Stories of the Badger State Part 11

The local militia were called out to suppress the disorder, but they were without power. It soon became noised about that Glover was to be secretly removed to Missouri. This made the mob furious. Just at this time the Racine contingent arrived, adding oil to the flames. The reenforced crowd now marched to the jail, attacked the weak structure with axes, beams, and crowbars, rescued the fugitive just at sunset, and hurried him off. An underground railroad agency took the poor fellow in charge, and soon placed him aboard a sailing vessel bound for Canada, where he finally arrived in safety.

Throughout Wisconsin the rescue was approved by the newspapers and public gatherings. Sympathetic meetings were also held in other States, at which resolutions applauding the action of Booth and his friends, and declaring the slave catching law unconst.i.tutional, were pa.s.sed with much enthusiasm. There was also held at Milwaukee, in April, a notable State convention, with delegates from all of the settled parts of the commonwealth; this convention declared the law unconst.i.tutional, and formed a State league for furnishing aid and sympathy to the Glover rescuers.

In 1857, as a result of the Glover affair, the Wisconsin legislature pa.s.sed an act making it a duty of district attorneys in each county "to use all lawful means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged ... every person arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave," and throwing around the poor fellow every possible safeguard. Such was Wisconsin's final protest against the iniquity of the Fugitive Slave Law.

Naturally, Booth had been looked upon by the United States marshal as the chief abettor of the riot. He was promptly arrested for violating a federal law by aiding in the escape of a slave; but the State supreme court promptly discharged him on a writ of _habeas corpus_. Thereupon he was brought before the federal court, but again the State court interfered in his favor, because of a technical irregularity.

On the first of these occasions, the State court issued a very remarkable decision upon State rights, that attracted national attention at a time when this question was violently agitating the public mind. It declared, after a clear, logical statement of the case, that the Fugitive Slave Law was "unconst.i.tutional and void" because it conferred judicial power upon mere court commissioners, and deprived the accused negro of the right of trial by jury. One of the justices of the court, in an individual opinion, went still further: he held that Congress had no power to legislate upon this subject; that "the States will never quietly submit to be disrobed of their sovereignty" by "national functionaries"; that the police power rested in the State itself, which would not "succ.u.mb, paralyzed and aghast, before the process of an officer unknown to the const.i.tution, and irresponsible to its sanctions"; and that so long as he remained a judge, Wisconsin would meet such attempts with "stern remonstrance and resistance."

The federal court reversed this action, and again arrested Booth in 1860, but he was soon pardoned by the President, and met with no further trouble on account of the Glover affair.

As for the people of Racine, they made life rather uncomfortable for the men who had a.s.sisted the Milwaukee deputy marshals in arresting Glover.

The city became a fiercer hotbed of abolition than ever before, and several times thereafter aided slaves to escape from bondage.

Fortunately for their own good, as well as for the cause of law and order, they found no further occasion to take the law into their own hands, in the defense of human liberty.

THE STORY OF A FAMOUS CHIEF

One of the best-known Indians with whom Wisconsin Territorial pioneers were thrown into personal contact was Oshkosh, the last of the Menominee sachems, or peace chiefs. It is worth while briefly to relate the story of his career, because it was the life of a typical Indian leader, at the critical time when the whites were coming into the country in such numbers as to crowd the reds to the wall.

Oshkosh was born in 1795, at Point Bas, on the Wisconsin River.

Cha-kau-cho-ka-ma (meaning Old King), the peace chief of the Menominees at that time, was his maternal grandfather. The war chief was Glode, the orator of the tribe, and a mighty hunter. The Old King lived until 1826, but Glode died in 1804, his successor being Tomah (the French p.r.o.nunciation of Thomas, his English name).

In the War of 1812-15, a large band of Wisconsin Indians joined the ranks of Tec.u.mseh, in raiding upon the American borderers. The princ.i.p.al Menominee chiefs were Tomah, Souligny, Grizzly Bear, and Iometah, and among the young men was Oshkosh.

Their first expedition was against Fort Mackinac, in 1812, that stronghold being captured from the Americans without bloodshed. Among white men, such an enterprise would not seem to offer much opportunity for the display of personal bravery; but savage and civilized standards of courage differ, and young Oshkosh appears to have satisfied the old men upon this occasion, so that he then received the name by which we know him, meaning in the Menominee tongue, "brave."

By the following May, Oshkosh, now in his nineteenth year, and prominent among the young warriors, went out with Souligny and Tomah, and joined Tec.u.mseh in the siege of Fort Meigs at the rapids of the Maumee River.

Later, during the same summer, he was engaged in the memorable British-Indian siege of Sandusky. The succeeding year he was one of a large party of Menominees a.s.sisting the British to repel a fierce but futile American attempt to recapture Fort Mackinac. This was his last campaign, for peace between Great Britain and the United States soon followed.

Oshkosh, now living upon the lands of the tribe in northeastern Wisconsin, appears to have pa.s.sed a quiet existence, after his exploits of 1812-15. Lacking the stimulus of war, he maintained a state of artificial excitement by the use of fire water, and soon won a bad reputation in this regard. But he was not wholly debased. Few in council had more power than he. Although he was slow to speak, his opinion when given had much weight, because of a firm, resolute tone, beside which the impa.s.sioned flights of Tomah and Souligny often failed in effect.

When the Old King died without any sons, a contest arose over the successorship to the chieftaincy. In many tribes there would have been no question about the election of Oshkosh, for he was the son of Old King's daughter; but the Menominees did not recognize any heirship except through sons. So many claimants arose, each determined to fight for the position, that the United States government feared an outbreak of civil war within the tribe, with possible injuries to the neighboring white settlers.

Hence a court of claims was organized, to choose a chief among the contestants. This court, headed by Governor Lewis Ca.s.s, of Michigan Territory, met at Little b.u.t.te des Morts (near Neenah) in August, 1827, and selected Oshkosh. Ca.s.s, in the presence of the tribesmen, hung a medal about the neck of the victor, shook hands with him, and ordered a feast in honor of the event.

The first five years of the reign of this dusky chieftain were peaceful enough, so far as relations with other tribes were concerned. But within the Menominee villages there were frequent drunken frolics, which sometimes ended in bloodshed or in endless disputes between families; and in these disturbances, which often greatly alarmed the white settlers, Oshkosh had his full share.

When in June, 1832, the great Sac leader, Black Hawk, was hara.s.sing the settlements in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, while being slowly driven northward by the white troops, fears were entertained in the valley of the lower Fox that he would turn toward Green Bay. With the hope of preventing this, a force of three hundred Menominee Indians was recruited there, and sent to the seat of war, officered by American and French residents. Oshkosh headed his people, but arrived too late to do any fighting; Black Hawk had already been vanquished by white soldiers, at the battle of the Bad Ax. Oshkosh and his braves found no more savage foe than a small party of Sacs, old men and women and children, flying from the battlefield, and these they promptly ma.s.sacred, proudly carrying the scalps back with them to Green Bay.

Four years later, the Menominees sold all of their lands in Wisconsin to the federal government, and were placed upon the reservation at Keshena, where they still live.

In 1840, the little four-year-old white settlement at the junction of the upper Fox with Lake Winnebago thought itself large enough to have a post office, hence the necessity for adopting a permanent name. The place had at first been known to travelers as Stanley's Tavern, because here a man named Stanley ran a ferry across Fox River, and kept a log hotel. Then the Green Bay merchants fell into the habit of marking "Athens" on boxes and bales which the boatmen carried up to Stanley's.

When the question arose over the name for the post office, there were several candidates, "Osceola," "Galeopolis," and "Athens" being prominent. Robert Grignon, a French fur trader at Grand b.u.t.te des Morts, desiring to be on good terms with his Menominee neighbors, proposed "Oshkosh." Thereupon party spirit ran high. Upon a day named, a popular election without distinction of race was held at the office of the justice of the peace, who provided a free dinner to the voters; among them were a score of Indians, brought in by Grignon. Several ballots were taken, between which speeches were made in behalf of the rivals.

"Oshkosh" finally won, chiefly by the votes of Grignon's Indians.

Harmony was soon restored, and the election ended in drink and smoke, after the fashion of border gatherings in those days.

We hear little more of old chief Oshkosh, until fifteen years later. In the year 1852 occurred a kidnaping case, which became famous in the frontier annals of Wisconsin. Nahkom, a Menominee squaw, was accused of having stolen a little white boy, the son of Alvin Partridge, of the town of Neenah, in Winnebago county. The Indians stoutly denied the truth of this accusation; indeed, Partridge himself failed to recognize his lost son in the person of Nahkom's boy. But the relatives and neighbors of Partridge were confident as to the ident.i.ty, and the bereaved father was induced to ask aid of the courts in obtaining the child.

The case hung fire for three years, the courts always deciding in favor of Nahkom, although Partridge regained temporary possession of the boy under writs of _habeas corpus_. Finally, pending the decision of a Milwaukee judge upon the application for a writ, the little fellow was placed in the jail of that city. From there the Partridges kidnaped him and fled to Kansas, leaving poor Nahkom childless, for undoubtedly it was a case of mistaken ident.i.ty, and the child was really hers.

Ultimately the boy was found and restored to her.

This was in 1855. Oshkosh and a number of Menominee headmen went at once to Milwaukee, upon learning of the jail delivery, and laid their complaints before the judge. Recognizing the press as a medium of communication with the public, Oshkosh and Souligny also visited the editor of the _Sentinel_, asking him to state their grievance and plead their cause. The speech which Oshkosh made to the editor was given in full in that paper, and is a good specimen of the direct, earnest method in Indian oratory.

He said, among other things: "Governor Dodge told us that our great father [the President] was very strong, and owned all the country; and that no one would dare to trouble us, or do us wrong, as he would protect us. He told us, too, that whenever we got into difficulty or anything happened we did not like, to call on our great father and he would see justice done. And now we come to you to remind our great father, through your paper, of his promise, and to ask him to fulfil it.... We thought our child safe in the jail in the care of the officers; that none could get the child away from them unless the law gave them the right. We cannot but think it must have been an evil spirit that got into the jail and took away our child. We thought the white man's law strong, and are sorry to find it so weak." Upon the conclusion of his visit, Oshkosh and his friends returned to their reservation, determined never again to mingle with the deceitful and grasping whites.

Upon their way home to Keshena, Oshkosh stopped at the thriving little city which had been christened for him, and expressed pride at having so large a namesake. It was his first and only visit. Three years later he died in a drunken brawl, aged sixty-three years. He was a good Indian, as savages go, his chief vice being one borrowed from the whites, who forced themselves upon his lands and contaminated him and his people.

A FIGHT FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP

Between the time when Wisconsin became a state (1848), and the opening of the War of Secession (1861), party feeling ran high within the new commonwealth. Charges of corruption against public officials were freely made; many men sought office for the plunder supposed to be obtained by those "inside the ring"; newspaper editors appeared to be chiefly engaged in savage attacks on the reputations of those who differed from them, and general political demoralization was prevalent. When, however, important issues arose out of the discussions of the strained relations between North and South, a higher and more patriotic tone was at once evident, and this has ever since been maintained in Wisconsin politics.

The most striking event of the years of petty partisan strife which preceded the war, was the fight for the governorship of the State, between William A. Barstow and Coles Bashford.

Barstow, a Democrat from Waukesha county, had been secretary of state during Governor Dewey's second term (1850-51). Owing to bitterness occasioned by the rejection of the first State const.i.tution, the Democratic party in Wisconsin was torn into factions, at the head of one of which was Barstow. While serving as secretary of state, he made many enemies, who freely accused him of rank official dishonesty, and a.s.sociated him with the corrupt methods of the early railway companies which were just then seeking charters from the legislature.

Nevertheless, like all strong, positive men, he had won for himself warm friends, who secured his election as governor for the year 1854-55.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLES BASHFORD]

His enemies, however, grew in number, and their accusations increased in bitterness. His party renominated him for governor; but he had lost ground during the term, and could not draw out his full party strength in the November election of 1855. Besides, the new Republican party, although as yet in the minority, was making rapid strides, and voted solidly for its nominee, Bashford, a Winnebago county lawyer. As a result, the voting for governor proved so close that for a full month no one knew the outcome. Meanwhile there was, of course, much popular excitement, with charges of fraud on both sides.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM A. BARSTOW]

Finally, in December, the State board of canva.s.sers met at Madison. It consisted of the secretary of state, the State treasurer, and the attorney-general, all of them Barstow men. Their report was that he had received one hundred fifty-seven more votes than his opponent. The Republicans at once advanced the serious charge that the canva.s.sers had deliberately forged supplemental returns from several counties, pretending to receive them upon the day before the count. Large numbers of people soon came to believe that fraud had been committed, and Bashford prepared for a contest.

Upon the day in early January when Barstow was inaugurated at the capitol, with the usual military display, Bashford stepped into the supreme court room and was quietly sworn in by the chief justice.

Thereupon Bashford appealed to the court to turn Barstow out, and declare him the rightful governor.

There followed a most remarkable lawsuit. The const.i.tution provides that the State government shall consist of three branches, legislative, judicial, and executive. It was claimed that never before in the history of any of the States in the Union had one branch of the government been called upon to decide between rival claimants to a position in another branch. Barstow's lawyers, of course, denied the jurisdiction of the court to pa.s.s upon the right of the governor to hold his seat; for, they argued, if this were possible, then the judiciary would be superior to the people, and no one could hold office to whom the judges were not friendly. There was a fierce struggle, for several weeks, between the opposing lawyers, who were among the most learned men of the State, with the result that the court decided that it had jurisdiction; and, on nearly every point raised, ruled in favor of the Bashford men.

Before the decision of the case, Barstow and his lawyers withdrew, declaring that the judges were influenced against them by political prejudices. However, the court proceeded without them, and declared that the election returns had been tampered with, and that Bashford really had one thousand nine majority. He was accordingly declared to have been elected governor.

This conclusion had been expected by Barstow, who, determined not to be put out of office, resigned his position three days before the court rendered its decision. Immediately upon Barstow's resignation, his friend, the lieutenant governor, Arthur McArthur, took possession of the office. He claimed that he was now the rightful governor, for the const.i.tution provides that in the event of the resignation, death, or inability of the governor, the lieutenant governor shall succeed him.

But the supreme court at once ruled that, as Barstow's t.i.tle was worthless, McArthur could not succeed to it, a logical view of the case which the Barstow sympathizers had not foreseen.

It was upon Monday, March the 24th, that the court rendered its decision. Bashford announced that he would take possession of the office upon Tuesday. There had been great popular uneasiness in Madison and the neighboring country, throughout the long struggle, and the decision brought this excitement to a crisis. Many of the adherents of both contestants armed themselves and drilled, in antic.i.p.ation of an encounter which might lead to civil war within the State. There were frequent wordy quarrels upon the streets, and threats of violence; and many supposed that it would be impossible to prevent the opposing factions from fighting in good earnest.

Affairs were in this critical condition upon the fateful Tuesday. Early in the day people began to arrive in Madison from the surrounding country, as if for a popular fete. The streets and the capitol grounds were filled with excited men, chiefly adherents of Bashford; they cheered him loudly as he emerged from the supreme court room, at eleven o'clock, accompanied by the sheriff of the county, who held in his hand the order which awarded the office to Bashford.

Pa.s.sing through the corridors of the capitol, now crowded with his friends, Bashford and the sheriff rapped upon the door of the governor's office. McArthur and several of his friends were inside; a voice bade the callers enter. The new governor was a large, pleasant-looking man.