Part 28

Maclay had intended saying not another word on this subject for this day, but some remarks in the Vice-President’s speech impelled the Pennsylvanian to rise. He said: “Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States has designated our Chief Magistrate by the appellation of the ‘President of the United States of America.’ This is his title of office; nor can we alter, add to or diminish it without infringing the Constitution. In like manner persons authorized to transact business with foreign powers are styled Ambassadors, Public Ministers, etc. To give them any other appellation would be an equal infringement. As to grades of order or titles of nobility, nothing of the kind can be established by Congress.

“Can, then, the President and Senate do that which is prohibited to the United States at large? Certainly not. Let us read the Constitution. ‘No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.’ The Constitution goes further. The servants of the public are prohibited from accepting them from any foreign state, king or prince. So that the appellation and terms given to nobility in the Old World are contraband language in the United States; nor can we apply them to our citizens consistent with the Constitution. As to what the common people, soldiers and sailors of foreign countries may think of us, I do not think it imports us much. Perhaps, the less they think or have occasion to think of us, the better.

“But suppose this is a desirable point; how is it to be gained? The English excepted, foreigners do not understand our language. We must use Hohen Mogende to a Dutchman, Beylerbey to a Turk or Algerine and so of the rest. From the English, indeed, we may borrow terms that would not be wholly unintelligible to our own citizens. But will they thank us for the compliment? Would not the plagiarism be more likely to be attended with contempt than respect among all of them? It has been admitted that all this is nonsense to the philosopher. I am ready to admit that every high-sounding, pompous appellation, descriptive of qualities which the object does not possess, must appear bombastic nonsense in the eye of every wise man. But I cannot admit such an idea with respect to government itself. Philosophers have admitted not the utility but the necessity of it and their labors have been directed to correct the vices and expose the follies which have been engrafted upon it and to reduce the practice of it to the principles of common sense, such as we see exemplified by the merchant, the mechanic and the farmer whose every act or operation tends to a productive or beneficial effect; and, above all, to illustrate this fact that government was instituted for the benefit of the people and that no act of government is justifiable that has not this for its object. Such has been the labor of philosophers with respect to government and sorry indeed would I be if their labors should be in vain.”

XIV. “AFFECTATION OF SIMPLICITY.”

Vice-President Adams now put the question and the postponement was carried; immediately after which Maclay offered a resolution for a conference between the two Houses. It was carried and the committee appointed. But now Ellsworth drew up another resolution in which the differences between the two Houses were to be kept out of sight and to proceed _de novo_ on a title for the President. “I did not enter into the debate,” records Maclay, “but expressed my fear that the House of Representatives would be irritated and would not meet us on that ground. And, as if they meant to provoke the other House, they insisted that the minute of rejection should go down with the appointment of the committee. Little good can come of it thus circumstanced, more especially as the old committee were reappointed,” namely, Ellsworth, Johnson and Lee.

Monday, May 11, on motion of Lee, the subject of titles was postponed to the following day, but under date of May 12 Maclay records: “The business of considering the title, which was laid on the table, was postponed to see what would be the result of the conference of the Joint Committee on that subject.” Adams’s solicitude for titles was evident, for when the Senate met, May 13, he reminded the members that the report for the President’s title lay on the table. The Senate was informed by Lee that the committee on titles had met in the Senate chamber but were interrupted by the assembling of that body and had agreed to meet on the following morning. Again, on May 14, the Vice-President “reminded us of the title report” but the committee was out on it. In a short time, however, they reported that the Lower House “had adhered in the strictest manner to their former resolution,” which was against the granting of titles of any kind.

This, indeed, was a heavy blow for the advocates of titles. Catching at the last straw, Lee now moved that the Senate _de novo committee’s_ report in favor of titles be taken from the table and entered on the files of the House. The spirit of his motion was that attention should be paid to the usages of civilized nations in order to keep up a proper respect to the President; that “affectation of simplicity would be injurious”; that the Senate had decided in favor of titles but, in deference to the expressed feelings of the Lower House, the Senate, “for the present,” should address the President without title.

XV. “YOUR HIGHNESS OF THE SENATE.”

On the day preceding this debate the Speaker Muhlenberg of the House of Representatives had accosted Maclay as “Your Highness of the Senate,” saying that Congressman Henry Wynkoop, of Pennsylvania, had been christened by them “His Highness of the Lower House.” As the question of titles was gone all over again, Maclay records that he determined to try what ridicule would do. He said: “Mr. President, if all men were of one stature, there would be neither high nor low. Highness, when applied to an individual, must naturally denote the excess of stature which he possesses over other men. An honorable member [Ellsworth] told us the other day of a certain king [Saul] who was a head and shoulders taller than anybody else. This, more especially when he was gloriously greased with a great horn of oil, must have rendered him _highly_ conspicuous. History, too, if I mistake not, will furnish us with an example where a great Thracian obtained the empire of the world from no other circumstance. But, if this antiquated principle is to be adopted, give us fair play. Let America be searched and it is most probable that the honor will be found to belong to some huge Patagonian. This is indeed putting one sadly over the head of another. True, but Nature has done it and men should see where she leads before they adopt her as a guide.

“It may be said that this business is metaphorical and the high station of the President entitled him to it. Nothing can be true metaphorically which is not so naturally, and under this view of the proposed title it belongs with more propriety to the man in the moon than anybody else as his station (when we have the honor of seeing him) is certainly the most exalted of any we know of. Gentlemen may say this is fanciful. Would they wish to see the subject in the most serious point of view that it is possible to place it? Rome, after being benighted for ages in the darkest gloom of ecclesiastical and aristocratic tyranny, beheld a reformer [Rienzi] in the fourteenth century who, preaching from stocks and stones and the busts and fragments of ancient heroes, lighted up the lamp of liberty to meridium splendor. Intoxicated with success, he assumed a string of titles, none of which, in my recollection, was equally absurd with the one before you; in consequence of which and of his aping some other symbols of nobility and royalty, he fell and pulled down the whole republican structure along with him; marking particularly the subject of titles as one of the principal rocks on which he was shipwrecked. As to the latter part of the title, I would only observe that the power of war is the organ of protection. This is placed in Congress by the Constitution. Any attempt to divest them of it, even with George Washington, is treason against the United States or, at least, a violation of the Constitution.”

XVI. SENATE FAVORS TITLES.

With a view to “cutting up the whole matter by the roots” the anti-titleists moved a general postponement of the Senate report on titles—and the motion was carried. But with a tenacity worthy of a better cause, Lee insisted on placing the report on the files of the House as indicating that the Senate was in favor of titles. Carroll opposed this on the ground that an imperfect resolution should not be filed. He was seconded by Maclay as the filing carried with it the idea of adoption. This part of the motion was lost by a general postponement.

Even after the subject had been postponed, the Senators persisted in the discussion. Morris rose and said that he disliked the title “Highness and Protector of the Rights of America” as protection lay with Congress. He was told that the question of postponement had been carried. Then Carroll rose, said he disliked the first part of the motion which stated the acts of the Senate to be in favor of titles. But, as a matter of fact, no such resolution had been passed in the Senate.

Maclay then rose and moved a division on the motion and was seconded by Carroll. This precipitated another long debate on titles. Ellsworth went over the field again; Johnson “spoke much more to the point, Paterson said that a division should take place at the word ‘Senate’ and on this point he was supported by Morris and Maclay, the latter withdrawing his motion and seconding Paterson’s for a division at the word ‘Senate.’ The division was full enough to answer all purposes which they avowed, taking it at this place.” It was apparent, however, that the titleists still clung to their hope and even went so far as to charge the Lower House with affecting simplicity.

Carroll declared that it was well known that all the Senators were not for titles, yet the idea held forth was that the Senate favored titles. He wished to have the yeas and nays placed on record and “let the world judge.” Senator Few said that it was too late for the yeas and nays as they should have been called for when the report against titles was rejected. Finally the question was put and it stood “eight with us; ten against us. Mr. Carroll called for the yeas and nays.” None rose with him except Senator John Henry of Maryland and Maclay “and for want of another man we lost them”—Rule 15 of the Senate holding that the yeas and nays can be placed on the journal of the House only when called for by one-fifth of the senators present.

XVII. WASHINGTON’S ATTITUDE.

It will be interesting to note Washington’s bearing on the subject of titles while it was under debate in Congress. His position was most embarrassing and called for tact and equanimity as the first title considered was that for the President. On its fate depended the granting of titles for the lesser officers of the government. That Washington conducted himself with his usual fortitude, impartiality and broad-mindedness is fully attested by the following entry in Maclay’s journal: “Through the whole of this base business [granting titles] I have endeavored to mark the conduct of General Washington. I have no clew that will fairly lead me to any just conclusion as to his sentiments. I think it scarce possible but he must have dropped something on a subject which has excited so much warmth. If he did, it was not on our side or I would have heard it. But no matter. I have, by plowing with the heifer of the other House, completely defeated them.”

XVIII. NO TITLES “FOR THE PRESENT.”

And so ended the momentous debate in the first United States Senate on the subject of titles which, in one form or another, “engaged almost the whole time of the Senate from the 23d of April, the day that our Vice-President began it,” until May 14 when the Senate, by a vote of ten to eight decided that they, “for the present,” would not press the subject of titles but so arranged the records as to give the impression that they sanctioned them. When it came to reading the minutes on the following day, Friday, May 15, Few moved that the minute on the division of Lee’s motion be struck out because, as it stood, it had the appearance of unanimity. Lee opposed. Few was supported by Carroll, Ellsworth and Maclay—but the minute stood.

One hundred and eighteen years have lapsed since this debate on a title for the President of the United States—and the consequent “ennobling” of the lesser officials of the “new” government—took place. That debate left the situation as follows: the House of Representatives rejected titles of any kind most positively. The Senate, finding that it could not bring the whole Congress to the point of giving titles, fell back to the position that the President and the Senate were the only fountain heads of titles and that, merely as a matter of accommodation, “for the present” they waived the question but put themselves on record—by placing on the files of the Senate a resolution which never was passed—as being in favor of appellations of nobility.

IRISH PIONEERS OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY—JOHN WOOD, THE FIRST REAL PIONEER SETTLER—FOUNDER OF QUINCY, MODEL STATE EXECUTIVE AND PATRIOT—HEROIC SETTLERS IN VARIOUS STATES.

BY MR. MICHAEL PIGGOTT, QUINCY, ILL.

After many thousand years separation at the cradle of their race, in India, it was the coming together and blending of pure Celtic and Teutonic families that finally gave order and civilization to Europe after the fall of Greece and Rome produced the dark ages. It was the further mingling and blending of the same kindred blood in America that produced the men, who, in 1776, gave the governments and civilizations of the world their brightest jewel in the Declaration of American Independence, a new civic chart to inspire and guide all nations on the highway of justice, freedom and equality to the highest civilization. It was a further blend of the same virile and liberty-loving blood that enabled the immortal Lincoln to save the Republic in 1861 and place it at the head of the nations, without a peer in ancient or modern history.

It was the marriage of an Irishman and a German woman in the Mohawk Valley of New York in 1795 that gave America, in the person of John Wood, one of her best and bravest sons; the Mississippi Valley, its first real pioneer settler; Quincy, its beloved founder; Illinois, a model executive and the republic a patriotic defender.

Governor John Wood was born in Moravia, New York, December 20th, 1798. He was the second child and only son of Doctor Daniel Wood, and Catherine (Crouse) Wood. His father, a surgeon and captain under Washington during the war of freedom from British despotism, was of Irish descent, being the grandson of Timothy Wood, of Longford, Ireland.

Doctor Daniel Wood was a man of unusual attainments as a scholar and linguist. He was proficient in several languages; his medical books in French and German, with his own marginal notes, indicate the high standard of his professional acquirements.

At the close of the revolution, he settled in Cayuga County, on a large tract of land which he received as a bounty from the government, where he died at the ripe age of ninety-two years. His body was exhumed by his son and brought to Quincy and buried in Woodland Cemetery on a high natural knoll overlooking the waters of the Mississippi, in view of George Rogers Clark’s monument, designed by a son of General Mulligan and erected by the State of Illinois during the past year. Irish patriotism and valor are here well represented by the names of Clark, Wood and Mulligan.

The mother of Governor Wood, who died while he was under five years of age, was a woman of unusual beauty and was several years younger than her husband. She was of old “Mohawk Dutch” stock, and while well informed could only speak the “Dutch” language.

In 1818, John Wood came West in quest of home and fortune. He spent two years exploring the advantages offered to young men in the valleys of Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, also in southern Ohio and Indiana. In 1820, while at Cincinnati, he met a young man by the name of Willard Keyes, a native of Vermont and two years older than himself. Keyes had spent a year at Prairie du Chien, on the Upper Mississippi, teaching French and Indian half-breeds. They entered into a partnership to go on the frontier and commence farming. They secured between them some young steers, a heifer and a few swine, a plow and a limited supply of provisions, then treked across the country into the wilderness of the great Northwest to find a suitable location, finally stopping at a place about thirty miles southeast of Quincy, where they established a rude bachelors’ hall and raised three crops.

In the spring of 1821, Wood, while hunting for game, met two Irishmen named Peter Flynn and James Moffatt, soldiers of 1812, who had located government warrants on the banks of the Mississippi, west of the Wood and Keyes locations. John Wood visited the Flynn and Moffatt locations and, being a keen observer and a natural lover of beauty, admiring their high advantages and beautiful surroundings, immediately resolved to make his home with them.

In the fall of that year, Jeremiah Rose, wife and five-year-old daughter came to the Wood and Keyes settlement. He was of Irish descent, born in Rensselear County, New York. In the fall of 1822, Wood and Rose arranged to locate at the Flynn and Moffatt settlements, but Rose took sick and remained with his family, while Wood went on, and with the assistance of Flynn and Moffatt built a log cabin eighteen by twenty feet, the first white man’s home in this section of Illinois, as Flynn and Moffatt had built no cabins on their locations but camped with the Indians who lined the river banks north and south for several miles. John Wood being unmarried, the Rose family occupied his cabin and remained with him until 1826, when Rose located a mile back from the river and about a mile north, on what is now known as Twelfth Street.

In the spring of 1824, Williard Keyes came and built a cabin sixteen by sixteen feet at the foot of what is now Vermont Street. In the same fall, John Drulard, a Frenchman, built a cabin a short distance south of Wood, making a white man’s village of three cabins where Indians had held dominion and war dances for ages. Between the cabins of Wood and Keyes, on the high bluffs where Main Street has been cut through to the river, there was a “Sauk” village of friendly Indians. They lingered in the vicinity for several years, coming back annually until after the Black Hawk war to decorate and worship at the graves of their fathers.

In the fall of 1824, John Wood caused to be inserted in the Edwardsville Spectator a notice that application would be made at the next session of the legislature, for the organization of a new county, defining its boundaries. In 1825 the Legislature authorized its establishment, fixing the boundaries described in Wood’s notice and as they now exist. Three commissioners were appointed to locate the county seat. After going over the boundaries, they selected the place suggested by John Wood as the most suitable. They christened the new town Quincy and the county Adams, in honor of the president. Thenceforth the little village of three log cabins rejoiced in a name. A space four hundred feet square was reserved in the center of the town for a public square, now known as Washington Park, the home of the friendly squirrels and birds that sport in safety amid its elms, shrubs and fountains. The first election for officers of the county was held July 2, 1825, when forty votes were polled.

From 1825 to 1830, the growth of Quincy was very slow, caused by the privations incident to a pioneer’s life. The little settlement was many miles distant from mills or places where necessary family supplies could be obtained. Instead of coffee the settlers used okra seeds, which they cultivated for that purpose and sweetened with wild honey found in great abundance in the neighboring woods. Their nearest blacksmith was at Atlas, forty miles distant, where they carried their plows to be sharpened, swung upon horses’ backs.

Among the voters who took part in the election for county officers in July, 1825, appear the Celtic names of George Frazier, Michael Dodd, Thomas McCreary, Louis Kinney, Daniel Moore, H. Hawley and Ben McNitt, besides the others above mentioned. Below appear the names of the Irish pioneers who came after the county and the town were organized.

From the beginning, John Wood was the moving spirit of the young settlement. Its subsequent growth and prosperity were due to his untiring zeal which he maintained to the end of his long and useful life.

In 1827, John Wood visited the lead mines at Galena, but maintained his home at Quincy and was constantly identified with its progress, serving as its mayor four times and a number of years as one of its councilmen. His influence was not confined to Quincy alone. He was early recognized throughout the State as a rising man of mark. The manner in which he organized Adams County and defeated a movement of men from Kentucky, who, in 1824, desired a convention for a new constitution to allow them to bring their slaves to Illinois, gave him prominence among the politicians of the State.

At the time John Wood built his Quincy cabin, St. Louis and Missouri were the attractive places of the opening West, but the black gangrene of human slavery repelled John Wood and caused him to prefer the free soil of Illinois. When the question was submitted to the people, John Wood made a canvass of the Bounty Land or Military Tract as it was called, and out of one hundred and three votes cast secured all but four against a change. He regarded with equal disfavor the political organization known as the abolitionists, considering them civic disturbers.

[Illustration:

THOMAS F. RYAN, ESQ.,

Of New York City.

Life Member of the Society. ]