UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 See Appendix A . 
 
 / 
 
 AT THE AGE OF FORTY-FIVE
 
 LIFE OF 
 
 EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 FIRST GOVERNOR OF OHIO 
 
 BY 
 
 COLONEL WILLIAM EDWARD GILMORE 
 
 CHILLICOTHE, O. 
 
 HORNEY & SON, PUBLISHERS 
 1897
 
 05+ 
 
 GK 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 VERY nearly a century has elapsed since Edward 
 Tiffin was inaugurated the first governor of the 
 State of Ohio ; and yet two of his children Miss 
 Diathea Tiffin and Mrs. Ellen Tiffin Cook, aged 
 respectively eighty-three and-eighty-one still sur- 
 vive ; and in such state of health and vigor as ren- 
 der it not altogether unreasonable to hope they 
 may yet live to celebrate the centennial of that 
 event. 
 
 It is at the request of these two venerable and 
 honored daughters of Governor Tiffin that this brief 
 memoir has been prepared and published ; and to 
 them it is respectfully and affectionately inscribed 
 by their kinsman, 
 
 WILLIAM E. GILMORE. 
 
 CHILLICOTHE, OHIO, May i, 1897. 
 
 204870
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 FIRST GOVERNOR OF OHIO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Parentage and Birth Early Education Begins the Study of 
 Medicine in Carlisle, England Emigrates to America 
 Resumes and Finishes Medical Studies Marriage Re- 
 ligious Impressions Ordination as Deacon in Methodist 
 Episcopal Church Manumits Negro Slaves Removal 
 to Northwest Territory. 
 
 EDWARD TIFFIN was born in the city of Carlisle, 
 England, on the nineteenth day of June, 1766. 
 
 His parents, Henry Tiffin and Mary Packer, his 
 wife, were both of good descent and family connec- 
 tions, but possessed of no property of consequence ; 
 and Edward's education was principally provided 
 for by a generous maternal uncle, Edward Parker, 
 for whom he was named. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Williams, late of Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 who was for more than twenty years of his life 
 connected intimately with Governor Tiffin, by rea- 
 son of serving him in the capacity of chief clerk
 
 2 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 while Tiffin held the office of Commissioner of the 
 General Land Office of the United States, and 
 afterwards that of Surveyor-General of the North- 
 west, in a paper published in Rev. J. B. Finley's 
 Sketches of Western Methodism (1854), says that 
 Tiffin's education " was limited to the ordinary 
 branches of a common English course." 
 
 That Mr. Williams understates his educational 
 accomplishments is abundantly apparent in Tiffin's 
 subsequent career ; for, although he was essentially 
 a practical man, with his interest and industry 
 absorbed in current affairs, without thought of 
 posthumous fame as an orator, writer, or statesman 
 for he preserved no memorials of himself what- 
 ever all evidence that has come down to us 
 proves that he always spoke readily, clearly, and 
 effectively in debate ; and all his papers accessible 
 now, including a few of the sermons he preached, 
 are written in excellent style, in faultless English 
 and admirable good taste. 
 
 The fact that he was a student of medicine be- 
 fore he was eighteen years of age, and that he 
 attained acknowledged eminence in this learned 
 profession notwithstanding his many other employ- 
 ments in life, almost conclusively proves he pos- 
 sessed some knowledge of the Latin language, and 
 considerable attainments in those other sciences 
 which are essential to this profession. 
 
 In 1784 his parents, with their five children, of
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 3 
 
 whom Edward was third in the order of their 
 birth, left England and chose an American home 
 in Charlestown, in what was then Berkeley County, 
 but since then included in the present county of 
 Jefferson, in the State of West Virginia. 
 
 It has frequently been asserted that the subject 
 of this memoir came to this country in the capacity 
 of surgeon on a British man-of-war ; that he was 
 attached, as surgeon, to the army of Burgoyne and 
 taken prisoner with that army ; that he was held as 
 such prisoner until the close of the war, and only 
 then concluded to become an American citizen ; 
 and more to the same general effect. These stories 
 all originated in an obituary sermon preached by a 
 Methodist minister in 1829, and which sermon was 
 printed in a newspaper of southern Ohio at the time. 
 
 The indisputable fact that he was born in 1766, 
 and was, therefore, only eleven years old at the time 
 of Burgoyne's surrender of his army, sufficiently 
 refutes all these statements. 
 
 Immediately after the arrival of the Tiffin family 
 in Virginia, Edward resumed the course of medical 
 studies he had begun in England, and in due time 
 attended a course of lectures at the Jefferson 
 Medical College of Pennsylvania and was licensed 
 to practise. He was but twenty years of age, but 
 had gained such reputation for learning and ability 
 as to procure for him very quickly a remunerative 
 business.
 
 4 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 In 1789 he married Mary Worthington, daughter 
 of Robert Worthington, of Berkeley County, and 
 sister of Thomas Worthington, who afterward fol- 
 lowed Tiffin in the office of Governor of Ohio, and 
 preceded him in the office of senator from that 
 State in the Congress of the United States. 
 
 This wife, with whom he lived most happily for 
 nineteen years, was a beautiful and accomplished 
 woman whose sweet fame for charity, piety, and 
 dutifulness has come down to the present genera- 
 tion of the residents of southern Ohio as a cher- 
 ished tradition. Of her, Bishop Asbury, of the 
 M. E. Church, wrote : " She was one of the most 
 conscientious and heavenly-minded women I have 
 ever known." She died, childless, in 1808. 
 
 The year following his marriage, both Edward 
 Tiffin and his wife were deeply impressed with 
 religious feelings, evoked by the preaching of Rev. 
 Thomas Scott (a young minister of the Methodist 
 Episcopal persuasion ; and who afterwards, as a 
 successful lawyer and local preacher, lived neigh- 
 bor and intimate friend to the Tiffins in Chilli- 
 cothe for many years), and both publicly united 
 with that branch of the Christian Church. 
 
 Tiffin was naturally quick, impulsive, energetic, 
 and enthusiastic, and within a month after his 
 union with the church, without a preparatory 
 course of theological studies, without waiting for 
 license or ordination to the ministry, he had gath-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 5 
 
 ered a large congregation of his associates and fel- 
 low-citizens of Berkeley County, and was fervently, 
 eloquently, and effectively urging upon them the 
 faith he had so recently embraced. 
 
 It was about two years after he had begun and 
 continued to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ that 
 Bishop Asbury, in exercise of the powers vested in 
 him by his office, ordained Edward Tiffin, on the 
 nineteenth day of November, 1/92, a deacon of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, and so authorized 
 him to preach. The fervency with which his re- 
 ligious life began never afterward abated in any 
 degree ; on the contrary, it steadily intensified 
 through all his lifetime. 
 
 The parents of his wife having died prior to his 
 marriage, he and his brother-in-law, Thomas Worth- 
 ington, each became by inheritance the owner of 
 sixteen negro slaves. The ownership of these 
 negroes forced upon him the consideration of the 
 humanity and morality of the institution of slav- 
 ery ; and neither the legality of it under the laws 
 of the State of Virginia, the almost universal ac- 
 ceptance and approval of it by his fellow-citizens, 
 nor the antiquity of its existence in this country 
 and the world, could still the accusations of his sen- 
 sitive conscience for partaking of its benefits to the 
 master-class, or conceal from his clear perception 
 the many iniquities which were necessarily and in- 
 herently connected with the system. His brother-
 
 6 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 in-law shared in all these thoughts and feelings, 
 and the ultimate result of their many conferences 
 upon the subject was that both resolved to manu- 
 mit their slaves and remove to new homes within 
 the territory northwest of the Ohio River, where 
 the existence of slavery was prohibited forever by 
 the provisions of the " Ordinance of 1787." This 
 resolve, as soon as possible, both afterward carried 
 into execution. 
 
 It is always interesting, when reading biogra- 
 phies, and especially so where portraiture is lack- 
 ing, to catch glimpses of the personal appearance 
 and manner of the subject of the sketch. 
 
 Edward Tiffin had now lived for fourteen years 
 in Virginia, and from one who knew him intimately 
 during those years I quote : " His natural buoy- 
 ancy of spirits and vivacity, his sprightliness and 
 pleasant manners, joined with unusual conversa- 
 tional powers, made him the favorite in the gay 
 and fashionable circles of old Berkeley, and the 
 very life and soul of whatever company he was in." 
 
 It was about the end of that period that George 
 Washington, in a letter to Governor St. Clair 
 (hereafter quoted in full), wrote of Tiffin that he 
 possessed " a knowledge of law, resulting from 
 close application " (to its study) " for a consider- 
 able time." Now, as those fourteen years were the 
 years of his professional studies and largest medi- 
 cal practice, his gayest social life, his courtship and
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN / 
 
 marriage, his conversion and the beginning of his 
 ministry, and the period within which his study of 
 politics (by which he became a very respectable 
 statesman) must have been pursued if he, also, in 
 those years found time to obtain the knowledge of 
 the science of law with which Washington credits 
 him, Edward Tiffin must have been indeed a marvel 
 of " sprightliness."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Northwest Territory Its Political Mutations Settle- 
 ment of the Whites made Possible by the Defeat of 
 Confederated Indian Tribes Chillicothe laid off by 
 Nathaniel Massie Virginians flock to the New Town 
 Among them the Tiffin Family Resumes the Active 
 Practice of his Profession. 
 
 WE must now follow Edward Tiffin to his new 
 home. The " Territory of the United States 
 Northwest of the River Ohio," from which five 
 great States were subsequently formed, had been 
 earliest explored by civilized men, and occupied by 
 military posts, by the French. In 1759 it had been 
 wrested from the French by the English, and while 
 the struggle was pending between England and 
 her American colonies, known to us as the Revo- 
 lutionary War, it was in turn wrested from the 
 English by the Virginians, commanded by George 
 Rodgers Clark, in a campaign scarcely paralleled 
 for audacity of conception, skill in execution, per- 
 tinacious endurance of hardships, and heroic strug- 
 gle against seeming hopelessness, in all the history 
 of the world. 
 
 After the independence of the United States 
 had been achieved, Virginia made this conquest
 
 by Clark the basis of a claim to sovereignty over 
 the whole northwest ; which title she afterward 
 patriotically relinquished to the Federal Govern- 
 ment in 1783, only reserving the fee of the lands 
 lying between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, 
 to be devoted to satisfying the bounty land war- 
 rants she had issued to her citizens for military 
 services during the Revolutionary War. But the 
 whole of that area was inhabited by hostile In- 
 dians; and prior to 1795 no settlement was made 
 by white people in what is now Ohio, save under 
 the guardianship and protection of a military post 
 and garrison of regular troops. 
 
 The crushing defeat of the confederated Indians 
 by Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers, in 1794, 
 followed by the treaty of Greenville in 1795, made 
 it possible to settle, with comparative safety, other 
 parts of the State with civilized people. 
 
 Nathaniel Massie, a very intelligent, brave, and 
 enterprising young surveyor, had at great risk 
 made various explorations and surveys in the 
 Scioto Valley in 1793-94 and '95. In the early 
 spring of 1796 he led a party of adventurous Vir- 
 ginians and Kentuckians up the Scioto, and laid 
 out the present beautiful city of Chillicothe the 
 first successful location of a town outside of mili- 
 tary protection ever made in Ohio, with the single 
 exception of the stockaded post on the north bank 
 of the Ohio River, in what is now Adams County,
 
 10 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 originally known as Massie's Station, and now 
 known as the town of Manchester. This place, 
 also, had been established by Nathaniel Massie, in 
 1792, as a base for his surveying expeditions to 
 the north of the Ohio River. 
 
 Chillicothe being located within the reservation 
 thus made by Virginia, and in the heart of the won- 
 derfully fertile and beautiful Scioto Valley, the new 
 town and the country around it at once stongly 
 attracted the attention and interest of Virginians, 
 and many of them sought homes there in the 
 years immediately following 1796; so that within 
 two years the town and country around it con- 
 tained a population of nearly, or quite, one thou- 
 sand souls. Of these Virginia emigrants there was 
 a party of sixteen or eighteen left Berkeley County 
 in the very early spring of 1798, and after thirty 
 days' travel reached the village of Chillicothe on 
 the twenty-seventh day of April. In this group 
 were Edward Tiffin and his wife, his parents, two 
 sisters, and two brothers ; Thomas Worthington 
 and his wife ; three or four white mechanics who 
 were employed by Worthington for the purpose 
 of building a mill; and several of the manumitted 
 negroes who, it was thought, could do better in 
 the new country than it was probable, or possible, 
 for them to do in Virginia. 
 
 Tiffin selected a four-acre lot on the northeast 
 corner of Water and High streets, and soon erected
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN II 
 
 upon it a large and commodious stone house which, 
 except for brief periods afterward spent upon his 
 farm in Union Township, and in Washington City, 
 continued to be his residence until his death in 
 1829. 
 
 He immediately resumed the active practice of 
 his profession, and as he was (so far as we can ascer- 
 tain) at first the only medical practitioner in the 
 rapidly growing settlement, and as the whole region 
 was horribly malarious, as new and rich valleys 
 of the West always are, he was compelled to ride 
 on horseback night and day, far and wide. There 
 were then, at best, only paths through the densely 
 wooded wilderness, and no bridges over the many 
 streams around Chillicothe, which were often swol- 
 len to deep, swift, and dangerous torrents. His 
 life at that period was a busy and arduous one. It 
 is traditionally said of him that he never refused 
 his services because of weather or of distance to 
 his patients, nor for the reason that a patient was 
 too poor to compensate him for attendance. To 
 anticipate a little, it is recorded of him by Mr. 
 Williams that in his after years, and while occupied 
 by duties of the highest official stations his fellow, 
 citizens could bestow upon him yea, even when 
 the disease which terminated his life prevented 
 him from leaving his own bed-chamber, it was his 
 habit to receive, diagnose, and treat the poor, gra- 
 tuitously, on set days of the week. " Indeed," says
 
 12 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 Williams, " his benevolence to the poor and needy 
 was bounded only by his ability to relieve them." 
 
 That he was competent and successful as a phy- 
 sician and surgeon many instances are given. One 
 of these I quote from a paper written by his son- 
 in-law, the late eminent and learned Dr. C. G. 
 Comegys, of Cincinnati, Ohio: "Being upon one 
 occasion distant from his home and without his 
 surgical case, a terrible accident to a farmer in 
 Union Township required that an immediate am- 
 putation of a leg should be performed. Dr. Tiffin 
 quickly improvised all the instruments necessary 
 for the operation, performed it skillfully and suc- 
 cessfully and saved his patient's life." 
 
 I have stated that the entire Tiffin family came 
 to Ohio together. These were his father, Henry 
 Tiffin, who died in 1807; his mother, who survived 
 her husband some years, dying in 1810 ; the oldest 
 brother, Henry; his sister Mary, who married Cap- 
 tain Isaac Davis ; Joseph, who married Nancy 
 Dorsey Wood, of Maryland * ; and Margaret, who 
 married John Gardiner, long an associate judge of 
 Common Pleas for Ross County. The brothers 
 and sisters each left several children, and their de- 
 scendants are now numerous and widely scattered 
 throughout the United States. 
 
 * This couple were the grandparents of the author of this 
 memoir.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Tiffin's Interest in Politics Major-General Arthur St. Clair, 
 Governor of the Territory His Quarrels with the Vir- 
 ginia Pioneers Letter from George Washington com- 
 mending Tiffin for Appointment to Office Commis- 
 sioned Clerk of Courts Elected to Territorial Legis- 
 lature. 
 
 WHILE Edward Tiffin lived in Virginia he seems 
 to have imbibed the intense interest in political 
 affairs and the desire to hold public office which 
 is so generally characteristic of the inhabitants of 
 that State. 
 
 In 1798 Major-General Arthur St. Clair was 
 governor of the United States Territory Northwest 
 of the Ohio River. He had been appointed to 
 that office October 5, 1787, and had removed to 
 the Territory and assumed the duties of his office 
 as early as July 9, 1788, a few months after the 
 first permanent settlement by white people in 
 Ohio that of the Ohio Land Company at Mari- 
 etta, which occurred in April, 1788. 
 
 St. Clair was born a British subject at Caithness, 
 Scotland, in 1734. His family was one which had
 
 14 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 high social and political rank in Scotland, and has 
 frequent mention in Scottish history and poetry. 
 He was possessed of excellent intellectual endow- 
 ments, was well educated, and polished by inter- 
 course with the best civil and military society. 
 He had held a royal commission as captain in the 
 British army, and distinguished himself by gallan- 
 try at the capture of Quebec. In 1760 he married 
 Miss Phoebe Bayard, of Boston, Mass., and in 1762 
 he resigned his commission in the British army. 
 He had been a member of the Continental Con- 
 gress, and a president of that body. In December, 
 1775, he was commissioned by John Hancock a 
 colonel of the Colonial army. He served through 
 the Revolutionary War as an American officer, and 
 attained the rank of a major-general. Unquestion- 
 ably he had become thoroughly Americanized and 
 devoted to the interests of his adopted country. 
 But unfortunately he was proud, aristocratic, arbi- 
 trary and stubborn, and consequently became un- 
 popular, especially with the Virginians, when that 
 class began to fill up the reservation. Subse- 
 quent events, and especially the course the gov- 
 ernor pursued toward the Territorial Legislature 
 when it met, rapidly deepened and widened the 
 chasm between St. Clair and the Virginians ; and 
 the latter found some sympathizers and allies 
 among the New England settlers, and particularly 
 among the New Jersey" settlers who came to the
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 15 
 
 John Cleve Symmes' purchase in the Miami 
 country. 
 
 As between St. Clair and the leaders of " the 
 Virginia party " living in Chillicothe, we shall see 
 that the quarrel soon grew to be " war, war to the 
 knife, and the knife to the hilt." 
 
 In such conditions it was to be expected that 
 much unwarranted abuse and misrepresentation 
 would be heaped upon St. Glair's head, and it came 
 to be often asserted, and very generally believed 
 in southwestern portions of the Territory, that he 
 was at heart disloyal to American theories of gov- 
 ernment by the people and in favor of an heredi- 
 tary monarchy. This was not only utterly untrue 
 of him ; it was cruel and ungrateful.* 
 
 Dr. Tiffin brought with him from Virginia a 
 letter written by George Washington and ad- 
 dressed to Governor St. Clair, which we copy in 
 full because it constitutes a high tribute to the 
 character of Tiffin from the very highest source 
 in the world at the time, and is, so far as the 
 author of this sketch is aware, the only letter of 
 recommendation of an aspirant for official appoint- 
 
 * Tardy justice, in part at least, has been done to the character, 
 reputation, and patriotic services of St. Clair by the recent publica- 
 tion of his Papers, under an order and appropriation by the General 
 Assembly of Ohio. They have been ably edited by William Henry 
 Smith, of Chicago, III., and published by Robert Clark & Co., of 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, 1882.
 
 1 6 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 ment ever written by Washington in behalf of any 
 person : 
 
 "January tf/i, 1798. 
 
 "Sir: Mr. Edward Tiffin solicits an appoint- 
 ment in the territory Northwest of the Ohio. 
 
 " The fairness of his character in private and pub- 
 lic life, together with a knowledge of law, resulting 
 from close application for a considerable time, will, 
 I hope, justify the liberty I now take in recom- 
 mending him to your attention. Regarding with 
 due attention the delicacy as well as the impor- 
 tance of the character in which I act, I am sure you 
 will do me the justice to believe that nothing but 
 the knowledge of the gentleman's merits, founded 
 upon a long acquaintance, could have induced me 
 to trouble you on this occasion. 
 
 " With sincere wishes for your happiness and 
 welfare, I am, etc., etc. 
 
 " GEO. WASHINGTON." 
 
 That this letter was duly delivered to St. Clair 
 is evident from the fact that it has been until 
 lately in the custody of Dr. W. H. St. Clair, of 
 Effingham County, 111. Dr. St. Clair being a 
 great-grandson of General Arthur St. Clair, to 
 whom it was addressed. It is now in the State 
 archives at Columbus, Ohio. Whether it bore
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN I/ 
 
 fruit by securing an office for Dr. Tiffin does not 
 certainly appear; but the doctor was, within three 
 or four months after his arrival in the Territory, 
 appointed and commissioned prothonotary for 
 Ross County, and his name appears, subscribed as 
 such official, to the records of the first session of 
 the first Territorial Court of Common Pleas, held 
 " in and for the county of Ross," in December, 
 1798, and in many successive terms thereafter. 
 He continued to hold the office of prothonotary 
 and discharge all its duties until the beginning of 
 the January term, 1803, notwithstanding that he, 
 in the meantime, also continued the active practice 
 of medicine, and to gather, organize, and regularly 
 minister to Methodist Episcopal societies in all the 
 surrounding country; and in the fall of 1799 suc * 
 cessfully canvassed for election to the first Terri- 
 torial legislature. 
 
 Indeed, the lines of his active employments were 
 so numerous in these three or four years that it is 
 difficult to tell the story of them connectedly and 
 satisfactorily. Beside all else, he had been Speaker 
 of the House of Representatives, President of the 
 Ohio Constitutional Convention, and was the Gov- 
 ernor-elect of Ohio before he ceased to be pro- 
 thonotary of Common Pleas ! 
 
 That Washington was correct in estimating him 
 to possess a considerable knowledge of law is ap- 
 parent from an examination of his records and
 
 1 8 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 memoranda of those early terms of the court. They 
 prove that Tiffin was better versed in the artificial 
 and involved forms of the old practice at common 
 law than were most of the lawyers, and some of 
 the judges, of that day.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Territory attains the Necessary Population for a Legis- 
 lature Tiffin elected a Delegate Character of First 
 General Assembly Tiffin elected Speaker Opposition 
 to St. Clair develops County Seat Controversy St. 
 Clair's Many Vetoes Harrison defeats St. Clair's Son 
 for Congress Byrd appointed Territorial Secretary 
 His Animosity to the Governor Territory of Indiana 
 created Opposition to St. Clair's Reappointment St. 
 Clair suddenly dissolves General Assembly His Reap- 
 pointment as Governor. 
 
 THE reader must bear in mind that when Gov- 
 ernor St. Clair caused a census to be taken of the 
 Territory Northwest of the Ohio River in 1798, 
 that Territory was yet in its entirety, as it was at 
 the time of the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787. 
 That it was found by this census to contain five 
 thousand free white male inhabitants over the age 
 of twenty-one years within its boundaries, therefore, 
 means there was then that number of such inhabi- 
 tants within the vast area which now constitutes the 
 States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon- 
 sin, and a part of Minnesota ; in other words, all 
 the country belonging to the United States which
 
 2O LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 lay to the north of the Ohio River and east of the 
 Mississippi River. 
 
 In obedience to the mandate of the ordinance, 
 St. Clair ordered an election of delegates to the 
 first Territorial legislature, and on the third Mon- 
 day of December, 1798, the election took place 
 accordingly. Edward Tiffin was one of those 
 chosen, and his colleagues from Ross County were 
 Thomas Worthington, Samuel Findley and Major 
 Elias Langham. Of the body of men chosen to 
 constitute this first legislature of the Northwest, 
 almost every individual was a man of marked 
 characteristics, and many of them of such intel- 
 lectual powers and educational acquirements as 
 would surely elevate them to distinction and lead- 
 ership were they living members of the United 
 States Congress in this last quarter of the nine, 
 teenth century. I therefore name some of those 
 who represented the parts of the Territory which 
 are now included within the State of Ohio. Besides 
 the delegates already named from Ross County 
 there were : 
 
 From Hamilton County, Robert Benham, after- 
 ward a distinguished lawyer and orator ; William 
 McMillen, afterward a delegate to Congress ; John 
 Smith, afterward a senator of the United States ; 
 Dr. William Goforth, afterward a member of the 
 Constitutional Convention, and distinguished for 
 attainments in the natural sciences.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 21 
 
 From Adams County, Nathaniel Massie, the 
 pioneer surveyor and founder of Chillicothe, a 
 member of the Constitutional Convention, and 
 candidate for governor of the State in 1807. 
 
 From Washington County, Return Jonathan 
 Meigs, Jr., afterward a justice of the Supreme 
 Court of Ohio, governor of the State of Ohio, 
 senator of the United States, and postmaster- 
 general of the United States ; and Paul Fearing, 
 afterward a delegate to Congress. 
 
 These names indicate the class of people who 
 settled the Northwest and whose descendants now 
 largely predominate in it ; and this explains the 
 fact, now so commonly known and admitted as 
 to be proverbial, that " the Ohio man " is a political 
 force and power in this country which cannot be 
 ignored. 
 
 This legislature was ordered by the proclama- 
 tion to meet at Cincinnati on the 22d of January 
 1799, for the purpose of naming to the President of 
 the United States ten residents of the Territory, 
 from whom the President was to select five to 
 form a " Legislative Council," a body correspond- 
 ing to the Senate of our present State General 
 Assembly. 
 
 When it is remembered that the delegates were 
 compelled to travel by horseback thr agh the 
 wilderness, some of them from Kaskaski ; on the 
 Mississippi, and from Vincennes on the YVabash,
 
 22 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and Detroit in the peninsula of Michigan, and 
 similar great distances, it is not surprising that it 
 was as late as the 4th of February before a quorum 
 had convened. When it did assemble they at- 
 tempted no permanent organization, but simply 
 selected the ten names and transmitted them to 
 President Adams (from which list he afterward 
 selected Robert Oliver of Washington County, 
 Jacob Burnet and James Finley of Hamilton 
 County, Henry Vanderburgh of Knox, and David 
 Vance of Jefferson, to constitute the council), and 
 adjourned to meet again at Cincinnati on the six- 
 teenth day of the following September. 
 
 Again the same causes worked delay, and it was 
 not until the 23d of that month that a quorum 
 was secured and an organization effected. Edward 
 Tiffin was unanimously elected speaker. 
 
 Here is a proper place to refute an often repeated 
 slander upon the early settlers of the Territory, and 
 especially the Virginia and Kentucky contingent 
 of them; to wit: that they desired to fasten the 
 institution of domestic slavery upon the Northwest. 
 
 A petition was presented to that first legisla- 
 ture at its first session, from certain persons still 
 resident in Virginia, who were holders of land 
 warrants which were entitled to location in the 
 military reservation, for permission to settle upon 
 their lo.cations and retain their negro slaves in 
 bondage. That petition was not even considered ;
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 23 
 
 the sixth clause of the Ordinance of 1787, in the 
 opinion of all the delegates, made it impossible to 
 grant such permission. And we are told by Judge 
 Jacob Burnet, himself a distinguished member of 
 the Legislative Council, that " such was the feeling 
 and temper of the delegates in regard to the 
 system of human slavery, that if there had been no 
 such prohibition in the ordinance, the request would 
 have been refused, as it was, by a unanimous vote" 
 "The members," continues Judge Burnet in his 
 Notes, " were not only opposed to slavery on the 
 ground of its being a moral evil, in violation of 
 human rights, but they were of the opinion that it 
 would retard the settlement of the territory by mak- 
 ing labor less reputable, and by cultivating habits 
 and feelings unfriendly to the simplicity and in- 
 dustry they desired to encourage and perpetuate." 
 
 But to return to our more immediate subject. 
 Notwithstanding the session seemed to open under 
 fair auspices, with complimentary addresses and 
 much good advice from the governor, and pleasant 
 responses and promises by President Vanderburgh, 
 of the Legislative Council, and Speaker Tiffin, that 
 St. Clair's suggestions should be carefully heeded, 
 all knew that a storm was brewing which would 
 inevitably burst upon the governor's head sooner 
 or later. 
 
 As early as 1788 the first year of his administra- 
 tion St. Clair had clashed with Judges Sargent
 
 24 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and Varnum. Acting under a provision of the 
 ordinance which directed that " the governor and 
 judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt such laws 
 of the original States, civil and criminal, as may 
 be necessary," etc., Sargent and Varnum, judges, 
 differed from St. Clair, governor, as to what should 
 be adopted. St. Clair contended that by virtue of 
 his office of governor his assent was necessary to 
 the adoption of any law, and so controlled the 
 majority of the council. Thus early he asserted 
 his autocratic nature, although in this instance he 
 yielded his opinion. He had created much dis- 
 satisfaction by claiming the fees for marriage 
 licenses, ferry licenses and tavern licenses, as 
 official perquisites to himself. But he created the 
 most excitement and opposition by contending 
 for the sole power to locate county seats. This 
 controversy began in 1798, after Adams County 
 had been created. Nathaniel Massie had laid out 
 the town of Manchester and naturally desired that 
 it should be the county seat, and the judges and 
 justices of the new county coincided with him. 
 The governor ordered that Adamsville should be 
 chosen, and forbade the local magistrates from 
 proceeding to erect the courthouse and jail at 
 Manchester, and ordered the treasurer to pay out 
 no moneys upon account of such buildings. 
 
 The legislature took up the subject and held 
 that it was now vested with power both to create
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 25 
 
 new counties and to fix the county seats. They 
 selected Manchester, but the bill was vetoed by 
 the governor. In this controversy Massie led the 
 opposition to the governor, and he had the zealous 
 support of all the Virginians. 
 
 This General Assembly at its first session passed 
 thirty-nine bills, and Governor St. Clair vetoed 
 eleven of them. 
 
 President Adams had appointed William Henry 
 Harrison secretary of the Territory, shortly before 
 this session of the Territorial Assembly, to succeed 
 Winthrop Sargent, who had been promoted to the 
 office of Governor of Mississippi Territory. This 
 was a most unwelcome appointment to St. Clair. 
 His biographer says, " Between St. Clair and the 
 new secretary there was no bond of sympathy." 
 Probably because there was no such bond, this 
 legislature elected William H. Harrison the Terri- 
 torial delegate to Congress over Arthur St. Clair, 
 Jr., the governor's son, by a vote of eleven to ten. 
 Harrison hastened to take his seat in Congress, and 
 his work adverse to St. Clair soon became evident. 
 
 The vacant secretaryship of the Territory was 
 now filled by the appointment by the President, 
 on December 30, 1799, of Charles Willing Byrd. 
 If there was no bond of sympathy between St. 
 Clair and Harrison, there was positive repulsion 
 between the governor and Byrcl, whose selection 
 was due to the influences exerted by Harrison and
 
 26 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 Thomas Worthington, who were then in Philadel- 
 phia, as St. Clair shrewdly suspected, laboring to 
 secure such a division of the Territory as the Vir- 
 ginians desired, viz. : by a line run due north from 
 the mouth of the Great Miami ; and to defeat the 
 scheme of St. Clair to have it divided by a line run 
 due north from Eagle Creek, which would, the 
 governor thought, indefinitely postpone the forma- 
 tion of a State from the eastern part of it by reason 
 of the lack of sufficient population. 
 
 The act of Congress passed in May, 1800, cre- 
 ated the Territory of Indiana out of the western 
 part of the " Territory Northwest of the Ohio 
 River," the dividing line being drawn due north 
 from the mouth of the Great Miami. The eastern 
 portion retained the original name. The same act 
 designated Chillicothe as the seat of government 
 for the latter Territory. This was a great victory 
 for the Virginia party, and a corresponding morti- 
 fication to St. Clair and his adherents. 
 
 The second session of this first General Assem- 
 bly was, therefore, held in Chillicothe. It convened 
 on the 5th day of November, 1800, and was again 
 opened by an address from the governor which 
 culminated in bitter denunciations of his political 
 enemies. Both branches of the Assembly, through 
 their respective presiding officers, replied to the 
 governor's address in good temper, with respectful 
 and conciliatory words; but nevertheless the an-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 2/ 
 
 tagonism went on, more manifest, however, outside 
 the halls of the legislature than within them. 
 
 It was known, of course, that St. Clair's term as 
 governor of the Territory expired by limitation 
 on the Qth of December of that year, and active 
 measures were employed to prevent his reappoint- 
 ment by the President. In the meantime St. Clair 
 had prepared a "coup" for the Assembly, which 
 had no idea of concluding its session so soon. On 
 the 2d of December he suddenly informed them 
 that their session must terminate on the Qth inst., 
 with the ending of his term as governor. 
 
 Judge Burnet, a warm friend of St. Clair, in his 
 Notes thus speaks of this piece of strategy : 
 
 " It is remarkable that the governor concealed 
 his purpose to adjourn the legislature until it was 
 too late to confer with the secretary of the Terri- 
 tory, who was then absent from the seat of govern- 
 ment, as it was known that his (the secretary's) 
 opinion of his powers coincided with that of the 
 legislature, and it was not doubted that if such 
 conference were had he (the secretary) would have 
 taken the responsibility of issuing his proclamation 
 at once, bearing date next day after the termina- 
 tion of the governor's term of office, reassembling 
 the two houses forthwith, before the members 
 should separate and return to their respective 
 homes. By that means the sitting of the Assembly
 
 28 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 would have been continued until the public busi- 
 ness then pending was disposed of." 
 
 The efforts to prevent the reappointment of St. 
 Clair to the governorship of the Territory failed, 
 for on the 22d day of December, 1800, President 
 Adams sent his nomination to the Senate, where, 
 after a brief struggle, it was duly confirmed on the 
 3d of February, 1801, and St. Clair seemed to have 
 won the decisive and permanent victory over his 
 political enemies. But an event of evil portent to 
 him soon occurred. On the 4th day of March, 
 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated President 
 of the United States, and the Virginians in the 
 Territory hailed the event with joy and hope. 
 Yet, as will appear, they were destined to feel 
 something of the heart-sickness which comes of 
 " hope deferred."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Second General Assembly Tiffin reflected and again 
 chosen Speaker Assembly votes to further divide the 
 Territory on St. Clair's Recommendation Beginning of 
 Political Parties in the Northwest St. Clair a Federalist 
 His Opposition to Jefferson Formation of the State of 
 Ohio The Virginia " Junto " favors the Movement 
 Tiffin's Prominence in Advocacy of a State Formation. 
 
 IN October, 1801, the election of members for 
 the second Territorial General Assembly occurred, 
 and a number of changes were made in the person- 
 nel of the house. Ross County reflected Tiffin, 
 Worthington, Findley, and Langham. When this 
 Assembly convened at Chillicothe on the 24th of 
 November, 1801, Edward Tiffin was again unani- 
 mously chosen as speaker. When it is remem- 
 bered that St. Clair had many devoted partisans 
 in this house, and that Tiffin was most prominent 
 among those in opposition to him and his policies, 
 this unanimity is most remarkable, and seems to 
 be a high testimonial to Tiffin's personal character, 
 and to his ability and fairness in administration 
 of the speakership. 
 
 And he was still prothonotary of Ross County 
 Common Pleas and clerk of the Supreme Court ; he
 
 30 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 was still practising medicine " between times " ; he 
 was still gathering Methodist societies together, 
 and preaching to one or another of them almost 
 every Sabbath day ! 
 
 It is not my purpose to follow the details of the 
 transactions of this General Assembly further than 
 to state that, a vacancy having occurred in the Ter- 
 ritorial representation in Congress, by the appoint- 
 ment of William Henry Harrison to be governor 
 of the new Territory of Indiana, William McMil- 
 len, of Hamilton County, was chosen to fill the bal- 
 ance of his unexpired term, and Paul Fearing, of 
 Washington, the full term to follow. Both of 
 these gentlemen were especial friends and parti- 
 sans of St. Clair, and St. Clair had sufficient influ- 
 ence with the members to get a majority of them 
 to assent to a proposition to re-divide the Terri- 
 tory in such a way as, St. Clair thought, would 
 prevent the formation of a State out of any por- 
 tion of it for many years to come ; and also to re- 
 move the sittings of the Assembly from Chillicothe 
 to Cincinnati again. 
 
 To develop fully the personal character and the 
 public services of Edward Tiffin, it will now be 
 necessary to return to 1798 and bring up the his- 
 tory of the development of political parties in the 
 Territory, and also the story of the eager and 
 ardent contest, partly political, which culminated 
 in the organization of the State of Ohio.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 31 
 
 The earliest pioneers those who came to 
 Marietta and Cincinnati in 1788 and the imme- 
 diately succeeding years brought no political 
 quarrels with them. Governor St. Clair was the 
 first individual in all the Northwest Territory of 
 whom we hear as a political partisan, and for ten 
 years the only one. His admiring biographer, 
 William Henry Smith, says " he was an ardent 
 Federalist." He desired in 1792 to resign the 
 governorship of the Territory and accept from the 
 Federalists the place of member of Congress from 
 the Westmoreland district in Pennsylvania. His 
 letters to his intimate friend, Senator James Ross, 
 of Pennsylvania (in whose honor he had named 
 Ross County, in the Territory), are full of strong 
 expressions of his hatred of Thomas Jefferson's 
 principles and partisans ; he characterized the 
 Democratic-Republican party as " the damned 
 faction that was dragging the country to ruin." 
 He wrote and published a pamphlet in defence and 
 support of " the Alien and Sedition Laws," and sent 
 a copy to President John Adams, and, in short, 
 constantly and prominently displayed zeal as a 
 Federalist political partisan. The Virginians and 
 Kentuckians who came to the reservation with 
 Massie in 1796, and to the Scioto Valley in the 
 two or three following years, soon became un- 
 friendly to St. Clair, it is true ; but their hostility 
 grew out of his administration of Territorial affairs,
 
 32 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and not at all, at first at least, because of his 
 opinions upon national politics. 
 
 The very earliest hint of the formation of a 
 national Democratic-Republican party in the Ter- 
 ritory was the refusal of Shadrach Bond, William 
 Goforth, Elias Langham, John Ludlow, and Return 
 Jonathan Meigs, Jr., to vote for an adulatory ad- 
 dress to President Adams, adopted at the close of 
 the first General Assembly. It is to be noted that 
 this list contains the name of only one Virginian, 
 Mr. Langham. Speaker Tiffin, Worthington, Mas- 
 sie, Findley, Darlinton, and all the rest of the anti- 
 St. Clair members supported it with apparent 
 cordiality. 
 
 But very early in 1799 the idea of forming a 
 State immediately, out of the eastern part of the 
 Territory Northwest of the Ohio, began to be 
 mooted publicly. It had been privately discussed 
 and resolved upon months before by the leaders 
 of the anti-St. Clair faction, and St. Clair was 
 well aware of the design, and manoeuvred dili- 
 gently and skilfully to defeat it. After Presi- 
 dent Adams had reappointed St. Clair to office, 
 despite all their efforts to prevent it, the Virgin- 
 ians and Kentuckians in the Territory, and a con- 
 siderable contingent of the settlers from other 
 States, turned to Jefferson and his party whose 
 early success they anticipated and courted their 
 favor and assistance. That Jefferson was a Vir-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 33 
 
 ginian made this easy for them to do ; and that 
 most of the enemies of St. Clair were Virginians 
 inclined Jefferson to aid them. That St. Clair 
 himself was an avowed, radical, and active Feder- 
 alist probably concluded the determination of the 
 future President as to his line of conduct in the 
 premises, after inauguration. 
 
 Worthington and the brilliant but dissipated 
 Michael Baldwin had been sent by the State party 
 to Philadelphia, to labor with the President and 
 Congress in behalf of the State project, while Tiffin 
 and Massie and William Creighton, Jr., vigilantly 
 watched and aggressively assaulted the forces of 
 St. Clair in the West. 
 
 It is almost pathetic to know that when the 
 Federalists of the Territory wished to send Judge 
 Tod, of Trumbull County, and William McMillen, 
 of Hamilton County, to Philadelphia to counteract 
 the work of Worthington and Baldwin, they were 
 prevented from carrying out the purpose by their 
 inability to raise the money necessary to defray the 
 expenses of their two agents, which St. Clair and 
 Judge Tod estimated at about three hundred dol- 
 lars! Nevertheless they seemed still to have the 
 advantages all in their favor. The second General 
 Assembly had declared against assuming immedi- 
 ate statehood, and consented to a further division 
 of the Territory by the line of the Scioto River. A 
 mass meeting of the citizens of Marietta had passed 
 
 3
 
 34 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 with only Return Jonathan Meigs, his son, and a 
 very few others dissenting resolutions strongly 
 denouncing the project ; and they had issued an 
 address to the inhabitants of the Territory, giving 
 plausible reasons why the territorial condition was 
 best for their interests for some years to come 
 at least. William McMillen, a decided anti-State 
 man, had, in May, 1800, succeeded Harrison (who 
 at that time became governor of the new Territory 
 of Indiana) as delegate to Congress ; and St. Clair 
 had stanch friends in both the Senate and House 
 of Representatives, notably the Pennsylvania sena- 
 tor, James Ross. 
 
 All through the years of 1800 and 1801 the two 
 or three newspapers of the Territory teemed with 
 articles pro et con ; those favoring the State for- 
 mation coming from the pens of Tiffin, Worthing- 
 ton, Creighton and Massie, and those contra written 
 by St. Clair, Judge Burnet, Solomon Sibley and 
 Charles Hammond the latter a very able young 
 man, destined in later years to become distinguished 
 among the intellectual men of Ohio. Judge Jacob 
 Burnet, a decided Federalist and warm friend of 
 St. Clair's, as already stated, admits in his Notes on 
 the Early Settlement of the Northwest (pp. 378-381) 
 that, " as the discussion went on, St. Clair's sup- 
 porters fast deserted him, and before it closed, a 
 majority of his friends and admirers were politically 
 associated with his most active opponents." " In
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 35 
 
 the long struggle," says William Henry Smith, the 
 biographer of St. Clair, " Dr. Tiffin seems to have 
 been the most determined and active advocate of 
 State organization, and was the spur to the energies 
 of Massie, Worth ington, Creighton and others." 
 
 It is notable, too, that the discussion of this 
 question was seldom broached in the legislative 
 halls, and when it was, it was only by the anti-State 
 party. The State party labored hard to create 
 favorable public opinion in the Territory, it is true, 
 but it seems to have been their policy to work 
 upon the President and Congress for effective re- 
 sults. They fully realized that their proposition 
 could not obtain a majority of votes either in the 
 General Assembly or from the people of the Terri- 
 tory for a long while to come, and they carefully 
 avoided permitting an expression upon it from 
 either, whenever it was possible to avoid it. 
 
 I had hoped to embody here, in this memoir, a 
 copy of an address to the inhabitants of the Terri- 
 tory, written by Dr. Tiffin and published in the 
 Scioto Gazette, October, 1801, as an answer to the 
 Marietta address to which I have alluded, for the 
 double purpose of giving my readers the best state- 
 ment of the argument in favor of the immediate 
 formation of a State which was published during 
 the controversy, and of furnishing a good specimen 
 of Tiffin's style of composition and power in argu- 
 mentation ; but unfortunately the article is lost
 
 36 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and cannot be replaced further than to copy such 
 extracts from it as were quoted by William Henry 
 Smith in his St. Clair Papers (vol. i., pp. 225-227). 
 
 Mr. Smith says: "It was the most reasonable 
 statement of that side of the case, and painted the 
 future " (of such State if formed) " in bright colors." 
 
 Tiffin argued that " a territorial government was 
 ill-adapted to the genius and feelings of Ameri- 
 cans " ; that it was " only necessary to direct atten- 
 tion to the Ordinance of Congress for the govern- 
 ment of the Territory, to convince one of the utter 
 impossibility of a government conducive to na- 
 tional happiness in this enlightened day being 
 administrated under it, unless by persons more 
 than mortal. It was formulated at a time when 
 civil liberty was not so fully understood as it is 
 now, and contemplated only a government by the 
 few over the many. . . . 
 
 " It is said by the remonstrants [in the Marietta 
 address] that no community ought to wish to 
 emerge from this territorial condition, unless there 
 be danger that the paramount government will 
 infringe upon its rights, until that community has 
 made comfortable provision for its expenses ; until 
 it has made considerable progress in its improve- 
 ments in agricultural development ; until it has 
 made arrangements for the education of its people ; 
 until it has consolidated its social system ; in short, 
 until it has not only become fully able to bear the
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 37 
 
 weight of its own independence, but also to pre- 
 serve its liberties and principles by force. It is 
 then asked by the remonstrants, ' Is this our situa- 
 tion ? Where are our improvements? What the 
 state of our agriculture ? Of our commerce? Of 
 our manufactories? ' etc., etc., etc. To all of which 
 I answer, that in my opinion a State government 
 offers the only probable way to secure these desir- 
 able conditions. To talk about our liberties being 
 infringed upon by the paramount government, 
 when we have no liberties in our present state, 
 is like the moral to the fable which concludes 
 the Marietta address it is all sound ; no sub- 
 stance. . . 
 
 " We entered upon the second grade of this 
 territorial government much in debt and without 
 a cent in the treasury. We had recourse to paper. 
 This present year's revenue will redeem all our 
 paper and furnish cash for the current year's ex- 
 penses. . . . 
 
 " Much progress has been made in the improve- 
 ment of our lands, and provisions for education ; 
 but they cannot be perfected under present condi- 
 tions. It is well known to you that men of wealth 
 and sentiments of independence are deterred from 
 migrating to this Territory because they cannot 
 brook to live under our present government. 
 
 " But let the change come, let a government con- 
 genial to American sentiments be adopted, and it 
 
 204870
 
 38 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 will be like opening the flood-gates to a mill ! 
 Wealth will flow in upon us ; improvements will 
 adorn our lands ; agriculture will flourish ; our 
 rivers emptying into the Ohio will convey, by way 
 of the Mississippi, our surplus crops to thousands 
 suffering from want of food. Manufactories will 
 spring up in this wilderness ; arrangements and 
 facilities for education will be perfected ; an Athens 
 and other centers of learning will show steeples 
 above our towering oaks, and soon send our youth 
 into the world, ornaments to humanity. Our plains 
 will be covered with herds ; our farms, laden from 
 the horn of plenty, will gladden our farmers' hearts ; 
 and our government, like a tree of liberty, will ex- 
 tend its shelter over all our citizens and cause all 
 men to contemplate our rising greatness with 
 amazement, and our people to cry out with the 
 venerable Franklin, ' Here dwells Liberty ! Here 
 is my Country ! ' ' 
 
 In the absence of the full text of the foregoing, 
 I here insert the summary of the contention of 
 the State party as given by Judge Burnet in his 
 Notes : 
 
 " It was alleged " (by the State party) " that the 
 existing government was anti-republican ; that the 
 inhabitants of the Territory did not enjoy the 
 political rights which belonged to freemen ; that
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 39 
 
 neither the governor, the judges of the General 
 Court, nor the Legislative Council were in any 
 form amenable to the people ; that the power of 
 appointing to office, exercised by Congress, was a 
 dangerous one and had been abused ; that the gov- 
 ernor controlled the will of the representatives of 
 the people, and that there was no remedy for these 
 evils save by a radical change of government."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Jefferson's Seeming Reluctance to remove St. Clair Formal 
 Charges preferred against St. Clair Tiffin's Part in 
 them Charges ignored by the President St. Clair's 
 Proposition to re-divide the Territory precipitates De- 
 bate in Congress Is Rejected The Enabling Act pro- 
 posed Michigan excluded from the Proposed State 
 Requirement as to Population evaded and Enabling Act 
 passed The Debates upon It. 
 
 JEFFERSON had now occupied the presidential 
 chair for some months, while the efforts of the 
 State party had been pressed unremittingly, not 
 only for the creation of the State, but also for the 
 removal of St. Clair. 
 
 Worthington had remained, most of the time, at 
 the seat of national government, where he had 
 brought all possible influences to bear to accom- 
 plish both these purposes. He made very evident 
 progress in the matter of securing statehood, but in 
 dislodging St. Clair from his position (scarcely less 
 desired by him and his circle of immediate friends) 
 his progress was not obvious. He had secured the 
 very active and zealous support of William B. 
 Giles, an able, influential and exceedingly ener- 
 getic member of Congress from Virginia, and to a
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 4! 
 
 great extent the favor and support of the Repub- 
 lican Democrats in both Senate and House (and 
 that party was in the ascendant in Congress then) 
 to the proposition to form a State from the east- 
 ern part of the Northwest Territory. And no 
 doubt indeed it is certain the President quietly 
 and privately assumed the guidance of the State 
 project through his friend and partisan, Giles ; for, 
 would it not most probably strengthen his party, 
 and secure to himself three more electoral votes ? 
 (he had attained the presidency only by choice of 
 the House of Representatives, after a tie in the 
 electoral college) as well as three more zealous 
 friends on the floors of Congress ? But in the 
 matter of removing General St. Clair the President 
 seemed, at least, loath to act. Let us hope that he 
 thought of St. Clair's services as a soldier in the 
 War for Independence, and his patriotic devotion 
 and zeal as a member of the old Congress in the 
 formative days of the United States Government, 
 and therefore hesitated to inflict the blow, not- 
 withstanding St. Clair's Federalism. 
 
 Formal charges of the maladministration of his 
 office, and personal misconduct which amounted to 
 " high crimes and misdemeanors," had been drawn 
 up by Massie against Governor St. Clair upon the 
 urgency of Worthington and Tiffin, and with the 
 assistance of Tiffin, and were by Worthington filed 
 with the President on the 3Oth of February, 1802,
 
 42 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 accompanied by a very strong and bitter personal 
 letter reciting the proofs which, Worthington 
 thought, fully sustained the charges. That Tiffin 
 took a willing and an eager part in getting up these 
 charges against Governor St. Clair, sufficiently 
 appears in the following extracts from letters 
 written by him to Worthington. 
 
 Under date of February i, 1802, he says: 
 
 " I have used every exertion to get Colonel 
 Massie to draw up and forward his charges. We 
 have appointed three different times to meet on 
 that business, and I have always attended but 
 could never get him there. He has now left town, 
 and when I shall see him again, I know not." 
 
 And again, under date of February 8th, he wrote: 
 
 " We have this day been busy in drawing up 
 charges to forward to the Secretary of State against 
 Governor St. Clair. Colonel Massie, Mr. Creighton 
 and myself meet again at my house on Wednes- 
 day. We will send them on by the next mail 
 thereafter, most certainly." 
 
 And on the 2Oth he wrote : 
 
 " I expect ere this you have received the charges 
 against the Governor ; I had much trouble to get 
 Colonel Massie to finish them."
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 43 
 
 Whether this participation in this business was 
 creditable or otherwise to Edward Tiffin, I leave 
 the reader to judge ; perhaps the exigencies of the 
 political situation at the time justified it. 
 
 These charges were as follows : 
 
 " i. He (Governor St. Clair) has usurped legis- 
 lative powers by the erection of courts and location 
 of the seats of justice, by proclamation, on his own 
 sole authority. 
 
 " 2. He has misused the power of negativing 
 legislative acts, by putting his negative against 
 laws useful and necessary for the Territory. 
 
 " 3. He has refused to perform the duties of his 
 office except on the payment of arbitrary fees not 
 established by any lawful authority. 
 
 "4. He has negatived acts of the Legislature 
 abolishing those fees, and approved an act giving 
 him $500 which was meant as a compensation 
 for that abolition thereby holding both the fees 
 and the compensation for them. 
 
 " 5. He has attempted to affect the dismember- 
 ment of the Territory, and to destroy its constitu- 
 tional boundaries, in order to prevent its advance- 
 ment to those rights of self-government to which 
 its numbers [of inhabitants] would entitle it. 
 
 "6. He has granted commissions generally dur- 
 ing [his] pleasure ; but that of Attorney-General 
 to his own son, during good behavior.
 
 44 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 " 7. He has endeavored arbitrarily to influence 
 and control the proceedings of the judiciary, and 
 has revoked or effected the surrender of the com- 
 missions of those who have refused to bend to his 
 will. 
 
 " 8. He has appointed persons residing out of a 
 county to offices, the duties of which were to be 
 habitually performed within them. 
 
 " 9. He has neglected, and thereby obstructed, 
 the organization and discipline of a militia for the 
 defense of the Territory, by withholding the ap- 
 pointment of officers for eighteen months after a 
 law had passed establishing them. 
 
 " 10. He has avowed his hostility to the form 
 and substance of republican government." 
 
 Upon these charges, greatly to the disappoint- 
 ment of the "Virginia Junto" (as they were ha- 
 bitually called by the Federalists), President Jeffer- 
 son took no action. Indeed, we can nowhere find 
 that he ever expressed any opinion whatever in 
 regard to them. 
 
 But as, in the meantime, the project to create a 
 State out of the eastern part of the Territory was 
 rapidly going on to consummation, under the 
 immediate guidance of the President it is be- 
 lieved, it is probable that Jefferson saw a way 
 to dispose of St. Clair with less of public excite- 
 ment and scandal than would be sure to ensue
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 45 
 
 were he to remove him from office upon these 
 charges. 
 
 The proposition of St. Clair to further divide the 
 Territory of the Northwest by the line of the Scioto 
 River, and thereby reduce the population of the 
 eastern part to such a degree as to necessarily 
 postpone its admission to statehood for a long time, 
 had been approved, as we have seen, by the second 
 General Assembly of the Territory ; it was now sub- 
 mitted to Congress by Mr. Fearing, the Federalist 
 delegate from the Territory, for consideration and 
 action. This strategical device of St. Glair's proved 
 a veritable boomerang to him and his partisans, for 
 it brought ' s to the consideration of Congress the 
 whole subject of the affairs of the Territory, and 
 furnished the opportunity so ardently sought by 
 the " Junto," whose greatest difficulty had been to 
 get their projects up for action by Congress. The 
 friends of St. Clair the Federalists in Congress 
 had now furnished the opportunity, and by " lining 
 up " in support of the propositions of St. Clair, 
 had done much to array the whole strength of 
 Jefferson's party against them. 
 
 Rev. Menassah Cutler, then a member of Con- 
 gress, wrote to his son, Judge Ephraim Cutler of 
 Marietta, under the date of February I, 1802 : 
 
 " The law of your Territory providing for a divid- 
 ing line has met with a spirited resistance and op-
 
 46 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 position from Giles and the whole of the reigning 
 majority. Large budgets of petitions and other 
 documents have been laid by this Virginia leader 
 before the House. Mr. Fearing has acted his part 
 well, and has been supported generally by the 
 Federalists ; but the subject is exceedingly unpop- 
 ular." ..." The current of opposition to 
 the measure was so strong as to render it impossi- 
 ble to do anything to counteract it. 
 
 " Giles has brought forward a motion, the object 
 of which is to encourage and urge the people (i.e., 
 the inhabitants of the Northwestern Territory) to 
 immediately become a State. This motion has 
 been referred to a committee which has not yet 
 reported." 
 
 The proposition to divide the Territory accord- 
 ing to the request of the Territorial Assembly was, 
 after debate, rejected by the House on January 27, 
 1802, by the very decisive vote of eighty-one to 
 five, both Republicans and a majority of the Fed- 
 eralists voting against it. 
 
 Mr. Giles immediately followed up this advan- 
 tage with the motion to which Mr. Cutler referred 
 in the quotation just made. On the 3Oth of March 
 the select committee to which it was referred made 
 their report to the committee of the whole House, 
 in which they not only recommended that an act 
 be passed
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 47 
 
 " Enabling the inhabitants of the eastern divi- 
 sion of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio River 
 to form for themselves a constitution and state 
 government," but also " for the admission of such 
 state, when the government thereof shall be formed, 
 into the Union upon the same footing with the 
 original states, in all respects whatever, by the 
 
 name of the State of ." (The name was left 
 
 blank.) 
 
 The committee also recommended that in such 
 Enabling Act the northern boundary of the new 
 State 
 
 " Should be an east and west line drawn through 
 the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running 
 east after intersecting the due north line aforesaid 
 from the mouth of the Great Miami " (i.e., the 
 western boundary line of the new State) "until it 
 shall intersect Lake Erie or the territorial line ; 
 and thence with the same through Lake Erie to 
 the Pennsylvania line."* 
 
 It will be observed that this northern boundary 
 line cut off from the then Territory of the North- 
 west, the county of Wayne, which included all of 
 the peninsular part of what is now the State of 
 
 * The vague knowledge existing at that time of the geography of 
 the lake region, and the clumsiness of the description of this nor- 
 thern boundary line, came near involving Ohio and Michigan in 
 hostilities, about thirty years later.
 
 48 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 Michigan. Judge Sibley undoubtedly gives, in a 
 letter, the true reason for that action. The inhabi- 
 tants of Wayne County were nearly unanimously 
 opposed to the State party, and might defeat the 
 project if it became necessary to thereafter submit 
 it to a vote of the inhabitants of the Territory ; 
 therefore its four or five thousand population was 
 set outside the area of the proposed State. 
 
 The report of the committee recites the section 
 of the Ordinance of 1787 which required sixty 
 thousand free inhabitants in any part of the Terri- 
 tory seeking to be erected into a State, and the 
 qualifying clause that " if consistent with the gene- 
 ral interests of the Confederacy, such admission 
 shall be allowed at an earlier period and with a less 
 number of free inhabitants in any State than sixty 
 thousand " ; and proceeds to argue that, although 
 the census taken more than twelve months before 
 showed only forty-five thousand three hundred and 
 sixty-five such inhabitants within the Territory 
 (from which number was to be deducted the three 
 thousand four hundred inhabitants of Wayne 
 County), yet from the rapid growth in population of 
 that section, as shown by the sale of five hundred 
 and fifty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety- 
 five acres of land in the eastern division since that 
 census was taken, it was probable that before all 
 the measures necessary for the formation of a con- 
 stitution and putting into operation a State gov-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 49 
 
 ernment could be accomplished, the number of 
 inhabitants of the proposed State would reach sixty 
 thousand ; and therefore the 4th resolution of their 
 report recommended : 
 
 " That until the next general census shall be 
 
 taken, the State of shall be entitled to 
 
 representatives in the House of Represen- 
 tatives of the United States." 
 
 Verily, exceptionally clear heads and very strong 
 and unscrupulous hands guided the State move- 
 ment ; and we believe that one of those heads and 
 a pair of those hands belonged to the body of 
 Thomas Jefferson ! 
 
 It was upon this report that the battle was 
 fought out in Congress which decided the fate of 
 the State project. Many speeches were made in 
 support of and against its recommendations; the 
 principal ones in support of the report being made 
 by Giles of Virginia, Davis of Kentucky, Nicholson 
 of Maryland, R. Williams of North Carolina, God- 
 dard of Connecticut, and Macon of North Carolina. 
 The principal arguments against the adoption of 
 its recommendations were made by Paul Fearing, 
 the territorial delegate, and Griswold of Connec- 
 ticut. Although Rev. Menassah Cutler was a mem- 
 ber of the House of Representatives at the time, 
 and present in the chamber, and voted constantly 
 
 4
 
 50 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 adversely to the State project, he made no speech 
 in support of his views. 
 
 Every objection to the report of the committee 
 having been voted down, it was agreed to on the 
 3 1st of March, and a bill in conformity to its rec- 
 ommendations ordered. No wonder that Paul 
 Fearing about this time wrote to his friend Ephraim 
 Cutler : 
 
 " I presume you are tired of this business by this 
 time, and if you are not, I can tell you that I am 
 and have been for a long time. My constant 
 prayer to God is, that in His goodness and power 
 for some superior power is necessary He will 
 confuse their councils and avert the evils which I 
 fear await us." 
 
 Edward Tiffin, although a preacher, did not shift 
 all responsibility for results upon God. During all 
 this critical period he, with Massie, Creighton, and 
 doubtless others of whom we do not hear, were 
 wonderfully energetic and active in obtaining 
 signers from all parts of the Territory which were 
 to form the State, to petitions in favor of statehood, 
 and forwarding them to Worthington, who placed 
 them " where they would do the most good." On 
 the 1 8th of January, Tiffin wrote to Worthington 
 that petitions, numerously signed, had been for- 
 warded to him; and afterward he repeated the
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 51 
 
 notice of the going forward of many other petitions 
 of a similar tenor. Mr. Giles, when speaking 
 against the proposition to divide the Territory by 
 the Scioto line, as early as January 2Oth said : " I 
 have in my hands petitions signed by above a thou- 
 sand of the inhabitants of that Territory against 
 this proposed division." 
 
 It is a matter of surprise to us that the Anti-State 
 party did not, to any considerable extent at least, 
 avail themselves of the agency of petitions (the 
 most direct means of reaching Congress) to aid 
 their cause. We read of many protests being filed 
 against the removal of St. Clair from the governor- 
 ship, but of almost none at all against the forma- 
 tion of the State, although it is certain that, at first 
 at least, a large majority of the people of the 
 Territory were opposed to the change of govern- 
 ment. This fact furnished the champions of the 
 State party in the House of Representatives with 
 their strongest argument. Mr. Nicholson of Ken- 
 tucky, replying to the speech of Griswold of Con- 
 necticut (who had pointed out that no demand for 
 State organization had come to Congress from any 
 legal authority of the Territory), said : 
 
 " If the government of the territory remains as 
 now organized, I believe we may wait till dooms- 
 day for their approbation. Have we not seen a 
 law passed by that Legislature ... for divid
 
 52 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 ing the territory in such manner as to defer their 
 admission into the Union, and so enable the 
 present governor and Legislative Council to hold 
 their offices even after the territory, by reason of 
 having sixty thousand population, had the right 
 (under the Ordinance of 1787) to become a 
 State? . . . 
 
 " The people of the territory, to the number of 
 several thousands, have expressed the wish to be 
 admitted into the Union. Who makes objection ? 
 It is only the delegate from the territory ! Yes, 
 he is the only man in the whole territory that 
 opposes the wishes of the whole people of the 
 territory ! " 
 
 Hon. R. Williams said : 
 
 " I had hoped that the delegate from the terri- 
 tory " (Mr. Fearing) " would give us some informa- 
 tion as to the petitions upon this subject ; but he 
 has seen fit to avoid doing so, although asked for 
 it." ..." He (Mr. Williams) had, in haste, en- 
 deavored to make a selection from the petitions 
 for statehood, but found them too numerous to 
 attempt to detail them." He " could only state 
 that since Congress had rejected the law passed by 
 the territorial Legislature for dividing it, more 
 than twenty had come on, signed by thousands of 
 the inhabitants of the territory and these, too,
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 53 
 
 from almost every county in the territory 
 praying, in respectful terms, for a State govern- 
 ment." . . . 
 
 He further said : 
 
 " From all I can learn I have no doubt that nine- 
 tenths of those people wished for a State govern- 
 ment, for not a solitary petitioner appeared to the 
 contrary, except the delegate on this floor. . . ."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Enabling Act reprinted Review of the Long Struggle 
 Final Triumph of the "Junto" Territorial Legisla- 
 ture superseded by Constitutional Convention. 
 
 THE decisive battle upon the question of whether 
 a State should be formed out of the eastern division 
 of the Territory had now, as we have seen, been 
 won by the Virginians of the Scioto Valley, when 
 Congress, by a majority so large that it was hope- 
 less to struggle against it unless, as Mr. Fearing 
 prayed, God should intervene, which He did not 
 do approved the report of the special committee, 
 and ordered a bill to be prepared by that commit- 
 tee, in conformity with its recommendations. 
 
 The exultation of the " Junto " was mitigated 
 only by the fact that St. Clair still retained his 
 position as governor. 
 
 The bill so ordered, commonly designated in 
 Ohio history as " the Enabling Act," was very 
 promptly formulated, and as promptly acted upon 
 by Congress. 
 
 As this Act of Congress is so very often referred 
 to and so rarely copied that I have never seen it in 
 print, except in the annals of the Seventh Congress
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 55 
 
 (which are difficult now to obtain), I embody it in 
 this memoir in full ; and, having carefully compared 
 the copy with the original, word for word and 
 punctuation for punctuation, can vouch for its 
 perfect accuracy. It is as follows : 
 
 " An Act to enable the people of the Eastern division 
 of the Territory Northwest of the river Ohio to 
 form a constitution and State government, and 
 for the admission of such State into the Union, 
 on an equal footing with the original States ; 
 and for other purposes. 
 
 " Be it enacted etc., That the inhabitants of the 
 eastern division of the Territory Northwest of the 
 river Ohio, be, and they are hereby, authorized to 
 form for themselves a constitution and State gov- 
 ernment, and to assume such name as they shall 
 deem proper ; and the said State, when formed, 
 shall be admitted into the Union, upon the same 
 footing with the original States, in all respects 
 whatever. 
 
 "Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the 
 said State shall consist of all the territory included 
 within the following boundaries, to wit : bounded 
 on the east by the Pennsylvania line, on the south 
 by the Ohio river to the mouth of the great Miami 
 river, on the west by the line drawn due north 
 from the mouth of the Great Miami, aforesaid, and
 
 56 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 on the north by an east and west line, drawn 
 through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, 
 running east after intersecting the due north line 
 aforesaid, from the mouth of the Great Miami, 
 until it shall intersect Lake Erie, or the territorial 
 line, and thence with the same through Lake Erie 
 to the Pennsylvania line, aforesaid : Provided, 
 That Congress shall be at liberty at any time here- 
 after,"either to attach all the territory lying east of 
 the line to be drawn due north from the Miami, 
 aforesaid, to the territorial line, and north of an 
 east and west line drawn through the southerly 
 extreme of Lake Michigan, running east as afore- 
 said to Lake Erie, to the aforesaid State, or dispose 
 of it otherwise, in conformity to the fifth article 
 of compact between the original States, and the 
 people and States to be formed in the Territory 
 northwest of the river Ohio. 
 
 " SEC. 3. And be it further enacted ; That all the 
 part of the Territory of the United States North- 
 west of the river Ohio, heretofore included in the 
 eastern division of said Territory, and not included 
 within the boundary herein prescribed for the said 
 State, is hereby attached to, and made a part of 
 the Indiana Territory, from and after the formation 
 of the said State, subject nevertheless to be here- 
 after disposed of by Congress, according to the 
 right reserved in the fifth article of the ordinance
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 57 
 
 aforesaid, and the inhabitants therein shall be en- 
 titled to the same privileges and immunities, and 
 subject to the same rules and regulations, in all 
 respects whatever, with all other citizens residing 
 within the Indiana Territory. 
 
 " Sec. 4. And be it further enacted ; That all 
 male citizens of the United States, who shall have 
 arrived at full age, and resided within the said 
 Territory at least one year previous to the day of 
 election, and shall have paid a territorial or county 
 tax, and all persons having in other respects, the 
 legal qualifications to vote for representatives in 
 the General Assembly of the Territory, be, and 
 they are hereby, authorized to choose representa- 
 tives to form a convention, who shall be appor- 
 tioned amongst the several counties within the 
 eastern division aforesaid, in a ratio of one repre- 
 sentative to every twelve hundred inhabitants of 
 each county, according to the enumeration taken 
 under ' the authority of the United States, as 
 near as may be, that is to say : from the county 
 of Trumbull, two representatives ; from the county 
 of Jefferson, seven representatives, two of the 
 seven to be elected within what is now known; 
 by the county of Belmont, taken from Jefferson 
 and Washington counties ; from the county of 
 Washington, four representatives ; from the county 
 of Ross, seven representatives, two of the seven to
 
 $8 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 be elected in what is now known by Fairfield 
 County, taken from Ross and Washington Counties; 
 from the county of Adams, three representatives j 
 from the county of Hamilton, twelve representa- 
 tives ; two of the twelve to be elected in what is 
 now known by Clermont County, taken entirely 
 from Hamilton County ; and the elections for the 
 representatives aforesaid, shall take place on the 
 second Tuesday of October next, the time fixed by 
 a law of the Territory, entitled, ' An act to ascer- 
 tain the number of free male inhabitants of the 
 age of twenty-one, in the Territory of the United 
 States Northwest of the river Ohio, and to regulate 
 the elections of representatives for the same,' for 
 electing representatives to the General Assembly, 
 and shall be held and conducted in the same 
 manner as is provided by the aforesaid act, except 
 that the qualifications of electors shall be as herein 
 specified. 
 
 "Sec. 5. And be it further enacted; That the 
 members of the convention, thus duly elected, be, 
 and they are hereby, authorized to meet at Chilli- 
 cothe on the first Monday in November next ; 
 which convention when met, shall first determine, 
 by a majority of the whole number elected, 
 whether it be or be not expedient at that time 
 to form a constitution and State government for 
 the people, within the said Territory, and if it be
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 59 
 
 expedient, the convention shall be, and hereby is 
 authorized to form a constitution and State govern- 
 ment, or, if it be deemed more expedient, the said 
 convention shall provide by ordinance for electing 
 representatives to form a constitution or frame of 
 government ; which said representatives shall be 
 chosen in such manner, and in such proportion, 
 and shall meet at such time and place, as shall be 
 prescribed by the said ordinance ; and shall form 
 for the people of the said State a convention and 
 State government. 
 
 Provided ; The same shall be republican, and 
 not repugnant to the Ordinance of the thirteenth 
 of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty- 
 seven, between the original States and the people 
 and States of the Territory Northwest of the river 
 Ohio. 
 
 " Sec. 6. And be it further enacted ; That until 
 the next general census shall be taken, the said 
 State shall be entitled to one representative in the 
 House of Representatives of the United States. 
 
 " Sec. 7. And be it further enacted ; That the 
 following propositions be, and the same are hereby, 
 offered to the convention of the eastern State of the 
 said Territory, when formed, for their free accep- 
 tance or rejection, which, if accepted by the con- 
 vention, shall be obligatory upon the United States :
 
 60 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 First ; That the section number sixteen, in every 
 township, and where such section has been sold, 
 granted, or disposed of, other lands equivalent 
 thereto, and not contiguous to the same, shall be 
 granted to the inhabitants of such township, for 
 the use of schools. 
 
 Second ; That the six miles reservation, includ- 
 ing the salt springs, commonly called the Scioto 
 salt springs, the salt springs near the Muskingum 
 river, and in the military tract, with the sections of 
 land which include the same, shall be granted to 
 the said State for the use of the people thereof, 
 the same to be used under such terms, and condi- 
 tions, and regulations, as the Legislature of the 
 said State shall direct : Provided, The said Legisla- 
 ture shall never sell nor lease the same for a longer 
 period than ten years. 
 
 " Third; That one-twentieth part of the net 
 proceeds of the lands lying within the said State, 
 sold by Congress, from and after the thirtieth day 
 of June next, after deducting all expenses incident 
 to the same, shall be applied to the laying out and 
 making public roads, leading from the navigable 
 waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to 
 the said State, and through the same, such roads 
 to be laid out under the authority of Congress, 
 with the consent of the several States through 
 which the road shall pass : Provided always, That
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 6 1 
 
 the three foregoing propositions herein offered are 
 on the conditions that the convention of the State 
 shall provide, by an ordinance irrevocable without 
 the consent of the United States, that every and 
 each tract of land sold by Congress, from and after 
 the thirtieth day of June next, shall be and remain 
 exempt from any tax laid by order or under au- 
 thority of the State, whether for State, county, town- 
 ship or any other purpose whatever, for the term 
 of five years from and after the day of sale."* 
 
 Approved April 30, 1802. 
 
 Some amendments to the bill, while pending, 
 were offered by Mr. Fearing and others, which 
 were debated and voted down ; and the engrossed 
 copy was, on the Qth of April, read for the third 
 time and finally passed by a vote of forty-seven 
 yeas, to twenty-nine nays. 
 
 In reviewing the long struggle, its culmination 
 appears to be a complete victory of unofficial citi- 
 zens, won by dint of pluck, zeal, intelligence, 
 energy and tenacity, over official power and influ- 
 ence backed at least in the earlier engagements 
 by a majority of the inhabitants of even that part 
 of the Territory which became the State of Ohio, 
 
 * The propositions numbered " First," " Second " and " Third," 
 contained in section 7, were rejected by the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion and are therefore unimportant. I have copied them only to 
 present the Enabling Act in its entirety.
 
 62 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and a large majority of those who were citizens of 
 those parts of the Territory which were, in the 
 course of the contention, detached from the area 
 of the new State. 
 
 The governor of the Territory employed all his 
 influence and resources against them. The terri- 
 torial judges (appointed by the President) and the 
 members of the Legislative Council (also appointed 
 by the President) were, while not actively and 
 aggressively, yet influentially adverse to them ; 
 and finally, the representatives of the people in 
 the second General Assembly passed a law against 
 their project and yet the " Virginia Junto" com- 
 pletely triumphed ! Like the battle of Blenheim, 
 " It was a famous victory " ; and no man contributed 
 more of zeal, tact and ability to win it than did 
 Edward Tiffin. 
 
 While there were yet some dangers ahead, it was 
 thenceforward comparatively plain sailing for the 
 State party. The dangers were minimized by the 
 Enabling Act. Governor St. Clair had not even 
 a voice in the subsequent proceedings, much less 
 power or authority to control them. He was not 
 even required to issue writs for the election of 
 delegates to the convention, the necessity for 
 which was obviated by fixing the day for such 
 election upon the second Tuesday of October, the 
 day upon which, by existing law, a general election 
 was to be held for representatives to a territorial
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 63 
 
 General Assembly. The act of Congress had, as 
 we have seen, provided for all the details ; it had 
 fixed the ratio of members to population and ap- 
 portioned them to each county ; specified the 
 place where the convention should hold its meet- 
 ings, and the day upon which it should convene. 
 The State party could be relied upon to nominate 
 candidates and vote for them ; if the opponents to 
 the formation of a State neglected or refused to do 
 the same, so much the better for the State party ; 
 for that a convention to form a State government 
 would be held was now certain, and the only ques- 
 tion left unsolved was, which party would con- 
 trol it. 
 
 The second territorial Legislature had adjourned 
 its first session on the 23d of January, to meet 
 again for its second session at Cincinnati on the 
 fourth Monday of the following November. On 
 the very day it was to begin (Monday, November 
 29, 1802), the Constitutional Convention finished 
 its sittings and adjourned, sine die, after making 
 and ratifying, without a division, a constitution for 
 "the State of Ohio." 
 
 The second General Assembly of the Territory 
 of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio 
 did not "meet pursuant to adjournment," nor did 
 it ever have a successor.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Election of Members of Constitutional Convention Pro- 
 Slaveryism alleged against Certain Candidates Tiffin 
 chosen a Delegate and President of the Convention 
 Personnel of the Convention Democratic-Republicans 
 control it The Governor is permitted to address the 
 Convention as " Arthur St. Clair, Sr., Esq." The 
 Slavery Question in Convention Ephraim Cutler's Part 
 in it Votes of Members of "Junto" upon it, and upon 
 the Status of the Negro in the New State Negro Suf- 
 frage defeated by a Single Vote Constitution not sub- 
 mitted to the People Quick Work of the Convention. 
 
 IN the campaign which followed for the election 
 of delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 
 Tiffin was one of the candidates brought forward 
 to represent Ross County. It seems that some 
 animosity had been engendered between Major 
 Elias Langham and himself, the cause and origin 
 of which is not very clear, although it appears 
 that Tiffin thought Langham was not sufficiently 
 earnest and active in promoting the State project, 
 and said so. In a letter to Worthington, written 
 February I, 1802, he says: "Langham is now, I 
 am told, a great advocate for State government, 
 and promises the people his best exertions. But a
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 6$ 
 
 new election " (of legislators) " which is approaching 
 has made him a convert" 
 
 Langham actively opposed Tiffin's election as 
 delegate, and among other means to accomplish 
 his defeat published a communication in the 
 Scioto Gazette, in which he charged that Tiffin 
 would, if elected, endeavor to legalize negro slav- 
 ery in the new State, through the constitution to 
 be made. 
 
 To this charge Tiffin quietly replied by a card in 
 the next issue of the Gazette, in which he said that 
 " even were it possible to establish slavery here 
 which it is not, because it was forever prohibited 
 by the Ordinance of 1787 I would regard its in- 
 troduction as being the greatest injury we could 
 possibly inflict upon our posterity." And in the 
 same paper an anonymous writer said: " It is well 
 known to hundreds of people living in this Terri- 
 tory that Dr. Tiffin, before leaving Virginia, set 
 free his slaves for whom he refused an offer of one 
 thousand pounds sterling." 
 
 By the bye, if the Virginians and Kentuckians of 
 the Scioto Valley and Reservation were in truth 
 so generally and so earnestly in favor of the intro- 
 duction of domestic slavery into the new State 
 of Ohio, as is asserted and insisted upon by the 
 writers of the Cutler books, would Major Lang- 
 ham, himself a Virginian, have made and published 
 the charge, as an argument addressed to those Vir- 
 5
 
 66 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 ginians and Kentuckians why they should defeat 
 Tiffin's candidacy for delegate to the convention, 
 that he, Tiffin, was in favor of doing the very thing 
 they desired ? 
 
 That there existed no such general sentiment in 
 favor of slavery amongst any class of the pioneers 
 of Ohio is apparent in many facts of history; and 
 one of these facts is that the charge that candidates 
 for the convention were pro-slavery was brought 
 against them for the purpose of defeating them. 
 
 " Previous to the election " wrote Ephraim Cut- 
 ler years after the event " the question whether 
 slavery should be admitted into the State was 
 agitated." How agitated we learn from this Tiffin- 
 Langham incident, and also from a letter from 
 Jehial Gregory, of Athens, dated August 3, 1802, 
 and addressed to Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., who 
 was a candidate from Washington County. " We 
 have hot times about slavery. News is spreading 
 that j0# want slavery. Judge Ephraim Cutler tells 
 that you are for slavery, and urges people not to 
 vote for you. Over on Federal Creek Rev. Mr. 
 Pugsley has spread it all around." 
 
 Tiffin was elected, having received as many votes 
 as any of the candidates, and, as we shall see, 
 when the convention convened was chosen to pre- 
 side over its deliberations. 
 
 And still he remained clerk of the courts of Ross 
 County and the Supreme Court ; still he continued
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 6/ 
 
 to practise medicine whenever he could command 
 the time to answer calls ; and still he continued to 
 preach the Methodist faith on almost every Sab- 
 bath day ! 
 
 On the day, and at the place designated in the 
 Enabling Act, the convention met. The following 
 named persons were found to have been duly elected 
 delegates, viz. : 
 
 From Adams County: Joseph Darlinton, Israel 
 Donalson and Thomas Kirker. 
 
 From Belmont County : James Caldwell and 
 Elijah Woods. 
 
 From Clermont County : Philip Gatch and James 
 Sargent. 
 
 From Fairfield County: Henry Abrams and 
 Emanuel Carpenter. 
 
 From Hamilton County : John W. Brown, Charles 
 Willing Byrd, Francis Dunlavy, William Goforth, 
 John Kitchel, Jeremiah Morrow, John Paul, John 
 Reily, John Smith and John Wilson. 
 
 From Jefferson County: Rudolf Blair, George 
 Humphrey, John Milligan, Nathan Updegraff and 
 Bazaliel Wells. 
 
 From Ross County : Michael Baldwin, James 
 Grubb, Nathaniel Massie, Edward Tiffin and 
 Thomas Worthington. 
 
 From Trumbull County : David Abbot and 
 Samuel Huntington.
 
 68 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 From Washington County : Ephraim Cutler, Ben- 
 jamin Ives Oilman, John Mclntire and Rufus 
 Putnam. 
 
 The convention organized permanently by the 
 election, by ballot, of Edward Tiffin for president, 
 and Thomas Scott of Chillicothe, for secretary. 
 It was then developed that the State party, or as 
 it was called by this time the Democratic-Repub- 
 lican party, was largely in majority in the conven- 
 tion. Indeed, upon the initial and test resolution, 
 " That it is the opinion of this convention that it is 
 expedient at this time to form a constitution and 
 State Government," the affirmative vote (the yeas 
 and nays being called and recorded) included every 
 member present except Ephraim Cutler. " As a 
 general fact," Mr. Cutler says, " the votes were 
 divided, ten yeas to twenty-four nays" the ten 
 being Federalists and the twenty-four Repub- 
 licans. 
 
 I do not purpose wearying or unduly taxing the 
 patience of the readers of this memoir by referring, 
 at any great length, to the proceedings of this con- 
 vention over which Tiffin presided ; but there were 
 some incidents, interesting in themselves, or with 
 which he was immediately or peculiarly connected, 
 that developed in the progress of its sessions, and 
 which seem to me to be pertinent and worthy of 
 brief recital.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 69 
 
 An official copy of its journal now before me * 
 enables me to observe accuracy in stating them. 
 
 On Wednesday, the third day of the session, the 
 governor being present in the convention hall and 
 desirous of delivering his opinions to the members, 
 a motion was made and seconded that he be ac- 
 corded the floor for that purpose. The official 
 record by Secretary Scott is as follows: 
 
 "A motion was made and seconded that Arthur 
 St. Clair, Sr., Esq., be permitted to address the 
 convention on those points which he deems of im- 
 portance. 
 
 "And on the question, thereupon, it was resolved 
 in the affirmative yeas, 19 ; nays, 14. 
 
 " And thereupon Arthur St. Clair, Sr., Esq., 
 was permitted to address the convention." 
 
 Tiffin did not vote upon this motion, he being in 
 the president's chair. 
 
 * There were but seven hundred copies of the journal of the con- 
 vention ordered to be printed and distributed, and these have now 
 so nearly disappeared that the writer, after much inquiry, has heard 
 of but four copies of the official journal now extant. There is none 
 in the State library. There was one prior to 1876, but Hon. Will- 
 iam Bell, Jr., the Secretary of State for Ohio, probably destroyed 
 it by parcelling it out to the printers of his report for 1876, as a full 
 reprint of it is included in his report for that year (pages 33 to 74 
 inclusive). Through this reprint it is now accessible to very many 
 more of the citizens of the State and students of Ohio history than 
 it could otherwise have been.
 
 7O LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 Mark the sarcasm and malice of this designation 
 of the governor (for he was still governor of the 
 Territory, notwithstanding Jefferson had now been 
 President for twenty months). "Arthur St. Clair, 
 Sr., Esg.," carefully eliminating both his civic and 
 military titles, was "permitted" to address an offi- 
 cial body of the people he ruled over, nominally at 
 least, upon public affairs and that by a meager 
 majority and only in his capacity of private citizen ! 
 Could slight, nay, insult, go further? The daily 
 record of the proceedings of the convention were, 
 by an order of the convention, inspected by Messrs. 
 Reily, Oilman and Donalson before going to the 
 printer ; and this committee presumably approved 
 this portion of it which I have just quoted. 
 
 Governor St. Clair made his address, and the 
 result of his making it was, as hereinafter stated, 
 most disastrous to himself. 
 
 How the convention handled the subject of negro 
 slavery and dealt with the colored race has, in my 
 opinion, been most grossly misstated in the Life 
 and Times of Judge Ephraim Cutler. It is therein 
 stated, with emphasis, that a large number of the 
 delegates it is more than intimated a majority of 
 them were eagerly desirous of establishing slavery 
 in Ohio by the constitution. And this misstate- 
 ment has been followed in that very excellent and 
 learned work, The Old Northwest, by Professor Hins- 
 dale, and indeed by nearly every volume, pamphlet
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN /I 
 
 and speech of a date subsequent to 1890, when the 
 Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler was published by 
 his son and daughter. 
 
 This latter work professes to have been prepared 
 from the "journals and correspondence" of Judge 
 Cutler, many years after his death. In it we read, 
 as if it were an excerpt from a journal kept by him 
 during the convention : 
 
 " We " (that is, the committee on the preparation 
 of the Bill of Rights) " met at Governor Tiffin's 
 by invitation; our chairman, Mr. Browne" (John 
 W. Browne of Hamilton County) " produced and 
 read the first section. . . . An exciting sub- 
 ject was, of course, immediately brought before us 
 the subject of admitting or excluding slavery. 
 Mr. Browne proposed a section which defined the 
 subject thus : ' No person shall be held in slavery, 
 if a male, after he is thirty-five years of age ; or if 
 a female, after she is twenty-five years of age.' 
 The handwriting, I had no doubt, was Mr. Jeffer- 
 son's." 
 
 Mr. Cutler is represented then to have moved 
 that the said section be laid upon the table until 
 the next meeting of the committee, and to have 
 suggested, " to avoid any warmth of feeling, that 
 each member of the committee should prepare a 
 section in writing which would express fully the 
 writer's views upon the subject."
 
 72 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 The Cutler memoir proceeds to say : 
 
 " The committee met the next morning, and I 
 was called upon for what I had proposed at the 
 last meeting. I therefore read to them the second 
 section as it now stands in the constitution. Mr. 
 Browne observed that what he had introduced was 
 thought by the greatest men in the nation to be, 
 if established in our constitution, obtaining a great 
 step toward a general emancipation of slavery, 
 and was greatly to be preferred to what I had 
 offered. . . . 
 
 " In committee of the whole convention a mate- 
 rial change was introduced while I was unwell 
 and not present. I went to the convention the 
 next day and moved to strike out the obnoxious 
 matter, and made my objections to it as forcible as 
 I could. ... I happened to catch Mr. Milli- 
 gan's eye . . . and put it home to him ; and 
 when the vote was taken Mr. Milligan changed his 
 vote and we succeeded in placing the section in 
 its original form. It cost me every effort I was 
 capable of making, and it passed by one majority 
 only. Thus an overruling Providence, by His 
 wisdom, etc., etc., etc." 
 
 Now, to nearly all of this story I observe, " Ju- 
 deus Apelles credat ; non mi. " 
 
 What passed in meetings of the sub-committees
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 73 
 
 was not recorded by the secretary of the conven- 
 tion, of course ; but the transactions in committee 
 of the whole convention and in the convention 
 itself were fully recorded, and the official record 
 fails utterly to support the pretense of Mr. Cutler 
 that there was any struggle over the second sec- 
 tion of the Bill of Rights ; or that Mr. Cutler by 
 his efforts and one vote first in the sub-committee, 
 then in the committee of the whole, and finally 
 in the convention saved the State of Ohio from 
 having the curse of negro slavery fastened upon 
 it through the constitution ! If Secretary Scott 
 had, extraordinarily, failed to make record of such 
 momentous proceedings, is it likely, or possible 
 even, that the committee who were charged with 
 the duty of examining and correcting the records 
 each day before they reached the printer, would 
 have failed to notice the omission ? 
 
 Mr. Cutler names Israel Donalson of Adams 
 County as one of the sub-committee on the Bill 
 of Rights, who supported Mr. Browne's proposi- 
 tion to admit slavery ; and yet Mr. Cutler himself 
 quotes a letter from Mr. Donalson, written in 
 1841, when Mr. Donalson was one of the very few 
 surviving members of the convention, in which 
 the writer says : " I have a perfect recollection of 
 the Vlllth article of our constitution, which at 
 the time met my approbation, and which you had 
 the honor of introducing." And the official rec-
 
 74 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 ord shows that upon a motion made in the com- 
 mittee of the whole to strike out from Mr. Cut- 
 ler's proposition the words : 
 
 " Nor shall any male person arrived at the age of 
 twenty-one years, or female person arrived at the 
 age of eighteen years, be held to serve any person 
 as a servant, under the pretence of indenture or 
 otherwise, unless such person shall enter into such 
 indenture while in a state of perfect freedom, and 
 on condition of a bona fide consideration received, 
 or to be received, for their service. Nor shall any 
 indenture of any negro or mulatto hereafter made 
 and executed out of the State, or made in the 
 State, where the term of service exceeds one year, 
 be of the least validity, except those given in the 
 case of apprenticeships," 
 
 the motion to strike out was defeated, and the 
 words were retained (and afterward became a part 
 of the constitution) by the votes of, among others, 
 such Virginians and Republicans as Abrams, Bald- 
 win, Browne, Byrd, Carpenter, Darlinton, Donal- 
 son, Goforth, Kirker and Worthington, side by 
 side with such New England Federalists as Cutler, 
 Putnam, Oilman and Mclntire. 
 
 Such facts from the record are conclusive against 
 the accuracy of the Cutler memoir, to say nothing 
 of the hereinbefore referred to testimony of Tiffin
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 75 
 
 and Judge Burnet, and the action of the first Gen- 
 eral Assembly of the Territory upon the petition 
 of slave-holders in Virginia. 
 
 As illustrating the liberal feeling toward colored 
 people which animated the members of the con- 
 vention, I quote from the records when article 
 IV of the constitution, which defined the qualifi- 
 cations of electors, was being formulated in the 
 committee of the whole : 
 
 " It was moved " (by whom does not appear) 
 " that the first section be amended by adding to it 
 a proviso in the words following, to wit : Provided, 
 that all male negroes and mulattoes, now residing 
 in this territory, shall be entitled to the right of 
 suffrage if they shall, within six months, make a 
 record of their citizenship." 
 
 And this motion carried in the committee of 
 the whole by a vote of nineteen yeas to fifteen 
 nays? 
 
 Afterward when this fourth article came up for 
 final adoption into the constitution by the conven- 
 
 * It is worthy of record that at least one negro voted for delegate 
 to the Constitutional Convention. " Kit," a very black servant of 
 General Putnam, voted unchallenged at Marietta, and perhaps 
 others did so. At any rate as the record stands, Kit Putnam, as he 
 was called, was the first negro voter in Ohio, and for many years 
 the only one.
 
 76 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 tion, a motion to strike out this proviso met the 
 following vote : yeas (to strike it out), Abrams, 
 Baldwin, Bair, Caldwell, Carpenter, Darlinton, 
 Donalson, Grubb, Humphrey, Huntington, Kirker, 
 Mclntire, Massie, Milligan, Smith, Woods and 
 Worthington ; nays (to retain and make it part of 
 the constitution), Abbot, Browne, Byrd, Butler, 
 Dunlavy, Gatch, Oilman, Goforth, Kitchel, Morrow, 
 Paul, Putnam, Reily, Sargent, Updegraff, Wells 
 and Wilson. 
 
 And there being a tie vote, seventeen yeas and 
 seventeen nays, President Tiffin gave his deciding 
 vote in favor of striking out the proviso giving 
 as his reason therefor, that the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of two slave-holding States made it im- 
 politic to offer such an inducement for the influx 
 of an undesirable class to the new State. 
 
 Among those voting for negro suffrage, the reader 
 will again notice, was John W. Browne, who, ac- 
 cording to Cutler, was so anxious to establish negro 
 slavery in Ohio ; and such intense Virginians as 
 Charles Willing Byrd and Francis Dunlavy. 
 
 Thus it appears, the Constitutional Convention 
 of Ohio, in 1802, came very much nearer to antici- 
 pating the XVth amendment to the Constitution 
 of the United States which, in March, 1870, or- 
 dained that thenceforth and forever " the right of 
 citizens of the United States to vote, shall not be 
 denied or abridged by the United States, or. by
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN // 
 
 any State, on account of race, color or previous 
 condition of servitude," than it did to establishing 
 slavery. 
 
 Another notable fact altogether unique in the 
 history of any portion of the American Republic 
 developed in this convention in the direct and 
 positive refusal, by the decided vote of twenty- 
 seven to seven, to permit the people of the new 
 State, who were to be subject to the body of fun- 
 damental law compiled by them, to have a voice 
 or choice in the matter of its acceptance. There 
 was considerable doubt as to what the choice of 
 the people would be if expressed ; therefore it was 
 safer to prevent its expression. How simple and 
 conclusive! And yet the preamble of this consti- 
 tution asserts that " We the PEOPLE of the east- 
 ern division of the Territory of the United States 
 Northwest of the river Ohio, ... do ordain 
 and establish the following Constitution and form 
 of State Government," et cetera. 
 
 The Enabling Act of Congress permitted this 
 course to be taken indicated it, indeed ; especially 
 when its omissions are interpreted by the debates 
 which preceded its enactment. 
 
 It cannot be thought by those who know how able, 
 astute, and experienced as a politician Mr. Jefferson 
 was, that, when he approved and signed that En- 
 abling Act on the 3Oth of April, 1802, he had not as 
 clear and full appreciation of the significance of the
 
 78 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 omission to require its submission to the people of 
 the proposed State for acceptance or rejection, and 
 of the advantage which would probably be taken 
 of that omission by the State party in the conven- 
 tion, as he had of any of the expressed provisions 
 in the act. That he nevertheless promptly ap- 
 proved it, furnishes a suggestive commentary upon 
 his constantly iterated and reiterated phrases about 
 the " natural rights of the individual man " ; " the 
 liberties of the people " ; " rights of the people " ; 
 etc., etc. One cannot help remembering, in this 
 connection, the use made of the words " citizen " 
 and " citizeness/' by the leaders of the Sons-culottes 
 during the bloody days of the French Revolution.* 
 
 So industriously and intelligently did the con- 
 vention labor, under the guidance of President 
 Tiffin, that it required but twenty-nine days Sun- 
 days included to formulate a body of organic law 
 under which Ohio flourished and grew in popula- 
 tion and wealth to the status of a magnificent em- 
 pire, before it was thought necessary, half a century 
 later, to revise its work. 
 
 After supplementing the constitution with a 
 schedule which provided for the transition from 
 territorial to State conditions, and for the issue of 
 writs of election by the president of the convention 
 (thus again ignoring Governor St. Clair) for the elec- 
 
 * See Appendix B.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 79 
 
 tion of a governor of the State, members of a Gen- 
 eral Assembly, sheriffs and coroners for the several 
 counties, and unanimously ratifying and signing 
 their finished production, the convention ad- 
 journed, sine die, on the evening of November 29, 
 1802.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Removal of St. Clair accomplished Madison's Curt 
 Letter of Dismissal St. Clair lets fly a Parthian Arrow 
 at Jefferson and Madison First Election under State 
 Constitution Tiffin elected Governor Inaugurated 
 March 3, 1803 "When did Ohio become a State?" 
 Congressional Action in Regard to the Admission 
 United States Senators and State Officers elected by the 
 Legislature "To the Victors belong the Spoils" How 
 History of Ohio has been written Tiffin's First Mes- 
 sage Free Navigation of the Mississippi demanded. 
 
 THE hatred of St. Clair entertained by " the 
 Virginia Junto," was not mitigated by the fact that 
 the end of his official career as governor of the 
 Territory was now inevitably near at hand. It 
 will be remembered that as soon as the convention 
 was organized he asked, and was accorded, per- 
 mission to address it. That his speech upon that 
 occasion was, under the circumstances and condi- 
 tions attending it, bitter and vituperative goes 
 without the saying. Some one I hope it was not 
 Tiffin, and do not believe it was sent a copy or 
 report of this address to President Jefferson. The 
 immediate result was that St. Clair received, 
 through the hands of his most malignant and
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 8 1 
 
 implacable personal enemy, Charles Willing Byrd, 
 the territorial secretary, the following curt and 
 cruel official communication : 
 
 "DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 
 
 " WASHINGTON, November 22d, 1802. 
 " ARTHUR ST. CLAIR, ESQ. 
 
 "Sir: The President observing, in an address 
 lately delivered by you to the convention held at 
 Chillicothe, an intemperance and indecorum of 
 language toward the Legislature of the United 
 States, and a disorganizing spirit and tendency of 
 very evil example, and grossly violating the rules 
 of conduct enjoined by your public station, deter- 
 mines that your commission of governor of the 
 North-Western Territory shall cease on the receipt 
 of this notification. 
 
 " I am, etc., 
 
 " JAMES MADISON." 
 
 This letter was enclosed in another addressed to 
 Mr. Byrd, of which the following is a copy : 
 
 " DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 
 " WASHINGTON, November 22nd, 1802. 
 
 "Sir: Enclosed is a letter to Governor St. 
 Clair, from a copy of which, also enclosed, you 
 6
 
 82 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 will find that his commission of governor of the 
 Northwestern Territory is to cease on his receipt 
 of the notification. It is only to be added that 
 no successor has yet been appointed and, conse- 
 quently, the functions of the office devolve on you 
 as secretary of the said territory. 
 " I have the honor to be 
 
 " Very Respectfully, 
 
 " Your most obedient and humble servant, 
 " JAMES MADISON. 
 
 " To CHARLES W. BYRD, ESQ. ) 
 CHILLICOTHE." j 
 
 Note the difference in the form and politeness 
 of the subscriptions to these two letters. Poor St. 
 Clair! One cannot help feeling sympathy for him 
 and indignation toward his persecutors. 
 
 The receipt of this note of dismissal from the gov- 
 ernorship of the Territory forever closed the public 
 career of General Arthur St. Clair. His biographer, 
 William Henry Smith, at this point closes the story 
 of his official life with the epigrammatic line : 
 " Exit Arthur St. Clair, Federalist ; enter Edward 
 Tiffin, Republican!" Yet before the spirited and 
 brave old man, now sixty-eight years of age, turned 
 his face to Pennsylvania, where his last days were 
 spent, he let fly a Parthian arrow at Jefferson and 
 Madison in the form of a letter addressed to the
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 83 
 
 latter, which I feel it is a duty to copy into this 
 narrative. It was as follows : 
 
 "CINCINNATI, December 2ist, 1802. 
 
 "Sir: Your letter of the 220! of November, noti- 
 fying me that the President had determined that 
 upon receipt of that letter my commission of gov- 
 ernor of the Northwestern Territory should cease, 
 was delivered to me by Mr. Secretary Byrd on the 
 I4th day of this month. 
 
 " I request you, sir, to present my humble thanks 
 to the President for that favor, as he has thereby 
 discharged me from an office I was heartily tired 
 of about six weeks sooner than I had determined 
 to rid myself of it, as he may have observed from 
 an address not to the Convention, but to the 
 people, on the 8th instant. 
 
 " I cannot, however, agree with the President 
 that in my address to the Convention, which is 
 assigned as a reason for my being dismissed, there 
 was either ' intemperance or indecorum of language 
 towards the Legislature of the United States, or a 
 disorganizing spirit of evil tendency and example,' 
 unless an honest and true representation of facts 
 deserve these epithets, or that 'the rules of con- 
 duct enjoined by my public station ' were in any 
 way violated, unless it is understood that the rule 
 of conduct is an implicit, blind obedience.
 
 84 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 "As the Convention, sir, was to meet in pursu- 
 ance of an act of Congress, whereby the election of 
 the members was to be made according to the law 
 of the Territory that had existed, but had been 
 long repealed, a sense of duty led -me to cause 
 the election to be made comformably to the spirit 
 of the act and the existing laws of the Territory, 
 as they could not be made conformably to the 
 words of it ; and when the Convention was met, I 
 had done with it in my public capacity. 
 
 " Every citizen has a right to address that body, 
 either openly or in writing, and that right was com- 
 mon to me with the rest ; and I believe, sir, it is a 
 paramount duty which every man owes to the 
 community of which he is a member, to give warn- 
 ing, either to the representatives or to the body, 
 when he sees the rights of that community invaded - 
 from whatever quarter the invasion may come and 
 direct them, if he can, to the means of warding it 
 off or of repelling it ; and I scruple not to say that 
 the violent, hasty and unprecedented intrusion of 
 the Legislature of the United States into the inter- 
 nal concerns of the Northwestern Territory was, at 
 the least, indecorous and inconsistent with its pub- 
 lic duty. And I might add that the transferring 
 of above five thousand people, without their knowl- 
 edge or consent, from a country where they were in 
 possession of self-government, to another where they 
 will be, at least for some time, deprived of that privi-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 85 
 
 lege and subjected to many other inconveniences, 
 was something worse than ' intemperate and inde- 
 corous ' ; and that, had it happened in Germany, 
 where such things have happened, no man in 
 America would have hesitated to have used a 
 harsher term. 
 
 " Degraded as our country is and abject as too 
 many of her sons have become, there is still a vast 
 proportion of them who will be at no loss for the 
 proper term. 
 
 " Be pleased, sir, to accept my thanks, too, for 
 the peculiar delicacy you observed in committing 
 the delivery of your letter, and furnishing him with 
 a copy of it, to Mr. Byrd, against whom there was 
 in your hands, to be laid before the President, com- 
 plaints of something more than mere ' indecorum ' 
 the total neglect of, and refusal to perform, his 
 official duty. 
 
 " It is such strokes as this which serve to develop 
 character and, like the relief in painting, bring out 
 the figure distinctly in its proper place. 
 
 " It produced, however, no other emotion in me 
 but that kind of derision which physiognomists tell 
 us is the involuntary expression on the countenance 
 of a certain mental sensation which I do not choose 
 to name, and never fails to produce it. 
 
 " With due respect, I am, etc., 
 " AR. ST. CLAIR."
 
 86 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 Well might William Creighton say, in a letter to 
 Worthington, " I have just read St. Clair's answer 
 to Mr. Madison, and it is one of the severest things 
 I ever saw." 
 
 By the schedule to the constitution, the election 
 of a governor, members of a State General Assem- 
 bly and a sheriff and coroner for each county was 
 ordered to be held on the second Tuesday of Janu- 
 ary, 1803. In those days party nominating con- 
 ventions were not held ; even candidates for Presi- 
 dent and Vice-President of the United States were 
 selected only by a caucus of the members of Con- 
 gress, which commended certain persons to the 
 people for those positions. 
 
 We learn from letters of that period which have 
 been preserved, that several names were considered 
 by the Federalists of Ohio for the office of gov- 
 ernor, and that General St. Clair was importuned 
 to accept the candidacy of that party for the office, 
 but that he refused to allow his name to be used 
 for that purpose, and no one seems to have been 
 agreed upon by that party for the position. 
 
 Tiffin was, by general consent of the Republicans 
 and not by any formal nomination, agreed upon as 
 their candidate ; and the result of the election was 
 that he was chosen for governor without opposition. 
 Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., writing to Worthing- 
 ton a day or two after the election, announced that
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 8/ 
 
 the Republicans had swept the Federal stronghold 
 of Marietta and Washington County by a large 
 majority, and added, " the Federalists here have 
 grown, if possible, more bitter than ever. They 
 fulminate their anathemas against the adminis- 
 tration with unprecedented malice. Such was 
 their obstinacy that, knowing they could not carry 
 a Federalist governor, they would not vote for gov- 
 ernor at all, but threw blank tickets." 
 
 The state of feeling which induced the Federal- 
 ists of Washington County to vote blank tickets for 
 governor may have been general throughout the 
 State, and perhaps explains why Tiffin received 
 practically all the votes which were cast for gov- 
 ernor; but it remains, nevertheless, a remarkable 
 and significant fact that in each of his very frequent 
 candidacies he met with the same exceptional for- 
 tune. When it is remembered that he entertained 
 and prominently championed the most radical, even 
 extreme opinions upon almost every public question 
 of the day, and often contended from a place in 
 the ranks of the minority, it is indeed remarkable 
 that he was always successful, and nearly always 
 without any considerable opposition. 
 
 The first General Assembly of the State of Ohio 
 convened on the second day of March, 1803, and 
 Tiffin was inaugurated as governor upon the fol- 
 lowing day (the third) and from that day Ohio 
 assumed position as one of the integrals of the
 
 88 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 United States of America, " on an equal footing 
 with the original States in all respects/' to use the 
 words of the Enabling Act. 
 
 An authenticated copy of the constitution had 
 been sent on to Congress, and on the 7th of January, 
 1 803, the Senate appointed a committee which was 
 charged to enquire " whether any, and if any, what 
 legislative measures were necessary for admitting 
 the State of Ohio into the Union, and extending 
 to that State the laws of the United States." The 
 committee so appointed reported to the Senate that 
 the constitution was republican and conformed to 
 all the requirements of the Constitution of the 
 United States and the Ordinance of 1787; and 
 that it was necessary for Congress to establish a 
 district court of the United States within the State 
 of Ohio to administer and carry into effect the 
 laws of the United States. 
 
 A bill was framed to carry into effect the sugges- 
 tions of this report, and it was passed by the Sen- 
 ate on the 7th day of February, by the House of 
 Representatives on the I2th, and was approved by 
 the President on the iQth of the same month. No 
 other Federal action (beyond the admission of the 
 two senators and the one representative from 
 Ohio subsequently elected), was ever thereafter 
 had in regard to the admission of the State into 
 the Union. The phraseology of the Senate reso- 
 lution is worthy of notice. The committee was
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 89 
 
 instructed to report whether any legislation was 
 necessary to admit the new State ; and the com- 
 mittee answered, in substance, that no further legis- 
 lation was necessary for that purpose, but that a 
 district Federal court must be established for it. 
 This meant, as I understand it, that in the opinion 
 of the committee the Enabling Act of April 30, 
 1802, had prescribed all the necessary precedent 
 conditions to be observed by the inhabitants of the 
 Territory to obtain statehood; and these conditions 
 having now been fully complied with, Ohio had 
 already become a State of the Union. 
 
 Nevertheless, although it may have had the per- 
 fected right to statehood from the 2Qth of Novem- 
 ber, 1802, when the constitution was finished and 
 ratified by all the delegates, it certainly was not a 
 State in fact until the 3d of March, 1803, when 
 Tiffin assumed the functions of governor, and, with 
 a State General Assembly in session and State 
 officials installed, all the machinery of State gov- 
 ernment had been provided and set in motion. 
 
 Up to that moment Charles Willing Byrd, as 
 acting governor of the Territory, had discharged 
 the functions of chief executive officer, and all 
 judicial transactions were in the name and by the 
 authority of the territorial government. 
 
 It is interesting and amusing to examine the 
 files of the Scioto Gazette, then and yet published 
 at Chillicothe, and notice the confusion of opinions
 
 90 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 which existed among the people in the interval 
 between November 2Qth and the 3d of March 
 following, as to whether they were living in a State 
 or a Territory. Nathaniel Willis (grandfather of 
 N. P. Willis, the poet), who was then editor of the 
 Scioto Gazette, on the day following the adjourn- 
 ment of the convention changed the locus in quo 
 of its publication from " Territory of the United 
 States Northwest of River Ohio" to "State of 
 Ohio." Thomas Worthington, then in Washington 
 as agent of the State party, under date of February 
 4, 1803, designates himself the " Special Agent for 
 the State of Ohio." Reuben Abrams, a justice of 
 the peace, began an affidavit made before him with 
 the caption "STATE OF OHIO, Ross County, 
 ss," and then issued the warrant based upon that 
 affidavit in the name, and by the authority of, the 
 Territory / 
 
 Indeed the question, When did Ohio become a 
 State? is yet discussed by writers and historical 
 societies without finding an accepted solution. 
 That it has been a State ever since the third day 
 of March, 1803, does not admit of discussion. 
 
 Immediately after the inauguration of the gov- 
 ernor, the General Assembly, then in session, pro- 
 ceeded to complete the State machinery. This 
 they did by the election of : 
 
 Thomas Worthington and John Smith to the 
 Senate of the United States.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN QI 
 
 William Creighton, Jr., to be Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 Thomas Gibson to be Auditor of State. 
 
 William McFarland to be Treasurer of State. 
 
 Samuel Huntington, Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., 
 and William Spriggs to be Judges of the Ohio 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 Provision was also made for the election of one 
 representative to Congress, to take place on the 
 2ist of June then next ensuing; and upon that 
 day Jeremiah Morrow was chosen for that office, 
 and he continued, by successive elections, to be the 
 sole representative of Ohio until the year 1813. 
 
 It will be noticed that all the officers of the new 
 State were Democratic-Republicans, and nearly 
 all were Virginians. The fruit of their years of 
 toil was now attained by the " Junto," and with 
 no other concern than to perpetuate themselves 
 and each other in office, they contentedly settled 
 down to enjoy the situation ; yet, in the meanwhile, 
 honestly and capably discharging all their official 
 duties. 
 
 While they were thus engaged in attending to 
 the politics of the State and country, and growing 
 poorer year by year, the defeated New England 
 Federalists, true to their education and instincts, 
 were engaged in clearing farms, building houses 
 and barns and providing generally for the future 
 of themselves and their children, and consequently
 
 92 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 " getting ahead " year by year in material wealth, 
 and after time had sufficiently lapsed to preclude 
 memory and dim traditions, their descendants en- 
 gaged in writing the history and pseudo-history of 
 the " Territory of the United States Northwest of 
 the river Ohio," and its transition into the State 
 of Ohio, so mingling history and fiction as almost 
 to defy analysis; and claiming honors for certain 
 families which never rightfully belonged to them ; 
 ignoring the very existence of others who 
 were far more important factors in making the 
 history of that period.* One might commit the 
 Cutler volumes, and even Dr. Hinsdale's Old 
 Northwest, to memory from preface to finis, notes 
 and appendices included, and yet remain utterly 
 ignorant of the existence at any time in the Terri- 
 tory or the State, of individuals bearing the names 
 of Tiffin, Worthington, Massie or Creighton or, 
 indeed, of any other Virginian or Kentuckian. 
 
 Ohio was now fairly started upon its grand 
 career as a sovereign State of the American Re- 
 public. It was most fortunate that in its begin- 
 ning and formative period its guidance was in- 
 trusted to so wise, firm, conscientious and vigilant 
 a man as Edward Tiffin. He at once addressed 
 himself to the work of laying, deep, broad and 
 
 * I wish especially to except the books of Dr. Samuel P. Hil- 
 dreth from the scope of this criticism.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 93 
 
 strong, the foundations to be builded upon in the 
 succeeding years and centuries. He earnestly in- 
 sisted that it was a matter of primal importance 
 that liberal provision should be made for popular 
 education. He urged the opening of roads and 
 the improvement of the waterways as means of 
 intercommunication of the people and channels of 
 trade and commerce. He suggested means of de- 
 fense against still hostile tribes of Indians, and in- 
 sisted that these, and all Indians, should be justly, 
 honestly and humanely dealt with by the whites, 
 which, he most truly said, would go far toward- 
 securing peace and harmony with them. He laid 
 great stress upon the importance of religion and 
 morality as conducive to the happiest conditions 
 of society. " The prosperity and happiness of 
 every people " he wrote in his first message " is 
 invariably in proportion to their religious morality." 
 He expressed the hope " that the people of Ohio 
 would assume and forever maintain such advanced 
 positions in industry, frugality, temperance and 
 every moral virtue, as would gain for them the 
 admiration of the whole world." But in that 
 same first message he refers to the interference of 
 the Spanish inhabitants of lower Louisiana with 
 the free navigation of the Mississippi River by the 
 people of the Northwest, in language which reveals 
 that he certainly did not belong to the Quaker 
 sect of Christians. He hoped that:
 
 94 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 " These embarrassments to our infant commerce 
 will soon be removed by prompt and efficacious 
 measures to be taken by our President ; . . 
 but if our just and reasonable expectations in that 
 regard should be frustrated," then with or with- 
 out the aid of President or National troops as it 
 might be " although every friend of humanity 
 may regret the dernier resort, it would be as im- 
 possible to prevent the Mississippi River from dis- 
 charging its waters into the ocean, as to prevent 
 the people of the West from asserting their natural 
 right to force, with that stream, the fruits of their 
 industry to every part of the world." 
 
 How perfectly Tiffin, in this message, uncon- 
 sciously reflected the sentiments and feelings of 
 Thomas Jefferson upon this subject ! As early as 
 1790 long before the idea of buying Louisiana 
 was conceived the importance of the free naviga- 
 tion of the Mississippi River to our people living 
 west of the Alleghany Mountains was fully real- 
 ized, and was the subject of negotiations between 
 our government and that of Spain. Mr. Jefferson, 
 then Secretary of State, in secret instructions to 
 Mr. Carmichael, our minister in Madrid (which in- 
 structions, being State secrets, could not have been 
 known to Tiffin when he wrote the message to the 
 Ohio Legislature from which the above extract has 
 been quoted) charged Carmichael to
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 95 
 
 " Impress the Spanish ministry thoroughly with 
 the necessity of an early settlement of this matter" 
 (i.e., the free navigation of the river), " for it is im- 
 possible to answer for the forbearance of our west- 
 ern citizens. We endeavor to quiet them with the 
 expectation of the attainment of their ends by 
 peaceable means ; but should they, in a moment of 
 impatience, hazard other means, there is no saying 
 how far we may be led ; for neither themselves nor 
 their rights will ever be abandoned by us." 
 
 To anticipate a little upon this subject: in Gov 
 ernor Tiffin's subsequent message, after congratu- 
 lating the State of Ohio and people of the West, 
 upon the completed purchase of the Louisiana 
 Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte as First Con- 
 sul of France, by President Jefferson, and after 
 reciting the fact that the Spanish authorities and 
 residents on the lower Mississippi refused to acqui- 
 esce in their transfer by the Spanish crown to the 
 French in July, 1802, and consequently their fur- 
 ther transfer by France to the jurisdiction of the 
 United States, and that they were still harassing 
 American traders and impeding the navigation of 
 the river, he urges the Legislature of Ohio to pro- 
 vide that " five hundred of our best disciplined and 
 best officered militia be held in readiness to go 
 down the river should the Spaniards either refuse or 
 delay to give up Louisiana agreeably to the treaty."
 
 $6 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 All this was in perfect keeping with Tiffin's 
 nature. The late venerable Col. Nathaniel Massie 
 (oldest son of Nathaniel Massie, the founder of 
 Chillicothe), who was intimate with the governor 
 during the twenty years preceding the latter's 
 death, and who assisted in preparing his body for 
 the grave when dead, once said to the writer of this 
 memoir: "Notwithstanding the .intense fervor of 
 Tiffin's religious character, I never knew a man 
 more ready for combat of any kind intellectual or 
 physical than he was upon provocation. But for 
 that matter," added Colonel Nat reminiscently, " I 
 never knew a Tiffin who was not like him in that 
 respect."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Limitations of Powers of Governor Progress of the State 
 Tiffin reelected Governor The Burr Expedition foiled 
 by Tiffin Jefferson's Acknowledgment of His Services 
 Contemporary Notices of the Governor. 
 
 THE unpopularity of St. Clair, especially in the 
 latter years of his official term, and the general 
 resentment of his personal government, had so far 
 influenced the members of the Constitutional 
 Convention that they declined to confer the power 
 of vetoing the actions of the legislative body upon 
 the chief executive of the State, and, in fact, 
 restricted his political powers to the narrowest 
 possible limits. He could, by message, give in- 
 formation as to conditions in the State, and recom- 
 mend legislation to the General Assembly ; he 
 could assemble it in special session in an emer- 
 gency; he could appoint to office temporarily 
 when vacancies occurred, subject to confirmation 
 by the Senate ; he could grant reprieves and 
 pardons to persons convicted of crimes, except 
 in cases of impeachment, and he could appoint 
 notaries public. Substantially these were his 
 only powers. 
 
 7
 
 98 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 The value of a governor to this State, therefore, 
 is in proportion to the affection and respect the 
 people have for the incumbent of the office, which 
 may incline them to accept his suggestions and 
 follow his advice. After half a century of experi- 
 ence, the Constitutional Convention of 1852 ap- 
 proved and continued the limitations of executive 
 power imposed by the convention of 1802. 
 
 It is only very exceptionally, therefore, that it 
 occurs that the Governor of Ohio attracts the in- 
 terest and attention of the nation. But such con- 
 ditions have occurred within the terms of two or 
 three governors of the State, and one such incident 
 happened in Tiffin's administration. His first 
 term had passed without being memorable or his- 
 torical save for the steady and rapid growth and 
 development of the commonwealth and the quiet 
 and contentment universally prevailing among its 
 people, in marked contrast with the unrest and 
 excitement manifested by them in and throughout 
 the three or four years preceding statehood. 
 
 Tiffin was elected to a second term of his office 
 in October, 1805, and again received substantially 
 all the votes cast at the election an emphatic 
 endorsement of approval of his administration by 
 the people that has never been given to any other 
 governor of a State in the Union. In his second 
 term he pursued the same line of policy and met 
 with the same happy results as had characterized
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 99 
 
 the two previous years of his administration. The 
 legislative bodies of the State worked in entire 
 harmony with the executive department, and 
 Ohio very rapidly grew in population and wealth, 
 and its people were peaceful, contented and 
 happy. 
 
 In the summer and fall of 1806 Col. Aaron 
 Burr, then lately Vice-President of the United 
 States, was busily engaged in making preparations 
 for an armed expedition down the Mississippi 
 River ; which project Mr. Jefferson, and the people 
 of the country generally, regarded as being treason- 
 able in character and purposes. By December of 
 that year Burr had collected at Blennerhassett 
 Island, in the Ohio River, a large number of barges 
 and great quantities of arms, provisions and other 
 expeditionary material and seemed really to move 
 toward his objective point, whatever that might 
 have been. The President of the United States, 
 on the 2/th of November, issued an order to 
 General Wilkinson, then commanding the national 
 military forces, informing him of the state of 
 affairs and requiring him to use means to break up 
 the expedition. At the same time he sent warning 
 notices to the governors of Ohio and Kentucky, 
 and asked their cooperation with the army for the 
 defeat of what he evidently thought was a most 
 dangerous scheme. 
 
 But Governor Tiffin had been watching Burr's
 
 IOO LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 movements most intently, and without waiting for 
 instructions or authority from the President, he 
 had sent a confidential message to the General 
 Assembly of Ohio upon the first day of its session, 
 giving the Assembly the information he possessed 
 in regard to the matter, and asking to be clothed 
 with power to act promptly in the premises. 
 Accordingly, upon the sixth day of December. 
 1806, an act was passed by the Assembly, entitled 
 "An act to prevent certain acts hostile to the peace 
 and tranquility of the United States, within the 
 jurisdiction of this State." (Ohio Laws, vol. v., 
 page 45.) By this act it was provided that : 
 
 " Any person or persons fitting out or arming 
 any vessel or vessels, or enlisting any persons, 
 party, or army, or marching any such party or 
 army through this State with intent to act against 
 the peace and tranquillity of the United States, 
 shall, upon conviction before the Supreme Court, 
 be fined not exceeding four thousand dollars, and 
 be imprisoned not exceeding three years." 
 
 The act also provided for the forfeiture to the 
 State of all such vessels, their furniture and equip- 
 ments, arms, provisions, etc. It gave to the 
 governor power to use the militia forces of the 
 State to carry its provisions into effect, and appro- 
 priated the sum of one thousand dollars for his use 
 in the premises.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN IOI 
 
 Governor Tiffin used the powers so given him 
 promptly, and President Jefferson, in a special 
 message to Congress, under the date of January 
 22, 1807, thus states the result : 
 
 "... A little before the receipt of these " 
 (i.e., the President's letters to the governors of 
 Ohio and Kentucky, of the date of November 27th), 
 " Governor Tiffin and the Legislature of Ohio, 
 with a promptitude, an energy and patriotic zeal 
 which entitle them to a distinguished place in the 
 affections of their sister States, effected the seizure 
 of all their boats, fifteen in number, provisions and 
 other preparations within their reach, and thus 
 gave a first blow, materially disabling the enter- 
 prise in its outset." 
 
 Soon afterward Mr. Jefferson addressed the fol- 
 lowing most characteristic letter to Governor 
 Tiffin : 
 
 "WASHINGTON, Feb. 2nd, 1807. 
 
 " Sir : . . . That our fellow citizens of the 
 West would need only to be informed of criminal 
 machinations against the public safety, to crush 
 them at once, I never entertained a doubt. 
 
 "I have seen with the greatest satisfaction that 
 among those who have distinguished themselves
 
 102 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 by their fidelity to their country on the occasion of 
 the enterprise of Mr. Burr, yourself and the Legis- 
 lature of Ohio have been the most eminent. 
 
 " The promptitude and energy displayed by 
 your State has been as honorable to itself as salu- 
 tary to its sister States, and in declaring that you 
 have deserved well of your country I do but ex- 
 press the grateful sentiment of every faithful citi- 
 zen in it. 
 
 "The hand of the people has given the mortal 
 blow to a conspiracy which, in other countries, 
 would have called for an appeal to armies, and has 
 proved that government to be the strongest of 
 which every man feels himself to be a part. 
 
 " It is a happy illustration, too, of the import- 
 ance of preserving to the State authorities all that 
 vigor which the Constitution foresaw would be 
 necessary, not only for their own safety, but for 
 that of the whole. 
 
 " In making these acknowledgments of the 
 merit of having set this illustrious example of ex- 
 ertion for the common safety, I pray that they 
 may be considered as addressed to yourself and 
 the Legislature particularly, and generally to every 
 citizen who has availed himself of the opportunity 
 given of proving his devotion to the country. 
 
 " Accept my salutations, and assurances of great 
 consideration and esteem. 
 
 "THOMAS JEFFERSON."
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 103 
 
 This, the most dramatic incident that occurred 
 while Tiffin filled the gubernatorial office, happened 
 in the last year of his term. 
 
 Before passing from this period of Tiffin's life, I 
 wish to preserve in this memoir two references to 
 him which I have met in my reading, and which 
 will aid the reader somewhat, perhaps, in individ- 
 ualizing the man. In the Reminiscences of Dr. 
 Chauncey Perkins of Athens, Ohio, his "everyday 
 manners " are thus pleasantly described : 
 
 " It was in 1804 that Dr. Tiffin, then Governor 
 of Ohio, spent several days with my father's family 
 while he, the governor, was engaged in the earliest 
 efforts to organize the Ohio University. 
 
 " I have a very distinct and clear recollection of 
 his fine conversational powers, and of his graceful, 
 easy manners. He made his company exceedingly 
 agreeable during all his stay in our house, espe- 
 cially by his entertaining and instructive talks 
 with the younger members of our family. I was 
 a student of medicine at that time and the gov- 
 ernor, who was a most accomplished physician 
 and surgeon, gave me many instructive lectures 
 and anecdotes derived from his own experi- 
 ences. 
 
 " He was very deeply interested in the establish- 
 ment of the university, and took a very active 
 part in all business matters relating to it."
 
 IO4 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 The second sketch which I reproduce of him at 
 this period is by a very different draughtsman. 
 Thomas Ashe, a typical Englishman of that day, 
 in 1804-6 made a tour of the United States, and 
 sent back to England for publication a series of 
 false and misdescriptive letters which apparently 
 were intended to discourage emigration from 
 Europe to America, by representing that our soil 
 was unproductive, our climate unendurable by 
 reason of its extremes of heat in summer and cold 
 in winter, which made good health impossible to 
 the unfortunate inhabitants ; that society, such as 
 there was of it, was ignorant, barbarous and brutal; 
 and that it was certainly true that in this country 
 human beings and brutes alike, coming from the 
 better and more healthful climate and conditions 
 of Europe, rapidly deteriorated physically, men- 
 tally and morally ; and that no destiny was possible 
 to the inhabitants of the United States but rever- 
 sion to savagery, rapid decay and ultimate ex- 
 tinction. 
 
 Ashe brought with him to Chillicothe a letter of 
 introduction to Governor Tiffin, and was invited to 
 a dinner where he met a number of State officials, 
 about whom he says nothing. He does say, how- 
 ever, that " most fortunately for the new State, its 
 governor is a plain, honest, well informed and very 
 religious man." He learned from the conversation 
 at table that the governor " was very much op-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 105 
 
 posed to the system of negro slavery, and was 
 most efficient in excluding it from Ohio." He also 
 discovered that a subject which lay near to the 
 governor's heart was " the improvement of the 
 penal code of the State, and the simplification of 
 law by dispensing with all technical and obsolete 
 words and phrases and redundancies of expression 
 to the end that common people could more readily 
 understand it." Ashe left the governor's presence 
 " much instructed and well pleased with the time 
 he had passed under his plain but hospitable roof." 
 
 All this my reader will probably think is very 
 commonplace and moderate praise of Tiffin, and so 
 it is ; but it was more nearly eulogy than Ashe 
 bestowed upon any other American whom he met 
 in all his travels in this country ; and I quote him 
 because he permits us to see and hear Tiffin for an 
 hour at his own table and among his own friends, 
 although it may be only through the description 
 and report of the bigoted and prejudiced foreigner, 
 as all of Ashe's letters show him to have been. 
 
 Tiffin's second term as Governor of Ohio was 
 now drawing to its close ; but before it ended the 
 General Assembly elected him to represent the 
 State in the Senate of the United States; in which 
 he thus became the successor of his brother-in-law, 
 Thomas Worthington, and had John Smith of 
 Hamilton County as his senatorial colleague. 
 
 Hon. Daniel J. Ryan, in his lately published
 
 IO6 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 history of Ohio, thus summarizes Tiffin's services as 
 governor : 
 
 " No man who has ever filled the gubernatorial 
 chair of Ohio, possessed a greater genius for the 
 administration of public affairs than Edward Tiffin. 
 His work in advancing and developing the State 
 has not been equalled by that of any man in its 
 history."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Tiffin takes His Seat in the United States Senate His Course 
 in the Senate His continued Opposition to Slavery 
 His Patriotism Votes for all War Measures Impeach- 
 ment of His Colleague in the Senate Death of Tiffin's 
 Wife He resigns from the Senate and retires to a 
 Farm. 
 
 THE first term of the Xth Congress of the 
 United States began on October 26, 1807. It was 
 a special, or extra, session convened by President 
 Jefferson, and upon that day, his credentials having 
 been presented by John Quincy Adams of Massa- 
 chusetts, Edward Tiffin took his seat as a member 
 of the most august legislative body in the world. 
 He had been elected to a full term of six years, 
 beginning March 4, 1807, but his senatorial career 
 was destined to be made brief by his own choice ; 
 yet, although brief, it was a busy one. No other 
 member of the Senate possessing his ability to win 
 popular applause, ever more modestly and quietly, 
 then nor since, acquiesced in and observed the Con- 
 gressional rule of etiquette which disapproves of 
 a new member taking prominent part in the public 
 debates of either body, yet none took a more active
 
 108 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 part in the equally effective but obscurer work in 
 the committee rooms, where legislation is originated 
 and shaped. 
 
 These committee rooms of the two branches of 
 Congress are to the open and public halls of the 
 Senate and House of Representatives as the work- 
 shops of the inventor and artisan are to the public 
 fair or exposition ; where the finished, burnished 
 and ornamented products of the shop without the 
 chips, fragments and debris of construction are 
 exhibited. In the one Tiffin was an industrious, 
 intelligent and skillful workman, although he did 
 not choose to pose as inventor, constructor or pro- 
 prietor in the other. 
 
 He was ever faithful to the interests of the West 
 and diligent in seeking the welfare of its inhabi- 
 tants. He procured an appropriation of public 
 money for the improvement of the Ohio River. 
 He secured better and speedier transportation of 
 the mails ; a better and more rapid system for the 
 surveys of western lands ; and urged such modi- 
 fication of the laws regarding sales of western land 
 as would, to use his own words, " guard the pur- 
 chasers of them from unnecessary embarrassments 
 and frequent ruin." 
 
 The annals of the Senate for that session show 
 that, for a new member, he was appointed upon an 
 extraordinary number of the committees, and was 
 made chairman of several special ones. On the 5th
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 1 09 
 
 of November he offered an amendment to the first 
 section of the Third Article of the Constitution of 
 the United States, by which amendment, had it 
 become a part of the Constitution (which fortu- 
 nately it did not, although it passed the Senate), 
 the judges of the Supreme and District Courts of 
 the United States would have been removable by 
 the President, " upon address of two-thirds of both 
 Houses of Congress requesting the same," and the 
 independence of that citadel of our republican 
 liberties would have been destroyed. 
 
 I have often wondered whether Tiffin did not 
 make this move at the suggestion of President 
 Jefferson, to whom, it is well known, some of the 
 justices of the then Supreme Court, and especially 
 the chief justice, John Marshall, were obnoxious. 
 There is no evidence, however, that such was the 
 fact. 
 
 On the 7th of November a communication from 
 the Governor of Indiana Territory, William H. 
 Harrison, was presented to the Senate by the Vice- 
 President, George Clinton, accompanied by reso- 
 lutions adopted by the Legislative Council and 
 House of Representatives of that Territory, which, 
 for the second time, asked that the Vlth clause of 
 the Ordinance of 1787 (prohibiting slavery in the 
 Territory forever) be suspended, and negro slavery 
 admitted temporarily. This communication, with 
 its accompanying papers, one of which was an
 
 HO LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 exceedingly strong protest, made by a portion of 
 the people of the Territory,* against granting the 
 prayer of the petitioners, was referred for a report 
 and recommendation to a committee consisting of 
 Senators Franklin, Kitchel and Tiffin. On the 
 1 3th this committee unanimously reported ad- 
 versely to the prayer of the Indiana Legislature, 
 and their report was adopted by the Senate. Tiffin 
 voted with the majority and thus again, as he had 
 upon every occasion of his life, he testified his 
 opposition to that system of domestic slavery 
 which John Wesley truly characterized as " the 
 sum of all villany." 
 
 On November i/th Tiffin offered a resolution 
 raising a committee to report to the Senate " what 
 alteration, if any, ought to be made in the act 
 establishing district courts in the States of Ken- 
 tucky, Tennessee and Ohio " ; and upon the adop- 
 tion of the motion, Tiffin, Anderson and Pope 
 were appointed upon the committee, with leave to 
 report by bill. Tiffin was appointed, November 
 26th, to examine and report upon certain claims 
 to preemption in public lands made by citizens of 
 Indiana Territory. Upon the second reading of a 
 bill to fortify the ports and harbors of the United 
 States and to build certain gunboats, he was, upon 
 motion, added to the committee which had that 
 
 * See Appendix C.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN III 
 
 subject in charge. This summary of his committee 
 work for the first two or three months of Tiffin's 
 membership in the Senate will indicate how busily 
 he was employed. 
 
 I have gone into these details, which I could 
 greatly extend, for the purpose of showing to the 
 reader that Edward Tiffin in the Senate of the 
 United States was the same laborious, industrious 
 man that he always was in every condition of his 
 life. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact of his having been 
 born and passing his youth in England, that he 
 had now become a thoroughly patriotic American 
 citizen is apparent from his votes as senator upon 
 all measures proposed which were intended to put 
 the United States in a condition of preparation for 
 a second struggle with that power. Such war, de- 
 spite all our endeavors to avert it, was growing 
 more imminent each day, and was finally formally 
 declared in June, 1812. 
 
 On December 1st Tiffin voted to interdict the 
 harbors and waters of the United States to all 
 armed British vessels, because of their frequent 
 outrages upon our vessels while exercising their 
 claim to search for deserters from their naval 
 service. These visitations, searches and empress- 
 ments were made in the most arrogant and insult- 
 ing manner possible. British ships and frigates 
 patrolled our coasts, entered our harbors and
 
 112 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 anchored defiantly in Hampton Roads and other 
 places for weeks at a time, for the purpose of com- 
 mitting them, and did commit them repeatedly; 
 the crowning outrage being the attack of the 
 British ship Leopard, carrying fifty guns, upon the 
 American frigate Chesapeake, carrying thirty guns 
 but unable to fire a single shot by reason of being 
 without essential equipments for working her arma- 
 ment. In this affair Commodore Barren was com- 
 pelled, after three of his men had been killed, 
 eighteen wounded, and his sails, rigging and masts 
 cut up by shot, to haul down his flag and offer to 
 surrender his vessel. The Chesapeake was visited, 
 searched " for deserters," and a number of her men 
 impressed ; but the commander of the Leopard re- 
 fused to take her in charge as a captured enemy.* 
 All this was hard to bear ; but upon the other 
 hand our young nation, not yet recuperated from 
 the long and exhaustive Revolutionary War, with- 
 out a navy, money or credit, very naturally hesi- 
 tated to declare war against the foremost naval 
 power of the world. 
 
 On the 2d of December Tiffin voted for an 
 energetic act to maintain the authority of the 
 United States in all ports, harbors and waters 
 within its jurisdiction. On the i8th of the same 
 month he voted for the " Embargo Act," from the 
 
 * See Appendix D.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 1.13 
 
 enactment of which such momentous consequences 
 resulted. In short, he invariably voted with the 
 most earnest and radical of the war faction in the 
 Senate. 
 
 An event of much interest to the people of 
 Ohio, and with which Tiffin was closely associated, 
 occurred on the 2/th of November of that year. 
 John Smith, his colleague in the Senate, had been 
 indicted by the Grand Jury of the District Court 
 of the United States for the District of Virginia, 
 sitting at Richmond, for complicity with Aaron 
 Burr and Herman Blennerhasset in treasonable 
 conspiracy and practices against the United States. 
 In consequence of failure to convict the principals 
 (who were acquitted by the jury upon a rule of 
 law charged by the court, and not because the 
 jury believed them guiltless of the treason charged), 
 Smith had not been put upon trial. November 
 27th, in the Senate, Mr. Maclay of Pennsylvania 
 offered a resolution which aimed at the expulsion 
 of Smith from the Senate, but immediately with- 
 drew it to make way for one offered by Mr. Thrus- 
 ton of Kentucky to the same purport. This latter 
 read as follows : 
 
 "Resolved: That a committee be appointed to 
 inquire whether it be compatible with the honor 
 and privileges of this House that John Smith, a 
 senator from the State of Ohio, against whom bills
 
 114 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 of indictment were found at the Circuit Court of 
 Virginia, held at Richmond in August last, for 
 treason and misdemeanor, should be permitted 
 any longer to have a seat therein ; and that the 
 committee do inquire into all the facts regarding 
 the conduct of Mr. Smith as an alleged associate 
 of Aaron Burr, and report the same to the Senate." 
 
 This motion was carried without a division. 
 Upon the adoption of the foregoing resolution, 
 Mr. Tiffin arose and, with a few words of introduc- 
 tion, read to the Senate the following communica- 
 tion which he had just received from Mr. Smith : 
 
 " WASHINGTON, Nov. 27^, 1807. 
 
 "Dear Sir ; Just having heard that a motion is 
 pending in the Senate to appoint a committee to 
 inquire into certain charges exhibited against me 
 at Richmond, Va., by the late Grand Jury, I beg 
 you, sir, to assure the Senate in my name that 
 nothing will afford me more pleasure than to have 
 a public investigation of the said charges and an 
 opportunity to vindicate my innocence ; and I beg 
 you, sir, from your seat to make this statement. I 
 
 am, dear sir, 
 
 " Respectfully yours, 
 
 "JOHN SMITH." 
 " HON. MR. TIFFIN."
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 1 15 
 
 The committee raised upon the resolution of 
 Mr. Thruston worked long and industriously upon 
 the investigation committed to them, gathering 
 documentary evidence and examining witnesses 
 the accused senator being present and allowed to 
 cross-examine. Among the witnesses Tiffin was 
 examined and cross-examined. They spent more 
 than three months in this work, and then made a 
 report to the Senate, stating the testimony very 
 fairly pro and con, but concluding with this reso- 
 lution : 
 
 " That John Smith, a senator from the State of 
 Ohio, by his participation in the conspiracy of 
 Aaron Burr against the peace, union and liberties 
 of the people of the United States has been guilty 
 of conduct incompatible with his duty and station 
 as a senator of the United States ; and that he be 
 therefore, and hereby is, expelled from the Senate 
 of the United States." 
 
 The documents submitted with the report were 
 very voluminous. Among them was the statement 
 of Mr. Smith in his own defense, which filled 
 ninety-six pages of manuscript. The matter was 
 then debated in the Senate at great length, and 
 many motions were made and voted upon during 
 the debate. Tiffin took no part in the discussion
 
 Il6 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and declined to vote upon any of the interlocutory 
 questions, but on the final question he voted with 
 the nineteen who voted for expulsion. He was a 
 stern judge when criminal conduct was charged, 
 and, believing the allegations to be true, he would 
 have voted as he did had his brother been the 
 person on trial. 
 
 Ten senators voted for acquittal, and as it re- 
 quired two-thirds of those voting to expel a sena- 
 tor, Mr. Smith barely escaped that ignominy; but 
 realizing that his position in the Senate would 
 thenceforward be intolerable, he resigned the seat 
 in a long exculpatory letter to Mr. Kirker, the act- 
 ing Governor of Ohio. This letter reveals the fact 
 that the General Assembly of his own State had 
 demanded his resignation. 
 
 On the I2th day of December, 1808, the General 
 Assembly of Ohio elected Return Jonathan Meigs, 
 Jr., to the Senate of the United States to fill the 
 unexpired portion of the term of John Smith, and 
 on the next day also elected him to a full term to 
 follow at the close of the fractional term, i.e., from 
 March 4, 1809. 
 
 On the first day of July, 1808, Senator Tiffin's 
 wife died. 
 
 Such bereavement, although so common in 
 human experience, is nevertheless, to a tender, 
 affectionate and sympathetic nature such as Edward 
 Tiffin's was, the most crushing and disheartening
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 1 1/ 
 
 calamity that could happen at least until " Time, 
 the unfailing healer," has gradually modified the 
 anguish and, mayhap, even metamorphosed it to 
 the calm and gentle emotion of pleasurable remem- 
 brance of happy associations in the past years of 
 life. 
 
 In the first paroxysms of his grief, longing for 
 the society and sympathy of his intimate friends 
 in Ohio, Tiffin resigned the office of senator at the 
 close of that session of Congress and returned to 
 his western home. He had previously purchased a 
 large and fertile tract of land located in Union 
 Township of Ross County, upon which he had built 
 a comfortable residence and otherwise improved ; 
 and thither he went with his aged mother, endeav- 
 oring to forget public cares and his own bereave- 
 ment by employing himself with the improvement 
 and cultivation of his farm. But this comparatively 
 dull and monotonous life was ill suited to his tem- 
 perament, and it was continued but for a few 
 months. He could not if he would and I believe 
 he would not if he could refrain from taking part 
 in the politics of the day, especially such questions 
 as peculiarly affected the interests of the State of 
 Ohio.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Tiffin's Second Marriage Again elected to the Legislature 
 in Time to vote for His Own Successor in the Senate 
 Again chosen Speaker Reelected to the General 
 Assembly in 1810 and once more chosen Speaker 
 Again returns to His Farm for a Brief Period Ap- 
 pointed Commissioner of Public Lands by President 
 Madison Organizes the General Land Office of the 
 United States The Insults and Aggressions of England 
 provoke Americans Declaration of War The Capture 
 of Washington City by the British Burning of the 
 Capital Tiffin preserves the Records of His Department 
 The Panic in Washington. 
 
 ON the 1 6th day of April, 1809, Tiffin, unsuited 
 and unfit to continue the solitary life he was then 
 living, filled the " aching void " in his heart by en- 
 tering into a second marriage. This wife was Miss 
 Mary Porter, a young, handsome and accomplished 
 lady, then lately from the State of Delaware, whose 
 brothers had settled in Ross County and owned, 
 and resided upon, the beautiful farm near the village 
 of Bourneville, which is now known as the Jephtha 
 Perrel farm. Tiffin made no mistake in selecting 
 this second mistress for his heart and home. All 
 voices of venerable people yet living who knew her
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 1 19 
 
 in life unite in praise of her in all the various rela- 
 tions of wife, mother, friend and neighbor. 
 
 At the State general election which occurred in 
 October, 1809, Tiffin was elected a representative 
 for Ross County, to fill a vacancy which had oc- 
 curred in the delegation from that county in the 
 General Assembly. He had resigned his seat in 
 the United States Senate during the summer recess 
 of the Ohio Legislature, and was now a member of 
 the latter body in time to vote for his own succes- 
 sor! It is true that Governor Huntington had, 
 immediately after Tiffin's resignation, appointed 
 Stanley Griswold to the position; but that appoint- 
 ment held good only until the General Assembly 
 convened and elected a senator. 
 
 Alexander Campbell of Brown County, was 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives when 
 Tiffin took his seat in it. On the I ith of December 
 the General Assembly elected Campbell to the 
 Senate of the United States for a full term of six 
 years; he immediately resigned his place as speaker, 
 and Tiffin was, on the second ballot, chosen to 
 succeed him. Thus Tiffin literally voluntarily ex- 
 changed the office of Senator of the United States 
 for that of Speaker of the House of Representa- 
 tives of Ohio ! In this transaction he has never 
 had an imitator. 
 
 In the succeeding January, and while serving as 
 Speaker of this eighth General Assembly, Tiffin,
 
 120 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 then forty-four years of age, for the first time ex- 
 perienced the ecstatic joy of paternity, a daughter 
 having been born to him. 
 
 Moved either by strong attachment to the State 
 he had so conspicuously assisted in creating, and 
 the belief that he could further promote its inter- 
 ests and prosperity ; or with singular liking for 
 the office he had so frequently held, he was again 
 elected to the House of Representatives of the 
 ninth General Assembly in October, 1810, and 
 once more was chosen speaker of that body. When 
 one recalls the extraordinary fact that Tiffin was 
 chosen to preside over every deliberative body o-f 
 which he was a member two Territorial Legisla- 
 tures, two State General Assemblies and the Con- 
 stitutional Convention one must conclude that he 
 possessed very unusual abilities for such positions ; 
 and his descendants have the right to boast that he 
 was, in his day, the most popular citizen of Ohio. 
 
 At the close of this term of office he again retired 
 to his farm in Union Township, with the renewed 
 determination to maintain thenceforth the status 
 of a private citizen and Scioto Valley farmer, varied 
 only by filling, whenever and wherever his services 
 as a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church were demanded, the pulpits of any of the 
 small but rapidly growing societies of that denomi- 
 nation of Christians in Ross County. Many of 
 these he had himself originally organized. He
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 121 
 
 also intended giving his neighboring fellow-citizens 
 the benefits of his medical skill. A very few 
 months, however, brought all these bucolic pur- 
 poses and dreams to an end. 
 
 James Madison was inaugurated President of the 
 United States on the 4th of March, 1809. While 
 Secretary of State in Jefferson's administration, Mr. 
 Madison had become acquainted with Tiffin and had 
 recognized his abilities. During the latter's service 
 in the Senate that acquaintance had ripened into in- 
 timacy and warm friendship upon both sides; conse- 
 quently when Congress passed an act in April, 1812, 
 providing for the organization of a General Land 
 Office of the United States, to be administered by 
 a " Commissioner of Public Lands," the President 
 very promptly, and without solicitation from Tiffin, 
 or from any person in his behalf, conferred the 
 newly-created office upon him, and the Senate im- 
 mediately confirmed the appointment without the 
 usual reference to a committee. Tiffin accepted 
 the appointment and, accompanied by his wife 
 and infant daughter, removed to Washington City* 
 
 * Edward Tiffin's name appears in the military annals of Ross 
 County as a volunteer in the company of Captain Henry Brush, 
 which marched to the relief of General Hull's army in April, 1812. 
 Governor Tiffin being at that time in Washington, this is certainly 
 a mistake ; and as his brother Joseph Tiffin was in that command, 
 it is probable that his name was intended.
 
 122 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and at once entered upon the duties of the office 
 which has since grown into the vast Department 
 of the Interior. 
 
 With his habitual industry and zeal, he applied 
 all his powers as an organizer to the task assigned 
 him ; and soon, with the aid of well-selected and 
 ably-directed assistants, brought order out of what 
 had thitherto been a veritable chaos. Explora- 
 tions, surveys, maps and reports regarding the 
 public lands and territorial domains were then 
 scattered through the archives and files of nearly 
 all the bureaus of every department of the govern- 
 ment, especially of the State and War Depart- 
 ments ; and these were all to be hunted up, col- 
 lated, digested and recorded so as to be made 
 accessible and convenient for reference and use. 
 Eighteen months of unremitting labor enabled 
 Tiffin to complete the work of organization and 
 submit his first report at the beginning of the 
 XHIth Congress, in December, 1813. 
 
 This report was really the first comprehensive 
 exhibit of the national domain, its quantities, 
 qualities, minerals and values, ever compiled, and 
 its worth and importance to the country has been 
 very great. 
 
 The insults and aggressions of England upon our 
 national flag and shipping having become intoler- 
 able, the long deferred declaration of war against
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 123 
 
 that power was made in June, 1812, immediately 
 after Tiffin had assumed the duties of his new 
 office ; and, of course, the hurly-burly and excite- 
 ment resultant at the capital made his task the 
 more difficult and laborious. 
 
 In August, 1814, the British Admiral Sir George 
 Cockburn, with his squadron, consisting of twenty 
 vessels of war, including Admiral Sir Alexander 
 Cochrane's command, beside transports carrying 
 four thousand veteran infantry, commanded by 
 Major-General Ross, entered Chesapeake Bay and 
 began the series of operations which, on the twenty- 
 fourth of that month, culminated in the disgraceful 
 rout at Bladensburg of three thousand two hun- 
 dred American militia, commanded by the incom- 
 petent General William H. Winder, and the capture 
 of Washington City on the same day. 
 
 In that disastrous affair very few Americans 
 gathered laurels ; of those who did were Commo- 
 dore Barney and his five hundred marines, who 
 made a glorious resistance to the British advance, 
 and inflicted a loss upon the enemy that exceeded 
 all the casualties of the American forces. Bar- 
 ney and Colonel Miller, in fact, did all the fighting 
 that was done by the American forces that day; 
 even though it was evident that with British suc- 
 cess the capital of the United States must fall into 
 their hands. Barney's marines had utterly ex- 
 hausted their ammunition, and they were forced to
 
 124 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 retreat by inexorable necessity. His horse was 
 killed, and himself severely wounded, and so the 
 brave old Commodore was taken prisoner. 
 
 Of course, it was well known in Washington that 
 a battle must occur on that day, and the President, 
 the Secretary of War, General Armstrong; the 
 Secretary of State, Colonel Monroe ; and the At 
 torney-General, Mr. Rush, gallantly mounted steeds 
 and galloped to the field. 
 
 What they did when they arrived there is frankly 
 told by Mr. Madison himself in Volume III., page 
 424, of the Madison Papers : 
 
 " When we arrived, the battle had decidedly 
 commenced and I (i.e., the President) observed to 
 the Secretary of War and Secretary of State that 
 it would be proper for us to withdraw to a position 
 in the rear, where we could act as circumstances 
 required." 
 
 This proposition met with the cordial approval 
 of each of the party, and they promptly turned 
 their horses' heads and galloped to the rear. " Cir- 
 cumstances required " them to continue galloping 
 in the same direction, and very soon afterward the 
 " Bladensburg Races " were hotly in progress, with 
 the presidential party making the pace, in the lead ! 
 
 What a glorious opportunity for fame was then
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 125 
 
 and there missed by James Madison and the mem- 
 bers of his cabinet! Barney and his marines had 
 twice checked and staggered the advancing enemy; 
 and an inspiring word or a brave example on the 
 part of the President or any one of the President's 
 party (whose personalities were probably known 
 and recognized by the hesitating and inactive 
 militia, gathered, as they largely were, from the 
 city of Washington) would have sent them solidly 
 to the support of the old hero and doubtless 
 changed the issue of the day, saved millions of 
 treasure to the government, and, above all, pre- 
 vented the great black blot which the results of 
 that day's fight have affixed to the military record of 
 our country. Instead, the "Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Army and Navy of the United States " was 
 the first to fly, and thereby, doubtless, infected 
 the undisciplined militia with cowardly panic. Oh, 
 that James Madison had been of such stuff as were 
 his successors in the presidential office Jackson, 
 Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Hayes, 
 or the younger Harrison ! Then would not have 
 happened the " Bladensburg Races," nor the burn- 
 ing of the capital of the United States ! 
 
 Mrs. " Dolly " Madison had been left in the 
 White House while her husband rode to the field 
 of battle. At three o'clock that afternoon she 
 heard of the shameful defeat, and collecting of 
 cabinet papers and documents, "as many as would
 
 126 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 fill one carriage," says one contemporary writer, 
 "and returning to cut from its frame and thus save 
 Stuart's magnificent portrait of Washington, she 
 fled, in female attire other than her own, to George- 
 town and thence to a tavern on the Virginia shore, 
 at which she and her husband had arranged to 
 meet if worst came to worst." The President was 
 at least thoughtfully prudent. 
 
 Ingersoll graphically describes the consternation 
 which seized the inhabitants of the city when it 
 was known that Ross and his army were approach- 
 ing: 
 
 " The universal effort was to escape from unde- 
 fined and exaggerated horrors. Save the women ! 
 Save the children ! was the cry on all sides, yet 
 selfishness predominated, in most cases, over the 
 ethics of kinship and sense of decorum. Women 
 went into hysterics and convulsions ; children 
 screamed with fear ; men were paralyzed ; servants 
 and slaves fled in every direction." 
 
 Some elderly readers of this memoir perhaps 
 lived in the path of John Morgan's raid through 
 southern Ohio in July, 1864. To such, memory 
 will obviate the necessity of describing a panic re- 
 sulting from the passage of a hostile army through 
 an unprepared and unexpectant community.
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN I2/ 
 
 Honor is due to the memory of Mrs. Madison for 
 the courage and self-possession which enabled her 
 to save a carriage load of state papers and that 
 priceless portrait if she did save them ; but alas ! 
 the iconoclast of intellectual idols has aimed a 
 crushing blow at this pretty tradition of Mrs. Madi- 
 son having thus saved Washington's portrait.* 
 But I choose to believe it yet ! 
 
 However that may be, we have the best of evi- 
 dence that Commissioner Tiffin, correctly anticipat- 
 ing the purposes of the invading force, and rightly 
 estimating the results of the struggle between raw 
 militia and disciplined veteran troops, quietly but 
 effectively took measures to save the entire records 
 of the Land Department of the United States ; 
 and they were the only records saved in their en- 
 tirety from the torch of the British vandals upon 
 that occasion. That they were saved is palpable, 
 for they are in their places in Washington now. 
 How they were saved is told by the late Samuel 
 Williams, Commissioner Tiffin's clerk at that time, 
 and an actor in the matters he describes. He 
 wrote, fifty years ago, that 
 
 " Tiffin, by prompt and efficient measures, suc- 
 ceeded in removing the entire contents of his 
 offices to a safe place of concealment in Loudon 
 
 * See Appendix E.
 
 128 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 County, Virginia, about ten miles out of Washing- 
 ton City; and while every other department of the 
 government suffered great losses of their records, 
 he thus saved all the invaluable documents and 
 records of the Land Department."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Tiffin exchanges the Office of Commissioner of General 
 Land Office for that of Surveyor-General of the North- 
 west Returns to Chillicothe Settles down to a Quiet 
 but Busy Life Supports Henry Clay for President in 
 1824 His Failing Health Is removed from Office by 
 President Jackson Tiffin's Death soon follows. 
 
 EDWARD TIFFIN had but little relish for the 
 restraints and formalities of official life in the na- 
 tional capital. I think this fact had much influence 
 in inducing him to resign his seat in the United 
 States Senate. He often spoke of feeling " home- 
 sick for Ohio," and within two or three months 
 after the events narrated in the foregoing pages he 
 had perfected a scheme by which, with the kindly 
 consent and assistance of President Madison, he 
 exchanged the office of Commissioner of the Gen- 
 eral Land Office for that of Surveyor-General of 
 the Northwest, then held by Josiah Meigs, Esq., 
 of Cincinnati, who gladly accepted the proffered 
 trade of positions. Tiffin also obtained permission 
 to remove the headquarters of the surveyor-gen- 
 eral's office to Chillicothe. These arrangements 
 having been perfected, Tiffin lost no time in 
 carrying them out. Such household effects as he 
 9
 
 I3O LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 desired to remove were soon packed in wagons and 
 sent away, while he, with his wife and two young 
 daughters, followed in the family carriage. After 
 a tedious journey of fourteen days, they, with glad 
 hearts, reentered the stone mansion at the north- 
 east corner of Water and High Streets, in the little 
 town of Chillicothe, and were surrounded by wel- 
 coming relatives and friends. 
 
 At that time the confederated hostile Indian 
 tribes, under the leadership of Tecumseh, made 
 the prosecution of surveys in the Northwest impos- 
 sible, and the lull in that work gave Tiffin oppor- 
 tunity to remove the general office from Cincin- 
 nati to Chillicothe and to familiarize himself with 
 the new duties he had assumed. He had brought 
 with him from Washington his attached friend and 
 favorite employee, Mr. Samuel Williams, whose 
 abilities and industry as chief clerk greatly facili- 
 tated and lightened Tiffin's labors, not only at this 
 period, but to the end of his life. Having fitted up 
 an office almost contiguous to his residence, posted 
 himself in the duties of surveyor-general, and famil- 
 iarized himself with the pending business of the 
 office, Governor Tiffin settled quietly down to rou- 
 tine work, and, resuming his volunteered services to 
 the Methodist Church and the gratuitous practice 
 of medicine for such poor patients as called upon 
 him for assistance, he passed the succeeding years 
 of his continued health in tranquil peace and un-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 131 
 
 alloyed happiness. With his affectionate wife and 
 increasing family of dutiful children illuminating 
 his home, surrounded by warm and appreciative 
 friends, and often visited by the most honored of 
 the nation (among whom was James Monroe while 
 President), his was, during those years, almost an 
 ideal life.* 
 
 He continued in the office of surveyor-general 
 for nearly fifteen years, covered by the presiden- 
 tial terms of James Madison, James Monroe, and 
 John Quincy Adams, and Mr. Williams states 
 that he received the approving compliments of 
 each one of these, expressed through the Treasury 
 Department, to which he reported upon the con- 
 duct of his office. 
 
 As I have before stated, Tiffin had been an ar- 
 dent friend and staunch supporter of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson. He continued to be a zealous Democratic- 
 Republican and to take a lively interest in politics 
 until the Federalist party ceased to exist as an 
 organized and contending political faction, and the 
 " era of harmony and good feeling " prevailed in 
 all the nation, during the administration of Mon- 
 roe. From thenceforward he contented himself 
 with simply depositing in the ballot-box his prefer- 
 ences among candidates. In 1824 Andrew Jack- 
 son, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Wil- 
 
 * See Appendix F.
 
 132 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 liam H. Crawford were each supported by their 
 personal admirers for the presidential office, with 
 scarce a pretense that any candidate was the espe- 
 cial representative of a distinctive national policy. 
 Nevertheless a great deal of feeling was evoked by 
 the contest, and this was greatly intensified when, 
 in consequence of the failure of the Electoral Col- 
 lege to give a majority of votes to either candidate, 
 the House of Representatives, by the combination 
 of the friends of Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, gave 
 the presidential office to Mr. Adams. 
 
 Governor Tiffin was thought to have voted for 
 Mr. Clay at that time ; whether he authorized the 
 belief I cannot now ascertain. In the contest of 
 1828 between Jackson and Adams, which resulted 
 in the election of Jackson, Tiffin was so far ad- 
 vanced in his last illness that he was unable to 
 leave his bed, and consequently did not vote at all. 
 But non-support was as offensive to Jackson as 
 opposition ; and Tiffin was soon to learn that fact. 
 
 He had been subject for some years to paroxysms 
 of nervous headache, and these seemed to grow 
 more and more intense with his increasing age, 
 finally causing great disturbance of the whole ner- 
 vous system. It is said by his relatives that he had 
 suffered, for some five or six years prior to his de- 
 cease, with a distressing fistula upon which no sur- 
 geon of that day dared to operate. From one or 
 the other of these causes perhaps from both com-
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 133 
 
 bined he was now fast hastening to the end of his 
 earthly career when, on the first day of July, 1829, 
 General William Lytle of Cincinnati appeared at 
 his bedside and laid before him the commission of 
 Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, 
 making him, Lytle, Surveyor-General of the North- 
 west ; also an order from the department to Tiffin 
 commanding him to turn over to Lytle, as his suc- 
 cessor, the office and its belongings. This was 
 promptly done, together with some five thousand 
 dollars of unexpended money then on hand, and 
 just six weeks later, on Sunday evening, August 9, 
 1829, Edward Tiffin, conscious to the last moment, 
 and having lived sixty-three years and two months, 
 peacefully and calmly breathed his last breath 
 amid a circle of weeping relatives and friends. 
 
 Few persons have gone to death by a more pain- 
 ful and difficult path than was his ; but he trod it 
 with the courage, resignation and unwavering faith 
 of a Christian hero. 
 
 The faithful Williams, who was present at the 
 supreme moment, wrote a few days later: "He has 
 long been conscious of approaching death ; and 
 contemplated that event not only calmly, but with 
 joyous anticipation of exchanging mortal sufferings 
 for angelic happiness." 
 
 The Scioto Gazette of August 12, 1829, contains 
 an obituary notice and account of the funeral, 
 which took place upon the afternoon of the loth
 
 134 LIFE OF EDWARD TIFFIN 
 
 and was attended by all of the prominent citizens 
 of the town and surrounding country. The edito- 
 rial, after brief recountal of his life and public ser- 
 vices, summarizes his character with the statement 
 that " in all the various relations of parent, hus- 
 band, neighbor and citizen he has been rarely 
 equalled and never excelled. As a public servant 
 he was inflexibly just, upright, independent and 
 firm an honest and conscientious man." 
 
 His remains now rest under a fitting marble 
 monument in the beautiful cemetery known as 
 Grandview, upon a hill just south of and overlook- 
 ing the city of Chillicothe, where also are interred 
 the bodies of three other governors of Ohio 
 Thomas Worthington, Duncan McArthur and Wil- 
 liam Allen and the remains of Nathaniel Massie, 
 Thomas Scott, William Creighton and many others 
 of Edward Tiffin's contemporaries, close friends 
 and co-laborers in the great events which shaped 
 the destinies of magnificent Ohio ; and whose 
 tombs are often the objective points of reverential 
 pilgrims from abroad.
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 EXISTING PORTRAITS OF GOVERNOR TIFFIN 
 
 IT is much regretted by the descendants and relatives of 
 Governor Tiffin that no good portrait of him is in existence. 
 The only one taken from life is a miniature in profile which, 
 while it is tolerably accurate in preserving the outline of his 
 features, utterly fails to give his characteristic expression and 
 the contour of his head (which was large and full, especially 
 in the measurements from forehead to occiput) as represented 
 by all of his familiar friends who have left descriptions of him. 
 
 Mr. Williams describes him as being "about five feet six 
 or seven inches in height; of pretty heavy body and compar- 
 atively light limbs; his head large; face full, round and 
 florid; hair thin, and early becoming bald in front; and his 
 countenance one of the most expressive I have ever seen, 
 especially when animated. He was remarkable for the activ- 
 ity and quickness of his movements." Mr. Williams also 
 says of the miniature portrait (from which all other alleged 
 portraits, including the engraved one herein used as a front- 
 ispiece, have been copied) : "It altogether fails to give the 
 striking and fine expressions of the features of the original/' 
 The late Hon. Allen Latham, in a letter to Dr. Comegys, 
 written about twenty-five years ago, corroboratively says: 
 
 "My recollections of Governor Tiffin are : that he was of 
 medium height ; rather portly ; large head and full, florid 
 face of English type. That his gestures when speaking were
 
 136 APPENDIX A 
 
 very graceful ; and that he possessed a most musical voice. 
 The then young ladies and gentlemen of Chillicothe flocked 
 to hear him preach or read the Episcopal service ; as he often 
 did when that church had no rector ; although he was a 
 Methodist. All citizens regarded him as one of the best of 
 men. He was exceedingly kind to young people. If he had 
 any enemies, I never knew of them. I regarded him as the 
 most accomplished gentleman I have ever seen." 
 
 His surviving daughters fully coincide with these criticisms 
 upon the portrait and the copies from it.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON STATE RIGHTS AND THE 
 REBELLION 
 
 HAVING published in the Chillicothe Leader, in 1888, a 
 brief sketch of Edward Tiffin's life in the course of which 
 paper I had alluded to the subjects with which this note is 
 headed there appeared in the next issue of said newspaper 
 the following communication : 
 
 "COLONEL GlLMORE CORRECTED. 
 
 " [The following interesting communication has been sent 
 to the Leader for publication. It is from the pen of one of 
 Chillicothe's learned students of history, and is a timely con- 
 tribution. It will, of course, receive Colonel Gilmore's atten- 
 tion.] 
 
 "Editors Leader : Colonel W. E. Gilmore, in his 'Tiffin 
 Memoir,' says : ' Mr. Jefferson was undoubtedly the author, 
 as he was the especial champion, of the State's Rights resolu- 
 tions of Kentucky and Virginia the famous resolutions of 
 798 and 1799. By them, and the resulting deduc- 
 tions, Mr. Jefferson sowed the dragon teeth which sprang up 
 armed men, both North and South, in 1861.' 
 
 " I inquire if Colonel Gilmore's political prejudices against 
 Mr. Jefferson have not led him into error? Thomas Jefferson 
 was the statesman of his age. He was not perfect, but as an 
 ardent patriot was as near perfection as any man then living.
 
 138 APPENDIX B 
 
 He went to Europe and studied the virtues and vices of their 
 governments, and was a powerful agent in constructing our 
 own government. To him, more than to any other one man, 
 are we now indebted for a wise, self-sustaining and permanent 
 government. His ideas pervade every part of our National 
 Constitution. 
 
 " True, he was a State 's Rights, or people's man, in oppo- 
 sition to the strong centralized government desired by the 
 Federalists of the Hamilton type. He wanted a government 
 of the people, by the people, and for the people. He hated 
 aristocracy and despotism in every form. 
 
 " Jefferson drew the Declaration of Independence, secured 
 the abolition of the English law of entails and primogeniture, 
 in Virginia ; and the restrictions on religious freedom ; secured 
 the separation of Church and State, labored (though a slave- 
 holder himself) for the abolition of the slave trade and the 
 prohibition of slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio 
 River ; earnestly advocated emancipation in Virginia, and, 
 as President, purchased Louisiana from France. While 
 President he placated his political opponents ; made few 
 removals from office ; refused office to all his relatives ; reduced 
 the courtly manners of the prior administrations to a repub- 
 lican simplicity, and trousers took the place of gaudy knee- 
 breeches. He was a model man and President. 
 
 " But that he was the author or the especial champion of 
 the State's Rights Resolutions of '98 is news to me ! I have 
 always heard James Madison named as their author. From 
 a short life of each President now before me, written in 1880, 
 I make the following extract : 
 
 " ' In the beginning of John Adams' (federal) administra- 
 tion, the passage of the Alien and Sedition Act by the (federal) 
 Congress gave rise to vigorous protests from the Legislatures 
 of Kentucky and Virginia. The latter are known in history
 
 APPENDIX B 139 
 
 as the resolutions of 1798-99, and were drawn by Madison, 
 though not a member of the Legislature. They now stand 
 among the highest authorities on constitutional construction. 
 Animadversions upon them drew from Madison, the following 
 winter, a report in which he fortifies the positions taken in the 
 resolutions, by a State paper of signal vigor and exhaustive 
 analysis of the reason and philosophy of the resolutions. 
 Though few of the States followed the bold stand of Virginia, 
 the act of Congress (the alien and sedition act) which called 
 out the resolutions, speedily fell into disrepute and was 
 repealed, and the legal position assumed by Madison became, 
 a few years later, the settled law of public opinion.' 
 
 " I may be in error as to the authorship ; if so, I await cor- 
 rection. Mr. Jefferson was too good a man to have the sins 
 of others saddled upon him. X. Y. Z." 
 
 To which criticism I replied in the following communica- 
 tion, which I reprint because of the collocation of authorities 
 upon the subjects involved : 
 
 " Editors of the Leader : X., Y. and Z. are the constantly 
 used algebraic forms to express unknown quantities ; and my 
 anonymous critic very appropriately adopts them as his nom 
 de plume, 
 
 " His contention is, that by reason of my ' political preju- 
 dices ' I have misstated the historical facts in alleging, first : 
 that Thomas Jefferson was the author and especial champion 
 of the Kentucky State's Rights Resolutions of 1798 and the 
 Virginia Resolutions of 1799 (which were to the same effect) ; 
 and that, secondly, he (Jefferson) thereby sowed the seeds of 
 the Great Rebellion of 1861-65. 
 
 "As to the question of authorship: Sullivan's Public Men 
 of the Revolution, page 311, says : ' Jefferson boasted of hav- 
 ing been the author of the Kentucky Resolutions.'
 
 I4O APPENDIX B 
 
 "I am confident X. Y. Z. will revere my next authority : 
 ' . . . The famous (State's Rights) Resolutions drawn in 
 1798 by Mr. Jefferson and adopted by the Kentucky Legisla- 
 ture, etc., etc.' (Jefferson Davis' Rise and Fall of the Con- 
 federate Government, Vol. I., page 188.) 
 
 "Von Hoist, in his accurate Constitutional and Political 
 History of the United States, says in Vol. I., page 149, that 
 ' among Jefferson's papers were found two copies of the 
 original draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, in his own 
 handwriting. 1 
 
 " And finally and conclusively I quote from the Works of 
 Thomas Jefferson, Vol. VII., page 229, in which, referring to 
 those Kentucky Resolutions, Mr. Jefferson says : ' I drew and 
 delivered them to Mr. G. Nicholas, and in keeping their 
 origin secret he fulfilled his pledge of honor. Some years 
 afterward Colonel Nicholas asked me if I would have any ob- 
 jection to its being known that I had drawn them. But I 
 pointedly enjoined that it should not be known.' 
 
 " That ought to be conclusive as to the authorship of the 
 Kentucky Resolutions ! 
 
 " Now as to the authorship of the Virginia Resolutions 
 (which were to the same purport and effect as those passed by 
 the Kentucky Legislature, although varied somewhat in the 
 wording), passed in December, 1798, and reaffirmed in 1799. 
 That Jefferson procured Madison to recast the Kentucky 
 Resolutions and have them passed by the Virginia Legisla- 
 ture, is, I think, clearly proven by the letter of the former to 
 the latter, dated November 17, 1798, in which he said: 'I 
 enclose to you a draft of the Kentucky Resolutions. I think 
 we should distinctly affirm all the important principles they 
 contain, so as to hold that ground, etc., etc.' (Jefferson's 
 Works, Vol. IV., page 25.) 
 
 "The Virginia Resolutions were passed by the Legislature 
 j ust a month later than the date of that letter.
 
 APPENDIX B 141 
 
 "But why does my anonymous critic rush into print to 
 deny or question that his evident political idol was the author 
 of declarations which he says ' now stand among the highest 
 authorities on constitutional constructions ' ? 
 
 "My own opinion is that the Boys in Blue reversed the 
 Jeffersonian constructions of the Constitution in regard to 
 State's Rights in 1861-65. 
 
 " If now I have sufficiently proved that Jefferson was the 
 author of those State's Rights Resolutions, the remaining 
 question is, did he therein 'sow the dragon teeth, etc.' or 
 to be plainer and less classical, did he thereby become respon- 
 sible for the Civil War of 1861-65 ? Upon this point I again 
 quote from his namesake and follower, the most conspicuous 
 promoter of that war, the President of the so-called Confeder- 
 ate States Jefferson Davis. Note his logical argument from 
 the premises of those resolutions : If the Union were a com- 
 pact ; if it were a confederacy ; if the States as States did 
 severally accede to it, then the sovereignty of each State and 
 the right to secede from the Union is clearly deducible. 
 (Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. I., page 
 137, et sequitur.} 
 
 "Von Hoist asserts that the two drafts of the Kentucky 
 Resolutions which were found among Jefferson's papers after 
 his death, and which were in his own handwriting, contained 
 this further resolution which, apparently, both Mr. Nicholas 
 and Mr. Madison eliminated from them before their adop- 
 tion by the legislatures of their respective States : 
 
 " ' Resolved : That when the General Government assumes 
 powers which have not been delegated to it, nullification of 
 the Act is the rightful remedy ; and every State has a natural 
 right, in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own 
 authority all assumptions of power by others, within its lim- 
 its.' ( Von Hoist's History, etc., as above, Vol. I., page 149.) 
 And this historian adds, ' That Jefferson was not only the
 
 142 APPENDIX B 
 
 advocate but the father of nullification is thus well estab- 
 lished.' 
 
 "Did, or could, John C. Calhoun state the treasonable 
 doctrine, for which glorious ' Old Hickory ' threatened to 
 hang him in 1832, clearer or stronger than did Jefferson in 
 these original drafts ? 
 
 "And that Thomas Jefferson fully understood the logic of 
 these resolutions, and intended the results" which followed 
 their adoption, is evident from his letter to his intimate per- 
 sonal and political friend, Mr. Madison, from which I quoted 
 one paragraph above ( Works, Vol. IV., page 25), in which he 
 continues : ' I think we should distinctly affirm all the im- 
 portant principles they contain, so as to hold that ground in 
 the ^future, and leave the matter in such a train as that we 
 may not be committed absolutely to push the matter to ex- 
 tremities, and yet be free to push as far as events will render 
 prudent.' 
 
 " In the same spirit and even more .direct language he 
 wrote to his friend, John Taylor of Virginia, as early as June, 
 1798 : ' While it would not be wise to proceed immediately to 
 a disruption of the Union when party passion is at its height, 
 ... the time has come when these principles ' (/. e., the 
 principles contained in the Kentucky Resolutions as he had 
 expressed them) ' should be distinctly .formulated and offi- 
 cially proclaimed. Not to do this now would be to run the 
 risk of being carried away by the current of facts to such a 
 distance that it would be difficult and perhaps impossible to 
 get hold of them again. But on the other hand if it is done, 
 everything further may be calmly waited for, and the policy 
 of expediency again brought into the foreground.' 
 
 "What did, what could this mean but ' let us now put this slow 
 but certain and deadly poison into the body politic of the United 
 States Government, and then calmly await results.' Results 
 very nearly came in 1832, and did come in 1861 ! What
 
 APPENDIX B 145 
 
 wonder that Von Hoist exclaims, ' How can it be denied, in 
 view of these utterances, that Jefferson recognized secession 
 as a logical and inevitable consequence of his doctrine ; and 
 an appeal to the sword as a constitutional right ! ' 
 
 " I will add to the foregoing that in the Life of Thomas 
 Jefferson, by Morse (Series of American Statesmen, pages 
 193, et sequitur), both the authorship of those resolutions and 
 their treasonable character are admitted. And the same 
 admissions are made by Gay, the author of Life of James 
 Madison in the same series of volumes (pages 243, et seq.). 
 
 " Such was the man whom X. Y. Z. declares to have been 
 ' the statesman of his age 1 The People's Man ! The one 
 to whom we are indebted, more than to any other one, for a 
 wise, self-sustaining and permanent government of the peo- 
 ple, by the people and for the people ! ' 
 
 " And now, Messrs. Editors, metaphorically tipping my 
 hat to my unknown democratic critic, I lay down my pencil 
 and dismiss this controversy. 
 
 " WM. E. GiLMORE."
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 REMONSTRANCE OF THE CITIZENS OF INDIANA 
 TERRITORY AGAINST THE ADMISSION OF 
 SLAVERY 
 
 AT a meeting, numerously attended, of the citizens of Clark 
 Countyof the Territory of Indiana, held at Springville, October 
 10, 1807, the committee of five persons, viz.: Abraham Little, 
 John Owens, Charles Beggs, Robert Robinson and James 
 Beggs, heretofore appointed to report the sentiment of our 
 people upon the action of the Legislature of Indiana Terri- 
 tory, asking Congress to suspend the Vlth clause of the 
 Ordinance of 1787, and admit slavery temporarily, submitted 
 the following report : 
 
 " To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
 States, in Congress assembled : 
 
 " This memorial of the citizens of Clark County humbly 
 showeth ; that great anxiety has been, and still is, evinced by 
 some of the citizens of this Territory on the subject of the 
 introduction of slavery into the same, but in no instance has 
 the voice of the citizens been unanimous. 
 
 " In the year of 1802, at a special convention of delegates 
 from the respective counties, a petition was forwarded to Con- 
 gress to repeal the Vlth article of compact contained in the 
 Ordinance ; but the representatives of all that part of the Ter- 
 ritory east of Vincennes were present, and were decidedly 
 opposed to that part of the petition.;
 
 APPENDIX C 145 
 
 " In the year 1805 the subject was again taken up and dis- 
 cussed in the General Assembly, and a majority of the House 
 of Representatives voted against said memorial ; and conse- 
 quently it was rejected; as the journals of that house will show. 
 But a number of citizens saw fit to sign the same, and among 
 the rest the Speaker of the House and President of the 
 Council (although the latter denies that he signed it) ; and by 
 some legislative legerdemain it found its way into the Con- 
 gress of the United States as a Legislative Act of this Terri- 
 tory. 
 
 " In the present year, 1807, the subject was again taken up 
 by the Legislature of the Territory, and a majority of both 
 Houses passed certain resolutions (in the proportion of two to 
 one) for the purpose of suspending said Vlth article of the 
 compact, which, we presume, are before you now. 
 
 " But be it understood, that in the Legislative Council there 
 were only three members present who, for certain reasons, 
 positively refused to sign the resolutions, and they were 
 reduced to the subterfuge of prevailing on the President, who 
 would not sign them, to leave his seat, and one of the other 
 members took it as President pro tempore for the purpose of 
 signing them. Whether this was right or wrong, judge ye ! 
 
 " Although it is contended by some that at this time there 
 is a majority in favor of slavery, the opposite opinion is held 
 by many, and the fact is certainly doubtful. But when we 
 take into consideration the vast emigration- into this Territory 
 of citizens decidedly opposed to the measure, we feel satisfied 
 that Congress will defer any action upon the subject until we 
 shall, by a Constitution, be admitted into the Union and have 
 the right to adopt whatever may comport with the wishes of 
 the (then) citizens. 
 
 "As to the propriety of holding those in slavery whom it 
 has pleased the Divine Creator to create free, it seems to us 
 repugnant to the principles of a Republican government. 
 10
 
 146 APPENDIX C 
 
 *' Although some of the States hold slaves, yet it seems to 
 be the general opinion, even in those States, that the system 
 is an evil from which they cannot extricate themselves. As 
 to the interest of the Territory a variety of opinions exist. 
 But suffer your memorialists to state the fact that a great 
 number of citizens of various parts of the United States are 
 preparing to emigrate to this Territory for the express pur- 
 pose of getting from governments which do tolerate slavery. 
 
 " If Congress thinks, with us, that slavery is wrong and in- 
 consistent with the principles upon which our future (State) 
 constitution must be formed, we are satisfied that the subject 
 will not be taken up until the constitutional number of in- 
 habitants to form a State shall assume that right. 
 
 " It is thought to be useless for us now to recapitulate the 
 many reasons and objections which might be mentioned ; 
 relying upon it that the subject is fully understood by your 
 honorable body, in all that relates to natural rights, and the 
 propriety and policy to be pursued of a free and enlightened 
 nation. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 "JOHN BEGGS, Chairman. 
 
 " DAVID FLOYD, Secretary." 
 
 Whereupon it was resolved that the report read be adopted, 
 and a copy be forwarded to Congress, which was accordingly 
 done.
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 EXPRESSIONS OF THE AMERICAN FEELING IN 
 REGARD TO BRITISH OUTRAGES UPON OUR 
 FLAG IN ISO/ 
 
 From the National Intelligencer. 
 
 "... The first impulse of indignation over the firing 
 of the Leopard on the Chesapeake has been extended from 
 Norfolk with all celerity to all parts of the Union. . . . 
 In such a crisis silence or forbearance would be criminal" 
 
 From the Aurora. . 
 
 " In every quarter, and from all classes of Americans, the 
 utmost abhorrence of the late indignity to this country is 
 expressed, and resentment is aroused. . . . Let Ameri- 
 cans be no longer made the sport of British brutality and in- 
 solence. To ' await justice ' from that perfidious govern- 
 ment our invariable enemy is to court disgrace and invite 
 scorn. . . . We have put up with insults which England 
 would have considered cause for war had they been committed 
 against her, and have heard our love of peace called coward- 
 ice, and our submission to being plundered called abject 
 meanness / 
 
 " Let this state of things be summarily ended ! " 
 
 From the Fredonian of Chillicothe, Ohio. 
 " To obey the voice of our injured country seems an indis- 
 pensable duty to every freeman. The blood of our brethren 
 cries aloud to us ! "
 
 148 APPENDIX D 
 
 From Resolutions of a mass meeting of the citizens of Wash- 
 ington County , Mississippi Territory. 
 
 " Situated in a remote corner of a territory of the United 
 States, we have just heard of the outrage committed upon 
 our flag by the arrogant representatives of British despotism, 
 and feel as every other true American must feel about it. 
 
 " We despise that bully and coward, the captain of the 
 Leopard, who attacked a defenceless vessel. We care not 
 who the men were that were taken from the Chesapeake, or 
 where they were born or to what government they owed alle- 
 giance. No foreign power had the right to invade our terri- 
 tory (as the decks of our ships are) for their arrest. 
 
 "What the final result of an appeal to arms maybe is 
 known only to the Lord of Hosts ; and upon Him, knowing 
 the justice of our course, we rely in humble confidence, and 
 pledge that for defense and honor our blood shall mingle in 
 solemn sacrifice with that of other Americans.'' 
 
 From the Richmond Enquirer. 
 
 After detailing other outrages by British ships upon our 
 vessels and coasts, it said : 
 
 " Our last war with England secured our freedom upon 
 land ; but upon the seas Britain still treats us as colonists 
 and slaves. Fellow countrymen ! We have yet to fight for 
 our independence upon the ocean ! " 
 
 From the Philadelphia Register. 
 
 "... The occasion has come when it is not only the 
 interest, but the duty of citizens to merge all differences of 
 internal politics in the defense of national honor and national 
 rights. . . . For such indignities as these there can be
 
 APPENDIX D 149 
 
 no atonement but the instant surrender of the officers of the 
 Leopard to be tried in our courts for murder, or open war ! " 
 
 Hundreds of such patriotic utterances could, if sought for, 
 be collected from the newspapers of that day, and there seems 
 to have been no divided opinion existing among the people 
 anywhere in the States or Territories. Yet the administra- 
 tion of Mr. Jefferson, strong, even fierce in words, but long- 
 suffering and patient, still forbore to do what the people de- 
 manded, and left it to Mr. Madison's administration to 
 declare, five years later, the war which all intelligent citizens 
 knew to be unavoidable.
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 MRS. MADISON AND WASHINGTON'S PORTRAIT 
 
 I do not know how much credence is to be given a volume 
 of Reminiscences, published some thirty years ago, which 
 purports to be the recollections of Paul Jennings, who was 
 a slave and body-servant of James Madison, President of the 
 United States. In this volume he says : 
 
 " It has often been stated in print that when Mrs. Madison 
 escaped from the White House, she cut out from its frame the 
 large portrait of Washington (which is now in the parlor) and 
 carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing so. 
 It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried 
 off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought 
 to be but a few squares off and expected every moment. 
 
 " John Suse, a Frenchman, who was then doorkeeper, and is 
 still living (1865), and Magrew, the President's gardener, took 
 it down and sent it off in a wagon with some large silver urns 
 and such other valuables as could hastily be gotten hold of. 
 
 " When the British did arrive they ate up the very dinner, 
 and drank the wines, that I had prepared for the President's 
 party." 
 
 And on another page he says : 
 
 "Mrs. Madison ordered dinner to be ready at three o'clock 
 as usual. I set the table myself, and brought up the ale, 
 cider and wine and placed them in the coolers, as all the 
 Cabinet officers and several military gentlemen and strangers 
 were expected to dinner."
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF GOVERNOR TIFFIN 
 
 As stated in the memoir, Governor Tiffin had no children 
 by his first wife. The issue of his second marriage, with 
 Mary Porter, was as follows : 
 
 MARY PORTER TIFFIN, who was born January 28, 1810; 
 married Joseph A. Reynolds (son of Judge J. Reynolds of 
 Urbana, Ohio), July 12, 1825. She died July I, 1862. Mr. 
 Reynolds died August 23, 1883. 
 
 DIATHEA MADISON TIFFIN was born in Washington 
 City, March 4, 1814. She is still living in Chillicothe, Ohio. 
 
 ELEANOR WORTHINGTON TIFFIN was born October 17, 
 1815. She married Matthew Scott Cook (son of Judge Isaac 
 Cook of Ross County, Ohio), April 22, 1840. She is still 
 living. Mr. Cook died November 28, 1882. 
 
 REBECCA TURNER TIFFIN was born April 7, 1820. In 
 October, 1839, she married Dr. Cornelius George Comegys, 
 son of Governor Cornelius Comegys of Delaware. She died 
 July 13, 1895, and Dr. Comegys died in Cincinnati, February 
 10, 1896. 
 
 EDWARD PARKER TIFFIN was born November 9, 1822. 
 He was killed in a railroad accident near New York City, 
 Octobers, 1853, while returning from Paris, France, where 
 he had been pursuing post-graduate studies in medicine.
 
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