by the honorable gentleman from
Maryland, the contemplated apportionment and distribution of the land
would be manifestly unequal and unjust; that the demand on the part of the




LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF NINIAN EDWARDS.              403
original States of an equivalent for the "particular " advantages which the
new States derive from the present system of disposing of the public lands
for the benefit of the Union, is inconsistent with every idea of national government, and that the latter States might, with equal propriety, demand an
equivalent for the " particular" advantages which the former derive from the
vast expenditure of public money within their limits, or from any other
measure of national policy.
I find, however, I must content myself with remarking that you have
granted to the new States nothing more than a mere naked trust to execute
your own previous obligations or to promote your future interest.  So far as
the public. lands had been sold, the right to the reserved sections had vested
in the inhabitants of the respective townships, and did not depend at all for
its validity upon the grants to the States-for you neither could have withheld nor impaired it, nor can those States now do so. So far as the lands
have not been sold, no right to the reserved sections has vested or can vest,
either in those States or the inhabitants thereof, but upon conditions hereafter to be performed highly conducive to your own interest.
Suppose, sir, the new States had. refused to become your trustees, you
would not on that account have changed your present system of disposing of
the public lands; and you could not have sold a single reserved section in
any township in which a solitary sale of eighty acres only had been made.
What then have you given to the new States? Nothing that you could or
would have retained.
But in whatever light those grants are to be viewed, they are founded
upon compacts which neither party is now at liberty to revoke, annul or disregard. On the part of the new States, they have, I think, manifested great
liberality in giving a full equivalent for advantages that either would not or
could not have been withheld from them if they had refused to give anything. The State which I have the honor, in part, to represent, has probably
had a pretty hard bargain in agreeing to forbear to tax the lands of individuals,' and in the consequent burdens imposed upon her own citizens, for all the
consideration she received.  She agreed to exempt from all taxation three
millions five hundred thousand acres of military bounty lands for three years
after the emanation of the grants, and at least thirty millions of acres of the
public land for five years after the sale of it-which, according to the State
taxation, at first rate, would be equal to $3,210,000; second rate, $2,250,000;
third rate, $1,650,000; and at the average rate, $2,370,000.
If then, sir, any of the old States insist upon having as much land as they
contend has been granted to Illinois, let them first purchase the same quantity
of land which she either has purchased or is bound to purchase to perfect her
title to the supposed grants-and let them also agree to pay the. taxes upon
the same quantity of land which she has exempted from taxation, and for the
same length of time-or talk no more about "fair and impartial justice."




CHAPTER XVI.
Lettersfrom  William WTirt,* Attorney- General of the United States; John
IcLean, Postmaster-General and Judge of the Supreme Court of the
United States; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of Tar, United States
Senator and Vice-President of the United States; Samuel D. Ingham,
Secretary of the United States' Treasury; Gabriel Moore of Alabama,
Member of Congress, Governor, and United States' Senator;    lVilliam
Kelley of Louisiana, Representative and Senator in Congress; David
S. l[orrill, United States' Senator from Maine; Isham Talbott, CUnited
States' Senator from Kentucky; James Monroe, President of the United
States; John Quincy Adams, President of the United States; Thos. B.
Read, Senator in Congress from Mississippi; Felix Grundy, Senator in
Congress from  Tennessee; Richard Ml. Johnson, Senator in Congress,
and Vice-President of the United States; Almy MlcLean, Member of
Congress from  Kentucky; John J. Crittenden, United States Senator,
and Attorney- General of United States; Thomas I]. Benton, Senator
in Congress; Charles Fisher, Member of Congress fJom NTorth Carolina;
John Crowell, Member of Congress from Alabama; Samuel L. Southard, Senator in Congress, and Secretary of the Navy; Rvfius King,
Senator in Congress, and Minister to England; George M. Bibb, Senator
in Congress, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals in Kentuicky, and
Secretary of the Treasury; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury;
William  Eustis, Governor of Massachusetts, and Secretary of War;
Edward Tiffin, Commissioner    General Land Ofice; A. J. Dallas,
Secretary of the Treasury; W. I. Crawford, Secretary of      Treasury
and War Department; and others.
WILLIAMSBURGII, January 10, 1802.
My Dear Sir:
I inclose several letters, which I hope will arrive in time to promote their
purpose. Wishing you success in the appointment, and that you may find it
advantageous in every point of view, I beg leave to return to my own
business.
I am ultimately resolved on my Kentucky project, and have nothing further to do than to make preparations for the trip and to decide on the time of
starting. On these subjects I must trouble you with a few questions:
*Some of the letters from Wm. Wirt, in this Chapter, are addressed to Benjamin Edwards, the
father of Ninian Edwards.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   405
What kind of furniture will it be necessary for me to carry to Frankfort?
In other words, are manufactures in such a state there that every article
immediately necessary to house-keeping may be procured on my arrival-I
mean tables, chairs, beds, table-furniture, etc.
When do the superior courts sit?-for I wish to be there at the spring
terms, if possible.
Would it be practicable to procure the Constitution, and acts of Assembly
passed there since the erection of the State?-that is, so as to have them here
in a month or two.
If you decline the Indiana election, or if the appointment should have been
otherwise disposed of, suppose, on your return to Kentucky, you visit this
country. It is worth seeing in a historical point of view. Within eight
miles of this place was the first Christian settlement made in the United
States-I mean Jamestown. Besides, Norfolk is worth the journey, as being
one of the most flourishing towns on the Atlantic frontier; and, among
other inducements, we wish very much to see you. The interview would, at
least to me, be very highly useful. I wish to ask a thousand questions about
your State, which would do only for conversation; one, though, I will ask
even on paper, viz: In what are lawyers' fees paid, in Kentucky, i. e., in cash
or specifics? This I ask to assist me in adjusting some previous movements
in this State. I have not yet heard from your father, or any of my other
friends in Kentucky, to whom I wrote early in November; but you have had
such opportunities of possessing all the facts necessary to decide on the prudence of my removal, that I shall rely exclusively on you-so that if you have
decided too soon, in the advice which you have given me, it will be but
charitable to retract before I shall have taken any irretrievable step.
I am, my dear sir,
Your friend,
WILLIAM    WV1LT.
P. S.-My acquaintance with the members of Congress and the Secretary of
State would enable me to inclose you more letters, but I apprehend they
would scarcely pay the postage, and for this reason I have declined sending
them.-IW. W.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, ESQ., Montgomery Court-house, Maryland.
WILLIAMSBURGIr, December 16, 1802.
My Dear Sir:
Your very interesting and obliging favor, of the 7th of October, was received about the last of that month. I sat down and answered it immediately;
but as you had informed me, in yours, that your visit to Philadelphia would
keep you from Maryland until the first of January, my scroll was thrown by
in my drawer, with the view of being sent to meet you in Montgomery, on
your return. It has been lying so long by me that it has grown stale, even
to its author, and I find that it contains a circumstantial narrative of my life
since I came to Virginia which could afford very little entertainment to you.




406                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
I have determined, therefore, as the 1st of January is drawing near, to give
you a letter at least fresh, and more concise than that which I prepared in
October.
The account which you gave me of your father's health, spirits, settlement
and prospects, administer the most sensible pleasure to me.  When I saw
him last, in Maryland, I had the most gloomy forebodings as to his health;
and he seemed, himself, to apprehend that his restoration was hopeless. Instead of those sincere bursts of laughter, which used to bespeak his mind
void of care, he was, I thought, pensive and desponding. I rejoice at his
recovery, and would most heartily join in his laugh even at my rencontre with
Chase.
Your mother's recollection and account of my visit to Mount Pleasant is
exquisitely grateful to me. To be remembered and esteemed by the early
friends of my youth-by those who led me upon the theater of the worldaffects me in a manner which does no discredit to my sensibility, however, it
may dishonor the sternness of manhood. But I must acknowledge that I am
not made of those rugged and inflexible materials which constituted the
character of Cato and his brother stoics. The passing glory of the world,
and even the dismemberment of a once happy and beloved neighborhood,
touches me acutely; the remembrance of Seneca-of my friends once collected, healthy and gay, but now dead or dispersed over the earth-strikes
with force on the chords of my heart. Enough!
The general prosperity of your sisters and brothers affords me very great
pleasure. What obligations have your parents conferred on Kentucky, by
transferring to it so hopeful a little colony! It is but just that the State
should requite the favor to their children.
The variety of scenes through which you have passed will do you no disservice. Dissipation can never again lure you to ruin; she possesses no charm
which you have not proved to be hollow and sepulchral. You are fortified,
therefore, against any further temptation from that quarter. Your professional success, I doubt not, is merely commensurable to your desert-for, notwithstanding all your disqualifying observations on yourself, I do not believe
that the people of Kentucky are to be imposed on by any Jenkinsonian pretensions to wisdom; they are too conversant with those beautiful landscapes
called "connected plots," to be plotted out of $30,000 by an imposter. I am
sorry, however, that your pursuits have been interrupted by ill health; but
the man who mines for gold must expect these little rubs. By this time I
trust that your recovery is complete; yet, considering the seat of your disorder, I should have more sanguine hopes from a trip to a Southern climate.
I heartily wish you success in your election for Congress. You complain
of the want of political information, to meet your competitor in public. If
the acquirement of that information is not immediately practicable, you must
try Chesterfield's trick on the question for reforming the calendar: he acknowledges that he gleaned from a noble friend a few scanty ideas on this astronomical subject; but he clothed these few ideas to such advantage, that
he bore away the palm from the very friend who had furnished him with his




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   407
lights. It is incredible, to the man who has not tried, how much may be
done in a popular harangue by the mere force of harmonious periods, new and
striking metaphors and spirited apostrophes, with very little solid matter.
It is, to be sure, a shameful artifice for the man who has any alternative; and
it ought, besides, to be considered, if these mere embellishments are capable,
by their own intrinsic force, to produce such effects, what would they work
if one could breathe into them the soul of wisdom and information-saliente
verbum sat. On this head of information I will merely hint, that, for the purpose of the "spouting" campaign which you meditate, on your return to Kentucky, it will be perhaps more material to show the people that you understand the proper interests of the State, than to convince them of your historical exactitude in past events-inasmluch as the man who knows what ought
to be done, is better qualified to legislate than he who merely knows what
has been done; but to know both is certainly best. Besides that, the knowledge of what has been done, constitutes the sound experimental test of what
is proper to be done in future.
I never received your pamphlet by Dr. Rumsay, and I am mortified at his
having deprived me of that gratification. I wish I may have an opportunity
of claiming it from him.
Of my little exhibition on the Fourth of July I have not a single copy, nor
do I know where one is to be procured. I believe that, like other ephemera,
it perished at the close of its day.
From the superscription of your letter, I infer theat you are apprised of the
office which I hold in this State. It is, to be sure, one of the most honorable
that Virginia can confer, but it is almost literally a post of mere honor-the
salary attached to it is not sufficient to support my family; and, to my shame,
I have not been industrious and economical enough to have laid up any subsidiary resource from the practice of law. The consequence is that I shall be
compelled to resign and go back to the bar. This I meditate to do very
shortly; and where do you conjecture I mean to resume the office of lawyer?
In Kentucky, sir-unless I am differently advised by your father and some
other friends there, to whom I have written for counsel. But, for your opinion I should be particularly thankful, because, having been, yourself, of the
profession, you best know the profits on which I could calculate, and you best
know what station would be more advantageous for me, if you should incline
to the opinion that the project of removing to Kentucky is a discreet one at
all. When I accepted the office of Chancellor for this State, I was a single
man; and I could have well lived and supported myself and my niece on
$1500 per annum. I accepted the office, too, under the impression that I
should never again be married-for I had addressed the only girl on earth
who could govern my heart; and although her attachment, even then, was
not less ardent and sincere than mine, yet, fer certain reasons of state, I was
discarded. But, about three months ago, I pressed her to my heart as my
wife. My situation thus unexpectedly changed, I can resign my office without the fair imputation of too much versatility; and I must resign it, or ignominiously perish with the girl of my heart! I shall return to the bar with




408                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
more determined zeal and with much better qualification than I have ever before possessed. I shall be impelled by two of the most powerful springs which
can actuate the soul of man: the pride of vindicating the opinion which the
Legislature of Virginia has passed on me-and the pride of dignifying one of
the most angelic girls that ever filled the enraptured arms of man! I feel
the consciousness that I am capable of far greater exertion, and of more patient and inflexible perseverence, than I ever was; and if the world has not
flattered most imprudently, I have reason to hope that my exertions will not
be lost.
Thus determined, I would know of you (and I expect you will answer not
to please, but candidly to advise) what prospects I might expect in Kentucky?
For fifteen years, if my life and health are spared, I will labor most indefatigably. In that time, might I expect an independence in Kentucky? Are
the land disputes over? or how are they? Are the lawyers very formidably
eminent? for I mean not to shrink into the country practice; on the contrary, I am resolved, if not otherwise advised, to take a dash at the highest
courts. If you think my removal to that State expedient, would you advise
me to reside at Lexington, or Frankfort? Lexington is said to be the most
populous and flourishing, but Frankfort is the seat of Government. How
slight these circumstances, to affect my determination! In which place would
my progress to wealth be most early and rapid? Pray deliberate maturely
on these points, and give me your ingenuous and friendly advice. In Virginia, I could live well by the profession: but Ed. Randolph merely lived;
I wish to go to some country where I can provide for sickness, old age and
death-so that, when I am gathered to the tomb, I may leave my family in
circumstances at all events independent, and, if possible, affluent. I am attracted to Kentucky, not more by the wish to get an honest subsistence for
my family, than by the desire to belong to that State. I love Kentucky; I
am charmed by her republican spirit; I am delighted by the energy with
which she sustains her rank in the Union. Virginia has the same advantages;
but Virginia is an old and well-established dominion, full of veterans, who
are fortified against the possibility of want of honorable service. I am not
wanted here. I wish to go where I shall be able to render service to the State
-in a small circle, to fan the flame of liberty-in the narrow sphere of my
associates, to assist in repelling sentimlents hostile to the freedom and happiness of the country; and if I fasten only one leaf on the cap of liberty, I shall
think my existence not in vain.
If I determine ultimately to remove to Kentucky, I shall endeavor very
strenuously to effect my removal in the spring. There can be but one obstacle, which, however, by the aid of my wife's father (Col. Gamble of Richmond),
I hope I shall be able to surmount.
I wish it were possible for you to extend your journey to Williamsburghwe should be able to communicate on the preceding subjects much more minutely and satisfactorily than by letter; and if you are not absolutely compelled to return directly home, I shall cherish at least a faint hope that you
will do me this pleasure.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  409
The subject of my resolution is a secret in this State, and I wish it to remain so here; yet, if Kentucky is certainly my destination, I do not know
that it will be necessary to keep my intention a secret there.
One question, before I conclude: Are houses to be had in Frankfort and
Lexington, for rent? Because I do not know that I shall be immediately able
to purchase, and I might perhaps find it necessary to prevent embarrassments,
on my arrival, by engaging a house beforehand.
Wishing you health and prosperity,
I am, dear sir, very sincerely,
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, EsQ., Montgomery Court-house, Maryland.
WILLIAMSBURGH, March 2, 1803.
Dear Sir:
I was on a visit in Richmond, my dear friend, when yours of the 5th January, from Montgomery Court-house, in Maryland, reached this place, so that
I did not receive it until last..Friday-at which time, also, I had the delightfully good fortune to receive a letter from your father, in Kentucky. You
tell me, in the conclusion to yours, that you proposed very shortly after its
date to go home, but that you would wait eight or ten days longer than you
had intended, to receive my answer. At all events you direct me to write to
you as if in Maryland, and that, if you should be gone before the arrival of
my letter, you would leave directions with the postmaster to send it on to
you. This I had determined to do when I wrote to your father, as he will inform you; but, on farther reflection, the delay in receiving your letter was so
much greater than you could have calculated, that I suppose there is very
little probability of your being, at this time, in Maryland. To save, therefore, the time which would be lost in this letter taking a circuit through
Maryland, I write directly to Bardstown, to the care of your father.
In the first place, I hope you will do me the justice to believe that the
kindness with which you have answered my inquiries, and tendered your aid
in facilitating my establishment in Kentucky, has made the proper impression
on my mind and on my heart. The time may come-though, for your sake, I
hope it never will-when the impression may be manifested by other evidence
than words. At present, however, I do not know that I shall have any need
to avail myself of your generous offer of service in Frankfort; if I should
need it, on my arrival there, I shall use the freedom of a friend in claiming
your engagement.
The prospect which you point out to me in Kentucky is so fair, and so
firmly established by the actual experience of others, that I see no reason and
feel no disposition to repress the delightful expansion of hope with which I
look to that country. I feel the sweet presage that the inauspicious gloom
of want and dependence, which has lowered over my past life, is about to
break away forever; and I look, with emotions little short of transport, to
the sun-gilt calm of ease and plenty. The month of November gave me
-52




410               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
birth-my morn of life was winter indeed; the lucid spring of it is, I hope,
fast advancing, and I trust in God that I shall not survive the autumn of my
age. I would fain gather the fruits of my labor, but I wish not to see the
withering and fall of my leaves-much less to endure again the piercing
frosts which had nearly blasted me in the bud. The reflection which crowns
my sweet anticipations in Kentucky is, that I shall conduct to prosperity,
and, I hope, to happiness as pure and perfect as mortals can know it, a wife
who has realized and even surpassed the fondest expectation of a lover.
Connected with this is another reflection, which, as Coriolanus says of his
wounds, "shall be yours in private," and which feeds the flame of rapture in
my breast. In short, on whichever side I view the subject, I am delightedinexpressibly delighted-with it, and regard Kentucky in the same light as
a careworn Mahometan does his paradise. At the same time I am not so
ignorant of the flattery of hope, and the fallacy of the brightest earthly appearances, as to be unprepared to meet, with that fortitude and dignity which
become a man, a diminution and even reverse of my expectations in Kentucky. If adversity meets me, she will be no stranger-habit has instructed
me how to receive and entertain her; but if prosperity, she will be a welcome guest, and I shall practice all the arts of hospitality to detain her.
I concur with you perfectly in the opinion that Frankfort is the most eligible stand. In addition to the reasons which you adduce, my residence there
will give me a command of the records of the Court of Appeals, and enable
me to inform myself of the principles which govern the decision of your
land cases-for I suppose, from the manner in which your country has been
settled, that there must be principles of adjudication on this head peculiar
to Kentucky; and, indeed, considering the number and variety of causes
which your Court of Appeals has adjusted, I shall be somewhat disappointed
if I do not find in their records one principle or other to fit any future question relative to the title of lands. In England, where there is such a multitude and such a countless diversity of tenures, it is not surprising that a case
shall now and then occur on which a precedent can be brought to bear;
but I should suppose that in Kentucky, where the kinds of title, and the
modes of acquiring them, were so free and uniform, the judicial difficulty
would be, not in inventing new principles, but in applying those which have
been already settled. But I shall know more of this, I hope, in the course of
the summer. I should endeavor to meet you, as you kindly hoped, on the
first Monday in May, in Frankfort, but for the consideration that the April
term of the Chancery Court, here, will find the business at a stage which
would render my immediate resignation an inconvenience and an injury to
the district-and Virginia has deserved no injuries at my hands. On this
account, I will be obliged to defer my resignation until the last of April;
and then I propose to set out as soon as possible.
Accept my congratulations on your appointment to the judicial bench of
Kentucky. I have no doubt you will give lustre to the office-in point of
health I presume the change will be greatly to your advantage. I imagine
there is no labor connected with it, except in term time-so that you will
have leisure to pursue your studies as far as you please, and to mingle in that




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   411
pursuit as much exercise as your health will require. That you may succeed
in the pursuit of both science and health, is my most ardent wish. It will
be no small addition to the happiness which may await me in Kentucky, that
it will bring me within striking distance of your father's family, and that my
profession and your office will bring you so often in contact with
Your much obliged and sincere friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
NINIAN EDWARDS, Bardstown, Kentucky.
RICHMOND, Sept. 17, 1805.
JIy Dear Friend:
Your favor of the 29th July reached me on the morning of the last day of
August. On the evening of that day I had to set off for the District Court
of Moorfield, on the south branch of the Potomac, from which place I have
just returned-so that I lose no time in acknowledging the receipt of your
letter, and thanking you for the genuine pleasure which it afforded me.
Your father's transmitting my letter, for the inspection of his children, in the
quarter in which you live, and his urging them to regard and treat me as a
brother, administer the most exquisite gratification to me, and convince
me that he is still the same obliging friend I have ever found him. I can
truly say, in the presence of that God who knows the secrets of all hearts,
that the approbation of such a man as your father is far more soothing and
delightful to me, than all the plaudits and acclamations would be which
Shakspeare represents as having made the welkin ring in Caesar's rejection
of the crown, tendered him by Mark Anthony: for I know your father is too
penetrating and judicious to be imposed on by mere surfaces, and too virtuous to approve of anything but virtue. I am made happy, therefore, in
thinking well of myself, when I remember that such a man is my friend and
would even be willing to let me consider him as a father. Let me entreat
you, as a brother, to help me maintain my place in his good opinion, and if,
by chance, hereafter-by the agency of calumny, or any other fiend-there
should be danger of losing his esteem, that you will be my advocate with
him until I have a chance of advocating myself; and let me hope that you
will ever be to me the friend you so obligingly declare yourself in this letterrelying that, on my part, there shall be no want of the feelings of friendship,
although, for your sake, I hope that the continuance of your prosperity may
render any practical exertion of it, towards you, forever unnecessary.
One evidence of your friendship I shall continue to insist on: I mean your
correspondence-nor do I admit the soundness of your apology for having,
hitherto, been remiss in this particular. My want of knowledge of Kentucky, and the fewness of my acquaintances there, should, on the contrary,
have been inducements with you to write-for my ignorance in these respects
would have given you a new and fresh field for description, and you might
have introduced me, on paper, to your country and its prominent characters.
Besides, while Mr. Morse and Mr. Scott, together with the Kentucky papers




412                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
are open, I cannot be supposed altogether ignorant of your State, so far as
relates to the boundaries, climate, soil, productions, trade, constitution, jurisprudence, etc., and of those who, I suppose, ought to be ydur prominent
characters.  I knew Duval, Haden, Edwards, Gerard, Fortunatus Cosby,
William Wallace, and a few others. It may be that some of these men are in
obscurity: for it is not always that men fulfill the promise of their youth.
Indolence, and worse vices, have blasted many of the fairest geniuses that
ever graced the earth. It is really mournful to look back on their school
days, count up the brilliant companions of their youth, and observe how many
of them have been lost to themselves and to the world-the victims of idleness or intemperance, or both.  How few of them have come out with
honor; and even of those whose habits have been temperate and studious,
how rarely the autumnal fruit has corresponded with the luxuriant flowering
of the spring-resulting more frequently, I believe, from an error in the mode
of culture, than from any defect in the original stamina or any declension in
the faculties themselves. I will be obliged to you, however, to give me, in
your next, some account of the gentlemen whose names I have mentioned,
and to inquire for another friend of mine-James Bell-who used to practice
law in Orange and the adjacent counties, in this State, and who now, I believe, lives somewhere in your Green River country. One of the best of men,
and with very respectable talents, he was the victim of unvanquishable diffidence. If you can hear of him, pray let me know how he prospers in Kentucky.
I am extremely sorry that there is anything so disagreeable in your judicial
office as to make you think of resigning it-more especially as you seem to
entertain some idea of following up your resignation by a removal to Louisiana. I like this last idea less than the other, because I should be afraid of
the effect of the climate on your health and that of your family. I doubt,
too, the advantageous effect of the removal on your fortune. Your salary as
a judge in Louisiana would not, I apprehend, be higher than it is in Kentucky-and as to the progressive value of land there, I apprehend it must be
very slow, because the value of land can only rise with the pressure of population, and the consequent pressure in the demand for land; but Louisiana
is, itself, such a world, that it must be a very long time before there can be
any pressure of population felt. I suppose (for on this subject I am, of necessity, all hypothesis,) that the acquisition of Louisiana must lessen the value
of lands in Kentucky, because it opens a sluice to drain off your population,
and relieves the little pressure which you might have already begun to feel.
It presents, too, a new object and a new theatre for your land speculators and
our emigrants, and will withdraw from your market much of the influence
which they have produced.
Admitting that the cheapness of living in Kentucky would enable you to
maintain your family and educate your children there on your salary and the
income of your estate, I incline to think that you had better remain as you
are. You are in a country filled with civilized and polite people-a coun -
try in which you are known, respected and established. Your place gives
you time for the culture of science, the superintendence of your children's




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   413
education and the blandishments of conjugal and paternal bliss. Your wife
and children will soon have found their select circle of associates, among a
people who, I presume, so far from Indianizing, may tend to form the manners of your young ones to advantage. As for yourself, you may attain all
the eminence of the judicial character in a country capable of estimating
your worth. Why, then, should you sacrifice all these certain blessings,
which are now in a great measure in actual possession, and run the hazard of
their renewal in Louisiana?-on a mere speculation of fortune, as I understand it, to get more lands, when you have already more than you can turn to
advantage. As to your two elbow associates, is it clear that you will have
more elbow room in Louisiana, or better company on the bench? Qucere de
hoc. For my own part I am a good deal of Hamlet's way of thinking, and
had much rather "bear the ills that I have, than fly to others that Iknow not
of." All this may only serve to convince you that I am tendering advice
which I do not understand; but, you know "ubi intentio bona, actio non mala,"
and at all events these hints may lead you to consider this subject of your
transmigration a little more closely and earnestly.
For my own part, I begin to think that my lot is cast for life in Virginia;
but not with an eye to the Presidency of the United States, your solemn
mention of which has afforded me a hearty laugh and reminded me of some
talk your father used to hold with me, when I was about sixteen years old,
on the same subject, with the view, as I then knew, merely to stimulate me to
study and emulation. Far different reasons induce me to believe that my lot is
finally cast here. My wife's parents and relatives are extremely anxious that
I should come to Richmond to live, and, by way of inducement, my fatherin-law talks of building a house and improving a very beautiful lot for me
here. If he does so, as I believe he will, I shall not be long in Norfolk, probably not longer than a year or two. By this means I shall get rid of all the
objections to Virginia arising from the climate of Norfolk; I shall have every
advantage of education for my children; and, if my professional prosperity
continues, shall be able to retire from the bar in fifteen or twenty years with
a sufficient fortune for my wife and daughters. My sons must do as I have
done-shift for themselves; daughters cannot. As to Kentucky, my wife's
objection to the removal will be insuperable, as long as her parents live; and
by the time they are no more, if they reach the usual period, I hope to le so
well fixed here as to render a removal altogether unnecessary. I presume
that, when I am established in Richmond, I may anticipate an average practice of $5,000 per annum. My experience has already convinced me that I
can live economically; and I imagine the calculation of expense sufficiently
liberal when I estimate it annually at $3,000. I shall be thus able to lay up,
from my practice, $2,000 per annum; and as money, you know, begets money,
and in this commercial country many modes of employing money securely
and advantageously present themselves, I expect that, by these means, and
another that I shall presently mention, I may, if I am spared fifteen years,
possess a capital of as many thousand pounds. I mention fifteen years as the
limit of my forensic toils; but if my son is spared to me, and I also am spared,
I shall continue at the bar until he shall be ready to take my place-which




414               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
will be six years longer than I have mentioned. In the course of fifteen or
twenty years I hope the people of this country will see the folly of the pitiful salaries which they have attached to the bench, and tender something
worthy of a man's acceptance. In that event, when my son comes to the bar,
I may possibly be again invited to the bench.
And here you have the whole scheme of my life, in expectancy. You see
that it is obviously projected on the supposition that the political affairs of
this country go on quietly in the beaten track. The example of France,
however, teaches us how precarious this must be. It surely would not be
matter of more surprise if the twentieth year from this should find an Emperor
enthroned in America, than that ten or twelve years should have conducted
France through a complete revolution from despotism, through anarchy,
democracy and aristocracy, back to despotism again! Heaven avert such a
calamity from us; but really it is not easy to determine what may be the fate
of this country, when all those eminent characters shall die off whose respective grades were fixed by our revolution, and who seem to have a kind of
acknowledged title, in succession, to the first honors of the country. Is there
not some reason to dread that State jealousies, faction, corruption, ambition,
may then disturb the halcyon sea on which we are riding, and change our
peaceful elections into a military operation; then disunion, anarchy, civil
war, and the fate of divided Greece; subjugation to some Macedonian Philip,
Coriscan usurper, or some other foreign martial tyrant, or perhaps some Cassar
or Cromwell at home? I know the American character is a sedate and reflecting one, and, in this, very unlike the character of France; but it is to be
remembered that the English have always been pronounced phlegmatic and
saturnine-yet, that even they were capable of all the excitement which I dread
in America: witness the bloody wars of York and Lancaster, and the tragedy
of 1645. Nay-if we are truly informed, Pennsylvania, at this moment, on
the subject of the election of Governor, betrays an excitability and an actual
excitement which, if it were the temper of the country in a Presidential
election, would soon bring about the national catastrophe of which I am
speaking. These apprehensions may be visionary; they seem to me, however,
to be too well justified by the history of mankind, and to be too strongly
countenanced by the spirit which has sometimes manifested itself already, even
in the American Congress. What a pity it is that our young men who are
rising into notice, and who soon will be the political leaders of our country,
have so false an idea of personal greatness of character. I speak of those in
Virginia, whom alone I know. According to them, heat, rashness, intemperance and intolerance constitute the patriot and statesman. This has not been
the character of our greatest men. Our Washington, Franklin, Jefferson,
Madison, etc., were and are cool, calm, temperate, thoughtful, deliberative,
tolerant and benevolent. I am afraid of those young men. Our Legislature
is, this year, full of them. I tremble for my country when I see so many
State bomb-shells, fraught with combustion and death, with their fuses already
lighted; but Heaven, I hope and trust, will protect us.
As for me, I have not the most remote idea of going into public life. My
sole object is to place my dear wife and children above the reluctant charity




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                    415
and still more insulting pity of a cold, proud and selfish world. This object
I will pursue with unremitting ardor. I consider it my first duty (next to
that which I owe to my Creator), and no vain idea of public honors shall
take me off from the discharge of it. In this I make no sacrifice of feeling,
for I have no penchant for political life; my feelings dispose me to tranquillity,
the bosom of my family, and my books. I cannot say that I am indifferent
to professional fame; but I can truly say that I love it less, for itself, than as
the means of attaining my summuim bonum: competence for my family. This
is so truly the case, that, if I knew any other honest means by which I could
acquire competence and independence more rapidly, I could relinquish the
bar, not only without a sigh, but with pleasure. The truth is that, as yet, it
is very little indeed that I know of professional fame or its accompanying
sweets, except by the report of others; when I know more I may perhaps have
a better relish for it.
According to your desire, I send you the " British Spy." I would send a
copy of it to your father, but I apprehend, from his having mentioned it in
his letter to me, that he already has a copy. It is strange how easily the
multitude are taken by a little glitter. I can declare with the utmost sincerity that I had no conception that the soap-bubbles would have survived
the newspaper in which they first appeared. I did not project them with a
view to duration, or to anything else than a momentary amusement to myself
and to the equally idle readers of newspapers. The printer, however, knew
a little more of mankind, it seems; for you perceive that this is the third
edition, which he is selling off very rapidly, and I presume he has cleared
several thousand dollars by the adventure. This affair has induced me to consider whether, in those intervals of professional labor which would otherwise be spent in idleness, I cannot execute some little work in this way, by
which I may earn both money and fame. I am accordingly preparing materials for the lives of our Virginian revolutionary characters of eminence; and
if I can succeed in collecting them, I propose to myself to become their biographer. I shall probably send out the life of Patrick Henry, next fall, as
Noah did the dove out of the ark, to see what foothold the country affords.
If he succeeds, the other lives will follow in succession, or all together, something on the plan of "Plutarch's Lives." If I can do justice to this work, it
will pay a just tribute of honor to the dead, will perpetuate their memory,
stimulate the rising generation and present them with the best models by
which to form their own characters, besides affording to myself a decent
harvest of reputation and-cash! It is said, here, that John D. Burk, who
is writing a third-rate history of Virginia, has sold the right for $10,000. I
will not vouch for this, although I had it from a bishop; but if it be true, as
is rendered highly probable by the immense profits which the author and the
other parties concerned have derived from the "Life of Washington," it presents a very flattering evidence of the profits of book-making in this State;
and if my own experiment shall be successful, the term of my labors at the
bar may be perhaps considerably shortened. In the meantime, I am not so
deeply infected with the caccethes scribendi as to permit it to interfere with my




416                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
profession. I shall ply this without intermission, considering it as my chief
dependence. The other shall come in collaterally, merely to fill a chasm in
the toils of the law.
I am much gratified to hear of Presley's progress in his education, and feel
myself most delicately and poignantly flattered by the wish you express to
place him under my direction, in the fail of 1806. Most welcome shall he be
to every advantage that I can impart to him. I only wish that I could be
living in this town next fall-for then I should hope that the examples which
he would see at the superior courts of this State might fix themselves, as
models, in his mind: whereas I fear that the little sort of questions which
form the principal part of our Norfolk business, and the pettifogging discussions which he will hear at the bar there, will be scarcely considered, either by
him or you, as compensating him for the time. I will promise, however, to
show him, as distinctly as I can, the way in which lhe should walk in order to
be eminent. I cannot, indeed, say to him, like Henry the Fourth of France
to his soldiers, "when you find yourself in disorder, and at a loss what course
to take, look upon my white plume-you will always find it on the road to
honor and glory." I cannot even say to him, in the charging order of our Col.
Washington, " follow me, my boy," which I'am told was the practice of our
Col. (now Gen.) Henry Lee. I can point out the plan, and tell him, "go on
my boys." I will write to him as soon as my fall circuit will be over and I
get back to Norfolk-which, however, never happens until a6out the 20th
November.
It will delight me to see you, as you pronise, and I hope you will not easily
permit yourself to be diverted from taking Norfolk in your route. By the
time this reaches you, your expected son will be born. Let me congratulate
you, by anticipation, on this joyous event, and beg that you will give my love
to him, your lady (who is my old-young acquaintance) and to your daughter;
and let me be remembered, in terms of filial respect and affection, to our
father, mother, sisters and brothers. Heaven bless and prosper you.
Believe me, ever,
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.
NORFOLK, Jan. 10, 1806.
My Friend and Father:
It was not longer than five or six days ago that I sat myself down to complain of your long silence; but, in writing a folio page, I made myself so
melancholy with the idea that we were never more to meet, that I found I
was incapable of writing anything but what was calculated to infect you
with my own hypo., and I determined to wait for a flood-tide of spirits. Your
letter of the 6th ultimo, which was brought to me this morning, while I was
at breakfast with my wife and little daughter, has affected me in such a manner as to disqualify me for thinking of anything but you and yours, or doing




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   417
anything but writing to you.  Without waiting, therefore, any longer for
flood- or ebb-tides, I sit myself down to pour out to you the feelings of my
heart and the vagaries of my brain, without reserve.
I see, by your letter, that you have not forgotten how fond I used to be of
your praise-you are right in supposing that I love it still; but, indeed, your
partiality has betrayed you into very great extravagancies about me. I look
upon the picture which your friendship has drawn of me, in this letter, as
the traveler in Germany does on his own gigantic image, reflected by the
rising sun from the mist of the mountains: in size and grandeur the phantom
surpasses him so far, that he wonders how his own little self could have produced such a phenomena, and whether it be not self-existent, without any
prototype in the human creation. No, my dear Mr. Edwards; my vanity has
had too many castigations to permit me, at this time of day, to suppose myself
anything uncommon. I have, too often, occasion to feel my own defects, and
I meet with too many superiors, to believe that I am born for peculiar honors
or distinctions. In this borough resides a man, a practitioner of law-one of
the best curers of vanity that I have ever met with. I am opposed to him at
the bar; and very rarely am I so, without the most sensible humiliation. He
is, indeed, an uncommon man-a young one too-that is, about my own age;
and the only comfort I have, when I compare myself with him, is the reflection of the superior advantages which he has had. His name is Littleton
Waller Tazcwell. His father was a judge of the General Court of this Commonwealth, then a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and died as a
member of the Senate of the United States for Virginia. These honors show
the estimation in which the virtues and talents of the father were held, and
justly held, by the country. The son is confessedly very far the father's superior in point of native talents, and he has had an education unequaled by any
in the State. He was not more than seven years of age when he was placed
in the family of Bishop Madison, the President of William and Mary College, and the particular friend of his father. Under the instruction of this
gentleman, and the various professors in that seminary, he became master of
the dead languages and of several living ones, and, by the time he was seventeen years of age, was a veteran in all the sciences and a first-rate historian.
So that while I, with a little knowledge of Latin and less of Greek, was
mounted upon a bench in the Seneca meeting house, teaching a parcel of little
girls and boys to sol-fa it, this gentleman was conversing with the planetary
system, ranging through all nature, and learning wisdom from the experience of
nations that are no more. Thus accomplished, he was, at the age of seventeen,
placed by his father in the office of Mr. Wickham, a relation by affinity-the
rival of Marshall and of Washington, and their superior before a jury. In the
office of this gentleman he had the advantage of a most extensive and judiciously selected library; he heard the daily and hourly counsel given by this
eminent advocate in every variety of cases; he learned all the technical and
practical parts of the profession, acquired the best system of arranging his
papers and going through the routine of professional duties, and, being in the
metropolis, he had before him not only the most finished models of forensic
argument and eloquence in the superior courts of the State, but he had an
-53




418               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
opportunity of lighting his genius at the altar of a Henry and a Lee in
the Virginia Legislature.
Much about this time Ninian, poor Andrew Lane, and myself, were living
with William P. Hunt, himself a novice in the profession-his library consisting of three or perhaps six books, no clients to consult him, and no examples of oratory before us much superior to Baker Johnson's pike-staff-nor of
these half a dozen law books or Baker Johnson's staff did we think a thousandth part as often as of the bright eyes and angel smiles of the Misses
Turner & Co.!
I am ashamed to pursue the parallel any farther-but this gentleman came
to the bar, where he found himself the master of every question that was
started; whither he brought with him the law learning and address of his
master, and all the stores and treasures which he had amassed at college;
whither he brought with him what is, if possible, more important than them
all: the firmly-rooted habits of industrious application and of close and
forcible thinking. Here he soon felt what it was to be touched with the animating beam of public applause and admiration, and he had the still more
exquisite pleasure of gladdening the heart of a father and filling it with
proud and rapturous anticipations. Of all these pleasures my evil stars and
my own imprudence deprived me. Against all my disadvantages of education and of habit I have yet to struggle. I have, indeed, with the aid of
Divine Providence, cast off the debauchee; but when I compare the neat and
systematic operations of this gentleman-his papers, his pleas, his argumentswith the chaos which I contrive to create around me, and my loose, irregular
and desultory mode of acting and of speaking, I am so far from finding occasion of vanity, that I am humbled unto the dust.
Dugald Stewart (a professor in the University of Edinburgh) observes that
every man, when he grows up and enters upon life, finds and feels some error
which was committed in his education; and he adds that we ought never to
think it too late to begin to educate ourselves anew. Heaven knows how
sensibly I feel the truth of the first part of this observation; and, were I in
circumstances to educate myself anew, I would enter the office of some automaton of a clerk or merchant-the creature of habit, a mere machine-where
I would remain until I had gotten the habit of keeping my papers in the
most exact arrangement. I would then study the mnathematics until my brain
became mathematically methodical-until I could find a pleasure in hanging
over intricate problems and winding through the most perplexed and extensive mazes of logical deduction. These are the two wants which hang like a
dead weight about my neck, and which must always prevent me from rising
much higher in my profession than I now am. Beware of them, my dear
friend, in the education of your younger sons; rely upon it, that these two
habits are of more importance to a lawyer than all the genius of a Cicero or
Demosthenes. For my own part, I am persuaded that there is scarcely any
solid basis of intellectual greatness and utility, other than the mathematics.
If Providence spares my son, I am determined, if it be in my power to have
it so, that he shall be sufficiently qualified to be a professor of mathematics in
a university. It is for the want of this acquirement, and of those habits of




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  419
business and of close, systematic and persevering thought and application
which it never fails to generate, that my progress at the bar has resembled
and will continue to resemble more the lambent motions of the flame of a
candle, than the steady emersion of a planet, gradually increasing in light as
it rises, until its glories blaze in the zenith. This, my dear friend, is not affected depression of myself. It would be a very silly piece of affectation, and
very unworthy of that perfect candor and openness which I wish to subsist
between us. I have thought it my duty to be thus full about myself, in order
to undeceive you as to the estimate in which you seem to suppose I am held
in this country, and more especially as I may have myself contributed, though
innocently, to produce the deception-for I find, by your letter, that I stated
myself to have received an accession of character from the letters of the
" British Spy." This was true: those letters made me known to many to whom
I was before a stranger, and known to my advantage, too, as the bagatelle had
the good luck to hit the capricious taste of the public. But on the roll of
fame I am far, very far, behind the Tullys and Hortensius of Virginia, and
indeed, comparatively, am little more than a cypher. Yet, let not my sincerity rob me of your esteem: it was your own benevolence, and, I doubt not,
your sympathy for my desolate and unfriended situation, which first attached
you to me. I am no longer, indeed, desolate or unfriended, but I should
almost believe myself so, if I thought I were to be discarded from your
esteem and affection. Continue, then, I beseech you, to think of me as a son.
Your solicitude for my prosperity and fame will be a strong incentive to exer -
tion; and if nothing less than fame can insure me your heart, I will struggle
to overleap the barrier of mediocrity, which, hitherto, has been my limit. I
fancy that, by this time, you will not think that I paid you any great compliment in attributing to you the formation of my mind and character. The
fact is that, on the dissolution of Parson Hunt's school, your invitation drew
me from the whirlpool of vice in Bladensburgh, in which, but for you, I
should have been irretrievably lost; nor is this all: if, on my taking up my
abode at Mt. Pleasant, your character had been a negative one-a neutral
between vice and virtue and destitute of dignity-my levity and immoral
propensities would still have ruined me. It was the decision, the energy, the
dignity of your mind and character, that restrained my follies and levities.
The praise which you bestowed on my genius, and the opinions which you
expressed of what I was capable of attaining, awakened in me a greater
respect for myself and kindled my emulation. The warmth, let me add (without the imputation of flattery, for I speak from my heart) the eloquence-the
natural, ardent and impressive eloquence-with which you delivered your
sentiments on virtue, public and private-on morals, on the glory of patriotism as exemplified in Brutus and Cato-and this very frequently too-gave a
shape and fashion to my own sentiments on those subjects, which finally mixed
with my constitution and became a part of my character. It was thus that
you erected a court of oyer and terminer in my own breast, and commissioned
a self-accuser. It was before this tribunal and this accuser that, during the
days of dissipation into which I was betrayed, on first coming to this State,
my conduct was, every morning, arraigned and punished-until the salutary




420                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
punishment and my anxiety for the happiness of another'wrought a reformation in me, and brought me back to the ground on which you placed me.
How can you speak so disrespectfully of your own powers? I doubt if
there ever was a mind more highly endowed by nature, or a man who would
have shone more splendidly than you would have done, if you had devoted
yourself to public life; but you preferred the peace and quiet of private lifeI approve your choice, and, as far as it is in my power, shall follow your
example. Like Shakspeare's Falstaff, " I like not such grinning honor as Sir
Walter hath," neither have I any very strong appetite for those highly-seasoned dishes of calumny with which I see the President and his secretaries
regularly regaled, by half the presses in America. I would not give the dance
which I have just witnessed between my wife and children (for it is now
night, and I am a fiddler) for a thousand such high and honorable banquets!
Give me independence, the peaceful bosom of my family, a friend, and booksI ask no more! The rest I leave to those who love public honors more than
tranquillity.
You have said something about your own health: I hope, therefore, that
you continue well, and more especially that you have no return of that malady which made it necessary for you to submit to the surgeon's knife, in
Fredericktown. You talk, indeed, of religion " supporting you in solitude,
and enabling you to bear your afflictions without a murmur;" but, with such
a flock of children around you, and within three miles of Bardstown, I should
hope you were not much oppressed by solitude; and as for afflictions, I trust
you introduced them only to complete the quotation, and not because you
have in reality any afflictions to contend with, other indeed than those " little,
whiffling cares and vexations," as Sterne calls them, which are the inevitable
lot of the most fortunate life.
What pleasure it would give me to place my dear wife and our little ones
around your hospitable board-to see and converse with you and Mrs. Edwards, and your children-I leave to your imagination; I cannot figure to
myself a higher or more exquisite enjoyment in this world. But, alas! that
enjoyment cannot be mine; for, besides her parents, my wife has a sister (the
wife of the present Governor of the State) and two brothers stationed for
life in Virginia, and I believe she could not leave them without a sacrifice
which I have no right or wish to ask. Much, indeed, do I long to be stationed in Kentucky, because it is there that, I think, I should the soonest be
enabled to relinquish the laborious, harassing and degrading profession in
which I am embarked. I perhaps receive more money here than I should in
Kentucky; but I have no genius for speculation or turning that money in any
way to advantage; and I am persuaded, in order to become wealthy in this
State, a lawyer must have some source of profit other than the mere revenue
arising from his profession. In Kentucky, lands present a subject of easy
speculation and certain profit, in which it would be difficult if not impossible
to err. I must own to you that I am impatient to be released from the wrangles of the bar. It is, indeed, possible that if I were perfectly at liberty to
indulge in those studies and pursuits for which I feel a very ardent passion, I
might be of some service to my fellow-creatures —so at least I think; and I




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   421
often sigh for that liberty which would enable me to make the experiment,
but which I fear cannot be mine-at least until all the vigor of mind as well
as body, and "all the life of life," is flown. But it is in vain to repine. at our
destiny, and can produce no other possible effect than to aggravate the troubles with which we are already surrounded. There is no conduct on such
occasions, worthy either of the philosopher or Christian, but to kiss the rod
with a smile of resignation, and console ourselves by doing all the good we
can within the sphere of our action.
I think your remarks on the.profession of the law, in the general, correct.
The necessity of defending wrong with a face and manner of earnestness and
sincerity, and of laboring with zeal to deceive judges and jurors, has certainly
a tendency to sully the sanctity of the moral sense-more especially when it
is seen that eulogies and honors are lavished on the bright and victorious eloquence which can the most successfully produce those deceptions. Deception
indeed, is, half our time, the very traffic in which we deal-fashion and
opinion have made it not only a justifiable, but even an honorable traffic;
nor is it much to be wondered at, if some members of the profession in this
country and very many in England, urged by want, transfer the habits of the
bar into private life. There are, however, few if any instances in this country
of men, virtuously educated, who have been rendered base and corrupt by the
practice of the law.
There is no revolution in my family since I wrote you last.  My daughter
and son continue to grow more and more interesting every day. I shall teach
them to love and respect you and MIrs. Edwards, and to consider you and
your children as their paternal relations; and from you I shall claim the fulfillment of your promise, that you will teach yours to regard me as a brother;
they shall indeed find me one, if an occasion shall present itself.
Ninian, in his letter, talked of bringing on Presley and leaving him with
me this winter, and perhaps longer. If it be your impression and Ninian's
that his residence with me will be serviceable to him, you know me, I am
sure, well enough to be convinced that it would afford me one of the most
delightful gratifications in the world. The only objections to it are such as
arise from a consideration of Presley's benefit, and which I think I mentioned
to Ninian: my library is, as yet, on a small scale-the practice of these courts
is too loose to afford him any information as to the technical parts of the
profession-and the yellow fever assails the town every fall. If these difficulties can be obviated to your satisfaction, my house, my books, my best
instructions, and the bosom of an affectionate brother, are at his service.
When I wrote to Ninian, I had, I think, a pretty near prospect of going to
Richmond to settle. That, however, is removed further off; and even if I
should go while Presley is living with me, he can accompany me without any
inconvenience or difficulty. When I state that my library is small, you must
not understand it to be quite as small as William P. Hunt's. I suppose I
have five or six hundred dollars' worth of well chosen books, and I am constantly augmenting the number. I hope Presley has not been confining his
attention to law, solely, but that, independent of his education at college, he
has attended to general science, to history (both ancient and modern), and to




422                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
poetry-the latter by way of raising his imagination and acquainting hini
with the melody of the English language; an important acquirement for a
public speaker.
My Betsey returns her dutiful acknowledgments to yourself and Mrs. E.
for your affectionate mention of her, and begs you both, and her adopted
sisters and brothers, to accept of her love.  My little Laura, whom I have
just asked if I should give her love to you,  answers to, awrhat I "must do (for
go) and tell you!" Little does she know what happiness it would give me
to be able to do so. My love and duty to you, Mrs. E., and all the children,
with their husbands and wives. (Elisha, I suppose, is married by this time.)
Pray let me hear from you again, soon-every month at least-and prompt
Ninian. I don't know how to quit you, and yet I have not said half I wished;
but I must. Adieu, my friend and father.
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, EsQ., near Bardstown, Kentucky.
RICHMOND, Fcbruary 2, 1807.
My Dear Sir:
I am indebted to you for your favor of the 5th ult., which I received to-day.
A combination of causes have made me a defaulter towards you lately; be
assured, however, that a diminution of my respect and affection for you is
not amongst those causes. You do not, indeed, notice my defalcation in this
letter, and I infer pardon. I shall be happy to hear from Mir. Trigg, and to
serve him by any means in my power; the particulars of his case you tell me
I shall have from himself.
I have seen the papers from your State, and marked with regret the number of respectable names involved in the Spanish intrigue.  We hope that
the work of expurgation, which is begun among you, will go on until the
body politic is thoroughly cleansed. To say the least of Innis, his virtue was
in a capitulating mood; he ought to follow the steps of Sebastian.  Poor
Nicholas! death has dropped the curtain over him; let us not raise it. I am
glad to find that those who are on the spot, and have therefore the best
opportunity of judging, concur in extolling the vigilance and patriotism of
Mr. Daviess. He has been very strongly suspected, in this State, of being
touched with the Spanish disease; and even his late efforts against Burr, for
which he received such distinguished honor in Frankfort, appeared to us so
poorly concerted and weakly sustained that they were regarded as feints to
give a moment's relief to the reputation of the culprit and favor his escape.
I am pleased to find you think otherwise, and hope you may see no cause to
change your present opinion of him. Poor Burr! what an inglorious fall for
genius and science! The example of Sylla, Cataline, Caesar, Augustus,
Bonaparte, etc., appear to have had the same effect, on his brain, which
those of Orlando Furioso and other knights-errant had on that of Don
Quixote: more especially if we believe him to have projected the extended
and magnificent project to which Gen. Eaton has just sworn-(not knowing




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                    423
whether you take the Richmond papers, I inclose the " Enquirer," of this day,
containing Eaton's and others' depositions, together with the President's last
communication touching this conspiracy, and suppose it may probably reach
you as soon as through another channel). Hitherto, Wilkinson has behaved
well in this affair; but, admitting that nothing had been understood between
him and Burr, before the arrival of Swartwout and Bollman at Orleans, this
is a curious departure from the generally supposed style of Burr's negotiations-sending agents there to confer with Wilkinson, and sending them
under the impression that W. had been previously gained; writing to him,
too, in a manner which shows that he himself was under the same impression!
If there had been no previous understanding between Wilkinson and Burr,
all that can be said for it is, that the latter has assailed his virtue with as
little ceremony as if he had been a common prostitute, and was always ready
when the money was offered. There is, indeed, reason to suspect Wilkinson;
but if he is disposed, " by hearty repentance and true faith, to turn unto his"
duty, should he not be received? Would it not afford just cause for clamor
against the tyranny of the Government? And even if Wilkinson be pure,
at present, would it not naturally force him, with all his influence, into the
arms of Burr, and palliate his treason? It is a critical situation in which
the Government is placed. Perhaps the course adopted by the President,
towards him, is not only the most just but the safest: the show of a magnanimous confidence has been known to confirm even a wavering faith. If
Wilkinson is innocent, removal would be cruelty not to be surpassed, for it
would blast his character forever, or else the blow would recoil on the Administration. " Sed non nobis est, tantas componere lites."  The danger we
believe is now over; for if Wilkinson has been merely playing the patriot
all this time, and " mouthing at Casar " in order that he may be retained at
his post until he can surrender Orleans and the army to Burr, it is believed
that they will find the fallacy of calculating on the conduct of an army of
freemen and Americans, from the example of the corrupt and mercenary
legions of Rome.
I saw, some time ago, in the "Western World," a paragraph stating the
resignation of Sebastian, and expressing a hope that Judge Wallace would
follow his example. Who is this Judge Wallace? Not, I am sure, my old
friend and schoolmate; and yet, knowing no other Wallace in Kentucky
likely to be a judge, I felt considerable uneasiness on his account. You would
have increased it if you had stopped at informing me that my friend Wallace
had succeeded you on the bench of the General Court, but you have relieved
me entirely by speaking so warmly of his virtues. I am happy to hear of his
promotion, so far as honors are concerned; but how can he support his family
on the salary of a judge of your General Court? and would he not have
found it his interest to have continued at the bar? Your lawyers get rich;
Wallace, certainly, could not have failed in a country in which Daviess succeeds! or else Daviess must be a very different man from what he was when
he was in Richmond, about seven years ago.  I think Wallace has talents
which would have enrolled his name amongst advocates of the first order, if




424               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
he had energy enough to throw off that flattering and hurried manner, which
he learned in his childhood, and cultivate a talent for speaking. I-e had but
to practice that slow and deliberate enunciation which Lord Bacon so strongly
inculcates, and which Plato is said to have exemplified so beautifully and
sweetly. But how easy is it to give these lessons; how difficult to practice
them! I have been trying all my life to learn to speak in the time of Lady
Coventry's minuet, but I began with a Virginia jig, and shall go on shuffling
all the days of my life. I have a little son, just two years old, who is beginning to talk handsomely. I labor before him to speak in proper time, knowing the decisive importance of parental example; but the moment my attention is withdrawn from my own enunciation, my tongue breaks loose like one
of those windmills with which they frighten crows from a corn field, and so
my poor boy, I fear, must be a jig-dancer too.
And Presley is at the bar, while I was expecting him in Richmond! What
pleasure it would give me to hear his maiden efforts; and how shall I rejoice
to hear the echo of his fame reverberating to our Atlantic coast! HIe will
have a good deal to do to fulfill the expectations which were formed of him
in his childhood. Your father, I remember, got Brooks' novel called "The
Fool of Quality," about the time Prcsley was five or six years old, and we
were all struck with the resemblance which he bore to the character of "IHenry
Clinton." I suspect I can repeat, to this day, the first set-speech lie ever
made-and that was borrowed from an almanac:
"Man's but a vapor and full of woesJust cuts a caper, and down he goes."
Pray, give him my love and best wishes. It will make me happy to see
your cousin, Mr. Pope, in Richmond. There is not the least probability of my
going to Washington next winter. I am no politician. I have not that
fondness for politics which I perhaps would have, if nature had given me
talents to make a figure in them, and a temper to endure the buffetings and
humiliations which I see all politicians are doomed to suffer. As it is, my
ambition is bounded by the single desire of finding case and peace for my
old age and independence for my family; and this I have a prospect of compassing if I live out the usual lot of man. I very sincerely wish you success
in your desire to get on the Federal bench. I have no influence on the appoint.
ments of the Cabinet. I know Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, indeed, both
very well, and, if it be necessary, might perhaps be justified in stating to them
my impression of you, but have no reason to flatter myself that such statement would produce any effect in changing the destination of honors and
offices; but if you think otherwise, or it would afford you anfy manner of
gratification, I will write with pleasure to either or both of them. Pray
what is the salary of a judge of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky? The
manner of your appointment was certainly very honorable; you must have
out-Jcnkinized Goldsmith's hero! One and the same speech would not always
serve your turn, and nothing can be more different than your catastrophies;
but perhaps you are not at the end of your journey.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   425
You give but a poor account of the net proceeds of my little school. Carlton is, however, full as smart as I expected; and Sol. has maintained his charactcr throughout the drama-which, you know, is a matter of great merit
among the critics. It was kind in his wife, since she was predetermiined to
beat him, to furnish him with a fortification of horn-works against her own
assaults. Mlr. Addison's idea is verified in the example of the two boysthey make the same figure, now, in relation to society, which they formerly
made in relation to their school-mates. Sol. was always, you know, a smiling,
Jerry-sneak sort of a fellow, and Carlton a giggling one, who asked no more
than a slight provocation to laugh to be perfectly happy. It is possible that
Watkins' vanity may be corrected by age, and Catlett's temper by prosperity;
I wish they may. I am of the opinion that Catlett is the cleverest fellow of
the two; he has more volubility, but it is all commonplace, and an affected
imitation of the gay, fashionable rake and debauchee, who has been the object of comic satire ever since the reign of Charles the Second; his glitter is
mere isinglass. I am glad to hear that Dr. Jones is doing even so well as
you represent; pray remember me to him affectionately. Give my love to my
old schoolmate and favorite, Doct. Wallace; he was always amiable, in spite
of Latin and Maguire, both of whom he hated as much as he is capable of
hating anything. This Maguire was our usher; and, by-the-by, Wallace can
tell you a good story of him, which now I have neither time nor paper to give
you.
I am afraid Elisha is going to be an old batchelor; it is high time he was
contributing to de-forest and people Kentucky. Betsey married, and Peggy
has had offers! When I read this I felt disposed to look into a glass and see
if I was not as hoary, wrinkled and emaciated as Father Priam, or even Methusalem; and yet I am but thirty-four, if there be any truth in family chronicles! You have not told me the name of Betsey's husband, which you ought
to have done. I have no objection to Peggy's being a little romantic, for I
think it spreads the charm of delicacy with a fine effect over a female character; but it will not do to carry it so far as Mrs. Radcliffe, the celebrated
moralist, who, I am told, is at last crazed by the offspring of her own fancy.
I am surprised at your saying my old friend Kelly moved to that country, a few
days past —for if, by that country, you mean Kentucky, I thought he had been
there ten years ago, at least; but perhaps you mean that he had moved to
Logan county. Pray recall me to his recollection, and assure him I take the
most friendly interest in his welfare.
I presume you will expect to hear something about me and my prospects,
in so long a letter. Providence has still favored me since my removal to this
place. I have more of reputation and business than I deserve; stillmaintain
my family, and have a little surplus cash to invest in an advantageous speculation, now and then. The Legislature, lately in session here, solicited me
by some of their members to take a place in the Council of State, which I
declined, as interfering too much with my pursuits. I have been much pressed,
too, to represent this city in the Legislature, but I have declined it, and mean
not to be diverted from my object of an affluent old age, exempt from politi-54




426                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
cal storms, and indulged in the innocent pleasures of retirement and books.
This may be thought an ingloriously indolent scheme; but I think it quite as
desirable, though perhaps not so glorious, as the exit of Cato, Cicero or Demosthenes. My soul is entirely too unambitious to be pleased with the prospect of falling on my own sword, being the victim of tyrants' myrmidons, or
stealing into the grave by sucking poison from a pen; nay, I am torpid enough
to love solitude and peace more than the glory of running the gauntlet of all
the scandalous presses in America. I have three children-the youngest, a
girl, near five months old; this is an effectual way of serving my country!
and I have a prospect of serving her very effectually in that way, which is
quite enough to satisfy my ambition! Besides this, there is no necessity for
my embarking in the vessel of State: there are candidates enough, anxious
for the service, even to stand before the mast; and I do not see why I, who
know nothing of political navigation-scarcely the names of the ropes and
sails-should be pushing and elbowing to become a mariner. These are the
motives which have determined me to private life.
I beg you, if you should have an opportunity, that you will offer my love,
respects and duty at Shiloh. Mr. Edwards has seen so many of his children
married and colonized, that, I imagine, he is beginning to look forward to
the time when he and Mrs. E. may sit in opposite corners and play " Darby"
and "Joan!" What a patriarch he will be in a few years, with his children
and his children's children swarming in hosts around him, until it will require
as good a chronicler as Moses to enumerate, through all of their ramifications,
the descendants of the new tribe of Benjamin! I hope he still enjoys his
health, and has had no symptoms of the return of his Maryland complaint.
Pray what has become of those geniuses, Haden Edwards and Gerard, or
Garrett as he was called, who frightened me so much when they were at your
father's, on their way to Carlisle College? I remember I was almost afraid to
open my lips before them; and as for Garrett, I expected to have heard before this that he had set the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri and Gulf of Mexico
on fire! I hope he has not returned into water himself, like one of Ovid's
metamorphoses.
Give the love of a brother and friend to Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker, your sister
Polly, and all your brothers and sisters. Remember that you promise, in this
last letter, to write to me again shortly. Adieu!
WILLIAM WIRT.
To IION. NINIAN EDWARDS, Logan county, Kentucky.
RICHMOND, February 22, 1807..Dear Sir:
The mail of this morning has brought me your favor, without date, but
bearing in the postmark that of the 29th ultimo. So far from an apology
being necessary for your letters, I am extremely obliged to you for them, both
on account of the facts and the speculations which they contain. As the best
return which I am now able to make, I inclose you a handbill, struck from




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  427
one of our papers of yesterday morning, and which may probably bring you
the news of Burr's surrender, Monroe's treaty with Great Britain, and the construction of Bonaparte's proclamation-blockade of that kingdom and her
dependencies. If I were able to write, I would not trouble you with the inclosure; but this is the first time I have written a line for a week past, owing
to a distracting pain over my right eye, and I now find writing so painful
that I have barely power to reassure you that I am,
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HIoN. ININAN EDWARDS, Collina, Logan county, Kentucky.
RIcrrMOND, August 2, 1807.
My Dear Sir:
I dare say, my good friend, you begin to think me a Godwinian, in point
of gratitude-seeing how diligently you detailed the operations of Aaron
Burr, while he was in your quarter, whereas he has been near four months in
our metropolis and you have not heard a word from me. I can only assure
you that my silence has resulted from the importunity of my engagements,
and from that cause solely.
While he was wandering over the United States, brought before grand
juries in Kentucky and the Mississippi, and finally under proclamation for flying from his recognizance, I could not help often imagining, "suppose that
chance had brought him on his trial in Richmond, and chance still greater
had embarked me in his cause-what course would I pursue?" Little did I
suppose that that imagination was so soon to be realized. I had gone from
Richmond about the last of March to wind up old causes in Norfolk, and
to defend a criminal by whom I was called to Northumberland District Court.
Burr arrived in my absence. At Williamsburg, I received an express to engage me on behalf of the United States, and I did engage. At Northumberland Court-house I was met by an express from Burr, which was of course
too late. From this solicitude to engage me, you will readily see that I am
playing the "Jenkinsonian" successfully in Virginia, as you represented yourself to have done in Kentucky. On the 22d of May the Federal Court met.
Burr challenged some of the grand jury for favor, on the authority of Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown and Bacon's Abridgement. The propriety of the
challenge was admitted, I think most wrongfully-the authorities setting out
a class of causes of challenge totally distinct from favor, and the year
books, on which Hawkins founds himself, flatly disproving the principle in
the latitude of construction allowed to it here. Others of the grand jury
were set aside as having been improperly summoned. After the marshal
had summoned the twenty-four required by law, some of the twenty-four
having declared their inability to attend, it was decided by the court that
the marshal had exhausted his power by summoning the twenty-four; that
having no power to touch another man, the rest were not, in law, summoned,
and consequently were not grand jurors. By these acts the grand jury was




428               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
reduced to its lowest number, sixteen, and consequently the chance of the
concurrence of twelve in finding a bill, was reduced to its minimum. Of
these sixteen, too, several were Federalists and several minority men, and
among the latter John Randolph, who had spoken of the affair, in Congress,
as a petty intrigue. Burr and his counsel were filled with triumph at the
prospect that there would be no bill found; they displayed this triumph very
injudiciously, and went so far as to declare out of doors that there was no
chance of finding a bill-representing the whole as a military project, to take
place only in the event of a war declared between the United States and
Spain. Meantime, while the grand jury were engaged in examining the evidence, Burr amused us with a series of interludes in court-motion upon motion
-argument upon argument, for upwards of thirty days-the principal policy
of which was to turn the current of popular indignation from Burr against
the Administration, by representing Burr as a victim of envy, malignity and
persecution. These arts had no effect beneficial to Burr, except upon a few
Federalists, who were predisposed to believe anything and everything dishonorable to the Administration; but upon the community at large, from
whom Burr's jury must come, the effect was most inauspicious.
In the midst of all this hurly-burly came Wilkinson and his suit, like
Pope's fame, " unlooked for," at least by Burr's partisans. I was anxious to
to mark the interview between Burr and Wilkinson. There was no nature
in it; they had anticipated the meeting, and resolved upon the countenances
they would wear. Wilkinson had been some time within the bar before Burr
would look towards him, affecting not to know he was there, until Hay introduced him by saying to the court, " it is my wish that Gen. Wilkinson, who
is now before the court, should be qualified and sent up to the grand jury."
At the words "who is now before the court,"  Burr started in his chair,
turned quickly around, and fixed a look of scorn and contempt on Wilkinson. Wilkinson, bowing to the court on his introduction, did not receive
Burr's first glance, but his bow finished, he turned his face dow n on Burr and
looked with all the sullenness and proteuity of a big black bull. Burr withdrew his eyes composedly, and there was the end if it. When the grand
jury calme down with the bills against Burr and Blennerhassett, I never saw
such a group of shocked faces. The Chief Justice, who is a very dark man,
shrunk back with horror upon his seat and turned black; he kept his eyes
fixed upon Burr with an expression of sympathy so agonizing and horror so
deep and overwhelming, that he seemed, for two or three seconds, to have
forgotten where and who he was. I observed him, and saw him start from
his reverie, under the consciousness that he was giving way too much to his
feelings, and looked around upon the multitude to see if he had been noticed.
He is, I believe, one of the greatest and best of men; some of our political
friends, warped by their prejudices, think him too much warped by his-if
he is so, he does not know it, for never did I know a man who was more solicitous to cast every bias from his mind and decide every proposition on its abstract merits. I think he has sometimes decided wrong, but it is much more
probable that I myself am wrong. The great Luther Martin was here all the
while. He may have been eminent, but I think he has nothing but the fame




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   429
of his greatness to recommend him; he is all sing-song-a most loose, careless,
slubbering speaker; his style is very coarse and very often incorrect; his conceptions half-formed, and without grace, spirit or force. Jonathan Dayton,
being amongst those against whom the grand jury found bills, is also some
where about town, incog., and my brother, Robert Gamble, who has just ar
rived from Orleans via Rhode Island, informs me that Ingersoll and Lewis are
coming on for the purpose of defending him (Dayton), so that we shall have
the grand climacteric characters of the American bar to cope with. " O! the
blood more stirs to rouse a lion than to start a hare."
Love to Mrs. Edwards and to your father and family. To-morrow the trial
in chief comes on; the witnesses are parading; Martin has arrived. You
shall hear from me again.
In haste,
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To IION. NINIAN EDWARDS, Logan county, Kentucky.
RICIIMOND, December 26, 1807.
Mly Dear Friend:
The last mail brought me your favor of the 14th November, accompanied
by Joseph II. Daviess' pamphlet. I had received, also, in due course of mail,
your former letter, describing the indisposition of your father, and immediately on the receipt of it sat down to write to him, under all the oppression
of spirits which your letter was calculated to produce;,nor was it until I had
discharged my heart on three pages, that it occurred to me I was not in a
proper frame of mind to write to a sick man. I am glad I did not send the
letter, for I find, on looking at it now, that it would very probably have given
your father the hypo, even if it had found him in health. Since that time I
have been almost afraid to inquire about Kentucky, lest I should hear that
the benefactor and father of my youth was no more. But about four weeks
ago I dined in company with a Major Duvall, of this place, then just from
Kentucky, who began, of his own accord, to tell me of his having been several days at our father's, and that he had left him in full and perfect health
and spirits. Your last letter has banished this pleasing illusion and added the
afflicting account of your own ill health. Thus is something ever occurring
to remind us of the frail tenure by which we hold our earthly enjoyments. I
have had some sever lessons on this text during the fall: In October we lost a
little girl thirteen months old, one of the sweetest and most fascinating children
I ever saw; and in the following month a beautiful infant of four weeks old.
We have only our two first left. They are, thank Heaven, very healthy, very
sprightly and very entertaining. My wife and myself enjoy our health, and
endeavor to learn resignation to the will of Heaven. I very much hope that
the winter will bring you and your father up again and brace and restore you
to health. A short time ago I had some hope of seeing you both in Kentucky. Mr. Rodney, the Attorney General of the United States, proposed to
me to attend the court at Chilicothe and aid in the prosecution of Aaron




430                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
Burr there; but the lowest sum which would have indemnified me for the
trip was higher than the treasury could afford, at a time when we were threatened with war. If I had gone I was half resolved, while on the wing, to
take a flight to your State, and shake you all by the hand once more. As I
cannot go myself, I send you, inclosed, my representation; it is the work of
a French artist here, by the name of M3emin, and is thought an excellent
likeness. I shall inclose one, also, to your father. How gratifying would it
be to me, if, in exchange, I could receive likenesses of you both, since I now
believe that I shall never see you more! The distance which separates us,
and the duties which confine us to our respective homes, have placed a gulf
between us which we never can pass; and to this the prospect of war adds
another barrier. The return of our Minister from London, and the embargo
laid by Congress, which was announced to us on yesterday morning, have
cast a deep gloom over the country. War is considered as inevitable; and
who can tell whether we will survive it. Bonaparte has given us as much
cause of offense as Great Britain, saving the impressment of our seamen: our
commerce is equally a subject of plunder and our flag of insult with both
nations; but whether we go to war with one or both, the war will be no
trifling one. It seems to be the wretched destiny of every State, that intermeddles with either of them, to fall sooner or later under the tyranny of the
Corsican; whether friend or foe, this is equally the case. We just hear,
through a respectable channel, that Bonaparte is in Madrid, at the head of
i00,000 Frenchmen, and among other exploits, that he has imprisoned two
hundred Spanish nobles. This is his friendship: what his hostility is, all
Europe can tell. Is not this man bent on realizing the chimera, as it was
thought of Louis XIV-universal dominion? He will pay dearly for us, if
he gets us at all; we will give him the flag of St. Domingo on a grander
scale: our mountains and our forests shall stand us in newstead.
I am much obliged to you for Daviess' pamphlet; it is a curious production. I should not suppose that, in the cast of his talents, judgment was his
predominant faculty, or it would scarcely have permitted him to mix such a
quantity of trash, and sometimes low trash, with the sounder parts of his publication. But he wrote under the influence of spleen and resentment, and his
judgment, perhaps, had not its usual ascendency.' However this may be, he
seems to have consulted his own personal dignity as little as he did that of
the Administration, and his pamphlet, I suspect, will do him more harm than
it will them. It is strange that man cannot have a little more wit in his anger: but that he will permit his revenge to range so licentiously abroad, as to
defeat its own purposes. Herein he resembles more the wounded serpent,
which, in the anguish of pain and fury of resentment, turns its envenomed
fangs upon itself. Genius will, sometimes, run mad.
I am extremely gratified, but not surprised, at the interest which your father takes in my welfare. Since he can find a pleasure in the skeletons of
my speeches, as given him by the newspapers, I will, in two or three weeks,
inclose him a pamphlet containing a pretty faithful statement of my two principal arguments in the course of the proceedings against Burr and his associates. HIe will be enabled, by this pamphlet, to form a correct idea of my




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   431
public speaking. I will, at the same time, inclose a copy to you, and you will
see on how small a foundation it is sometimes the pleasure of fame to stand.
I have heard no man whom I think eminent as a public speaker: they are
either too declamatory and frothy, or too argumentative and dry; if those
who argue attempt also to adorn, the ornaments arc too obviously studied
and too detached from the body of the argument. It is rare, I suspect, in
any country, to find a man so variously accomplished as to speak to the judgment, the fancy and the heart with full effect. Such an one, I am told, was
Mirabeau, the great leader of the French revolution. Lord Chatham spoke
to the judgment and the heart-seldom if ever to the fancy. So, also, Fox,
Burke and Sheridan paid their chief homage to the fancy and the heart; they
rarely, if ever, made a powerful appeal to the judgment. The late William
Pitt assailed the judgment principally, if not solely. Our Patrick Henry had
very little to do except with the heart; and our John Marshall confined himself exclusively to the judgment. So rare is it to find a man who can reason irresistibly, and, also, when the occasion shall require it, can paint to the
fancy and to the heart like a master! The faculties are totally distinct, and
it seems to require almost the study of a lifetime to bring any of them to perfection. It is not wonderful, therefore, that their union is so seldom seen.
There is certainly no man now before the public, in this State, who can make
this high pretension. We have very able lawyers, good reasoners, astute and
ingenious advocates, and fluent and elegant speakers; but we have no man
who can fire the fancy by an cvolution of new and sublime images, or who
can melt the heart by the simple of nature. As to me, you will see how very
small are my pretensions to the possession of any one of these faculties. The
newspapers have spoken of me as eloquent, and on a recent occasion the members of the Assembly, now in session here, placed me, in their debates, above
the heads of Demosthenes and Cicero! It would divert you after this, if your
friendship would not be too much mortified to permit of your being diverted,
to hear me speak. With a tongue two inches thick, and an articulation so
rapid and indistinct, as a friend candidly told me the other day, that, in the
middle of my sentences, I am perfectly unintelligible, it is only by putting
together the beginning and end of the period, that the middle is to be guessed
at! I have some briskness and vivacity of fancy, but it has not the originality, the fertility, the boldness and the awful grandeur which the orator requires; and as to moving the heart, I have no more of it than a child. This
is not affectation: it is the ingenuous openness and frankness of friendship.
I think myself unfortunate that the exertions of mere duty, during the trial
of Burr, have imposed on me a superstructure of character which I know I
cannot bear. This is too apt to be the case. The world is agreeably surprised by a man from whom they expected little or nothing: they puff him
to the stars. Expectations are thus excited which it is impossible to fulfill;
he disappoints them, and very probably falls below the point at which he
ought to stand, and at which he would have stood if he had never been extolled beyond his deserts, but had been permitted to rise quietly and gradually, under the mere impulse of his talents. I have seen these things happen,




432                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
If I write anything for the public on any occasion, I will certainly comply
with our father's obliging request. At present I have nothing in view, except the biography of Patrick Henry, which, by one cause or another, and indolence among the rest, I have had on the anvil for two years. I expect to
finish it this winter, unless war should come in earnest to divert me from my
purpose. If I cal satisfy myself and the public with "Patrick Henry," I propose to pursue the "lives" of our other distinguished men, on Plutarch's plan.
Inculcate your young brothers, who arc intended for public speakers, with
the mathematics and Lock's Essay on the Human Understanding (they give
the key to the human judgment), and epic and dramatic poetry, together with
a close observation of the manners of men and the various motives and springs
of human action. Inculcate in them the necessity of knowing the history of
every country as intimately as if they belonged to each country; and inculcate
in them the incalculating importance of the early habit of examining nothing
superficially, but of engraving deeply on the memory a clear, distinct and full
knowledge of every subject to which they turn their attention. I sigh deeply
while I write these precepts: they remind me of advantages which I might
have had, but' which are gone forever. But these arc auricular confessions,
and in catholic confidence.
My Betsey and her children join me in love to you and Mrs. Edwards.
Your good lady, I imagine, scarcely remembers lme —she was very young when
I saw her last; pray recall me to her, and assure her that she is very dear to
me, both for her own and her mother's sake.
Your friend and brother,
WILLIAM WIIT.
To IIoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, Frankfort, Kentucky.
RICILMOND, Sep)tember 12, 1808.
3fy Dear Friend:
The last mail brought me your favor of the 26th July.  * * *  I am
glad to understand you purpose coming on this year. I hope you will take
Richmond in your way, and let me see you once more in my life. If you come
in December, you will find the Assembly in session, and may pass a week or
ten days here very comfortably.
Daviess, being so eminent a man, I wish he was a less bitter opponent of
the Administration-yet his extravagance, perhaps, renders his opposition the
more harmless. He seems to me, from his book, to have a bold and strong
mind, but as undisciplined and illy regulated as a raw body of militia. I am
glad to hear of the footing Mr. Madison has in your State. What I think of
him you will learn from an accompanying pamphlet, comprising a very hasty
and crude reply to John Randolph's protest. It was scribbled off with great
precipitation, in a few moments stolen from professional pursuits; hence
you will find it unpolished and rough-passable merely as a newspaper essay.
I think so little of it that I would not send it to you, if you had not desired
me to send all I wrote.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   433
I believe all the States, but the New England ones, will stand the embargo.
New Hampshire and Rhode Island have already flown that way in their late
elections; Massachusetts is said not to be fairly represented in the State. The
people here sustain the privations with all the patriotism of'76. I hope Kentucky will be true to the Administration-Wilkinson, notwithstanding. How
would it do for the President to displace him, since his acquittal? His situation (the President's) is a trying one. I think that the general want of confidence in Wilkinson is such as to make it very improper for him to be retained at the head of the army. It is much to be regretted that he cannot
be got rid of, without tle appearance of his being sacrificed to the public
clamor. Horace's "prava ardor jubentium," if the warmth which is felt against
him on this occasion deserves the epithet of prava. Heaven bless you!
WILLIAM WIRT.'o HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Franklin county, Kentucky.
RIsCHIMOND, Novetmber 26, 1808.,Dear Friend:
The last mail brought me yours of the 20th ult. I hasten to acknowledge,
because I wish you to be sensible how much I value your correspondence.
The indulgence with which you have read the pamphlet signed "One of the
People," is very obliging, but nevertheless cannot remove my own consciousness that those essays are not in the tone of calm dignity which would better
have become the vindicator of Mr. Madison. He is, himself, so totally free
from asperity, so dispassionate, so purely intellectual and argumentative, that
the example is a reproof to any advocate who uses heat and declamation in
his defense. If the character of the piece could find any justification in the
character and conduct of those to whom it is addressed, it is most amply justified; but I believe it would better have served the purpose, and would certainly have given a more advantageous impression of the person and dignity
of the writer, if it had been more in the spirit of Mr. Madison's own pamphlet on "neutral rights." While we are on the subject of political essays, I
cannot help expressing my surprise at the apprehension which you seem to
have of the effect of Daviess' "Citizen." I should think that either "Regulus,"
who is understood to be Mr. Clay, or the eccentric "Doctor" who edits one of
your papers, would have point and force enough to blow forty such citizens
out of the water. Let my old acquaintance, Bibb, at him; if he is only half
the man he promised to be when fifteen, he would scatter him like chaff before the winds of heaven. I am sure there must be at least a thousand men
in Kentucky capable of refuting so gross a sophist and so blind a politician
as Davicss either is by nature or has been rendered by the poison of political
prejudice. The insolent confidence which he seems to feel, and the lordly
tone in which he affects to dictate to the people of your country, amaze me.
Such a bullying blade would be sufficiently answered by being.rendered ridiculous. If I were living in your State, and thereby had a right to interfere
in your politics, instead of inflating the gentleman with more importance, by
-55




434                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
a solemn answer, I would laugh at him and his arguments till the canopy
cracked; I would not get mad with him, as I did with "Protestus," but would
tickle him into convulsions with a peacock's feather. The people ought to see
him in his true light of a Briton in politics and a despot in temper, and it
is no matter how ludicrous the representation of him is made-ridiculum acri,
forties et melius secat res. Your proposition for me to answer him resulted
from the heart with which you wrote: A moment's consideration would have
satisfied you that such an intrusion would neither be modest nor decorous in
me; it would have implied an opinion that there was destitution of talents
in Kentucky and a superabundance in myself, which would have rendered me
as fair a target for ridicule as Joseph Hamilton Daviess, himself. I am, moreover, so pressed with business, that I shall have to lay aside a political sketch
of the Republican minority, which I had meditated; but we have now three
superior courts in session, and they will run into the session of the Legislature which begins ten days hence-so you see the impossibility of my complying with your request, even if it were proper or necessary, and I think it
can be no more necessary than proper. Yet, you give me a grievous account
of the ascendancy of Federal talents in your State. If this opinion be not
the effect of your own patriotic fears, it is grievous indeed, for it will have a
most unpropitious effect on the opinions of young men of genius: they will
begin to consider federalism, as they used to do deism, the proof and badge
of talents, and will coincide with your Federal leaders with the same readiness that they would with Voltaire and Bolingbroke —to be thought like them
in that respect.
I do not much like the idea of our judges embarking very actively in
political feuds, yet I should hope that, without subjecting yourself to reproach,
you might cull the prime and flower of the Republicans, give concert to their
movements, and inspirit them to resist intrepidly and firmly the machinations
of the Federalists in every part of the State.  They require but to be met
foot to foot and bearded with facts, to make them "shrink from the storm
and steal to rest."  They crow and plume themselves on the tame and passive
silence of the Republicans.  Joseph Hamilton Daviess no doubt already
imagines that he " bestrides the State like a Colossus, and that you petty men
are forced to peep about between his legs to find yourselves dishonorable
graves;" and the danger is that the people, seeing him everywhere uncontradicted, will at length believe that it is because he cannot be contradicted
with truth. He, in concert with the other Federalists throughout the United
States, has laid hold of the embargo, and they fancy it the lever of Archimedes, with which they will overturn the Republican world; yet, the measure is so obviously dictated by the true interest and soundest policy of the
Union, that even some of the most prominent men of their party are its advocates. Such is John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, William Smith of
South Carolina (whose political consideration of the subject is aided by a
personal knowledge of foreign courts), Oliver Wolcott, and others. Federalists who oppose the measure declaim against it as weak and inefficient; yet
it is a truth, asserted and reiterated by American merchants in London (and




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   435
Federalists too), that nothing prevented the measure from having its immediate effect but the clamor and uproar raised against it here, and the very
menacing attitude taken by our Eastern brethren, on the occasion. This is
the effect of several letters which have been received in this city and Georgetown, from several of our Federal merchants in London, and among the rest
my brother John Gamble, of this place, and Win. Murdock of the other.
Thus, according to the evidence of their own party, it is the Federalists who
have frustrated the measure, and made the continuance of it until this time
necessary; and of those very effects, produced by themselves, are they now
making handles against us. This may be policy, but it is not honor or even
honesty. The truth is that the Federal opponents of the embargo are, in
their political principles and feelings, as truly British as if we had already
gone back to the darkest ages of our colonial servitude. Of the same color
is Jo. Daviess' proposition, to suffer foreign nations to come here and buy our
produce, although we will not buy theirs.  They themselves say that the
British fleet is our shield against France, and so omnipotent is her power on
the ocean that they will not suffer the French to come here and hurt us.
Suppose, then, our ports are open for foreign ships to come and buy; the
ships of Great Britain and her colonies might be seen here, but where would
be that vast competition for our products which has hitherto resulted from
France and the countries connected with her? Our object, then, is to punish
Great Britain for the wrongs she has done us; and how do Federalists propose that we shall effect it? By giving up to her the whole of the American
carrying trade! Our object is to starve and impoverish her until she does us
justice; and how do the Federalists propose that we shall effect this? By
giving up to her, at her own price, the whole of our surplus produce, thereby
feeding her at a much cheaper rate than before she wronged us-and furnishing her, moreover, with a productive subject of speculation on those nations
whom she keeps from our ports. This view of the subject, so simple and so
plain, must surely occur to every reader of Daviess' proposition, and defeat
its effect; for can it be conceived that there is anywhere one American so
tame and so mean as to reward Great Britain for the slaughter of our brethren on board of the "Chesapeake," for the captivity of the thousands whom
she holds in her ships, for the unprincipled tyranny by which she has driven
our seamen from the ocean, and the thousand wrongs and insults which she
is daily offering us, by making her -a present of the complete monopoly of our
whole carrying trade and surplus produce! This was one of the very grounds
on which our patriotic forefathers took up arms against her;. and yet the
virtuous Federalists propose that we shall return to our bondage- and that
in requital of British murder and rapine. You will see by the President's
message the overture which has been made to that court to take off the embargo, if she will rescind her orders of council; and by Canning's reply
(compared with the hiss of the President of the United States at the dinner
lately given to the Spanish delegates) you will see the respect which they
entertain for us. Congress is debating with closed doors-it is supposed a
proposition for war; but, whether the word is war or embargo, I cannot help




436                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
believing, with the President of the United States, that there is in the country a fund of virtue sufficient to match the crisis. If there is war with England, what confidence can we have in these British-Americans of whom I
have been speaking? I think such men as your Daviess would repine at the
success of the American arms, if directed by a Republican administration:against Great Britain.  Whatever would contribute to give luster and eclat
-to Jefferson or Madison, would be poison or death to him; and I believe he'would rejoice in his country's ruin, if republicanism were to fall with it. I,do not doubt but that the whole gang would sooner see this country under
the administration of George III, than either of the pure and virtuous patriots whom I have just named! I write to you without reserve, and I write
my cool and deliberate opinion of those incendiaries.  I do not mean to
embrace in the censure every man who has the name of Federalist, because I
know many in this State who are as pure and patriotic as any Republican;
but I mean those fire-brands of faction who have chosen this perilous and
fearful crisis to foment disunion and discontent, and to erect themselves
upon the ruins of republicanism and the Union.  For the principles, either
moral or political, of such men, I have no respect.
I will make another effort to get you a copy of my arguments on Burr's
trial. The whole report of the case is coming out, taken in short-hand by
Robertson, who took down the debates of the Convention. I have not much
opinion of his stenographic excellence, from the samples I have seen.
I beg you to present my compliments to Mr. Bibb, with the inclosed profile, and assure him I am much gratified by his friendly remembrance of me.
I had indeed a great partiality for him, and looked upon him as a prodigy
of genius and literature, considering his age.  I am happy to hear, both for
his sake and yours, that he is on the bench of the appeals.  He must be a
pleasing as well as an able associate.
I have, for sometime past, received both the " Palladium " and the " Western World," in consequence of your direction, as I presume.  How am I to
remit the subscription money? Do you take the " Enquirer," of this place,
or shall I send it to you?
You talk of my seeing you this winter; and being here, myself, confined
for the winter as a member of the Assembly, I take it for granted that I am
to see you here-at which I shall very greatly rejoice. If you can come before February, you will see Richmond in its highest state of animation, and
you will see how wofully the legislative council has fallen since the days of
Pendleton, Wythe, Henry, Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, etc. This last you
will perceive I do not say by way of attraction, but to prevent disappointment by preparing you for the more humble figure which our House really
makes at this time.
I observe, in Toulmin's collection of your "Acts of Assembly," page 239, an
act allowing aliens to hold lands in fee simple, in your Commonwealth. I
should suppose, from the language of the act, that its benefits are only intended for the benefit of aliens who should have been resident in the State two
years previous to the falling of the title, and that no alien could, by going




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  437
now to reside in Kentucky, acquire by two years' residence a title which has
already fallen. A gentleman in this place died lately, entitled to lands in
your State; his relations here are aliens. They are willing to go and live in
Kentucky, if, by so doing, they could acquire a title to these lands. I have
given them my impression of this law as above stated, and now write to you,
not to know your exposition of the statute, because that would be indelicate,
considering that the question may be brought before you, but I write to know
whether the law has actually received a judicial exposition either against or
in favor of my clients-or if there be any later explanatory or amendatory
act providing for the case? Either of these questions I think you might answer with perfect propriety. If you think otherwise I hope you will not
answer them. Be pleased to let me hear from you as soon as possible on this
point.
I am extremely pleased with your remarks on the embargo, and peculiarly
as it relates to Kentucky.  Why do you not expand those ideas and propagate them in the form of essays? The people, I am persuaded, need but to
be enlightened on the subject, and they will submit without a murmur.
Daviess must be exposed, and the people must be prevented from being misled by false views of the subject.  The nature of the British acts in council,
and French decrees, ought to be simplified and made plain. The unjust
aggressions of those nations ought to be depicted in detail, in order to show
the policy of the embargo and the insidious and infamous arts by which the
Federalists themselves have rendered the measure abortive.  These subjects
well explained, and colored only to the life, would make them execrate the
Federalists, admire and applaud the Administration, and support with the
gallant and patriotic spirit of their fathers every measure which the Government might take.  It is not virtue, but correct information, that the people
want; and those who are capable of giving it to them ought to feel it a sacred
duty to do so.
I have just seen the "Western World," which was brought in this morning. I postponed my letter in the hope that something might arrive from
Kentucky indicative of their resentment at the proud and insulting repulsion
of the President's offer to the British council, touching the orders of council.
I see that Mr. Street, or the writers, concur in Canning's sentiment of contempt for our Government; and my opinion is that they are just as well
entitled to a coat of tar and feathers as any British tory at the beginning of
the last war. It will not be long before such men will get it.
Pray give my love to your wife and children, and all friends.
Yours affectionately,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, near Frankfort, Kentucky.




438               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
RICHMOND, Feb. 17, 1809.
Dear Sir:
I thank you for the trouble which you were so good as to take relative to
my question on your "alien" statute. That question arose upon the death of
a gentleman of this place, a naturalized Scotclman, who died intestate
seized of a vast estate, consisting, in part, of Kentucky lands. His next of
kin were nephews and nieces, part of whom were native Virginians and other
part aliens. The aliens were willing to go to Kentucky if, by doing so, they
could come in, pari passu,.for those lands; but as they were not capable of
receiving the title when it fell, and the other nephews and nieces were, I
presume the latter will take the whole estate. Is there any doubt of this?
You will see, by the statement, that the services you so kindly offer will be
unavailing. The offer, however, is not the less sensibly felt.
I hope you will not be hindered from performing an act of piety in accompanying your father to the Virginia Springs, next summer, for his health.
For my own part, I have already met you in imagination several times, and
held long ideal conversations with you.  Let me beseech you not to disappoint me. You could not have chosen a subject half.so grateful to me as the
description which you give of your father's attachment. His partiality for
me is indeed excessive, and if I were politic, I should refuse to meet him at
the Springs, where a personal interview would dissipate all the extravagance
of his opinion and reduce me to my proper size.  Nevertheless, I do long to
meet him. You must tell me, for you have still time enough for the communication, at which of the Springs I may expect to find you, about the 25th of
July; for, as I shall have only three, or at the farthest, four weeks to be with
you, I should not like to lose any part of the precious time in hunting you
from one watering place to another. Pray let me hear from you explicitly on
this subject.
The session of our Assembly has just closed. It is my first experiment
and I confess that it has not left me very highly enamored of legislative life. I
was, indeed, clerk of the House of Delegates for two or three years, about eight
or nine years ago, and may be supposed not to have come into the House totally
ignorant of the nature of such a body; yet, when clerk, I was so insulated
and had so little time to observe the springs of action in the House, or to mix
my feelings with the ordinary business, that I really found myself in an element totally new when I entered it this winter as a delegate. So much inattention, so much servile dread of ayes and noes, so much of blind and sudden
impulse, of prejudice deaf as an adder and almost as rancorous, too-such a
sordid, avaricious, mean-spirited regard to the public purse, to the sacrifice of
everything like just and wise policy-that, for my own part, I am heartily
sick of the life of a legislator. We have had a great number of offices to fill
in the executive, in the judiciary, in the militia, besides a treasurer and register
to appoint. This has opened another scene of disgust-low and petty intrigues
among the members, for office. The scene has been wound up by expelling
from the office of superintendent of our manufactory of arms one of the finest
artists that this or any other country has ever possessed, on charges without




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   439
foundation, and in a manner as cruel and despotic as was ever practiced by
the Jacobin convention of France, save only that they have not called in the
guillotine.  In short, my dear friend, that happiness which is to be derived
from a communion with wise and virtuous men, is not to be derived, I fear,
from communion with large popular assemblies.  Faction, heat, intrigue,
rashness and folly are not the agents to which a good man would appeal for
happiness. I have spoken several times in the House this winter; they have
heard me with deep silence and great respect. Sometimes they have decided
with me; at other times, when the decision was upon the surface, palpable to
the merest observer, I have seen them yielding, in a manner the most shameful and degrading, to their fears for their popularity or some less tolerable
motive  This is a sad picture, but a true one. My happiness, I believe, will
be only found in the bosom of my family, and in the zealous cultivation of
professional eminence. These will leave me at liberty to select my company
and my occupations; they will leave my breast calm and composed, my mind
unagitated by the tumult of popular passion and frenzy; they will put it in
my power, too, to effect an object which ought to be the first with every man
-that is, to make my wife and children independent of a scurvy world. This
I hope to achieve in a few years.
I hope your apprehensions about the storm you suppose is brewing in Kentucky will be found to arise only from your patriotic concern for your country. Burr is said to be, certainly, in England, and it is thought is negotiating
for his Mexican empire. -Iis business is mere matter of conjecture.
Congress is giving ground unwisely to the insolence of Massachusetts; the
repeal of the embargo, without a more rigorous substitute, will call the original wisdom of the measure into question.  I fear the Union is not to be of
long continuance; but the issues of political as well as physical life are in
the hands of a Being who will direct everything for the best.
Remember me affectionately to Mrs. Edwards, your father, mother and
family. I have had a little daughter born about three weeks ago. My family
is not well, and unless their constitutions recruit greatly, there will be another
object at the Springs next summer besides th Srn n ummer b te pleasure of meeting my
friends.
Yours affectionately,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To IION. NINIAN EDWARDS, Franklin county, Kentucky.
RICHMOND, Afarch 12, 1808.
Dear Friend:
I received by the last mail your favor of the 29th January, from Frankfort.
Your delicacy in relation to your father's will does you honor-but you are
amply requited for it; for a testamentary compliment from such a man and
such a father is the richest of legacies. You distress me extremely by your
account of his ill health. I had flattered myself that Kentucky had restored




440                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
and confirmed his health, which was seriously attacked in Maryland, and that
he would live to a good old age-that he would see his posterity nraincreasing
and flourishing around him to the third and fourth generation-and that I
might myself live to see him full of years and happiness. I will not yet dismiss this hope.
I'wrote to him lately and inclosed to him a copy of my speeches in Burr's
trial, of which a printer here had taken it into his head to form a pamphlet.
I now send you one. I think they are taken down with sufficient accuracy to
afford a just idea of my speaking. They would have had more dignity
if I could have listened to the virulence of Burr and his counsel with indifference. But this was an effort beyond humanity-at least beyond my humanity. I suspect my face has altered so much since you saw me that you
will scarcely see the likeness of the plate in the frontispiece. It is done by a
very eminent artist here, and is thought an excellent likeness. Upon recollection, I think I inclosed you an impression from my plate, in a letter; if so,
as you will have one to spare, you can give it to one of your brothers or
sisters.
As to Wilkinson, my opinion of him. is just yours. I have forborne to
make this opinion public during his trial, and wish you not to proclaim it.
It may be supposed that my opportunity of examining his guilt or innocence
lately has been greater than that of the community at large, and a weight
might be attached to my opinion, from that circumstance, which might excite
prejudice against him. Let him have fair play. A member of the Executive
Council of this State, who left the city of Washington last Thursday, has
been sitting with me to-day, and states that Wilkinson is rising rapidly in the
public estimation and that Clark is sinking-sed quere de hoc. I think it most
probable that they will both sink together.
The gentleman stated to me that he had sat with the President a few
evenings ago, and that he stated the negotiation with the British Minister to
be at an end for the present-that it would be at least four months before it
would be known it would be successfully resumed-during which time we
should have a continuance of peace and the embargo; that Congress was about
passing an act authorizing the President to remove the embargo, on the happening of certain events in their recess; that the bill to augment the military
establishment would certainly pass into a law. The President seemed to
think it probable that the rival powers-France and England-would be reciprocally cautious in striking a blow against us which would force us into
hostilities and throw our weight into the scale of her adversary. That policy
must keep them both at peace with us; and if one relaxed in her maritime
regulations the other would probably relax too-from the same policy-and
thus there was still a hope of honorable peace. The same gentleman also
stated it as his impression, at headquarters, that if we arranged our differences with one only of those powers, our merchantmen would be permitted to
arm and repel the hostilities of the other.
We have had some disagreeable collisions on the subject of the next Presidential election-the State has been in some degree split between Madison




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  441
and Monroc; but a serious push being made in some of the Northern States
in behalf of Mr. Clinton, Col. Monroe will probably be dropped, and the contest will lie between Madison and Clinton-between meridian light and intelligence, and orefuscular dimness and dotage.
Give lmy sincerest love to your parents, brothers, sisters, and to your own
good lady and family.
Your friend,
WILLIAM VWIT.
To IIoN. NINIAN EDWAlDS, near Frankfort, Kentucky.
WARM SPRINGS, August 24, 1809.
iliy Dear Firiend:
I have been the tour of the Springs with my family, and am thus far on
my return to Richmond. I lost all hope of meeting you on this route, but
still entertained some faint expectation of seeing our father. That also is
baffled, and I have no resort but to write to you in revenge. This inclination, which I before had, is quickened by a letter just received from my much
valued friend, Mr. Stuart, in which he makes honorable mention of you, and
says he flatters himself that he has made some progress in your esteem. You
know me too well to believe that I would recommend any man to your friendship whom I did not thoroughly know, and know to be worthy of it. I have
been acquainted with Mr. Stuart for thirteen or fourteen years-during ten
of them I have lived with him on the footing not merely of a friend but of a
brother. It is upon this intimate knowledge that I had "grappled him to
my heart with hooks of steel." He is among the most valuable men that I
have ever known in this world. A warmer, honester and more exquisitely
impassioned heart never throbbed in the breast of a man; and with this sensibility, so acute and sometimes almost infantile, he unites the most undaunted
firmness of spirit, and a judgment which, in point of vigor and solidity, has
rarely been surpassed. Ile will seldom err-I may venture to say never, unless when betrayed by the honest warmth and impetuosity of his feelings. He
is separated from all his friends-so are you from yours; you are thrown
together in a new world-you are each in want of a friend; let me assure
you that you will find no man on whose honor, prudence and ardent susceptibility of friendship you can more safely rely than on Alexander Stuart's. I
am thus full and anxiously minute about him because I fervently wish the
happiness of you both, and am convinced that you require only to be intimately known to each other to conceive the mutual attachment which I wish.
His manner, perhaps, may not please you at first, but you will soon be reconciled to it; and you have been long enough in the world to look through the
manner to the man.
I have not, I believe, yet had the pleasure of tendering my congratulations
on your appointment: this I now do, rather on your estimate of the office
than my own. I had supposed the Presidency of the Court of Appeals-connected with the society of your relatives and friends, and its dignity upheld
-56




442                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
by your own splendid fortune-was an office much more desirable than that
for which you have exchanged it; and although it gave me great pleasure to
state to Mr. Madison at large my impressions of you, yet, I must confess, in
secret I half wished the application might fail, principally on your father's
account, whose old age I believed reposed in a great degree on you. But of
all these considerations, you, "who saw the whole ground," are certainly the
best judge, and I will not doubt that you have decided correctly.
My friend Stuart thinks that money might be advantageously invested in
lands in your country, and has obligingly offered me his services in this way.
What think you on this head? You would oblige me by a full and detailed
opinion. For be it known to you that the rich harvest of collections which
has enriched Wickham and one or two others of our lawyers has passed away,
and the mere profits of the bar present but a long and tedious road to independence. I am at a time of life when it is requisite to hasten my progress
by some auxiliary means, or old age will find me, if not poor and destitute,
at least in narrow circumstances. Yet my share of the practice is a very flattering one, and continues to increase annually. I should be gratified by a
pretty full account of your Territory-its population, manners, amusements,
intellectual improvements, agricultural productions, trade, etc.
Make my respects to Mrs.'E., and believe me, as ever,
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, Governor of Illinois Territory, Kaskaskia.
RICIHMOND, August 28, 1810.
MAy Dear Sir:
I received, some days back, yours of the 30th June. * * * The circumstances which you mention as showing the prudence for investiture of money
in lands in your valley at two dollars per acre, would be decisive but for two
circumstances: 1. The ill health of the country, which will always hang like
a mill-stone upon the neck of your lands; 2. That you yourself wind up
your encomium on the land with a " but," which I do not well understand.
After speaking of the public rise of the land in ten years, you say, "I hesitate not to say that a large fortune might be made of it-but some other objects would also present themselves"-I suppose as superior to the purchase
of those lands. You do not say what they are, and from your snapping off
the paragraph so short at the words which I have quoted, I am to suppose
you did not mean to say what they were, and therefore I do not inquire.
My friend S. might very safely promise to communicate that same proof of
your confidence if ever we should all meet-he knew that that was very improbable. I have a strong impression of the subject matter of the secretand if my conjecture be right he will never tell me of it; for the act was a
direct infraction of an engagement of honor which we both made when we
were widowers together. He is one of the best of men-his only fault being
that he is too much of one-in a political light. I do not know that it will




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  443
be held a fault in a new Territory; but I will say no more lest I should have
missed your aim and be unveiling a trait which you have not suspected.
I have a letter from him lately in Lexington, Kentucky, and am delighted
to hear of the good understanding that exists between you. I think you will
be more and more pleased with him the longer you know him. IHe is one of
the good fellows who will wear well.
I have a letter from your father dated 3d July, by which I am very glad to
find that his health is much improved. I have one also from your sister Margaret, of date the 25th July-and an elegant one, too-by which I discover
that I have made a faux pas in imparting to her, on your information, a passion for novels; so I have saddled you with it, and holding the evidence of
the fact it will be in vain for you to deny it.
I have heard, although not from you, that there was a Wirt in your familyby which I find that you are not of Mr. Shandy's opinion as to the influence
of names on the fortunes of a house. You did well, however, to stick it in
the middle, between two very auspicious ones, where I hope it will remain
harmless, at least, to its owner. I will not be so formal with a friend as to
thank him for this compliment-it is not necessary that I should, for you
know I feel it.
Mr. Stuart talks of paying us a visit in about eighteen months from this
time. Would it not be possible for you to join him? I think that we could
make two or three months very agreeable to you. Should it be in the winter
time I would go on with you to Washington, if you were so disposed to diversify the trip; if in the summer and after July, I would go with you to the
seaboard, hire a vessel and run out a few leagues on the Atlantic. What
say you?
Remember me affectionately to Mrs. E., and if you are a kissing man, kiss
your children for me-if not, ask Mrs. E. to do it.
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, Governor (f Illinois Territory, Kaskaskia.
RICHaMOND, May 12, 1816.
Jly Dear and Ever-honored Friend:
Judge Fleming, the President of our Court of Appeals, has been so obliging
as to apprise me of his intention of paying a visit to your part of Kentucky,
and to request that I will make him the bearer of a letter to you. I cannot
deny this pleasure either to him or to myself-for he is quite enraptured with
your former reception of him, and has never failed, whensoever or wheresoever I have fallen into his company, to make you the subject of his conversation and warmest eulogies. IIe is, himself, one of the most excellent of the
human family-as pure of soul as a ray of light-and though age has considerably impaired the springs of his faculties, yet his understanding is still
respectable, and his virtues and past services make him universally venerated. He is extremely fond of conversation-and it is much to be lamented,




444                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
for his own sake as well as that of his associates, that his deafness renders
this pleasure so difficult of attainment. But he is an old patriot-worn out
in the service of his country-and I am therefore sure that you will overlook
every inconvenience which may attend his entertainment.
And why, my dear friend, have I not heard from you for so many, many
months-I might almost say years? Has anything occurred to diminish your
esteem for me? I hope not; nay, I am sure that you would not permit anything to work this effect on you, without communicating it and hearing my
defense.     *     *      *      *     *      *      *     *      *
I am sure it will give you pleasure to know that my professional prosperity
is still in its flood. I have received an appointment-that of United States
Attorney for the District of Virginia-which is said to be worth from $1,500
to $2,000 per annum, but which I have a well founded hope of being able to
render worth three times the latter sum, and to add to it a civil practice of
equal value. I consider my property in this place as worth fioml $80,000 to
$90,000; and I am engaged in a series of prosecutions for the recovery of a
vast landed estate for the heirs of the late Col. Byrd, of Western Virginia,
in which, if I succeed (a point thought very clear by Mr. Wickham and myself), I shall derive an addition to my present property of from $40,000 to
$50,000; so that, with the blessing of Providence, I hope, when I shall be
called away, to leave my wife and children independent-no trifling acquisition to a man who started from nothing, and commented his gains with a
family on his back, and who has a prospect of at least sixteen children to
provide for-one-half of that number being now in full life and health. The
last Legislature of Virginia offered to make me a Senator of the United States,
and had my family been sufficiently provided for, I would certainly have
accepted it; but a sense of domestic duty compelled me to decline it, and
the same cause will keep me chained to my profession for seven or eight years
more-so that whatever figure I might have made as a politician, I consider
the door as now closed and the color of my destiny as finally fixed for life.
Nor am I at all dissatisfied with it; on the contrary I think I have abundant
cause to bless the Author of all Good that he has raised me from insignificance and obscurity, even to the station which I now hold in society. The
imprudence and errors of my youth, the worse than waste of those golden
hours which I ought to have devoted to intellectual improvement, and the
manner in which I have slighted the vantage grounds to which Providence
has so often raised me, as it were, by force, at least without any effort on my
part, ought to have consigned me, if I had received my deserts merely, to
poverty and obscurity. Have I not far greater reason, then, to bless the
beneficent Disposer of Events for what I am, than to repine over the unavailing speculation of what I might have been? I think-I often think-over
those friendly predictions which you used to make for me at Mt. Pleasant.
You said, when I was not more than sixteen years of age, that I might be the
President of the United States, if I chose! I believe I have never told you
the impression which such remarks used to make on me at the time. I will
tell you now, and with a freshness and certainty of recollection which seems




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  445
to have been improved even by time. I never thought it flattery, for I knew,
young as I was, that your spirit was too lofty to flatter the proudest of mortals, much less such a thing as I was. I never thought it wrong, either, for I
knew you too generous and sympathetic to wound me, in the humble situation in which I was placed. My conclusion, therefore, was that you had a
friendly wish to excite my emulation, and make the most of me, by leading
me to aspire after what you knew, at the time, was far beyond my reach.
Sometimes I thought (for I am going to be very candid with you) that you
were disposed to amuse yourself, in a vacant hour, by seeing how far the
credulous vanity of a boy could be influenced; but, although I dare say that
I gave, at that day, many proofs of vanity, capriciousness and folly, I tell you
now sincerely that I never, even then, thought myself possessed of any uncommon powers of intellect, much less such as your glowing eloquence sometimes ascribed to me; and every subsequent year of my life has confirmed
the rectitude of my own judgment at that early day. I have since become
very intimately acquainted with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison-meh who
travel, in one sentence, over an extent of region which it would take me days
to explore. I have coped with men much inferior to them, at the bar, whose
promptitude and resources have made me feel my own littleness-my want of
information-my want of readiness-my want of that quick and resistless
vigor of conception, cool self-possession and commanding survey of the whole
ground which are the true characteristics of a mind formed for the great
business of life. You must, therefore, excuse me, my ever dear and revered
friend, if I have baffled prophecies which you may have most seriously meant;
and let me not lose your affection by having forfeited a part of your admiration. By way of palliation for my deficiencies, I beg leave to inclose you a
pamphlet which has just made its appearance, and which may tend to show
you that I have not eftirely neglected the little talent which the bountiful
Father of us all vouchsafed to give me. It is right, however, to tell you, by
way of correcting any inordinate conclusions in my favor, that the book is
reported to be written by a young gentleman who read law with me, Francis
W. Gilman, a brother of my first wife.
Here is a letter of egotism from beginning to end-from which I hope you
will infer no more than that I still think myself and my concerns matters of
some consequence to the friend of my youth-the only father, in feeling, that
my youth ever knew. I shall think of you, till "the last gasp of life, with
gratitude, affection and veneration. I recall, with feelings which your manly
firmness and dignity of character might deem childish or effeminate, our many,
many conversations, serious and sportive, at Mt. Pleasant; and at this moment
every object there-every apartment of the house, the yard, the road, gate,
store and neighboring fields, and the sugar-loaf mountain-bring you and all
your dear family, with tears of recollection, to my fancy. Has Mrs. Edwards, have your sons, your daughters entirely forgotten me? I shall never
forget them-never, never till memory, itself, is no more! May Heaven bless
you all, and make you as happy as my heart wishes you to be.




446               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
I am told that your health is much better than it used to be. How fortunate is this, and that you still enjoy that best of intellectual banquets-for
which Heaven so eminently fitted you-social conversation. All this is happy; but that conversation I must never more enjoy-unless Providence, by
one of those strange turns which has marked my life, should carry me to
Kentucky. Iow should I enjoy such a visit? I have seen several of your
countrymen this winter, at Washington, of whom I have become very fond,
and of whom I should have had much to say to you if I had thought of it
sooner; but I have already tired your patience, I fear, and I have now to pack
up for a journey in the stage, to-night, to a distant court. I must tell you,
though, that my dear wife, who considers you and Mrs. Edwards as her
second parents, assures you of her love and duty, and begs to be affectionately remembered to our brothers and sisters. I pray you to present me most
tenderly to them all, one by one, and to believe me, as ever,
Your grateful and affectionate friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, Esq., Shiloh, near Bardstown, Kentucky.
P. S.-My wife has just begged me to present, in her name and with her
love, two little books-" The British Spy" and " The Old Bachelor"-to her
sister Margaret. The latter has all the numbers which proceeded from my
pen marked with a W. The rest I am not at liberty to disclose.-W. W.
WASHINGTON, Jamuary 17, 1821.
My Dear Friend:
I received, last night, your letter of yesterday, and after reading your feeling
and solemn injunction that I would say no more on a certain subject, I regretted extremely that I had said so much in two letters received by you on yesterday, and which, but for an accident, you would have received two days
sooner.
With regard to your determination to retire from public life, I should consider myself a traitor in friendship if I did not say, in spite of your injunction to the contrary, that I consider you as standing in your own light, in
coming to that resolution, and as committing political suicide. No man, who
has been for so short a time in Congress, has more hopeful or brilliant prospects than you have. This is only a shadow that flits across your path; why
should you mistake it for eternal night? If you are right in your view of
things, the rectitude of that view will ere long appear, and your political sun
will break out with redoubled lustre. Were I constituted for public life as
I believe you to be (with the exception, I fear, of a little too much sensibility),
neither the machinations of enemies nor the mistakes of friends should lead
me to devote myself to voluntary obscurity. In reading Homes' "Sketches of
Man," many years ago, I was struck with a trait in the character of the people
of Japan, which, outre and ludicrous as it is, finds many a parallel in more
enlightened nations. The Japanese, when he is insulted, takes revenge upon
himself: he rips up his own bowels; and, according to the laws of honor, in




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   447
Japan, is considered to be as nobly avenged as a knight of the fourteenth
century would be in meeting his enemy in a duel. I dare say I have mentioned this to you before; the truth is that something is continually occurring to recall it to my mind, and even my children have it by heart. Need
I make this application to your case? You cannot but be struck with it.
The truth is that your feelings are too quick and acute. A politician should
have the hide of a rhinoceros, instead of the uncovered and agonizing nerves
of Marsyas, after he was fleeced. This is, I confess, preaching unsupported
by practice. In imputing this soreness of nerve to you, I am describing myself. Enough! Think better of this matter-think twice-and do not permit irritation, impatience and disgust to sit, much less to preside, at the council board at which the question is to be decided. A man in a passion never
says or does anything right. Consult your wise and excellent father and let
him decide-by whom I would rather be directed, after he knows the whole
ground, than by a whole battalion of Congressmen. Don't take the advice
of younger men than yourself in this matter: they are too hot for counselors
in such a case; nor that of inferior men, who will always think themselves
wise in echoing your own opinions. And now I shall nevermore touch this
forbidden subject,'till you yourself dissolve the injunction.
Your speech is excellent, manly, strong and sound. Farewell. May God
bless and direct you.
Your sincere friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.
WASHINGTON, Jan.uary 31, 1822.
Dear Sir:
The rumor, which you mentioned last evening, that I had charged the Government $400 for an official opinion in regard to the claim of the Messrs.
Johnson on the United States, is of too serious a nature to be left on the very
short verbal explanation which I then gave you. It is due to my feelings
and character to acquit myself of so injurious an imputation-for I take the
liberty to say that there is no honor nor profit in the gift, either of the Government or the people, which could induce me to do the act which this rumor
imputes to me.
It is proper, for a correct understanding of this case, to show you, in the
first place, what acts do belong to the official duties of the Attorney-General,
that, with this standard in your hands, you may compare the service in question.
The judiciary act of 1789 defines the duties of the Attorney-General in the
following terms: " Whose duty it shall be to prosecute and conduct all suits
in the Supreme Court, in which the United States shall be concerned; and to
give his advice and opinion upon questions of law, when required by the President of the United States or requested by the heads of any of the Departments, touching any matters that may concern their Departments." A subsequent law makes the Attorney-General a commissioner of the sinking-fund.
He is, also, regularly summoned, together with the heads of Departments, to




448                 LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
attend the President in council, whenever a meeting of the members of the
administration is required. These are the duties of the office-and they are
all the duties.
In the case in question, I was called on by Gen. Jess8ul), the QuartermasterGeneral, with a request that 1 would prepare a written argumyen-t to be laid before e t  arbitrators to wzhom the claim of the iMessrs. Johnson had been submitted.
I stated to Gcn. Jessup, in the most explicit terms, that if my opinion on the
legality of the claim was wanted, the Secretary of War had a right to call
for it, and was bound, ex-officio, to furnish it; but if he wished me to argue
the cause, either viva voce or by writing, before the tribunal to which it had
been referred, it was no part of my official duty. He answered that lie was
aware of the distinction; that he called upon me, not oficially, but professionally; that the contract with the Messrs. Johnson having occurred in his
Department, the superintendence of the controversy had been placed under
his immediate care; that the opposite party had procured written arguments,
on their side, from two eminent counsel (Messrs. Pinckney and Clay), to be
used before the arbitrators; that he was desirous th tht hese arguments should
be answered by some professional gentleman, and that a full argumentative
view of the whole subject, both of the facts and law of the case, should be
furnished for use before the arbitrators; that the service must be rendered
by some professional gentleman, who would of course be entitled to compensation for it; and that, being a service entirely distinct from my official
duties, it was perfectly understood that I was to be compensated for the
service as any other professional gentleman must be who should be called to
perform it. With the clear and distinct understanding on both sides, all the
documents, depositions, etc., together with the arguments of the opposite
counsel, were placed by him in my hands; the case was studied by me, in all
its' aspects, as elaborately as if the argument were to take place before the
Supreme Court, and the argument drawn out, in cxtenso, with a full discussion both of thefacts and the lato, with a labor far more oppressive, as all professional men of my experience know, than if the argument had been delivered ore tenas in court.
The rate of compensation for this service had not been previously fixed.
When it had been rendered, and the quantum of the service thereby ascertained, it was left to Gen. Jessup to fix the compensation. I stated to him
that there was no scale of compensation fixed, either by law or practice, for
such a case (a written argument for arbitrators); that, so far as I was informed, the average fee for argument in the supreme Court, in cases involving such heavy sums (hundreds of thousands of dollars) might be considered
to be five hundred dollars, and that, to my knowledge, it was frequently
more than this; and that I had much rather have argued the same cause before the supreme or any other court than to have undergone the labor which
I have had with it; that, however, I demanded neither that nor any other
sum, but should be content with whatever was thought a reasonable compensation for the labor.
Gen. Jessup took full time to consider of it, and tendered me four hundred
dollars, which I accepted-and I will add that it is not one-half the sum




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                    449
which I have repeatedly received, both before I held this office and since, for
a much less troublesome professional service.
In determining on the form of the argument, I suggested to Gen. Jessup
that, as the opinion which I was required to advocate was my sincere opinion,
and not one which our profession are sometimes required to advocate from
motives merely professional, the argument might have more weight with the
arbitrators and be thought entitled to more respect, if this truth were known
to them; and with this view I proposed to give it an official stamp by addressing it to the Secretary of War. He said that he left the form entirely to my
own judgment-he being solicitous only to have the argument in that form
in which it would best advance the purposes of justice. With this understanding, equally clear and explicit with every other part of the transaction,
the argument was prepared as it stands, and submitted to the arbitrators.
And if the form, adopted on this explanation and with this view, can change
the inherent character of the service, and take away the right of compensation, thus expressly stipulated, then I was wrong in receiving the compensation thus stipulated: otherwise the act was just and proper, and I am not
afraid of the decision of any correct and unprejudiced mind. It is most certain that I never did and never could have considered it an official opinion
for the guidance of the Secretary of War. Had I done so, it would have been
copied into my official opinion book, where it is not to be found.  The Secretary of War had asked me for no advice or opinion for his guidance-he
had no act to perform in which he required advice-the'subject had passed
out of his hands into those of the arbitrators, and all that remained for him
to do was to await their award. The Secretary had asked me for no opinion,
for he wanted none. He could not have asked for an opinion on the facts,
much less for an argumentative discussion of the facts; for the law has given
him no power to make any such call. He has a right to my opinion on questions of law on a given state of facts-here his right and my duty end; and
it seems to me that the mind must be willfully blind which can confound
such an argument, drawn from me on an understanding and a contract so full,
clear and explicit, and that, too, for the exclusive use of the tribunal to which
the case had been referred, with an opinion on a question of law called for
by the Secretary for his guidance.
Give me leave, in conclusion, to state that the heads of my official duties
are easily enumerated, but the execution in detail renders this, I believe,
(and I know that I am not singular in the opinion) the most laborious office
in the Government. There is no other officer, from the heads of departments
down to the lowest clerk, who has it not in his power to devote his evenings
to relaxation, to social or domestic intercourse, and to the care of his health.
I alone am obliged, by the nature of my duties and my anxiety to discharge
them in a manner satisfactory at least to my own conscience, to come into my
office before breakfast, and to remain in it from nine till ten o'clock at night;
and yet, if I am not misinformed, there are those who consider the office as a
sinecure, and who are disposed to throw an additional mass of duties on the
load already almost insupportable, with one hand, and at the same time
-67




450                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
to withdraw the salary gradually with the other. Would it not be wiser and
more just to abolish the office at once? If it be unnecessary, why not abolish it? But before it be abolished, would it not be still wiser to ascertain
its utility by inquiries of those who are best able to judge-the President
and heads of departments?-and if it be found not only useful, but highly so,
and one of the most effective offices under the Government, on account of the
wide scope of its duties and the controlling authority of the opinions of the
law officer, would it not be wise, as it regards the public interest, to render
the office comfortable enough for the acceptance, and occupancy of a man
qualified to discharge its duties? These are questions which relate to the
public, and not to me. I have, thank Heaven, a profession and a standing in
it, by which I can live without the office; and there are, I know, many others
who could discharge its duties more wisely, but not more faithfully. But this
I will venture to predict: that the man of professional standing who holds
it at its present salary, under its present load of duties, and with the annoyance and humiliation of continual and unfounded censures, must be actuated
by very different motives than a sordid regard for his own interests or happiness.
I am, dear sir,
With ancient regard and esteem,
Your friend and servant,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.
P. S.-Will you have the kindness to show this explanation to Mr. Galliard,
from whom you had the report, and to any other gentleman who may have
been in the way of hearing it. General Jessup is, at present, not in Washington, but is, I understand, expected. When he returns, I will make it my
business to furnish you with his statement of the facts.-W. W.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 1824.
Dear Sir:
The President, in answer to my letter, says that the two statements, to-wit:
First, that you had denied to him the authorship of the "A. B." letters, and
thereby obtained your nomination to Mexico, and, second, that you had applied, through Mr. Adams, to be permitted to wait on him, and had been
refused, are unfounded-the first most certainly, the last according to his
best recollection. He thinks, also, that Dr. Everett could not have spoken by
his authority in making the communication which you say he did to Mr.
Cook.
The President, however, is extremely unwilling to take any step which
could be construed into a personal interference in your controversy with the
Secretary of the Treasury-more especially at this point of time, when the
affair seems to have died away, and when any movement on his part, although
intended as a mere act of justice to you, would be certainly interpreted into
a disposition on his part to revive the dispute to the prejudice of Mr. C. He




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   451
thinks that very purpose you have in view will be answered by your own
denial of these statements in the papers published here; which, under the
silence observed on his part, will be considered as true.  And, moreover, ii
any one should personally apply to him for information on the subject, he
will say of the statements what I have said above.
In great haste,
Yours, truly,
WILLIAM WIRT.
HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Brown's Hotel.
ANNAPOLIS, November 19, 1826.
Dear Sir:
I received, some time since, under a black envelope, the inclosed letter,
which I take it for granted came from you. I wrote immediately to your
honored father-whom I reverence with all the devotion of a son-taking his
address from Cyrus' letter, which I suppose was correct.
It is needless to suggest to a mind so strong as yours, that this is one of
those dispensations to which all must submit, and against which'it is unavailing to murmur. Your dear mother has died with a well-founded confidence which leaves us nothing to mourn on her account. That she is at this
moment in the enjoyment of perfect bliss, I have no more doubt than I have
of my own existence. But the state of desolation in which she has left her
bereaved husband wrings my heart to think of.  What is life, and what
this poor world, that we should care so much for them? You and I were
boys the other day-up at Seneca-and now we are old and gray; we shall
soon be gone, and our children after us will moralize in the same way, and
follow us to the grave. And what of it all? It is the will of that great Being of whose creation we form but a small part, who best knows His own
wise designs, and who deals with us at His pleasure, and always for the best,
as I believe. What remains for us, then, but to submit with resignation to
that order of events which no wish of ours can arrest or alter? Would to
God that we could only do our duty on earth as faithfully as your dear and
honored parents have done theirs, and that we could die with the same wellfounded confidence of a happy futurity! I should ask no better fate. These
reflections, I am sure, are needless to you, through whose mind they have long
since passed, and I suggest them only to assure you of my sympathy and condolence.
Your friends (and I among the foremost) have rejoiced at the recent proof
of respect which you have received from your State. It must have been balm
to your feelings as it is to ours.  But I regret exceedingly Mr. Cook's discomfiture, both on his own account and on account of the reason which is
assigned for it in this quarter —which is, that it proceeded from his avowed
support to the measures of the present administration. Of the question between Mr. Adams and Gen. Jackson, at the next election, it might not become
me to speak. But surely so long as the measures of the existing administra



452                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
tion are sound and judicious, no discredit ought to be attached to any politician for supporting them-unless our country is nothing ahd individuals
are everything. But I profess to know nothing of political matters, so far as
management and machinery to carry a given election, as you very well know;
and what is more, I am contented to remain in ignorance of all such matters
-being quite content myself if I shall be able, as duty may require, to give a
sound opinion as to the effect of a public measure on the interests of the
country.
I beg my affectionate remembrance to Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Cook, and
remain, with sincere regard,
Your old friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.
Letter from Wm. Wirt on the death of Gov. Edwards' father.
BALTIMORE, December 20, 1826.
And most dearly did I love him! I have lost one of my best and dearest
friends, and the world has in consequence lost to me much of its interest.
He loved me when a poor, obscure and destitute orphan. He took me by the
hand when there was no one else to do it, and in all my wanderings, his
affection never lost sight of me-nor amid all my silence did I ever lose sight
of him. On the contrary, I never met a bright turn of fortune that one of
its sweetest concomitant reflections was not the pleasure I knew it would
give him.
A day or two before I left Washington, I received, myself, a letter from
Presley, announcing this desolation; and, under the pressure of the moment,
I wrote an obituary notice of him, which I sent to Mr. Green, the editor of
the " Telegraph," requesting him, if he approved of it, to insert it in his paper and send me a copy of it, and to send the original, with my request
indorsed, to Messrs. Gales and Seaton, requesting their insertion of it in the
"Intelligencer." Having heard nothing from Mr. Green since, I fear it did
not meet his approbation; and I have been so much occupied here, that I
have not had time to inquire of him-which, however, I will do in a few
days. He told me, indeed, when I verbally proposed to do this, that he was
engaged himself in preparing something on the subject; and probably mine
was too long for convenient insertion-or less to his taste than his own. It
was, indeed, a very hasty effusion, and full of the feelings of the moment,
which were, perhaps, too particular and individual for a newspaper obituary.
I am interrupted by a gentleman on business. God bless you. Make my
love acceptable to your wife and children, and believe me,
Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   453
ANNAPOLIS, October 11, 1827.
fy Dear Sir:
Just before I left home, I received your letter of the 13th ulto., and had
barely time before I started to leave a letter, in favor of Hardage, for Mr.
Secretary Barbour, who was then daily expected from Virginia. It will
always give me pleasure, while I continue to live and breathe upon this ball
of earth, to render any act of kindness I can to those who were so kind to
me in my destitute and unprotected youth.  I remember those days rather
with increasing than diminished gratitude, by the lapse of time and the advance of old age. As I contrast that kindness to a poor, obscure, orphan boy
with the heartless maxims of the present age, what a change in the morals
and charities of the world since those days! I know not how it may be in
the country, but in towns, where I have lived, it is not the same world-or
at least there are no longer such men as your father in it, and very few such
women as your mother known to me.  I remember them as belonging to a
golden age-so far at least as human charities and sympathies are concerned
-and I shall be pleased with every opportunity that may present itself, during the short sequel of my life, to show to their posterity that kindness
which they showed to me.
I really cannot tell you what is the tone of Mr. Secretary Barbour's feelings
towards you. He did belong, you know, to the Crawford party, and those of
that party, I suppose, have not forgotten or forgiven the Parthian arrow, as
they called it, shot at their chief. But there has been such a strange jumble
and mixture of parties, that I, who never understood political management,
and hope I never shall understand it, really cannot tell you, with confidence,
the feelings of any one man towards any other.  The time seems to be at
hand, if it has not already arrived, when, in the reckless scramble for public
honors, all private honor will be forgotten, and mutual distrust, jealousy and
hatred, or interested, hollow and transient factions, will be the only relations
that will subsist among men. The public good, the love of country, which
were the ruling principles of the men of the Revolution, are old-fashioned
things, which men mouth in public now to serve their own views, as they do
religion, and laugh at in private as fit only for fools, women and children. I
am really very sick of the whole affair, and long for some retreat where I may
get clear of the din and strife of party. This, I dare say, sounds very weak
to you who have a gusto for these things, but there is no disputing, you
know, about tastes. For my own part, while I hope I shall be ever ready and
willing to serve my country, never will I be the servant of any party till a
party shall arise who have no other object at heart but their country, and its
happiness, honor and glory. Such a party as that, I should be proud to join,
but such a party is, I fear, not to be expected in these days.
How is your health, and that of your family? I shall be very glad to hear
from you, if you can find time to write to such an unworldly man as myself —
I use the expression in no vain sense, but in that in which you know me, as
a man who has neither turn nor taste for the working of what is called political machinery, which seems to me to make up the whole interest of this
American world.




454               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
Pray remember me affectionately to Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Cook, and
believe me, with the kindest feelings of the olden time,
Your friend,
WILLIAM    WIRT.
To HIoN. NINIAN EDWARDS.
WASHINGTON, March 22, 1828.
My Dear Sir:
The pressure of the Supreme Court has prevented me from attending to
your letter inclosing the case between A and B. You have now Mr. Webster's opinion and mine, which you will find concurrent with your own. It is
certainly a very plain case, and I am much surprised there should have been
a doubt on it.
I am much rejoiced, in common with your other friends, at the honorable
demonstration you have received of the confidence of your State, so bravely
and so nobly won; but when you talk of quitting politics you do not know
yourself as well as I do. You will find that you will realize the fable of the
cat transformed into a lady, whenever a political mouse runs across the floor.
The man who has been a fox hunter from the time he was first able to resist
the cry of the pack, will continue to love the sport so long as he can throw a
leg over the saddle. Habits so inveterate become a part of our nature, and
we can no more give them up than we can give up breathing. I, who was
never a political sportsman, but have found my happiness in my fireside and
literature, am so far from being excited, by the uproar of the chase, to join in
it, that I shrink from it intuitively, as I would from the pelting of any other
pitiless storm, and press my wife and children closer to my heart. If the political contest were one only for the good of the country, and the candidates
were only of that noble kind of "who should do most good," I should like it;
but when it degenerates into a coarse, ignoble, vulgar contest for personal
power, and is carried on by lying, abuse, intrigue and all manner of vile practices, I shrink from it as I would from the taste of human flesh. I have no
cannibal propensities, and ask only for peace and competency- a clear fireside, a book, and my affectionate family. I know that all this is very poorspirited and tame to the Bedouin Arabs, whose delight is in political rapine
and mischief. So be it-every man to his taste. I prefer my life and death
to theirs'-for I shall live peaceably and die quietly, none offending and offended by none.
Among the many evils growing out of this species of political warfare, there
is one which has touched me in a tender point. Your sister, Mrs. Green, is
living here. We exchanged a visit or two with her on her arrival, and we
should have been most happy to have kept up the intercourse. She reminded
me most strongly of Mt. Pleasant, and of your dear and honored father and
mother; but the tone of Mr. Green's paper, and my political connection with
the Administration, rendered it impossible for me to keep up the intercourse,
without exciting suspicions that would have been too painful to have been




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  455
borne by me, and I have been obliged to discontinue it. You understand
these matters, and I need say no more on so delicate a subject.
You do only justice to Mr. Clay; he has been scandalously treated, I think.
I dare say you are aware that my predilections in his favor were not stronger
than your own. The political course which he held towards that excellent
man, Mr. Monroe, used to shock and offend me almost past endurance. He is
a very different man in the Cabinet from what I expected to find him; all
that wildness of judgment which seemed to me to govern him, when a demagogue in the House, has left him, and he is one of the most safe and prudent
counsellors I have known, and very cautious, kind and cordial in his intercourse with his associates and with the world. I was so much gratified by
the paragraph in which you mention him, that I could not forbear showing it
him. It had all the effect I intended and expected. "The manner in which
the Governor mentions his sense of injustice done me, does honor to his own
heart, and I cannot but hope that he may feel himself prompted to lend his
powerful aid and support, at this crisis, to the cause which the most enlightened men throughout the community consider as the cause of our country."
He speaks, of course, of the Presidential contest. I merely state his suggestion, and leave it to your own disposal. My only motive for doing so is the
pleasure I derived from the light in which he views you.
We have had a tough campaign of eight or nine weeks in the Supreme
Court; thank heaven I have survived it, and find my health quite good, for
my time of life. I have a little of the dyspepsia now and then, but it is not
very troublesome. I live abstemiously, take exercise, and work hard at my
profession.
My eldest daughter is married to Judge Randall of Florida, a fine, honorable, noble-spirited, high-minded young man, in whom I have the most unbounded confidence. For $5000 I have been able to give him 1000 acres of
prime lands, to build a good frame dwelling house, and give him ten working
hands-five of them men, the rest young women-and a good tailoress. He
had two young men of his own. His lands are first rate sugar and sea-island
cotton lands, and I have no fear of his doing well. I mention these details
because I know you will take an interest in them.
Mrs. Wirt and family are well and desire to be affectionately remembered
to you and yours. If Mrs. Edwards has not forgotten me, greet her fraternally in my name.
Your old friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.
NORFOLK, March 17, 1805.
Dear Friend:
I cannot describe to you, my dear Mr. Edwards, the sensations with which
I have just read your most welcome and obliging letter of the 17th ult., from
Shiloh. I need not be ashamed to tell you that my tears bore witness to the
sincerity and force of my feelings. You have taught me to love you like a




456                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
parent. Well, indeed, may I do so; since to you, to the influence of your
conversation, your precepts, and your example in the most critical and decisive period of my life, I owe whatever of useful or good there may be in the
bias of my mind and character. Continue then, I implore you, to think of
me as a son, and teach your children to regard me as a brother: they shall
find me one, indeed, if the wonder-working dispensations of Providence
should ever place them in want of a brother's arm, or mind, or bosom.
You could not more strongly have expected my wife and me to partake of
your Christmas turkey in 1803, than we ourselves expected it when I wrote
you last. I was sensible that I owed you and my friend Ninian an apology,
or rather an explanation, of the abrupt change of my plan in relation to
Kentucky, and this explanation would have been certainly made at the proper
time, but for a point of delicacy arising from the nature of the explanation
itself. But now that the project is over, and with you, I fear, forever, I may
explain to you without reserve.
The first obstacle which I had to encounter arose from the difficulty of
compassing so much cash as would enable me to make my debut sufficiently
respectable. To have disclosed this obstacle either to you or Ninian, after
the strong desire which I had manifested to migrate to your State, might have
been liable to an interpretation, which, either from true or false pride, I chose
to avoid. As I could not state to you this primary obstacle, I thought it
would be disingenuous to amuse you with an account of merely subordinate
ones; but now you shall know the whole truth. My wife, who was thoroughly convinced of the propriety of our removal to Kentucky, had consented
to it, from the dictates of reason and judgment, whilst her heart and affections secretly revolted against the measure. Most dutifully and delicately,
however, she concealed her repugnance from me, and I should never have
known it, but for an accident. Waking one night, at midnight, while this
journey was contemplated, I found her in tears; and, after much importunity,
drew from her an acknowledgment that her distress proceeded from the idea
of such a distant, and most probably final, separation from her parents and
family.
I will not affect to deny that I believe this discovery and the manner of it,
would have been decisive with me against the removal, even if the first objection had not existed. Fortune and fame are, indeed, considerations of
great weight with me; but they are light, compared with the happiness of
the best of wives. About the time of this discovery, and while the current
of my own inclinations had been thus checked and brought to an eddy, a
young gentleman (a son of the late Judge Tazewell) who was at the head of
the practice in this part of the State, very generously and disinterestedly
waited on me at Williamsburg, opposed my removal by every argument that.
friendship or ingenuity could suggest, offered to recede, in my favor, from
several of his most productive courts, painted the progressive prosperity of'
Norfolk in colors so strong and alluring, and exhibited such irresistible evidence of the present profits of the practice in this borough and district, that
my mind was left in equipoise between Kentucky and l Norflk.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   457
At this critical juncture came a letter from you, in which you very amicably exhorted me against the indulgence of a too sanguine imagination in regard to Kentucky. You stated that the specie had almost disappeared from
the State, owing to the occlusion of Orleans by the Spanish Intendant against
your deposits-an inconvenience whose duration it was impossible to calculate, and represented that the gentlemen of my profession, like the other inhabitants of the State, carried on their business by barter, receiving their fees
in negroes, horses, etc. Under the joint action of all these obstacles, difficulties, considerations and motives of policy and expediency, I was led to the
adoption of the resolution which brought me here. And so here I am, abreast
with the van of the profession in this quarter, with the brightest hopes and
prospects; duping the people by a most Jenkinsonian exterior, using "words
of learned length and thundering sound," puffed by the newspapers as an
orator, to which I have no pretensions, and honored and applauded far beyond my deserts. It is only for the humiliation with which I see and hear
what is written and said in my praise, that I give myself any credit. I have
formed in my own imagination a model of professional greatness, which I am
far, very far, below, but to which I will never cease to aspire. It is to this
model that I compare myself, whenever the world applauds, and the comparison humbles me to the dust. If ever I should rise to this imaginary prototype,
I shall rest in peace. Herculean enterprise!-But I must not despair, since
it is only by aiming at perfection that a man can attain his highest practica
ble point.
If a fortune is to be made by the profession in this country, I believe I
shall do it. It must require, however, fifteen or twenty years to effect this.
Norfolk, as you guess, is very expensive. I keep, for instance, a pair of
horses here, which cost me eight pounds per month. Wood is from four to
eight dollars per cord; Indian meal, through the winter, nine shillings per
bushel-this summer it is supposed it will be fifteen; flour eleven and twelve
dollars per barrel, a leg of mutton three dollars, butter three shillings per
pound, eggs two shillings and three pence per dozen, and so on. Having set
out, however, with a view of making a provision for my family, in the event
of my being called away from them, I live as economically as I can, so as to
avoid giving my wife any reason for regret at the recollection of her father's
house and table. After this year, I hope it will be in my power to net annually two thousand dollars, by the practice, but I do not expect ever to do more
than this. I shall be content to leave the bar whenever my capital will net
me an annual revenue of four thousand dollars, and not till then.
I am indeed sometimes very apprehensive that the yellow fever, which you
mention, may cut this operation short, by removing me from this scene of
things; or protract it, by driving me from my business into annual exile, as
was the case last summer and fall. If I find this latter event likely to take
place, I shall certainly use all my influence with my wife to reconcile her to
Kentucky; for even now, I will not conceal it from you, propitious as is the
face of my affairs, your letter makes me sigh at the thought of your State.
It is not, however, the idea of being "a comet in a naked horizon," which I
-58




458                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
long to realize. I have seen too many luminaries, infinitely my superiors in
magnitude and splendor, to believe myself a comet; nor can I believe that
horizon naked which is adorned and lighted up with a Breckenridge, a Brown,
a Maury and N. Edwards. Besides, if I were ambitious, and it were true
that this part of the hemisphere were gilded with the brightest stars, I should,
for that reason, choose this part. A glow-worm would be distinguished
amid total darkness; but it requires a sun indeed to eclipse the starry firmament. No, sir. It is the Green River land which makes me sigh; the idea
of being released from the toils of my profession by independence, in six or
eight years, and of pursuing it afterwards at my case, and only on great occasions, and for great fees; of having it in my power to indulge myself in
the cultivation of general science; of luxuriating in literary amusements, and
seeking literary eminence. These are the objects which I have been accustomed to look to, as the most desirable companions in the meridian of life;
and six or eight years more would just bring me to that age at which Parson
Hunt and his son William used to predict, in moments of displeasure and
reproof, that I should begin to be a man-viz., at forty. It is because your
letter holds out probabilities like these, that I sigh. For I know that, by the
practice of this country, independence by my profession is a great way off.
How much it would delight me to live once more within eye and earshot
of you! To be able to talk over with you the affairs of Mount Pleasant,
and of my youth; to hear your raillery and your laugh. These arc things
that I could think of until I should be quite unmanned-but enough. My
wife has given me two children in little more than two years. We were married on the 7th September, 1802, and on the 3d September, 1803, she gave
me a daughter, now a lovely child, going on nineteen months old, with the
romantic name of Laura Henrietta, the first the favorite of Petrarch, the last
the christian name of my mother. On the 31st day of last January she gave
me a son, who is certainly a very handsome child, and, if there be any truth
in physiognomy, a fellow whose native sheet of intellectual paper is of as fine
a texture and as lustrous a white as the fond heart even of a parent could
desire. My fancy is already beginning to build for him some of those airy
tenements, in the erection of which my youth has been wasted. My wife
wants to call this boy Robert Gamble; and as this is-a matter altogether
within the lady's department, I shall give way. She was just twenty-one the
30th day of last January, and I was thirty-two the 8th day of last November; so I hope we may reach my wished for number of twelve, and be almost
as patriarchal, by and by, as yourself.
How much you gratify me by the circumstantial description of your children-their prosperity now, and their hopeful prospects! May all your
wishes in regard to them be fulfilled! I hope and pray so, from my inmost
soul! I have a kind of dim presage that I shall yet be in Kentucky time
enough for your Benjamin Franklin, if not for Cyrus. Heaven send I may
ever have it in my power to be of any use to either of your children! Pray
remember me to them all, with the regard of a brother, and present me to
Mrs. Edwards with the respect and dutiful affection of a son. Shall I ever
see you again in the midst of them, on your farm, disengaged from all care,




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   459
and happy as you deserve to be? You cannot think with what tenderness
my memory dwells on Mount Pleasant and the neighborhood. I remember,
indeed, very many follies to blush at and be ashamed of, yet still it is one of
those " sunny spots" in the course of my life, in which recollection dearly loves
to bask. Let me be free with you, for you used to make me so. To this day,
the image of B. S-  is as fresh in my mind as if she had just left Mount
Pleasant, on Sunday evening, on the bay mare, and my eyes had followed her
through the gate, and as far around as she was visible, on her way home.
And the investigation which you once made of the difference between K —'s
passion for her and mine, is just as vivid as if it had passed on yesterday.
By-the-by, you have not said a word of my friend K-, and as I take a very
strong interest in his welfare, let me hear of him when you write next.
I thank you very much for your mention of several of my old acquaintances. Among them all, Jack Wallace (if he is the son of James) is my
favorite. Nature, indeed, had not taken much pains in the caste of his genius,
but she gave him one of the sweetest tempers, and one of the finest and
noblest hearts that ever warmed a human breast.
Major W   -, I presume, is my schoolmate, William, who used to live at
Montgomery Court-house. When we were at school together, about the year
1785, he wAs thought one of the world's wonders, or rather a new wonder, in
point of genius. Where is the hopeful promise of his youth? Smothered
under the leaden atmosphere of indolence? Or has it faded, like the first
flowers of spring, to bud and bloom no more?  *  *   *    *    *
Of Q. M   -- I only remember that he was a large-faced, well-grown boy,
who learnt the Latin grammar until he came to penna-a-pen, where he stuck
fast, and his father took him away in despair. But it is possible that I may
be mistaken, and am confounding him with some other boy. One other thing
I am sure of, that he had a very pretty sister, whose name was L —, with
whom I was very much in love one whole night, at an exhibition ball, in the
neighborhood of Parson Hunt's. E. M, I do not remember at all. I
could not have been acquainted with him, nor, I think, with M. L-. I
well remember the family of the latter, who lived on a hill, near a mill-pond
of Samuel W. Magruder's. There were five or six of us, of the family of Magruder, who, after bathing of a Sunday in the pond, used to go up and see a
sister of Matthew's, whose name was Betsey (a name always fatal to me!) I
was then about twelve years old, and I remember that for one whole summer
that girl disturbed my peace considerably. The sex, I believe, never had an
earlier or more fervent votary; but it was all light work till I came to B.
S —. To this moment I think kindly of her, even in the grave.  *  *
I have already used a good deal of egotism in this letter: but it is unavoidable in'letters between friends; and it certainly is not desirable to avoid it
between friends so far sundered as we are, who are obliged to resort to letters
as a substitute for conversation. For my own part, I sat down with the determination to write just as I would talk with you, in order that I might
approach as near as possible to the enjoyment of your company; and, as I
should certainly have talked a great deal of levity and nonsense, so have I




460               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
written, and so I shall still write, although I know that I am taxing-you with
a heavy postage.
But to myself again. I find that you have read " The British Spy," and, from
your allusion to it, I presume you have understood me to be the author. It
is true. I wrote those letters to while away six anxious weeks which preceded the birth of my daughter. In one respect they were imprudent. They
inflicted wounds which I did not intend.  *     *   *    *
In the esteem of a penetrating and learned man, "The British Spy" would
injure me, because it would lead him to believe my mind light and superficial; but its effect on the body of the people here (on whom I depend for
my fortune) has, I believe, been very advantageous. It was bought up with
great avidity; a second edition called for and bought up; and the editor,
when I saw him last, talked of striking a third edition. It has been the
means of making me extensively known, and known to my advantage, except,
perhaps, with such men as Jefferson and Jay, whose just minds readily ascertain the difference between bullion and chaff.  *   * *       *
The title of this fiction was adopted for concealment, that thereby I might
have an opportunity of hearing myself criticised without restraint. But I
was surprised to find myself known after the third letter appeared. Having
once adopted the character of an Englishman, it was necessary to support
that character throughout, by expressing only British sentiments; yet, there
were some men weak enough, in this State, to suspect, from this single cause,
that I had apostatized from the Republican faith. The suspicion, however, is
now pretty well over.  *   *    *    *    *    *        *
I am your friend, and
Your son by election,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, Esq.
RICHMOND, July 2, 1808..fy Dear and Ever-honored Friend and Father:
I have read, half a dozen times, with swimming eyes, your precious letter
of the 8th of April last. Our courts have been sitting, without intermission,
ever since the 1st of February till the 28th of last month, or I should sooner
have acknowledged your goodness in writing to me under so much pain.
Your friendship and affection for me are among the purest and sweetest
sources of happiness that I have upon this earth. Judge, then, with what
feelings I hear of your ill health. Yet I trust that the same gracious Providence "who makes the good his care," and who raised you once before from
the bed of torture, will spare you still to your family and friends. I have
been afraid that you do not take exercise enough, yet Mr. Street, the editor
of " The Western World," handed me, the day before yesterday, a letter from
my brother Ninian, dated April 11th, three days after yours, in which he says
that you had been, lately, at his house. That, I apprehend, is nearly as long
a journey as would bring you to the mineral waters in Virginia. Would not
this excursion, aided by the waters and the animation of the company,




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   461
promise to give a tone to your system, and remove the torpor and debility of
which you complain?
I wish you could believe it prudent and advisable for you to take such a
step, because I should then have it in my power to see you once more. I
would certainly meet you at the Springs, and receive your blessing; and my
wife and children, from the sentiments they have for you, would accompany
me, with all the piety of pilgrims. My imagination has dwelt upon this
meeting, until I begin to feel a strong presentiment that it will certainly take
place. My brother Ninian and his family would, I dare say, attend you.
What a happy group should we form! How would we talk over the days
that are past, till torpor and debility, and sickness and sorrow would fly and
leave us to our enjoyments. What do you say to this project? I have a san
guine hope that you will find it as judicious in reference to your health, as I
am sure it would be exquisitely grateful to your feelings. And if we meet
once, and your health should become settled again, might we not devise a
scheme of meeting at the same place every two or three years? By these
means our children would become acquainted, and the friendship which has
subsisted between us would be continued in them.
I leave it to your heart and your fancy to develope this idea; through all its
consequences. To me, the anticipation, merely, is delightful; and, in spite of
Mr. Harvie's doctrine to the contrary, I believe the reality would be still more
so. Will you not think of this? Take medical counsel upon it, and let me
know the result.
Yes!-there is nothing more true than what you say. " When we must die,
there is nothing like a well-grounded hope of future happiness, except a perfect faith, which removes all doubt." I thank God that I have lived long
enough, and seen sorrow enough, to be convinced that religion is the proper
element of the soul, where alone it is at home and at rest. That to any other
state, it is an alien, vagrant, restless, perturbed and miserable-dazzled for an
hour by a dream of temporal glory, but awakening to disappointment and
permanent anguish. It is the bed of death which chases away all these illusive vapors of the brain which have cheated us through life, and which shows
us to ourselves, naked as we are. Then, if not sooner, every man finds the
truth of your sentiment, the importance of a well-grounded Christian hope
of future happiness. We need not, indeed, so awful a monitor as a deathbed, to convince us of the instability of earthly hopes of any kind. We have
but to look upon nations abroad, and men at home, to see that everything
under the sun is uncertain and fluctuating; that prosperity is a cheat, and
virtue often but a name. Look upon the map of Europe. See what it was
fifty or sixty years ago-what it has since been, and what it is likely to become. Formerly partitioned into separate, independent and energetic monarchies, with vigorous chiefs at their head, maintaining with infinite policy
the balance of power among them, and believing that balance eternal: France,
in the agonies of the birth of liberty, her campus martins resounding with
fetes, in celebration of that event: the contagion spreading into other nations:
monarchs trembling for their crowns, and combining to resist the diffusion of
the example: the champions of liberty, and Bonaparte among the rest, victo



462                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
rious everywhere, and everywhere carrying with them the wishes and prayers
of America. Yet now see, all at once, the revolution gone, like a flash of
lightning; France suddenly buried beneath the darkness of despotism, and
the voracious tyrant swallowing up kingdom after kingdom. The combining
monarchs thought that they were in danger of nothing but the propagation
of the doctrines of liberty; but ruin has come upon them from another quarter. The doctrines of liberty are at an end, and so are the monarchies of
Europe-all fused and melted down into one great and consolidated despotism.
How often have I drunk that Cesar's health, with a kind of religious devotion! How did all America stand on tiptoe, during his brilliant campaigns
in Italy at the head of the army of the republic! With what rapture did we
follow his career; and how did our bosoms bound at the prospect of an emancipated world! Yet see in what it has all ended! The total extinction of European liberty, and the too probable prospect of an enslaved world! Alas!
what are human calculations of happiness; and who can ever more rely upon
them!
If we look to the state of things in our own country, still we shall be forced
to cry, " all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Look at the public prints with
which our country is deluged, and see the merciless massacre of public and
private character, of social and domestic peace and happiness. Look at the
debates in Congress. Where is the coolness, the decorum, the cordial comparison of ideas for the public good, which you would look for in an assembly of patriots and freemen, such as were seen in the old Congress of 1776?
Nothing of it is now to be seen.  All is rancor, abuse, hostility and hatred,
confusion and ruin.   *        *    *      *    *    *   * *
According to my present impressions of happiness, I would not exchange
the good opinion of one virtuous and judicious man, for the acclamation of
the millions that inhabit our country; not that these would not be gratefulbut as for taking them as a basis of happiness, I would as soon think of
building a house on the billows of the sea.  *  *   *    *   *
Yours most sincerely,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWIARDS, ESQ.
RICHMOND, February 26, 1809.
Dear Sir:
* * * And now let me tell how grateful I feel for this " the longest letter that you have written since the commencement of your disease." It is so
perfectly in the style of your conversation, that I heard the sound of your
voice in every line, and saw every turn in the well remembered expression of
your face..*      *     *      *      *     *      *
There are parts of your letter which make me smile. You wish me to aspire
to the Presidency of the United States! This is so much like your Mount
Pleasant talk! Then, it was extravagant enough, although at that time I was




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  463
but sixteen or seventeen years of age, and had a whole life before me to work
wonders in; but now, you seem to forget that I am in my six-and-thirtieth
year, by which time the color of a man's destiny is pretty well fixed, and that,
besides being so old, I have yet a fortune to make for my family before I
could turn my thoughts to politics. No, no, my dear friend, I make no such
extravagant calculations of future greatness. If I can make my family independent, and leave to my children the inheritance of a respectable name, my
expectations and, believe me, my wishes will be fulfilled.  For the office of
Secretary of State, under Mr. Madison, I am just about as fit as I am to be
the Pope of Rome. Nor ought I, nor would I, accept it in my present circumstances. It would be to sacrifice my wife and children on the altar of
political ambition. I have no such ambition; and my not having it is one
among a thousand proofs that I am unfit for that kind of life; for nature, I
believe, never yet gave the capacity without.thc inclination.  I am writing
unaffectedly and from my heart. I know enough of the world to know that
political power is not happiness, and that my happiness is nowhere but in
private life and in the bosom of my beloved family. I think I may be able
to attain distinction enough in my profession to have it in my power, in ten
years, to retire from the bar into the country, and give myself up to the
luxury of literature and my fireside. You will say that this is selfish-that a
man's first duty is to his country-and you will tell me of Curtius, and Cato,
and Brutus.  I admit the grandeur of their virtues, but I am neither a Curtius, a Cato, nor a Brutus.  There are thousands of my countrymen better
qualified than myself for those high offices, and as willing as capable. Should
I attempt to give myself the precedence to such men, it would not be love of
country, but self, that would impel me. The wish to see my country prosper
is not compatible with a wish to see the reins of government in hands that
are unfit to hold them; and to wish them in my own, would be to wish them
in such hands. Hence my duty to my country is so far from opposing, that it
accords with the real wish of my heart for independence and domestic peace.
These are the principles by which I am regulating my life, and I should be
almost as sorry to have them disturbed as a Christian would the foundations
of his faith.
Monroe is certainly a virtuous and excellent man. I opposed his election,
but my opinion of him is unaltered. (By-the-by, my dear wife, who is a good
Federalist by inheritance, drew her pencil through that part of your letter in
which you speak of the Federalists and Tories who supported his election.
She wanted to show your letter to her mother; but as both her father and
mother are Federalists of the first water, and supported Monroe, she was
afraid that this passage would defeat the effect which she wished the letter
to produce-that is, to inspire them with the same love and respect for you
which she feels herself.) I think it a misfortune to Monroe that he had the
support of which you speak; but as it was unsolicited and undesired by him,
I do not think he ought to be blamed for it. I wish the Federalists were all
like you-Madisonian Federalists; and I wish the Republicans were all like
him-that is, tolerant, candid, charitable and dispassionate. I should then




464                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
have some hopes of the duration of the Republic; but as it is, may Heaven
protect us! If you knew Mr. Jefferson personally and intimately, you would
know him to be among the most simple and artless characters upon earth.
His fault is, that he is too unguarded. If he had more of Gen. Washington's
reserve, he would be less in the power of his enemies than he is. I do not
know that this would make him a more amiable man, but it would make him
a happier one.     *      t      *     *      *     *      * 
I am delighted with the account you give of Cyrus' parts. Has he read
Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding?" If not, I wish he would try
it. I consider it a pretty good test of a young man's vigor. When I was
about fourteen years old, a friend made me very flattering promises if I would
read Locke through twice, and produce a certificate from a gentleman, whom
he named, that I was master of his meaning. IHe intimated that I should be
considered as a sort of phenomenon if I achieved this task. It was on Sunday,
I recollect, when I received this letter; and I went instantly to Parson Hunt's
library, took out the book, and, spreading a blanket on the floor, up stairs,
laid down flat on my breast-the posture in which I had been accustomed to
get my Homer's lesson, and which I therefore supposed was peculiarly favorable to the exertion of the mind. I was soon heels over head among "innate
ideas"-subjects which I had never before heard of, and on which I had
not a single idea of any kind, either innate or acquired. I stuck to him,
however, manfully, and plunged on, pretty intelligently, till I got to his
chapter on " Identity and Diversity," and there I stuck fast in the most hopeless despair; nor did I ever get out of that mire until I again met with the
book in Albemarle, when I was about twenty-three years of age. Even then,
as I approached the chapter on " Identity and Diversity," I felt as shy as the
Scotch parson's horse did when repassing, in summer, part of a road in which
he had stuck fast the preceding winter. Cyrus is two years beyond the time
at which I made the experiment, and I do not doubt that he will bound over
it like the reindeer over the snows of Lapland. Locke is certainly a frigid
writer to a young man of high fancy; but whoever wishes to train himself to
address the human judgment successfully, ought to make Locke his bosom
friend and constant companion. He introduces his reader to a most intimate
acquaintance with the structure and constitution of the mind; unfolds every
property which belongs to it; shows how alone the judgment can be approached and acted on; through what avenues and with what degrees of
proof a man may calculate with certainty on its different degrees of assent.
Besides this, Locke's book is auxiliary to the same process for which I have
been so earnestly recommending the mathematics-that is, giving to the mind
a fixed and rooted habit of clear, close, cogent and irresistible reasoning.
The man who can read Locke for an hour or two, and then lay him down and
argue feebly upon any subject, may hang up his fiddle for life: to such a one
nature must have denied the original stamina of a great mind.  *  *
That Heaven may restore and confirm your health, and continue to smile
with beneficence upon yourself and your family (who, I belieye, are as dear to




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  465
my heart as the closest consanguinity could make them), is the devout and
fervent prayer of                Your friend,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, ESQ.
RICHMOoD, June 23, 1809.
Hy Ever-honored Friend: 
Yours of the 15th ult. reached this place a week ago. I was then in Norfolk, in the Admiralty Court, and learned, with sorrow, by a letter from my
wife, your inability to meet us at the Springs. In consequence of this our
own resolution of going thither is very much shaken; and I doubt much
whether we shall go higher up the country than to my wife's sister's, Mrs.
Cabell, who lives in Buckingham, a county bounded to the west by the Blue
Ridge. There we shall get the mountain air, avoid a hot journey and a good
deal of expense-which we would have encountered cheerfully in the hope of
meeting you and some portion of your family. This inducement removed,
the objections to the jaunt remain without a counterpoise; and we must submit with as good a grace as possible to the disappointment, still cherishing
the hope that, by some means or other, at some place or other, we shall yet
meet before we bid adieu to the world. In the meantime, lest it should be
otherwise, from your parental anxiety for me I am sure you would be glad to
know what is to become of me, and how I am to pass through life. I have
looked into this subject of my future life with a vision as steady and distinct
as I can command, and I now give you the result. In the course of ten years,
without some great and signal misfortune, I have reason to hope that I shall
be worth near upon or quite $100,000 in cash, besides having an elegant and
well-furnished establishment in this town. I propose to vest $25,000 in the
purchase, improvement and stocking of a farm somewhere on James River, in
as healthy a country as I can find, having also the advantage of fertility.
There I will have my books, and with my family spend three seasons of the
year-spring, summer and fall. Those months I shall devote to the improvement of my children, the amusement of my wife, and perhaps the endeavor to
raise by my pen a monument to my name. The winter we will spend in Richmond-if Richmond shall present superior attractions to the country. The
remainder of my cash I will invest in some stable and productive fund, to
raise portions for my children.
In these few words you have the scheme of my future life. You see there is
no noisy ambition in it; there is none, I believe, in my nature. It is true I love
distinction, but I can only enjoy it in tranquillity and innocence. My soul
sickens at the idea of political intrigue and faction: I would not choose to be
the innocent victim of it, much less the criminal agent. Observe, I do not
propose to be useless to society. My ambition will lie in opening, raising,
refining and improving the understandings of my countrymen by means of
light and cheap publications. I do not think that I am Atlas enough to sustain a ponderous work: while a speculation of fifty or a hundred pages on
any subject-theological, philosophical, political, moral or literary-would afford me very great delight, and be executed at least with spirit. Thus I hope
-59




466                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
to be employed, if alive, ten years hence, and so to the day of my death, or as
long as I can write anything worth the reading. Voltaire (voluminous as his
works now are, as bound up together,) used to publish, in this way, detached
pamphlets; and so did many others of the most distinguished writers in Europe-all the essayists and dramatists, of course, and many of the philosophers. This mode of publication is calculated to give wider currency to a
work. There is nothing terrible in the price or the massive bulk of the volume. The price is so cheap and the reading so light, as to command a reader
in every one who can read at all-and thereby to embrace the whole country.
May not a man, employed in this way, be as useful to his country as by haranguing eloquently in the Senate? The harangue and the harangue-maker
produce a transient benefit, and then perish together. The writer, if he have
merit, speaks to all countries and to all ages; and the benefits which he produces flow on forever. To enjoy them both would be, indeed, desirable to a
man who could feel sufficient delight in the applause of his eloquence to counterbalance the pain which the cabals, intrigues, calumnies and lies of the envious and malignant would be sure to inflict upon him. This, I think, I could
never do; and I shall, therefore, attempt that kind of fame which alone I can
find reconcilable with my happiness.
By perusing these two pages you may look forward through futurity to the
end of my life, and, from the point on which you now stand, take in my whole
prospect. One thing, at least, your adopted son promises you: that he will
transmit to his posterity a name of unblemished honor; and he flatters himself that, in future time, they will look back to him as the founder of a race
that will have done no discredit to their country. This is vanity, but, I hope,
not vexation to your spirit; for witli whom can I be free, if not with you?
I flatter myself that you have that kind of love for me which would make
you desirous of seeing how I shall conduct myself through life; but since, in
the ordinary course of-things, this cannot be, the next degree of enjoyment is
to see it by anticipation, and for this purpose it is that I have been trying to
lead you to the summit of Pisgah, and show you my promised land.
But enough of it. Your letter gives a view of the advanced life of parents, not the most cheering that could be imagined. But then, those children
whom you went to Kentucky to live with, although widely dispersed, are all
in the road of honor, prosperity and happiness. They could not have remained with you always: you should not have desired it. They were to be
established in the world; and you have the delightful knowledge that they
are well-established. What a feast is this reflection to a heart like yours!
Contrast it with the idea of their always having remained about your house,
your daughters old maids, and your sons lazy old bachelors. You would have
had their company, indeed-but what sort of company would it have been?
And if you once admitted the idea that they were to be married and settled,
I am sure you were not chimerical enough to expect that they would all settle
around Shiloh, like so many small bubbles surrounding a large one. I doubt
very much the happiness of a neighborhood so constructed, even if it were reasonable to expect such a construction. I incline to think that distance gives
you a juster value for each other, and that when you do meet, your happiness




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  467
makes up in intenseness what it wants in frequency; so that, upon the whole,
the sum of your happiness is pretty much the same.
But, my ever-honored friend, any man with your practical judgment must
have foreseen this result-that your children would marry, and that their own
parental duties would force them to follow their fortune wherever she pointed
the way. And how happy is your fate compared with that of hundreds,
thousands and millions of other parents. No child has ever wounded the
honor of your house. You have no reprobate son to mourn: no daughter's
ruin to bring down your gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. How many
aro there who have! When I think of these agonizing, soul-rending calamities, I almost shudder at the idea of being a father. " Yet in Providence I
trust."
I had heard of Ninian's wish for the governorship of the Illinois, from
himself, and had written to Mr. Madison (whom I know very well) my impressions of his (Ninian's) character. I know not whether the change of
office is for better or worse; and am sorry to learn that you think it against
reason and judgment. The office, I presume, will impose more labor upon
him, and be more likely to embroil him in quarrels and trouble. But will
not these be balanced by the power which he will have of providing for his
children, and ushering them advantageously into life?
I am happy to hear that Cyrus has laid siege to the mathematics. He will,
no doubt, soon be tired of it, and when he isso, he ought to turn to Rollin's
account of his namesake's siege of Babylon, to see what patience, enterprise
and heroism can achieve; and, though he may not see at present the benefit
which is to result from his labors, he will feel it by-and by, when the arguments of his adversaries fall before him like the walls of Jericho at the
sound of the horns.
By-the-by, my wife is afraid that you took too gravely her little gayety in
penciling some of the lines of your letter touching the Federalists. I told
her that, to my sorrow, you were a Federalist too; and that your observation
could scarcely have been intended to cover the whole of a party to which you
yourself belonged. The act was, as it related to herself, a mere sally of
sportiveness; and in this light she begs you to consider it. I have some
hopes that, in time, I shall have better luck with her than Paul had with
Felix: that I shall altogether persuade her to be a good Republican. This
will be the effect, however, of living long together, and wearing down, by
slow degrees, the little Federal asperities which her parents gave her; that
is to say, if my own political asperities, as being made of softer stuff, do not
give way first. You know that in rencontres of this sort, men have not much
to expect beyond the pleasure of being vanquished.  *   *     *
Here is another long and vapid letter. No wonder this time, for I have
written under the pressure of about ninety-six degrees of heat. My wife and
children unite with me in love to you, Mrs. E., and our brothers and sisters.
Heaven bless you, restore you to health, and preserve you to your family.
Yours,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, Esq.




468               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
RICHMOND, December 22, 1809.
My Dear Friend:
* * * * I think you are rather hard upon my brother Ninian, when
you speak of the Quixotic schemes which he has carried to his Territory. It
strikes me that a fellow who has made his way through the presidency of a
Court of Appeals, to the government of a Territory, deserves to have his
solidity a little better thought of. I suspect that the Knight of La Mancha
would never have achieved such adventures as those. I own that I cannot
see what he will gain by the exchange, except (what I should suppose he has
no need of) land: but he has displayed so much soundness of judgment that
I do not doubt motives exist sufficient to justify his conduct. I am sorry that
Cyrus is deprived of McAllister. I hear this man everywhere spoken of as a
prodigy of learning and mental force; not very well qualified perhaps for
the instruction of children, but highly so for the instruction of young men
-and Cyrus is now a young man. McAllister, I am told, is distinguished for
the clearness and cogency of his style of reasoning. What a treasure would
such a man be to a young man of genius and enterprise who was destined
for the bar! This power of analysis, the power of simplifying a complex
subject, and showing all its parts clearly and distinctly, is the forte of Chief
Justice Marshall, and is the great desideratum of every man who aims at eminence in the law. Genius, fancy and taste may fashion the drapery and put
it on; but reason alone is the grand sculptor, that can form the statue itself.
Hence it is that I have been so anxious for Cyrus to cultivate the mathematics-not for the sake of being a mathematician, but to give to his mind the
habit of close and conclusive reasoning. I hope he will still be placed in
some situation where he may pursue this science. I would have him mathematician enough to be able to comprehend and repeat, with ease, by calculations of his own, Sir Isaac Newton's mathematical demonstrations of the
principles of natural philosophy. Locke says, if you would have your son a
reasoner, let him read Chillingworth: I say, if you would have him a reasoner
let him read Lockc. I think you will find that the mathematics and Locke
will put a head in his tub; for, what you censure is not, I apprehend, any defect in the faculty of memory, but rather the inattention and volatility so
natural to his time of life, for which there is no better cure than what I am
recommending.    *     *    *           * *         *    *    *
As to my country's calling for my aid, you make me smile! yet, if such an
improbable thing should ever come to pass, you will find that your lectures
on patriotism have not been lost upon me. Alas! poor country! what is to
become of it? In the wisdom and virtue of the Administration I have the
most unbounded confidence. My apprehensions, therefore, have no reference
to them, nor to any event very near at hand. And yet, can any man who
looks upon the state of public virtue in this country, and then casts his eyes
upon what is doing in Europe, believe that this confederated republic is to
last for ever? Can he doubt that its probable dissolution is less than a century off? Think of Burr's conspiracy, within thirty-five years of the birth
of the republic; think of the characters implicated with him; think of the
state of political parties and of the presses in this country; think of the




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  469
execrable falsehoods, virulent abuse, villainous means by which they strive to
carry their points. Will not the people get tired and heart-sick of this perpetual commotion and agitation, and long for a change, even for king Log,
so that they may get rid of their demagogues, the storks, that destroy their
peace and quiet? These are my fears. Heaven grant that they may prove
groundless! It may be for the want of that political intrepidity which is
essential to a statesman, that these fears have found their way into my mind
-yet I confess they do sometimes fill it with awe and dismay. I am sure
that the body of the people is virtuous; and were they as enlightened as
virtuous, I should think the republic insured against ruin from within. But
they are not enlightened, and therefore are liable to imposition from the more
knowing, crafty and vicious emissaries of faction; and the very honesty of
the people, by rendering them unsuspicious and credulous, promotes the cheat.
They are told, for instance, that this Administration is in French pay, or under French influence; and that this country, although nominally free, is, in
effect, a dependent and a province of France. That the taxes which they pay
to support this Government, instead of being applied to these purposes, are
remitted to their master in France, to enable him to complete the conquest of
Europe, and hasten the time of his taking open possession here. The people
who live amid the solitude and innocence of the country, who read or hear of
this tale, well vamped up, and see general items pointed out, in the annual accounts of expenditure, which are declared to cover these traitorous remittances-what are they to think-especially when the tale is connected with a
long train of circumstances, partly true and partly false, growing out of the
actual embarrassments of the country? Would it be surprising, if, thusworked
upon for four years, with the vile and infamous slander sanctioned by assertions on the floor of Congress, they should precipitate Mr. Madison from the
Presidential seat, and place one of his calumniators in the chair of State?
And then, when "vice prevails and wicked men bear sway," " what ills may
follow." Heaven only can foretell.  *   *    *     *    *    *
Yours, forever and aye,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAM'IN EDWARDS, ESQ.
RICIMOND, Jfcay 8, 1810.
2My Dear and Revered Friend:
*     *    *      *   I have, indeed, great cause of gratitude to
Heaven. I will not say that Providence has led me, but that, in spite of the
reluctant and rebellious propensities of my nature, it has dragged me from
obscurity and vice, to respectability and earthly happiness.
In reviewing the short course of my life, I can see where I made plunges
from which it seems clearly to me that nothing less than a Divine hand could
ever have raised me; but I have been raised, and I trust that my feet are now
upon a rock. Yet can I never cease to deplore the years of my youth, that
I have murdered in idleness and folly. I can only fancy, with a sigh of unwilling regret, the figure which I might have made had I devoted to study




470                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
those hours which I gave up to giddy dissipation, and which now cannot be
recalled. I have read enough to show me, dimly and at a distance, the great
outline of that scheme of literary conquest which it was once in my power
to fill up in detail. I have got to the foot of the mountain, and see the road
which passes over its summit, and leads to the promised land; but it is too
late in life for me. I must be content to lay my bones on the hither side, and
point out the path to my son. -Do not charge these sentiments either to a
weak and spiritless despondency or to sluggish indolence. I know that a
good deal may yet be done, and I mean, as far as I can, that it shall be done;
yet, comparatively, it will be but a drop in the bucket. Seven-and-thirty is
rather too late for a man to begin his education; more especially when he is
hampered by the duties of a profession, and in this age of the world, when
every science covers so much ground by itself. What a spur should this reflection be to young men! Yet there is scarcely one in ten thousand of them
who will understand or believe it, until, as in my case, it comes home to the
heart, when it is too late. I now think that I know all the flaws and weak
places of my mind. I know which of the muscles want tone and vigor, and
which are braced beyond the point of health. I also think I know what
course of early training would have brought them all to perform their proper
functions in harmonious concert. But now the character of my mind is
fixed; and as to any beneficial change, one might as well call upon a tailor,
who has sat upon his shop-board until the calves of his legs are shriveled, to
carry the burthens of a porter; or upon a man whose hand is violently shaken
with the palsy, to split hairs with a razor. Such as it is it will probably remain, with a little accession, perhaps, of knowledge. You will do me injustice
if you infer, from what I have said, that I am sighing with regret at those
distant hights of political honors which lie beyond my reach. I do not know
whether to consider it as a vice or virtue of my nature-but so far am I from
sighing for political honors, that I pant only for seclusion and tranquillity, in
which I may enjoy the sweets of domestic and social love; raise my faculties,
by assiduous cultivation, to their highest attainable point, and prepare for
that state of future existence to which I know I am hastening. Nor should
I propose to myself, in such solitude, to forget what I owe to my country: on
the contrary, I think I could be much more solidly useful, in that situation,
than in one more public and active. So strongly are my hopes and wishes
fixed on this life of sequestration and peace, that if you ever hear of my
having entered on a political course, you may rely upon it that it is a painful
and heart-rending sacrifice to a sense of public duty. I hope and trust that
such an emergency is scarcely possible. I am sure that it is very improbable;
because I believe there will always be those who are much better qualified for
public offices, and certainly far more anxious for them than I am. At the
same time, I think our country is, at present, very badly supplied with materials for future legislation and government. I cast my eyes over the continent,
in vain, in quest of successors to our present patriots. There seems to me a
most miserable and alarming dearth of talents and acquirements among the
young men of the United States. I have sometimes sat down and endeavored




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   471
to fill the various offices in the Government with characters drawn from those
who are made known to us, either personally or by fame. But so far am I
from finding among them a man fit for a President, that I cannot even find
persons fit for the heads of Departments. What has become of the talents
of the country? Are they utterly extinct? or do they merely slumber; and
does it require another great convulsion, like our revolutionary war, to rouse
their dormant energies? I myself think that it proceeds, in a very great degree, if not altogether, from defective education. Our teachers themselves
either want learning, or they want the address necessary to excite into vigorous action the powers of the mind. Young men are everywhere turned loose
in the various professions, with minds half awake, and their surface merely
a little disturbed with science. This is not the way great men have been
made, either in Europe or America. As long as this system is pursued we
shall never have anything but political quacks.  * *     *    *
You will no doubt have seen, in the public papers, the loss we have suffered
in the premature death of my wife's father, Col. Robert Gamble. In the full
enjoyment of health and strength, of uncommon mental and corporeal vigor,
in the active and prosperous pursuit of his business, his children all established, surrounded by his grandchildren and an extensive circle of sincere and
fervent friends, and with the fairest prospects of earthly happiness opening
around him on every hand, he was suddenly killed, on the niorning of the
12th instant, by a fall from his horse. He was a faithful soldier of the revolution, a sincere and zealous Christian, one of the best of fathers, and hlonestest of men.    *    *   *         *    * *    *        *
Yours,
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, EsQ.
NORFOLK, Mliay 6, 1806.
My Dear Sir:
*    *   *    You see I have not gotten rid of my levities, and most
certainly I never shall while I live; they make an essential part of my constitution. I catch myself sometimes singing and dancing about the house like
a madman, to the very great amusement of my wife and children, and probably of the passengers who are incidentally going along the street. This is
very little like the wise conduct which Shakspeare makes Henry IV recommend to his son; but the harebrained find some consolation in the figure
which Henry V made in spite of his father's maxims of gravity. Yet I hope
you will not believe that I either sing or dance in the street or in the courthouse. I know the indispensable importance of a little state, to draw the
magic circle of respect around one's self, and repel intrusion and vulgarity.
*      *     *      *      *     *      *      *     0      *
To be sure, in a letter, it is not so material if a man cuts an eccentric caper
here and there; but I feel the same propensity when I am arguing a cause
before a court and jury-although I see the track plainly before me, yet, like




472               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
an ill-disciplined race-horse, I am perpetually bolting or flying the way-and
this, too, perhaps in the very crisis of the argument. After having laid my
premises to advantage-often having gone through an elaborate deduction of
principles-in the very instant when I am about to reap the fruit of my toil, by
drawing my conclusion, and when everybody is on tiptoe expectation of it,
some meteor springs up before me, and, in spite of me, I am off, like Commodore Trunnion's hunter, when the pack of hounds crossed him so unpropitiously, just as he was arriving at church to seize the hand of his anxious and
expecting bride. I was in conversation the other day with a very intimate
friend of mine on this subject, and was lamenting to him this laxity of intellect, which I was sure arose from the want of a well-directed education. He
admitted that I had ascribed it to its proper cause, but doubted whether it
ought to be lamented as a defect, suggesting that the man in whose imagination these meteors were always shooting bid much fairer, both for fame and
fortune, than the rigid logician, however close and cogent. In reply, it was
but necessary for me to appeal to examples before our eyes to disprove his
suggestion. One was Alexander Campbell, whose voice had all the softness
and melody of the harp; whose mind was at once an orchard and a flower
garden, loaded with the best fruits and smiling in all the many-colored bloom
of spring; whose delivery, action, style and manner were perfectly Ciceronian,
and who, with all these advantages, died by his own hand.  *  *  *
On the other hand: here is John Marshall, whose mind seems to be little else
than a mountain of barren and stupendous rocks-an ihexhaustible quarry,
from which he draws his materials and builds his fabrics, rude and'Gothic,
but of such strength that neither time nor force can beat them down-a fellow who would not turn off a single step from the right line of his argument
though a Paradise should rise to tempt him; who, it appears to me, if a
flower were to spring in his mind, would strike it up with his spade as indignantly as a farmer would a noxious plant from his meadow; yet who, all dry
and rigid as he is, has acquired all the wealth, fame and honor that a man
need desire. There is no theorizing against facts: Marshall's certainly is the
true road to solid and lasting reputation in courts of law. The habits of his
mind are directly those which an accurate and familiar acquaintance with the
mathematics generates.   *      *      *     *      *      * 
I feel so sensibly my own deficiencies in this mathematical study, that, if
Heaven spares my son and enables me to educate him, I will qualify him to
be a professor in it, before he shall know what poetry and rhetoric are. If
he turns out to have fancy and imagination, he will then be in less danger of
being run away with and unhorsed by them. If he is for the bar, I shall
never cease to inculcate Marshall's method-being perfectly persuaded that
for courts (and especially superior and appellate courts, where there are no
juries), it is the only true method. It is true that, if I had my choice, I would
much rather have my son, as to mind, a Mirabeau than a Marshall-if such a
prodigy, as I have heard Mirabeau described by Mr. Jefferson, did ever really
exist; for he spoke of him as uniting two distinct and perfect characters in
himself, whenever he pleased: the mere logician, with a mind apparently as




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  473
sterile and desolate as the sands of Arabia, but reasoning at such times with
an Herculean force, which nothing could resist; at other times bursting out
with a flood of eloquence more sublime than Milton ever imputed to the
cherubim and seraphim, and bearing all before him. I can easily conceive
that a man might have either of these characters in perfection, or some portion of each; but that the same mind should unite them both, and each in
perfection, appears to me, considering the strong contrast in their essence and
operation, to be indeed a prodigy. Yet I suppose it is true, " for Brutus is an
honorable man."     *     *      *      *     *      *     *     *
No, my dear friend, I shall certainly never become famous by burning a
temple or despising the religion of Christ. On these subjects, in the heat,
vanity and ostentation of youth, I once thought and spoke, to my shame, too
loosely. A series of rescues from the brink of ruin, to which, whenever left
to myself, I madly rushed, convinced me that there was an invisible, benevalent power, who was taking an interest in my preservation. I hope that ingratitude is not one of my vices. The conviction which I have just mentioned
no sooner struck my heart, than it was filled with a sentiment which, I hope,
will save me from the fate of a Voltaire or a Domitian.
The friendly hope which you express, that you will live to hear me toasted
at every political dinner, for superior virtues and wisdom, is indeed very
obliging, but very unfounded. You know how poor I have always been.
The rocks and shoals of poverty and bankruptcy lie very near to the whirlpool of dishonor and infamy. Among these rocks and shoals I have been
tossing and beating ever since I entered upon the world. The whirlpool I
have escaped, and, thank Heaven, feel myself now out of danger; but that
horrible danger I shall never forget, nor shall I cease struggling till I place
my children out of its reach. This cannot be done if I give myself up to
politics. This latter might be the road to distinction, but not to independence, either for myself or my children. When I have placed my wife and
children beyond the reach of this world's cold and reluctant charity, unfeeling insolence, or more insulting pity, then my country shall have all the little
service which I am capable of rendering. But while I have opportunities of
hearing, seeing and reading, and making comparisons between other men and
myself; I cannot believe that the little all of my services will ever make a
political toast. Nor, indeed, do I envy that distinction to any man; for I
remember how Miltiades, Aristides, Cicero, Demosthenes and many others
were once idolized by their countrymen; and I remember the disastrous
proof which their examples afforded of the fickleness of popular favor, and
the danger of aspiring to political distinctions even by the exercise of virtues.
Yet I would not shrink from their fate, if my countrymen required the sacrifice at my hands. All I mean to say is, that I shall never enter on the political highway in quest of happiness. Thank Heaven, I have it at home! A
wife, in whose praise, if I were to indulge it, my pen would grow as wanton
as Juba's tongue in praise of his Marcia; two cherub children; a revenue
which puts us quite at ease in the article of living; and the respect and
-60




474                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
esteem of my acquaintances and, I may say, of Virginia. A man who has
blessings like these in his possession will not be very wise to jeopard them
all by launching on the stormy Baltic of politics.
Ever your friend and servant,
WILLIAM WIRT.
TO BENJAMIN EDWARDS, EsQ.
ANNAPOLIS, October 22, 1826.
My Ever-dear Friend and Benefactor:
Ninian has been so kindly thoughtful as to send me Cyrus' letter of the
22d July last, from Elkton (Illinois), announcing the sad bereavement you
have encountered. The letter found me, about ten days ago, at Washington,
whither I had returned from a long excursion to the South-western Springs
of Virginia, for the benefit of my own health and that of one of my daughters; and it came to me at a time when I was most intensely engaged in preparing to meet a public engagement arising from the deaths of Mr. Jefferson
and Mr. Adams. The shock which it gave me disarmed me for the day, and
I would have poured out my heart to you at once, if my grief could have had
any other effect than to increase your own. I reached this place about an hour
ago, and although I have a cause now under argument in the Court of Appeals at this place, which demands my immediate attention, I cannot sit down
to business until I have lightened my breast by giving you this evidence of
my sympathy. Poor dear Mrs. Edwards! it is now thirty-eight years since I
first saw her at Mount Pleasant. I was, then, in my sixteenth year, a volatile
and thoughtless young boy, looking on the world and life before me, with all
those brightning hopes and expectations of youth that painted it as a fairy
scene whose pleasures would never end. I am now old and gray, the illusion
is long since over, and I have been taught, by mournful experience, to know
the world as it is, a poor and miserable stage-play, in which there is nothing
of any value but those pure attachments which bind us to one another and
those which bind us to our God and Saviour. If this life were all, the
former, sweet and endearing as they are, would be but poor things: they are
"flowers of the forest" withered and gone very often before we have had time
to know their value. I lost a dear boy, in his nineteenth year. Two years,
this fall, he died far away from me, in France, where he had gone for his
health. He was the pride and hope of my heart and family, and an object
of admiration and love to all who knew him. My dear friend, I cannot think
of him, and never shall I be able to think of him, without tears. He was the
third of my children I had lost; the two former in the tender and attaching
age of infancy. But Robert was growing to be a man, and had displayed
such a noble soul and mind, that I have said to myself a hundred times, if
my dear old friend Mr. Edwards could but know this boy, what an augury
would he not make for him, who made so bright a one on the inferior evidence
presented by his father in the days of his youth! Dear Mrs. Edwards toohow kind she always was to me-how respectful and tender to a poor orphan
boy, of obscure parentage, who had no other claims to her respect and tender



LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   475
ness than those which her own native kindness suggested! How well do I
remember her looks, her voice, her movements, her manners-the natural dignity, and excellent understanding, and unaffected warmth and tenderness of
feeling, that reigned in her character and conduct-the pleasure and just
pride with which she listened to your conversation, my dear friend, and enjoyed the admiration of the circle around you, of which I was one, and not
less proud of you, myself, than if you had been my own father! The family
sitting-room at Mount Pleasant, the large and cheerful fireside, the lighted
candles, the eloquent, varied and charming conversation, the fine healthy circle of children, the laugh, the jest, Kelly, myself, how forcibly the whole
scene stands revealed to me at this moment! And yet it is near forty years
ago. Where are they all? Through what scenes have I, myself, since passed?
And all our neighbors, the Lanes, the Gassaways, the Catletts, only think of
the desolation that has mowed them all down! Wm. Smith and his family,
old Mr. Turner and his, and old Mr. Orme and his, and the Perrys, all gone!
Have you not been rather favored, my dear friend, to have been so long
blessed with the society of your most excellent and beloved companion?
Come whenever it might, the blow must, indeed, have been most deeply felt.
But, considering the fate of your old neighbors, and the certainty of that fate
to all, has not Heaven been kind and merciful in suspending it so long? You
enjoyed her society for near fifty-four years. The poor orphan boy you protected experienced the same bereavement before he was thirty years of age.
And although your having lived so long together must have drawn the cords
the closer and made it more agonizing to sever them, yet the separation must
at last have come. Has it not been merciful in Heaven to have made it for
so short a time as in the ordinary course of nature it must now be? for, according to the lot of humanity, it cannot be long before you will be united to
part no more. Both believers in Christ, and as faithful followers of his as
you could be, to what a speedy re-union may you not look in that world of
bliss where you will know sorrow no more. Strange, when we reflect upon
it, that we should mourn such a separation at all! But our natural earthly
affections cannot be extinguished either by reason or even faith; and that
Being who knows our infirmities will not fail to look upon them with mercy
and pardon. Mrs. Edwards' confidence in her interest in the Saviour, can
leave no doubt of the happy change she has experienced, and it does not become us to mourn as those who have no hope.          *    *   *
I dare say, you have long since marked me down as having lost the heart
of friendship I have always professed for you. Indeed, my occupations, I
know, have subjected me fairly to this suspicion. But you, who know me as
well as I know myself, will believe me when I assure you that I never think
of you without the deepest feelings of reverence and gratitude; and though
I have not been able to write as often as formerly, I have never ceased to
regard you with the love and veneration of an affectionate child. I can now
only pray to Heaven to strengthen and support you, and to spare you for
the sake of your dear family yet a few years longer; feeling, on my own part,
the most perfect assurance that death, come when it will, will open to you




476                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
the gates of life and restore you to your partner in the bosom of your
Saviour. May I not have a place in your prayers? And will you not do me
the justice to regard me as among the most affectionate of your children?
WILLIAM WIRT.
To BENJAMIN EDWARDS, ESQ.
POSTOFFICE DEPARTMENT, f
January 7, 1825.
Sir:
Some complaints have reached me from Illinois that Mr. Mills does not run
his stages on the main route to St. Louis, and also on the one by Vandalia,
when the road will admit. On every stage route in the Union, the contractor
is authorized, by special instructions, when the road is so bad as to render
the running of stages impracticable, to convey the mail on horse, in a boat,
or in any other manner which will protect it from the weather. The great
object is to deliver the mail as regularly as possible at the points designated,
and where this cannot be done in stages, it is required to be done in some
other manner.
Mr. Mills has no exemption above any other contractor in the Union, but
is required to fulfill his contract the same as every other contractor, and if he
fail, he shall be punished to the extent of the powers vested in me.
In no part of the Western country, I believe, has a stage been run regularly
through the winter and spring, because it has been found impracticable to do
so. But this license must not be abused. When the roads will admit of
stages being run on all stage routes, they must be run, and a failure to do so
will subject the contractor to a penalty and the censure of the Department.
Knowing that you reside on the main route to St. Louis, from Louisville, and
may have some knowledge of the manner in which the mail is carried on the
route through Vandalia, I will thank you, at any time, to advise me when
Mr. Mills or any other contractor shall fail in the performance of his duty, as
above defined.
I have been induced to trouble you with this communication from the
knowledge I have of your wish, in every particular, to promote the public
interest.
JOHN McLEAN,
Postmaster- General.
Gov. EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
GEORGETOWN, April 25, 1825.
My Dear Sir:
Having a few minutes leisure, I do not know how I can employ it more
pleasantly to myself than by communicating to you the aspect of our political
affairs, for I am persuaded it will not be wholly uninteresting to you. I may
have noticed some facts which have escaped your observation.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  477
Upon a full and impartial view, I think that the Administration has no
ground to complain of the disposition which has been generally manifested
towards it. There are but few persons, in my section of the country, who do
not feel disposed to judge of it by its measures. This is all that any Administration ought to ask or expect to receive. Indeed, I think, to a very great
extent, a friendly feeling has been shown-at least so far as to judge most
favorably of the acts of the Administration; and it appears that a great
majority of the public journals would rather praise than censure. It is not,
however, to be concealed that there is a considerable party hostile to Mr
Clay, and, on this account, will not be disposed to support with zeal the Administration. Of this you were fully aware before you left here.  Circumstances which have since transpired render certain that which was, a few
weeks ago, founded partly on conjecture. The " Richmond Enquirer," as you
may have observed, is in opposition; and I think it will be found to speak
the sentiments of a majority of the citizens of Virginia. In this, however, I
may be mistaken. I judge principally from the great influence which that
paper has had on the politics of Virginia, and of the avowed sentiments of
several of the most distinguished men of the State. The late appointment of
Mr. King will go very far to fix the position of Virginia on this subject.
Perhaps no citizen could have been more objectionable to this State, for this
mission, than Mr. King. The course he took on the Missouri question and
the late proposition which he made in the Senate respecting Havery, have
created a feeling that will not very soon be forgotten. But above all, the
fact of Mr. King's having been at the head of the Federal party, and high in
office and influence under the older Adams, form objections to the appointment which Virginia can never surmount.  You know on many topics our
friends of Virginia are somewhat extravagant in their notions, and they have
never been charged with moderation in politics. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and all the ground in the north-west covered by Gen. Jackson,
will of course incline to oppose the Administration, so far as it may be considered necessary to defeat the future prospects of Mr. Clay. Towards the
President, it does not appear to me that much hostility is cherished, but he
may be considered as havingso intimately connected his fortunes with Mr. Clay,
that the opposition may be directed against them both. From the representation in Maryland, I think the Administration may expect support, and also
from several of the members from most of the States I have referred to.
Pennsylvania remains as she was-firmly opposed. New York may be considered doubtful-probably a majority will be against the Administration.
The appointment of Mr. King was not fortunate for the Administration in
this State, though I have no doubt Mr. Clay, and perhaps Mr. Adams, believed
it would give them much strength. Mr. King, you are aware, is very unpopular with the dominant party in New York, and for some years has had no
influence in that State with any party. The Clintonian party and the Republicans, who have been opposed to Clinton, will cordially unite in opposition
to this appointment. Mr. King is upwards of seventy years of age, and has
failed, it is thought, very much, both physically and mentally. He is thought




478                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
by some, rather to belong to the past than the present age, and that his views
are greatly behind the advances of our country. I heard Webster observe,
better than a year ago, that King had no idea that the country west of the
Alleghany formed any part of the United States-that his views of policy
and feelings were confined to the "old thirteen." There was much truth in the
remark.  Mr. King has always evinced a want of liberality to the West,
and has appeared anxious to check its rapid growth. Mr. Monroe once remarked to me that this disposition was evinced by Mr. King on almost
every land bill that was discussed by the Senate. This appointment will be
well received in England; but Mr. King will find that country, as well as
this, vastly changed from what it was when he resided there, as a Minister
from this Government.
On the other side of the question, it may be said that Mr. King, from his
public services and high character, will be thought in many parts of the
Union a most fit representative of this country to the most important foreign
court. In New England, this appointment seems to be pretty well received.
But I am not mistaken in saying, that in New York it weakens instead of
gives strength to the Administration.  Mr. Clay out of the question, Mr.
Adams would have experienced little or no opposition in New York.
You have probably noticed the great effort that has been made by Mr.
Webster and others, at Boston, to get up a new amalgamation party. This
scheme has succeeded partially in Massachusetts in their late elections, but it
has failed in New Hampshire, and will not probably generally succeed in
New England. The object of this policy is very manifest. It is to destroy
the Democratic or Republican party, by uniting it with the Federalists, who
in a very short time would assume the entire direction of affairs, and show
the same intolerance that cost them the power many years since. Their principles are not changed, nor has any alteration taken place in their disposition.
I have always believed that between Republicans and Federalists there
was a radical difference of principle; and that great injustice is done the
former by awarding to each applause and censure alike. No one who observed
the movements of the Federal party during the late war, will differ with me
in opinion on this subject. I confess, when I call into recollection the scenes
which I then witnessed, that I can never repose entire confidence in many of
the Federalists who were then the leaders of their party, but now the strong
advocates of amalgamation. Throughout the whole war, the most systematic
opposition was given to every measure calculated to give energy to our military operations. I shall never forget the expression of one of their most distinguished leaders, nor the occasion which called it forth. The public credit was
next to the lowest state of depression, and unless a resuscitation speedily took
place, our armies must have left the field and our Government been driven to
an inglorious peace. At this time, I heard Timothy Pickering say that he
was more than anxious that public credit should not be revived. In this he
was supported by all his party, Mr. Webster included. The cause had then
become the cause of the country, whatever might have been thought of it at
the previous stages; and any man who would array himself against his coun



LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   479
try, under such circumstances, must hold the triumph of a party more desirable than the triumph of his country.
If the Federal party are willing to come over to the Republican party and
occupy the same ground, I would most cheerfully receive them; but it seems
they always stipulate that the advantage of the union should result exclusively to themselves. Where they have the majority, little is said of union,
but when they are vastly in the minority, they are willing to unite, on condition that the offices shall be divided. I should rather see a union without
such a stipulation and on Republican ground. In due time the meritorious
would be confided in by the people. On amalgamation or any other principle, I view it as very objectionable, and hope that it may never take
place.
Mr. Clay is still here and most industriously engaged in making out
instructions for our Ministers. His health has become much worse than it
was, and, unless he shall regain his health, I doubt very much whether the
labors of his office will not be more than he can bear. I have no doubt that
he will faithfully support Mr. Adams to the utmost of his power. In New
England, the papers generally speak favorably of him.
You have read Mr. Clay's address, and no doubt the various publications
which have followed it. The address is very well written, and from the
remarks in the journals, it seems to be well received by a great majority.
Upon the whole, it may remove some of the prejudices existing against Mr.
Clay. He has been very fortunate in not having it reviewed by any one
having a decent pretension to talents-unless it be a short address from Mr.
Ingham, which I have this day read. This, however, only refers to such parts
as go to implicate him with Mr. Kremer. Mr. Clay avowed his determination, to Dr. Drake and others, before he left Kentucky last fall, to vote for
Mr. Adams, and that under no circumstances would he vote for Gen. Jackson.
How then could he, in January, deliberate on the subject, and make up his
opinion, as represented, from facts which were not known to exist, when his
determination was expressed in Kentucky, etc., etc.
I have already said more than I intended, and will conclude this topic by
saying that I have never doubted that injustice was done to Mr. Clay in many
of the charges made against him.
Calhoun has gone to the South. I have not heard from him since his
departure.
Mrs. McLean desires her respects to Mrs. Cook.  Present my respects to
Mrs. C.
Sincerely your friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
To (ov. EDWARDS.




480               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
WASHINGTON, March 24, 1826.
Dear Sir:
For your friendly letter, which has been long since received and should
have been long since answered, I thank you. My apology for this seeming
inattention is found in the labors of my office, which require my utmost exertions both night and day. In the approbation which is kindly given by the
public, I find an ample compensation for my toils, and encouragement to
persevere.
I have pleasure in informing you that I have made an arrangement for the
mail, two trips weekly, in the stage between Louisville and St. Louis. Five
days is the time fixed for each trip. The principal stage will run on the
direct road from Vincennes to St. Louis, but the stage will be continued by
the way of Vandalia and Edwardsville, as at present.
This increased accommodation, with what may be given by adding to the
speed of the conveyance of the mail by way of Shawneetown, so as to make
it correspond in time with the conveyance by the way of Vincennes, and give
a third trip weekly between Louisville and St. Louis. I hope to satisfy public expectation on this subject.
I regret to see so much party feeling at this early stage of the present Administration. Both sides may have committed blunders, and time will determine what will be the effect of the course taken during the present session of
Congress. Every judicious man, I should think, will admit that a change of
the Chief Magistrate every four years, upon party ground, resulting from personal preferences, or important differences in policy, must essentially retard
the rising prosperity of the country. Strange combinations may grow out of
the present contest. I should rejoice most to see each party emulous in advancing the general interest.
From the certainty of your success in the approaching election I derive sincere pleasure. It will be a triumph to yourself and your friends. I believe
almost all of that virulence of feeling which was so generally evinced by
the caucus party against you, has disappeared, and to a considerable extent
has been succeeded by feelings of a very different nature. Mr. Crawford will
never be again presented on the political arena. His friends will generally
support Gen. Jackson.
I presume Mr. Cook gives you all that is of any interest, which you do not
receive in the public papers. He stands well with all parties, and is not excelled in weight of character, talents and influence, by any member from the
West.
With sincere regard,
Your friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
To IION. NINIAN EDWARDS.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   481
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 1826.
Dear Sir:
An unusual press of official duties has prevented my answering your letter
of the 17th of September until now. The contents of this letter produced
no small degree of surprise and regret, and had it not been for the strong assurances of the most friendly motives, at the conclusion, it would have been
impossible for me to view it in any other light than an attack upon my official integrity. The intimation that Mr. Cook might think it due to himself
and his friends to make a thorough investigation of the subject referred to,
which could be done in no other way than by a call in Congress, and of such
a nature as to impeach my integrity, filled me with astonishment. I cannot
suppose that Mr. Cook has thought of such a course; for admitting that the
appointment of       was incorrect, could he believe that, in making it, I
had acted corruptly, or was influenced by hostility to him? If I believed it
possible for him to form such an estimate of me, I should not care how soon
the investigation was commenced. But it is impossible-he neither doubts
my integrity nor friendship. For his success I felt a stronger interest, in the
late election, than for the success of any other individual, not excepting my
own brother. In fact, my feelings towards him ever since our acquaintance
have been of the warmest kind, and every word that I have ever spoken respecting him has evinced it.
Your letter was the first intimation I had of -   being hostile either to
him or yourself. I believed him to be friendly. If you will read with attention the publication of -, which you inclosed, you will find, or I am
greatly mistaken, that he does not refer to my act of re-appointing him as a
mode of reversing the decisions of courts and juries, but to public opinion.
You have been too long conversant with the proceedings of courts not to
know that they may sometimes err in their decision, and that juries are often
led into error by the malice or mistake of witnesses. The innocent have often
been convicted of the highest offenses; and it is presumed that this may happen so long as imperfection belongs to human nature. If one individual may
be innocently convicted of an offense, may he not look to public opinion for
justice? Is it criminal or even objectionable in him to refer to this tribunal,
as the last resort. The appeal of --  does not, it appears to me, place me
in collision with the court and jury who tried his case. He refers to public
opinion as sustaining him, and exhibits the evidence of being elected to the
important office of Sheriff, by the unanimous suffrage of his county. This
office is one of high trust, and in the discharge of its important duties great
integrity is required. In ordinary cases, I submit to you, whether an appeal
like this would not be considered conclusive of a man's standing and character. You will observe that I speak of any case presenting the same facts,
without referring to the circumstances detailed in your letter.
I have never seen, as you suppose, the indictment against --, but understand that it charged him with detaining a letter, for which the statute
subjects him to a penalty. You will observe, however, that a removal from
office forms no part of this penalty.. This is a matter to be determined by the
discretion of the Postmaster-General. How, then, could I have been brought
-61




482               tETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
into collision with the court and jury had I not removed --? Might not
a case exist where, on an indictment for the mere detention of a letter, a postmaster might be convicted, and after the trial it would be in his power to
convince, by indubitable testimony, every impartial man of his innocence?
And in such a case, would the court and jury, who tried and convicted him,
be censurable; or would I cast an implied censure on them by appointing
such an individual to an inconsiderable postoffice?
I have known members of the bench indicted for larceny, and in one instance for forgery. The evidence of innocence was complete, and yet no one
ever thought of censuring the grand jury for finding the bills of indictment. I take it for granted, therefore, that you can entertain no feeling on
this subject from the circumstance of your having been a member of the grand
jury who found the indictment against -.
It does not follow that a postmaster must be removed. But this is a charge
which may be made against any postmaster in the Union, and has been made
against hundreds of them; and if full credit had been given to the statements
of malicious persons, without explanation from any quarter, many of the most
estimable citizens in the community would have been removed from office in
disgrace.
I know of very few large offices in the Union against which such charges
have not been made within three years past; and these charges have often
been supported by one or more affidavits. On investigating them I have
sometimes found that letters were actually in the office which were not found
on the first examination by the postmaster, and after an inquiry, where lie
undertook to answer in the negative, from memory, without making an examination. In some of these cases I have found grounds for censure, and in
such instances I have never withheld what appeared to be merited.
On a late occasion the Postmaster at New York informed me, in the most
positive manner, that a certain letter was not in his office. This assurance
was given in a second answer to me, and the fact stated of several examinations of the office having been made for the letter to no effect. After a lapse
of some weeks the identical letter was found in the office, it having been
placed among the letters to be advertised. This letter contained money to a
considerable amount. Now you can at once see that a malicious witness might
make a strong case against the postmaster out of the above facts; and as the
letter contained money, the motive, in the estimation of such a witness, would
be clear. I have, for years, daily investigated charges against postmasters;
and I am ignorant of having been once charged with exercising too much
lenity. But I have found that no officers of the Government were so liable
to be assailed as postmasters, and that the greatest caution was necessary to
prevent their becoming the victims of malicious individuals.
An instance lately occurred in Connecticut, where an assistant postmaster
was indicted in the Circuit Court of the United States, for breaking open a
letter. This, you will observe, is a much more serious offense than the one
charged against -—. The traverse jury found this person guilty, at the




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   483
court where Judge Thompson presided, and the judgment was arrested for a
defect in the indictment.
In this case the defendant was a person of respectability, and he sustained
little or no injury from the prosecution. The suffrages of his fellow-citizens
were conferred upon him at one or two popular elections, and the highest
confidence was felt by the community in his integrity. I was requested to
appoint him Postmaster by the united recommendation of the Connecticut
delegation, and by many of the most respectable citizens of the town in
which he lived. I should unquestionably have appointed him if I could have
done so without doing injustice to the incumbent by removing him; and
whenever a vacancy in the town may occur, I shall give him the appointment.
When the indictment was found, I dismissed him from the office, as was done
in the case of -, after his conviction. In the case alluded to, a letter,
which proved to be, I think, a lottery circular, directed to the postoffice, was
opened by the accused; and the malicious prosecutor contrived to state a
great many circumstances of concealment, etc., which aggravated the offense.
These, after the trial, were well understood, and by the public properly appreciated.
This case is referred to for the purpose of showing that the finding of a
grand jury and a conviction by a petit jury do not always seal the doom of
the accused; that public opinion, to which Mr.  -   refers, in some possible cases, may so sustain an individual as to place him on higher ground than
he before occupied, notwithstanding his accusers, by malice and falsehood,
have, through the legal forms of the law, gained a triumph over him.
I argue from cases that may occur, without meaning to give any opinion as
to the proceeding against. This case I wish to present to your mind
as it was presented to mine when I made the appointment.
It is true, I knew  -   had been convicted of detaining a letter; but I
had before me a letter from the Attorney-General of your State, and one from
your Lieutenant-Governor, which speak on the subject in no equivocal language. Of these gentlemen I knew nothing personally, but from the offices
they held I was bound to respect their representations-at least so far as regarded Mr. -'s standing and character. I had also a letter on the same
subject from a postmaster of respectable standing. In addition to these, the
fact of ---    being Sheriff of the county, and possessing in a high degree
the confidence of its citizens, was not to be lightly regarded. The petition
of about ninety persons, expressing, in his integrity, the highest confidence,
and strongly urging his re-appointment, was before me. From all these evidences I could not doubt that he possessed the confidence of his fellow-citizens in a high degree, and that his re-appointment would receive the united
approbation of all who were directly interested in the office. Indeed, it appeared to me that a proper regard to public sentiment required his re-appointment. At the time, there was nothing in the office against him, except the
late prosecution and some remarks made by the late Postmaster referring to
the difficulty he experienced in obtaining from the assistant of --  the




484                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
property belonging to the office. This, however, had been satisfactorily explained.
I knew nothing of the extensive combination of which you speak; nothing
of the military disgrace which you refer to. All these things have been since
disclosed to me. You have now the principal facts before you on which I
acted. Judge the case on the facts presented. If you would have acted differently from what I did, I doubt whether you could find stronger reasons for
doing so than those that may be assigned in justification tifiatoof the re-appointment.
seems never to have been Postmaster, as you have heard, in Massachusetts. I have applied to the War Department for the facts respecting the
manner of his leaving the army. Had he, however, been cashiered, it was
unknown to me, as it was, also, of his having once been Postmaster, if such
had been the fact.
I do not believe that you and I will differ widely in this matter-it would
be strange indeed, after looking back to past scenes, if we should.
In all my official conduct, I disdain any other motive than that of a conscientious discharge of my duty-with an eye single to the public welfare. I
mistake myself if this is not the case.
IHad your letter been received before I re-appointed  -, I should, as I
have always done, have appointed the person you named. Had Mr. Cook
named a person, he should have been appointed. This has been done, I believe, without a single exception. I felt sincere regret that I had made the
appointment before the reception of your letter; but it was then too late, and
I did not think it necessary to express my regret in my answer to you. I
name this fcht, from the disappointment which this answer seems to have
given you.
For your success in the late election, although your competitor was an old,
and, I believe, a sincere friend of mine, I felt a deep interest. It has been
often referred to by me as a triumphant refutation of the scandal which had
been so extensively circulated against you.
As Mr. Cook will soon be here, I shall take no step in the case of - -,
until his arrival. If he be disposed, I will have a full and free consultation
with him on the subject.
With great regard, yours,
JOHN McLEAN.
To His Excellency NINIAN EDWARDS.
P. S.-Since writing the above I have received a communication from the
War Department, from which it appears that  -  was not tried by a court
martial and dismissed from the service, as has been alleged against him.J. McL.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   485
WASHINGTON, November 17, 1826.
Dear Sir:
I have just received your letter respecting the irregularity of the mail. At
this I am astonished and have directed a rigid investigation, and shall not
spare delinquents.
The paragraph inclosed is ungenerous to Mr. Cook; as to myself, there is
no man in the West whose wishes I have more pleasure in gratifying. I have
given him everything he has asked, so far as I now remember, and shall continue to do so, if consistent with the public interest.  When he arrives, I
will consult him as to giving you a more satisfactory recommendation.
Your friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
Gov. EDWARDS, Bellevillc, Illinois.
WASHING'rON, Jawtary 11, 1827.
My Dear Sir:
You have mistaken my disposition. A friend cannot talk too plainly, and
I esteem him the more for his frankness. It is true your first letter, respecting the appointment, led me to conclude that you was displeased at not having the person named by you appointed, when I thought I had informed you
that, had your letter been received in time, it would have been done, etc.;
but, all this aside, I have no doubt of your friendly feeling,
Mr. Cook's name is before the President for Minister to Columbia; it was
placed there by me before the commencement of the session. If the President does not appoint him, he will forfeit all the claims of friendship and
gratitude. I fear Clay is opposed to the appointment, and, if so, it will not
be made. This is only conjecture on my part. I think that Clay could not
object to the appointment on the ground of Mr, Cook's vote. So far as I
have been informed, no appointment could be made, in the same quarter,
more acceptable to the friends of Gen. Jackson. I have heard many of them
express great kindness for Mr. Cook, and some of them have expressed a
strong wish for his success. His health would be benefited by a journey to
the South. This is a consideration which ought to have weight with the
President, when everything else is favorable.
Your friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
Gov. N. EDWARDS, Vandalia, Illinois.
WASHINGTON, March 19, 1827.
Dear Sir:
A few days since, Mr. Cook left us for Baltimore, with the intention of
sailing thence to Havana.  He goes there as a secret agent of the Government, and is charged with very important duties. The compensation is
$4,500 a year, exclusive of his traveling expenses.




486                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
The duties which devolved upon Mr. Cook, as Chairman of the Committee
of Ways and Means, after McLane was excused from serving on the committee,
were very arduous. The labors were more than his health could bear, independently of the long confinement, every day, to the unwholesome atmosphere
of the hall. He, however, continued to exert himself until his physical powers gave way, and he was consequently confined for some weeks, the greater
part of the time to his room. We were favored with his company, as one of
the family, shortly after he became unwell, and I hope contributed, in some
degree, to his comfort and restoration. The business in which he is now engaged is of great importance to the country, and I strongly advised him to
go immediately to Cuba, as did also his physician, on account of his health.
We entertain a sanguine expectation that this voyage, and a short residence
at Havana, will give him better health than he has enjoyed for years. At the
same time he will perform public duties important to the country.  He will
only remain on the island a few weeks, and will then return to Illinois and
take Mrs. Cook with him to spend the next winter at Havana. I am sure you
will approve of this arrangement; and although the disappointment to Mrs.
Cook may be great, at his not returning immediately, yet, on reflection, I trust
she will be reconciled and see that it is best. I do not think there is anything in Mr. Cook's health that should excite, in her, alarm; and I shall be
greatly disappointed if she does not meet with him in August next, or perhaps in July, in better health than she has seen him for years. He left us
in fine spirits, and, in a letter he wrote to me from Baltimore, states that he
stood the ride well, and being disappointed in finding a vessel at that place,
he was going to Philadelphia. Judge Barton goes with him to Havana, and
will return with him to the United States. He has an excellent servant, and,
I think, will be as pleasantly situated as could be expected, in the absence of
his family. All things considered, I am much pleased at this agency being
given to him. He retires from the political contest that now rages, and,
standing well with both parties, will be able, in a short time, again to enter
into political life with great advantage to his country and to himself.
It is, of course, unnecessary to suggest that this mission should remain a
secret, as its great object may be defeated, if it were made public.
Your friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
Gov. EDWARDS, Vandalia, Illinois.
WASHINGTON, May 10, 1827.
Dear Sir:
Should a vacancy of Postmaster take place at Carlyle, I have directed the
person named by you to be appointed. Mr. Clempson has been informed
that the contract for the route he refers to cannot be made, until after public
notice shall be given; that this with other routes would shortly be advertised, and that he might bid for a stage with a prospect of success.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   487
I shall certainly take great pleasure in gratifying your wishes in regard to
the public accommodation, on this route, that may be necessary, and shall be
particularly gratified if the bid of Mr. Clempson shall enable me to give him
the contract. As I feel myself bound to make the contract with the lowest
responsible bidder, it would be well for Mr. --- to offer to transport the
mail in a two-horse stage on the route, as low as it can be done; and, at the
same time, he might bid for a horse transportation on the same route-so that,
if he should fail in one, he might have a chance of success on the other bid.
I have not heard from Mr. Cook since be left New York.
Your friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
Gov. EDWARDS, Carlyle, Illinois.
WASHINGTON, November 1, 1827.
Miy Dear Sir:
I have just heard the melancholy intelligence of the death of Mr. Cook.
This event is not the less lamented because it was expected. I had cherished
a hope, from some recent account, that the waters in Kentucky might restore
him to a moderate degree of health, which would enable him to take another
southern voyage, which might be the means of restoring him; but we must
bow with submission to this afflictive dispensation of Providence. All my
family are distressed at his loss, and deeply sympathize with his disconsolate
partner. Her sorrows will be mitigated by the soothing advice and protection of her parents. I fear your State cannot supply his place, by a man
equally useful and respected, in public life.  His race was short, but it has
been honorable to himself and useful to his country. No man in Congress,
from the West, had a higher standing or could exercise a more extensive
influence.
I hope that my late mail arrangements in Illinois have been such as to meet
your wishes.
Your sincere friend,
JOHN McLEAN.
Gov. EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
WASIINGTON, January 7, 1831.
My Dear Sir:
Your favor of the 14th ult. was received yesterday, and I take great pleasure in informing you that your friend, McKee, has been reappointed to the
office he now holds.
The political horizon at this place is overcast. To the man who loves his
country, there is no pleasing prospect for the future. I cannot state what I
see, much less what I fear. I will, however, continue to hope, even against
hope. A more important crisis than the present has not occurred in the annals of our Government.  Parties are arrayed against each other, in conflict,
on questions of national policy; and unless there be magnanimity and forbear



488                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
ance on both sides, there is ground to fear that the contest may end in the
dissolution of the Union. If this shall take place, there is no hope for free
government.
The truth is, selfish considerations have too much influence in our public
measures. The affairs of the Government should be managed for the benefit
of the stockholders, and not the directors. If the patronage of the Govern
ment shall be considered as the private property of him who may happen to
possess the power, and it be used to advance his views, or any other selfish
end, to the neglect of the public service, it will not be long before the moral
force of our institutions will be destroyed, and after that they will not be
worth preserving.
Mankind can only be governed by moral or physical force. The latter is
incompatible with free government. I wish to see the public mind tranquilized by acts of moderation and patriotism on all sides. Our Government was
formed on the principles of compromise, and it can only be successfully administered by a constant reference to the foundation on which it rests. If
such a policy be opposed to the course of the heated partisan, it will advance
the vital interests of the country. The Government was established for the
people, and the officers of the Government should never forget that they are
the equals of the people. But I need not theorize upon these subjects. They
have, no doubt, occupied much of your reflection.
With great respect,
Truly yours,
JOHN McLEAN.
Gov. EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
WAR DEPARTMENT, July 3, 1821.
D)ear Sir:
I have received your favor of the 22d May, and as the reason assigned sufficiently explains the non-attendance of Mr. Whiteside at West Point, he will
be allowed till the first of September to report himself there-beyond which
period, under the regulations, lie cannot be admitted, at least this year.
Should you desire it, your son may be admitted next spring; but if you
will permit me to offer you an opinion, I would advise you against his admittance under sixteen years of age, and before he is thoroughly grounded in
his English and classical education. With such a preparation, I consider the
education at the Military Academy the best which our country affords.
I offer you the most sincere congratulations on the happy connection which
your daughter has formed. For Mr. Cook I have a most genuine respect,
both for his character and talent; and you have, I think, every reason to hope
that the connection will prove propitious. I have read his circular with
pleasure.  Its independence and sound sense do him much honor. He has
adopted the proper mode to build up a lasting popularity.
You do not write to me with more familiarity than what is perfectly acceptable. Thinking, as I do, of the justness of your views and your experience




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   489
of men and things, your opinion will always be acceptable. I know of but
few who judge of lifeas it really is, so much as yourself; who see it divested
of those thousand circumstances which the art and intent of many endeavor
to throw about it.
I cannot but think that the movement to hold up the Vice-President, from
the quarter to which you refer, is a feint. It may be adopted, but it will be
in the last resort, and in despair of anything else. The real object, I should
suppose, is founded on a belief that he cannot succeed, and the hope, when it
becomes apparent, that he and his friends will support them who apparently
were so well disposed to support him. As to myself my course is clear. I
think I may say, without the imputation of vanity, that I am much more
attached to principle than promotion.  The result of this temper is, not to
be unduly solicitous about my own advancement, and to form no connection
but to advance what I deem the solid and lasting interest of our country. As
to the next Presidential election, I have formed no connection with any one,
and my ultimate course will be governed by the principle which I have
stated.
With sincere respect and esteem,
I am, etc.,
J. C. CALHOUN.
HON.NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.
WASHINGTON, June 12, 1822.
My Dear Sir:
I have received your favor of the 22d May, with its inclosure for Mr. Ingham, to which I gave the directions you required.
The information which you communicate as to public sentiment, is very
agreeable, and accords with that which I have received from others from the
West. Mr. C       d, it seems to me, has now but a single circumstance to
hang his hope on: the giving over the Bucktails of New York to his interest.
To effect this, his friends in that State are making great efforts to prove that
he is more purely of the Jefferson school of politics than any other candidate.
If Van Burcncan see his way clearly, either as to him or Clay, he will doubtless come out on that side, which may do much mischief in that State. I
think Noah gives some indications on that side, but I am told his standing
with the party in the city is such as to make it critical for him to make a
bold stand.  The information from the State is, that her course is not yet
taken, but that at present my hold on the public sentiment is much the
strongest, particularly out of the city. I understand that Yates, who will be
Governor, has expressed himself favorably.  It is quite probable that the
State will not take any decided stand for any one, but that she will ultimately
unite with Pennsylvania in her course. Great changes are taking place in
Massachusetts, which will terminate in the entire prostration of the Federal
interest in that State, in all probability. A middle interest has grown up.
The fruits already are a Republican speaker and a partial Republican repre-62




490                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
sentation from Boston, itself.  This change must have, in New England, a
very considerable bearing on the Presidential election. It will give to that
section more weight, which I should suppose would be, in the first instance,
in favoring Mr. Adams; and if he cannot be elected, in my favor. Mr. Crawford, or Clay, I suppose, have very little hold on the public sentiment in that
portion of the Union.
From South Carolina the information is favorable. Mr. L.'s friends have
not yet yielded all hopes, but they are willing to pledge themselves in favor
of a candidate from the State. Hayne, the Attorney-General, and one of the
first men in the State, will oppose Smith, and, it is said, will doubtless be
elected. This is a great point. The election for Senators, which will take
place before the 6th of March next, is of the utmost importance. Most of the
vacancies will occur in the South and West. Poindexter, I understand, will
oppose Williams of Mississippi. What is Thomas' prospect? Will you leave
him out? Though he is a man of moderate talents, yet much depends on his
being left out.
The radical paper in this place continues its attacks on me with great violence. It is.doubtless under the influence of Mr. Crawford, who, I perceive,
gives it the treasury advertisements, though its circulation is so limited. It
is perhaps as well that they should spend their ammunition at long shot. The
necessity of a paper here, however, becomes more apparent, even from their
feeble attacks. The establishment of an able and active paper in the city is
almost everything, in fact, in the coming contest. Col McKinney, who is a
very honest and honorable man, has proposed to establish such an one. tIe
informs me that he has associated with him a first rate writer, and that he
will be devoted to the cause of the Administration. I send you several copies
of his prospectus, which you will perceive is written with spirit. I believe
nothing but a respectable list of subscribers is wanting to put a powerful
engine in action. In this you can do much in the West, particularly in your
State, Kentucky and Missouri. The arrangement ought to be so made, that
whatever subscribers are obtained may be returned in due time.
Our friend, Mr. McDuffie, will meet, in all probability, Col. Cumming, on
the 7th inst., between Augusta and Savannah, on the Carolina side of the
river. God grant that he may be safe! I have, however, a strange foreboding, which I put to the account of great solicitude for him. We will hear
the result in three days at the farthest.
I am glad to hear that Col. McKee remains sound. Spain declines running
the line for the present, of which he has been apprized, with the strongest
assurance that the President will be glad of any opportunity of promoting
his wishes.
I will be anxious to hear from you after your arrival at home. Much will
depend on the West.
The Ministers to our Southern neghbors will not, in all probability, be
selected till the meeting of Congress. I am decidedly of the opinion that




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   491
one ought to be from the West, and that you ought to be the man. I will
act accordingly.
My best respects to Mr. Cook; and believe me to be,
Yours, truly,
J. C. CALHOUN.
HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.
WAR DEPARTMENT, August 20, 1822.
Mfy Dearb Sir:
Since I wrote to you last, your several communications of the 13th June,
and 5th, 14th and 27th of July, have been received. I take much interest in
Mr. Cook's election, and shall wait with great impatience to learn the result.
lie is honest, capable and bold —just such a man as the times require; his
absence from Congress would be a serious loss.
Since the return of the President to the city, I have urged on his attention
the subject of making appointments to the offices to which you referred, and
brought before him the names which you mentioned. He took the names
down, and informed me that so soon as he had finished the investigation of
the proceedings ef the court-martial in'the case of Lieut. Abbott, which he
was then investigating, he would attend to the subject, and requested me so
to inform you. I do trust that he begins to feel the necessity of taking a
decided stand. I agree with you that it is much easier to put down the
opposition, where its existence is once acknowledged, than to prove, to the
satisfaction of the people, its existence. Until the President shall uniformly
make the distinction between friends and foes, in his appointments, this cannot be done. If he will not see the opposition as it is, or if he did not, the
country will be incredulous as to its existence. These ideas I have urged on
him. That lie fully comprehends the opposition I cannot doubt, and do
hope he will act in such a manner as to leave no doubt, on the minds of the
people, that he knows what is the continual state of things. For myself, I
care less for my own prospects than I do for the welfare of the Administration. Identified, as I am, with it, approving its policy, I shall use every effort
to maintain it in the good opinion of the people. The new paper here, if
supported by a decided course on the part of the President, will aid much
in bringing out the opposition. You will see that its tone is decisive, and
that it knows what it is about.
Since the adjournment, no great change has occurred on this side of the
mountains. Pennsylvania is firm. The symptoms in Maryland, Delaware
New Jersey, Connecticut, and the New England States, generally appear
favorable. In Virginia and Nerth Carolina, they are also fully as much so
as at the adjournment. The same cannot be said of New York; Van Beuren,
for the present, has taken his stand in favor of Mr. C —d, as being the most
suitable to his purpose of opposing the Administration. The "Advocate,"
which is under his influence, has made a demonstration the same way. He
has not openly taken his grounds, but leaves no doubt as to his course. It is,




492                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
however, the opinion of Noah (I have it from a letter of his to a particular
friend of his) that neither Mr. C  d or myself will be elected, but that
some third person, whom he does not name, will be. With this impression
his zeal will not be great, and he will take care, at least for the present, not
to commit himself too fully to prevent him from going back.
It seems, by the papers, that Tennessee has put Gen. Jackson in nomination. What will be the effect of this step, particularly in the West? It is
certainly adverse to Mr. Clay; but how will it affect others? We now exhibit
the extraordinary fact of five persons from the slaveholding States being
before the people for the highest office in their gift, and but one from the
non-slaveholding States. This gives Mr. Adams great advantages, if he knew
how to improve them.
It is strange, after the appointment of Thomas, that Mr. C  d should
have appointed Lourie's brother to inspect the land offices. He wants discretion in an extraordinary degreec, and ought to be made to feel the effects
of it in this case. I am told he has conferred an appointment on another
brother of Louric. If any evidence could be had of Thomas having clectionered for him, while engaged in making his inspection last year, it would
have a strong effect on the public mind. His intrigue and management would
make his election dangerous to the country. The appointments to South
America will not be made, unless something should occur, till after the next
meeting of Congress. On many accounts it would be imprudent to make
them now.
I am much gratified with your statement as to the public f4clings in the
West in relation to the subject of lead mines. You have seen the course
adopted by the Department, and I hope it is such as to meet your approbation. That Benton has been counteracted I attribute wholly to you, who,
alone, fully understood the subject in the Senate, and had the energy to meet
it boldly. Benton had been long in maturing his plan of attack, and no
doubt anticipated much success from it against the Administration.
Your friend, Fisher, of North Carolina, I see is elected a member of the
State Legislature. I mention the fact so that you might avail yourself of it,
in your correspondence with him. North Carolina will doubtless become the
scene of much political intrigue, on the part of Mr. C- d and his friends.
It is, as yet, unoccupied ground.
Yours, truly,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To HoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.
WAR DEPARTMENT, Oct. 5, 1822.
)ear Sir:
I have, since my last to you, received your several favors from the 3d August to the 14th September, and I am very happy to learn, from the last, that
your health, which had been bad, has improved. I hope by your next to hear
of its entire restoration.
The President left this city for Albemarle, a few days since, and will probably be absent till the 20th of this month. I forwarded your letter to him




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   493
on the day which I received it. He has not yet made the appointments, which
I suppose he has communicated to you, as he informed me that he would write
to you on the subject. Had returns of the survey been made, the appointments would doubtless have been made also; none, however, have been received, and I believe no reason has been assigned for the delay. Without the
official returns, the President felt a delicacy in acting.
That he has taken his stand to support his administration I cannot doubt.
It is high time that he should. If longer delayed, the worst of consequences
must result. With firmness, his administration must terminate in a manner
honorable to himself and fortunate for the country; without it, the very reverse must follow.
The "Republican" has already affected a prodigious change. The administration is no longer assailed by the papers which support Mr. C  d. This
they dare not do, while he remains a member of the administration. Iis present attempt is to attribute the disposition to those who espouse the opposition,
and not to him and his friends, who have been the authors of it. A few articles in the Western papers, anticipating this course and showing its futility,
would be of much service.
Things have reached, or will at least, at the next session, reach, a crisis.
This, then, is an important moment. No one can have a greater influence or
render to the country more important service than yourself. The struggle is
between cunning and wisdom-political virtue and vice. The opposition to
the Administration is unprincipled, and its overthrow by such an opposition
would give a fatal example. Much will depend on the course pursued by the
States, and they again will be much under the influence of the messages of
the respective Governors. You know Adair, McNair and several others, and
have it, I suppose, in your power to give a right direction to their messages.
If no more can be done, it would be a great point for them to come out in
favor of the Administration, but still more to notice the opposition to it. In
fact, I think it.would be decisive. If you correspond with Jackson, much of
the same kind might be done through him. In the South it can be easily attended to.
Cook's election has afforded much gratification. He not only has talents,
but is bold and resolute. The reelection of Thomas would have a very bad
effect. You must run but one, and if necessary you ought to come to an understanding. As connected with this subject, I hope the return of the survey
may be received in time to make the appointments before it is too late to have
the proper effect. The President directed their return forthwith. I do not in
the least doubt that he will select the very respectable gentlemen whom you
recommended.
You must take care of your health. It is valuable not only to yourself and
family, but to the country. To give a right direction at this moment to our
politics, is of the highest importance to the lasting interest of the republic
Almost as much depends on it as on the late war.
Yours truly,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To HON. lnRUAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.




494               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
WASHINGTON, May 21, 1823.
My Dear Sir:
I have been prevented from acknowledging your letter of the 16th April as
early as I expected, by various causes-among which is an indisposition, from
which I am just recovering. You write in a spirit of frankness which is very
gratifying. I have no doubt that Mr. Adams has advanced much in popularity, within the last few months, and that he is particularly strong; still he
has great difficulties to encounter, which time only can determine whether he
can surmount. As to myself, I do not suppose that, at this moment, I am as
strong as Mr. Adams; still; should the latter not take New York or Virginia, it would be more difficult to elect him than myself. The position which
I occupy in Pennsylvania is in many respects more favorable than that which
he does in New England, which, with the fact that there are fewer objections
against me than him, may not improbably give me a final advantage.
As to Mr. C —d, he visibly declines. North Carolina, it is generally
thought, is against him; he is doubtful in Virginia; and it is thought that
he has but a slight chance of taking New York. His party is in a clear minority of the Republicans in the city, and, as the opposite side is now organized, it is expected that it will extend its influence rapidly over the State,
things being ripe for change. Mr. Clay gains nothing on this side, and is
now but little spoken of. He is not strong in a single Atlantic State.
*    *   *    *    *   *    I have often conversed with the President
in relation to. you, and he has ever spoken as your friend. I have every
reason to believe that he intends to give due proof of it before the expiration
of his term. I suggested your name for Mexico, not knowing whether you
would approve of it or not. Believing that you possess qualities which are
well calculated to advance the interest and honor of the country in a foreign
mission, I would be highly gratified if the most important of all the appointments of that kind, connected with this continent, should be conferred on you.
I must, at the same time, express my belief that few men are more important,
at this moment, as connected with our domestic politics; few are so well acquainted with the actual state of things, with the character, the means and
views of that faction which has reared its head among us-or with the means
of resisting it with effect. I do trust that, if not otherwise engaged in the
public service, you will by all means be in your place at the next session. We
must remember that the faction has directed its efforts to carry that body,
mainly, and that in it is the principal seat of its power. The standing or
prospect of every public man must in a great degree depend on the issue of
the struggle; and none more than yourself.
With sincere regard,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To HON. NINIAN EDWAnDS,'Edwardsville, Illinois.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  495
WASHINGTON, July 20, 1823.
My Dear Sir:
I fear that your indisposition has continued, or that your letters miscarry.
I have heard from you but once since you left the city, and that while you
were on your way home. Placing, as I do, the highest confidence in your
judgment and friendship, your letters are read with peculiar gratification, and
I never fail to acknowledge them as early as circumstances will permit.
Events are progressing steadily in the course which all anticipated when
you left the city. The Radical cause, with its head, is daily declining. I
consider it as certain that Mr. C-d is now in a minority in every StateGeorgia and perhaps Virginia, excepted. He does not stand, in New York,
higher than third best. The "Advocate" has been discarded by the Republican party, and a new and able paper, the "Patriot," adopted in its place. It
is decidedly hostile to C-d. In North Carolina the change has gone on
steadily in my favor, and I am now decidedly ahead in that State. I hold it
certain that our side must prevail; but whether it will be under myself, may
be more doubtful. That, I think, will depend on New York; should she declare for either Adams or myself, the election will be decided by the people
without going to the House of Representatives.
You see there is a new Postmaster-General. I hope the appointment will
give satisfaction. I did not fail to bring up your name for consideration.;
and though, as between you and Judge McLean, I could take no active part
-believing you both to be highly qualified-I would certainly have been not
less gratified with your appointment than his. I believe that the scale was
principally turned by the apprehension that the precarious state of your
health might prevent you from bestowing that incessant labor and attention
which the extensive duties and the greatly disordered state of the Department render indispensable. It was in arrear $40,000 the last quarter, with a
prospect of a heavy deficit in the third and fourth quarters.
You may be assured there is no one whose advancement would give me
more sincere pleasure than yourself. I believe there is no one whose zeal and
abilities give a stronger claim on the Administration.
With sincere regard,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To HIoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.
WASHINGTON, September 23, 1823.
My Dear Sir:
I have been much pleased with Gen. Green. He is intelligent and decisive,
and must, in time, become important in the West. I have conversed with
him freely, and he can give you full information of the state of things in this
quarter. Great changes have taken place.  I now consider my prospect at
least equal in New York; in fact, I feel confident it is much the best. In
Pennsylvania, I hold my own; Jackson and myself divide the State. In New
Jersey, I am at least as strong as Adams; there is no other interest there.




496                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
In New England, a strange state of things exists; though Adams is the
strongest, there is a strong feeling that his position is not a firm one. North
Carolina has began the contest at last.  Of twelve papers in that State, six
are for me; two for C —-d; one for Adams, but preferring me to C  d;
another for him, but not decided between C     d and myself; another
against C -   d, but not decided between A —  and myself; and another
not yet out. My friends all say that I will certainly take the State.
I hope that you will not think of retiring. Your efforts in the present
crisis are of the greatest importance.  Few men can have greater influence
over the destiny of the country than yourself, at this time. Your capacity,
intelligence and firmness are all important.
With sincere respect,
I am, etc., etc.,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To oION. NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.
WASIIINGTON, February 15, 1831.
Dear Sir:
I inclose a copy of the correspondence between Gen. Jackson and myself,
which has been the subject of so much speculation of late. The publication
became indispensable in self-defense.
You will sec that the whole affair was got up for my political destruction,
and that an individual who has heretofore been so much misunderstood by
the people (I mean Mr. Crawford), makes a capital but certainly not a very
enviable figure in the plot. The publication places his character in its true
light, and he is abandoned here even by his former friends and supporters.
It is really surprising that Gen. Jackson should have surrendered himself
so entirely to those who were formerly his most bitter enemies. By what art
it has been effected, the correspondence will in part explain; but to unfold it
fully would require a volume. It remains to be seen whether the force of
public indignation will not open his eyes to his thraldom.
As to myself, I may say, with truth, that I never stood stronger. The crrespondence is considered by all sides a complete vindication.
I have received the letters, which you addressed to me, and am under obligations to you for your friendly feelings towards me. I did not answer them,
because things were so situated that I could say nothing satisfactory. There
is one point in your correspondence which I must, in duty to a friend, notice.
I do not think you do justice to Mr. Ingham. I believe I may say that, had
he had his own way, things would not have gone, on all points, in the same
direction in his Department.
With great respect,
I am, etc., etc.,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To IION. N. EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                            497
[NOTE.-The letters and papers in my possession give the following facts in regard to the occupation of Pensacola and St. Marks, from which it will be seen that Gen. Jackson had no just
ground for being dissatisfied with Mr. Calhoun:
When Mr. Monroe called a Cabinet council to determine on the answer to be given to the
Spanish Minister, in reply to his complaint of the occupation of Pensacola and St. Marks, Mr.
Calhoun, being Secretary of War, was of the opinion that his orders did not authorize the occupation of those posts; that instructions to seize them would be an act of war, which the Secretary of War had no right to make; and in this opinion the Cabinet, with the exception of Mr.
Adams, were unanimous. The next proposition was, how far was Gen. Jackson justifiable in
taking those posts? Upon this point Mr. Calhoun was of opinion that the propriety of the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief, depending upon contingencies happening upon the spot, that
Gen. Jackson, in the field, might do what he, as Secretary of War, had no right to order him to
do, and that, as an act of justice to Gen. Jackson, a court of inquiry would afford him (Gen.
Jackson) the means of placing the facts of the case in an official shape before the Cabinet, and
thus enable the Administration to give a proper answer to the Spanish Minister. Upon this
point Mr. Monroe suggested that there were considerations, growing out of the existing relations between the United States and Spain, which might make it proper to sustain Gen. Jackson without a court of inquiry; aLd after mature deliberation, whichlasted three days, the entire
Cabinet, consisting of Mr. Crawford, Mr. Wirt, Mr. Adams and Mr. Calhoun (Mr. Crowninshield
being absent), concurred. During the discussion of the Seminole question in Congress, in
1819, Gen. Jackson hating expressed his determination to go to the House of Representatives,
"threatening to cut off the ears of some of the members," in a general consultation among his
friends, Gov. Edwards having expressed his opinion that there was no one whose friends could,
in a proper manner, use greater freedom than could Gen. Jackson's with him, was unanimously
selected to communicate to him the views and wishes of his friends on the subject of his determination. The result showed that Gov. Edwards properly appreciated Gen. Jackson's character.-N. W. EDWARDS.]
NEW   HOPE, August 20, 1823.
Dear Sir:
It is long since I intended to have written to you, but have wanted some
special impulse, and things have been approaching so gradually to the point
you so much desire, that there was no more motive for writing on any one
day than on the preceding, and hence the delay..1 have seen intelligent men
from various parts of this State, from  New Jersey and from     New York, and
have had an extensive correspondence in some of the other States. Nothing
can be more clearly ascertained than that Mr. Crawford is completely prostrate.  Hq has been on an inclined plane for some time, but has been descending with an accelerated velocity every moment, since he received the propelling stroke from "A. B."    Van Burcn, who had taken his cue from the Treasury, instead of watching public opinion, came out the moment he got
home in the spring; but his own paper at Albany, and Noah's, are the only
ones he has yet got out in New York. Root and Yates incline with him, but
they are extremely cautions how they commit themselves.      Latterly, however,
all the papers that have been tinged with radicalism seems to have lost sight
of Mr. Crawford, and affect to regard the salvation of the Republican party
as their only wish-and, with this view, throw themselves on a caucus. They
have been lead to believe that Mr. C-      d would have a majority there; and
here rests their hope. The only misfortune resulting from this is, that they
prevent that free discussion which would otherwise take place. My opinion
is that we ought to meet them in caucus, and show to the nation that he can-63




498               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
not succeed there. None would be nominated, I grant; but better so than
leave them in possession of the caucus and perhaps one-half of the Republican party to rally upon, which, with the aid of Mr. Clay, in the West, would
soon form a new coalition that would be troublesome hereafter. I hear that
about ten of the New York delegation will be opposed to Crawford, in caucus;
others uncertain. In New Jersey he will get but one, and in Pennsylvania
none; Maryland three or four; in Ohio I can hear of none; in all New
England not one, if we have a viva coce vote, which ought to be a sine qua
non. What can we have to fear, then, of putting them down in caucus.?
They have been driven from all their Democratic pretensions, and now rely
upon this usage alone to sustain them. Shall we beat them, as heretofore, by
pre-occupying their ground, or leave it to them to rally upon? You will have
seen the result of the Pittsburg meeting, where Mr. C-d was induced to believe he had a hold: not even a friend to receive him. This has given them
a sore stroke, and not less so to Mr. Clay, who had hopes there. I should not
be much surprised if Jackson were to supersede C-y in the West, to a great
extent.  Iere he is not much talked about, as their own enemies pretend to
push Mr. Gregg along on his back. We have no doubt of carrying our Governor. Every thing, in that respect, looks well, and will give a strong ground
to rally upon.
Yours, respectfully,
S. D. INGHAM.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.
P. S.-Mrs. Ingham joins in her respects to you. She will scarcely be in
Washington this winter. Let me hear from you. Ought not the caucus meeting (which I have no doubt will break up without a nomination) be held
early in the session, to give the papers more time afterwards?-S. D. I.
NEW HOPE, June 5, 1824.
Dear Sir:
I have just now heard of your expected arrival at Washington. I do not
suppose that any hint from me would add to your stock of intellectual powder
in the present crisis. You will of course send a replication, and a' the committee have adopted all of Mr. Crawford's excuses but one, viz: that deficiency
upon his definition of cash-you will have an opportunity of rebutting the
committee's reasoning under the cover of a replication to Mr. Crawford. Do
not forget that you are writing for the popular eye and ear, which requires
things to be made plain. By picking the committee thus covertly, they will
be thrown upon theirown defense. W — is understood, but I much mistake
if he believes in the estimate of Mr. Crawford's management by a percentage.
They have made a sad blunder; the loss, instead of being estimated on eight
years' receipts, as I suppose it is, viz: three years after these losses have accrued, and two years before they commenced-ought to have been estimated
on three or at most four years' receipts, and then for public lands with a small
amount of internal tax. But, again, these losses are upon moneys actually




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  499
paid, and have accrued by reason of the credit extended to banks. If we
make an estimate upon the debt accrued in the same time, or for any portion of
it before 1821, we shall find that the whole was sponged to avoid loss to the
Government and ruin to the debtors. Let your reply be mild, and forbear to
draw any conclusions as to motives; and wage a defensive war by an offensive
operation.
A committee who could excuse the receipt of the uncurrent notes from the
Missouri Bank, as has been done, you may rest assured will acquit Mr. C-d
of any motive that is improper.
Your reply will be read by everybody. You cannot, therefore, take too
much pains. If Cook is at W, tell him to write me. Also a line from
you will be useful.
Yours, truly,
S. D. INGHAM.
To IION. N. EDWARDS, Washington.
P. S.-I have written Taylor to give him my opinion of the report. The
quo animo is too apparent. The more I examine it, the less I think of the
author. Things plain are obscured with much address to screen even the
blunder of the Secretary. Among the members it was considered as a declaration of peccavit and a studied effort to excuse him.
Do not fail to inquire, in your reply, how the Tennessee notes were cashed?
viz: in payment of pensions!!-S. D. I.
NEW HOPE, June 8, 1824.
Dear Cook:
I have this moment received your favor of the 3d, and hasten to comply
with your request-but with all the disadvantage of not having Mr. Crawford's answer, as to the Mitchell case, before me. I failed to bring the
printed report of the committee, and our papers have not republished the
documents which accompanied the report. In such case, and for other good
reasons, I shall not attempt to suggest a formal answer to the Secretary on
the M      1 case, but, as you have suggested it, I will endeavor to suggest
the points which appear to me most material to be presented.
I think Gov. E. has acted wisely in declaring his determination not to be
drawn into an accusation of Mr. Crawford. In this he ought to persevere,
and place himself strongly on the voluntary and gratuitous character of Mr.
C-   d's attacks upon him-uncalled for by circumstances and more especially uncalled by the resolution. The greatest difficulty in maintaining this
position will be found in the Mitchell case. As he has charged Mr. C-d
with a desire to "screen his friend," if I recollect the memorial (I have it
not before me) upon this point, he may rest upon the probable ca use for the
imputation, which will be found in an editorial answer to this charge which
was published in the "City Gazette," in (I think) June last, where the reason
given for withholding the document was that Mitchell was Mr. C —d's
friend, and as there was a disposition to persecute him by others, he (Mr.
C —d) would not aid them by sending the document. I believe the "City




500                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
Gazette" article was republished in extenso in the "Washington Republican"
last summer, with comments. The character of the "City Gazette," its relation to Mr. C —d, and every thing, gives the defense a stamp of authority
which would justify any one in supposing that it had his sanction. To suppose that he would permit such a defense to pass unnoticed, from a press so
devoted to his interests, would be to impute to him a pretense of double-dealing more discreditable to him than the motive alleged in the "Gazette," viz:
that of screening hisfriend-having laid the foundation for a probable ground
for the imputation in that publication under his eye, etc. You have his admission that Mitchell was his intimatefriend, with whom he was in the habit
of private correspondence-which being notorious, left no other explanation
so natural of Mr. C —d's motive for withholding the document; because,
without the benefit of the Secretary's declaration that the omission was truly
accidental, it could scarcely have been believed, after so serious a charge had
been made against so intimate a friend, and a call from the House of Representatives for all the information relating to it had been made, that the Secretary could have forgotten that he had received the document withheld;
and unless he had forgotten it, there was no way of accounting for his omission to inform the House, in his report, that there were other important and material documents which were mislaid. After placing these facts in strong
colors, to justify the probable ground for the belief that the suppression of
these documents could have been for no other purpose than to screen his
friend, I would concede to his declaration all the verity which the high responsibility of the Secretary, etc., etc., ought to demand. This position
would probably acquire additional strength by adverting to another defense
of the Secretary, which appeared in the " National Intelligencer" last winter,
which wholly omits to mention the accidental cause of the suppression. The
two grounds of defense are, that Mitchell's letters were private and that McIntosh's was substantially communicated. I have not the papers before me,
and can, therefore, only advert generally, but I think it would be well to
make extracts from both articles and incorporate them into the answer. You
will perceive that I suppose you to understand the facts in the case. I therefore confine my remarks to such matters as are suggested by reflectio n on the
facts. Mr. C —d's labors to show that he could not have had any view to
screening his friend, because the letter withheld was calculated to exculpate
him-the use made of this letter by the Attorney-General-will destroy such a
probability. It (the letter of 25th Dec.) constitutes the main ground on
which he convicts Mitchell. But it will be impossible to put the public fully
in possession of this subject, without a development of the Cabinet measures
in relation to it.
I have understood, from various quarters, from desultory conversations on
this subject, that Mr. Crawford submitted certain documents relating to
Mitchell to the Attorney-General, before the call of Congress; that the Attorney-General advised a prosecution of Mitchell, which was never done. Next
came the call of Congress.  Soon after it was answered, Gov. Clark made
formal charges against Mitchell. These were referred to the Attorney-Gen



LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   501
eral, who recommended that the whole papers be sent to Congress in answer
to the call. This matter was considered in Cabinet council, and it was determined inexpedient to send the papers; but the whole subject was referred to
the Attorney-General, who reported at large against M —, whereupon he
was removed by the President. This proceeding was therefore independent
of the call of Congress, and the document sent by Gov. Clark not embraced
within it.
The documents withheld are two letters of Mitchell's, dated 25th Dec.,
1817, and 3d Feb., 1818 (both of which are noticed in the Attorney-General's
report as letters not before him-that of the 25th Dec. "misplaced"); another
letter from McIntosh, the Collector, with an inclosure from McIntosh, the
Surveyor. These directly charged Mitchell, while the letters sent did not.
Mr. C —d says they were private letters from Mitchell. This is not the
fact. Their contents import them to be public; and as the correspondence
related to Treasury duties, and part of it was from a Treasury officer-the
Collector at Darien-it was proper for the public files of the Department.
All these matters may be introduced into the answer or replication, by way
of showing that the defense made in the "National Intelligencer," during
the last winter, which I have adverted to, did not explain the true reason for
withholding the documents, which had been before given in the "City Gazette," or at least the most probable and consistent reason-the accidental
misplacing of the documents not having been noticed in either of those
defenses, nor anywhere else in public, though public attention was often
called to the fact, or the suppression could not have been thought of by Gov.
E., nor the extreme forgetfulness of the Secretary, when he answered the call,
to which alone can now be attributed his failure to inform Congress of the
existence of the misplaced documents. Gov. E., I think, may now rest himself very strongly upon the charge of forgetfulness. The case is nearly as
strong a one as that which occurred some years ago, of a woman who was
moving to the Western country with her family, and having stopped at a
tavern, started again, leaving a sucking child asleep, wholly forgotten, till the
wagons had passed a mile on the road and-the landlord had overtaken her! 
It appears to me there will be no difficulty in disposing of this matter, by
establishing the probable cause as to the desire to screen his friend, and thus
to place him in a most awkward and weak position, resting wholly for an excuse upon the most extraordinary and incredible forgetfulness; which excuse
will have been rendered all but contemptible by the argument maintaining
the probable cause.
I have written in such haste and so desultory, relying upon your seeing
through the same medium that I do, that I fear I may not be understood. To
prevent this, I should remark that the character of the reply should be made
defensive, on this point, as well as the others, which is done by substituting
C    d's own defense in the " City Gazette," for the charge of improper motive, contained in the memorial; by resisting the ground of defense taken in
the "National Intelligencer," as highly improbable, because it admits the existence of documents of which the Secretary gave no notice in his answer to
the call of the House; which failure was wholly inexplicable, without the




502               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
knowledge of the accidental loss of the documents, and the supposition that
their existence was wholly forgotten by the Secretary at the time he made his
report to the House. It appears to me, that as a main object is to make the
original position strong, the reply should rest upon facts within the knowledge of Gov. E. when he wrote the address; and subsequent matter, developed in Mr. C.'s answer, or the documents, or the reasoning of the committee
used for illustration, or combatted (without being referred to) by arguments
founded on facts previously known.
I do not perceive the least objection to using the newspaper articles I have
mentioned in the way proposed. It was held, in Pennsylvania, in a case of
impeachment, that an anonymous newspaper article was good ground to institute an official inquiry into the conduct of a public officer.
I must close, as the mail will not serve me again for two days, and if this
can be of any use you must have it soon.
The documents in M — l's case, are the report of the Attorney-General, the
resolutions and answer. Then see Gov. Clark's correspondence with McIntosh, Mitchell's defense in pamphlet, two articles in the " W — Republican,"
early in February last.
Give my best respects to the Governor, to which add those of Mrs. Ingham, and
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
S. D. INGHAM.
To DANIEL P. COOK.
NEW HOPE, July 8, 1824.
MIy Dear Sir:
I duly received your letter. Its advent had been somewhat anticipated,
but was not on that account neglected.
When we consider that the committee had published their opinion of Mr.
Crawford's conduct, I cannot but think the last report a triumph for you, not
only over Mr. C — d, but the committee. The latter are in a most awkward
predicament; they have admitted too many facts to justify their conclusion
as to the general correctness of his fiscal management, which, by the size, is too
qualified a commendation to do him any good. The loans to the District banks
seem to be understood everywhere-they are too plain to be mystified by any
cunning, after the acknowledged illegality and dangerous tendency of the
measure.
I would have written to you sooner, but did not know that you remained
at Washington. I left my documents with Mr. Cook, who had forgotten to
forward them. I have not the Secretary's report and documents, nor your
memorial, nor the report of the committee; if they are left with you, be so
good as to have them forwarded.
I was pleased with the scrutiny of Reddick, by Cook; but he ought to have
asked him whether several of the banks whose bills were transferred under




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   503
the negotiation of March 2d, 1820, did not stop payment after the 9th of August, 1819, and before the 2d of March, 1820. His answer clearly shows that
the deposits were not specifc, according to any definition of that word given
by any witness; they were, of course, general, i. e. cash.  Such was the intention of the contract, no doubt; but if it were not, what sort of contract
was it? Was it prudent and safe for the United States? Was it lawful to
allow a bank, or any body, to use public money for one or two years, or a single day, and return it in depreciated notes?
The committee say there is no evidence that Mr. Crawford knew of the
payment of the Tennessee notes to pensioners-the committee are very prompt
in deciding points upon absent testimony. There is, however, a letter, among
the correspondence last published, from Mr. Crawford to the cashier of one
of the Tennessee banks, written after that bank had stopped, in which he proposes to him to disburse the notes about to be transferred from Missouri
(March 2, 1820) as heretofore; referring to a previous letter by date, which
directs the disbursement to pensioners. Mr. Cook was aware of this letter. I
called his attention to it.
I feel anxious to see your reply. I cannot understand your motive for resigning. I fear it will give your enemies some advantage, unless the investigation is progressing before another tribunal which will do you more ample
justice; but in that case, would you not have stood as well without resigning?
But as I do not understand, I cannot judge.
Let me hear from you. There is no danger but the public will do you
justice.
Respectfully, yours,
S. D. INGIIAM.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Washington.
NEW HOPE, July 20, 1824.
MVy Dear Sir:
I duly received your favor of the 16th, and the same mail brought the report of the committee, and documents, which is the first view I have had of
your whole defense. Upon all the charges and specifications, you have made
out your case completely.  *    *     *    *         *    * 
I would not dwell on Noble's testimony. Those who believe him will consider it no unusual finesse among politicians, and it will have much less effect
than you suppose. You have already given it the proper answer —" Let the
charge be made and you will meet it;" but do not avoid meeting them on the
matters which concern Mr. Crawford most vitally. I think Mr. Webster
must have winced under your exposition of his report on the uncurrent notes.
I am not sure you have done right by resigning.   * *       *  *
So far as the testimony has been published, where I have been, the current
is most decidedly against the Secretary, and especially on account of his loan
to the District banks. Had it been published a little sooner, and more generally, our Fourth of July toasts would have been full of it. I shall do what I




504                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
can to have your defense published, and will give a summary of the case for
our country papers, as soon as I can get my documents. Cook has not sent
them, and I have written to Mr. Clark for a set entire of this good and able
report.
If you do not go West, you ought to go North-as far as Saratoga. It
would have a good effect.
Very respectfully, yours,
S. D. INGHAM.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Shepardstown, Virginia.
DONALDSONVILLE, LOUISIANA, Aug. 10, 1823.
lJy Dear Sir:
In consequence of my absence from this place, during the greater part of
the summer, your letter of the o1th of May did not reach me until yesterday.
*   ~*       *      *      *      *     *      *      t     *
The Presidential election does not excite much interest in this State, as
yet, but the public sentiment seems to be in favor of Clay and Adams, and
I think that one of them will receive the vote of the State; and it is most
probable that Adams will be supported by the State of Mississippi.. Entre
nous. Our friend Calhoun cannot succeed at the next election. Since Adams'
contest with Russell I have considered Calhoun's chance as hopeless. He has
as many personal friends and is as much admired as either of the candidates,
but being a young man, he was not generally thought of for the Presidency.
With sincere regard and esteem, I am, sir,
Your friend and obedient servant,
H. JOHNSON.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, United States Senate, Washington.
NEAR HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY, 1
ALABAMA, August 8, 1824. 
Dear Sir:
I received your favor, dated 18th ulto., by last mail, since which time I
have not had a personal interview with Judge Kelly, and probably may not
shortly, as he is frequently absent on professional business. I would suggest
the propriety of your addressing him on the subject to which you refer.
Nothing of a similar nature ever astonished me more than the general character of the testimony given before the committee by Gen. Noble, and particularly that part of it which has relation to the authorship of the "A. B."
publications, not only because I know that among the members of Congress
it was generally if not universally understood and believed that you were the
author, but because I had some conversation with Gen. Noble, pending your
nomination, in relation to this subject, in which a reference having been
made to the authorship as forming some objection to the confirmation of your
nomination by some of the friends of Mr. Crawford, I am clearly and deci



LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  505
dedly of opinion that, on this occasion, I was authorized, from the general
tenor of Mr. Noble's remarks, to infer that whether you were the author. or
not would have or had produced no influence on his mind; that he thought
you were capable, and, although he was friendly to Mr. Crawford, he would
still support your nomination-intimating, at the same time, that the President might have made a more judicious selection, as he had also done in reference to his nomination of Mr. Southard for the Navy Department.  As
respects the conversation of which he speaks as having occurred between you
and himself at his room, I can only say that, as to the time he came to board
with Mrs. Queen, I think it was about the 20th of February, and a few days
after your nomination to the Senate, and while you were very much indisposed and confined to your bed. As to your indisposition when he came, for
some time before and afterwards, I know I cannot be mistaken, because I was
in the habit of calling to see you every night and morning. It is also perfectly in my recollection that the day on the evening of which I informed
you Gen. Noble had moved to take up your nomination, I had been informed
you had experienced a severe shake of the ague, and at thle time I gave
you this information you were confined to your bed, and appeared much
exhausted, and continued confined and much weakened and debilitated, I
think, for six or eight days, and perhaps more.
If the publicity of any circumstance within my recollection, relative to this
transaction, may be thought necessary, to do justice to an individual whom
an unprincipled set of politicians have oppressed and persecuted, and whose
crime has been his conviction, conscientiously formed, that Wm. H. Crawford,
a political apostate, was unworthy the confidence of the people of the United
States, I can have no objection.
The information I gave as coming from Gen. Noble, relative to his having
moved the consideration of your nomination, as it may involve a breach of
confidence implied only from the nature of the transaction, I would, unless
very essential, except.
And as I was also in the habit of conversing with Judge Kelly on the same
subject, it may have been from him I received it.
With sincere regard and esteem,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
GABRIEL MOORE.
To HoN. NINIAN EDWARDS.
NEAR HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY, 
ALABAMA, October 10, 1825. 
Dear Friend:
I have received your favor dated 18th June. Judge Kelly was, at the
time of its reception, absent-having taken a trip on professional business to
Mobile. On his return, I addressed him on the subject of your communication, and took the liberty to inclose your letter, and his reply I herewith
-60




506                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
inclose you. His recollection on the subject referred to seems not as distinct
as I had presumed it would have been.
I am much gratified to hear of the favorable prospect of your restoration to
health; and let me assure you it will at all times give me great pleasure to
hear of your prosperity and welfare. My hearty prayers have been with you
in all difficulty and persecution, and I still hope to see you prosper, and to
know the decline and decay of the standing of your enemies, which has been
so unworthily obtained.
I can give you nothing of a political character, from this quarter, which
would be interesting. The Alabamians and, I believe, the Tenncsseans also,
at this time, have it strongly in contemplation to make a hard struggle to
supplant Mr. Adams with "Old Hickory" at the expiration of the first term.
His Administration, in this section of the country, has become extremely
unpopular recently. The appointment of Mr. King and the unmerited treatment of Porter have been the principal grounds upon which the enemies of
Mr. Adams have acquired much strength and exercised much influence. A
few more similar events will settle the point with Mr. Adams in the South.
My recent election, although more warmly contested than heretofore, was
more honorable. My opponent, Judge Clay, was not only highly respectable,
but it was given up, upon all hands, he was the strongest man the opposition
could select.  My majority was respectable in every county in the district.
In Madison, where we both reside, my majority was 975; in Jackson, where
1,517 were taken, I received 1,325; the aggregate majority, 3,611.  My enemies, as usual, left nothing which was unmanly undone; resorted to certificates of some poor, servile, unprincipled Crawfordites, as to my general standing, etc. At the city it was also stated that Floyd treated me with indignity
and this passed unresented, etc., etc. But the result has mortified some silk
and purple gentry beyond conception.
You will please tender my respects to Mr. Cook, and believe me to be,
With sincere respect,
Your friend and obedient servant,
GABRIEL MOORE.
Gov. N. EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
WASHINGTON CITY, A4ril 14, 1828.
My Dear Sir:
Your favor, dated 12th ulto., has been duly received. I have inquired of
my colleagues and some other gentlemen from the South for Dr. Bowers, but
have heard nothing of him with certainty. Mr. Owen thinks a gentleman of
this name and character was in the southern part of Alabama about eighteen
months since, but is of the opinion that he has removed, and he is not informed
to what quarter.
The papers will give you all the interesting political intelligence of the
day. The tariff bill, as is now generally believed, will finally succeed. Some
increase of duty has been added to wool and woolens, and five cents upon




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   507
cotton bagging added; which vary the bill from the original shape in which
it was first presented, and this is the only material alteration.
As you very correctly imagine, much is said and done here, both in and out
of the two branches of the National Legislature, with a view to produce
effect upon the pending Presidential election. The friends of Gen. Jackson
consider now that the result is almost inevitably decreed in their favor. I
am greatly inclined to this opinion myself from all we learn from other quarters. I may be, however, as I have no doubt others are, too sanguine. We
frequently have different opinions as to the result in your State, Missouri and
Indiana. As you have opportunity for forming a pretty correct opinion of the
probable result in these States, I would be glad if you would give me your
views on the subject. If you think proper to require it, I will consider them
as confidential.
I have transmitted you such public documents as I presumed you would
view as the most interesting, which were within my reach. If there are any
others which you wish, and you will signify the same, it will afford me great
pleasure to furnish them.
Be pleased to accept the best wishes, for your prosperity and happiness, of
Your sincere friend and obedient servant,
GABRIEL MOORE.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
WASHINGTON CITY, December 27, 1828.
Dear Governor:
Your esteemed favor of 29th November has been duly received, since which
time I have had the pleasure of receiving the newspaper containing your
valuable message, for which you will please accept my acknowledgments.
"That the United States, by admission of the new States into the Federal
compact upon an equal footing with the old States, have released all claim to
the public domain within their limits," is a doctrine not only agreeable and
acceptable to me, but founded in the soundest republican principles, and supported by a fair interpretation of the constitution, as you have well and satisfactorily established. Since this subject was first agitated, I have given it
my feeble support. The Legislature of Alabama have the subject now under
consideration, by a resolution instructing the proper committee to inquire into
the propriety of memorializing Congress on the subject. But my fears are
that the General Government, having the power in a matter so intimately connected with their interest, "will forget right," although the reason and argument should be legitimate and conclusive.
You ask for information "as to the formation of the new cabinet." I can
give you nothing on this topic except general rumor. Van Buren and Tazewell are spoken of as aspirants for the State Department; Woodbury for the
Navy, but some say (and the knowing ones too) that he must not be taken
from the Senate, lest an Adams' man (or an anti-Adams' man now) should.




508               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
succeed him, and thereby add to the opposition which is said is now about to
be organized in the Senate in order to paralyze the Executive arm. Whether
this reasoning will predominate, and thus prevent the promotion of Mr. W.,
which the General's friends admit he is entitled to, I cannot say. Cheves, Gallatin, McLean, Postmaster-General, are spoken of for the Treasury. Livingston, Benton, H. L. White, Drayton, Hayne, Eaton, Ingham, Pope or Barry
of Kentucky, and a host of others, for the War Department, Attorney-General, etc. Crittenden of Kentucky is now nominated to the Senate to fill the
vacancy on the Supreme Court bench occasioned by the death of Judge
Trimble. From what I have accidentally learned, this nomination will not
be finally disposed of before the fourth of March, and then you can judge of
the sequel as well or better than I can predict.
My friends have recently given my name to the public as a candidate for
Governor. I anticipate warm opposition. My enemies will attempt to assail
me on the ground of my heretical notions relative to internal improvements.
My political experience is somewhat limited, and I may be at some loss probably for the strongest documents and arguments to sustain me. Any references or intimations which your long experience may suggest would be
thankfully received.
I shall, with great pleasure, give you an account of the times here as anything may occur calculated to interest you.
I am, sir,
With respect and esteem,
Your obedient servant,
GABRIEL MOORE.
Gov. N. EDWARDS, Vandalia, Illinois.
CITY OF WASHINGTON, Dec. 31, 1831.
Dear Friend:
I acknowledge with cheerfulness the receipt of your letter, under date 10th
inst., together with the communication addressed to your General Assembly
-for which you will be pleased to accept my thanks.
I am unable to refer you to the sources from which you can obtain the information inquired for relative to the cessions of public lands, by the States,
to the United States, etc. I would, with great pleasure, render you any aid
in the prosecution of your object (which I view as highly meritorious and important to the new States) in my power.
While I occupied the office of Chief Magistrate in the State, I made an ineffectual effort to induce some of the leading members of the General Assembly to take up the subject which you have broached in claiming right, in behalf of the States, to the public domain, etc. Their resistance has been predicated entirely upon the solemn act of the Convention in the adoption of the
ordinance disclaiming ownership over the soil, etc. I discovered that in our
State the project would not be sanctioned, and I therefore declined bringing




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   509
it to their view. All, however, admitted that, except for this ordinance, your
views (for I distributed your message among them) were irresistible.
You will see, from the papers, that at this time various projects are under
discussion in the House of Representatives for distributing the public domain
among the several States, for as many distinct objects as there are gentlemen
who feel an interest in the matter. Some say appropriate for internal improvements, others for purposes of education, and a third class for a portion
of them to each of these objects, etc., etc. The diversity of opinion which
seems to exist induces me to believe that nothing varying the established order of practice on this subject will be effected, until the public debt be extinct. At that time I am of opinion, from all I learn here, that there will be
a disposition to establish some great and important change on this subject.
Although thus far all things have progressed smoothly-Mr. Clay having
exhibited a most courteous and conciliatory deportment to all his great political opponents, (I mean Calhoun, Hayne, etc.)-has induced a belief with
many that we should not experience that excitement which has been generally
anticipated. Yet, if I am not much mistaken "in the signs of the times," the
political horizon now begins to indicate most strongly that an angry cloud is
beginning to make its appearance, the pernicious effects of which I cannot
pretend to anticipate.
Some have thought Mr. C. would relax somewhat in his former heresies in
relation to his abominable "American system;" but in a short discussion which
occurred, the other day, on the proposition to reduce the duty on alum salt,
he has removed all grounds for any hope of this character, and the parties
pro and con are now making preparation for a general and spirited discussion
on the proposition for a modification of the tariff. You, sir, are more competent to form a correct opinion as to the result, than I am (a junior member)
to pretend to prophecy.
It is stated here, generally, that as to the nominations of the new Cabinet,
on the question for confirmation there will not be any doubt, but as regards
Mr. Van Buren, great doubts have been expressed. The wise ones here pretend to be able to count noses, and say, if all are present, he will either be rejected by one majority or by the casting vote of the Vice-President. In this
calculation I am informed I am placed for the nomination. My mind, however, is not decidedly made up. I have a great repugnance personally to indorse Van B's nomination, but some other considerations, connected with
the wishes of those who have placed me here, or what is said to be their
wishes, will produce difficulty. King will go for him, or do any other act for
the "powers that be." The consequences of the State being divided, etc., is
deemed by me a subject worthy of mature deliberation. If, however, it should
so turn out that a committee should be instructed, among other subjects for their
consideration, to inquire into the causes which produced the late dissolution of
the Cabinet, and they should furnish some light calculated to lead to a correct conclusion as to the proper estimate to be placed upon this individual's
worth or his demerits, which would enable me to give satisfaction at home,
then all the doubts would be removed. No such proposition, as yet, has been
made, but it is by no means improbable that it may be made.




510                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
Provided you should wish any particular document within my reach, or any
other matter to be transacted within my power to do, you will be pleased to
designate it, and it will afford me pleasure to oblige you.
I have, in consequence of your letter to Mr. Shackford, supported him
warmly, and I did not fail to give him some others' support, and informed
him I was influenced from your letter.
Respectfully and sincerely,
Your friend and obedient servant,
GABRIEL MOORE.
To Gov. EDWARDS.
CONCORD, N. H., April 26, 1832.
Dear Sir 
Your communication of the 20th ult. has been received. It not being directed to this place, where I reside, it has probably taken circuitous direction
and may have been delayed in its arrival. The circumstance to which you
allude, respecting the particular bill reported by Mr. Morrow, is most perfectly within my recollection-at least so far as this: I distinctly remember we
were sitting in Old Congress Hall; that Mr. Morrow was Chairman of the
Committee on Public Lands; that he reported a bill relating to that subjects
the express provisions of which I do not now distinctly recollect, but this I
fully remember: that, when the bill was read, you offered six or eight amendments, all of which, I am pretty sure, were rejected. I am well satisfied that
the object of your proposed amendments, in part at least, was to reduce the
price to actual settlers.
I distinctly recollect the zeal with which you urged your amendments, and
the circumstance of your fainting at that time in the Senate Chamber. My
recollection on this point is perhaps the more definite, since having been in
the practice of medicine myself, I feared, when I saw you borne into the lobby,
it was an apoplectic fit, which induced me instantly to repair to you and recommend bleeding, which was done, and I held the vessel that received the
blood, and stood by you till your reason was so far restored that you were
able by assistance to be removed.
What were the impressions of the Senate, in regard to the course you pursued on that occasion, I am unable to determine; but, for myself, I thought
you were extremely tenacious of your views and zealous in supporting themand this, I conclude, must have been the general feelipg of the Senate.
A part of my library, and the journals of the Senate a ng the the rest, being
now in my office at Goffstown, where I formerly resided, I have not had an
opportunity to have recourse to them, and of course have stated nothing except what was distinctly within my recollection-and this, I am sure, is perfectly correct.
I am, with great respect,
Your most obedient servant,
DAVID LAWRENCE MORRIL.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   511
HUNTSVILLE, August 23, 1825.
Dear Sir:
Yours, inclosing for my perusal two letters from Gov. Edwards, has been
several days in my possession, and would have been answered sooner but for
professional engagements, that claimed my attention during the session of
court. I regret that my memory will not enable me to speak, now, as distinctly as I could have done at an earlier day, on the subject of his inquiries.
I recollect that I argued a cause in the Supreme Court, about the time his
nomination came to the Senate as Minister to Mexico, and perhaps was absent
from the Senate on that account, at the time of his nomination, but of that I
am not certain. The cause related to Africans, brought into this State, on
the schooners "Constitution," "Louisa" and "Merino." The record of the Su.
preme Court will show the date of the argument, and the journal of the Senate
the date of the nomination, should the fact be considered important.
I do not now recollect whether I visited him at the end of that week or
not; it is highly probable that I did, as it was my custom to do so as often
as my public duties would admit. The object of referring to that circumstance, I presume, must have been to fix the period of one or more of my vi.
sits to the Governor at his lodgings, pending his nomination; but memory
does not connect the two transactions with sufficient certainty to throw any
light upon the main point of inquiry. I recollect calling several times at the
Governor's lodgings, while his nomination was pending, and also before it
was made, and afterwards when it was confirmed. At one or more visits he
occupied a room on the lower floor, at Mrs. Queen's; but, before his nomination was acted on, he removed to an upper room in the back building. I
called several times, while he occupied the latter room, and recollect to have
seen a gentleman there who was from West Point, as I understood, and was
bound to Illinois, but cannot fix the precise date of the transaction; but I
well recollect that the Governor was so unwell, at the time, as to be confined
to his room as he alleged, and his appearance seemed to require it.
This was his condition for several days previous to the confirmation of his
nomination. On account of his indisposition I called frequently, perhaps
every time I happened in the neighborhood of his residence.
I recollect conversing with him on the subject of the postponement of the
nomination, on account of its being stated that an absent Senator had, perhaps, objections that he would like to make, and inquired if it could be the
"A. B." affair that founded the objection? to which he replied, that he could
not say or conjecture the ground or nature of the objection, unless it should
be the "A. B." affair or a newspaper controversey that had occurred in the
West some years before-neither of which, he considered, ought to form any
ground of objection.
I cannot say that the Governor was too sick to get out of his room and visit another gentleman in another apartment, at the time in question; but I
should think it improbable, from his appearance, that he could travel far or
gesticulate strongly, as he appeared to be considerably diseased with gout or
rheumatism, and was under the action of medicine at several times when I




512               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
called on him, shortly before his nomination was confirmed; but I cannot now
fix the precise period of either visit. I recollect conversing with him on the
subject of his being the author of the "A. B." letters, and he did not pretend
to deny the fact to me. So far from it, he told me, upon one occasion, that
he had prepared another document of considerable length, of a similar tenor,
which he expected it would have been necessary to publish, but was glad that
his political adversaries had not, by their conduct, made it necessary to do so.
I requested him to let me peruse it, which he declined, alleging that if he remained unassailed, he wished to suppress it; and although he felt no want of
confidence in me, he thought it most prudent to let the strife subside, and
would, therefore, never show it to any one unless it became necessary in his
own defense. The document alluded to, I presume, was pretty much embodied in his memorial to the House. I never had any conversation with Gen.
Noble, on the subject of his nomination, further than passing a mutual statement that we should vote for the nomination; but no explanation of grounds
was given on either side.
The foregoing contains as much as I can now say from memory. I accord
it to Gov. Edwards, as an act of justice, which he may use in any manner that
his prudence may dictate.
With great respect, etc.,
WILLIAM KELLY.
To HON. GABRIEL MOORE.
CITY OF WASHINGTON, Dec. 24, 1825.
Dear Sir:
I received your letter, some time since my arrival-at this place, which you
addressed to me at Frankfort, some time in the latter part of September, and
which I should have answered earlier but from a desire to task my memory,
which is a frail one, with the most anxious disposition to bring to my recollection the circumstances to which you allude, and in relation to which you
again express a desire that I should make a statement.
Your former letter, addressed to me at Frankfort, during the summer, before
the last, was received by me, my omission to answer which is ascribable to
none of the causes which you suggest, but is ascribable in the first place to
an impression entertained by me that the recollection of the-circumstances
alluded to was not impressed on my memory in such a manner as to enable
me to give any statement with that precision and confidence in its correctness
which the occasion seemed to call for; and because I saw it announced in a
Washington paper, but a short time since the receipt of this letter, that you
had left the city, and I had no certain means of knowing where a letter
would find you.
Presuming from that time that the occasion had gone by which had produced the result, I thought nothing further of it, until the receipt of your
recent letter; and have now to express to you my extreme regret that no effort at recollection, of which I am capable, enables me to state, with any cer.
tainty, what you may deem a circumstance material to your purpose; but of




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  513
my finding you in bed when I made the call to which you allude-of my
having made the call at the time and on the occasion to which you allude, I
have a perfect recollection; that I found you, as well from your own statement as from any external appearance from which I could form an opinion,
weak and seriously indisposed, and that you were in the apartment in the
back buildings, to which you had recently removed from a chamber in the
front of the building; that I stated to you, in the course of this visit, that an
attack on your nomination as Minister to Mexico was meditated, and had been
announced to the Senate-from what quarter I had no doubt; and my recollection enables me to speak of them with some confidence. But of the circumstance of your being in bed when the call was made and the conversation
was had, although, from your statements and those of the highly respectable
gentlemen to whom you refer, I cannot doubt, yet I have not been able to
charge my memory.
In the supposition that this call and the conversation which followed were
induced by feelings of friendly concern, and the communication from a sense
of justice due you, from the discharge of which I deemed myself under no
restraint, either of honor or morality, to forbear, is also true. And my delay
or apparent reluctance in making this imperfect statement in reply to your
request, I trust you may be assured, has proceeded from no other cause than
the conscious inability which I felt, from defect of recollection, to make it
with such fullness and precision as you might conclude you had a right to
expect.
I am, with sincere regard,
Your friend and servant,
ISHAM TALBOT.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, ESQ, Belleville, Illinois.
OAK HILL, April 27, 182G.
Dear Sir:
It is undoubtedly a painful thing to me to be brought before the public, in
relation to any of those questions which were agitated with zeal and produced excitement between the contending parties, while I was in the Government; but your application is so just and reasonable that I think it incumbent on me to meet it by a fair statement of facts. With that view I have
inclosed a letter for you, to our friend Mr. Wirt, and who will deliver it to
you, if he sees no impropriety in so doing. I had communication with him
on this subject, shortly after the affiir occurred, and I wish him to compare
this with what then passed, to see that it corresponds with the statement made
while the impression on my mind was more recent.
When you see Gov. Edwards, assure him of my good wishes for his welfare
and happiness.
Witl great respect and regard,
I am, dear sir, yours,
JAMES MONROE.
To DANIEL P. COOK.
-65




514               LETTERS-TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
OAK HILL, April 30, 1826.
Sir:
In reply to your letter of the 23d, requesting to be informed whether Gov.
Edwards declared to me, before his nomination as Minister to Mexico, that
he was not the author of the publications signed "A. B.," on which declaration, it is said, that his nomination was founded, I feel it due to candor to
assure you, that he never made to me any such declaration, and that his nomination was not influenced in the slightest degree by any considerations except
that the quarter of the Union in which he resided had claims to an appointment, and that he was believed to be as well qualified for the office as any
other person in that quarter, who had been brought to the view of the Executive.
With great respect and esteem,
I am your obedient servant,
JAMES MIONROE.
To IIoN. WILLIAM WIRT.
QUINCY, August 22, 1827.
Dear Sir:
Your frank and cordial letter of the 22d ulto. has been duly received. I
am entirely satisfied with the assurance that you are neither personally nor
politically unfriendly to me, and that the measures of the present Federal
Administration have received your cordial support.
Your recommendation for the appointment of a sub-agent at Peoria will,
in the event of a vacancy in that office, receive the deliberate consideration
to which it is entitled, and a disposition altogether friendly to him as recommended by you; and your opinion in regard to any appointments of
the. General Government, in the State of Illinois, will always be acceptable
to me, whenever you may incline to communicate it to me.
Accept my friendly and respectful salutations.
J. Q. ADAMS.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, Governor of the State of Illinois, Belleville.
NATCHEZ, 31arch 26, 1828.
Dear Sir:
Your letter dated the 20th of March last was never received by me until
lately. I did not return home from a journey through the Northern States
until November, and was then much indisposed, and have continued so until
lately. Your letter, among a vast number of others, was laid aside, and my
health did not permit me to advert to it until lately. You cannot doubt my
disposition to serve you, I trust; nor can I cease to consider it among my
first duties while I recollect your former kindness and friendship towards me.
*   L *  *    * *    *       *    *   ** t* *,   * 




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                    515
I had the pleasure of seeing your two daughters for a moment last summer,
in Lexington. Mr. Cook was there in the last stage of consumption, and has
since, I learn, fallen a victim to that disease. I had lived with him the winter before last, and had formed a high estimate of his talents, his virtues, and
his social temper. He held, as you know, a distinguished place, for a man of
his age, in the House of Representatives. During the last winter of his service he had been unusually laborious, which contributed, I have no doubt, to
augment and hasten the ravages of his disease. He has, however, left a
character behind him which ought in some measure to console his family and
friends for his premature loss.
Be so kind as to present my respectful compliments to Mrs. Edwards; and
believe me to be, as I really am,
Your friend and obedient servant,
THOS. B. REED.
To Iis Excellency NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
WASHINGTON CITY, 3lay 8, 1830.
Dear Sir:
So soon as I received your letter I went to the War Department, and made
application in favor of Dr. Todd's son; but, unfortunately, the only place
due to your State had been filled by the appointment of the son of a Mrs.
Prim. This I regretted very much, as I was prevented from repaying a debt
of gratitude due to Dr. Todd and family. I hope, however, some occasion
may present itself in which I can be serviceable to them. Nothing, I assure
you, would give me more pleasure-of which I hope you will assure them.
You say you differ from me in opinion in relation to the public lands. You
know the liberality of my feelings in regard to the rights of opinion. If
others will only permit me to think for myself, I will never quarrel with
them for the exercise of the same privilege.
I am gratified that you think favorably of my effort on Foot's resolution.
You may take the following,.as I believe, for certainties: 1st. Jackson will
will be again run for the Presidency; 2d, his popularity is on the increase;
3d, his reelection is as certain as his life, and he is in excellent health; 4th,
his standing is of a peculiar character: his Ministers and his Congress may
all become unpopular, and still his hold on the affections of the people not
be weakened.                       Your friend,
FELIX GRUNDY.
To His Excellency N1NIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
PHILADELPHIA, April 4, 1832.
Dear Sir:
Your interesting and esteemed favor of the 20th of March was received
this morning. I extremely regret that I have no recollection upon the subject
of your particular inquiry, or it would give me infinite pleasure to make any




516               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
statement within my power to serve you. I am detained at this place in the
discharge of a public duty, and am very much engaged. Your political views
and reflections are always interesting. For the last ten years I have not had
time to indulge in such reflections with the most intimate friend, but I am
often amused and interested and instructed by those of my friends; and I
thank you, in this respect.
Truly and sincerely your friend,
R. M. JOHNSON.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
GREENVILLE, KENTUCKY, 3lZay 8, 1832.
Dear Sir:
Your letter has been received, but, owing to my absence from home, I have
not been able to answer it until now.
I have but an indistinct recollection of your course, when in Kentucky,
with regard to our public lands, as at that time I meddled but little in politics; but I have no doubt you were always friendly to the settlers south of
Green River, as I do not recollect of ever hearing any complaints against you
on that account, and I think I certainly would if you had been opposed to
them.
With regard to your course in the Senate of the United States, my impression is that you and myself agreed on the subject of the public lands, although
I was in the lower house and may be mistaken. I was in favor of reducing
the price, but opposed to doing away the credit system-and finally voted
against the bill, as it passed, believing the old system was better'than the new.
My recollection is, that you were making a speech on the Missouri question,
when you fainted in the Senate, and not on the public lands, although I was
not present at the time. I recollect of seeing a complimentary note from Mr.
Randolph, to you, on that occasion, in which he expressed great regret at
your inability to finish your speech, which, from your commencement, promised
to do you so much credit.
Although engaged in my official duties, I am not an inattentive observer
of passing events-and really, sometimes, I am distressed to see how things
are going on in the Union. I sometimes fear we will not stick together long,
and one cause of this fear is, the kind of men that are selected by the people
to fill the various public stations. It no longer appears to be a recommending quality, that a candidate for office should have intelligence or experience. The only inquiry is, is he a whole-hog Jackson or Clay man? and
in this contest principles appear to be laid aside or forgotten. Shameful,
indeed! Men seeking popular favor endeavor to ascertain what popular sentiment is, and then throw themselves into the current and float down with it,
instead of forming their own opinions of what measures will advance the
interest of the country, enlightening the public mind on them, and getting
the people to go with them.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  517
Dear sir, I really fear Jac7csonism will ruin the country. I do think every
public man ought honestly to approve what is right, and as honestly oppose
what is wrong-and then I would expect to see a better state of things.
Your friend,
ALMY McLEAN.
To IIoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY, 1iay 27, 1832.
Dear Sir:
Circumstances, not worth detailing, have prevented me from giving an
earlier answer to your letter of the 16th of last month. In that letter you
informed me that, at this late day, you are accused " of having opposed the
reduction of the price of public lands, and the granting of pre-emptions to
actual settlers," during the period that we served together in the Senate of
the United States-you as a senator from Illinois, and I from Kentucky-and
you request that I will state the part which you acted on those subjects.
During the short period that I have had the honor of serving with you in
the Senate, I know that an attempt was made further to reduce the price of
the public lands, and I remember well that you were a persevering and zealous advocate for reduction, and that you struggled obstinately and to the last
against repeated votes of the Senate overruling your various propositions for
reduction. I recollect, indeed, that your perseverance and zeal on the subject
were thought, at the time, by some senators, to have been carried somewhat
further than was altogether compatible with the decorum of the Senate.
I think that one of your propositions was for reducing the price of the
public lands as low as thirty cents per acre, and your other propositions, successively moved, for intermediate sums between that and the price finally
fixed by the Senate. I have not the journals before me, however, and cannot,
therefore, undertake to speak positively as to these particulars. But as to
your general course upon the occasion alluded to, I recollect it perfectly; and
as far as my knowledge and humble testimony can go, great injustice is done
you by the accusation that you opposed the reduction of the price of the
public lands.
I remember nothing of the proceedings of the Senate in relation to the
granting of pre-emptions to actual settlers, and consequently nothing of
your course, or even of my own, on the subject.
Very respectfully yours,
J. J. CRITTENDEN.
To NINIAN EDWARDS, Alton, Illinois.
DONALDSONVILLE, LOUISIANA, Jane 8, 1832.
Dear Sir'
In consequence of an omission in the superscription of your letter of the
20th March, it has been forwarded from place to place, and accidentally




518                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
reached my hands a few days ago. This explanation you will be pleased to
accept as an apology for my apparent neglect in not answering it earlier. I
well remember that during the second session of the XVth Congress, when
Mr. Morrow of Ohio, Chairman of the Committee of Public Lands, reported
to the Senate "a bill making further provision for the sale of public lands,"
the object of which was to abolish all credit, and sell for cash only, you made
great efforts to amend the bill, so as to obtain a further reduction of the
price than the bill contemplated, and to provide, also, for the actual settlers
on public lands. I feel confident that not a single member of the Senate
could have thought you opposed to either of those objects. On the contrary,
I had the best reasons to believe that your standing with the Senate was
somewhat impaired from an over-zeal you appeared to manifest on the occasion. The bill, as it passed the Senate, fixed the price of land, I think, at
$1.50 per acre. It, however, failed in the House of Representatives. When
introduced in the Senate, at the succeeding session, you renewed your efforts
in favor of the actual settlers on public lands. Indeed, I do not hesitate in
saying that I uniformly considered you in favor of reducing the price of
public lands and in favor of providing for the actual settlers thereon. In
attempting, myself, to effect these objects, in favor of the citizens of Louisiana, you always gave me your support. On one occasion, particularly, I
recollect that at my request, and perhaps at the instance of my colleague and
of the members from Mississippi, you exerted yourself in favor of pre-emption rights to the citizens of the districts of St. Helena and of Jackson courthouse, the former of which is situated in Louisiana and the latter in the State
of Mississippi.
I am, with great respect, sir,
Your friend and obedient servant,
H. JOHNSON.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
May 31, 1812.
Dear Sir:
Mr. Mackenzie, in his " History of the Fur Trade," is very exact, except as
to the names of Rivers, etc., which I think he should have given in French,
because, in Canada and in the North-west, they are generally called after the
Canadians and in the French language, and in fact are so called by all voyagers.
On page 44, he speaks of "Algonquin nation." This is the name given to
the Chippeways by the old French. They are now called Chippeways or
Sauteaux.
On page 49, he says "Lake Superior, north side, coast-way, is 160 leagues."
These are voyager leagues; I do not think it more than 130 leagues.
On page 58, "this corn." The voyagers call it " hulled corn."
In his description of the route from Montreal to Makina, he gives the
names as called by the voyagers in French; but when he leaves Grand Port



LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWAR)S.                   519
age to go to the north, he gives a number of names in English, many of which
a voyager, who knows the route, would not know by that name. Thus:
On page 59, Partridge Portage should be Portage de Perdix.
On page 60, Elk Portage should be Portage de L'Orignal.
On page 61. Mountain Lake should be Lac de la Montagne.
On page 61, Rose Lake should be Lac a la Rose.
On page 62, Marten Portage should be Portage be la Martc.
On page 62, Pigeon River should be Riviere aux Pigeons.
On page 63, Cheval du Bois should be Cheval de Bois.
On page 64, Prairie Portage should be Portage de la Prairie.
On page 67, Chebois is here meant Chippeways.
On page 68, Beaver Dam should be La Chause de Castor.
On page 68, Vermilion Lake should be Lac du Vermilion.
On page 74, Jacob's Fall should be La Chute a'Jacquaut.
On page 75, White River should be La Riviere Blanche.
On page 77, Assiniboin or Red River, is an error; Assiniboin River is a
separate and distinct river, which comes from the south-west of Lake Winipic
and empties itself into the Red River or River Rouge, which in turn comes
from the east and empties into Lake Winipic 18 leagues from where the
Assiniboin empties itself. It was on this river that I wintered, at a small
creek called Riviere a la Souris.
On page 78, for Knestenaux say Christenau or Crees.
On page 80, for Swan River say Riviere au Cignes.
On page 82, for the Great Rapids of the Saskatchawine say Les Rapides de
la Riviere du Pas.
On page 83, for Cedar Lake say Lac de Cedres.
On page 84, for Mud Lake say Lac aux Vases.
On page 85, for Sturgeon Lake say Lac Eturgeon.
On page 91, for Pine Island Lake say Lac de Lisle aux Pines.
On page 91, for Beaver Lake say Lac du Castor.
On page 83, for Missinissi River say La Riviere des Anglois.
On page 95, for Portage de Barcel say Portage des Barils.
On page 95, for Lake La Rouge say Lac Rouge.
On page 98, for Knee Lake say Lac aux Genou.
On page 99, for Croche Rapide say La Rapide Croche.
On page 104, for Lake Clear say Lac Claire.
On page 107, Athabasca called by the voyagers Arabasca.
On page 149, for Pimican the voyagers say Pimitigan; it is dried buffalo
meat, pounded by the Indians and sold to the traders, who mix fifty pounds
of it with forty pounds of tallow and sew it up in bags, made of the raw
buffalo hides-a bag of which is allowed to each man for his provisions, on
his journey from the north, in the spring, to Grand Portage. On their return,
in the fall, from Grand Portage to Fort Pimitigan, they live on green and
hulled corn. In going out of the north, it took me near five weeks, from my
wintering ground on the Assiniboin River, to reach Grand Portage.
Yours, respectfully,
JOHN HAY.
To His Excellency Gov. EDWARDS.




520                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
RUSSELLVILLE, March 4, 1810.
Dear Governor:
My brother, Thomas Crittenden, is now here on his way to Kaskaskia,
where he wishes to settle himself for the practice of the law. I wish to introduce him to your acquaintance. I think you will find him worthy of it,
in every way. I have given him your character; I have told him of the noble
generosity you have practiced towards me; I have told him, too, of the friendship and patronage with which you have honored me; I have inspired him
with an eager ambition to obtain your good opinion and esteem. You will
find him amiable in his temper. His heart is as geicrous as brave, and as
friendly as ever was formed. If he can deserve and obtain your friendship
and patronage, it will be to me a cause of the most delightful satisfaction,
and will furnish another cause for all my gratitude.
Yours, with all gratitude and esteem,
JOHN J. CRITTENDEN.
To Iis Excellency NINIAN EDWARDS, Russellville.
P. S.-If you would be so good as to give my brother some letters of introduction, they would be of service to him at Kaskaskia, and he would be
much obliged to you.-J. J. C.
ST. Louis, Oct. 27, 1818.
Dear Sir:
Our mutual friend, Gen. Bisscll, wishes to command in this Department.
Gen. Smith has retired; and if long and faithful services deserve any reward,
it would be but just to gratify Gen. Bissell in this wish. Mr. Scott will
speak with the Secretary of War, and your voice would doubtless have its
weight if joined to his.
We shall wish you to give us all help in the advancement of our Territory.
Thine,
THOMAS H. BENTON.
To IION. NINIAN EDWARDS.
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY, Sept. 10, 1816.
Dear Sir:
I perceive the sales of the United States lands in your Territory arc about
commencing. The migration to your Territory induces me to suppose there
must be a rapid appreciation in the price of your prime lands within a few
years. My desire of acquiring some portion of such lands, somewhere in your
neighborhood, is again revived.
If good speculations should present themselves in any agreeable part of
your Territory, either upon the Government terms or on advance of cash on
hand not exceeding $3,000 or $4,000, will you be good enough to make the
purchase for me, and draw on me for the amount, giving me a few weeks'




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                   521
previous notice of your intentions so to do? A line from you in answer, at
an early day, would be desirable.
Please to present my best regards to your amiable partner; and believe me
Your sincere friend,
ISHAM   TALBOT.
To His Excellency ININIA EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
P. S.-This will be handed you by Mr. Thomas Talbot, a resident of Missouri, a very agreeable young gentleman, whom I take the liberty of reconmending to your polite attentions.-I. T.
WASHINGTON, April 13, 1818.
Dear Sir:
Mr. Edward Coles intending to pass through Illinois, probably to remain
some time there, I take much pleasure in introducing him to your acquaintance
and kind attention. I have long known and highly respected and esteemed
him for his excellent qualities and good understanding. He was several
years private secretary to the late President, and employed by him in a confidential mission to Russia, in which trust he discovered sound judgment,
great industry and fidelity, and is generally beloved by those who know him
best. Should he settle with you, you will find him a very useful acquisition,
and I understand it is not an improbable event.
I hope that the arrangement made this winter will avail our country of
your services in the proposed treaty with the Indians, in a manner'satisfactory to yourself; for success, on just principles, is the object of my most ardent wishes.
With great respect and esteem,
I am, dear sir, very sincerely yours,
JAMES MONROE.
To Gov. EDWARDS, Illinois Territory.
April 12, 1822.
Mr. Blair's most kind respects to Gov. Edwards (of Illinois), and begs
leave to present his best thanks for the speech (in pamphlet form) on the
resolution proposing to give the old States lands for the purposes of education, etc.
At the same time, he cannot refrain from assuring Mr. E. that this very able
speech has probably saved him from giving an erroneous vote. Mr. B. had
thought it reasonable that the old States should participate in the benefit of
the public lands equally with the new States, without considering that the
school donations of land were made to the new States as a bonus for settling
in a wilderness, etc.  Mr. B. also begs leave to assure Mr. E. that in his
opinion this speech is equally creditable to the head and to the heart. While
it breathes the purest spirit of philanthropy and benevolence, it, in point of
reasoning, " leaves no stone unturned."
-66




522               LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
SALISBURY, N. CAROLINA, April 21, 1822.
]Dear Sir:
I received, a week ago, your much esteemed favor, and truly thank you for
the pleasure its contents gave me. I could wish that your calculations as to
Pennsylvania and other States north of Maryland were to be relied on, but I
am well aware that all such calculations must necessarily be received with
many grains of allowance. Let me, however, add, that my wishes accord with
your own. You say that it is confidently calculated at Washington that Mr.
Crawford will get all the votes of North Carolina. My opportunities during
the past winter of forming a correct opinion upon this point were better than
those of the calculators at Washington-and I took some pains to ascertain
the general sentiment. I will give you my candid opinion. Whether Mr.
Crawford will or will not command the vote of this State depends greatly
upon who is his opponent. Against Mr. Adams, I believe North Carolina
will be for him-and even then not without a contest. But if Mr. Calhoun
is brought forward, you may rely upon it, Crawford's prospects in North
Carolina become less flattering. I say it, without the hazard of contradiction,
that Mr. Crawford's standing in North Carolina has been, is still, and will continue, in the decline. If he or his friends put down North Carolina as a certainty on his side, the chance is at least equal that he will be disappointed in
the result. But, is Mr. Calhoun certainly a candidate?  Is it distinctly understood at Washington that such is the fact? I have all along felt satisfied
that Mr. Calhoun had no disposition to decline the use of his name if reasonable prospect of success presented itself; and I 7now that some of Mr. Crawford's friends looked at him in that light; but as yet, here it is not known
that he is certainly a candidate. I see he is considered in that light in some
of the Northern newspapers; and it is no doubt good policy that his support
should begin from that quarter. I have received letters from several members, and have seen letters from members to other persons, in all of which
Crawford and Adams, only, are spoken of as competitors. As soon as it is
distinctly understood that Mr. Calhoun will run, rest assured, many who now
say Crawford will change their object.
The scrape into which Crawford has gotten with your colleague is a good
deal talked of, and it has its effect.
Should it come in the way, say to Mr. Calhoun, from me, that his prospects
in North Carolina are at least equally good with the other gentlemen.
As to an opposition against Gen. Stokes, on the grounds you hint, rely upon
it, it would operate to his advantage.
Dear sir, with great esteem, I am
Your obedient servant,
CHAS. FISHER.
To 1IoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, U. S. Senate, Washington City.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  523
FAYETTEVILLE, April 27, 1822.
Sir:
I amn on my way to the South, and have not had an opportunity of writing
until to-night. I have seen and had a conversation with Gov. Branch on the
subject of the Florida appointments, and, as we had anticipated, some letters
of an inflammatory nature had been written to him; and some statements
that the President had given positive assurances that the appointment of
Governor should be given to North Carolina, and induced the delegation to
believe that Branch should be that individual. Under such circumstances he
expected the appointment; and finding it had been given to a man not residing in the State, he was induced to believe that something was behind the
curtain more than had come to his knowledge; however, the only regret or
disappointment he feels arises from an apprehension that his.name has been
in some way sported with, and, until some explanations from me, he felt disposed to attach the blame to the President; but I have in great degree succeeded in fixing the blame where it should be-and a good share of it restson the shoulders of the chief prompter behind the curtain. I took the liberty
of stating to him that I did not believe the President had committed himself
to the North Carolina delegation to the full extent of their representations
to him-that there was a misunderstanding in relation to that promise.
Branch will not accept the appointment of judge; but does not look upon it
in the way the delegation would induce you to believe-as an insult-but will
decline it in a becoming manner. Would you be willing to mention his name
to the President for one of the missions to South America? I mention this
to you without his knowledge, or even of mentioning it to him. He is not
the devoted friend of Mr. Crawford as some would have you believe.
I spent two days at Halifax court, in Burton's district, where I met with a
number of influential men, and I always introduced the subject of Presidential election; and although the people have not settled down upon any
individual for that high office, I am glad to inform you that I have not met
with a single man who was friendly to the election of Mr. Crawford, but all
declare to me tlat they have not confidence in his talents, and they look upon
him as an intriguing, disingenuous politician. They do not admire the political course of Mr. Clay; consequently will take the most prominent Southern man, which, I think, will be our friend Calhoun. I had a conversation,with a member of the last Legislature on that subject, and he stated unequivocally that Mr. Calhoun could have had a Legislative nomination over
Mr. Crawford, by a large vote.
I find in many instances the people have taken up erroneous opinions in
relation to the disbursements of money by the War Department, particularly
in the Indian Department. These impressions were formed from the debate
on the bill appropriating $70,000 to cover the debts incurred in the last year,
over and above the appropriation, for that. Department, not recollecting that
laws were in existence which made it obligatory upon that Department to
disburse that sum; but with such explanations as I was able to give, they




524                LETTERS TO NINIAN' EDWARDS.
were perfectly satisfied; hence the necessity, on the part of Mr. Calhoun's
friends, to make every effort to explain to the people the situation of these
transactions.
I shall expect to hear from you before you leave the city. Do request Mr.
Rogers to order my " Franklin Gazette" directed to the Agency. Gov. Branch
has read your speech on the Maryland propositions, and says you have changed
his opinion, and that your arguments are unanswerable. I wish you would
send one to my father, Samuel Crowell, directed to Enfield, North Carolina.
It is now bed-time. Good night.
I am, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
JNO. CROWELL.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Washington City.
GREAT CROSSING, Jzne 26, 1822.
Dear Sir:
I have received your favor, and I sincerely thank you for your friendly sentiments and conduct towards me, and it is a principle of honor with me never
to be outdone by friendly offices, if opportunity offers.
I have been very attentive to your reply to Benton as to the lead mines,
and I have also noticed his remarks. I have anticipated your views on that
subject, and besides two publications already, placing the thing in its true
colors, I am prepared at all points if the least slur is made; but I assure you
that, so far from injury, nothing has ever given a greater impulse to the
popularity of Mr. Calhoun. He shall lose no popularity on our account.
I have received a letter from Col. John O'Fallan, requesting me to get Mr.
Calhoun to let him and others have a lease, such as he had given to my friends.
I have urged Mr. Calhoun to do this. It would destroy Col. Benton, or any
man from Missouri, to oppose this leasing policy. If Mr. Calhoun would
grant the leases to O'Fallan, it would take away the plea of favoritism; for
no person had applied when he granted the leases to my friends. The policy
pursued is very popular in this State; and men, women and children arc interested in the success of my brother. I pledge you that I am ready at all
points and in all ways to defend Mr. Calhoun's course in this business.
I have received many letters from St. Louis, from Peck, Strother, Wheeler,
etc., etc., who say that my brother is popular there, and the policy of leasing
the mines equally popular, and I am happy to find that you have turned your
eye to this business. Col. Benton will gain neither credit nor advantage
from his course in this business. He may have the right to accuse, but that
does not take away the right of self-defense. Ficklin has your speech ready
to publish if a paper in the State should publish Benton's, or should say a
word of condemnation, without which, perhaps, we had better let the matter
rest at present.
Sincerely your friend,
R. M. JOHNSON.
To HoN. NINIAN EDWARDS, Edwardsville, Illinois.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  525
TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, March 6, 1823.
My Dear Sir:
I was extremely gratified by the receipt of your letter-not because you had
had a visit from your old friend, the gout, nor your new one, fever and ague.
I would not wish my worst enemy either frequent or long-continued visits
from either of them-much less would I rejoice at your being persecuted by
them-but I was glad to hear from you and to know that neither of them
alone, nor both united, could dispirit you, nor make you indifferent to passing events.
I had heard the rumor you mention about New York, but I do not dread
the effort there; it will not, for the present, be successful. At least Thompson
can, if he will, prevent it. It is too late to put any machinery in motion
here to operate there in time. All that can be done is a short article or two
in our leading papers, which I am told will appear immediately.
The symptoms in Virginia are very strong and will grow stronger. I know
that State. It is misunderstood and misrepresented, and the friends of a
certain man will find it so.
I look with some curiosity for "A. B." He is a troublesome fellow. I wish
we c6uld find him out.
I would write more, but am pressed for time.
Write frequently; I shall be pleased to hear often and freely.
Yours, etc., etc.,
SAMUEL L. SOUTHARD.
To HON. N. EDWARDS.
GEORGETOWN, Saturday, Feb. 21, 1824.
Dear Sir 
Owing to indisposition, I have not attended the sessions of the Senate until
Monday. In the interval, I have heard of the nomination for the mission to
Mexico. Intrigues and much personal intercourse are pursued upon this subject, in which you cannot be indifferent. Were I able to go abroad, I should,
without delay, call upon you; this not being the case, I should be glad to
see you whenever, and as soon as you may be able to call upon me.
With great respect,
I am, dear sir,
Your obedient and faithful servant,
RUFUS KING.
To HON. N. EDWARDS.
SENATE CHAMBER, February 29, 1824.
Dear Sir 
The nomination was read this morning, and, upon the suggestion of a member that an absent Senator was understood to be prepared to submit to the
consideration of the Senate objections to the confirmation of the appointment




526                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS,
to Mexico, and to afford an opportunity of this being done, I moved to
postpone the nomination till to-morrow, when the absent Senator expects to
be able to attend. It was intimated that it was desirable that some intimation of the nature of the objection should be given, in order that inquiries
should be seasonably made.by the friends of the candidate. Nothing particular was intimated, though it was understood that Col. Benton is the Senator who is to offer objections.
Yours, truly,
RUFUS KING.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, of the United States Senate.
SENATE CHAMBER, February 25, 1824.
Dear Sir:
I am sorry to learn, by your note of this morning, that you are so much
indisposed. I can be at no loss in forming the opinion that every delay will
be attempted in the proceedings in the Senate. Mr. B. docs'not attend, the
weather is unfavorable, and so nothing will be done to-day. I do not hear a
whisper of the nature of the imputed charges. We must have a little patience,
as too great urgency would be injurious; nothing that can be prudently done
will be omitted. Were I not myself an invalid, I would call to see you.
Respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
RUFUS KING.
To HoN. N. EDWARDS, of Illinois.
GEORGETOWN, February 29, 1824.
Dear Sir:
I have received your note of this morning, with the file of the " Washington Republican." This I may have an opportunity to examine, as Congress
will adjourn early to-morrow until Monday or Tuesday afternoon, in consequence of the death of poor Ball.
I gave notice on Friday that I should call up the nomination of the Minister to Mexico to-morrow, but it will now go over to a future day.  I have
heard nothing further upon the subject of our last conversation. The mentioned objection may be persevered in, though I shall not be dissappointed
if it shall be abandoned.
With esteem and respect,
I am, dear sir,
Your obedient servant,
RUFUS KING.
To HoN. N. EDWARDS, of Illinois.




LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.                  527
SENATE CHAMBER, March 4, 1824.
Dzar Sir:
The nomination of the Envoy to Mexico was taken up this morning and
confirmed-twenty-seven Senators rising in favor of it.
Yours faithfully,
RUFUS KING.
To HON. N. EDWARDS, of Illinois.
P. S. —There was no debate.-R. K.
SENATE CHAMBER, March 4, 1824.
General Jackson, with compliments to Gov. Edwards, congratulates him
upon the ratification of his nomination-returns his thanks to him for the
perusal of the extract of the letter inclosed, and returns it to him.
To HON. N. EDWARDS, of the Senate.
Tuesday, June 22, 1824.
Dear Sir:
I last evening received your letter of the 27th ult. Inclosed I send you
two letters of Mr. Edwards to me, dated the 21st and 27th of February-the
former being an answer to a note from me to him from the Senate, respecting
his nomination-the latter, as I conjecture, the day after my visit to him,
whom I found in his bed, in the back part of the house where he lodged. I
have no other memorandum by which I may refresh my memory on the subject of his appointment to Mexico. According to my recollection, I am all
but confident of this statement: the first motion that the Senate should name
a day to consider the nomination of Mr. Edwards was made by myself. It
was on this occasion that Mr. Eliot of Georgia informed the Senate that he
had been desired to suggest to the Senate that important information respecting this appointment would be communicated by Mr. Benton of Missouri,
who, by reason of ill health, could not now attend in his place. The matter,
of course, was deferred without a question. I do not recollect that any previous observation or remark had been made to the Senate, respecting the
appointment of Mr. Edwards, by Mr. Noble or any other person. Private
conversations were doubtless had upon the subject. On a future day, I remember to have observed to the Senate that, while reasonable time should be
allowed for the communication of charges that might affect the character of
persons nominated to office, there was also something due to the members of
our own body, by which we were bound to avoid those delays which would
impair the reputation of the Senate; and as want of health prevented Mr.
Benton from coming to the Senate, any charges in his possession might be
sent to the Secretary, and in this way communicated to the Senate. No debate, at this or any other time, took place respecting Mr. Edwards' appointment. Mr. Benton made no communication, nor did he attend the Senate




528                LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
before the nomination was called up, and, without debate, the appointment
of Mr. Edwards was confirmed.
With much respect and esteem,
I am, dear sir,
Your obedicnt servant,
RUFUS KING.
To DANIEL P. COOK.
P. S.-Please to offer my compliments to Mr. Edwards. Firmness and decorum avail much; it is plain to me that his reputation calls for both their
aids in his actual condition-they can and will serve him.
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY, August 2, 1824.
Aly Good Friend:
Yours of the 15th July has just come to hand.
When I arrived in Washington City in February last, you were at Mrs.
Queen's, occupying the front room on the first floor. I visited you there
several times whilst you were sick and confined to your room. You afterwards removed to the back part of the building, where I visited you also
frequently. You were sick-most generally in bed-but sometimes got up.
The time when you removed to the back-room of Mrs. Queen's, I cannot state.
The morning after Judge Trimble arrived in Washington (that is, the first
morning that I saw him), I went with him to visit you. You were then in
the back-room, and had been there before that time. I recollect that whilst
your nomination was pending in the Senate unacted upon, you were confined
to your room in the back apartment. I had a conversation with Mr. King of
the Senate, on the subject of an anonymous publication against you some
twenty years ago, in Kentucky, which publication, I understood, was dug up
from the grave and used or attempted to be used to your prejudice. I waited
on you, at your own room, the same day and the next, and informed you of
the conversation: found you sick and confined to your chamber. This was
whilst your nomination was pending. Your note to me on the subject of the
anonymous publication is not preserved; by that I could have ascertained
the date. My. memory cannot retain dates. I arrived in Washington early
in February-you were sick and confined to your room when I arrived. I
left the city in the latter part of March. I have no recollection to have seen
you out of your apartment during my stay in the city. I visited you frequently, because of your sickness and because the presence and conversation
of your acquaintances seemed to cheer your spirits.
Your friend,
GEORGE M. BIBB.
To HION. NINIAN EDWARDS, Shepardstown, Virginia.




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWAIDS.              529
NASHVILLE, February 20, 1825.
Dear Sir:
I returned home on last night and set out to a distant court in a few minutes. I shall, on next Friday week, leave this place for Edwardsville. I go
on account of the late misfortune of Mr, Winchester. Among other reasons
inducing me to visit your State, is the pleasure it will afford me to see and
converse freely with you. I hope you will be in Edwardsville on the Saturday before the second Monday in Marcll.
Your friend,
FELIX GRUNDY.
To IION. NINIAN EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, Nov. 25, 1809.
Sir 
Your several communications, respecting the Saline, have been laid before
the President, and the following outlines adopted for the ensuing lease:
1. The quantity of salt to be made annually by the lessees, not to be less
than 120,000 bushels, and as much more as you may think practicable and may
be proposed by the lessees. And in order to insure the fulfillment of that
condition, which was never complied with by the former lessees, a penalty of
one bushel for each bushel falling short of the quantity agreed on, to be made
a condition of the contract —securing the recovery of such penalty by a constant deposit of salt in the hands of the agent of the United States.
2. The maximum price of salt to be fixed at not less than eighty cents nor
more than one dollar per bushel-leaving it between those two limits at your
discretion and with such modifications as you may think proper.
3. A rent to be paid quarterly to the United States, in salt, equal to the difference between what is judged a fair price for the lessees to sell at, and the
maximum price fixed by the lease; but to be calculated only on 120,000 bushels
a year, whether the quantity actually made exceeds or falls short of that number. Thus if seventy cents per bushel, the price now allowed to the lessees,
be considered proper, and one dollar be fixed on the new lease as the maximum price, the rent should be 36,000 bushels, since this would leave to the lessees
84,000 bushels, which they would sell for eighty-four thousand dollars, a sum
equal to the value of 120,000 bushels at seventy cents per bushel. It would,
of course, be agreed that the salt paid to the United States should not be sold
at a price less than that fixed by the lease, unless by common consent the
price was lowered, in which case the rent would be diminished in the same
proportion. Thus, if from the increased quantity made by the lessees, the
market price should fall below a dollar, so as to render it necessary and
-67




530           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
proper to reduce the price to eighty-four cents for instance, the rent would
be diminished to 20,000 bushels, since this would leave to the lessees 100,000
bushels, which they would sell for eighty-four thousand dollars, the value of
the 120,000 bushels at seventy cents per bushel. But it is left for you to determine whether the price of seventy cents allowed to the lessees be more
than they ought to have.
You will easily perceive the principal object of this condition, as by making the rent fixed, whatever be the quantity of salt made, it will become a
powerful inducement to.bthe lessees to make at all events the quantity agreed
on, and as much more as there will be demand for; an inducement which
will be strengthened by the other condition, that we will diminish the rent
if there be a fall in the price. But it is proper to observe that the Government contemplates the introduction of certain improvements, calculated to reduce the quantity of fuel to about one-third part of that now used, and through
that and their means to perpetuate the benefit arising to that part of the
country from a constant, certain and cheap supply of salt; and that it is,
also, in order to provide funds for that object, that it is wished that the
United States may receive a larger rent than heretofore. Although the mode
here suggested appears, for the resons above stated, preferable to that adopted
in the present lease, yet, if the next lessees should absolutely reject it, it is
not intended to forbid, in that case, a lease on the same principles as the
last, that is to say, with a reservation that the United States should receive
the whole of the salt at the rate of seventy cents or any other less price
which may be agreed on, and should sell it at such maximum price as they
may think proper-in which case the rent would arise from the difference
between the two prices. But I repeat that the conditions first stated under
this head, are considered as much better calculated to obtain the great object
in view-that of inducing the lessees to manufacture a quantity of salt equal
to the demand.
4. It will be extremely important to introduce conditions calculated effectually to prevent the waste of timber and encourage the use of coal. But
these, as they must depend upon a perfect knowledge of local circumstances,
are left entirely to your discretion. I would only suggest, that a diminution
of the rent might be allowed, in case coal should be used by the lessees.
5. There are several other conditions of less importance in the present
lease, but to which you will of course attend. It is, amongst others, necessary that the new lessees should pay to the present ones the value of kettles
etc., which the United States are bound to pay for by the present lease; and
the condition of such repayment by the United States, at the end of the
next lease, must of course be continued. In relation to the advance of two
thousand five hundred dollars heretofore made by the United States, it must,
according to the lease, be repaid by the present lessees; but it does not seem
necessary, in the present state of the works, to continue it for the next lease,
whether this be taken by the present or other lessees. That, however, ought
not to be made a sine qua non, if in your opinion there are other preponderating considerations in favor of it.




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.               531
6. The preceding outlines are drawn as if the whole Saline was, as heretofore, to be let to one individual or company. On that subject, whether it
should be let entire or divided, a decisive opinion has not been formed. On
the one hand, a greater degree of competition may be reated, and some
grounds of complaint removed by a division. But it is believed, on the
other hand, that the works can be carried on with more regularity and economy by a single company than by four separate ones. A division cannot
well take place without rendering useless some of the existing buildings and
causing an additional expense in the erection of others. For the purpose of
effecting certain contemplated improvements, it would be necessary that the
whole of the water should, as far as practicable, be brought to the same
place; and, it is also apprehended, that in case of division, either it might
become nominal by a positive or tacit agreement of the several lessees, or the
competition might degenerate into unfair opposition, quarrels and a resort to
means injurious to the works.'Upon a full view of the subject, but apprehending that several other circumstances, known only on the spot, ought to
be taken into consideration, the President has thought proper to leave that
question to your discretion. If you should decide in favor of a division, the
conditions must be the same for all; the aggregate of the quantity of salt
made and of rent paid to the United States must be equal to what has been
above stated; and it seems just that the present lessees should, if they think
proper, have their choice on equal terms, of one of the lots into which the
Saline may be divided. Whether divided or not, it must be an express condition that none of the lessees shall, directly or indirectly, be concerned with
any other salt works.
7. One of the improvements contemplated by the Government being the
erection of buildings now introduced in every saline of Continental Europe,
and known by the name of' Buildings of Graduation," and as these must
be erected on the premises let to the lessees, a condition must be inserted, that
the United States shall be at liberty to erect on the premises the above mentioned buildings, and also, to make such other improvements not interfering
with the works as they may think proper-leaving to subsequent private
agreements the conditions on which the lessees should be permitted to
use such buildings and other improvements, if they shall hereafter make
application to that effect. The lessees will not be entitled to claim payment
for any improvement made by them, unless it be of permanent nature, and
shall have been previously authorized by the Government.
8. As the time approaches for making a new lease, I send an advertisement
to the printers of Lexington, Frankfort. Louisville, Bardstown, Cincinnati,
Nashville and Vincennes, a copy of which is inclosed and which you will be
pleased to circulate, or, if necessary, to have printed in other places. In deciding between the several proposals which may be made, you will, however,
be pleased to take into consideration, not only the nature of the offer, but
also the character and capital of the parties, and generally all those circumstances which may insure a punctual compliance with the terms of the contract. Of the quantity of salt which may be made, and of the price at
which it may be made, you must be a competent judge; and proposals, arising




532           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
from ignorance or. an improper spirit of adventure, offering to make more
salt or at cheaper rate than you know it to be practicable, ought at once to
be rejected. Indisputable security must also be obtained in the same manner as heretofore. You will also be pleased to insert, as in the present lease,
a reservation for the approbation of the President, and transmit for that purpose to this Department the writings, duly executed by the parties.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, your Excellency's
Obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTAENT, 3larcch 14, 1810.
Sir 
I had the honor to receive your letter of February 5th, inclosing the lease
of the Saline to John Taylor, Charles Wilkins and Jas. Morrison, which was
laid before the President of the United States, and has been by him approved
and ratified. Of this, I will thank you to inform the lessees; and I can only
add my entire satisfaction of the results.
Your letter of the 9th ulto. has been received, and I think that the mode
which you propose for the disposal of the salt on hand is the best which can
be adopted. I will thank you to direct Mr. White to pay the money on hand
or which may be received in the Bank of Frankfort, to the credit of the
Treasurer of the United States-keeping only as much as may be sufficient to
pay his salary and to defray contingent expenses. He must take duplicate
receipts of those payments in bank, and send one to this office. It will also
be eligible, in taking the lessees' notes for the payment of the salt on hand,
to make them payable also in Bank at Frankfort, and to have the amount,
when thus paid, likewise passed to the credit of the Treasurer of the United
States.
Be pleased also to recollect that the former lessees must repay the advance
of    -    dollars, made to them by the Government, at the commencement of
the lease.
I have the honor to be,
Respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, June 29, 1810.
Sir:
The lessees of the United States Saline having represented to me that, in
consequence of the large supply of salt in the Western country, there is great
difficulty in making sales, and having proposed that a reduction in the price




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NIN1AN EDWARDS.               533
should be made conformably to a provision in the lease, I have submitted the
subject to the President, who has approved of a reduction of the price to the
rate of seventy-five cents a bushel. This reduction is to take effect from the
1st of September next, after which day the salt of the United States, as well
as that of the lessees, is to be sold at the Saline at seventy-five cents per bushel
— of which circumstance you will please to apprise the agent.
A proportionable reduction in the rent being stipulated in the lease to take
place whenever a reduction should be made, by mutual consent, in the price
of the salt, I have annexed to the foot of this letter the calculations by which
the ratio or reduction is ascertained. The result is, that the rent, from the
1st September next to the 1st March, 1811, will be at the rate of 6,333 bushels
per annum, or 3,167 bushels for those six months; and for the two ensuing
years 5,500 bushels a year. But this calculation being on the supposition that
they will have reduced the consumption of fuel in the manner stipulated for
in the lease, if they fail in that respect the rent will then be for the six
months, from 1st of September to 1st March next, at the rate of 13,333 bushels
ler annum, or 6,660 bushels for those six months; and for the two succeeding
years 12,500 bushels a year. The lease provides that the salt shall not be sold
at a less price than eighty-seven and one-half cents, unless that price shall be
lessened by the consent of the lessees, etc.; and although the application which
the lessees have made for a reduction of the price may be considered as an
expression of their consent, yet, for the sake of precision, it will be most advisable that an article should be executed, in which shall be expressly stated
the reduction of the price to seventy-five cents, and the consequent reduction
in the rent, in the way above stated.
I have referred the lessees to you for this purpose, and directed them to
empower some person to execute an article of the foregoing tenor.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, July 5, 1810.
Sir 
I had the honor to receive, by this day's mail, your letter of 5th ult., with
its inclosures. As the distance of Kaskaskia from the seat of government
might produce delays prejudicial to the object in view, you will be pleased
to consider yourself as fully authorized to take any measures and to make any
arrangement which you will think most eligible for the disposal of the salt
of the United States-whether proceeding from the purchases under the old
lease or from the rent under the new. I had, however, understood the sale of
the old salt to the new lessees to have been concluded, and, under that impression, transmitted the President's permission to lessen the price of salt.
As this was done in order to promote the general object, and without regard
to the loss of revenue arising therefrom, I cannot suppose the lessees will hesitate to comply with the agreement for the purchase of the old salt on the




534           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
terms first proposed; and you are authorized to suspend the reduction of price
until that is complied with.
I inclose an authenticated copy of the bond for the advance of money to
the former lessees, which, on repayment thereof, you will be pleased to deliver to them, with a receipt in full annexed thereto. If the money be paid
to you, you will deposit the amount to the credit of the Treasurer, in the
Bank of Kentucky. But it will be more simple and probably more convenient that the former lessees should pay the money there, themselves, and
transmit to you the cashier's receipt, which will be the evidence on which you
will give your own receipt on the copy of the bond. In either case duplicate
receipts from the cashier should be taken, one of which to be sent to this
office.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, July 11, 1810.
Sir:
I am honored with yours of the 22d ult.; and having already, by mine of
5th inst., stated that you were authorized to take any steps, for the sale of the
salt, which you might think proper, I will only add that you are also requested to judge, in the manner most convenient to yourself, whether that re.
duction of fuel has taken place, which, according to the true intention of the
lease, must produce the reduction in the rent from 30,000 to 24,000 bushels of
salt.
I have the honor to be, respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
WASHINGTON, July 16, 1810.
Sir:
Your friendly letter, of 23d June, is this moment received. I have done no
act or given no opinion relative to the land claims in the Illinois Territory,
but such as necessarily flowed from my official duties. Of such I must abide
by the consequence-be it what it may. From the sound rule of audi alteram
partem I never will depart; but it is true that the report of our officers is not
calculated to produce favorable impressions for some of the land claimants.
Having done nothing but officially, I would have no objection that all my
communications to the land commissioners should be seen by all the claimants.




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINTAN EDWARDS.              535
And, not knowing what use is made of my name, I cannot say whether it is
done improperly or not.
With thanks for your friendly communication and friendly disposition,
I remain, with cordiality and respect,
Your obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. EDWARDS.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, August 1, 1810.
Sir:
I had the honor to receive your letters of 28th and 30th June. You are fully
authorized to take all such measures, respecting the disposition of the old
salt, either by arrangement with the lessees or otherwise, as you may think
most eligible, losing sight neither of the public interest, in that respect, nor
of the great object of encouraging the manufacture of the article.'With a
view to the last point, it will be best, if practicable, not to disagree with the
lessees; but the decision is left entirely to your discretion.
Before any answer can be given, respecting the improvement of the navigation of the creek, the plan and estimate of expense must be submitted, by the
lessees, to the President. The erection of a mill, at public expense, is, inadmissible. Your suggestion, respecting the walls etc., to prevent the wells
being overflowed, is approved, and the expense will be allowed, provided the
work is made in a permanent manner.
I have the honor to be, respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
WAR DEPARTMENT, March 12, 1811.
Sir:
In making out the commision for the gentleman you were pleased to recommend for the office of Brigadier-General of the militia of the Illinois Territory, also in the letter addressed to him, inclosing the commission, an error was
made in the first name: in the place of Elias Rector it should have been William Rector. If you will be so good as to have the commission returned to
this Department, the mistake will be rectified.
I am, very respectfully, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
W. EUSTIS.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS.




536            OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
WAR DEPARTMENT, June 26, 1811.
Sir:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's letter of
the 7th inst.
A reasonable compensation to an interpreter, whose services may be necessary in an intercourse with the Indians, as well as an indemnity for provisions issued to them on their necessary visits, including such presents as in
the judgment of your Excellency it may be proper and expedient to make to
them, will be allowed. These expenses will be regulated by your discretion
and judgment, and may be provided for by bills drawn on the Department or
by the transmission of money, as may appear to your Excellency to be most
convenient. Moneys advanced for these purposes, will be accounted for to
the accountant of the War Department, on such vouchers as the nature of
the case will admit.
I have the honor to be,
Your Excellency's most obedient servant,
W. EUSTIS.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Illinois Territory.
WAR DEPARTMENT, June 4, 1812.:Sir:
Your letters of May 6th and 12th have been received.
The militia which have been called out by your Excellency will be paid.
Their accounts should be rendered as pointed out for the pay of the rangers,
and transmitted to the paymaster of the army in this city.
The subalterns recommended for Capt. Whiteside's company, will be nominated for those appointments.
I remain, respectfully,
Your Excellency's obedient servant,
W. EUSTIS.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Illinois Territory.
WAR DEPARTMENT, July 9, 1812.
Sir:
As emergencies may arise requiring an additional military force on the
frontiers of the Indiana and Illinois Territories, the Governors of those Territories have been authorized to request of your Excellency, in the event of
such emergency, detachments of militia from the State of Kentucky, and I
am instructed by the President to request of your Excellency to furnish any
detachments which may be required, which will be considered as a part of
the quota detached, conformably to the law passed April 10th, 1812.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
Your Excellency's most obedient servant,
W. EUSTIS.
To Gov. CHARLES SCOTT, Kentucky.




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.              537
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, 
GENERAL LAND OFFICE, May 10, 1813 
Sir:
Your letter of the 13th March last to the Secretary of the Treasury, communicating the understanding which has taken place between you and the
lessees of the Wabash Saline, that they should continue to work it on the old
terms, till the will of the President be known, has been received, and Mr.
Gallatin having left the seat of government, in order to proceed on his mission to Russia, it has been handed to me. I have consulted the President on
the subject, and he is pleased to direct that the temporary arrangement made
by you should be continued till you can substitute one which had been sug.
gested by Mr. Gallatin previous to the receipt of your letter-the nature of
which you will understand from the inclosed copy of Mr. Gallatin's letter to
me, dated 17th ulto.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
EDWARD TIFFIN, Gommissioner.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT,      f
GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Sept. 8, 1813.
Sir:
Yours of the 17th ulto. has been received. In answer to which I can only
call your attention (to the instructions given by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 25th August, 1809) to the late lease and my former communication.
The present embarrassed state of the country on account of the Indian depredations, will inevitably leave much to the exercise of your sound discretion;
but, keeping the great leading objects of the Government in view, of which
you are already well informed, relative to the Saline, and retaining a clause
subjecting the terms to the approbation of the President of the United States,
you cannot fail in discharging this trust satisfactorily.
In case the old lessees do not again take the works, I suppose the new ones
ought to pay the value of the improvements.
With great respect,
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
EDWARD TIFFIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, at Russellville, Logan county, Kentucky.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, T
GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Jan. 10, 1814.
Sir:
Yours of the 8th and 9th of November have been received, and I lost no
time in presenting the several subjects referred to before the President of the
-68




538           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
United States; but, owing to the great press of national business, neither
he nor the acting Secretary of the Treasury could, before this period, devote
time to the consideration thereof. I am now instructed to inform you, that
it will be best to let Pittway & Co. off from their proposals for leasing the
Wabash Saline, and you are requested to issue advertisements in such papers
as you suppose best calculated to give extensive information, that you will
attend at such day at the Saline as you can conveniently and as soon as practicable, to receive proposals for leasing the works for three years, from and
after such day as you may propose to make the lease-giving the present occupants notice that they may continue to work the Saline until the day so
fixed upon, on the same conditions that they now have them-for it will be
impossible to have the preparatory arrangements made before the 1st March,
when their period expires. The Government expects that the present occupants, or any others who desire to take the works, may afford to give at least
thirty thousand bushels of salt per annum-for you are authorized, in the
lease to be given, to allow the persons who may take the Saline, to sell all the
salt they may make, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per bushel, instead,
as heretofore, at seventy-five cents. This will enable the people of that country
to obtain salt cheaper than anywhere else in the Union, and will justify the
Government in expecting, and the occupants of the Saline in giving, in
future, thirty thousand bushels rent or an equivalent in money, at their option.
These instructions, with those heretofore given, will regulate you in making
a future lease, still subject to the approbation of the President of the United
States, who will doubtless approve of it, if made agreeably to your instructions.
With respect to the compensation you ask, for the expense, etc., of attending to this business, this subject is under consideration and the result you shall
be duly informed of. I think, with you, that you ought to be paid.
With great respect,
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
EDWARD TIFFIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, 
GENERAL LAND OFFICE, April 20, 1814.
Sir: 
The President of the United States has approved the lease lately entered
into by John Bates & Co. for the United States Saline near the Wabash, and
I am instructed to request you to notify the lessees accordingly.
I am well pleased with the great attention you have paid to this business,
and am of opinion that you ought to be compensated therefor, which opinion
I have urged upon the Secretary of the Treasury. He is so entirely taken
up with the important, pressing duties lately devolved upon him, that he
cannot yet awhile devote time to the consideration of compensation, but soon




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.              539
will have more leisure. In the meantime, I think you might make out and
forward an account-for no public moneys can be paid unless founded' upon
an account for services, etc. This account will then be attended to by me in
your behalf, and of which I will apprize you. Your suggestion of leaving it
to the discretion of the President is inadmissible, for it is too indelicate to
trouble him with its consideration.
With great respect, I am,
Your obedient servant,
EDWARD TIFFIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Illinois Territory.
WASHINGTON, June 18, 1814.
Sir 
I have received yours and Mr. White's, relative to your remuneration for
expenses while attending the United States interests at the Saline, both of
which I have laid before the honorable the Secretary of the Treasury, and
given my opinion that the charge ought to be allowed. He appeared to acquiesce, and I will inform you when I am apprised of the result.
With great respect, I am,
Your obedient servant,
EDWARD TIFFIN.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Sidney Grove, Illinois Territory.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Nov. 23, 1814.
Sir:
I have had the honor to peruse your letter of the 18th October last, to the
Hon. Mr. Stephenson, on the subject of supplies for the Kaskaskia Indians.
I have to request your Excellency will supply these Indians with money and
clothing to the amount of their annuity, if in your power to procure them in
the Illinois Territory-for the payment of which your bills on this department will be duly honored.
I have the honor to be,
Respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
JAMES MONROE.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT,     v
GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Dec. 12, 1814. 
Sir:
Your favor of November 7th has been received, If the salt lick, which
you state to have been discovered by Conrad Will and his associates, lies in
the district of Shawneetown or Kaskaskia, you will be pleased to refer him




540          OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
to the register of the land office for the district in which the lick lies, to obtain a lease; if it is not in either district, you will be pleased to execute a
lease, not exceeding three years, on such terms as you think just, subject to
the approbation of the President of the United States. In my opinion the
rent ought not to be less than the interest of the purchase money of the tract
leased, with a clause to prevent waste of timber on the adjacent tracts.
I am, very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
J. MEIGS.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, July 31, 1815.
Sir 
I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 15th ulto. It is cause of
real regret to me that, in the recent correspondence between this Department
and the agent at the Saline, the circumstance of your having been formally
invested with the direction and superintendence of the Saline was not recollected. I beg you to be assured, however, that it was never contemplated to
withdraw the confidence heretofore so justly placed in you, and that you will
be pleased to consider yourself as possessing the entire direction of the,
Wabash Saline, any instructions to Mr. White from this office to the contrary
notwithstanding.
With respect to the disposal of the salt already received and to be received
from the lessees, for rent, I will only observe, that the mode, time and place
of making the sales, are wholly committed to your discretion.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
A. J. DALLAS.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Feb. 28, 1817.
Sir:
As that part of the Illinois Territory west of the Illinois River will probably be settled with great rapidity, so soon as the soldiers' lands are brought
into market, it will become desirable, in order to connect the settlements in
the Territory, to procure a cession of the lands lying between those ceded by
the Kaskaskia Indians, on the 13th of August, 1803, and the Illinois River,
so as to include all the lands lying between the western boundary of that
cession and the above mentioned river. I am, therefore, instructed by the
President, to request that you would take measures to ascertain whether the
Indians claiming that land, would be disposed to relinquish it. It is also
desirable to know whether there are any conflicting Indian claims to the
whole or any part of the above described tract of land.




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.              541
So soon as you can ascertain the temper of the Indians on this subject, you
will advise this Department; and should they be disposed to make a cession,
you will be authorized to hold a treaty with them for that purpose.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect,
Your obedient servant,
GEO. GRAHAM
Acting Secretary of War.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Illinois Territory.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, March 1, 1817.
Sir:
You will, without delay, transmit to the Governor of the Illinois Territory
an authority to lease, for the term of three years, the United States Saline,
now occupied by John Bates. It is deemed expedient to leave it to the discretion of His Excellency to lease the whole premises to one individual or
company, or to grant separate leases for distinct portions of that property.
In this, as in every other case, the public interest will be promoted by competition, if there exists no particular reason against it. Of this Gov. Edwards will judge. In fixing the price of the salt, the practicability of selling
it ought to have great influence.
As it is presumed, from the representations of Mr. Bates, the present lessee
has but little if any salt on hand, a stipulation for the sale of that which remains unsold, in the hands of the Government, may be inserted in the new
contract.
In valuing the improvements made by Mr. Bates, during the existence of
the lease, it may be useful to value the improvements which he received upon
entering the premises, distinguishing them from those which he made. I understand that it is customary on making a new line of pipes, to use the old
pipes which are represented to be of cypress or gum, which are extremely
durable. It will be desirable, also, to obtain from Gov. Edwards the practice, under that provision of the leases heretofore made, which relates to the
remuneration of the lessee for his improvements. Has it been customary to
repay him the amount which he paid, on entering, to the preceding lessee?
The lease makes no provision for such repayment; but it is contended here,
by some of the lessees, that such was the understanding of the parties, and
the practice under the preceding leases.
I have the honor to be, etc.,
WILLIAM. H. CRAWFORD.
To JosIAx  MEIGS, ESQ., Commissioner of the General Land Oice.




542           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, March 19, 1817.
Sir:
The lessees of the Saline, on the waters of the Ohio, who preceded Mr.
Bates, in the order of time, allege that they have not received that compensation for the improvements which they made upon the premises, during the
existence of their lease, to which they were entitled under it; and that they
have received nothing for the improvements which were upon the premises
antecedent to their occupancy of them, which were either made by them or
their value advanced to those by whom they were made. They allege that
your instructions excluded from the valuation which was set on foot, at the
expiration of their lease, many improvements which are fairly comprehended
by the letter and spirit of the lease; in consequence of which, one of the
appraisers, as the agent or friend of the former lessees, declined the execution
of the duty assigned him, and compromised the matter with Mr. Bates, by
agreeing to accept a gross sum, without regard to the value of the improvements. It may be proper to observe, that the lease makes no provision for
the repayment of any sum, which may be advanced by a lessee upon taking
possession of the premises, for the improvements which have been made by
those who have preceded him. This omission must have been the result of
design or of accident. It may have been the intention of the Government to
retain as permanent improvements, at the expiration of each successive lease,
everything which had been put upon the premises during the existence of the
antecedent and prior leases-considering the use of the property by the subsequent lessee, during the continuance of his lease, as a fair equivalent for the
sum paid upon taking possession of the premises; or it may have been the
result of a conclusion that such improvements would cease to be useful at the
expiration of the second lease after they were made, or from the difficulty of
distinguishing between the improvements made in successive leases, or from
the constant changes in the value of those improvements. I understand that,
in addition to the ordinary causes of change in the value of those improvements, the lessees are in the habit of breaking up one line of pipes and making
another, using, however, the original pipes for the new line. In cases of this
kind, it is manifest, that if the new line is considered an improvement for
which the actual lessee is entitled to compensation, the Government will be
subject to great injustice if the lessee is also entitled to receive back the
amount paid by him for the line of pipes so changed during his lease. Notwithstanding the view here presented, it may have been the understanding
of the parties that they were to receive, upon the expiration of their leases,
the value of the improvements which they found upon the premises, and
which were left by them in the same state of preservation and usefulness as
they were received. It is true that the contracts in question have not been
long enough in existence to establish anything like a special custom which,
in a court of law or even of equity, would be permitted to control the rules
of construction in relation to such contracts; but in a case of this kind the
Government is willing that the legal construction of those leases should yield
to the fair and explicit understanding of the lessees and the officer of the




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.               543
Government charged with the execution of that duty, at the time the leases
were made. Under this view of the subject, the lessees who preceded Mr.
Bates are referred to you for a decision upon their claim for additional allowance. How far the person who acted as their agent, and entered into an
agreement with Mr. Bates, by which a gross sum was paid for the improvements, ought to bind them, and how far their subsequent conduct has made
his act their own, notwithstanding there may have been a defect of authority
originally, is'also referred to your decision. The evidence upon that point in
the possession of this Department is very slight indeed. It is presumed that
all the circumstances are known to you, and that if they are not, they can be
easily obtained from Mr. Bates. It has, however, been intimated that some
difficulty occurred in obtaining from Mr. Bates the amount agreed by him to
be paid. If this intimation is well founded, the clearest evidence of their
subsequent sanction of the arrangement can be obtained. If this compromise
has placed the United States in a worse situation than if it had not been
made, the censure ought to fall upon the lessees. The whole subject, however,
is referred to your Excellency, with a request that you will do what is right
and proper; and that if you feel any difficulty in deciding upon all or either
of the points involved in it, you will favor me with your views upon it.
I have the honor to be,
Your Excellency's most obedient and humble servant,
WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD,
To NINIAN EDWARDS, Governor of Illinois Territory, Kaskaskia.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, March 26, 1817.
Sir:
All the Indian Agents within the Illinois Territory, except the one at Green
Bay, having been placed under your superintendence, as Governor of that
Territory, you will take the necessary measures for causing the agents to make
their reports and render their accounts, through you, to this Department. All
bills (except for their own pay) drawn by them on this Department, must receive your sanction before they can be paid; and as all accounts in relation
to Indian affairs are, in pursuance of a late law, to be settled at the Treasury,
by the Fifth Auditor, it becomes necessary that the agents should, at the expiration of each quarter, draw for the expenses incurred during the quarter;
the amount to be included, as far as practicable, in the same bill, accompanied
by a letter of advice and a particular account of the expenditures, which expenditures should receive your approbation.
The state of the appropriation for the Indian Department requires the
most strict and rigorous economy in the expenditures; those for rations and
presents have very much exceeded the amount which the appropriations of
the present year will admit, and will therefore require very considerable reductions. The regulations prescribed by this Department, on the 7th of May,
1816, in relation to the issues of rations, should be strictly adhered to; and
you should cause a report of the amount of the issues of rations to Indians,




544           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
at each post within the Territory, to be made to you; the whole amount of
the expenditure for the Indian Department, within the Illinois Territory, including rations, presents, contingencies, salaries of agents, etc., must be
limited to $25,000 per annum; and you will apportion this sum among the
several agencies, including that for civilization, in such manner as you think
proper.
Mr. McKenney will be instructed to forward to you six thousand dollars'
worth of goods, to be assorted into three parcels of two thousand dollars
each, as presents. He will also forward the amount of annuities payable to
the Indians in the Illinois Territory. Those for the Sacs and Foxes will, for
the present year, be sent to St. Louis, as it is uncertain in which of the Territories the greater part of these tribes reside. Gov. Clark and yourself will
agree on the point where they are in future to be delivered, and advise this
Department thereof.
The Agent for Civilization cannot be furnished, and will not require, for
the present year, any other mechanics than a blacksmith and a wheelwright.
The sum allowed to his agency must necessarily be limited by the amount
placed at your disposal. The sum estimated by him for the construction of
houses is totally inadmissible at present. Accommodations must be procured
by the aid of the troops stationed at Peoria, and with such funds as you may
be able to appropriate to that object out of those placed at your disposal.
The orders of this Department, dated October 21, 1816, requiring the agents
to reside within their respective agencies, must be strictly enforced. It is observed that Mr. Forsyth, who was ordered to report to you, is still at St. Louis.
If you have no occasion for his services within your Territory, you will advise
Gov. Clark thereof, who will be instructed to employ him, if his services are
required in the Missouri Territory; if not, to discharge him.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect, sir,
Your obedient servant,
GEORGE GRAHAM,
Acting Secretary of War.
To Gov. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory,
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Nov. 1, 1817.
Gentlemen:
I have the honor to inclose you a commission for the purpose of treating
with the Illinois, the Kickapoos, the Pottawottamies and other tribes of Indians within the Illinois Territory. The object of this negotiation is to ob:
tain a cession from the tribes who may have a claim to it, of all that tract of
land which lies between the most northeastern point of boundary of the lands
ceded by Lthe Kaskaskias, in August, 1803, the Sangamo and the Illinois
Rivers; and which tract of land completely divided the settled parts of the
Illinois Territory from that part which lies between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and which has been lately surveyed for the purpose of satisfying




OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWSARDS.              545
the Military land bounties, a circumstance which makes the acquisition of this
tract of country peculiarly desirable.
If either of the tribes who have a claim to the land is desirous of exchanging their claim for lands on the west of the Mississippi, you are authorized
to make the exchange; and your extensive local knowledge of the country
will enable you to designate that part of it where it would be most desirable
to locate the lands to be given as an equivalent. To other tribes, who may not
wish to remove, you will allow such an annuity, for a fixed period, as you may
deem an adequate compensation for the relinquishment of their respective
claims. To enable you to give the usual presents on such occasions, you are
authorized to draw on this Department for $6,000.
The contractor will furnish, on the requisition of either of you, the rations
that may be necessary for the supply of the Indians while attending the
treaty. Your compensation will be at the rate of eight dollars a day for the
time actually engaged in treating with the Indians; and that of the secretary,
whom you are authorized to appoint, will be at the rate of five dollars a day.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect,
Your obedient servant,
GEORGE GRAHAM,
Acting Secretary of War.
To Govs. WAr. CLARK and NINIAN EDWARDS.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Nov. 1, 1817.
Sir:
Your letter of the 7th ult., recommending the appointment of B. Stephenson, Esq., as a Major-General of the militia of the Illinois Territory, has been
received, and will be duly attended to, when the Senate is in session. You
will receive, by this mail, a commission to treat with the Indians claiming the
lands lying between those ceded by the Kaskaskias, in 1803, and the Illinois
River.
As it is not only desirable but indispensably necessary that the boundary
lines of all the lands ceded by the Indians should be established and well
marked, the President has appointed Richard Graham, Indian agent, and
- Phillips to act as Commissioners, for the purpose of running and marking, in conjunction with two chiefs to be appointed by the Indians, such
boundary lines of the lands ceded by the Indians within the Illinois Territory
a~ you may deem necessary. The lines will be run at the expense of the United States, and the two chiefs who may be designated to attend the commissioners will receive a compensation not less than that of the commissioners.
I would recommend that a contract be made with the principal surveyor,
Mr. Rector, for running and marking the lines at a given sum per mile-the
surveyors furnishing everything necessary for that purpose. As a specific appropriation will be asked for this object, I will thank you to advise this De-69




546           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
partment, at as early a period as convenient, what would be the probable expense of running and marking the lines, independent of the expense and compensation to the commissioners..It is very desirable to have the boundary of that tract of land ceded by the
treaty of August, 1816, and lying between the Illinois River and Lake Michigan, established, and a particular report made of the quality. If that tract
of land was surveyed and settled, it would very much facilitate the migrations
to the Illinois Territory from New England and the State of New York, by
means of the lake navigation.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect,
Your obedient servant,
GEORGE GRAHAM,
Acting Sec'y War.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
OFFICE OF INDIAN TRADE,    l
GEORGETOWN, January 17, 1818. 
Sir:
I am honored with your communication, bearing date 10th ult., and exceedingly regret that interruptions should have retarded the more speedy arrival
of the Indian annuities connected with your agency. I know how unfriendly
such disappointments must be in their operation on the Indian mind; but
the remedy does not lie in this Department. Orders are issued for those supplies and for the presents by the War Department, and as soon as this office
receives them, or with as little delay thereafter as is possible, the orders are
executed and the merchandize transported. It will, no doubt, comport with
the facility of operation to have the St. Louis agency organized; although
Mr. Kennerly, who acts as agent there, is a very attentive man, yet it is probable it might be more actively exercised. There is always difficulty in getting off the presents or the annuities together, or all at the same time; and
that difficulty is not lessened much as they progress-the means of transportation being scarce, sometimes retards the progress of the goods. But no delay takes place after the orders are given, more than the time required for
packing, unless, as it sometimes happens, wagons cannot be had.
I will use any additional exertions that I may be able to call up, to prevent
a recurrence of similar delays in future; but should a depot be organized at
St. Louis, the goods could arrive there no sooner-because I cannot anticipate
the orders-and beyond that point, again, their movement would depend upon activity in the agent.
I will not forget to name to the Secretary of War your intimation for additional presents.
I am, with great respect, sir,
Your obedient servant,
THOMAS L. McKENNEY.
To HON. NINAN EDWARDS.




OPPICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.              547
OFFICE OF INDIAN TRADE,     f
GEORGETOWN, D. C., May 8, 1818.
Sir:
I have the honor herewith to inclose you several invoices of merchandize
provided and transported to you, via Pittsburgh, pursuant to instructions received from the honorable the Secretary of War, bearing date March 5th, 1818.
First-Invoice made up of packages from No. 1 to No. 4, inclusive, amounting to $2,000, to be distributed by you, in presents, to the Indians at Kaskas,
kia.
Second-Invoice made up of packages from No. 1 to No. 12, inclusive,
amounting, also, to $2,000, to be distributed by you, in presents, to the Indians
at Prairie du Chien.
Third-Invoice made up of packages from No. 1 to No. 13, amounting,
also, to $2,000, to be distributed by you, in presents, to the Indians at Peoria.
Fourth-Invoice made up of packages from No. 1 to No. 5, inclusive, amounting to $800, to be paid over to the Piankeshaws-it being in full their annuity due for the year 1818.
Fifth-Invoice made up of packages from No. 1 to No 6, inclusive, amounting to $1,000, to be paid over by you to the Ottaways, Chippeways, and Pottawottamies of St. Louis and south-western parts of Lake Michigan-it being
in full for their annuity due them for the year 1818.
These goods are all progressing, and many of them, if not the whole, are by
this time beyond Pittsburgh. The powder and tobacco will join them at
Louisville, where I have proVided them.
I sincerely hope these goods and their varieties will prove acceptable to the
wants and the tastes of the Indians for whom they are intended. It will afford me pleasure to have this hope realized, by a letter from you, after they
shall have undergone examination.
Be so good as to forward to me, as soon after the arrival of the merchandize
as possible, receipted copies of the invoices, with a view to a speedy adjustment of my accounts on the books of the Treasury.
Only $500 were directed, by the War Department, to be provided for the
Kaskaskias' annuity this year; for $400 of which you have drawn, which
leaves $100 due-for which $100 you are authorized to draw on me, as Superintendent of Indian Trade.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect, sir,
Your obedient servant,
THOMAS L. McKENNEY.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, May 16, 1818.
Sir:
It has been represented to this Department that the establishment of a blacksmith's shop, at Prairie du Chien, would be beneficial to the Indian Department,




548           OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.
If your Excellency should think it proper, you are authorized to employ a
suitable smith, at reasonable terms, for one year. The experiment that will
be made in that time will enable this Department to decide whether or not
it be proper to continue the shop.
I have the honor to be,
Your Excellency's most obedient servant,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To HON. NINIAN EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Mlay 25, 1818.
Sir:
I inclose you a copy of a resolution of the House of Representatives, passed
at their late session, by which you will perceive that it is contemplated to
abolish the present system of Indian trade, and to leave it, under suitable regulations, open to individuals. What those regulations ought to be can be
judged of, fully and correctly, by those only who have their knowledge from
experience with the Indian character and affairs. I have, therefore, to request
your Excellency to afford me your ideas on the subject of the resolution, as
early as practicable, in order that I may avail myself of them, in reporting to
the House, at their next session. It would afford me pleasure to have your
ideas, also, on the relative merit of tke present system as it is, or with the improvements of which it is susceptible, and the one proposed to be substituted.
I have the honor t6 be
Your obedient servant,
J. C. CALHOUN.
To Gov. EDWARDS, Kaskaskia, Illinois.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, March 12, 1829.
Sir:
Your letter of the 9th ult., addressed to the Commissioner of the General
Land Office, advising of your having drawn bills on account of the three per
cent. fund, due to the State of Illinois, and requesting payment to be made at
the Treasury, has been referred to me.
The act of Congress, of the 12th of December, 1820, entitled "An act for the
payment to the State of Illinois, three per cent. of the net proceeds arising
from the sales of public lands within the same," directs that "An annual
account of the application of the money be transmitted to the Secretary of
the Treasury, and, in default of such return being made, the Secretary of the
Treasury is required to withhold the payment of any sums that may be then
due or which may thereafter become due, until a return shall be made as herein required."
This provision of the act not having been complied with, on the part of the
State of Illinois, and the act seeming to leave no discretion, I have been constrained to decline the payment of one of the bills mentioned in your letter



OFFICIAL LETTERS TO NINIAN EDWARDS.              549
which has this day been presented for payment; but the holder has, at the
same time, been informed that the bill is for part of a sum now due to the
State of Illinois, and that immediately upon the receipt of the return required
by law, payment would be made.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect, sir,
Your obedient servant,
S. D. INGHAM.
To Gov. N. EDWARDS, Belleville, Illinois.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, May 13, 1829.
Sir:
Your Excellency's letter, of the 2d ult., was duly received; and, subsequently, that of your Excellency and the other Commissioners, dated on the 1st ult.,
inclosing an account of the disposition of the sums which have been paid to
them for the encouragement of learning, within the State of Illinois, under
the act of the 12th of December, 1820.
It would have afforded great satisfaction to the Department to have found,
in that account and in the explanations presented in your Excellency's communications, a justification for the payment of the drafts of the Commissioners for the amount which has subsequently accrued. But the law must be
the rule of action; and as the Department cannot consider the investment
which the account shows to have been made of the moneys hitherto paid in
purchasing the State debt as an application of those moneys, according to
law, it deems itself prohibited by law from making any further payment until an account is presented, showing the application of the sums already paid
to the purposes for which alone the law declares they shall be applied.
It is a cause of sincere regret to the Department that, with the strongest
desire to regard as correct such a disposition of the funds in question as the
authorities of the State of Illinois might have deemed proper, it has not found
grounds to concur in the views which they have taken of the subject.
Anxious, as an occasion of so much delicacy and interest, that the State
should not suffer by any error of judgment, on my part, I have submitted the
whole subject to the notice of the President, who has been pleased to approve
of the course which has been adopted.
I have the honor to be,
Yery respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
ASBURY DICKENS.
Acting Sec'y Treasury.
To Gov.. N. EDWARDS.




APPENDIX.-NOTES.
NOTE TO PAGES 7 AND 8.-The form of government established by the
resolutions and ordinances of 1784 was in accordance with the principles of
the patriots of our Revolution, as will be seen from the following extracts:
Resolutions offered by Mr. Jefferson at a meeting of the freeholders of Albemarle on the 26th
July, 1774.
"Resolved, That the inhabitants of the several States of British America are
subject to the laws which they adopted at their first settlement, and to such
others as have been since made by their respective Legislatures, duly constituted and appointed with their own consent; that no other Legislature
whatever can rightfully exercise authority over them."
"But that we do not point out to His Majesty the injustice of these acts,
with intent to rest on that principle the cause of their nullity, but to show
that experience confirms the propriety of those political principles which
exempt us from the jurisdiction of the British Parliament.  The true ground
on which we declare these acts void is that the British Parliament has no right to
exercise authority over us."-[A Summary View of the Rights of British America,
by Jefferson.
"Can any one reason be assigned why 160,000 electors in Great Britain
should give law to 4,000,000 in America; every individual of whom is equal
to every individual of them, in virtue, in understanding and in bodily
strength? Were this to be admitted, instead of being a free people, we should
suddenly be found the slaves not of one, but of one hundred and sixty thousand tyrants."-Randall's Life of Jefferson, pages 95 and ante.
It was declared by the first Congress, in 1774, "that the foundation of
English liberty, and of all free government, was the right of the people to
participate in the legislative power; and they were entitled to a free and exclu-.sive power of legislation.ina all matters of internal policy in their provincial
Legislatures, where the right of legislation can alone be preserved, and that
by emigration they have not forfeited, surrendered or lost any of those
rights."
The Congress of the Colonies, in their plan for an accommodation with
Great Britain, in 1775, "insisted on the repeal of the obnoxious acts, the
undisturbed exercise, by the respective colonies, of the powers of internal legislation, and the free enjoyment of the rights of conscience; but conceded to
Great Britain the power to regulate the trade of the whole empire." In the




APPENDIX.-NOTES.                         II
enumeration of their injuries, they said, "By one statute it is declared that
Parliament can of right make laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever. What
is to defend us against so unlimited a power? Not a single man of those
who assume it is chosen by us."
" Rather than submit to the right of legislating for us assumed by the British Parliament," wrote Mr. Jefferson, from Monticello, in 1774, "I would lend
my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean."
Recognizing the right of each Colony to regulate its internal policy, Benjamin Franklin submitted to the Congress of 1775, an outline for the confederacy of the Colonies, which provided "that each Colony was to retain and
amend its own laws and constitution, according to its separate discretion,
while the powers of the General Government were to include all questions of
war, peace and alliance, commerce, currency and the establishment of posts,
the army, navy and Indian affairs, and the management of lands not yet
ceded by the natives."
Virginia, in her Bill of Rights, in 1776, declared' "that elections of members or representatives of the people ought to be free, and no one ought to
be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own
consent or that of their representatives, nor bound by any law to which they
have not assented." And in the instruction of their delegates in Congress by
the Colonies, nearly all of them insisted "that the power of forming government for, and the regulation of the internal concerns of each Colony be left
to their respective Colonial Legislatures,"
NOTE TO PAGE 147.-Among the letters referred to on page 147, for the
purpose of showing the high estimation in which Gov. Edwards was held
after his controversy with Mr. Crawford, I omitted to state that Gen. Jackson
thus assured him on May 6th, 1829:  I now understand the state of parties
well in Illinois, and am resolved to sustain your friends, and can with truth say,
if your friends have not heretofore been noticed, it is because you have not written and notified me of your wishes." Very soon after this, Dr. B. F. Edwards,
his brother, received the appointment of Receiver of the Land Office; the Rev.
Samuel H. Thompson, who was the candidate for the office of Lieutenant-Governor on the same ticket with him in his canvass for Governor, that of Register
of the Land Office, and the Hon. David J. Baker, who received the appointment from him of United States' Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the
death of Senator McLean, was appointed United States' District Attorney, of
whom Senator Kane, in a letter to Gov. Edwards, says, " Your appointee, Mr.
Baker, has behaved with much prudence and like a man of good sense. I
have become attached to him and will take some fit occasion to give him
some substantial proof of my good opinion." Gen. Duff. Green also, in a
letter to Gov. Edwards, dated September 6, 1826, says: " You will find Gen.
Jackson your friend. I have seen and conversed with him, and I know that
he thinks better of Mr. Cook than of any of the party who voted against
him." The Hon. Nathaniel Pope, Judge, and Wm. H. Brown, Clerk of the
United States' Court, Col. Thomas Mather, President of the State Bank, and
the following persons who were appointed or elected to office during his ad



III                         APPENDIX.-NOTES.
ministration: Alexander P. Field, Secretary of State; George Forquer, Attorney-General; E. C. Berry, Auditor; Hon. R. M. Young, Judge of the only
Circuit Court-were his warmest personal and political friends, as was also
Judge Breese, who, though at that time very young but very distinguished for
his talents and learning, had held the offices of Postmaster, Secretary of State,
State's Attorney, and District Attorney of the United States-all of which he
filled with honor. In the continuation of my History, I will have it in my
power to show that in the offices he has since held, no one could have discharged the duties imposed on him with greater ability and more usefulness
than he has done; and that, as a Senator of the United States and as a Judge,
both of the Circuit and Supreme Courts, he was not surpassed by any one
who had filled either of those offices.  The State owes him a debt of gratitude for many very important measures which he originated and which have
resulted so beneficially in advancing it to its present prosperous condition. It
is not true, as was stated in the January number of " The Western Monthly,"
that he was removed from the office of State's Attorney by Gov. Edwards. He
was not reappointed because he had received the appointment of United
States' District Attorney. I also know that in the year 1829, when it was
supposed that there would be a vacancy in the Supreme Court of the State,
Gov. Edwards intended to fill it by appointing him.
With the exception of the Black Hawk War, my present work closes with
the administration of Gov. Edwards. I expect to resume it with the commencement of the administration of his successor, Gov. Reynolds, when I will
speak of other prominent men (and among them Col. John Dement, who was
in 1830, elected Treasurer of the State) somewhat on the plan of the memoir
I have given of the Hon. Daniel P. Cook.
POPULATION OF ILLINOIS.
In  1810..............................................      12,282
In  1870,..............................................2,529,410
ERRATA.
Page 4, for, above was adopted, read, above resolutions were adopted; page 101, for, Illinois
question, read, Missouri question; page 103, for, which would have, read, and would have; page
120, for, have, read, has; page 147, for, scandles, read, scandals; page 148, for, expert, read,
report; page 145, for, Lowne, read, Lourie; page 165, for, bills, read, wills; page 182, for, failure,
read, future; page 184, for, Sheet, read, Street; page 199, for, o'er, read, ever; page 207, for, excited, read, exerted; page 213, for, forget, read, forgot; page 223, for, Yanctuni-form, read, Yancton uniform; page 226, for, pursuasion, read, persuasion; page 217, for Judges Pope, read, Judge
Pope; page 291, for, Biswell, read, Bissell; page 425, for, batchelder, read, bachelor; page 429,
for, seven, read, severe; page 451, for, do it, read, make it; page 236, for, fourta, read, fourth.