History of Nebraska - Chapter 9



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CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND LEGISLATURE -- SECOND CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN -- POLITICAL 
CONDITIONS

   THERE was little diversion in the territory during the year 1855, from 
the time of adjournment of the first legislature, except the small 
politics of the aspirants for the offices to be filled at the fall 
elections. The dreams of Mr. Henn and others of the organizers about a 
rapid increase of population had not come true.

   The first, or Cuming census, furnishes no data for comparison -- except 
to illustrate its unreliability. By that census the first district, which 
comprised substantially the counties of Pawnee and Richardson, was 
credited with a population of 851. After the lapse of a year, during which 
there was some immigration, these two counties yielded only 441 people to 
the census of 1855. On the other hand, while the counties of Forney and 
Pierce in 1854 had but 614 people, in 1855 their successors, Nemaha and 
Otoe, had respectively 604 and 1,188. Otoe no doubt felt plenary 
satisfaction in so decisively outstripping Douglas, her rival of the North 
Platte. But the active colonizing on the part of both slavery and anti-
slavery interests diverted most of the immigration to Kansas, which as 
early as February, 1855, boasted a population, such as it was, of 8,601.

   Under the act of the first legislature the governor appointed Charles 
B. Smith as territorial auditor, B. P. Rankin, territorial treasurer, and 
James S. Izard,(1) librarian. Minor officers for the several counties were 
also appointed by the governor, and the terms of all these officers 
continued until their successors were elected in November, 1855. On the 
15th of October, 1855, Governor Izard issued a proclamation announcing 
that an election would be held on the first Tuesday in November of the 
year named to choose a delegate to Congress, a territorial auditor, 
treasurer, and librarian, twenty-six members of the lower house of the 
general assembly, and in the several counties a probate judge, sheriff, 
county register, county treasurer, and county surveyor; and each precinct 
should elect two justices of the peace and two constables.

   A district attorney for each judicial district of the territory was to 
be elected also. The first district embraced all the counties south of the 
Platte river; the second the counties of Douglas and Washington; the third 
the counties of Burt, Dakota, and Dodge.

   THE SECOND LEGISLATURE. The legislature had left the task of making the 
apportionment of the members to the governor, and he established the 
representative districts as follows: Burt and Washington, jointly, 1; 
Cass, 3; Cass and Otoe, 1; Dodge, 1; Douglas, 8; Nemaha, 2; Nemaha and 
Richardson, 1; Otoe, 6; Pawnee and Richardson, 1; Richardson, 1; 
Washington, 1. The act of 1855 provided that the number of members of the 
house should not exceed twenty-nine; but the governor did not see fit to 
change it from the original twenty-six. Pawnee was the only one of the 
sixteen new counties, whose organization had been authorized by the first 
legislature, to take advantage of the act and become entitled to 
representation. The proclamation also called for the election of three 
members of the council to fill vacancies; and Samuel M. Kirkpatrick was 
chosen in place of Nuckolls of Cass county, who had resigned; John Evans 
in place of Dr. Munson H. Clark of Dodge 

(1. James S. Izard was private secretary to his father, Mark W. Izard, 
during the latter's term as governor. He acquired considerable property in 
Omaha, but left the territory about the time that his father did. He died, 
some years ago, in Forest City, Arkansas.)

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county, deceased; and Allen A. Bradford in place of Hiram P. Bennet, who 
resigned for the purpose of becoming a candidate for delegate to Congress. 
The hold-over members were Dr. Henry Bradford of Otoe, formerly Pierce; 
Richard Brown of Nemaha, formerly Forney; Charles H. Cowles of Otoe; 
Benjamin R. Folsom of Burt; Taylor G. Goodwill, Alfred D. Jones, Origen D. 
Richardson, and Samuel E. Rogers of Douglas; Joseph L. Sharp of 
Richardson; and James C. Mitchell of Washington.

   The members of the house were John F. Buck, John McF. Hagood, and 
William Laird of Cass county; Thomas Gibson of Dodge; Leavitt L. Bowen, 
William Clancy, Alexander Davis, Levi Harsh, William Larimer, Jr., William 
E. Moore, George L. Miller, and Alonzo F. Salisbury of Douglas; William A. 
Finney and Samuel A. Chambers of Nemaha; John Boulware, Dr. John C. 
Campbell, James H. Decker, William B. Hail, J. Sterling Morton, and Mastin 
W. Riden of Otoe; Amazial M. Rose of Otoe and Cass jointly; Abel D. Kirk 
of Richardson; Dr. Jerome Hoover of Richardson and Nemaha jointly; Charles 
McDonald of Richardson and Pawnee jointly; Potter C. Sullivan of 
Washington; and William B. Beck of Washington and Burt jointly.

   Comparing this second apportionment with the first we find that the 
audacious stuffing of the North Platte counties of Burt, Dodge, and 
Washington by the deft hands of Governor Cuming is acknowledged by his 
successor; for in place of her two full representatives allowed by Cuming, 
Burt is now tacked to Washington to divide one with that county, which in 
turn is reduced from two members to one and a half. Dodge is cut down from 
two to one. Cass county retains its three members and divides another with 
Otoe, which has six of its own -- a gain of one. Douglas holds to its 
original eight. But since Governor Izard's census awards a population of 
712 to Cass, 1,028 to Douglas, 1,188 to Otoe, and 604 to Nemaha, the 
principle of Governor Izard's apportionment is still past finding out. The 
rights of Cass, Otoe, and Nemaha are shamefully abused to the profit of 
Douglas. Councilman Sharp's very keen appreciation of the responsibilities 
of a pioneer census taker in 1854, in the case of Richardson county in 
1855, to be at all presentable, had to be discounted at about forty per 
cent of its face value; though with a population of only 299 that county 
still held on to one representative and shared two others with Nemaha and 
Pawnee respectively. It has been pointed out that in an addendum to his 
census returns Mr. Sharp admitted that the number of voters in Richardson 
county, excluding the half-breed tract, should be reduced from 236 -- his 
census figures -- to about 100.

   Beck, the joint member for Burt and Washington, lived at Tekamah, Burt 
county; Rose, the member for Cass and Otoe, lived at Nebraska City, Otoe 
county; Hoover, member for Richardson and Nemaha, lived at Nemaha City, 
Nemaha county; and McDonald, member for Richardson and Pawnee, lived in 
Pawnee county. So that in the popular adjustment of the apportionment Burt 
and Washington in fact shared alike with one member each; Cass retained 
her original three; and Otoe gained two, making seven in all; Nemaha 
gained one, making three in all; and Richardson retained her original 
number -- two.

   With thirty-four arid four-tenths per cent of the population the North 
Platte is awarded forty-two and three-tenths per cent of the 
representatives. The hold-over council, with fifty-four per cent of its 
members from the North Platte, presents even a worse travesty of decency 
and justice. In view of such a piece of his handiwork as this the 
impartial judge must demur to the modest disclaimer of Governor Izard's 
home paper (the Helena, Arkansas, Star) that he was "not endowed with 
shining talents," and must also question its ascription to the governor of 
the compensatory virtue of probity.

   The second legislature convened at Omaha, Tuesday, December 18, 1855, 
at 10 o'clock in the morning. The temporary officers of the council were 
Origen D. Richardson, president; John W. Pattison, chief clerk; Lyman 
Richardson, assistant clerk; Samuel A. Lewis, sergeant-at-arms; and Niles 
R. Folsom, doorkeeper. The regular organization consisted of Benjamin R. 
Folsom, president; Erastus

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G. McNeely, chief clerk; M. B. Case, assistant clerk; Charles W. Pierce, 
sergeant-at-arms; Henry Springer, doorkeeper; Le Grand Goodwill, page.

   The house was organized by the election of the following temporary 
officers: Speaker, William Larimer, Jr., of Douglas county; chief clerk, 
Joseph W. Paddock; assistant clerk, H. C. Anderson; sergeant-at-arms, A. 
S. Bishop; doorkeeper, Ewing S. Sharp; fireman, Patrick Donahue. In the 
permanent organization Potter C. Sullivan of Washington county was elected 
speaker, his principal opponent being Abel D. Kirk of Richardson county. 
Isaac L. Gibbs was elected chief clerk; H. C. Anderson, assistant clerk; 
A. S. Bishop, sergeant-at-arms; E. B. Chinn, doorkeeper; and Rev. Henry M. 
Giltner, chaplain.

   From the council we miss Hiram P. Bennet, a prominent leader, Dr. 
Clark, cut off by death from a career whose beginning gave promise of 
future activity and influence, and Nuckolls, whose name was and is well 
known. From the house we miss a prominent figure -- Poppleton -- but in 
his place we have Dr. George L. Miller, and from Otoe county, J. Sterling 
Morton -- two names destined to be linked together in the political 
activity and the general progress of the commonwealth for some forty 
years, and until they should become familiar to the popular ear through 
all its borders.

   Richardson and Nemaha counties each attempted to appropriate the joint 
representative to its individual use. Henry Abrams was the candidate of 
Richardson county, and he received 76 votes, while his opponent, Dr. 
Jerome Hoover of Nemaha county, received only 13. But Nemaha outstripped 
her rival in local patriotism by giving Hoover 117 votes and Abrams a 
blank. The law required that the register of the senior county should give 
a certificate of election to the candidate receiving the highest number of 
votes in the entire district. But in those strenuous times local interest 
was seldom backed by the majesty or mandate of the law, and the register 
of Richardson county gave Abrams, the minority candidate, a certificate on 
which he could base a contest. But the committee on privileges and 
elections, and subsequently the house itself, decided against Abrams, and 
Nemaha gained the seat.

   Richardson county sent Thomas R. Hare to contest for a seat in the 
house on the ground that a part of the territory conceded to the half-
breed tract belonged to her, and entitled her to another representative. 
But the committee on privileges and elections reported against Hare on the 
law and the facts -- that the house could not properly go behind the 
governor's apportionment for twenty-six mem-

[image caption: POTTER CHARLES SULLIVAN Speaker of the house of the second 
territorial assembly of Nebraska]

bers and increase the number, and, further, that no proof of the 
contention of Hare as to the right to include any part of the half-breed 
tract had been made, and that, if all that was contended for in this 
respect were conceded, the county would still fall short of voters 
entitling her to another representative. This report was laid on the 
table, and the matter was referred to a special committee. Four of the 
five members of the special committee -- Campbell, Bowen, Hagood, and 
Morton -- three of them from the South Platte and the

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other, Bowen of Bellevue, constructively so stated Hare's case as follows:

   Your committee to whom was referred the memorial of Thomas R. Hare, 
asking for a seat in this body on equal footing with other members, beg 
leave to report that after mature deliberation they have come to the 
conclusion that said memorialist has a right to a seat in this body.

   Your committee would further report that they come to the above 
conclusion from the following reasons.

   1st. That Pawnee county was not organized at the time of apportionment, 
and consequently should have been considered in Richardson county, as the 
law specifies, for election purposes.
   2nd. That Richardson and Pawnee together contained, according to the 
census returns, one hundred and ninety-three voters, but fifty of those 
were returned as living on the half-breed tract, but since the census has 
been taken the half-breed tract has been run out, and the true boundary on 
the west fixed, which shows conclusively that there are only 23 voters on 
the half-breed tract which, taken from 193, leaves 170 legal voters in 
Richardson county. Taking then 56 as the basis of representation, 
Richardson county is entitled to three representatives.
   Your committee would further report that the law providing for taking 
the census and apportioning the representatives, in section four, provides 
that the whole number of members of the house of representatives shall not 
exceed twenty-nine for the next session, and that it would be doing no 
injustice to the balance of this territory to give to Richardson county 
her full representation on this floor, since it comes within the bounds 
prescribed by law.
   All of which your committee would respectfully submit and recommend.

   A resolution that Mr. Hare be admitted to a seat as joint 
representative from Richardson and Pawnee counties was carried on the 26th 
of December by a vote of 13 to 11. Four North Platte members, Gibson of 
Dodge, Larimer of Douglas, Bowen of Bellevue, and Sullivan of Washington, 
voted aye, and four South Platte members voted no. On the 10th of January 
the council sent a communication to the house which contended that by the 
organic law the number of members of the legislature could be increased 
only by the act of both houses, and that therefore Hare was not a legal 
member of the house. The house replied with a short and snappy resolution 
reciting that it was the judge of the qualifications of its own members, 
and suggesting that the upper body had better be about its own business. 
But Hare evidently was not made of staying stuff, for on the same day he 
resigned "to effectually put down this disorganizing spirit and not from 
any conviction of my not being entitled to my seat."

   On the morning of December 19th the governor delivered his message to 
the two houses in joint session in the hall of the house. We may overlook 
the painful prolixity of this document, and even with propriety give place 
to its length on account of its painstaking review of the general social 
conditions of the territory after a year's experience under the harness of 
formal organization. The message is such a paper as might be expected of a 
man of such antecedents and qualities as are attributed to him in the 
following "send-off" by the Helena (Arkansas) Star:

   We were honored on Monday last with a visit at our office from Hon. 
Mark W. Izard, governor of Nebraska, and his private secretary, James S. 
Izard, Esq. They were here waiting . . . for a boat, to take passage for 
their new field of labor. The appointment of Colonel Izard to the 
governorship of Nebraska territory is one among the very best appointments 
that have been made during the administration of President Pierce. He was 
for almost a quarter of a century a member of one or the other branches of 
the Arkansas legislature, and during the period of his long and valuable 
services in that body he served at different times as speaker of the House 
of Representatives and President of the Senate; and in all the many 
honorable and responsible stations to which he has been called, be has. 
discharged his duty usefully and successfully, and although a minister of 
the gospel, active in every cause of religion and benevolence, remarkable 
for his exemplary life and fervent piety, yet he has been all the time an 
active partisan, and has done more, and sacrificed more for the democratic 
party --the party to which he has been warmly attached -- than perhaps any 
man in Arkansas. Not endowed with shining talents, though of excellent 
sense, his career furnishes a remarkable instance of the deserved success 
of probity, fidelity, industry, gentlemanly bearing and inflexible honor; 
and our sincere wish is that he may yet live

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to see Nebraska a state, and highest honors his.

   While the message clearly confirms the Star's estimate that the 
governor was "not endowed with shining talents" and possibly leaves open 
the question of "excellent sense," yet, regarded as a contemporaneous view 
of conditions and an authoritative statement of facts, it is interesting 
and valuable history. Its preaching proclivities may perchance be 
suggestive of the more pretentious national executive messages just now in 
vogue, and it seems charitable to point out this mutual sanction of which 
both stand so much in need.

   The governor's picture of the industrial development of the territory 
was mainly fanciful and gratuitous. For many years after this time 
progress was chiefly speculative -- hoping instead of doing. Until 1861 
the inhabitants were virtually non-producers. And industrial development 
was very limited until the coming of the railways encouraged it -- or in 
fact made it practicable.

   The report of the territorial auditor to the legislature showed a bad 
financial beginning. The levy of a tax of two mills on the total assessed 
valuation of $617,882 would have yielded an insufficient territorial 
revenue at best; but the auditor was obliged to report that, as not a 
single county treasurer had settled his accounts with the territory, he 
had no means of knowing how much had been collected, and he had been 
obliged to draw warrants to meet expenses to the amount of $1,971.20, with 
about $1,000 of the last year's appropriations still to meet. The warrants 
covered incidental legislative expenses, which the federal treasury did 
not recognize, amounting to $1,454.70, and the salaries of the auditor, 
treasurer, and librarian in the Munificent sum of $516.50. The valuation 
of the counties was as follows:

Burt      $ 13,006
Cass        71,524
Dodge       14,455
Douglas    311,116
Nemaha      74,980
Otoe        85,701
Richardson  26,643
Washington  20,397
          $617,822

   Hadley D. Johnson was elected public printer by the two houses, and an 
attempt was made to choose a joint chaplain also, but the houses could not 
agree, and Rev. Henry M. Giltner was chosen by the house and Rev.. William 
Bates by the council.

   On the 26th of December, O. D. Richardson, J. L. Sharp, and J. D. N. 
Thompson, of the committee appointed at the previous session to prepare a 
code, reported that Mr. Poppleton had resigned from the committee, and 
that since they "could avail themselves of but a very limited number of 
the revised codes of the different states on account of their scarcity in 
this region, and as the territorial library has not yet arrived" but few 
books were within their reach. Still, though their work. had been 
laborious, it was nearly completed. It would consist of four parts, two of 
which were now reported and the other two, relating to courts and to 
crimes, would be ready within a week.

   The two houses appointed a committee to examine the work of the code 
commission, consisting of A. A. Bradford, A. D. Jones, and S. M. 
Kirkpatrick of the council, and Bowen, Riden, Finney, Miller, and Moore of 
the house, with Bradford for chairman. This committee reported the work of 
the commission, with such amendments as they saw fit to make, to the 
council, and most of the first two parts was finally adopted by both 
houses, the remainder going-over, without consideration, to the next 
legislature. Those parts of the code adopted by the first legislature, 
relating to courts and their jurisdiction and to crimes and their 
punishment, crude as they were, remained in force until the third 
legislature provided a substitute for the first and repealed the second, 
leaving the territory for a time entirely without criminal law.

   The new law provided that the general assembly should thereafter meet 
on the first Monday in January of each year, instead of the first Tuesday 
of December as fixed by the law of 1855. The census act of March 16, 1855, 
provided also that annual elections should be held on the first Monday in 
August, except the first election, which should be held

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[image caption: R. H. Henry was an early merchant and banker of Columbus, 
Nebraska. Also county commissioner.]

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the first Tuesday of November, 1855; and the election law of the same year 
also provided that elections should take place the first Tuesday in 
November, so that for that year there was no conflict. The census act of 
January 26, 1856, provided that the election of that year should be held 
on the first Tuesday in November. But the elections law provided that 
general elections should be held on the first Monday in August; that a 
delegateto Congress and members of the council should be chosen in 1856 
and every second year thereafter; and that all territorial and county 
officers, including district attorneys, justices of the peace and 
constables, and one county commissioner for each county, should be chosen 
in 1857, and every second year thereafter. This conflict was settled by 
another act of the second session which provided that the election of 1856 
should be held in November instead of August. This act

[image caption: From a photograph made in 1859 by P. Golay, and now owned 
by Mrs. S. D. Beals of Omaha. SECOND TERRITORIAL CAPITOL BUILDING OF 
NEBRASKA. Erected in 1857-1858 at a cost of about $130,000, and located on 
Capitol Hill, Omaha, the present site of the Omaha high school building. 
This shows the building in its uncompleted condition with only a few of 
the columns in place, and these were later pronounced unsafe and removed.]

also took from the governor the power to receive returns and issue 
certificates of election to candidates for members of the legislature and 
of "forming precincts" in the several counties, which was conferred by the 
census act of 1856 as well as that of 1855. The authority first named had 
also been conferred upon county clerks by the election law, and the second 
upon county commissioners by the law creating the commissioner system. 
This reconciliation act was introduced on the evening of the last day of 
the session by Dr. Henry Bradford and immediately passed by both houses. 
The incident illustrates again the carelessness and lack of oversight of 
the early legislatures. The act creating the county commissioner system 
provided that all three commissioners should be chosen the first year -- 
1856 -- and one of the three every year after.

   Continued contradictions and crudities indi-

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[image caption: Nathan P. Dodge was one of the early homesteaders near 
Fremont, Nebraska. Afterwards he was a prominent banker of Council Bluffs, 
Iowa.]

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cated more than the ordinary degree of inefficiency common in leggislative 
bodies. Chapter 2 prescribed the duties of county assessors, while their 
election or appointment was not provided for, and the section of the old 
law imposing the duties of assessment on sheriffs remained unrepealed. The 
laws had been considered by the standing code committee for nearly a year, 
and again by the joint special committee during the session, and had been 
copied largely in blocks from the statutes of other states, so that a 
reasonable degree of accuracy might have been expected.

   A general incorporation law was passed, but it was not exclusive, the 
power of the legislature to pass special acts of incorporation being 
specifically recognized. A general act for the incorporation of towns was 
passed, and the term "city," so greatly overworked at the first session, 
had apparently dropped from notice through exhaustion. Under the laws of 
the first legislature the business of counties was distributed in a 
complicated mess among various county officers, the judge of probate 
falling heir to all that was not specifically parceled out to others.

   The second legislature established the county commissioner system, and 
placed the general business of the county in the hands of three 
commissioners elected from as many districts therein. This commissioner 
system reached Nebraska on its westward course from Pennsylvania through 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, our legislature having copied it from 
the Iowa statute. It originated in Pennsylvania in 1725, but its germ in 
the Northwest Territory first appeared in 1792 in the first county 
organized there, and which comprised about half the present state of Ohio. 
It was adopted in a more developed form in 1795, and in 1804 three 
commissioners, possessing general fiscal and administrative authority, 
were elected in the several counties of the state of Ohio. The 
commissioner system then in its present scope, essentially, came to us 
from Ohio.

   By a special act the commissioners were empowered to divide the 
counties into "convenient precincts," each entitled to two justices of the 
peace and two constables. This decentralizing act took this power away 
from the governors, with whom it had been lodged up to that time.

   Under the new school law the territorial librarian continued to act as 
superintendent of schools with a salary of two hundred dollars a year, in 
addition to his salary of one hundred dollars as librarian. The confusing 
and demoralizing provision of the act of 1855, giving authority to both 
county superintendents and district boards of directors to examine 
teachers and to issue them certificates to teach, was retained in the act 
of 1856, except that the clause "or cause to be examined" of the act of 
1855 was stricken out and the duty of making examinations thus 
peremptorily imposed upon the incompetent directors and virtually 
annulling the like authority of the county superintendents. These officers 
were allowed two dollars for each day of actual service and two dollars 
and fifty cents for each quarter section of school lands they might 
sell -- when they should come into market. The salary of the territorial 
auditor was fixed at two hundred dollars, and of the territorial treasurer 
at one hundred and fifty dollars. The salaries of all the officers named 
remained the same as they were the first year, and in comparison with the 
comfortable compensation of the governor, secretary, and judges, which was 
paid out of the federal treasury, furnishes a fair illustration of the 
poverty of the territory at that time. The laws for estrays and for the 
registry of marks and brands, both favoring the running at large of live 
stock, indicated the feeling of the time that even in the eastern part of 
the state the raising of cattle was of more importance than the 
cultivation of the soil. A provision was added to the law governing the 
common school system directing county superintendents of schools to 
appraise sections 16 and 36 -- the lands set apart for school purposes by 
the organic act -- at a value of not less than one dollar and twenty-five 
cents an acre, and offer them at public sale, the proceeds to be invested 
in real estate mortgage bonds drawing ten per cent annual interest., and 
the interest alone to be used for maintaining schools. The legislature 
memorialized Congress in a joint resolution to

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convey these school sections to the territory as they were surveyed, that 
they "might be enabled to apply a portion of the same in raising a fund 
for school purposes while we have no other resources by which to raise 
said fund." The legislature undertook to break up the official carpet-bag 
system by providing that a delegate to Congress must have resided in the 
territory at least one year before his election, and that members of the 
legislature must have resided in their districts six months before the 
time of their election. A requisite of residence for a married man was 
that his family should reside in the territory. This act was a sign of a 
growing belief in the permanency and stability of the settlement of the 
territory. In the same act those eligible to any office of trust or profit 
were confined to free white males -- the same class which by the organic 
act composed the electorate.

   The marriage act of the first session declared all marriages between 
whites and negroes or mulattoes void. The act of 1856 changed this so as 
to limit the prohibition to those possessed of one-fourth or more of negro 
blood. The act of the first session was reported by Mr. Richardson from 
the judiciary committee of the council, and was copied from the Iowa 
statute of marriages of January 6, 1840. The act of the second session was 
reported "with amendments" by Mr. Bradford, chairman of the joint 
committee for examining the work of the code commission, and was further 
amended in the committee of the whole in the council, and also by the 
house. The modified provision in relation to the intermarriage of whites 
and negroes remains in the statutes of the present day. The prohibition 
was dropped in Iowa in the revision of 1860. A bill repealing the section 
in question, introduced by Mr. Ricketts, a colored member of the house, 
was passed by the legislature of 1895, but was vetoed by Governor Holcomb. 
The veto message discloses the objections taken by the governor:

   After careful consideration I am led to the belief that this measure 
does not represent a demand of the people, and return it without my 
approval. The effect of the bill is to legalize marriages between the 
white and black races. It is a question of gravest importance, and should 
demand the careful deliberation of the legislative body before a change is 
made in the law. From the statements of various members of the legislature 
it is apparent that this measure was hurriedly passed during the closing 
hours of the legislative session without consideration, many members 
afterwards openly declaring that they did not know they had voted for the 
bill on its final passage. The alteration of existing laws, contemplating 
pronounced changes in moral and social questions, should emanate from the 
declared wishes of the people. There is in my opinion no pressing demand 
for the proposed amendment. If the people desire that this change be made 
the question can be agitated, and at the next session of the legislature 
the will of the people may be expressed after a careful consideration of 
the proposed amendment. Without entering into a discussion of the merits 
of the proposal to allow the inter-marriage of whites and blacks I am 
constrained to disapprove of this hastily enacted bill.

   An act of this session provided for the first military organization, 
and territorial and military terms are confused in the enactment with 
characteristic frontier freedom: "The territory of Nebraska shall 
constitute one division: said division shall consist of two brigades. All 
that portion of the territory lying north of the Platte river shall 
constitute the first brigade. And all that portion of the territory lying 
south of the Platte river shall constitute the second brigade." The 
official list was as formidable as the rank and file turned out to be 
insignificant. It is the present-day recollection of General Thayer that 
little more than nominal organization was accomplished under this act at 
that time. The governor was to be commander-in-chief of all the forces; 
and a major-general of the division, and a brigadier-general of each 
brigade were to be chosen by the two houses of the legislature, which held 
a joint session for that purpose, January 24, 1856. John M. Thayer was 
elected major-general, and L. L. Bowen, of Douglas county, brigadier-
general of the northern district without opposition. John Boulware of Otoe 
county, and H. P. Downs, H. P. Thurber, and Thomas Patterson of Cass 
county were candidates for the office of brigadier-general for the 
southern district. On the first ballot Boulware re-

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ceived 15 votes, Downs 9, Thurber 4, Patterson 7. On the second ballot 
Boulware and Downs had 18 votes each; on the third ballot Boulware had 14 
votes and Downs 21, and so Mr. Downs became brigadier-general of the 
second brigade.

   There was a general grist of special acts of incorporation, but much 
fewer in number than at the first session. Simpson University of Omaha 
(reincorporated), Nemaha University at Archer, Washington College at 
Cuming City, the Plattsmouth Preparatory and Collegiate Institute, and 
Western University "to be located near, or in Cassville, Cass county," 
made up the modest list of incorporations for higher institutions of 
learning. The first was organized under the auspices of the Nebraska 
district and the Council Bluffs district of the Iowa annual conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal church. The other four were to be stock 
corporations with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars each. None was 
ever successfully organized.

   There was a strong movement in the house, stimulated of course by the 
still living capital feud, to create the county of Sarpy out of the 
southern half of Douglas. A compromise was effected in the shape of a 
substitute which formed a separate election district out of the territory 
now comprising Sarpy county, with the exception of a strip two miles wide 
on the present southern border of Douglas county. The second legislature 
formed the judicial districts as follows: First district, Burt, Dakota, 
Dodge, Douglas, and Washington counties, "and the territory north and 
west"; second district, Cass, Clay, Lancaster, and Otoe counties, "and the 
territory west thereof"; third district, Johnson, Nemaha, Pawnee, and 
Richardson counties, "and the territory west of said counties." Chief 
Justice Ferguson was assigned to the first district, Associate Justice 
Harden to the second, and Associate Justice Bradley to the third.

   A general law was passed empowering the people of the several counties 
to select or change the location of the county seats. The "Salt Spring 
Company" was incorporated "for the purpose of erecting suitable buildings, 
furnaces, and reservoirs to carry on the business at the Salt Springs 
discovered by Thomas Thompson and others, lying west of Cass county." The 
six applications for divorce were referred to the judge of the first 
judicial district for action at his discretion. The first legislation for 
the Order of Odd Fellows in Nebraska was the incorporation of "the Masonic 
and Odd Fellows Hall Company" of Otoe county "for the purpose of erecting 
in Nebraska City, South Nebraska City, or Kearney City a suitable building 
or buildings to be used in part as a hall for Masonic and Odd Fellowship 
purposes"; and also the Odd Fellows' Hall Association of Omaha, No. 2, of 
Nebraska territory. A penitentiary for the territory was located at 
Tekamah, and the proprietors of the town were required to donate ten acres 
of land for a site. But though Congress was regularly importuned by the 
territorial legislatures, no appropriation for constructing the proposed 
penitentiary was obtained until just before the time of admission to 
statehood. The first act providing for the organization of religious 
societies was passed at this second session.

   The boundaries of Cass, Dakotah [sic], Nemaha, Ottoe [sic], and 
Richardson counties were changed, and in this act one "t" is dropped in 
the spelling of Otoe. The organization of eighteen new counties was also 
authorized. Seven of these, namely, Clay, Greene, Gage, Izard, Lancaster, 
Saline, and York, had been authorized by the previous legislature. Two of 
the new names in this act, Calhoun and Monroe, and two of the old, Greene 
and Izard, have disappeared from the map, no organization having taken 
place under them, and Clay and Jones were organized, but the first was 
afterward merged with Gage and Lancaster, and the second with Jefferson 
county. Monroe county voted at the general elections of 1859, and its 
returns became notorious in the contest between Estabrook and Daily, 
candidates for delegate to Congress; it was added to Platte county by the 
legislature of 1859-1860. The rising tide of Civil war passion in the 
legislature of 1861-1862 swept the names of Calhoun, Greene, and Izard off 
the map, and substituted for them respectively Saunders, Seward, and 
Stanton. The bills changing the names

Page 212

all passed with a rush and without division, and apparently without 
comment by the press.

   The continued impoverished condition of the territorial finances is 
illustrated by the act authorizing the treasurer to borrow four thousand 
dollars on the bonds of the territory, at a rate not exceeding fifteen per 
cent annual interest, for the purposes of paying officers and employees of 
the first and second legislatures and for the taking of the census of 
1855. A large number of territorial roads were specifically established, 
and a general law gave county commissioners power to open and keep in 
repair all county roads. Room was found for four more ferry franchises on 
the Missouri river. The most important legislation of the session was the 
granting of charters to five so-called wildcat banks: The Bank of 
Florence, the Nemaha Valley bank at Brownville, the Platte Valley bank at 
Nebraska City, the Fontenelle bank at Bellevue, and the Bank of Nebraska 
at Omaha.

   Joint resolutions were adopted asking Congress to grant ten sections of 
land and five thousand dollars for the benefit of Nebraska University at 
Fontenelle; for the removal of the Omaha Indians, according to their wish, 
from their new reservation in the Blackbird hills to some place in the 
interior, and for indemnity to settlers who were driven from their homes 
by the removal of the Omahas to Blackbird county; for a change in the 
organic act of the territory so as to base apportionment of representation 
upon the entire population instead of voters only; for an appropriation to 
pay the expense of defense against Indian depredations during the past 
year, and the donation of one hundred and sixty acres of land to each man 
regularly mustered into the service for such defense. Mr. Gibson, for the 
committee on federal relations, made a report in the form of a memorial to 
Congress praying for a free grant of one hundred and sixty acres of the 
public domain to actual settlers of Nebraska, which illustrated the spirit 
and anticipated the arguments that a few years later stimulated the 
passage of a general homestead law.

   On the 11th of January, Mr. Decker introduced a bill to relocate the 
capital at Chester, in what is now Lancaster county, and on the 16th, 
William A. Finney, J. Sterling Morton, and James H. Decker, of the 
committee to whom it had been referred, recommended its passage. Dr. 
George L. Miller made a minority report as follows:

   A brief review of the organization of the territory brings to our 
consideration the fact that, in accordance with the requirements of the 
organic law, the seat of government of Nebraska was, by the acting 
governor of the territory, located at Omaha City. The wisdom of that 
selection was confirmed by a subsequent legislature against the most 
strenuous efforts made to frustrate and defeat that organization, and an 
unprejudiced view of the existing condition of our affairs would seem to 
impose upon all who desire the permanent progress of our territory the 
duty of upholding that policy under which we are enjoying the benefits of 
a just and impartial administration of the territorial government. It 
cannot be denied that the capital is now located as near the geographical 
center of the territory as may be, and that its present situation is the 
best that can be named for the accommodation of its resident population. A 
comprehensive view of the interests to be consulted upon this subject 
would show that its removal to a sparsely populated district could 
possibly be of no practical advantage to the territory at large. Large 
amounts of money have already been expended toward the erection of a 
suitable state house at the seat of government as now established, and 
under the liberal patronage of the parent government and the energetic 
direction of his excellency, the governor, we have every reason to 
congratulate ourselves upon the prospect of its speedy completion. To 
reverse the policy under which we are so prosperously advancing in our 
career would be, in the opinion of the undersigned, eminently disastrous 
and suicidal. For these, among other reasons, I beg to report adversely to 
the bill under consideration, and to recommend the indefinite postponement 
of the same.

   Mr. Thomas Gibson also made a minority report which is of interest as a 
reflection of the opinion at that time as to the probable coming center of 
population. Mr. Gibson admitted that the proposed location on Salt Creek 
might benefit a large majority of "our present population," but his 
objection was based on the following considerations:

   . . . From information which may be had it is supposed that 80 to 100 
miles will be the

Page 213

extent of our settlements westward, and about 100 miles northward. It is 
seen, then, that the relocation must be north of the Platte river, and 
about 40 miles west from the Missouri to be centrally situated; and in 
selecting a site for so important a purpose it is requisite that reference 
should be had to eligibility for the purpose of a town site, where water, 
timber, and position of land are found supplied, and where a location for 
health will be a desideratum. Such a position can be found on the Elkhorn 
river, and not one more desirable than the city of Fontenelle.

   With his report Mr. Gibson offered a bill to locate the capital at 
Fontenelle. The removal bill was killed by postponement on the 22d of 
January by a vote of 13 to 11. Of the South Plate members, Hagood and Buck 
of Cass and Hoover of Richardson and Nemaha voted against removal, while 
all those voting for removal were of the South Platte.

   Two members -- J. Sterling Morton and Dr. George L. Miller -- whose 
flight, in state politics, was to be long and high and to extend into the 
national empyrean, tried their fledgling wings in this second legislature, 
and in spite of their adolescence they at once became conspicuous. J. 
Sterling Morton, not yet twenty-four years old, was chairman of the 
committee on public buildings and grounds, and second on the committees on 
common schools and printing. We readily infer that the chairmanship of the 
public buildings committee was not unsought by Morton nor grudgingly 
bestowed by Speaker Sullivan. Hostility to the Omaha element and, in 
particular, to Secretary Cuming as its rough-shod general, had already 
naturally focused in Morton's intense temperament. It was the intention of 
the anti-Omaha, or roughly rounded up, the South Platte representatives to 
undo the capital location business of the first session and to uncover the 
methods of its doing. Speaker Sullivan of Washington county, which had 
lost the capital prize, was the natural ally of the South Platte. Morton 
at once began an inquisition for a showing by Secretary Cuming to the 
house as to his expenditures for public printing, and by the governor and 
secretary of all documents in regard to public buildings, including 
estimates and contracts; and later in the session his resolution 
"requiring" the secretary "to lay before the house of representatives a 
copy of his instructions which he alleges to have received from the 
comptroller of the United States treasury in regard to the pay of clerks, 
firemen, and chaplains for this territory." Since the expenditures under 
the first two subjects of inquiry were from federal appropriations and for 
which the secretary and executive were accountable to the federal treasury 
department, technically, perhaps, they could not be required to account 
also to the local legislature. The secretary promptly responded to the 
first request, but it does not appear that the governor or secretary 
complied with the request for a showing as to public buildings.

   The more diplomatic Gibson, of Dodge county, moved to cure the innuendo 
of the intentionally undiplomatic Morton by substituting the word "has" 
for the words "alleges to have," but Miller, who was the alert defender on 
the floor of Omaha men and measures, moved to table the resolution. The 
motion was lost by a vote of 11 to 13, and, after the more judicious word 
"request" had been substituted for Morton's intentionally peremptory 
"required," on motion of a more peaceable, if less virile South Platte 
member, the resolution passed without division. All who have watched with 
clear vision Morton's long and impressive career till its late lamented 
end, will read in this boyhood resolution the forecast and the epitome of 
the man; the same undisguised and relentless attack on opponents, the 
abandon in giving battle which burns the bridges of retreat, and the 
uncompromising and implacable spirit which, while they were perhaps the 
chief source of his strength, yet almost uniformly defeated his political 
aspirations. The following resolutions, also characteristic of their mover 
were offered by Mr. Morton:

   WHEREAS, At the last session of the legislative assembly of the 
territory of Nebraska, James C. Mitchell was appointed, by joint 
resolution of the Council and House of Representatives, sole commissioner 
to select the place whereon the capital buildings should be located or 
erected; and
   WHEREAS, The said James C. Mitchell, as a condition precedent to his 
appointment as said commissioner, pledged himself to select

Page 214

[image caption: John F. Buck was a pioneer of Cass county, Nebraska]

Page 215

the site for the capital buildings on the line between Clancy and Jeffrey 
claims; and
   WHEREAS, There has been a different location of the capital buildings, 
and an evident departure from the pledge of said James C. Mitchell, as 
made by him in open Council; Therefore,
   RESOLVED, That James C. Mitchell, be and hereby is respectfully 
requested to present to both Houses of the legislative assembly a report 
stating fully and explicitly all that he has done relative to the 
performance of the duties enjoined in said commission, stating fully and 
explicitly the reasons that induced him, the said Mitchell, to depart from 
his pledged honor to locate the said buildings on the line between the 
said Clancy and Jeffrey claims, and whether there was any reward or 
promise offered him to influence the location or selection of the site for 
said buildings.
   RESOLVED, That in the event of any person or persons having offered any 
inducements, pecuniarily or otherwise, or having used any arguments to 
influence his action as said commissioner, that the name or names of said 
person or persons be given, with all the inducements offered.

   After a hot controversy the resolutions passed by a vote of 14 to 10, 
and here again Miller and Morton led the fight on opposite sides.

   J. Sterling Morton's father was a close friend of Lewis Cass, and the 
bright and susceptible boy had no doubt been much impressed by that 
statesman's character and career. Cass's distinguished political life had 
budded in his military and political experience in the Northwest, which 
had extended even as far as Minnesota. It is a fair inference that young 
Morton was inspired by the knowledge of the older man's western 
beginnings, and not unlikely by his direct suggestion, to attempt a like 
career by following a like course. It might have been expected that 
Morton, with his political aspirations, after defeat as a partisan of 
Bellevue, would take counsel of expediency and follow victory to Omaha, 
now the politician's Mecca. But his aggressive and implacable spirit 
preferred to fight Cuming and his capital as well, rather than to follow 
them; and in Nebraska City, the most considerable town, and in the leading 
county of the territory, he chose the best vantage ground. At a time when 
nothing was regarded as finally settled and with as good a chance as her 
rival for railroad favors, there was firm ground for hope that Nebraska 
City might keep the lead and deprive Omaha of the capital, too. The last 
hope, only, came true.

   S. F. Nuckolls, of strong, resolute character, a successful man of 
business, and a principal factor of the considerable prestige and prospect 
of Nebraska City, discerned Morton's promising qualities, and no doubt 
influenced him in his choice. In the work of developing the aspiring 
metropolis of the South Platte section, in which Nuckolls had the chief 
interest, and in the fight already on against Omaha and the North Platte 
for political and commercial supremacy, these men of differing temperament 
and tendency would be mutually supplemental. "We were proud of his 
acquisition," says Hiram P. Bennet, himself one of the promising young 
men, and afterward a prominent political figure in the South Platte 
struggles, of whom Nuckolls had already become in some degree an adviser 
and patron. For this bitter and protracted warfare the base was wisely 
chosen, in proof whereof results eventually reinforced reason. For, as we 
shall see, the prestige and hostility of Otoe county, reflected and 
largely kept alive by the strong personality of Morton, turned the scale 
against Omaha in the last weighing of aspirants for the capital. Morton 
carried on his fight against Omaha and the North Platte section along two 
lines; he would take away the entire South Platte from Nebraska and annex 
it to Kansas; or, short of that, be would take away the capital from Omaha 
and the North Platte and place it in the South Platte section. Failure of 
his more sweeping scheme of secession was apparent as early as 1860, but 
he, or the force of his early impetus, followed the other line to final 
success in 1867.

   They who have known the riper Morton need not be told that he did not 
spend his political novitiate in this session in laboriously compiling and 
introducing long lists of bills to be counted off to his credit by an 
astonished and admiring constitutency or a wondering posterity. In fact he 
presented only three bills and as many resolutions, while similar 
achievements of colleagues, otherwise un-

Page 216

[image caption: Chas. McDonald was a pioneer merchant and banker of North 
Platte, Nebraska]

Page 217

known to fame, must be counted by the score. His activities came from 
original or unusual sources, and he struck in unexpected quarters. While 
his colleagues, with the weak yielding and impulse of "the crowd," were 
rushing through wildcat bank charters he interposed a minority report 
against the principle involved as well as against the acts themselves. 
While ordinary men were crying Peace! Peace! as to the North and South 
Platte divisions, where there could be no peace until the then only dimly 
foreseen railway system should establish practicable communication between 
the sections, he cut to the quick of the question by advocating secession 
of the South Platte and presenting a memorial to Congress for the 
annexation of that part of the territory to Kansas, giving cogent reasons 
therefor. The originality of Morton's methods is illustrated in his 
intervening motion, when it was proposed that the house forthwith choose 
an additional enrolling and engrossing clerk, that a committee be 
appointed to examine candidates. The committee reported as follows:

   The special committee on the matter of engrossing and enrolling clerks 
respectfully submit that they have received applications for the post from 
the following gentlemen: Messrs. Alden, Gorton, Dendy, Warner, and others, 
and beg leave to commend the ability of the gentlemen named above as they 
believe them equally qualified to fill the responsible position which they 
seek. Your committee therefore submit the matter to your consideration.
J. STERLING MORTON.
LEVI HARSH.
GEO. L. MILLER


   The house selected the candidate at the head of the list after six 
ballots. Where is there a record of a formal civil service proceeding in 
this country that precedes this one conceived by our tyro statesman of 
twenty-three years? Morton opposed the civil service reform movement in 
his later career until he came face to face with the conditions which had 
stimulated it when he was at Washington as secretary of agriculture. From 
that time it received his approval and advocacy.

   Dr. Geo. L. Miller, who afterward became very prominent as a political 
journalist and leader, did not introduce a single bill at this session, 
but he was very active on the floor of the house. He led the opposition to 
the measure to remove the capital when it was finally defeated for this 
session, as also in the attempt to divide Douglas county, and he stood 
unswervingly against the incorporation of the illegitimate financial 
schemes which were a blight on this legislature. Dr. Miller was a member 
of three standing committees, and he and Mr. Morton represented the house 
on the committee to prepare joint rules for the two houses.

   The prominent members of the first council held their positions 
relatively in the second, but the three new members, A. A. Bradford, 
Evans, and Kirkpatrick, took an active and important part in the 
proceedings.

   Among the rather motley membership of the second legislature not one 
was more grotesque and peculiar than Judge Allen A. Bradford, a lawyer by 
profession, who lived at Nebraska City. He was a native of Maine, whence 
he came to Missouri and settled in Atchison county; but remaining there 
only a short time he moved across the state line and became a citizen of 
Fremont county, Iowa. Very soon he became judge of the court of the 
district in which that county was situated. There are many amusing 
anecdotes of Judge Bradford's eccentricities and peculiarities as a 
jurist. In 1854 he left Iowa and settled in Pierce (now Otoe) county, and 
there he was elected a member of the second council. He had a general 
knowledge of law, a great contempt for most of mankind, and no regard for 
the feelings of anyone who dared differ with him upon any important 
question. He was sometimes politic and always keen and grasping. Therefore 
when, during the second session of the council in 1856, the question of 
chartering wildcat banks came up, Bradford was found fiercely advocating 
them, for the purpose of making money cheaper to the plain people and to 
increase the per capita circulation among the poor. He was bitter and 
vindictive in denunciation of all who opposed any of the bank charters, 
and particularly severe upon those who antagonized the creation of the 
Platte Valley bank at Nebraska City. Among the latter was A. D. Jones, 
then and until his

Page 218

death a useful citizen of Omaha, whose townsite was originally surveyed 
and platted by him. Mr. Jones vehemently and with good logic denounced all 
the proposed banks as unsafe. He declared that by mere enactment or fiat 
the territory could not create value in paper promises to pay dollars. He 
argued firmly, thoroughly, and intelligently against all the financial 
fallacies which Judge Bradford advocated. And finally Mr. Jones made a 
closing argument against all the bank charters. His peroration was 
eloquent, with citations from the history of banking in Michigan and the 
crash and calamity that came to that state through a redundant issue of 
bank notes. Sturdy facts were arrayed in every stalwart sentence. 
Prophecies of the panic that would come to Nebraska when the proposed 
issue of bank notes had driven out gold, silver, and currency redeemable 
in gold, under the operation of the Gresham law, were delivered with fire 
and force; and then, winding up his speech, Mr. Jones said:

   As an honest man who cares for his good name, I can not vote for such 
banking. Neither expediency nor principle demands such a sacrifice of 
common sense. Let the gentlemen threaten, they cannot frighten. The years 
that are coming, the monetary experiences that this attempt at creating 
values will bring to the people will vindicate my judgment. When I am 
gathered to my fathers I shall be remembered, I hope, as having acted 
wisely and well in this matter, and I aspire to no higher eulogium or 
epitaph upon my tombstone than, "Here rest the remains of an honest man."

   At that time Mr. Jones was a squatter sovereign upon the land just 
southeast of the Omaha townsite, upon the north side of which the Union 
Pacific and Burlington depots and their bewildering maze of railroad 
tracks and sidings now handle the travel and freight of this continent and 
of Europe and Asia. The Jones claim, upon which he lived, consisted of 
three hundred and twenty acres. It rejoiced in a pretty piece of woods and 
a brook of pure water, and Mr. Jones had named it Park Wild. Thus when Mr. 
Bradford closed the debate in favor of chartering the Platte Valley bank 
at Nebraska City, the Nemaha Valley bank at Brownville, the Bank of 
Fontenelle at Bellevue, the Bank of Nebraska at Omaha, and the Bank of 
Tekamah, he said, with all the vigor which his thin and squeaking voice 
would permit:

   Mr. President, the honorable gentleman from Park Wild has declared 
himself an honest man. Perhaps he is. I don't suppose a man would tell a 
lie about a matter which is of so little consequence in this distinguished 
body. But, Mr. President, the gentleman from Park Wild talks of his death, 
of his grave and his tombstone and an epitaph thereupon. But if he is as 
good and as honest as he pretends he is, he need fear neither death nor 
the grave. He'll never die. He'll be translated like Elijah and go up in a 
chariot, be wheeled right into the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, 
and made a member of the everlasting choir to sing glory hallelujah 
forever and ever among the saints and angels; and, Mr. President, he is so 
good, so pious, and so honest that I wish he were there NOW.

   This satirical and grotesque apotheosis of Jones finished the 
opposition to the bank charters and ended the debate. Mr. Jones lived to 
be ninety years old in the enjoyment of his well-earned good name and the 
banks are all dead, having expired in the panic of 1857.

   The Omaha Nebraskian of February 20, 1856, copies a study of the 
Nebraka legislature, then in session, by a correspondent of the New York 
Times -- who, it alleges, was the clever young journalist, J. W. 
Pattison -- which possesses sufficient inherent evidence of being 
tolerably true to life to be worth reproducing:

   It is a decidedly rich treat to visit the general assembly of Nebraska. 
You see a motley group inside of a railing in a smalI room crowded to 
overflowing, some behind their little school-boy desks, some seated on the 
of desks, some with their feet perch on top of their neighbor's chair or 
desk, some whittling --half a dozen walking about in what little space 
there is left. The fireman, doorkeeper, sergeant-at-arms, last year's 
members and almost anyone else, become principal characters inside the 
bar, selecting good seats, and making themselves generally at home, no 
matter how much they may discommode the members. The clerk, if he chooses, 
jumps up to explain the whys and hows of his journal. A lobby member 
stalks inside the bar, and from one to the other he goes talking of the 
advantages of his bill. A row starts up in the

Page 219

secretary's room, or somewhere about the building, and away goes the 
honorable body to see the fun. Hon. Mr. A. gives Mr. B. a severe lecturing 
because he didn't vote as he agreed to. Mr. B. says Mr. A. lies, is no 
better than he should be and reckons he ain't much afraid of him. Mr. C. 
comes to the rescue and speaks in concert pitch half an hour, and says 
nothing; then a thirsty member moves an adjournment, and in a few minutes 
the drinking saloons are well patronized. Although both bodies have about 
seven days more to sit only four bills have been passed. It is one 
continued personal and local fight -- a constant attempt at bargain, sale 
and argument. A bill to remove the capital was considered in the House 
last night until the small hours. It was an amusing time. The history of 
official corruption was renewed; how through bribery and fraud the capital 
was located here; how that little arch-intriguer, T. B. Cuming, did many 
naughty and rascally things, how the people were opposed to the location 
at Omaha. Morton, member from Nebraska City, Decker from the same place, a 
man by name of Moore and Dr. Miller took the lead in the discussion. It 
was nearly all, however, for buncombe.

   The two-year-old commonwealth now -- 1856 -- begins to show rudimentary 
features of normal political organization and life. There is a semblance 
of public discussion, the basis -- in theory -- of present political 
government. There begins to be a public, and there is a good beginning of 
a press. The census, taken in the fall of this year, will indicate a 
population of 10,716, and there are two very aggressive political 
journals, the Nebraska City News and the Omaha Nebraskian, and one -- the 
Advertiser of Brownville, that is industriously newsy. The homing instinct 
and spirit begin to modify or withstand the predatory carpet-bagger and 
the land pirate. But the dominant issues and the absorbing controversies 
are sectional, and they are kept alive in the main by and for the rival 
politicians.

   The perennial politics of this period was kept in full life, during the 
naturally dull season between elections and the sessions of the 
legislature, by the regular contest over the election of delegate to 
Congress. The North Platte, or Omaha candidate at the second congressional 
election was Bird B. Chapman, a young man who had recently come to the 
territory from Elyria, Ohio, in the direct pursuit of a political career, 
and with the prestige of being the beneficiary of a popular impression 
that he was a sort of political legate or next friend of President Pierce. 
In the character sketches by the over-apt South Platte politicians he 
comes to us as a mere cunning, tricky, small-bore political adventurer. In 
fact he was a smooth, suave, and alert politician, of just that smallish 
caliber which then, as now, is the most useful and likely makeup for

[image caption: BIRD B. CHAPMAN Second delegate to Congress from Nebraska 
territory]

achieving a term or two of congressional notoriety, and then to drop into 
the dead sea of normal mediocrity. While candor cannot yield to this first 
delegate from the North Platte more than the virtue and capacity of the 
average present day member from Nebraska, it can yet compliment him as the 
possessor of much less vice and incapacity than he was credited with by 
his South Platte opponents. J. Sterling Morton -- still the boy of twenty-
four -- was, apparently, by tacit consent, and at any rate by irresistible 
force and irrepressible impulse, already the speaker-

Page 220

in-chief for South Platte hostility. He was at all times charged with 
South Platte wrath, and which, let off never so copiously, yet, like the 
widow's cruse, was only thereby augmented. Sample vials of the Morton anti-
Chapman hate, let loose by way of rejoicing at the news that the House 
committee on privileges and elections had decided in favor of Bennet, 
serve to illustrate in some sort the bitterness of the sectional spirit of 
the time and the characteristic way in which this most unique figure in 
Nebraska history manifested it:

   We expected that the voice of the people would be heard there instead 
of the feeble and imbecile voice of our respected grandmother, the 
governor of Nebraska . . . We are rejoiced at the fact, in short we are 
specially and exquisitely rejoiced because the great bug-a-boo of 
administration influence . . . failed to frighten away the facts in the 
case which with a thousand tongues related the baseness, the corruption 
and the injustice of the miserable beings who filched from Bennet the 
certificate [of election.] He [Chapman] was an imposter. He never voted 
the democratic ticket in his life until the fall before the last 
presidential campaign.

   And then follows the epitaph:

   Embalmed with soft soap, chiseled in brass, sepulchered in the 
cottonwood coffin of public charity, rest now his rotten remains, and ever 
and anon popular ridicule shall giggle his requiem while common sense 
shall point to the spot as inhabited by one whom she knew not.

   Now, referring to the friends of the prematurely interred statesman who 
"lament for receiverships, registerships, and land-offices that are not," 
who have been "indefatigable in lying, surpassless in lickspittlery, 
without a parallel in rascality. Poor miserable devils, we pity, we lament 
your ignominious defeat, and the death of your golden calf. Trusting, 
however, that your affliction may be the means of your purification, we 
drop you down among the maggots and worms, where you will be at rest and 
at home, poor devils."

   Hiram P. Bennet, Chapman's opponent, was the candidate of the Nebraska 
City coterie, just as Chapman was of the Omaha coterie. The territorial 
board of canvassers consisted by law of the secretary and two territorial 
officers, and the auditor, Chas. B. Smith, arid the treasurer, B. P. 
Rankin, were called in to act with Secretary Cuming in this case. Mr. 
Bennet complains in his speech in the contest in the House of 
Representatives that all the members of the board were his political and 
personal enemies. Judged by the prevailing standard of duty it is not 
surprising that this board undertook to disregard the vote of four 
counties in toto with this very vague explanation:

   The board would also respectfully submit the following return of votes 
from Dakota, Washington, Richardson and Otoe counties upon which under the 
specific act which prescribed their powers and duties, viz., the act 
regulating elections approved March 6, 1855 they feel themselves 
incompetent to act.

   According to the board's finding the five counties whose returns had 
been accepted gave Chapman 380, and Bennet 292 votes. The returns of the 
four rejected counties swelled Bennet's vote to 588 and Chapman's to 
575 -- a majority of 13 for Bennet. There are no adequate recorded reasons 
why the hoard thus boldly undertook to annul nearly half the vote of the 
territory; and when living contemporaries of those pioneer state-builders 
are asked for explanations they only say, with knowing shoulder shrug, "It 
must have been because Tom Cuming wanted it that way."

   In May, 1856, the House committee on elections, ignoring the 
certificate Chapman had received from the territorial canvassers, reported 
that Bennet was entitled to the seat, and the committee of course counted 
the votes of the counties which the canvassing board had thrown out. The 
old question of the halfbreed tract vote again arose, but the committee 
found that the reservation was part of Nebraska and that the white 
settlers therein had the right to vote, notwithstanding that they had been 
technically excluded from the governor's census. But Alexander H. Stephens 
made an adverse minority report in favor of excluding the half-breed vote, 
which would leave Chapman six votes in the lead. This was a plausible 
excuse for the House to ignore the majority report, and to seat Chapman by 
a vote of 69 to 63; and the Nebraskian avers that in the final vote 
Congress recog-

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nized the rejection of the half-breed vote by the territorial canvassers.

   But Mr. Bennet's indiscretion was doubtless the real cause of his 
undoing. He had always been a whig with an anti-slavery leaning, and he 
made no pretense of democratic regeneration during his canvass. He was a 
promising and reliable young man who suited Nuckolls, the proprietary 
genius of Nebraska City, and so, influentially, of the South Platte, and 
who was also an old line whig, but a slaveholder. Bennet also suited 
Morton as a likely man to beat the detested "Brass" B. Chapman, as he 
called him. What suited Nuckolls and his two promising proteges, Morton 
and Bennet, for practical purposes suited Otoe county, which led the South 
Platte. The Brownville Advertiser, however, had from the first, for 
reasons of its own, been inclined to cast its political fortunes with the 
North Platte element, and Nemaha county had actually given Chapman a 
majority of one. We even find the Advertiser contending that the minority 
report of the house committee shows that Chapman is entitled to his 
seat.(2) Furnas was sharply crticised by the South Platte press for this 
misalliance, which was charged to his land-office aspiration.

   Bennet's clash with J. L. Sharp in the first legislature, which was 
wholly to his credit, had not been forgotten by that cunning politician 
who had diligently collected such evidence as he could of irregular voting 
in Richardson county, and in person laid it before the proper committee of 
Congress. But after the majority of the committee bad reported in his 
favor Bennet attended the republican national convention at Philadelphia, 
and sat as a vice president from the territory of Nebraska. This was too 
much for the more strongly proslavery southern members to overlook, and it 
was welcome ammunition for his enemies at home. The Nebraskian, which 
Morton had lately alluded to as suffering from pecuniary debility and the 
property of "B. B. Chapman and his toadies," pounces with avidity on the 
rich morsel Bennet had thrown to his enemies. In its issue of July 9th it 
charges that Bennet "figured extensively in the late Black Republican 
convention at Philadelphia," and that, "the Nebraska City News, edited by 
Morton, claimed that he was a democrat and urged squatters to vote for 
him, and not having learned, as they since have, that Morton's highest 
ambition was to tell a slick lie, many good democrats voted for him."

   At this period the smaller frontier democratic newspapers were very 
subservient to the dominant southern element of their party, and were 
noisome in their abuse of negroes and negro sympathizers. And so we find 
the Nebraskian speaking of the "sooty deity" before which Bennet had 
bowed, and remarking in rather mixed metaphor that "this last step smells 
strongly of wool."

   The Omaha faction -- for as yet there was no organized political party 
in the territory -- encouraged by the seating of Chapman, pressed the 
suggestion it had previously made for organization, and charged that 
sympathizers of Bennet opposed it. For Chapman to have triumphed at last 
was a hard blow to Morton, and instead of feigning acquiescence, as the 
mere politician does, and as the successful politician usually must do, 
while he waits for his own turn, he cut loose from restraint and attacked 
the democratic administration, local and general. His bitterness was 
increased by the fact that Chapman, in the course of his patronage 
purveyorship, went to Morton's home and selected for the office of United 
States marshal, Dr. B. P. Rankin, just the pretentious, windy, verbose, 
and not over-abstemious politician, between whom and Morton mutual dislike 
and hostility were inevitable. We learn something of political conditions 
and methods of those times as well as something about an interesting 
pioneer journalist in this item from the Nebraska City News of February 9, 
1856:

   B. P. Rankin and J. W. Pattison, are, we learn, candidates for the 
marshalship of Nebraska. We do hope that Pierce will let the Rankin cup 
pass by us. There are several half-breed Indians whose appointment would 
meet with far more approbation from the people. Pattison is a young man of 
fine ability and prepossessing appearance, and would make an excellent 
officer. He was almost unanimously endorsed by the members of the 

(2. Brownville Advertiser, June 21, 1856.)

Page 222

last legislature, and also by the governor and secretary; the latter 
endorsement is rather against him. However, it was not love that made 
Granny and Tommy [Izard and Cuming] sign the letters.

   The News of the same date gives Governor Izard's message the following 
greeting under the title "De Guberner 'Proaches":

   This document is characterized by that superabundance of sagacity, 
superflity of patriotism and superlative degree of candor which has ever 
distinguished from the vulgar herd the chivalric and classic sons of 
Arkansas. Through its sentences one can hear the tread of a mighty 
intellect as it strides majestically through the labyrinthine 
ramifications of politics, and marches along the corridors of thought; and 
as he hears his soul's tongue whisper in awe, "De Guberner 'Proaches."

   In the same plethoric issue is a satire on political conditions, quite 
likely by Morton, but well disguised, in the form of a message by Governor 
"M. W. Lizard." It laments that most and the best of the large immigration 
has gone into the South Platte "to swell the numbers of the factious 
malcontents in that section." "I intend to know no north, no south in this 
territory, and to use all means in my power to allay sectional jealousy. I 
am for the whole of Nebraska, but you know, fellow citizens, that I 
consider North Platte the whole of Nebraska, and Omaha the whole of North 
Platte; thus qualified I can truly say that I am for the whole of 
Nebraska." The governor says that he is afraid of expending much money in 
the capital (though he must make some show), fearing the legality of the 
location should be questioned and the ingenious management of Acting 
Governor Cuming brought to light. He does not fear President Pierce, as he 
is probably aware of the necessity of keeping the disorganizers down south 
in the shade by any means that can be used. ". . We can not hope for 
another president with whom the end will justify any means to benefit 
Omaha and speak in favor of the Nebraska bill." The governor admits that 
his laborers on the capitol were non-residents, but they voted for Chapman 
for delegate. He fears that he didn't manage well last winter with those 
dreadful Indian stories, got up so that Omaha and Council Bluffs could 
handle the spare gold of the troops to be sent on; they worked badly, for 
they scared immigrants away from the North Platte; and, the soldiers 
didn't find any Indians -- as was expected. The message urges the 
legislature to send appeals and memorials to Congress for donations so 
that the money may be spent for the benefit of Omaha, and the governor 
wants his salary increased though the fifteen hundred dollar contingent 
fund is already spent on his two sons.

   We do not wonder that on his return, after an absence of two months, 
Morton is constrained --in the News of May 3d -- to make the following 
confession:

   We are now about to recommence our abusive proceedings in the old mild 
and placid style. We call our position a responsible one, one which 
renders us sole proprietor of more threatened lickings than we can 
enumerate, establishes us as sole target for the remarks of the 
mellifluent revolver, and secures us daily gratuitous invitations to 
proceed to a place of perpetual caloric.

   The next item is headed "Calamity":

   During our absence, as might have been expected, the country has met 
with a serious calamity -- in the melancholy attempt of Franklin Pierce to 
appoint a marshal of Nebraska. Had Rankin been deputed to carry carrion to 
a bear we should have pitied the bear for having fallen into very bad 
society and commiserated him upon the fact that the carrion would never 
all reach him.

   Another item reads as follows: "We are convinced at the present writing 
that Nebraska City must be the western terminus of the Burlington 
railroad." Though this prevision did not come true literally, yet, from 
the writer's point of view, it was consistently prophetic. He foresaw that 
the Union Pacific would begin at or near Omaha, and in the then condition 
of traffic and railroad building it was rational to believe that this 
southern trunk line would connect itself with the main commercial point in 
the territory of the Missouri river south of the territory to be occupied 
by the Union Pacific road. Light is thrown on economic conditions at the 
beginning of 1856 by a statement in the News of February 9th that claims 
of one hundred and sixty acres within two and a half miles from Nebraska 
City were selling at from five hundred to eight hundred dollars.