CHAPTER II. OHIO--EDUCATIONAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL.

Ohio is the first of the contemplated states under the Ordinance of 1787, and is the most important if not the largest state in the Union. Although geographers say there are some twenty-five states larger, yet no one has ventured to determine beyond dispute or contradiction just how large Ohio is. When the lights of education were limited to the “three R’s,” the boundary was supposed to contain about thirty-nine thousand square miles. In a short time after, the size increased to forty thousand. The area is described as the space between Lake Erie and the Ohio river; and is usually estimated to contain twenty-five million six hundred thousand acres. But some advanced information has changed these figures to forty-one thousand square miles, and has shown by the state auditor’s reports that nearly twenty-seven million acres of farm lands were returned for taxation in 1833, and the question still remains undetermined how large the state is.

The state is greatly favored in regard to water navigation, having Lake Erie on the north for two hundred and thirty miles, and the Ohio river on the eastern and southern border for four hundred and thirty-five miles, giving a natural water-way around three sides of its boundary amounting to six hundred and sixty-five miles, which is more navigable water than is possessed by any other state in the Union, except California and Michigan.

The vast territory east of the Mississippi river, of which Ohio formed a part, was claimed and controlled by France, and was known as the “North-western Territory,” or “Louisiana”, by French traders and missionaries as early as 1658. In 1679, La Salle established a sailing vessel on Lake Erie, and trading posts were designated at favorable points, and missionary work found its way among the resident Indian tribes that occupied the portion of territory now called Ohio.

France was made aware of the beauty of the meager possession on this continent, and endeavored by means of the natives and their missionaries to keep the pre-emption warm until a title could be better recognized. In 1794, Major De Celoran, an officer of the French army, with a force of several hundred men (French and Indian) landed at a favorable point on Lake Erie, and carried their boats overland to Chautauqua Lake; from thence into the Alleghany and Ohio rivers. And on the way down the Ohio river, it is said this officer buried at numerous favorable points lead plates bearing the proclamation of Louis XIV, asserting the dominion of France over the territory on both sides of the Ohio river. The titles of France were but little better than the favorite grants and charters of James I, and the American colonies soon began the establishment of claims, which, in conflict, were settled only by the defeat of the French by the British at Quebec, and the treaty of Paris in 1763, by which this territory was all ceded to Great Britain; and the present good state was annexed to Canada, and by proclamation amenable to the government located at Quebec.

After the close of the War of Revolution, the United States found the rights to the territory of the great North-west in dispute between the Indians and the colonies; and congress attempted to settle the disputes by having the colonies abandon all claims by ceding the same to the United States as the common property of all. New York set the patriotic example, and gave up all her rights to a common cause and general good, and was soon followed by other colonies until the entire domain became vested in the United States, excepting an unsurrendered claim of Connecticut, in the northern part of the state known as the Western Reserve, about fifty miles wide and one hundred and twenty miles long.

The great North-west Territory, under the supervision of the government, was divided up and known under the following heads:

1. The Seven Ranges and Congress Lands.

2. United States Military Lands.

3. The Ohio Company’s Purchase.

4. The Connecticut Reserve and Fire Lands.

5. The Military Bounty Lands.

6. The Virginia Military Bounty Lands.

7. Symmes’s Purchase.

8. Special Grants, Donation Tract, Refugees’ Tract, French Grant, Dorhman’s Grant, Moravian and Lane’s Grants, Improvement Grants.

9. Canal, Turnpike, and Road Lands.

10. School, College and Ministerial Grants.

The Congress lands are those sold by officers of the Government. The Connecticut Reserve, consisting of about 3,800,000 acres, was a claim or grant made to the colony by Charles II in 1662. The “Fire Lands” were part of the grant, and were donated by the colony to reimburse losses sustained in property by the raids of Benedict Arnold during the Revolutionary War. The Fire Lands consisted of 500,000 acres, and were located chiefly in Erie county.

Connecticut sold her Ohio lands to a “land company for $1,200,000,” and placed it securely as an endowment fund for common schools; and the income from this source is still educating the children of that highly intelligent state.

The United States Military Lands, made such by act of Congress in 1796 to satisfy claims of officers and soldiers of the War of the Revolution. This tract embraced an area of 4,000 square miles in the counties of Morgan, Noble, Guernsey, Pickaway, Coshocton, Muskingum, Perry, Fairfield and Franklin. Donation Tract is 100,000 acres in the north part of Washington county, granted to the Ohio Company by Congress. The Symmes Tract of 311,682 acres was granted to John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, in 1794, for sixty-seven cents an acre. The land lies between the two Miami rivers. Mr. Symmes’s daughter married General Wm. Henry Harrison, and was the grandmother of ex-President Harrison the II.

The Refugee Lands is a grant of 100,000 acres. It lies along the Scioto river, and the city of Columbus stands upon this land, granted by Congress to be given to persons driven out of the British provinces during the Revolutionary War.

The French Grant consists of 24,000 acres in Scioto county, and given by Congress after the fashion of hush money.

The Dorhman Grant is a tract of 23,000 acres in Tuscarawas county, given by Congress to a Portuguese merchant.

The Virginia Military Lands were located on the west of the Scioto river. The amount of the grant in acres has never been known. There are fifteen counties in the tract and much of it has never been surveyed. This body of land was reserved by Virginia to pay her soldiers who were in the Revolution without compensation or pay. When it was determined by Congress to pay the soldiers in land, each original settler marked his own boundaries with a hatchet, and made a good liberal guess that the area within his lines would cover the acres given in his warrant.

The Moravian Grant was 4,000 acres in Tuscarawas county. Besides, many other donations were made for roads and other purposes, making a total of over eight million acres, the greater part of which went to creditors of the Government. Land was the only thing the United States had available to cancel the war obligations, and soldiers and others gladly accepted land certificates in lieu of those of silver or gold.

Land in body was more desirable than town lots. When Chillicothe was made capital of the territory it had about twenty cabins promiscuously located among the timber, which had not yet been cut down to designate the streets. The State House was constructed in 1800 by an old revolutionary soldier, Wm. Rutledge, and remained the Capitol until 1816, when it was permanently located at Columbus, Franklin county. The removal of the capital injured greatly the prospects and business of Chillicothe for many years, and secured leisure to its citizens, who engaged in various innocent amusements for killing time--in fact, lingered with scarcely a symptom of lysis until after the “Literary, Astronomical and Natural History Society” commenced the publication and distribution of that illustrated periodical (yearly), known and remembered to the last days of the older citizens, entitled “_The Ground Hog Almanac_.” Since then the town has grown in population, wealth and beauty, and is now the center jewel of the cities in the rich Scioto valley.

Provisions for the education of the generations that were to inhabit the North-west were made and ratified by Congress, in 1787, giving one-thirty-sixth part of the entire public domain to be reserved from sale for the maintenance of schools, declaring “That schools and means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

When Ohio was set off and became a state, the reserve school lands were placed under the management of the legislature, the constitution of 1802 making it the duty of that body to carry out the educational clause of the ordinance, and that the schools supported by the land grants should be open for the reception of pupils. But it turned out like many public trusts; with this splendid endowment of near a million acres of good land, the children of Ohio received no benefit from that source, nor from any legislative equivalent, for near half a century after settlement. The majority of the people, it must be confessed, were indifferent to the subject of education, and were used to keep in power enough imbecile legislators, who in defiance of Ephraim Cutler, the wording of the constitution and acts of Congress, spent the sessions for more than twenty years in perverse legislation of the public school lands.

It was stated by a member of the senate, at the time, that every year things were made worse--“That members of the legislature got acts passed, under pretexts of granting leases to themselves, relatives and political partisans, giving the lands away until there was little or nothing left.” One senator got acts passed giving him and his children seven entire sections. And legislation through ignorance, inability and design subverted the intention in regard to the school-land grant--squandered the proceeds, and then pledged the state to pay the interest. And for this pledge the citizen is annually taxed on a fund of over four million dollars, which exists nowhere excepting in name on the musty books of the state.

But the young Buckeye Squirrel Hunter could not be repressed; and fathers and mothers labored hard and economized to help sustain subscription schools to the full extent of their financial ability; while the State of Connecticut was supporting an expensive system of common school education from a fund arising from the sale of her lands in Ohio.[6]

The teachers of Ohio subscription schools were not examined, nor did their patrons require a very high standard of qualification. Still some were highly educated wanderers over the earth, as the literary works of H. D. Flood, John Robinson and James Kelsey show; and who were teachers in Southern Ohio from 1810 to 1825. The greater number of instructors were well-informed citizens, who accepted the opportunity in order to pursue studies that would qualify them for a more lucrative calling.

It was not customary to close the school on holidays; nor even on Saturdays. They were all hired by the month and were required to perform the duties of teaching the full number of working days in each calendar month--neither Christmas, New Year nor Fourth of July could close the _door_. The patrons were the sole managers of these schools, and were solicitous to obtain full consideration for the amount paid. But young America was alive, and the incentive a holiday by nature gave, could not, under the most staid rules of conduct and economy, be entirely suppressed; and it became more contagious than measles or whooping-cough, and every school in the country was soon broken out with the idea of a holiday--in parts of two days--Christmas and New Year.

There seemed to be no way to treat it other than to let it have its regular course. It always came with a specific demand upon the teacher, of which the following well-preserved pattern specimen embraces the material points of others, varying only in quantity and quality, with locality and circumstances:

“_December 23, 1817._

“MR. JOHN ROBINSON (Teacher)--

“_Sir_:--We the undersigned committee, in behalf of the unanimous voice of the scholars of your school, demand that you treat, according to custom, to the following articles in amount herein named, to wit:

200 ginger cakes, 2 bushels of hickory nuts, 1 peck hazel nuts, 10 pounds of candy, 10 pounds raisins,

delivered at the school house, noon hour, December 25, for the enjoyment and pleasant remembrance of this school. If this meets your approbation you will please sign and return the paper to John Kelley to-morrow, December 24, at noon, saying, over your signature, ‘I agree to the above,’

“JOHN KELLEY, } JAMES BROWN, } _Committee_.” WILLIAM SMALLWOOD, }

Occasionally a teacher not fond of fun or fearful of exposure, would at once sign these modest demands, and would join in with the children at noon on Christmas, and again on New Year’s day, and have a long to be remembered pleasant jollification. But by far the greater number of teachers preferred a little preliminary skirmishing before acceding to the peremptory demand. When the above bill of fare was handed the teacher just before dismissal on the evening of the 23d, he glanced over the contents and commenced tearing the paper into small fragments. And it was said this meant defiance.

The next morning was cold, with deep fall of snow during the night; but all the larger boys were inside of the school house with a hot fire and armed with ropes and strings, and plenty of wood and provisions to withstand a siege, before it was yet light. All the openings were barricaded with the benches, which consisted of heavy “puncheons,” with wooden pins driven in on the convex side for legs. One after another of the children came and were admitted, and when the teacher arrived, he found the house (cabin) full of jolly boys and girls, but could not himself enter.

After many ineffectual efforts to obtain admission, he started homeward. This was the signal for the boys, and the yelping, whooping crowd of all sizes and ages of minors, broke camp and gave chase. Robinson is described as an athletic specimen of vigorous manhood, and delighted in sport, and concluded to give the boys a fox chase through the forest and unbroken snow. He led the gang quite easily for a short time, but after several miles’ running the boys captured and overpowered the fleeing despot. Finding resistance useless he submitted to be tied and roped down securely to pieces of timber on either side with face in the direction of the clouds. The burial ceremony was performed by asking compliance, and marching around his body, singing funeral dirges, and piling snow upon his person.

A monument of snow was soon erected with an opening for breathing and conversation. He did not hold out long, and by pledging his honor the bill of fare should be on hand, and no punishment or ill-will entertained for the usage received, the prisoner was released, and all returned to the school-house, spelled for head, and were regularly dismissed for home.

The next day at noon a cart-load of good things arrived with those specified; and children and parents enjoyed the feast, after which there was an old-fashioned spelling-match, and all went home to remember with pleasure the Christmas of 1817. And at this writing (1895) only one of that jolly crowd is known to be living, and from whom the above reminiscences have been obtained.

The country was so thinly settled it was often difficult to make up a school (fifteen), owing to distance from the school cabin, and it was the common practice for those most interested, usually two or three neighbors, to “sign” for their own children and enough more out of the range to make up the required number. And often, in order to secure them, agreeing to pay the tuition and to board them during attendance. And so far as the advantages of these schools were to be obtained, the boys and girls shared alike. But if unable to afford the expense for both, the boys generally got the schooling.

The school-house was usually located in the woods. The building was of round logs, and presented the appearance of very little comfort, either without or within. The floor was of mother earth; the ceiling above, the underside of the roof; a number of rude benches; a few puncheon shelves, and a huge fire-place, constituted the necessary arrangement of the interior. It was known as the school-house, although used as a place to hold elections, lectures, debating societies, and singing-schools.

But notwithstanding the loss of an endowment much needed in primitive times, and the restriction of subscription schools from existing poverty, and that the log-cabin school-houses stood empty for long periods, there was no effeminacy in the desire for knowledge, for where there is a will there is a way, and volumes might be filled with learned and illustrious names who were once rocked in a “sugar-trough,” and took their first lessons in “_Brush College_.”

It was in this environment the scientist, statesman, and divine obtained that self-confidence and industry which leads to high and honored stations and has made the North-west a perpetual eclipsing shadow upon all other parts of the United States.

In every department, the chosen citizen of this magnificent empire has shown himself master of the situation. In art, literature, and sciences; in war and times of peace, he has given strength to the Union and credit to a central power that will surround itself with national influences the most impregnable of any government in the world. And under all the disadvantages--the absence of public schools, and the opening up of a new world isolated from civilization, he came forth like a vision of beauty and glory from a chrysalis on which was written the destiny of future greatness.

A short time before execution, John Brown said--“I know the very errors by which my scheme was marred were decreed before the world was made. And I had no more to do with the course I pursued than a shot leaving a cannon has to do with the spot where it shall fall.” That hunger and thirst for knowledge which prevailed in the North-west seemed to contradict all theories of man’s proneness under favorable circumstances to degenerate, and favors the theory advanced by the hero of Ossawatomie in regard to power and purpose. Some of the first generation of boys of Ohio (those that lived in the territory) previous to 1796 were born elsewhere to disappoint the Indians, but were all the same shareholders of the great estate. And at the early dawn of the present century many of these young men found their way to Eastern institutions of learning, taking the front in physical and mental culture, as they did afterward in positions of national honor.

As boys, squirrel hunters, men, scholars, lawyers, soldiers, civilians, and statesmen, history shows they filled their places well as American models of superior manhood. Poor as the isolated inhabitants were in regard to worldly goods, they had an abundance of that which gave vitality, energy, and power of will to do. It was no uncommon thing for boys in this vast forest to obtain by their own efforts full preparation to enter college, and with a knapsack of luncheon, _tinder-box_, and scantily-filled purse, walk hundreds of miles to a seat of learning, and there remain four years without seeing home or friends until they obtained the high honors of the institution.

Ex-Governor Seaberry Ford is but the sample of many. When it came time to go to college, the family of the young squirrel hunter was living in a log cabin in the backwoods of Ohio. His ambition, however, was for Yale, and so expressed it. His father replied, “How are you to get there!” The answer was, “I can walk,” and did walk--reached Yale, where he remained the “boss” young man of the town and institution for four years, and returned to Ohio with the first diploma issued by that college to an Ohio boy. Many years without public schools papers or libraries did not dampen the ardor of the young for knowledge. The inhabitants were destitute of a circulating medium, but managed to keep apace with all the world in that synonym for power. The means employed, as given in the autobiography of one of the first two college graduates in the North-west, illustrates well the thousands of that and later dates who managed to obtain books, and worked their way to the highest standard of education.

The Hon. Thomas Ewing says--“About this time” (1803) “the neighbors in our and the surrounding settlements met and agreed to purchase books and make a common library. They were all poor and subscriptions small, but they raised in all about one hundred dollars.

“All my accumulated wealth, ten coon-skins, went into the fund, and Squire Sam Brown, of Sunday Creek, who was going to Boston, was charged with the purchase. After the absence of many weeks he brought the books to Captain Ben Brown’s in a sack on a pack-horse. I was present at the untying of the sack and pouring out the treasure. There were about sixty volumes, I think, and well selected; the library of the Vatican was nothing to it, and there never was a library better read. This with occasional additions furnished me with reading while I remained at home.

“Dec. 17, 1804, the library was fully established and christened, ‘The Coon-skin Library,’ and a librarian duly elected by shareholders.”

Five years later, at the age of nineteen, with consent of his father, young Ewing left home to procure means to obtain a collegiate education. He set out on foot and found his way through the woods from his home in Athens county to the Ohio river, and from thence to the Kanawha Salt Works, where he engaged as a day laborer, and in three months saved enough money to pay his way at school through the winter at Athens College. He became well satisfied with the success so far, and in the spring returned to the Salt Works and made money enough to pay off some indebtedness that was troubling his father, devoting the winter to the study of some new books obtained by the “Coon-skin Library.”

The third year he returned with enough to induce him to enter college as a regular student, where he remained until 1815; and, after taking the degree of A. M., returned to the Salt Works, and earned enough to aid in the study of law. Thus, ten years were spent as a necessary apprenticeship--performing the arduous and monotonous labors of boiling salt, that he might be enabled to cultivate the various talents nature had so bounteously bestowed upon him, and at the same time avoid financial embarrassments.

Many thousands of squirrel hunters since have imitated the example of this great man, and have arisen to high eminence, but none--not one--to the height of “The Ohio Salt-boiler”--the greatest man America ever produced. In stature Mr. Ewing was six feet two inches tall--well proportioned, with remarkable physical ability. It is related--that many years after athletical exercises had been lain aside for law, on passing near the old court-house in Lancaster, Ohio, he found a crowd of able-bodied men who had been trying to throw an ax, handle and all, over the building, but it could not be done. Mr. Ewing halted, and took the ax by the handle and sent it sailing five feet or more above the building and passed on.

Mr. Ewing was great from the fact he was familiar with the little things of life, as well as the greater matters in the supreme court, where he chiefly practiced. Daniel Webster acknowledged Mr. Ewing’s superior abilities in seeking his aid in his difficult and weighty cases.

In the Senate of the United States, he introduced many important bills--and opposed Clay’s Compromise--the amendatory fugitive slave law of 1850--and advocated the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. As a statesman and educated in a free state, he had none of that diffidence, timidity, and submission to slave-holding dictation so commonly witnessed among northern legislators in Congress, and before their constituents.

The influence of slavery was felt in the education and lives of the people of the North-west. As race hatred was transplanted into Ohio in the early settlements, it soon became a political element that caused many odious and unchristian laws to be placed on the statute books, and enforced as vigorously against color as if made in the interests of slavery and bonded ignorance of the state.

The first State Constitution of Ohio, adopted in 1802, in article 8, “That the general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized, and forever unalterably established, we declare”--

Sec. 1. “That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Sec. 2. “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

Sec. 3. ... “That schools, and the means of instruction, shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision, not inconsistent with the rights of conscience.”

Sec. 25. “That no law shall be passed to prevent the poor in the several counties and townships within this state from an equal participation in the schools, academies, colleges, and universities within this state, which are endowed, in whole or in part, from the revenue arising from the donations made by the United States for the support of schools and colleges; and the doors of the said schools, academies, and universities shall be open for the reception of scholars, students, and teachers of every grade, _without any distinction_ or preference whatever contrary to the intent for which the said donations were made.”

Still the colored man, under no circumstances, excepting taxation, was recognized as a citizen. He was by Article IV of the Constitution of Ohio disfranchised by the word “white”--no other color could enjoy the rights of an elector. He was by law deprived of schools and means of instruction contrary to the spirit of the endowment as well as expressions of the constitution; and for more than forty years the colored population sojourned in a wilderness of freedom before it was discovered that manhood has rights all are bound to respect--one of which is the right of suffrage.

The greater portion of the population forming the new state were favorable to freedom, and many were known to have emancipated their slaves and settled in Ohio that they might wipe out the stains of an institution which had so truthfully been denominated the “sum of all villainies.” There were, however, others, in almost every neighborhood, who by nature were the patrons of the slave-hunter and looked upon a colored man as unworthy of an existence on earth, and delighted in tormenting, killing, or driving him from his home and neighborhood.

This race hatred in some parts of the state received so much attention and cultivation, that many well-meaning people encouraged the prejudice, in view of the peace of the neighborhood.

Cincinnati did more than all the rest of the border towns in keeping up and disseminating a _violent_ race hatred. Free respectable colored people were looked upon, denounced, and treated as a nuisance, “having no rights a white man was bound to respect.” The city harbored if not encouraged a lot of miscreants, who made it a business to hunt and capture runaway slaves for the reward; and also to carry on the money making business of kidnaping free blacks, carrying them across the river, and selling them into slavery. Any and every unlawful treatment they received was winked at by citizens and city authorities.

The courts were open, but until S. P. Chase went to Cincinnati in 1830 the black man could procure no counsel, as a white man could easily ruin his character and standing by manifesting the least sympathy for the persecuted. When the Hon. Salmon P. Chase defended one of these down-trodden creatures in the courts of Cincinnati, after the hearing of the case, a prominent man of the city said, pointing to Mr. Chase, “There goes a promising young lawyer who has ruined himself.”

But the state outside of Cincinnati had enough of the right element to enforce, if necessary, at all times, the fifth paragraph of the eighth article of the state constitution, which affirmed, “That the _people_ shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions, from all unwarrantable searches and seizures; and that the general warrants whereby an officer may be commanded to search suspected places, without probable evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named whose offenses are not particularly described, and without oath or affirmation, are dangerous to liberty, and _shall_ _not be granted_.” Still in matters of legislation Cincinnati managed to secure her influence against the negro.

Notwithstanding the plain wording of the Constitution of the State, laws were enacted to keep the black and mulatto people out of Ohio. These were the much discussed “black laws”--

_First._ A black or mulatto person was prohibited settlement unless he could show a certificate of freedom and the names of two freeholders as security for his good behavior and maintenance, in the event of becoming a public charge; and unless the certificate of freedom was duly recorded and produced, it was a _penal offense to give employment to a black or mulatto_.

_Second._ Colored and mulattoes were excluded from the schools; and,

_Third._ No black or mulatto could testify in court in any case where a white person was concerned.

In 1848, Dr. N. S. Townshend, of Lorain county, and Dr. John F. Morse, of Lake county, were elected members of the legislature as “abolitionists.” To these two members, fortunately, holding the balance of power between the Whigs and Democrats, are due the repeal of the odious “black laws,” and the election of an “abolition” United States Senator--S. P. Chase.

To these men, in combination with the Democrats, is not only due the repeal of existing laws, but, also, provisions for schools for black and mulatto children. And Ohio became reclaimed in favor of freedom, and all was bright and lovely and prosperous--but not all happy; for there still remained a black, disgraceful, disfiguring spot on the face of the Goddess of Liberty--a spot that was causing millions to mourn.

Early in the Union of the States, slavery caste began to isolate itself from every thing denominated “Yankee North,” and, at the same time, disseminated a race hatred against the “nigger” among the ignorant white and poor people of the South. And, in the line of emigration, Ohio received a larger share of immigrants who had been taught to despise the “nigger,” and honestly believed a colored man was an inferior animal, “destitute of a soul;” and lecturers were often traveling over the state entertaining large audiences with such crude material as that--“A nigger is not human--the bones in the hands and feet are entirely different; and he is nothing more or less than an improved Orang-outang, and made to be a slave to the human race as much as a horse or cow.” By lowering the natural status of the colored man, such audiences became elevated and the space between man and the monkey widened by comparison making room for increased hatred. At all times, but most especially so, previous to the odious amendments of the “Fugitive Slave Law,” in 1850, it was no uncommon thing to see calls signed by numerous citizens inserted in popular newspapers, asking all persons in favor of “law and order” to assemble at the time and place specified to put down abolitionism, and to let their “_southern brethren_” know the people of Ohio were in favor of the constitution and preservation of the Union of the States.

A call for a meeting of this kind in a central county of the state, and announced in the official political paper of the time, dated October 3, 1835, is headed in large type--

“_Anti-Abolition Meeting._

“A meeting of those opposed to the wild projects of abolitionists is proposed to be held at the court-house in Circleville, on Saturday, the 10th day of October next, at 1 o’clock P. M.

“All those who love their country and are willing to maintain her constitution--

“All who are friends to order and would avert the horrors of a servile war--

“All who know slavery to be an evil, but believe a dissolution of our National Union a greater evil--

“All who deprecate ecclesiastical influence in political affairs, are respectfully and earnestly invited to attend the proposed meeting, when a number of addresses will be delivered.”

This call is signed by four hundred and seventy-three names, citizens of a town having less than two thousand inhabitants. The next issue of the paper publishing the call, and previous to the time of meeting, contained an anonymous, but scathing criticism of such movements, in which the author of the article says: “It has been shown what is the real state of the anti-slavery question, and the unreasonableness and utter groundlessness of the outcry against Abolitionists.” “Further we would state for the serious consideration of our opponents that we are persuaded that the ‘Union will be dissolved,’ not if this subject be discussed, but if it be not. If it be true that the social compact was formed on the condition of slavery being tolerated by the free states, then it is such an Union as must sooner or later be dissolved.”... “Admitting the existence of a God, and that God is a being of perfect equity, can it be believed that He will suffer such a combination against the happiness of man to exist forever? And has it not already existed too long for that unity of counsel in this great republic which should ever mark the doings of a nation? And can we calculate on a much longer forbearance?” The editors of the paper, after offering an apology for publishing the article, of which the above quotations are but a small part, say: “Will some Abolitionist be so kind as to refer us to the passage in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence which asserts that all men are created free and equally; we have not seen it.”

The meeting came off as advertised, and the chairman said: “Deeply sympathizing with our ‘_Southern brethren_,’ we have assembled to express our most unqualified opposition to emancipation and disapprobation of the course pursued by its advocates; and to assure our fellow-citizens in the Southern States that we regard their constitutional rights as our own, and that we will to the utmost aid them in the defense of those rights.” “Therefore, Resolved,” was followed by ten long resolutions in praise of fidelity to the South and opposition to emancipation, winding up with the following:

“Resolved, That were the slave-holders now willing to abolish slavery, in our opinion the immediate and unconditional emancipation of all the slaves in the United States, without providing for their colonization, would render the condition of both the whites and blacks infinitely worse than it now is, and would be an act of palpable and unpardonable inhumanity to the _slaves_.”

Signed: Valentine Kieffer, President; Nathan Perrill, John Entrekin, Wm. Renick, Sr., Vice-Presidents; Elias Bentley, W. N. Foresman, A. Huston, Secretaries.

All the officers were well-known and prominent people, and it is not strange that persons of such note and intelligence should have given their approbation and signatures of approval to such a meeting, when we reflect that most pro-slavery men in the free states had been taught to believe or say: If the slaves were liberated, they would come north in swarms and “_steal our chickens_,” and destroy the peace of society “_by marrying every good-looking white woman in the country_.”

But there existed no occasion for alarm; the slave-holding states South never had an inclination to emancipate their slaves. _They_ were the wealth of that country, and its growing greatness fostered the desire to found an aristocratic empire on slave labor. The number in bondage was rapidly increasing and their labor was becoming more and more remunerative. They had but to see the increase of this wealth and its products in fifty years, to stimulate the desire to found a government on the aristocracy of the institution.

In 1810, there were in all the states but 1,191,360 slaves; and notwithstanding New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had in the meantime liberated theirs--and the African slave trade had previously been abolished--the underground railroad had been doing a lively business--and the manumissions and colonizations that were going on in the “breeding states”--in 1860 the number had increased to within a small fraction less than four millions.

Slave labor was exceedingly profitable in the cotton states, as the increase of the cotton product shows. In 1801, these states only produced 48,000,000 pounds, while 1860 returned 2,054,698,800 pounds. There were, however, two things inserted in the government plat that were unsatisfactory: “That all men are created equal” in natural rights, and the Missouri Compromise--the thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, Mason and Dixon’s line. It was not so clear as they wished it might be, that “unalienable rights,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” belonged only to masters; and when the failure to rescind the “Compromise” in 1853 occurred through democratic influence, of such men as Albert P. Edgerton, the possibility of peacefully enlarging the area of slavery became as hopeless as it was manifestly evident that bondage and freedom could not much longer remain peaceably in the same government. And with amendments to the fugitive slave law the Southern political bosses, who had usurped the control of the national government, knew the constitution found slavery in the states, and as a state institution left its local existence to the chances of state laws. They knew full well it was not made a national institution and that the time was close at hand when they must go to the rear or abandon their northern allies and set up a slavocracy for themselves. They had obtained sufficient to know Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Arthur Tappan and the Boston Liberator were actual facts; and the large meetings of the “dough faces” and their expressions of sympathy was not the kind of “Soothing Syrup” the South desired, although giving great encouragement to secession.

The division of sentiment existing in the free states in regard to the rights of slavery and its extension became more and more expressive, especially along the border lines of the opposing institutions. Consequently Ohio felt a full share of the evils due to political and social disturbances arising from this cause. But the intercommunications given by railroads and the light emanating from a free and fearless press--cheap postage and speedy transportation--infused new life; and mankind began thinking--thinking differently from that of past times when the postage on a letter was twenty-five cents and required four days for an individual to travel one hundred miles and return.

Slave hunting in the land of the free did not prove an agreeable or profitable occupation. The oppressed fugitive generally found friends enough in the North to secure the boon he sought. In almost every community could be found the spirit contained in the lines by Whittier, expressed for George W. Lattimer, who with his wife escaped from Norfolk, Va., in 1841, and was found in Boston. He was the first slave hunted in the North, and was arrested and proceedings began to have him returned to slavery. His cause was championed by such men as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass. The court ruled against the fugitive and his liberty was purchased by the good people of Boston. Lattimer gained great notoriety, and after a long and eventful life died at his home in Lynn, Mass., May 30, 1896, aged seventy-five years. And it can not well be disputed that much of the after changes in public sentiment in regard to the status of the colored man, and his rights in a free state, was brought about by the object lessons in the enforcement of the odious fugitive slave law. “All that was necessary to prove the detestable character of this iniquity and its dangers to liberty was simply to enforce it.”[7] Still the corrupting influences of trade made the evils of slavery felt in the social, moral and educational interests of the entire state; and consequently citizens, who had in their hearts the logical idea that all men are born free and equal, saw the hand of tyranny quite as much on either shore of the river, that constituted geographically the dividing line.

This was more especially true of Cincinnati, where large interests in trade enabled the sentiments of the few to dominate and regulate public acts and opinions parallel with steamboat monopoly, and the creed of the “Divine Institution,” as much as if the city had been located considerably south of “Mason and Dixon’s line;” and as late as 1836 a free soil newspaper, “The Philanthropist,” was destroyed by a mob of leading citizens of Cincinnati, and which will ever remain a historical record of loyalty to the institution on the opposite side of the river, and as penance for some manifestation in favor of freedom.

The Philanthropist was a newspaper ably edited by James G. Birney. After being published some three months, at night, July 14, 1836, the press-room was broken open by well-known citizens of Cincinnati, and the press materials all destroyed. No attempt was made to punish the perpetrators. But rather to sanction the act. A call for a meeting of the citizens was made for July 23d, stating the purpose to be, “_to decide whether the people of Cincinnati will permit the publication or distribution of ‘abolition’ papers in the city_.”

The decision of this mass meeting, composed of the business men of the city, was afterwards published in a leading local paper, and makes very good reading, although derived from a pro-slavery source, to wit: “On Saturday night, July 30th, very soon after dark, a concourse of citizens assembled at the corner of Main and Seventh streets, in this city, and, upon a short consultation, broke open the printing office of the Philanthropist, the abolition paper, scattered the type into the street, tore down the presses, and completely dismantled the office. It was owned by A. Pugh, a peaceable and orderly printer, who printed the Philanthropist for the Anti-Slavery Society of Ohio.

“From the printing office the crowd went to the house of A. Pugh, where they supposed there were other printing materials, but found none, _nor offered any violence_. Then to Messrs. Donaldsons, where only ladies were at home. The residence of Mr. Birney, the editor, was then visited; no person was at home but a youth, upon whose explanations the house was _left undisturbed_.... And proceeded to the ‘Exchange’ and took refreshments.”... “An attack was then made upon the residences of some blacks in Church alley; two guns were fired upon the assailants and they recoiled.... It was some time before the rally could again be made, several voices declaring they did not wish to endanger themselves. A second attack was made, the houses found empty, and their interior contents destroyed.”

Although all this kind of proceeding looked very much like an unlawful assemblage, it met with no opposition from the city authorities, and all that was ever done in a matter of this kind was to call a meeting of citizens, and “_regret the cause of the recent occurrences_,” and the next day would drive a Wendell Phillips from Pike’s Opera House, and seek him with a howling mob that he might be hung to a lamp-post, “the mayor refusing to allow the police to interfere.”

Cincinnati reaped a rich harvest for the examples given in “citizen” mobs. Still, at any time previous to the “_salvation_” of the city, it was impolitic if not dangerous for a minister of the gospel, a public speaker, press or private citizen, to mention the subject of slavery in a manner that might be construed unfavorable to its sanctity; for a black line had been drawn over the twenty-sixth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; the tenth verse of the second chapter of Malachi, and the spirit of the gospel dispensation, as effectually in their practical theology as was ever manifest in Danville or in any Southern translation of the ten commandments.

So determined were the pro-slavery elements to hold the fort in Cincinnati and aid the South in making it dangerous for a colored man in a “free state,” that they continued to supply the South with stores until the last moment; and only a week before the bombardment of Sumter, the city permitted cannon to pass through on way from Baltimore marked

“_For the Southern Confederacy,_ _Jackson, Mississippi._”

And the same day, or the day before, returned a fugitive slave through the commissioner, and all went well with the city, reaping the fruits of the war, until General Wallace placed it under martial law, and, suspending business, demanded the citizens to enroll themselves for defense. “Some were at once taken very sick, others were hunted up by detailed soldiers, who turned them out of barns, kitchens, garrets, cellars, closets, from under beds, and in the disguise of women’s clothing.” For the seed sown was now ripe and mid air was resounding--“_The harvest is here._”

At a time, in 1858, when public sentiment was beginning to be felt, and official prosecutions for the return of fugitive slaves became more or less unsatisfactory to the owners, James Buchanan, President of the United States, gave a surprise to every one by appointing Judge Stanley Matthews--an eminent lawyer, ex-editor of an abolition paper, and leader in the anti-slavery movements in Ohio, as United States District Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

To politicians, this seemed not only a deviation from all known precedents, but, politically, an unfathomable mystery. But, no more remarkable was the appointment than that, a lawyer at the summit of professional ability and large income--a noted abolitionist--opposed to the fugitive slave acts, should have accepted the position. But those who knew Judge Matthews and his patriotism best, could discern in it logical conclusions--the interests of freedom could be subserved and the public mind attained by a shorter method than by arguing, speaking, or publishing--“_the enforcement of the iniquitous fugitive slave law_.” And for three years he prosecuted “offenders” _without_ just fault or favor--giving such lessons in its application, that made loyalty to freedom, and magnified the blessings of the free.

Judge Matthews resigned the office in 1861, and took the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Twenty-third--afterward Colonel of the Fifty-first Ohio, and awaited the “proclamation.”

During Judge Matthews’ entire service as United States District Attorney, the slave states were secluded as pertaining to things and persons of the “North”--papers, books, teachers, preachers, and citizens were effectually ostracized; northern colleges and seminaries had their southern patronage withdrawn; and, finally, when, by the aid of the Secretary of War, they secured large quantities of United States arms and military supplies, and felt thoroughly prepared and equipped, the states stepped out of the Union with defiance, leaving poor Kentucky with a governor that threatened to chastise either of the belligerents if they dared to interfere with her “_neutrality_.” And it is not known to history that either the cotton states or neutral Kentucky ever gave Judge Matthews a vote of thanks for his vigorous enforcement of the fugitive law. But this is not all. In 1876, Judge Matthews ran for Congress in the Second District of Cincinnati, and his defeat, says the biographer,[8] was in consequence of an act of his while United States District Attorney--that while he had the office he prosecuted W. B. Connelly, a white resident of Cincinnati, and reporter of the Gazette, for giving to a young runaway slave and his wife “a glass of water and piece of bread”--a _crime_ under the fugitive slave law. It was shown that the negroes were captured and were shut up in Connelly’s room, and while there they were furnished “bread and water.” It was further shown, that a letter was written by Connelly, as a Master Mason, to Judge Matthews, as a brother Mason, in which he confessed that he had “furnished the negroes with food.”

But, with all these influential relations, the offense was prosecuted--Connelly found guilty and was sentenced to serve time of imprisonment. “The publication of these facts destroyed Judge Matthews’ chance for Congress,” and that his brother Masons obtained full credit for his defeat can not well be doubted.

It is not stated that any _promise_ had been made by Judge Matthews--_none violated_; and differed materially from ordinary cases, like that of O. A. Gardner, a Master Mason, arrested for robbing the mails at Minneapolis, who said in court that his confession was made to Postal Inspector Gould, a brother Mason, on the promise that Gould, as a fellow Mason, would see that he was acquitted--“that his acquittal was assured--that the judge, the lawyers on both sides, and most of the jury were _Masons_.”

Judge Matthews had taken the oath of office as district attorney, which to him was above all other oaths, and was not the man to play the Marshal Ney performance. And it would seem the “defeat for congress” was not “the consequence of an _act of his_” as much as it was his declining to “act” crooked for the benefit of a brother Mason.

If any one now thinks it impossible that a free people in the North could be so influenced, cowed, and blinded to the atrocities of slavery upon the free, let them read the biography of Southern prisons. It was a day of jubilee for the abolitionists (who had survived the horrid cruelties that made “Libby” a paradise) when the federal forces took possession of the South. The Rev. Calvin Fairbanks, after being kidnapped and serving horrible time for seventeen years and four months for being an abolitionist, was released from the state prison of Kentucky, at Frankfort, by a special order of President Lincoln.

During the last two wardens of the prison--Zeb Ward and that of J. W. South--this man received thirty-five thousand stripes on his bare body with a strap of half-tanned leather a foot and a half long, often dipped in water to increase the pain. He was often whipped four times a day, receiving seventy stripes at each whipping; one time the number of lashes was increased to one hundred and seven.

All this punishment was pretended to be inflicted on the grounds of failure to perform the daily task which had been fixed beyond possibility--requiring the prisoner to weave two hundred and eight yards of hemp cloth daily.

Early in 1864, Mr. Lincoln learned through Miss Tileston of the cruelties practiced upon Mr. Fairbanks, and sent General Fry to Kentucky with orders to make it “Fairbanks Day” at Frankfort prison.

“When released, Mr. Fairbanks says he crossed the river and kissed the free soil in Ohio,” where he met the girl who, on hearing of his misfortune in Massachusetts, came to Ohio and engaged as teacher at Hamilton, and then at Oxford, supplying him with such comforts as was within her power--worked and petitioned and watched over the border for many long years with the love of a true woman.

Slavery is no more--the dark blotch to freedom has been wiped out with the best blood of the nation. It was a contentious, political evil as well. But slavery of the colored race is not the only evil, the only danger, that can arise to overthrow a Republican form of government.

The first thirty-five years of the existence of Ohio as a state may be recognized, in an educational point of view, as the period of the “_Three R’s_”--“_readin, ’riten, and ’rithmetic_”--for state legislation made it so. There were no public schools, no academy, but one higher institution in operation, called an “Ohio University,” located at Athens, in Athens county. This was opened for students, in 1809, with the classic course; and the first class, numbering two, graduated in 1815, receiving the first collegiate degrees ever conferred under the endowment for education by the act of 1787--John Hunter, A. M., and Thomas Ewing, A. M.

This university was in financial straits all this time with an incomplete corps of professors, for the reason the legislature had manipulated the land endowments (46,000 acres) from time to time until little or nothing was received, where large incomes should have been realized. And the good intent of land grants for educational purposes in Ohio proved a signal failure in common schools, academies, and colleges.

After ineffectual efforts of mongrel state universities to supply the pressing wants of rising generations, sectarian institutions multiplied rapidly, and the state soon became honored with numerous chartered seats of learning representing all religions from Roman Catholic (down, or up, which ever it may seem) to the Free Will Baptist. Of these, Oberlin has taken the lead. It was chartered, in 1834, under the direction of the Congregational Church, with a theological seminary attached as part of the institution. Both sexes and all colors have been admitted to its classes.

During the struggle in Ohio to establish a satisfactory system of education, the good people of Kentucky claimed to be greatly in advance in regard to facilities, and sold large numbers of scholarships to those who desired to embrace better opportunities to obtain an education, before it was discovered that young men from a free state, or states, attending those seats of learning had little or no spare time for mental culture, after giving the physical enough attention to keep all its members intact; as free-state students were obliged to fight or “eat dirt.”

The writer still holds the larger end of an uncanceled scholarship in one of the then leading, but now defunct, college institutions.

As late as 1837, there was no public school system operating in Ohio. But the year following a law was passed for the purpose of adopting a system on a uniform footing. Still it required that teachers should be qualified _only_ in reading, writing and arithmetic. Amendments and improvements, however, went on, and in 1847 the “State Teachers’ Association” was organized, and deserves great credit for the good work done and still doing in obtaining beneficial legislation and raising the standard of teachers and the curriculum of “High Schools.” And at the present time Ohio compares favorably with other states in regard to her system for general and liberal education, regardless of color or previous condition.

Information derived from newspapers was measurably lost--the inefficient postal service prevented the circulation of metropolitan papers; and those published in Ohio for half a century were under the ban of slavery. And with the censorship of Kentucky and the cotton states it is not surprising they were short-lived and unattended with prosperity. The first paper published in the North-west was printed in Cincinnati, November 9, 1793, under the name of “The Sentinel of the North-western Territory.” The journal was owned and edited by William Maxwell. Newspapers in those days were comparatively small and poorly executed in presswork; and changed names, ownership or ceased to exist so frequently that not a few attempts at journalism became lost to history.

During the territorial days, and while the seat of government tarried at Chillicothe, Mr. Willis, the father of N. P., the poet, author and artist, published a literary paper for a short time. After the capital became permanently located at Columbus, Philo H. Olmstead, from 1813 to 1818, published “The Western Intelligencer”--then changed the name to “Columbus Gazette” and in due time to “Columbus Journal.”

Small as these and other beginnings were over the settled portions of the state, the press and its influence became of more and more importance, and kept pace if not in advance of many other leading departments connected with an advanced civilization. As ideas beget ideas, so inventions beget inventions, until time and space are no more, and the wild elements meekly bow in submission to the will and works of man. If John Gutenberg, Fust, Mentel or Koster, with their little inventions, could see the automatic working of one of those mammoth printing machines, which noiselessly move with such rapidity, exactness and intelligence--even putting human volition and precision to shame--any one or all of the once contesting discoverers would stop disputing in astonished wonderment long enough to set up and strike off on their own inventions a single line, in quotations, “Large trees from small acorns grow,” and abandon further contention.

Newspaper educators at an early day, like the schoolmaster, had a limited showing in a country so financially short. Editors and publishers could not conduct the business without a given amount of support. But this needful requirement was too manifestly uncertain to justify an expensive venture; for there was little or no money in the country, nor means to procure it by exchanges. Still, the experiment was occasionally made, but most generally failed even in the hands of the most economical management and moderate expectations.

The following is a brief of a four-paged paper, ten by fifteen inches in size--“No. 33, Vol. I.”--dated June 5, 1818. This paper was started at the county seat of one of the early settled localities, and in agriculture one of the leading counties in the state. This number treats of the following subjects: