In the Directory of Congress the following appears:

   From the legislative records it appears that Gov. W. A. Richardson assumed the duties of his office on or about the 12th day of January, 1858, at which time he was called upon to recognize the action of the majority of the legislature then in session at Florence, to which place they had seceded from Omaha. On the ground that Omaha was the seat of government for the territory, their request was promptly refused,¹ while the minority adjourned the legislature, on January 16, 1858, four days after his accession to power. Inasmuch as all criminal laws had been repealed, and a great legal confusion existed, an extra session convened on the 23d of September, 1858, and a regular one or-

3

dered by law to follow it beginning October 4th, 1858. One brief message¹ sufficed far both sessions and also announced the fact of the governor's resignation of his office. As a justification for a special session he said:

   As reported the territorial indebtedness was $15,774, and it was said that only five counties had paid a part of their taxes, also that banks had failed to redeem their notes and should be dealt with accordingly, and that Congress should be memorialized in aid of roads and bridges and general improvements. In a burst of enthusiasm never yet justified, he fancied a new Eldorado of gold at Cherry Creek and Laramie Peak, that "should give an impetus to every branch of industry, and eventually make the great valley of the Missouri not only the garden but the central money power of the Union." In imagination his ears caught the thundering Union Pacific trains, and his eyes were gladdened by the world's commerce gliding from ocean to ocean. But he is entitled to utter in glowing rhetoric impressions of the future:

   The following report¹ is a flattering testimonial of appreciation and esteem:

   The governor's expose of the territorial banks was amply sustained by a minority report of a committee, recommending the repeal of four of their charters, while the majority suggested the repeal of all, unless their cases were to receive the attention of the courts.

   Hon. J. Sterling Morton¹ came to Bellevue,. Nebraska Territory, November 10, 1854, and on April 12, 1855, removed to Nebraska City, where he established his permanent home.
   By the appointment of President Buchanan he became secretary of the Territory July 12, 1858; which office he held until succeeded by A. S. Paddock, under the administration of Abraham Lincoln. At the date of his arrival, he was only twenty-two years of age, having been born in 1832. No young man ever came to the territory better prepared for a useful and honorable career. Having enjoyed the advantages of Michigan University, and having received his final diploma from Union College, New York, and being endowed with a fine command of language, with the fancy of a picturesque writer, and the aggressive style of the ready debater and orator, journalism and politics offered inducements in the line of his capabilities and taste.
   But these acquisitions and natural endowments were fortified, directed, and restrained by sound morals, high sense of honor and that chivalric bearing that charms society and makes home happy. As a writer on the Detroit Free Press and Chicago Times, his contributions were highly prized, while before his appointment as Secretary, he was editor of the Nebraska City News, and in 1855 elected to the legislature. During the session he attempted to stem the tide of wild-cat banking, which resulted in his defeat in the election of 1856. This was a source of regret on the part of many new made friends; but the Board of Regents, members of the faculty, and many students of the Michigan University, could have said, "I told you so"; for I re-

member how the boy stood by an excommunicated professor in the college, denounced all in authority, and chose expulsion rather than sacrifice a single conviction. In 1857 he was again elected to the legislature and saw at once in exploded banks and a defrauded people, evidence of the wisdom of his unrelenting opposition to the issue of an inflated, irredeemable paper currency of 1855.
   In 1860 he was democratic candidate for delegate to Congress--against Samuel G. Daily, republican, and inasmuch as the Buchanan administration with which he was connected, stood charged with being the hot bed of treason, and his party the home of traitors, in the hour of national peril no explanation or protestation could prevail. Even Douglas democrats who approved Mr. Lincoln's war policy, could not receive absolution, unless the name of democrat was discarded for that of republican. But after the storm passed over, Mr. Blaine, a republican historian, declared no man would have lamented over a destroyed Union more than President Buchanan. In this campaign, joint discussions were held by the rival candidates, thousands of miles traveled, a few voters addressed and cabins and dug-outs transformed into opera houses and hotels, with the open prairies as an annex. No railroads or turnpikes or canals aided in travel, but private vehicles struggled through the grass, marshes and quicksands, furnishing opportunities for walking, wading and swimming. Patriotism was retailed at a premium, eloquence lavished in profusion. Yet only 5,900 votes were returned, of which a majority of fourteen were awarded Mr. Morton, but afterwards lost by a contest in Congress.¹
   Six years thereafter, in 1866, we find him a candidate for first governor of the new state, against David Butler, republican. Public arguments, for speedy admission as a state, were used by republicans, to the effect that the best government lands were being taken by settlement, and in a few years a new state would have to receive an inferior grade as her donation for education and internal improvement purposes; that the Territory could

not draw capital to it as readily as a state could; and that the salaries named in the constitution to be voted upon, were so small the people could meet them without oppressive taxation, on account of the enhanced value of property.
   To which it was replied that the national domain was inexhaustible, the salaries delusively low, and increased prosperity would demand corresponding expense. Republicans were influenced privately by the consideration that they were now in a majority, and state and national patronage would be dispensed in their behalf. But democrats hoped that enough conservative republicans, sustaining the policy of Andrew Johnson, could by union with them capture the state and national offices, with a few years' delay. Accordingly, when they voted for Mr. Morton, many also voted against state admission, but the returns finally gave Butler a majority of 145, and state admission a majority of 100.
   At the first election of United States senators, Mr. Morton was a democratic candidate, receiving the full party vote, as against T. W. Tipton, republican. Sixteen years thereafter, in 1882, when the vote had increased from 8,041 in 1860, to 87,345 in 1880, Mr. Morton was again put forward by his party as a candidate for governor against James W. Dawes. In this contest a majority of the votes were given to Mr. Morton and Mr. Ingersol; but Mr. Dawes, having more than either of the others, was elected. Again in 1884, Mr. Morton and Mr. Dawes were opposing candidates, while Mr. Morton increased his vote over that of two years previous from 28,562 to 57,634, and Mr. Dawes raised his from 43,495 to 72,835 and was again elected. In 1892, he once more carried the minority party's banner, in a contest for governor, and returning it unsullied, re-entered the democratic ranks.
   Often called upon to act in the capacity of governor, during the absence of that official, and at one time for six months continuously, following the resignation of Richardson, he met the emergencies with promptness and efficiency. In 1859, on account of the attack of the Pawnee Indians upon the persons and property of citizens of Dodge and Cuming counties, he called

upon Colonel Charles May, commander at Ft. Kearney, for aid in the shape of cavalry.¹ As a result of this appeal Lieutenant Robertson, U. S. Army, Comd'g 2nd Dragoons, joined the command under Gen'l Thayer, which was accompanied by Gov. Black and staff, and overtaking the Indians in camp, received their surrender, the delivery up of seven of their young men, and pledges of future good conduct.
   In September of the same year, 1859, Secretary Morton delivered the address at the Agricultural Fair, Nebraska City, which was incorporated with the first annual report of the state society and entered upon the legislative records. No other citizen could have given such a sketch of the first five years of territorial life; and at no other place and time could the intellectual photograph have been pictured. Without agricultural data on which to draw, the task of "brick without straw" was re-enacted; and the address comes forth to-day, from the tomb of official documents as history embalmed in sparkling garniture, We claim it as a Nebraska classic, and have only one fear of our proprietary right being disputed. This arises from the fact that the young orator emigrated from the state of Michigan, whose Professor, Moses Coit Tyler, in his history of "American Literature," declared that England had a claim to our early Pilgrim literature, inasmuch as "an Englishman undergoes no literary evolution by sitting down to write in America instead of England." We set forth in our demurrer, that the Pilgrim eloquence was couched in ancient forms, while ours revelled in the freedom and independence of impulses unchained, thoughts exuberant, and fancies born of a future of incomprehensible splendor.
   In introducing him, Robert W. Furnas, president of the territorial board of agriculture, said:

T. STERLING MORTON, 1858.

   The address of Mr. Morton was as follows:

   The Indian title to the Omaha and Otoe lands, which comprised respectively the land lying along the Missouri River, north of the Great Platte, and that similarly situated south of the last mentioned stream, was not extinguished until late in the spring of 1854, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill did not pass the House of Representatives until the 24th of May of the same year, so that the season was too far advanced for the emigrants of that summer to put in crops, except in a very few instances, and I think it safe to say that not more than a single section of land was tilled in the whole Territory of Nebraska in 1854; in fact, the only considerable patches of corn that I remember seeing that fall were raised by the Mission of Bellevue, and by the town proprietors of Nebraska City on the town site. I remember that we commenced the winter of 1854-'55, a little colony of hopeful boarders, purchasing everything that we ate, and even feed for our horses and cattle in the neighboring states of Iowa and Missouri, and they, even, had very little to spare.
   The winter was exceedingly mild and with the early spring-time came the farmers with their breaking teams and the big plows, and the sturdy hand of industry was for the first time browsing in the sunlight that gladdened the beautiful prairies of our new found homes. Yet what did they know of the rich soil of this untried land? Its productiveness was to them an unsealed book. No human test had ever demonstrated their worth, and yet the farmer turned the heavy sod and planted his corn for the first time, with an abiding faith that his labors would be rewarded, that his all that he had invested in the experiment, would be, returned to him ten fold, and that his wife and little ones whose very lives were staked upon the soil and its capacities, would be fed, clothed and cared for by the generous returns of the earth. The man who builds the first house, gathers his family around the first home fireside, and plants the first seed, and risks his all upon the first crop, in a country whose lands have been forever untried, and upon which the slumbers of barrenness have rested down unnumbered centuries, must needs be and is braver and grander in his heart than he who leads an army into a battle, and moves unawed amid the emissaries of death himself.
   The spring and summer of 1856 were seasons of intense anxiety to the first tillers of the soil, but the harvest sun shone propitiously and the benignant rains and the growth giving dews were plenteous, and when the autumn came with its sere and yellow leaves the great experiment had

© 2001 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller