QEhi
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02476 7243
Gc 976. S D55a
Address of J.M. Dickinson,
The centennial of the
admission of the state of
Tennessee into the Union
ADDRESS
J. M. DICKINSON.
THE CENTENNIAL
OF THE ADMISSION
THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
INTO THE UNION.
DELIVERED AT NASHVILLE. TENN.
JUNE I. 1896.
ADDRESS
J. M. DICKINSON.
THE CENTENNIAL
OF THE ADMISSION
THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
INTO THE UNION.
DELIVERED AT NASHVILLE. TENN..
JUNE i. 1896.
ireei
,270
ADDRESS.
On June I, 1796, George Washington approved the act
which made Tennessee the sixteenth State in the Federal
Union.
The cession by North Carolina to the United States of
the territory embraced in Tennessee provided for its State-
hood, but there was strong opposition to admission at that
time in both houses of Congress.
The settlers of Tennessee were imbued with a constant
and all-controlling idea of law and order as an expression
of local government.
They were irrepressible constitution makers. Where-
ever they established their settlements, they hardly took
time to build their houses before they set about construct-
ing a system of government.
And so, when the time approached for shedding the
chrysalis condition of a territorial government, and putting
on the larger life of Statehood they, following this bent,
and also profiting by the experience of Kentucky, which
had repeatedly been rebuffed, anticipated the action of Con-
gress, took their own census, adopted a constitution, elected
a Legislature and Governor and inaugurated him, passed
laws dividing the State into congressional districts, elected
Congressmen and Senators and presidential electors, and
were in the exercise of the full functions of a State for a
month before the bill for admission came up in either house
of Congress. And what seems almost audacious, her Sen-
ators presented their credentials, and asked admission to
the United States Senate before the act was passed.
It is apparent that even then the question of balance of
power between the States was a potent, though not an
avowed factor.
Vermont, the first accession to the original thirteen States,
admitted in 1791, was an assured non-slaveholding State,
though she did not extinguish slaver)' by constitutional
provision until 1793.
Kentucky was admitted in 1792.
Tennessee, a slave territory, next offered, and her admis-
sion was the only departure from the system of alternating
slave and free States, which was unbroken up to the ad-
mission of Missouri in 1821.
It is a significant fact that, when the test came in the
House of Representatives, every member who voted from
New England was recorded in the opposition, except Israel
Smith, of Vermont.
Party interest was a strong undercurrent, for the Federal-
ists opposed the admission, knowing that the electoral vote
of Tennessee would certainly be cast for Jefferson.
William B. Giles, Robert Rutherford. Nathaniel Macon,
Albert Gallatin and James Madison were earnest advocates
of her admission.
Mr. Madison said :
11 The inhabitants of that district of country were at pres-
ent in a degraded condition ; they were deprived of a right
essential to freemen — the right of being represented in Con-
gress. Laws were made without their consent, or by their
consent in part only. An exterior power had authority
over their laws ; an exterior authority appointed their ex-
ecutive, which was not analogous to the other parts of the
United States, and not justified by anything but an obvious
and imperious necessity."*
Mr. Rutherford said :
4t He did not wish to cavil with this brave, generous peo-
ple. He would have them taken out of leading strings, as
they were now able to stand alone ; it was time to take
them by the hand and to say we are glad to see you stand
on your own feet. We should not, he said, be too nice
about their turning out their toes, or other trifles ; they
will soon march lustily along. They had complied with
every requisite for becoming a State of the Union — they
wished to form an additional star in the political hemisphere
*An. 4th Cong., p. 1309.
of the United States — they have erected a State Govern-
ment and wish to come into the Union, and to resist their
claim would be out of character." *
It is pleasing to note that every one of these names has
been worthily commemorated in our State.
The opposition to admission raised a storm of indigna-
tion among those hardy pioneers, who had, by their per-
sonal prowess, courage and sufferings, won and held the
Western frontier, with no aid, even in the darkest hours of
their trials, from the Atlantic population.
If Congress interposed vexatious delay, not so the im-
mortal Washington, for he approved the bill on the day fol-
lowing its passage.
General satisfaction and joy hailed the announcement of
their admission into the Union.
In July John Sevier, the Governor of the new State, said
in a message to the General Assembly:
"I have the pleasure of announcing to you gentlemen
the admission of the State of Tennessee into the Federal
Union, a circumstance pregnant with every prospect of
peace, happiness and opulence to our infant State.
The period has at length arrived when the people of the
Southwestern Territory may enjoy all the blessings and
liberties of a free and independent republic."
To this the Legislature replied in terms expressive of
the profoundest satisfaction at the bright future which this
momentous event vouchsafed.
These expressions of felicitation and joyful anticipations
were not rhetorical platitudes. These men were not coin-
ers of well-turned or glittering phrases, to catch the ear or
please the fancy.
Most of them had experienced the hardships of frontier
life, the abandonment by North Carolina, the uncertainties
and vexations of tentative governments, the complications
of the dual sovereignties of North Carolina and the State
of Franklin, and the dependency of territorial existence.
They were harrassed with the uncertainty of land titles,
ano\ though scarred veterans, looked with dread upon the
ominous muttering^ that came from hoards of bloodthirsty
'An. 4th Cong., p. 1313.
savages, all too close, and stimulated by Spanish intrigue.
No one can doubt that they uttered sober words of earn-
est conviction when they said to the Governor:
44 We rejoice with you in the event of this State being
formally admitted into the Federal Union, and our minds
are filled with the most pleasing sensations when we reflect
on the prosperity and political happiness to which we view
it as a certain prelude."
The loyal sons and daughters of this great commonwealth,
inspired by that intense love of State which has always
been a resplendent quality in Tennesseans, and which will
never abate, unless we become degenerates and apostates
from the faith of the fathers are assembled to commemorate
that auspicious day.
We have come, citizens by birth and citizens by adop-
tion, of all religions, creeds, and all political parties, seces-
sionists and unionists, Federal and Confederate, to cele-
brate the admission of Tennessee into the Federal Union,
and in that act, notwithstanding the differences which once
rent us asunder, and were upheld without regard to cost of
blood and treasure, differences in regard to which our con-
victions are unaltered, differences which have been settled
forever by constitutional changes accepted in good and
abiding faith, to proclaim to the world, without reserve,
our perfect joy, that Tennessee is to-day an indestructible
State of an indestructible Union, that Union which our
fathers helped to establish, that Union which has for its
national emblem the stars and stripes, which Tennesseans
have so often borne to bloody victory,' and, by this historic
occasion, to transmit to our children and all posterity, the
trust of maintaining constitutional liberty, that a hundred
years hence may be renewed this solemn rite, within a
Union of preserved integrity, composed of States whose
uneclipsed stars have suffered no diminution in their mag-
nitude.
The self-sacrificing and heroic men who made the epoch
we celebrate discharged their high trust in their day and
generation ably and faithfully, created a State, endowed it
with great potentialities and maintained it in a career of
honor, prosperity and greatness.
Under conditions more complex, exigencies more momen-
tous, demanding a patriotism as unselfish, a courage as
unfaltering and a judgment that must confront govern-
mental problems evolved by the march of civilization and
vitalized by social forces, long dormant, but now aroused
and aggressive, we bear the trust of to-day.
Where we stand was once the seat of a dense population
of unknown people of remote antiquity, who vanished
from the earth, leaving no record to tell whence they came,
what they achieved and what were their institutions. Why
they disappeared is a matter of faint tradition and vague
conjecture. Whether they themselves planted and nour-
ished the seeds of decay and perished because they were
unworthy of existence, or whether a braver or more power-
ful people swept them into oblivion, we do not know.
Nature reconquered her own, almost obliterating the
memorials of this ancient race, so that but little more than
a hundred years ago the expanse of country where the eye
is now dazzled and the soul uplifted by the magnificent cre-
ations of a refined civilization, was undisturbed by man,
except by the hunting parties of the neighboring Indians.
Standing upon the graves of an extinct people, we, who
have passed but a hundred years of State life, which is but
a span as compared with the existence of races and govern-
ments which have risen, flourished, decayed and disappeared,
may well turn aside from our stirring pursuits to consider
the foundations upon which our commonwealth rests, the
character and purposes of the men who established it, the
principles which have directed our progress, and from these
take our reckoning, that we may the better pursue those
lines which will tend to perpetuate our institutions, with
increasing usefulness and honor.
God grant that we may attain a full sense of the awful
responsibility resting upon us, and that we may so discharge
it that a hundred years hence, history shall not record the
Commonwealth of Tennessee among those governments that
have only a past, or, if the State survive, that posterity shall
not stand where we stand to-day, to execrate our memory,
and charge a decadence upon our unfaithfulness. What
higher inspiration could we have than that which comes from
8
the lives and public services of our forefathers, who wrought
the fabric which has endured with increasing strength for
a hundred years? We need not look beyond the qualities
illustrated by them to learn what we must cherish to make
a State beneficent and enduring.
Let those who have no past, no history, no traditions, no
distinguished men, no patriots, search the records of other
countries for their exemplars.
The history of Tennessee, from its very beginning, is
affluent with the names of illustrious men, whose lives were
the expression of great moral and intellectual forces, directed
by pure patriotism. In calling her roll of honor we are
touched with no sense of regret, except that in such an
august presence we fain would hide our own diminished
heads.
They are our Lares, and while we are gathered to offer
them incense and libation and deck their altars with gar-
lands of violets and rosemary, let us impress upon our minds
and hearts their lives and public services, and make them
our own, so that though incorporeal, their spirits shall
abide with us as a real presence, and that they, as Ajax of
old in the place always left vacant for his spirit in the ranks
of the Greeks, shall seem to inarch by our sides to inspire
and aid us. And who can doubt, if the dead can revisit the
scenes of their earthly love, that they at this moment, with
a gaze that penetrates the veil that hides our secret motives
and convictions from each other, are about us, approving
all we say and do for our country's good, and scorning all
who desecrate this day by seeking selfish ends?
And in what an imposing assembly do we stand, sur-
rounded by that radiant company of men, who created the
era we celebrate ! With reverential awe we salute them.
James Robertson, the mighty hunter, the patriarch of
the Watauga and founder of the Cumberland settlement.
Though without "a noble lineage to boast of, and the
escutcheoned armorials of a splendid ancestry," his heroic
life revealed a nobility under a patent sealed by a higher
source than earthly potentate. Indebted to his wife ior
elementary instruction, he discharged successfully respon-
sibilities, many and varied, requiring knowledge, wisdom
and diplomacy. *••
9
Born in Virginia in 1742, he left North Carolina in 1770,
and crossing alone the Appalachian Mountains came to the
lovely valley of the Watauga. By his momorable defense
of Watauga fort he achieved a renown which, if he had
done nothing else, would make him immortal in the his-
tory of Tennessee. He was one of the founders of the
Watauga Government in May, 1772, which had the first
written constitution adopted by American freemen. Alone
he followed the great war trace to the Cherokee towns,
entrusted himself to the Indians aroused by outrage to
fierce hostilities, and by the weight of his character, his
dauntless courage and address, averted a bloody war.
He rendered distinguished sen-ices in the battle of Kana-
wha, prevented by his overmastering will the abandonment
of the settlement at Nashville, to replenish their exhausted
supply of powder heroically crossed alone the mountains
and ran the gauntlet of hostile savages, saved by his alert-
ness and valor the garrison of Fort Freeland, fought the
battle of the Bluffs in 1781, which assured the existence of
the Cumberland settlement, led the invasion of the Indian
country, and achieved the victory of Coldwater.
He was the leading spirit in forming the self-constituted
government in 1780, Chairman of Committee of Arbitra-
tors, North Carolina Indian Commissioner, member and
Chairman of Committee of Notables, member of the Gen-
eral Assembly of North Carolina from Davidson County in
1787, appointed by Washington in 1790 Brigadier General
for the Mero District and wounded in an Indian engagement
in 1792. He organized and directed the famous Nickajack
expedition in 1794, and was Trustee of Davidson College.
He closed his eventful life in 1814 at the Chickasaw Agency
and in the service of his country.
Throughout the fourteen years of constant war which
raged on the Cumberland, in which that frontier people en-
dured hardships, dangers and sufferings, unsurpassed by
any people of any time, his wisdom and courage were
always conspicuous.
In the life of James Robertson is recorded the early civil,
political and military history of Tennessee.
Shame upon the State, shame upon us all, that the re-
10
commendation made by Gov. Carroll in 1827 has never
been carried out, and that no statue of this heroic man
adorns the entrance to our capitol, to inspire in the youth
of the land a noble emulation of his patriotic life. If not
there, then let it be set up in the capitol of the nation, to
challenge comparison with the honored representatives of
other States.
If he had lived in England, Old or New, his deeds would
have been immortalized in deathless song, his form and
lineaments fixed in living marble or uncorroding bronze.
May the patriotic fervor of this centennial year not spend
itself in clamor and parade, but rather may we bring to
the memory of the past a true and earnest worship that will
not cease until Tennessee shall have her " Hall of Fame "
tenanted by similitudes of her immortals.
By Robertson stands John Sevier, born in Virginia in
1744, of Huguenot ancestry, one of the famous founders of
Watauga, Clerk of the Watauga Commissioners, a member
from the District of Washington of the Provincial Con-
gress at Halifax in 1776, a hero of Kings Mountain, a
memorable service commemorated by North Carolina by
presentation of a sword and pistols, made Colonel by
North Carolina in 1780, fought in the same year the battle
of Boyd's Creek, one of the hardest contests in the border
wars of Tennessee, and saved the settlements from a bloody
invasion, President of the convention assembled at Jones-
boro in 1784 to provide for the public safety, after the ces-
sion act of North Carolina, while the United States had
not accepted -the territory, and the country was a political
orphan, one of the founders and the Governor of the State
of Franklin, elected a member of the Cincinnati in 1787,
first member of Congress from the great valley of the Mis-
sissippi, member of the Geneial Assembly of the Territory
of the United States south of the Ohio in 1794, author of
the bill in the Territorial Assembly which in 1795 estab-
lished Washington College, first Governor of Tennessee,
which office he held for twelve years, again elected to Con-
gress, representing the Knoxville district, appointed by
Washington to establish an Indian boundary in Alabama,
elected to Congress for the third time and without his
11
knowledge, a victor in thirty-five battles, who never re-
ceived compensation for but one of all the campaigns in
which he served, died in the Creek Nation while on public
service, and was buried with the honors of war.
Such is a brief but incomplete epitome of the life of this
remarkable man.
The brilliant Phelan says: "Of all whose fame was
attained within the limits of this State, the most illustrious,
the most conspicuous, the one whose name was and deserves
to be the most resplendent was John Sevier."*
May the day never come when the youth of Tennessee
shall be so recreant to the memory of those who made her
history glorious, as to cease to enthuse at the mention of
the name of John Sevier, ardent, impulsive, energetic, fluent
in speech, wise in council, gentle in peace, a thunderbolt
in war, the large-hearted, generous man, who exercised that
hospitality of which we are so boastful, but which, alas I is
becoming almost traditional, of whom it might be said as
Homer wrote of Axylus :
" And greatly was he loved, for courteously
He welcomed to his house, beside the way,
All comers."
Joseph McMinn, a man of sound education, a fanner from
Pennsylvania, a soldier of the Revolutionary War, member
of the lower house of the territorial government embracing
Tennessee, Speaker of the Senate in 1807, three times Gov-
ernor of Tennessee, and the first person to give an impetus
to the movement which resulted in the improvement of the
navigation of our rivers.
Win. Cocke, one of the earliest pioneers, a brilliant orator,
who pursued a distinguished and honorable career, a mem-
ber of the Jonesboro convention, commissioner of North
Carolina, a member of the lower house of the State Terri-
torial government, and one of the first United States Sen-
ators from Tennessee.
John McNairy, a learned lawyer, and one of the first
Judges of Tennessee.
Archibald Roane, one of the first Judges of Tennessee,
Governor in 1801, and the preceptor of Hugh L. White.
* History of Tennessee, 249-50.
12
Wm. Blo.int, of distinguished lineage, a friend of Wash-
ington, refined in manner, accomplished in oratory, lavish
in hospitality, an avowed aristocrat, stately, dignified and
courtly, territorial Governor of Tennessee, one of the two
first Senators sent by Tennessee to the United States Sen-
ate, who, however much his national fame was obscured,
Tennesseans will always rememember gratefully, and honor
for his distinguished services to the State.
James White, of Scotch-Irish descent, founder of Knox-
ville, and always distinguished as the father of Hugh L.
White, whose career has shed such lustre upon Tennessee.
Greatest of them all is Andrew Jackson, a soldier in bat-
tle at the age of 14, attorney for the Western district of
North Carolina, first Congressman from Tennessee, United
States Senator at the age of 30, Supreme Judge of Tennes-
see at t,t„ Major-General of Tennessee, led volunteers at the
first outbreak of the war of 181 2, and though suffering pain-
fully from a wound hastened with his command to Natchez,
relieved the sufferings of his troops with $5,000 advanced
from his own purse, the prospect of war having disappeared
in that quarter, offered his services to Washington, and pro-
posed to increase his forces and plant the American flag on
the walls of Maiden, made Brigadier General of the United
States in 1814, successfully conducted, with never failing
victory, the Creek war, the most terrible Indian war in our
annals, and by it gave to the Union, Alabama, part of Miss-
issippi, part of Tennessee, and the highway to the Floridas,
planted the American flag upon the Spanish fortress of Bar-
rancas, hastened to the relief of New Orleans, and humbled
the pride of the British lion by the most signal victory in
the annals of history, in 181 7 marched against the Semi-
noles and pursued them into Spanish territory, placed the
American eagle on St. Matks and above the ancient towers
of St. Augustine, Governor of Florida in 1821, again elected
to the United States Senate, twice President of the United
States, and the canonized patron saint of the oldest existing
political party.
Courtliest to women, most dominating among men, he
charmed the one and ruled the other. Fierce in passion,
yet tender in heart, he turned aside in the midst of the car-
nage of battle to take up and place in safety an Indian babe
clinging to the bosom of its dead mother. Exalting the
blessings of peace, yet he could be so stirred by the joy of
battle as to exclaim at Ne" Orleans:
"Welcome thou first visits from a British mortar, long
have I sought to meet you — now is our day of reckoning "
Though imbued with Democratic simplicity, yet, because
they were the expression of the sovereignty of the people,
he exalted the offices he held, and demanded for them, and
enforced obedience and respect. Undazzled by the glare
which beat about the pinnacle of fame which he reached,
and loyal to the sentiments, which he believed to be the life
of free institutions, he declined to accept the marble sar-
cophagus of Septimus Severus, which was tendered, that it
might in due time receive the form of one whose illustrious
deeds had filled the world, saying that it was not becoming
that the ashes of a republican should repose in what had
been fashioned to receive the body of an emperor.
Punctilious as to his personal reputation, he was no less
sensitive to that of his country, and when the French Gov-
ernment intimated that an apology from him as President
would avert complications, he replied :
"The honor of my country shall never be stained by an
apology r from me for the statement of truth and the perform-
ance of duty."
The fleeting years have not dimmed the memory of him,
nor obscured his greatness. More than any other man, his
personality has been impressed upon the American people.
Whenever a great crisis comes, when unassailable in-
tegrity, indomitable will, unflinching courage, and a pa-
triotism that has no sense of self are wanted, the minds of
all turn to him with one accord, and they exclaim, " Would
there were now an Andrew Jackson."
He of all men presented to the world the most inexorable
will, the most resolute heart :
"From orbs convulsed should all the planets fly,
World rush on world and ocean mix with sky ;
He unconcerned would view the falling whole ;
And still maintain the purpose of his soul."
These, with the exception of Sevier, were some of the
men who composed the constitutional convention of 1796.
14
While Sevier was not a member of the convention, he
was then the foremost man of the time and influenced its
proceedings.
Of them Mr. Bancroft said :
''They came together full of faith and reverence, of love
to humanity, of confidence in truth. In the simplicity of
wisdom they framed their constitution ; acting under higher
influences than they were conscious of.
They wrought in sad sincerity,
Themselves from God they could not free ;
They builded better than they knew ;
The conscious stones to beauty grew." *
They are but types of their associates, and were expo-
nents of the sentiments, principles and forces that distin-
guished the period we commemorate. They alone neither
made the State, nor constituted its strength. With them
stood others too numerous to name on this occasion, whose
lives were generously devoted to the. work that was ac-
complished.
Close up to them was ranged a constituency, which, in
their general characteristics, approximated their leaders
more nearly than has been the case at any subsequent
period of our history. It is a significant fact that of the 112
names affixed to a petition and remonstrance from Watauga
settlement in 1776, to North Carolina, all but two were
written by the parties themselves, f
They founded a State in the wilderness, and made that
epoch in our history which we celebrate to-day.
What cardinal principles did they illustrate and impress
upon the Government they created ? What did they con-
sider necessary for securing happiness, prosperity, strength
and endurance?
We are not at a loss Jo answer these questions. They
stand out with emphatic prominence in their history. Un-
like most of our other settlements, they preceded govern-
ment, and took no constituted authority with them. No
people with such primitive surroundings ever turned with
more direct and intense purpose to the establishment of a
* Eulogies of Jackson, p. 36.
| Ramsey, p. 138.
15
social system on a solid basis, and assuring its expansion
and permanence by a recognition and practical application
of those forces which always tend to larger life, increasing
power and stability.
Religious faith, the substratum and living force in all
social order, freedom of religion, the first flower of liberty,
education, the imponderable, unseen, but potent and im-
measureable power, which vitalizes and uplifts society and
endows its possessors, whether individuals or nations, with
superior advantages in the sharp conflict of life, patriotism,
which, with altruistic devotion, effaces self and sacrifices
personal advantage to the public good, economy in the ad-
ministration of public affairs, the preservation of order and
the enforcement of law, the democratic principle which
allows the largest liberty to the individual consistent with
social order, these composed the constellation of vivifying
and conserving principles which they illustrated, and
which have been the source of all our greatness.
Religion.
With the rifle in one hand and the Bible in the other,
they crossed the Appalachian Mountains. The churches
and the block-houses were coeval. Church organization
and church government preceded and furnished the inspir-
ation, and, in a large sense, the model for their social com-
pacts. They held their religious services with their trusty
weapons at hand in their rude churches, and literally
obeyed the divine injunction of "Watch and pray." No
one can doubt that they were sustained and soothed in their
hardships, dangers, sufferings and bereavements by a devo-
tion and faith that admitted no materialistic theories, ever
extended the horizon of what they wrought for, beyond the
limitations of a narrow selfishness, and inspiring them with
the conviction:
" 'Tis not all of life to live
Nor all of death to die,"
nerved them for that heroism displayed, not in bursts of
enthusiasm, amidst the flourish of martial trumpets, with
the world looking on to applaud or condemn, but in ob-
scurity, with constancy and patience, throughout a longer
16
period than the Trojan war, or the march of the ten thou-
sand, or our struggle for independence, with no assurance
that their achievements would find a chronicler, or that
the memory of their self-sacrifice would be enshrined in
the hearts of a grateful posterity. The religious atmos-
phere in which our infant State drew its first inspirations
exerted an influence more potent that all others in shaping
the ideas which have controlled our social organization.
The church spiritual was the church militant, and in
those stirring conflicts it was the church triumphant.
As the Metropolitans in the Caucasus girded the sword,
and led their flocks against Tamerlane and the invaders
who threatened their faith, so did these pious pioneers of
religion inspire and lead — and often to death — this advance
guard of Christian civilization.
Of the men who planted religion in Tennessee, and who
were the leaders and inspiration of the time, were those
learned, pious, sturdy, aggressive, hard-necked Scotch-
Irish Presbyterians, who were the first to resist British ag-
gression, lighted the fires that burst out at the Alamance,
and framed and promulgated the Mecklenburg declaration,
the first pronunciamento of independence ever made in
America.
Shortly after them came the Baptists, no less earnest and
patriotic.
Methodism came later, only becoming influential after
the Revolution, but its growth was wonderful, and its im-
press upon religious life in Tennessee has been greater than
that of any other denomination.
While these pioneers may have been intolerant of those
who held to no religion, they were absolutely tolerant of
all religions. They were not like the pilgrim fathers, who
sought a freer air for religious liberty, but allowed no lib-
erty of religion that did not conform to their own. In
Watauga absolute|religious liberty prevailed.
The Cumberland Constitution recognized a "Divine
Providence," but put no religious test for the exercise of
any right of citizenship or the enjoyment of any govern-
mental privilege.
The Constitution of Franklin has not been preserved,
17
and nothing in respect of it can be positively affirmed on
this point.
The Constitution of 1796, the first Constitution made for
and by all Tennesseans, the Constitution of the day we
celebrate, the Constitution created by those earnest men of
such deep conviction and reverential nature that they
opened their convention, not merely with prayer, but by a
formal sermon by the Rev. Samuel Carrick, established
unlimited religious liberty.
Believing that religion was the conserving principle of
civilization, they also believed in a religion bf love, and
not of proscription or law, one that was to prevail bv a
conquest of the mind and heart, and not by the fierce pro-
pagandism of fanaticism and oppression. Knowing that a
State founded on the consent of the governed must look
for its development and greatness to the patriotic endeavor
of all its citizens, with no part of them ostracised or sus-
pended from political fellowship, but with all inspired by
that proud sense of sovereign power and individual respon-
sibility which is the life and strength of republics, they
declared that:
"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualifica-
tion to any office or public trust under this State."
The wisdom of man could not improve upon this decla-
ration. It was literally preserved in the Constitution of
1834, and again, after having been proven for three-quarters
of a century, was repeated in the Constitution of 1870.
It is imbedded in the organic law of the State, and comes
to us with the sanction of a hundred years. It commands
our obedience to its spirit as well as to its letter. It will
never be torn from the Constitution, nor be practically an-
nulled by political action, so long as the spirit of American
liberty dominates our people. Woe to those who shall give
occasion for such a contest! Woe to those who shall make
of insufficient conditions a pretext for it! They will be
foes to society and enemies of Christian civilization.
Education.
The school, no less than the church, marked from the
beginning the progress of civilization westward from the
mountains.
18
The church and the school went pari passu. The min-
isters of the one were the votaries of the other.
As said by Caldwell, the scholarly commentator upon
our Constitution: "We trace the line of their southward
and westward progress by a cordon of colleges and acade-
mies. The names of Doak, Carrick, Balch and Craighead
survive to us mainly because they were pioneers of edu-
cation."
To Samuel Doak, a native of Virginia, student of Prince-
ton, tutor at Hampden Sydney, soldier of the Revolution,
Presbyterian minister, builder of the first church in Ten-
nessee, is due the distinction of establishing in Washington
County, in 1788, the first literary institution in the Missis-
sippi Valley.
The Houston Constitution, proposed in 1784 for the State
of Franklin, while not adopted on account of some im-
practicable features, is, nevertheless, a reflex of the senti-
ment of the times. It put a high premium on education
by providing that no one should be eligible to office "not
a scholar to do the business, nor unless acquainted with the
laws of the country in some measure, but particularly with
even- article of the Constitution." It provided for the en-
couragement of all kinds of useful learning, the creation
of a university near the centre of the Stat6, and looked to
the establishment of grammar schools in ever}' county
" under masters of approved morals and abilities."*
The only thing that discredits the sagacity of the time
was a provision that excluded all lawyers from the Legisla-
ture. The offense in the discrimination is somewhat atoned
for by the fact that in this respect they were put in the re-
spectable company of ministers of the gospel and doctors
of physic.
The State of FrankHu signalized its earliest legislation
by an act "for the promotion of learning in Washington
County," which rechartered Martin Academy, and was the
first legislative act west of the Alleghanies for the encour-
agement of learning, f
* Ramsey, 332.
t Constitutional History of Tennessee, Caldwell, p. 65.
19
In 1785 was established Davidson Academy, which in 1803
became Davidson College, with Thomas B. Craighead as its
President and Andrew Jackson and James Robertson on its
Board of Trustees.
In 1794 Blount College was established under the Presi-
dency of Samuel Carrick.
The early legislation and messages of the Governors all
bear testimony to the profound interest manifested in the
cause of education.
That our achievements in general education are not to-
day commensurate with those early efforts, we are bound
to admit.
This should be an occasion for honest introspection and
pledges for the future, as well as for glorifying the past.
We cannot obliterate accusing facts by empty boastful-
ness. We have no monopoly of the knowledge of our
status on the subject of education and, if we would, we
cannot shut out from the world what the published census
of the United States discloses.
The population of Tennessee, 10 years of age and over,
in 1890 was 1,276,631. Of this number, 240,140 were il-
literates, being 26.6 per cent. Of the colored population,
54.2 per cent, were illiterates.
The scholastic population for 1895 was 720,623, and the
average daily attendance at school was but 338,330, and
those enrolled were only 478,125.
This is not a pleasing subject to contemplate. If it were
irremediable, I would pass it by in silence and sorrow. We
know, and the world must know, that it is largely the re-
sult of the civil war, which raised to citizenship an uned-
ucated mass, and precipitated this burden of ignorance upon
a people reduced to penury, by the withering simoom that
had swept over them. Let the historian search out and ex-
plain the causes, if he will. We are confronted with a
condition which no delving into the past can ameliorate.
An awakened interest and more progressive methods have
marked recent years. The per cent, of illiterates, from
1880 to 1890, was reduced from 38.7 to 26.6 per cent. A
greater improvement will doubtless be shown by the next
census. Tennessee will arouse herself and dissipate the
20
dark cloud of ignorance which is so threatening. Upon
this will largely depend our rank in the march of civiliza-
tion.
It will be glory enough for this Centennial year, and will
consecrate it to all posterity, if we shall signalize it by
kindling anew the torch of education at the altars erected
by those early pioneers, and by bringing to the work the
same zeal manifested by them, inaugurate a system which
will rapidly carry light, strength, life and hope, and the
knowledge of the institutions which we would perpetuate,
into every humble home from the crest of the Great Smokies
to the banks of the Great River, the one figurative of the
strength and majesty of a people, with secure and broad
foundation looking up to the light and the truth, the other
of the might)' and constant flow, with which the stream of
knowledge sweeps on, bearing argosies filled with rich
blessings on its bosom.
I have spoken alone of the common school education.
We can point with satisfaction to our higher institutions of
learning, efficient to-day and progressive with the age.
Nashville has achieved, and holds without rival, the
proud distinction of being called the Athens of the South.
No other city in America of equal size has so many flour-
ishing educational institutions. Many students from other
cities and States gather in her halls of learning. Does it
bring a rich harvest of shekels to her marts ? Perchance
it may; but who will stop to count the sordid gains of riches
that take wings and fly away in contemplating the glad-
some light of strength and purity which is poured into the
lives of the youth of this land, a light whose effulgence
does not become spent, but transmitted from sire and mother
to daughter and son, goes forth in multiplied rays for the
upbuilding and strengthening of our beloved South?
Patriotism.
With all their differences in antecedents, purposes, and
mental equipment, there was one spirit that animated all
our pioneer fathers : A pure patriotism always burned, with
a steady flame. A sentiment, or impulse, enters the hearts
of a people, flames out and with resistless force carries all
21
before it, and becomes the genius of the epoch. Such was
the restless spirit which in the fifteenth century impelled
hardy adventurers to seek for unknown worlds.
Such was the zeal which fired the heart of the crusader,
to turn his face from a smiling fortune and yearn with the
hope of leaving his bones to bleach upon the plains of Pal-
estine. Such was the devotion to a cult of liberty, which
they thought was to regenerate the world, that gave the
sublime sacrifices of the men ana women of the French rev-
olution.
Within a narrower sphere of action, far from the centre,
yea, upon the very periphery of civilization, with no inspi-
ration of royal commission, or pontifical blessing, with no
dazzling pageantry, pomp and circumstance of glorious war
to stir the imagination, with no orator to incite, no painter
to immortalize, no poet to sing, these plain men, looking
beyond the horizon of personal interest and temporal}' ad-
vantage, showed a devotion no less heroic. "If we fail,"
said one, "it must never be from cowardice. " Bledsoe,
with prophetic eye that contemplated his own sad end,
said: " If we perish here, others will be sure to come — either
to revenge our death or to accomplish what we have begun.
If they find not our graves or our scattered bones, they may
revere our memories, and publish to the ages to come that
we deserved a better fate."
Robertson said: "These rich and beautiful lands were
not designed to be given up to savages and wild beasts.
The God of Creation and Providence has nobler purposes
in view."
And so they and their companions stood for more than
self throughout those years of blood. Bledsoe fell, but his
memory survives. Robertson, twice wounded, saw his
brother and two sons go down in the strife, but he lived to
see a glorious fruition.
The genius that filled their hearts was love of country—
that unselfish passion which is the spark of divinity in man.
The love of parents, wife and offspring is natural, and often
burns most intensely in those who are most sordid. It is
for those we know, and should be reciprocal. Ofttimes it
briiiers a rich return, and while it sows with one hand, it
reaps a harvest with the other.
22
The bonds of friendship are mutual, and if burdens must
be taken up, they, at least, are borne for those with whom
our hearts have communed.
Even the devotion that religion inculcates springs from
a sense of immeasurable obligation, and bound up with it
is a personal hope of immortal bliss.
The love of the patriot is spontaneous, it takes root in the
soil of self-sacrifice, brings its richest tribute in the times
of darkest despair, and immolates its votaries for the good
of those unborn. Their sorrows are always of the present.
The joys most often gladden other hearts, and the Io Tri-
umphe is shouted by voices that cannot penetrate the silence
of their graves. It is a passion, an inspiration, a divinity,
that leaps beyond the span of mortal life and projects itself
into the ages to come.
It is the seal of man's faith in immortality.
Those men were touched with the purifying flame, and
when they approached the altar of sacrifice they counted
not the cost.
It was Robertson who said: "It is a matter of* no reflec-
tion to a brave man to see a father, or a brother, fall in the
field of action. "
Did the gaunt wolf of Rome suckle a race of more deter-
mined warriors ?
They put into their Constitution: "That no citizen of
this State shall be compelled to bear arms, provided he will
pay an equivalent, to be ascertained by law."
Were they tired of war? Did they hope for perpetual
peace? Did they expect to fight their battles with mer-
cenaries? They left behind no record of their debates, and
no explanation. Coming from the hands of Robertson,
Cocke, Jackson, and their associates, none is needed. They
knew its protection would only be invoked for the infirm,
that " noblesse oblige " would be the watchward of Ten-
nesseans, and that they would give to the world the sublime
spectacle of a volunteer soldiery. Her sons have never
waited for their country to utter a call of distress. They
have always borne upon their shields the proud device, " I
volunteer."
This spirit is a heritage that has been transmitted, un-
23
diminished to this day. The patriotism of Tennesseans
has lost none of its intensity. Neither time, nor luxury,
nor the civil war has cooled their ardor. If theif country'
shall need their services, let other States look to their
laurels, for Tennesseans will find a place "near the music
of the guns."
Let not Spain, nor England, cherish the delusion that
Tennessee will, on account of the civil war, be disaffected
or falter in her support of the American flag. If the oc-
casion shall come, Spain will hear, renewed from their de-
scendants, the stern defiance which rang from Tennesseans
when they planted the stars and stripes upon the walls of
Pensacola, and England will again be greeted with the
hospitality that welcomed at Chalmette the flower of her
chivalry.
Preservation of Order and Enforcement of Law.
The men of 1796 and their antecessors in Tennessee glori-
fied the law. They tolerated no conception of society that
was not founded on a stable government, and to them gov-
ernment meant the firm and just administration of the law
by its accredited agents.
Of them, Mr. Bancroft said: " At a time when Enropean
society was becoming broken in pieces, scattered, disunited,
and resolved into its elements, a scene ensued in Tennessee
than which nothing more beautifully grand is recorded in
the annals of the race. These adventurers in the wilder-
ness longed to come together in organized society. The
overshadowing genius of their time inspired them with
good designs and filled them with the counsels of wisdom.
Dwellers in the forest, freest of the free, bound in the
spirit, they came up by their representatives, on foot, on
horseback, through the forest, along the streams, by the
buffalo traces, by the Indian paths, by the blazed forest
avenues, to meet in convention among the mountains at
Knoxville, and frame for themselves a Constitution."
They came to establish communities and found a State
that was to endure. They knew that art and science, learn-
ing and civilization, and all the blessings they bring in
* Eulogies of Jackson, page 35.
24
their train, would never flourish if justice — the very key-
stone of the arch that supports society — was to be pushed
from place by the fury of an irresponsible mob.
The settlers of the Watauga, having no prorection by
the administration of the law of North Carolina, did not
turn to the rude methods of the barbarian, but established
a government and laws, and administered them with jus-
tice, promptness and firmness. Their petition to North
Carolina is replete with thjp& sentiment.
Even within the territory of the State of Franklin, dis-
tracted by the conflicts of two administrations, from 1784
to 1788, when passions were aroused and factions prevailed,
but two deaths from violence were recorded, almost no
bloodshed, and little violation of the rights of property.*
The Constitution of Cumberland, made in 1780, at Nash-
borough, the present site of Nashville, recited:
" As this settlement is in its infancy, unknown to gov-
ernment, and not included within any county within North
Carolina, the State to which it belongs, so as to derive the
advantages of those wholesome and salutary laws, for the
protection and benefit of its citizens, we find ourselves con-
strained, from necessity, to adopt this temporary method
of restraining the licentious, and supplying, by unanimous
consent, the blessings flowing from a just and equitable
government."
As said of them by Roosevelt:
"The government was in the hands of men who were
not only law-abiding themselves, but also resolute to see
that the law was respected by others, "f
Democracy, to them, did not mean mobocracy.
James Robertson, John Sevier, Andrew Jackson, and
their contemporaries, would have spurned with indignation
the very suggestion that in time of peace they did not have
virtue and manhood enough to enforce the law.
What more illustrious example was ever given of respect
to the majesty of the law than that of the conqueror of New
Orleans, flushed with victory, appearing to answer a charge
of contempt, and directing the trembling judge, overawed
* Ramsey, 440.
t Winning of the West, 362.
25
by the enraged populace, to do his duty and fearlessly up-
hold the law ?
The men of 1796 were all inured to war, but they waged
war that they might have peace, and to them peace did not
mean violence, nor the usurpation by frenzy of the seat of
justice. They, as we of to-day, wished to attract those who,
as the Watauga people expressed it, would " improve agri-
culture, perfect manufactures, encourage literature, and
everything truly laudable."
They knew that nothing was so repelJant as lawlessness.
They not only established a government and made the law,
but they never lost confidence in their ability to enforce it.
They are the only people known to history who had the
nerve to deal with the mother-in-law. Their records show
that one Hogan unlawfully detained a kettle, that the court
awarded its possession to the plaintiff, and that the defend-
ant and his mother-in-law were made to pay the costs. Since
that day we have had none but amiable mothers-in-law in
the State of Tennessee.
Gov. Sevier, in his message of 1799, said: "The laws and
regular decorum are duly observed and supported through-
out the government."
If there be any one here to-day who believes in the rule
of the mob, he can claim no fellowship with the men whose
memory we honor. If there be in this State any commu-
nity that would supinely yield itself to this cankering virus,
that destroys all wholesome life in the body politic, and
makes it a polluted wreck, swayed by passion and inca-
pable of the ordinary administration of law, let them clahn
no heritage in the virtues that distinguished the epoch we
celebrate.
Democracy in its Governmental and Not Party Sense.
The distinguishing feature that stood out in all of the
efforts made by the people of Tennessee toward establishing
constitutional government, and one that strongly contrasted
with the systems of the older States, was the broad princi-
ple of democratic equality, and the rule of the people.
Few of the early inhabitants were men of wealth, or of
distinguished ancestry. There was in those early days com-
26
paratively little manifestation of social caste, or of an aris-
tocracy founded either on wealth or family prestige. The
communities, composed of men starting on nearly equal
terms, strong in purpose, robust in every element of manly
character, independent in spirit and untrammeled by the
prejudices and inherited conditions of an established social
and political order, framed a government adapted to their
views of free republican institutions.
Watauga was the first government of English-speaking
people that had universal suffrage and absolute religious
freedom. *
This intense feeling of personal liberty and unyielding
assertion of the principle that government was made for the
individual and not the individual for the government, has
always been a dominant sentiment in Tennessee.
The Cumberland constitution was founded upon unani-
mous consent, and there were none of the restrictions upon
suffrage which prevailed in the older States.
Such also was the compact entered into in 1788 by those
"inhabiting south of Holston, French Broad, and Big Pig-
eon Rivers."
The Constitution of 1796, which was the first framed for
the government of all of the people of Tennessee, was marked
with conservatism. Modeled on the organic law of North
Carolina, it had some features which were irreconcilable
with the democratic spirit of equality which pervaded and
distinguished the earlier compacts.
Representation was to be apportioned upon the basis of
taxable inhabitants, and none but freeholders were eligible
to the Assembly. Justices of the peace, the judges and
attorney general were elected by the General Assembly.
Coroners, sheriffs, trustees and constables were elected by
the Count)- Court. Taxation, while declared to be equal,
discriminated in favor of landed interests.
These features offer no just ground for impugning the
consistency of the men who were leaders in the convention.
In the declaration of abstract principles, in the bill of rights,
they could give full way to the most advanced theory of
popular government.
* Constitutional History of Tennessee, Caldwell, p. 11.
27
In dealing with concrete questions, they wisely builded
on the Constitution of North Carolina, with which they
were familiar, made such changes as seemed obviously
proper, and left it to experience to guide them in further
development and the establishment of a system in full ac-
cord with the principles they had enunciated. Besides,
while the abstract idea of democracy was the same then as
now, the world has advanced in what is deemed essential
for a true practical expression of it. They declared against
perpetuities and monopolies as contrary* to the genius of a
free State, that no hereditary emoluments, privileges, or
honors should ever be conferred, and required each legis-
lator to take an oath that he would neither propose nor
assent to anything that might appear injurious to the peo-
ple, or that might have a tendency to lessen or abridge their
rights and privileges. Mr. Jefferson said it was " the least
imperfect and the most republican of the State constitu-
tions. "
Whatever may have been the undemocratic shortcomings
of the constitution of 1796, it is quite certain that then the
belief in individual liberty and the exercise of the largest
degree of personal power of the people in the administra-
tion of government existed. This has always been a domi-
nant principle lying at the very foundation of political life
in Tennessee. It has given a spirit of independent and con-
scious strength to her people. It is so bound up with the
thoughts, traditions and convictions of her people that noth-
ing short of a social cataclysm will ever bring such a change
as will sensibly diminish the power of the individual and
its opportunities for expression in controlling the affairs of
State.
This principle, so fully in accord with the spirit of a free
people, with an institutional government of the people, for
the people, and by the people, has brought its embarrass-
ments, and has even been a menace at times to good gov-
ernment. This came from conditions never foreseen when
our democratic institutions were so broadly framed. - The
country became convulsed with civil war, property was de-
stroyed, society was upheaved and almost wrecked, the
flower of manhood was cut off, and, what no one probably
28
had ever anticipated, nearly one-third of the population
were, in a day, transmuted, uneducated, untrained in the
habits and responsibilities of freemen, from a condition of
servitude to one of controlling political power, and were
incited by constant pressure to use their advantage for dis-
organization and revenge.
A part of these conditions are with us now, and they
will in the same character, though in diminishing intensity,
continue to abide with us for a time which, so far as we
know, will be of indefinite duration.
If we are to maintain the'democratic spirit and the dem-
ocratic institutions, which have always characterized the
policy of Tennessee, and which lie as a basic principle in
her people's idea of government; if we are to maintain our
civilization with it, and both under a stable government,
and a pure expression of the individual political function,
then we must by education direct and make safe the forces
that control our destiny, and must, by judicious encour-
agement of conservative immigration, rather from our own
Northern States than from abroad, maintain that racial
preponderance which, in this State, preserves both blacks
and whites from the fearful conditions which prevail in
some of our sister Southern States.
Emancipation.
There was one feature in the Constitution of this, the
most democratic of all the States, which at this time is of
special interest.
When Tennessee was admitted into the Union her popu-
lation comprised 1,000 free negroes. By the Constitution
of 1796, which permitted all freemen of the age of 21, who
had been inhabitants of a county for six months previous
to an election, to vote, this class of citizens had the right
of the elective franchise, a right which was exercised until
1834, at which time it was cut off, largely on account of the
number, which had grown to nearly 5,000, and the threat-
ened influx of liberated slaves from other States.*
* In 1830 Benton said: "The State of Missouri was kept out of the
Union one whole year for the clause which prohibited the future entry
and settlement of free people of color. And what have we seen since ?
The actual expulsion of a great body of free colored people from the
29
In the constitutional convention of that year transpired
an event of historic interest. Sixteen counties presented
petitions with 1,804 signers, many of whom were slave-
holders, some asking that all the children of slaves born
after 1835 be made free, and others, with what seems al-
most a prophetic forecast, that all slavery should cease to
exist in Tennessee from i866.f
A report was made, which unequivocally set forth the
evils of slaver}', denounced it in the strongest terms, and
looked hopefully to its ultimate extinction as " an event
devoutly and ardently desired by the wise and good in
every part of our beloved country."
If nothing were known but the fact of negro suffrage up
to 1834, and that such a report, in such a body, and at
such a time was made and dispassionately considered, these
State of Ohio, and not one word of objection, not one note of grief.
* * * The papers state the compulsory expatriation from Cincinnati
at two thuusaud souls ; the whole number that may be compelled to ex-
patriate from the State of Ohio at ten thousand. This is a remarkable
event, paralleled only by the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and the
Huguenots from France. * * * The Senator from Massachusetts
(Mr. W. ) so copious and encomiastic upon the subject of Ohio, so full
and affecting upon the topic of freedom, and the rights of freemen in that
State, was incomprehensibly silent and fastidiously mute upon the ques-
tiou of this wonderful expatriation — an expatriation which sent a genera-
tion of free people from a republican State to a monarchical province."
In the same debate Felix Grandy said : " I have in my hand the me-
morial of two thousand free people of color, resident in Ohio, praying
this Congress to provide them funds to enable them to remove to Canada,
because they cannot remain in the State of Ohio on account of the sever-
ity of the laws imposed upon them. * * * The State of Indiana has
forwarded its memorial asking Congress for aid to remove the free people
of color now in that State to Liberia."
***********
In 1853 the Legislature of Illinois enacted : " If any negro or mulatto,
bond or free, shall hereafter come into this State and remain ten days,
with the intention of residing in the same, every such negro shall be
deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and for the first offense shall be
fined $s°- * * * If the said negro or mulatto shall be found guilty
and the fine assessed be not paid forthwith * * f the said justice
shall at public auction proceed to sell said negro or mulatto to any person
who will pay said fine and costs for the shortest time."
(Address of Mr. Leigh Robinson, "The Richmond Howitzers," De-
cember 13, 1892, pp. 48, 62.)
t Constitutional History of Tennessee. Caldwell, pp. 135-4°-
30
would suffice as exponents of the truth that the Pennsyl-
vanians and Virginians who settled that region, and their
descendants, were imbued with the same principles and
convictions which in the constitutional convention of 1788
opposed the action of the Northern States, in combining
with the Carolinas and Georgia against Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia and imposing, in
behalf of Northern ship-owners, the African slave trade on
the country until 1808.
It was not until that year (1834) that the apprentice
emancipation act of Great Britain went into effect. Neither
Sweden, Denmark, nor France had abolished slavery in
their colonies. Slavery yet lingered in New Jersey, New
York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New
• Hampshire.*
The men of that convention had in their minds the ex-
ample of Washington, who had freed his slaves, and the
utterances of those pioneer and great advocates of emanci-
pation, Henry, Jefferson, Madison and Marshall.
It will be remembered that this was the year that John
Randolph, of Virginia, died, and liberated by will 300
slaves, f I
♦Von Hoist, 1, 2S4, n.
f Luudy, Life, p. 273.
J John Randolph, by a will executed in the presence of Mark Alexan-
der and Nathaniel Macon, had made Judge William Leigh the residuary
devisee and legatee of his valuable estate, subject to certain specific lega-
cies and provisions. The most important of these provisions was that of the
means to enable the executor of the will to transport the slaves of the
estate (set free by a previous clause), and settle them in some other State
or Territory. He appointed Judge Leigh his executor. The will was con-
tested on the ground of the mental unsoundness of the testator. Judge
Leigh, well aware that the emancipation of these slaves had been the un-
deviating purpose of Randolph's life, relinquished his absorbing interest
under the will, that he might become a witness in support of it, and so, at
least, accomplish the particular iutent to which I have referred. To this
extent the will was, in effect, sustained, and Judge Leigh was appointed
commissioner to transport and settle the negroes as provided therein.
The State selected for the settlement was Ohio, but when the commis-
sioner landed his first intervieV was with a mob, formed to resist and
repel the negro settlement. The clearest glimpse of the state of feeling
is derived from the newspapers of the time.
From the National Intelligencer, July 15, 1846 :
"The Cincinnati (Ohio) Chronicle of the 9th instant says that the
emancipated slaves of John Randolph, who recently passed up the Miami
31
The Philadelphians signalized it by anti-dbolition riots,
in which an African Presbyterian Church was destroyed,
and negroes were beaten and killed.
It was made memorable by the good people of Connecti-
cut, who, after having incarcerated Prudence Crandall for
admitting negroes into her school, contrary to law, at-
tempted to burn her school-house, and stormed it with
stones and crowbars.*
New York made it historic with scenes of wild tumult,
sacking the house of Tappan and other abolitionists, and
turning upon terrified negroes the vengeance of a frenzied
mob.f
The memory of the bloody scenes of the Turner insur-
rection was still fresh in the public mind. In that year
Gerritt Smith, in a meeting of abolitionists, proclaimed :
"It is not to be disguised that war has broken out between
the South and the North not early to be terminated. " +
canal to their settlement in Mercer county, Ohio, met with a warm recep-
tion at Eremen. The citizens of Mercer county turned out en masse, and
called a meeting, or rather formed themselves into one immediately, and
passed resolutions to the effect that said slaves should leave in twenty-four
hours, which they did, in other boats than the one which conveyed them
there. They came back some twenty-three miles, at which place they
encamped, not knowing what to do."
From the National Intelligencer, July 24, 1S46 :
The Sidney (Ohio) Aurora of the nth says: These negroes (the
Randolph negroes) remain on Colonel Johnson's farm, near Piqua. That
paper condemns in decided terms the conduct of the citizens in Mercer in
the late outbreak, and insists that "they should have made their objec-
tions known before the land was purchased, and not waited until they
had drawn the last cent they could expect out of the blacks — some
$ 32,000 — and then raised an armed force and refused to let them take pos-
session of their property as they have done. We look upon the whole
proceeding as outrageous in the extreme, and the participators should be
severely punished. What makes the thing worse is the fact that a num-
ber of those, who were fiercest in their opposition to the blacks and
loudest in their threats to shoot, etc., were the very ones who sold them
land, received wages for constructing the buildings, and actually pocketed
a large amount of money for provisions, not two weeks before the arrival
of the poor creatures whom they have so unjustly treated."
*Von Hoist, 1828-1646, p. 99.
■f Same, p. 101.
J Von Hoist, 1828-1846, p. 87.
32
Garrison and his followers had denounced the constitu-
tion as a " covenant with death and agreement with hell."
It was the year before Andrew Donelson, of Tennessee,
died, emancipating twenty-one slaves by his will, that year
of 1835 in which that orderly proceeding took place in
Boston, called by the Boston Gazette "a meeting of gen-
tlemen of property and standing from all parts of the city,"
in which Garrison was seized and dragged through the
streets with a rope about his neck, and from which he
found safe refuge only within the hospitable walls of a jail,*
and two years before Governor Everett, of Massachusetts,
suggested the expediency of prosecuting abolitionists, f
But these events in Tennessee's history do not stand
alone. Rev. Samuel Doak, a Virginian by birth and one
of the men who contributed potentially toward shaping the
destiny of Tennessee, was an avowed abolitionist in East
Tennessee as early as 1800.
Natio7ial Intelligencer, August 10, 1846 :
The Randolph Negboes. — The last Piqua (Ohio) Register says:
"These unfortunate creatures have again been driven from lands selected
for them. As we noticed last week, an effort, which it was thought would
be successful, was made to settle them in Shelby County, but like the pre-
vious attempt in Mercer it has failed. They were driven away by
threats of violence. About one-third of them, we understand, remained
at Sidney, intending to scatter and find homes wherever they can. The
rest of them came down here to-day, and are now at the wharf in boats.
The present intention is to leave them wherever places can be obtained
for them. We presume, therefore, they will remain in the State, as it is
probable they will find situations for them between this and Cincinnati."
National Intelligencer, August 15, 1846:
John Randolph Negroes. — "It is said that these unfortunate crea-
tures have been again driven away by threats of violence from the lands
which had been secured for them in Ohio, and that Judge Leigh, despair-
ing of being able to colonize them in a free State, has concluded to send
them to Liberia." — Richmond Republican.
The negroes were finally,allowed to occupy the land for which they had
paid ; but what a very invigorating sympathy did these two emancipators
excite in this free State ! Here was one Virginian who had emancipated
by will numerous slaves, and here was another who relinquished a large
estate to secure the fulfillment of this part of the will. The response to
them from the North was mob violence and contumelious scorn.
(Address of Mr. Leigh Robinson, "The Richmond Howitzers," Decem-
ber 13, 1892, pp. 20-22.)
•Von Hoist, 1828-1846, p. 102, Lundy, Life, 281.
■\ Lundy, Life, 286.
33
He and the Presbyterians of his neighborhood bought
two negroes, freed and educated them, and the Union
Presbytery of East Tennessee licensed and ordained them.
His pupils, Jesse Lockhart and John Rankin, Tennes-
seans by birth, became famous leaders in the cause of eman-
cipation.
Mr. Beecher, in reply to the question "Who abolished
slavery?" is said to have answered, "Rev. John Rankin
and his sons did it."*
In 1801 a law was passed in Tennessee favoring volun-
tary emancipation. A manumission society was formed in
Tennessee in 1814, which in 1825 had over 570 members.
In 1820 at Jonesborough, Tenn., Embree established the
" Emancipator," the first newspaper in the United States
whose avowed object was the abolition of slavery, f and in
1821 this was succeeded by the "Genius of Universal
Emancipation," published by Lundy, which then was the
only anti-slavery paper in America. J
In 1824 at Columbia was formed "The Moral Religious
Manumission Society of West Tennessee," which declared
in the preamble to its Constitution that slavery "exceeds
any other crime in magnitude."
In 1827, of the 130 anti-slavery societies of America, 106
were located in slave-holding States, and Tennessee alone
had twenty-five, with 1,000 members, which was more
than three times as many as there were in all New Eng-
land and New York combined. §
It was estimated by Abolitionists in 1828, the year that
Lundy went to Boston and could hear of no Abolitionists
resident there,|| that in Tennessee three-fifths of the people
were favorably disposed toward the principle of emancipa-
tion.!
In 1833 the Tennessee Manumission Society memorial-
ized Congress, praying for a prohibition of the internal
slave trade, a law that all persons born thereafter in the
* Life, Birney, 168.
t Birney's Life, 77.
X Lundy's Life, p. 21.
g Lundy's Life, 218.
|| Lundy's Life, p. 25.
]l Life, Biruey, 79- 80 -
34
United States should be free, and that slavery should not
be introduced in any State where it did not then exist, nor
be suffered in any States thereafter admitted into the
Union.*
I record these things because they are facts not generally
known, because they have been more or less ignored, or
suppressed by those who have professed to write history,
and because of the audacity with which some, whose an-
cestors were as much responsible for slavery as were ours,
cast slurs upon the descendants of slaveholders of the South.
They go far to confirm the statement of Garrison made in
the first number of the Liberator, in i83i,thata greater revo-
lution in public opinion had to be accomplished in the
North than in the South, and that he found in the North
"contempt more bitter, prejudice more stubborn and apathy
more frozen than among the slave owners themselves." f
In 1831 John Quincy Adams, in presenting memorials
asking for abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,
stated that he would not give the proposed measure his
support ; that " whatever might be his opinion of slavery
in the abstract, in the District of Columbia, he hoped it
would not become a subject of discussion in that house,"
and that ''the most healing medicines, when unduly ad-
ministered, become the most deadly poison." J
The abatement of emancipation sentiments in Tennes-
see, and the apparent solidity that followed in favor of
upholding the institution of slavery, was partially, if not
entirely, superinduced by those "healing medicines," so
persistently administered in such heroic doses. Move-
ments for emancipation, however earnest, were made im-
possible in a sovereign State in the face of threats from
without of servile war, and the torch of the incendiary. §
*Life, Lundy, 193.
t Von Hoist, 1828-46, p. 95.
X Lundy, 348.
\ "The States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee were engaged in
practical movements for the gradual emancipation of their slaves. This
movement continued until it was arrested by the aggressions of the Abol-
itionists upon their voluntary action. This action was prompted by
economical, rather than moral reasons. The Abolitionists, however
refused to accept an impending fact, aud insisted upon convicting as
35
If the people of Tennessee had been left to a free develop-
ment, it is my belief that emancipation would have come,
as it came in the Northern States, from the operation of
silent forces, and under conditions vastly more beneficent
to both races.
Certain it is that the people of Tennessee, from 1796 to
i860, would have been as far from inaugurating slavery as
any people upon the earth, and that they would have abol-
ished it as promptly as any State in the Union did, if they
had been affected with the same conditions.
. Individual Tennesseans, by voluntary act, freed more
slaves and surrendered more property value in so doing
than did any of the New England States by their acts of
emancipation. The State, however, as a political organism,
was confronted with portentous problems which lay in the
immediate background, problems far vaster than the anni-
hilation of values, problems which did not exist in New
England, problems involving the social and political adjust-
ment of different races, living in great numbers in daily
contact, problems which then appalled the statesmen of the
South, and which, now that slavery has ended, are demand-
ing the wisdom of the entire nation, and the ultimate solu-
tion of which no man but a rash one would undertake to
exactly define.
The lesson for us to learn from the dispassionate way in
which the men of Tennessee in 1834, notwithstanding the
fiery invectives then hurled against them, discussed and
dealt with this momentous question, is to meet these great
issues as they press upon us, taking counsel of experience
and wisdom, not prejudice and passion, and to bring to
their settlement a large patriotism, a full sense of justice,
to white and black, and fidelity to the demands of an en-
during civilization.
criminals those who were so well disposed to bring about the very result
at which they themselves professed to aim. The consequences were such
as might have been reasonably expected. Promised emancipation refused
to submit itself to hateful abolition. Those three border States placed
themselves at once upou the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 179S,
and, resenting as an insult the interference of the Northern intruders,
abandoned the scheme which a calm view of considerations, tending to
their own future welfare, had induced them to form." Origin of the
late War. George Lunt, Boston, />. jj. See also Curtis' Constitutional
History, Vol. II, p. 250-253.
36
That much has been done and wisely done by both races
is attested by this assembly enthusiastically participated in
by all, without regard to previous condition, by that magnifi-
cent structure which will adorn these grounds, reared by
the colored citizens of Tennessee, and which is to contain
at the Exposition, of which this is the inaugural day, the
evidences of their progress in knowledge, skill, art, and
industry.
We of the South, who are native here, rejoice that these
things are so, no less than do those citizens of Northern
birth, who have cast their lot among us, and we hail with
genuine satisfaction every manifestation of progress made
by the colored race toward useful citizenship.
There is not a son of Tennessee, unless he is out of com-
munion with the spirit that dominates her people, who,
however he may condemn the way it was effected, does not
rejoice at the emancipation of the blacks and whites of the
South, and who would, if he could, see this day celebra-
ted, under a constitutional provision stultifying by its sanc-
tion of slavery the declaration that all men are endowed
with the inalienable right of liberty, a provision made by
our ancestors North and South, under the lights of the time,
and the pressure of expediency enforced by inherited con-
ditions.
That in these years since the war, characterized some-
times by friction and fierce contest, sometimes by forbear-
ance and wise concession, sometimes by liberal measures
by which the whites onerated themselves with tax burdens
for the benefit of the blacks, much has been accomplished,
and that the trend has been, though often obscured and
wavering, toward a better adjustment and greater prosperity,
none but the pessimist will deny.
In the public schools of Tennessee, sustained mainly by
taxation of the whites, there were last year 100,479 colored
children, and 1,778 colored teachers were employed.
That the stage now reached would, with less of sorrow,
heartburning and antagonism, have come much earlier but
for the disturbing, exasperating, persistent, and often wicked
interferences from without, is my solemn conviction.
While I have endeavored to point to ray white breth-
37
ren, how they may gather wisdom for the future, let me say
to the colored people of Tennessee that the day has passed
when you can look to outside power to push you to a posi-
tion which you can neither achieve nor maintain. Such
aids are but temporary expedients, and when withdrawn the
inherent weakness of the effort is made manifest. You
must, by industry, economy, integrity, the practice of social
virtues and fidelity to the demands of useful citizenship,
achieve for yourselves, and what you thus win you can
maintain, and in this struggle, your best interest will be
served by cultivating harmony with those who have, and
doubtless will continue to control the destiny of this State.
There is no person who has the intellect to comprehend
the principles of government, and the economic and social
forces of civilization, and the honesty to express his belief,
that will not say that, until the mass of the colored popu-
lation is elevated by many years of training for the duties
of citizenship, they will enjoy more liberties and blessings,
under a civilization controlled by the Anglo-Saxon race,
than they possibly could under a system which they them-
selves dominated.
From 1796 to i860.
With such a people, animated by such principles, Ten-
nessee bounded forward in a career of almost unparalled
prosperity and glory.
Starting youngest in the race in 1796 with her sister
States, with but little accumulated wealth, she stood in
i860, with a population of 1,109,801, tenth among the
States of the Union, having outstripped all of the original
thirteen but New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Mas-
sachusetts, and with an assessed valuation of $382,495,200,
or $344.65 per capita, which exceeded that of either Penn-
sylvania, Vermont or Maine, and nearly equaled that of
either Delaware, New Hampshire or New York. The
assessed taxable property in Tennessee in i860 exceeded
that of each of the New England and Middle States, except
Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania.
In 1848 the tax valuation of Tennessee was $129,510,043;
in 1859 it was $377,208,641, thus being nearly tripled in
eleven years, and far outstripping the New England and
Middle States in the ratio of increase.
. 38
Her banking capital was $8,500,000, and she had, by the
brilliant record of her banks, all of which came trium-
phantly through the crisis of 1832, in which nearly every
other bank in the South and Southwest went to the wall,
achieved a reputation for stability which made her rival
New Orleans as the banking centre of the Southwest.
Her sons and daughters enjoyed the best advantages for
education. It was a land full of glorious promise. Civili-
zation was sweeping onward with luminous wings.
Her history in war and peace had been brilliant. Her
pioneers with those of Kentucky had won the West from
the Indian, the Spaniard and the French. But for their
resolute courage in crossing the mountains and taking pos-
session of the wilderness against the wishes of the older
States, the American Republic by the treaty of peace with
Great Britain would have been shut in upon the Atlantic
coast. Spain and France, who wished her success to
thwart England, also wished that territory for themselves.
It was their firm and persistent stand that finally secured
the mouth of the Mississippi.
The nation has never recognized these inestimable debts
to that heroic people.
In the darkest hour of our struggle they volunteered,
crossed the mountains, organized a military expedition,
created an army and commander and won the battle of
Kings Mountain, which Mr. Jefferson said was "the joy-
ful enunciation of that turn in the tide of success that ter-
minated the Revolutionary War with the seal of independ-
ence."
From the appearance of Jackson upon the field of na-
tional action down to the civil war, Tennessee^occupied a
comparative position in the republic out of proportion to
her population and material strength. It was a triumph of
the genius of her people. No State in the Union, except
Massachusetts and Virginia, had exercised so large an in-
fluence upon the civil affairs of the republic, and her mili-
tary achievements were without rival. Without any re-
quisition from the Government, she offered 2,500 volun-
teers at the very beginning of the war of 181 2. Tennes-
seans fought almost alone the Creek war, and her Governor,
39
Win. Blount, raised $370,000 on his own responsibility for
its prosecution. Led by their own gallanf Jackson, they
contributed more than all others to the victory that crowned
the American arms at New Orleans. Another Tennessean,
Gen. Gaines, was the next most brilliant figure in that war,
who, by his victory of Fort Erie, first checked the invaders,
flushed with their success in the East. Tennessee fur-
nished in all in the war of 1812 27,833 troops; and when,
in the Mexican war, 2,800 volunteers were called for,
30,000 offered their services. She had given to the country
two Presidents, two Secretaries of War, one Attorney-
General, one Secretary of the Treasury, two Postmasters
General, two Speakers of the House of Representatives,
one presiding officer of the Senate, one Supreme Judge,
two ministers to Russia, one minister to Spain. No other
State except Virginia had such a brilliant career.
Many of her sons, such as Benton, of Missouri; Tipton,
of Indiana; Houston, of Texas; Claiborne, of Louisiana;
Sharkey and Yerger, of Mississippi, and Gwin, of Califor-
nia, had attained great eminence in other States.
After the formation of the Whig party, for successive
Presidential elections, Tennessee was the battle ground of
the nation.
From 1837 to 1853, with the exception of the two suc-
cessive terms of Jones, in 1841 and 1843, the Whigs and
Democrats alternated in the control of the State, the ma-
jority rarely ever exceeding 1,500.
Her public men and orators were known throughout the
length and breadth of the land, and stood high in the
councils of their parties and the esteem of the people. '
Carroll, Cannon, White, Haywood, Overton, Catron,
Grundy, Amstrong, Crockett, Foster, Turney, Bell, Jones,
^jFolk, Campbell, Trousdale, Cave Johnson, Nicholson, the
two Browns, Henry, Haskell, Marshall, Andrew Johnson,
Gentry, Harris, Hatton, Nelson, McKinney, Wright,
Brownlow, and Maynard were household names, known to
fame throughout the Union.
No State ever had so many and such skilled public de-
bators. Parties were, closely matched in ^strength, and
were compelled to put forth their foremost men. The
40
sharp contests, with doubtful victor}', afforded opportuni-
ties for the ambitious of both parties, and brought out and
developed men who had the nerve and ability for leaders.
A nomination did not mean an election. It was a storm
from start to finish. There was no complicated political
machinery, no manipulation of votes. The battle ground
was the entire State, and all of her people, men, women
and children, were in the fray, and cheered their cham-
pions in the doubtful struggle. The people held the party
in power to strict accountability. The numbers were so
nearly even that a blunder of administration, or disparity
in leadership, turned the scales of victory. Happy is the
State where parties are so nearly equal in numbers that
they dare not commit a wrong, and so equal in integrity
and ability that the public weal is safe in either's keeping.
The War.
Her inhabitants were almost all native American, with
less than 2 per cent, of foreign born. Sprung from revo-
lutionary sires and the heroes of 181 2, they were filled
with an idolatrous love for the Union, whose flag to them
was emblematic. Its blue field spangled with equal stars
portrayed a constellation of inextinguishable sovereign
States, set in one harmonious system, in a firmament of
equal spacing, with no one encroaching on the other. Its
white stripes denoted the purity <3f their faith, and the red,
the crimson flush with ^vhich the sons of Tennessee had
always dyed the sacrificial altar of their country.
The irrepressible conflict between the North and the
South threatened a disruption of the Union. Mr. Lincoln,
who was regarded as a sectional candidate, and who received
no votes in the State of Tennessee, was elected. Southern
States began to secede, and* their Senators and Represent-
atives withdrew from the capital of the nation. Tennessee
was confronted with the momentous issue which tore the
heartstrings of her people. Events followed in rapid suc-
cession, and as the situation was altered, so changed the
sentiments and action of her people.
On Feb. 9 was defeated the call for the convention to con-
sider the relations between Tennessee and the Government
41
of the United States, the vote for disunion delegates being
24,749, and that for Union delegates being 88,803.
The Confederacy was formed, Sumter was fired on, Pres-
ident Lincoln called for volunteers, and an invasion of the
South became a certainty.
Gov. Harris had already stated the case of the South in
that brilliant message which electrified the people of Ten-
nessee.
A majority of the people of Tennessee believed that, pre-
vious to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, each State
was a separate and independent government, and that the
Federal Union was a compact made by the States, in which
each reserved all the rights and powers incident to sover-
eignty which were not expressly conferred upon the gen-
eral government, or were necessary for the exercise of some
power expressly granted.
The Constitution recognized property in slaves, and made
it the duty of States to deliver fugitives to their owners.
This had been declared by the Supreme Court of the
United States, which said that "no word can be found in
the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over
slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to
less protection than property of any other description. The
only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of
guarding and protecting the owner in his rights." *
Still ringing in their ears was the farewell address of
Jackson, in which he said that :
44 Each State has the unquestionable right to regulate its
own internal concerns, according to its own pleasure, and
while it does not interfere with the rights of the people of
other States, or the rights of the Union, every State must
be the sole judge of the measures proper to secure the safety
of its citizens and promote their happiness, and all efforts
on the part of the people of other States to cast odium upon
their institutions, and all measures calculated to disturb
their rights of property, or to put in jeopardy their peace
and internal tranquility, are in direct opposition to the spirit
in which the Union was formed and must endanger its
safety." f
* Jackson's Farewell Address.
t Dred Scott V. Sandford, 19 How., 393, 452.
42
The Republican party dominated the country and many
of its members had declared that there was " an irrepress-
ible conflict" between the free and slave State$"and whether
it be long, peaceful or bloody, the struggle shall go on, un-
til the sun shall not rise upon a master, or set upon a slave. "
The people of the South had by successive concessions
agreed to the exclusion of slave property from the larger
portion of the territory which they and their fathers had
helped to acquire. A majority of the Northern States had
in effect destroyed that provision in the Constitution that
"No person held to service or labor in one State under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be due."
Extradition of those whose crimes grew out of the
slaveiy question was refused. Owners in pursuit of their
own slaves were indicted and incarcerated. Emissaries
had been sent into the Southern States to run off slaves
and arouse them to servile war. Property amounting in
value to millions of dollars had been carried away by what
was known as " the underground railway."
John Brown had invaded a sovereign State and killed its
citizens. • Some leaders had proclaimed the motto, "Alarm
to the sleep, fire to the dwellings, poison to the food and
water of slaveholders."
The decision of the Supreme Court was repudiated and
rights guaranteed by the Constitution were assailed " from
the floor of each house of Congress, the pulpit, the hust-
ings, the school-room, their State Legislatures, and through
the public press."
A majority of the people.of Tennessee, believing that
the Union, as established by the fathers, no longer existed,
reversed on June 8, their former action by a majority of
57,675, and waiving the right of secession, proclaimed anew
the doctrine of revolution of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, "that governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed, and that whenever any form
of government becomes destructive of the ends for which
it was created, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish
43
it, and to institute a new government, laying its founda-
tion on such principles, and organizing its powers-in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety
and happiness," and on May 7 united their fortunes with
their brethren of the South.
A large proportion of her population, living mainly in
the eastern part of the State, where the institution of slavery
had never taken deep root, controlled either by a different
view of the Constitution or a sentiment for the Union which
overshadowed all other considerations, with equal earnest-
ness, espoused the cause of the Federal Government.
When the volcano of civil war burst forth, both sides
threw themselves into the crater of its seething passions,
reckless of everything but the principles for which they con-
tended, and with a courage that showed that they were wor-
thy to uphold the prestige of the men who achieved and
maintained for Tennessee the proud title of the Volunteer
State. A number of counties sent more soldiers in the field
than they had voters. One hundred and fifteen thousand
rushed into the ranks of the Confederacy, and, although
the quota called for was only 1,560, there enlisted in the
armies of the Union 31,000 white troops.
Tennessee furnished to the Confederate army thirty-nine,
and to the Federal army eight general officers.
To the South she gave Maury, and to the North Farra-
gut, whose names and fame have never been eclipsed in the
annals of the American navy. The time allotted to this
occasion would not suffice to call the roll of those who won
immortal renown. It is not necessary, for their names are
ever fresh in our memories.
The history of the war cannot be written without record-
ing their deeds. The thinned ranks of scarred and maimed
veterans who returned, needed no one to tell the scenes of
carnage through which they had passed. The soil of
Tennessee has been made sacred by the blood of her sons
shed in 272 officially reported battles and skirmishes, and
in other engagements, bringing the whole number up to
408.
Tennesseans reunited, with no contest except in generous
rivalry, to advance the welfare of their State, yet cherish-
44
ing, but without bitterness, these proud memories, with
one voice proclaim :
" Fold up the banner. Smelt the guns !
Love rules. Her gentle purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons."
The people of Tennessee on both sides of that conflict,
who sustained their convictions to the last extremity, vin-
dicated their claims to the hightest standard of American
citizenship. If, moved by fears for self or pelf, they had
surrendered their principles, they would have been unfit to
encumber the earth. What American would have had
them to do otherwise, holding the faith they did, a faith
which they had a perfect right to hold ?
Would anyone, if he could, reverse their action, and
contemplate with equanimity the future of this country in
the keeping of the coldblooded offspring of base and cal-
culating weaklings, who deserted the traditions and politi-
cal teachings of their fathers?
Even looking back through the tears which these sad
memories evoke, memories of suffering and distress, not
merely of strong men, but of helpless women and children,
memories of a carnival of death, when there was no sign
upon any lintel, but the destroying angel with impartial
tread came to ever}' household, Tennesseans of to-day would
not wrong the heroic spirit of that gallant people by wish-
ing that those of either side had sought safety, by bowing
to the storm until its fury was spent. They would not for
all the cost surrender the glorious heritage of that strife.
"It is meet then to hold in remembrance those who died
in that war, opposed to each other, and to reconcile them
by offering prayers, forasmuch as we ourselves are also
reconciled. For not through malice and hatred did they
la hands upon each other, but through their evil fortune.
A nd of these facts we are ourselves the living witnesses, for
being of the same family with them, we have forgiven each
other for what we have done and suffered."
Thus spoke Socrates, to the Athenians, after the civil
war. These words to-day find echo in every generous
heart in Tennessee.
45
Devastation swept over the State, and it was prostrate,
with its wealth destroyed, its fair manhood, which consti-
stuted its chief strength and hope cut down, society over-
thrown, whole families being wiped out of existence, and
its civilization threatened with destruction.
The tax valuation in Tennessee in 1869, after four years
of recuperation, was $155,821,611 less than when the war
began. The slave valuation in i860 was $114,976,374.
Thus, in addition to the loss of the slaves, there was in
1869 an unrepaired loss of $40,845,238.
The war forced every State bank, with the exception of
the Northern Bank of Tennessee, at Clarksville, into liquida-
tion. The banking capital, which, in i860, was $8, 500,000,
was almost annihilated.
But worse than all, society was upheaved, property own-
ers were disfranchised, and the duties and responsibilities
of citizenship were thrust upon a people just emerged from
slavery. These emancipated people, without a dollar of
their own, with all the crime, poverty, ignorance and dis-
turbing conditions that were naturally incident to their sud-
den political transition, were precipitated upon the poorest,
most wretched, and most disorganized section of the country.
Recuperation.
It was like making brick without straw, but the same
heroism that sustained the people of Tennessee throughout
those four years of blood, nerved them for the work of re-
building their waste places. The gain up to 1870 was
almost imperceptible, the population having increased from
i860 to 1870 only 13.4 per cent.
In that year the people of Tennessee got control of their
own affairs.
From 1870 to 1880 the population increased 22.55 P er
cent., which was a greater ratio than that of any of the
New England or Middle States, except Rhode Island and
New Jersey.
From 1870 to 1890 the population increased 508,998.
Of this increase that of the American born was 508,285.
In 1890, out of her entire population, there were only
1,486 persons of 10 years of age and over that could not
speak English.
46
From 1880 to 189c, the white population increased 197,-
806, and for the same period the negro population increased
27>527-
Of her 20,029 foreign born population in 1890, 16,861
were of the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic blood.
Of her entire population in 1890, only 2,249 were aliens.
In 1890, Tennessee had more citizens who had been
United States soldiers than did any of the New England
States, except Massachusetts.
Tennessee is the State of the family and the home. Of
her 334, 194 families, 144,560 occupied their own homes,
free of incumbrance.
There were only ten other States in the Union exceeding
this figure, and none exceeding the percentage.
Of the 183,726 families occupying farms, 103,346 pos-
sessed their own, and free from incumbrance.
These figures are significant, and give eloquent and as-
suring promise for the future, when it is considered that
the time may come, and at no distant day, when there will
be a contest for the maintenance of American institutions.
In that day their strength and perpetuity will depend upon
the devotion of those who cling to them with hereditary
love. In that dav Tennessee will be a tower of strength to
the nation.
The estimated value of all property in Tennessee, by the
census of i860, was $493,903,892.
The census of 1880 showed the estiihated value of all
property in Tennessee to be $705,000,000, thus showing a
gain notwithstanding the losses by the war of $211,000,000.
The estimated value of all property in Tennessee, by the
census of 1890, was $887,956,143.
The increase from 1880 to.i89owas 26 percent. An in-
crease at the same rate would make the value of all prop-
erty in Tennessee in 1896, $1,026,477,303.
From 1880 to 1890 the amount of capital invested in
manufactures increased $31,000,000, and the money paid
to employees in them increased for the same period $11,-
000,000.
In 1890 the percentage of all mortgages in force in the
State was only 8.80 of the actual value of its property, and
47
there were thirty-two other States and Territories of the
Union which had a greater percentage.
The average interest charged on these mortgages was
only 6 per cent., while that of thirty-seven other 5 States
and Territories exceeded that rate, and many of them
largely.
Her banking capital has increased from the close of the
war from $350,000 to $21,000,000.
The capacity of her iron furnaces is 600,000 tons, which
is a third more than the entire production of the United
States in i860. The census shows that from 1880 to 1889
there was an increase in the production of iron ore of
380,022 tons, and of coal of 1,430,558 tons. The last re-
port of the Commissioner of Labor shows that, notwith-
standing the business depression of 1895, as compared with
1889, the production of coal has increased 1,394,031 tons,
and that the increase from 1894 to 1895 was 138,841 tons.
The increase in the production of coke in 1894, as com-
pared with 1880, was 162,037 tons.
An increase even more striking took place in the devel-
opment of the commercial demand for Tennessee marble,
which, in variety, beauty, density, and crushing resistance
is greater than that of any marble produced in the world,
and for exposure to moisture and high temperatures sur-
passes granite. Within two years, a new industry, that of
developing our phosphate deposits, has sprung up. In 1895,
49,000 tons were shipped. The attention of the world has
been attracted to the high grade petroleum of this State,
which is all the more sought for on account of the con-
stantly decreasing output of other fields. Many wells are
being sunk, and this promises to be a great source of pros-
perity and wealth to our State.
Notwithstanding the great financial depression, Tennes-
see had seventy-four less failures in 1S95 than in 1894, with
$494,615 less liabilities. There was in the same period an
increase of failures in a number of the Northern States.
The relations between labor and capital have been far
more harmonious than in the North, and strikes have been
few and not serious, and chacterized by no lawlessness.
Liberal legislation protecting laborers has gone far toward
48
removing causes for friction, and producing this happy
result.
Conclusion.
With such evidences of prosperity, with her genial cli-
mate, so equable in winter, so refreshing in the hottest sum-
mer, with the cool breezes fanning the broad bosom of her
plateaus and her mountain ranges, with her lands of unsur-
passed fertility, adapted to the greatest variety of produc-
tion, with her 5,000 square miles of coal, inexhaustible
stores of iron and marble, her 2,700 miles of navigable
rivers, exceeding those of any other State in the Union, her
vast forests of commercial timber, Tennessee proudly chal-
lenges the attention of the world, and throws wide open her
doors, inviting the people of all countries to come and par-
take of her hospitality, study her institutions, the character
of her people, and her natural resources, and all who will
accept and uphold in their integrity American institutions,
to cast their lot with us, and be partakers of the increasing
prosperity, happiness and honor which the future holds in
store.
While striving for material -progress, mindful that it is
not wealth, population and splendor that constitute the
strength of a State, that moral and intellectual forces
achieve the glory of a people, and that the maintenance of
our institutions is our sheet anchor of safety, let us, in en-
tering upon this new century, reverentially receive again,
in solemn charge, the farewell words of the Sage of the
Hermitage:
"You have the highest of human trusts commited to
your care. Providence has showered on this favored land
blessings without number, and has chosen you, as the
guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the
human race. May he, who holds in his hands the destinies
of nations, make you worthy of the favors he has bestowed,
and enable you, with pure hearts, and pure hands, and
sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend, to the end of time,
the great charge he has committed to your keeping. n
HECKMAN IXi
BINDERY INC. |§|
DEC 94
