EDDE
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Chapter 14, 1846--Robbery and the Regulators
Riots in Massac county in 1846--Robbery in Pope county--The regulators--Their proceedings--Arrests made by them--The torture and confession of their prisoners--The rogues vote for the county officers of Massac in 1846--Extorted and bribed evidence to implicate the sheriff and others, by the opposing candidates--The sheriff and other s ordered to leave the country--Many whipped, tarred and feathered, and some drowned--Arrest of the rioters--They are rescued by the regulators--Judge Scates' charge to the grand jury--Order to Dr. Gibbs, and reason for such an well disposed moderate men in such times--A few bold, violent men, can govern a county, and how they do it--The reasons why the militia would not turn out--Attack on old Mathis, his wife shot, he is carried away, supposed to have been murdered--The regulators arrested, given up by the sheriff, prisoners taken to Kentucky--Some of them drowned--Proceedings of the new governor and the legislature, then in session--District courts provided to evade the Constitution against changes of the venue in criminal cases--The disturbances die away of themselves--The situation in 1842 compared with its condition in December 1846.
WHILST the Mormons and their adversaries were at war in the county of Hancock a little rebellion, less in numbers but equal in violence, was raging in the county of Massac on the Ohio river. It has heretofore been mentioned that an ancient colony of horse-thieves, counterfeiters, and robbers had long infested the counties of Massac and Pope. They were so strong and so well combined together as to insure immunity from punishment by legal means. In the summer of 1846 a number of these desperadoes attacked the house of an aged citizen in Pope county and robbed him of about $2,500 in gold. In the act of committing the robbery one of them left behind a knife made by a blacksmith of the neighborhood, by means of which he was identified. This one being arrested and subjected to torture by the neighboring people, confessed his crime and
-- 438 --
gave the names of his associates. These again being arrested, to the number of a dozen, and some of them being tortured, disclosed the names of a long list of confederates in crime scattered through several counties. The honest portion of the people now associated themselves into a band of regulators and proceeded to order all suspected persons to leave the country. But before this order could be enforced the election for county officers came on in August, 1846 and those who were suspected to be rogues all threw their votes one way and, as it was asserted, thereby insured the election of a sheriff and other officers in the county of Massac who were opposed to the proceedings of the regulators, and not over zealous in enforcing the laws. The county of Massac gave about five hundred votes and out of these John W. Read, the successful candidate for sheriff, received about three hundred majority. His opponent was a wealthy citizen and, as it appeared, not very popular, but his influence over his friends was almost unlimited. There was another unsuccessful candidate for county clerk of the same description. These two put themselves at the head of their friends in Pope and Massac. And being assisted by large numbers from Paducah and Smithland in Kentucky, they proceeded to drive out and punish all suspected persons and to torture them to force them to confess and disclose the names of their confederates. By this means the numbers implicated in crime were increased every day. The mode of torture applied to these people was to take them to the Ohio river and hold them under water until they showed a willingness to confess. Others had ropes tied around their bodies over their arms, and a stick twisted into the ropes until their ribs and sides were crushed in by force of the pressure. Some of the persons who were maltreated in this way obtained warrants for the arrest of the regulators. These warrants were put into the hands of the sheriff, who arrested some of the offenders; but the persons arrested were rescued out of jail in a short time
-- 439 --
by their friends. Shortly after this the regulators ordered the sheriff and county clerk, together with the magistrate who issued the warrants, to leave the country, under the penalty of severe corporal punishment. It appears that by means of torture and bribery some notorious rogues had been induced to accuse the sheriff, the county clerk, and the magistrate of being members of the gang of robbers; and it was upon this pretext that they were ordered to leave the country.
In this condition of things application was made in August, 1846 to the governor for a militia force to sustain the constituted authorities of Massac. This disturbance being at a distance of two hundred and fifty miles from the seat of government and in a part of the country between which and the seat of government there was but very little communication, the facts concerning it were but imperfectly known to the governor, for which reason he issued an order to Brigadier-General John T. Davis of Williamson county to examine into it, and if he judged it necessary, to call out the militia. Gen. Davis proceeded to Massac, called the parties together, and, as he believed, induced them to settle their difficulties; but he had no sooner left the county than violence broke out afresh. The regulators came down from Pope and over from Kentucky and drove out the sheriff, the county clerk, the representative-elect to the legislature, and many others; they committed actual violence by whipping a considerable number, and threatened summary punishment to every one, rogue or honest man, who spoke against their proceedings. This is the great evil of lynch law. The lynchers set out with the moderate and honest intention of exterminating notorious rogues only. But as they proceed they find opposition from many honest persons who can never divest themselves of the belief that the laws of the country are amply sufficient for the punishment and prevention of crime. The lynchers then have to maintain their assumed authority in opposition to law and regular government,
-- 440 --
and they are apt to be no less arbitrary and violent in so doing than tyranny generally is in maintaining its pretensions. For this reason they think they must crush all opposition, and in this mode that which at first was merely a war between honest men and rogues is converted into a war between honest men alone, one party contending for the supremacy of the laws and the other maintaining its own assumed authority.
Not long after these events the circuit court was held for Massac. Judge Scates delivered a strong charge to the grand jury against the proceedings of the regulators; the grand jury found indictments against a number of them. Warrants were issued upon the indictments; quite a number were arrested by the sheriff and committed to jail. The regulators assembled from Kentucky and the neighboring counties in Illinois with the avowed intention of releasing the prisoners. They threatened to lynch Judge Scates if he ever returned again to hold court in Massac; and they ordered the members of the grand jury and the witnesses before them to leave the country under pain of corporal punishment. The sheriff set about summoning a posse to secure his prisoners, to resist the regulators, and to maintain the authority of government. But now was the reign of terror indeed. The regulators by their violence had struck terror into all moderate men, who, although they disapproved of their proceedings, were afraid to join the sheriff for fear of being involved in the fate of the horse-thieves. These moderate men who disapproved of the proceedings of the regulators were in a majority of three to one in the county; but such is the inefficiency of moderate men that one bold daring man of violence can generally overawe and terrify a dozen of them. For this reason the sheriff failed to raise a force among the reputable moderate men of the county and was joined only, for the most part, by sixty or seventy men who had been ordered to leave the country, many of whom were known to be notorious rogues.
-- 441 --
The regulators marched down to Metropolis city, the county seat of Massac, in much greater force. A parley ensued between the sheriff's party and the regulators; and it was finally agreed that the sheriff's party should surrender under a promise of exemption from violence. The regulators then took possession of the jail, liberated their friends confined in it, carried several of the sheriff's posse along with them as prisoners, and murdered some of them by drowning them in the Ohio river. The sheriff and all his active friends were again ordered to leave, and were driven out of the country.
The sheriff, the representative to the legislature, and another gentleman then proceeded to see the governor, who was then at Nauvoo in Hancock county with a military force endeavoring to reinstate the exiled citizens of Hancock. As he was now within twenty days of the expiration of his office he was loath to begin measures with the Massac rioters which he feared might not be approved or pursued by his successor. Besides this, from all former experience he was perfectly certain that it would be entirely useless to order out the militia for the protection of horse-thieves. He well knew that the militia could not be raised for such a purpose. He therefore issued an order to Dr. William J. Gibbs of Johnson county authorizing him to call upon the militia officers in some of the neighboring counties for a force to protect the sheriff and other county officers, the magistrates, the grand jury and the witnesses before them, and the honest part of the community. Dr. Gibbs proceeded to Massac, and calling to his assistance two justices of the peace, he required the regulators to come before them and establish their charges so that he could know who were and who were not rogues, to be put out of the protection of law. The regulators declined appearing before him, wherefore the doctor adjudged that there were no rogues in Massac county and that all were entitled to protection against the regulators. He proceeded to call for the militia of Union and other counties; but
-- 442 --
notwithstanding the doctor had adjudged that there were no rogues in Massac the militia knew to the contrary, and as was foreseen by the governor the militia refused to turn out for their protection. Thus the regulators were again left undisputed masters of the county. They now assembled themselves together, caught a number of suspected persons, and tried them by a committee; some were acquitted, others convicted, and were whipped or tarred and feathered. The numbers implicated with the counterfeiters increased rather than diminished. Many persons who had before been considered honest men were now implicated, which increased the excitement. Many who were formerly in favor of the regulators now left them and disapproved of their conduct. The one party was called "Regulators," the other "Flatheads."
A party of about twenty regulators went to the house of an old man named Mathis to arrest him and force him to give evidence of the guilt of certain persons of the neighborhood, and of some who had been inmates of his house. He and his wife resisted the arreSt. The old woman, being unusually strong and active, knocked down one or two of the party with her fists. A gun was then presented to her breast, accompanied by a threat of blowing her heart out if she continued her resistance. She caught the gun and shoved it downwards, when it went off and shot her through the thigh. She was also struck several blows on the head with the gun-barrel, inflicting considerable wounds, knocking her down in her turn. The party captured the old man Mathis and carried him away with them, since which time he has not been heard of, but is supposed to have been murdered. The regulators say that the shooting of the old lady was accidental. She made the proper affidavit for the purpose of having the perpetrators of the crime arrested. The proper authorities succeeded in arresting about ten of them. They were carried to the Metropolis house in Metropolis city and there placed under a guard while search
-- 443 --
was made for the old man Mathis, who was desired as a witness against the prisoners. The news of their arrest having gone abroad, it was rumored all over the country that the Flatheads intended to put them to death if they failed to convict them. This brought out a large force of regulators for the avowed purpose of rescuing the prisoners. They marched to Metropolis city, where they found the sheriff with a party about as numerous as their own. Various attempts to compromise the difficulty without the effusion of blood were made; but this could be effected only by the unconditional release of the prisoners. After getting their friends from the sheriff's party the regulators arrested several of the sheriff's guards and delivered them to the Kentuckians to be dealt with as they saw proper. In attempting to arrest one man they fired at him twice without injury, when he surrendered; and as he was led down stairs he was stabbed from behind by one of the regulators; and he having screamed murder in consequence of his wound, a Methodist preacher who commanded one of the regulating companies exclaimed, "Now they are using them as they should be." [21] The wounded man was said to be respectable, and upon good authority was represented to be an honest, industrious young man. The man who stabbed him had before had a personal difficulty with him and sought this means of getting revenged. Thus it is when regular government is prostrated and the laws trampled under foot, apparently for the best of purposes, men will avail themselves of the prevalent anarchy to revenge their private quarrels; in a short time the original purpose for which force is resorted to will be forgotten; and instead of punishing horse-thieves and robbers those who drop the law and resort to force soon find themselves fiercely contending to revenge injuries and insults, and to maintain their assumed authority.
The prisoners taken away by the Kentuckians were mostly
-- 444 --
suspicious characters; one of them resided in LaSalle county near the Illinois river, but had resided several months at Metropolis in settling the affairs of an estate, and whose only offence was that he had taken an active part in arresting and securing the prisoners just now released. He was tied, together with the other prisoners, and all of them taken off towards Paducah. Letters were received from the regulators by their friends in Springfield in which they gave an account of what they had done with several of these persons. They wrote that several of them "had gone to Arkansas," by which was understood that they had drowned their prisoners in the Ohio river and left their bodies to float with the current in the direction toward Arkansas. On the 23d of December, 1846 a convention of regulators from the counties of Pope, Massac, and Johnson met at Golconda and ordered the sheriff of Massac, the clerk of the county court, and many other citizens to leave the country within thirty days. The sheriff and many others left the country and were absent all winter. The new governor and the legislature then in session were busy all winter in devising measures to suppress these disturbances; but nothing effectual was done. The legislature passed a law, the constitutionality of which was doubted by many, authorizing the governor when he was satisfied that a crime had been committed by twenty persons or more to issue his proclamation; and then the judge of the circuit was authorized to hold a district court in a large district embracing several counties. By this means it was sought to evade the constitution and take the trial out of the county where the crime was committed, against the will of the accused. In other words, it was believed that in this indirect mode the State could entitle itself to a change of venue in criminal cases against the will of the prisoner. Our former experience had abundantly showed that when crimes had been committed by powerful combinations of men the guilty never could be convicted in the counties in which the crimes had been committed.
-- 445 --
I have never learned whether any proceedings have taken place under the law; but so it is, no one has yet been punished; the disturbances in Massac have died away. And whether they died away naturally, being obliged like everything else to come to an end, or whether the rioters were deterred by the provisions of the foregoing act of the legislature is unknown to the author.
In the conclusion of this history the author must be permitted to indulge in a slight retrospection of the paSt. In 1842, when he came into office, the State was in debt about $14,000,000 for moneys wasted upon internal improvements and in banking; the domestic treasury of the State was in arrears $313,000 for the ordinary expenses of government; auditors' warrants were freely selling at a discount of fifty per cent.; the people were unable to pay even moderate taxes to replenish the treasury, in which not one cent was contained even to pay postage on letters to and from the public offices; the great canal, after spending five millions of dollars on it, was about to be abandoned; the banks, upon which the people had relied for a currency, had become insolvent, their paper had fallen so low as to cease to circulate as money, and as yet no other money had taken its place, leaving the people wholly destitute of a circulating medium and universally in debt; immigration to the State had almost ceased; real estate was wholly unsaleable; the people abroad, terrified by the prospect of high taxation, refused to come amongst us for settlement; and our own people at home were no less alarmed and terrified at the magnitude of our debt, then apparently so much exceeding any known resources of the country. Many were driven to absolute despair of ever paying a cent of it; and it would have required but little countenance and encouragement in the then disheartened and wavering condition of the public mind to have plunged the
-- 446 --
State into the irretrievable infamy of open repudiation. This is by no means an exaggerated picture of our affairs in 1842.
In December, 1846, when the author went out of office, the domestic debt of the treasury, instead of being $313,000 was only $31,000, with $9,000 in the treasury; auditors' warrants were at par or very nearly so; the banks had been put into liquidation in a manner just to all parties, and so as to maintain the character of the State for moderation and integrity; violent counsels were rejected; the notes of the banks had entirely disappeared and had been replaced in circulation by a reasonable abundance of gold and silver coin and the notes of solvent banks of other States; the people had very generally paid their private debts; a very considerable portion of the State debt had been paid also; about three millions of dollars had been paid by a sale of the public property and by putting the bank into liquidation; and a sum of five millions more had been effectually provided for to be paid after the completion of the canal; being a reduction of eight millions of the State debt which had been paid, redeemed, or provided for whilst the author was in office. The State itself, although broken, and at one time discredited and a by-word throughout the civilized world, had to the astonishment of every one been able to borrow on the credit of its property the further sum of $1,600,000 to finish the canal; and that great work, at one time so hopeless and so nearly abandoned, is now in a fair way of completion.
The people abroad have once more begun to seek this goodly land for their future homes. From 1843 until 1846 our population rapidly increased; and is now increasing faster than it ever did before. Our own people have become contented and happy; and the former discredit resting upon them abroad for supposed wilful delinquency in paying the State debt no longer exists.
It is a just pride and a high satisfaction for the author to feel and know that he has been somewhat instrumental in producing
-- 447 --
these gratifying results. In this history he has detailed all the measures of the legislature which produced them; and if these measures did not all originate with him, he can rightfully and justly claim that he supported them with all his power and influence and has faithfully endeavored to carry them out with the best ability he could command. For so doing he has had to encounter bitter opposition to his administration; and enmities have sprung up personally against himself which he hopes will not last forever. For although he wants no office, yet is he possessed of such sensibility that it is painful to him to be the subject of unmerited obloquy; and for this reason, and this alone, he hopes that when those of his fellow-citizens who disapproved of his administration in these particulars have time to look into the merits of these measures and see how they have lifted the State from the lowest abyss of despair and gloom to a commanding and honorable position among her sisters of the Union, they will not remember their wrath forever.
Riots in Massac county in 1846--Robbery in Pope county--The regulators--Their proceedings--Arrests made by them--The torture and confession of their prisoners--The rogues vote for the county officers of Massac in 1846--Extorted and bribed evidence to implicate the sheriff and others, by the opposing candidates--The sheriff and other s ordered to leave the country--Many whipped, tarred and feathered, and some drowned--Arrest of the rioters--They are rescued by the regulators--Judge Scates' charge to the grand jury--Order to Dr. Gibbs, and reason for such an well disposed moderate men in such times--A few bold, violent men, can govern a county, and how they do it--The reasons why the militia would not turn out--Attack on old Mathis, his wife shot, he is carried away, supposed to have been murdered--The regulators arrested, given up by the sheriff, prisoners taken to Kentucky--Some of them drowned--Proceedings of the new governor and the legislature, then in session--District courts provided to evade the Constitution against changes of the venue in criminal cases--The disturbances die away of themselves--The situation in 1842 compared with its condition in December 1846.
WHILST the Mormons and their adversaries were at war in the county of Hancock a little rebellion, less in numbers but equal in violence, was raging in the county of Massac on the Ohio river. It has heretofore been mentioned that an ancient colony of horse-thieves, counterfeiters, and robbers had long infested the counties of Massac and Pope. They were so strong and so well combined together as to insure immunity from punishment by legal means. In the summer of 1846 a number of these desperadoes attacked the house of an aged citizen in Pope county and robbed him of about $2,500 in gold. In the act of committing the robbery one of them left behind a knife made by a blacksmith of the neighborhood, by means of which he was identified. This one being arrested and subjected to torture by the neighboring people, confessed his crime and
-- 438 --
gave the names of his associates. These again being arrested, to the number of a dozen, and some of them being tortured, disclosed the names of a long list of confederates in crime scattered through several counties. The honest portion of the people now associated themselves into a band of regulators and proceeded to order all suspected persons to leave the country. But before this order could be enforced the election for county officers came on in August, 1846 and those who were suspected to be rogues all threw their votes one way and, as it was asserted, thereby insured the election of a sheriff and other officers in the county of Massac who were opposed to the proceedings of the regulators, and not over zealous in enforcing the laws. The county of Massac gave about five hundred votes and out of these John W. Read, the successful candidate for sheriff, received about three hundred majority. His opponent was a wealthy citizen and, as it appeared, not very popular, but his influence over his friends was almost unlimited. There was another unsuccessful candidate for county clerk of the same description. These two put themselves at the head of their friends in Pope and Massac. And being assisted by large numbers from Paducah and Smithland in Kentucky, they proceeded to drive out and punish all suspected persons and to torture them to force them to confess and disclose the names of their confederates. By this means the numbers implicated in crime were increased every day. The mode of torture applied to these people was to take them to the Ohio river and hold them under water until they showed a willingness to confess. Others had ropes tied around their bodies over their arms, and a stick twisted into the ropes until their ribs and sides were crushed in by force of the pressure. Some of the persons who were maltreated in this way obtained warrants for the arrest of the regulators. These warrants were put into the hands of the sheriff, who arrested some of the offenders; but the persons arrested were rescued out of jail in a short time
-- 439 --
by their friends. Shortly after this the regulators ordered the sheriff and county clerk, together with the magistrate who issued the warrants, to leave the country, under the penalty of severe corporal punishment. It appears that by means of torture and bribery some notorious rogues had been induced to accuse the sheriff, the county clerk, and the magistrate of being members of the gang of robbers; and it was upon this pretext that they were ordered to leave the country.
In this condition of things application was made in August, 1846 to the governor for a militia force to sustain the constituted authorities of Massac. This disturbance being at a distance of two hundred and fifty miles from the seat of government and in a part of the country between which and the seat of government there was but very little communication, the facts concerning it were but imperfectly known to the governor, for which reason he issued an order to Brigadier-General John T. Davis of Williamson county to examine into it, and if he judged it necessary, to call out the militia. Gen. Davis proceeded to Massac, called the parties together, and, as he believed, induced them to settle their difficulties; but he had no sooner left the county than violence broke out afresh. The regulators came down from Pope and over from Kentucky and drove out the sheriff, the county clerk, the representative-elect to the legislature, and many others; they committed actual violence by whipping a considerable number, and threatened summary punishment to every one, rogue or honest man, who spoke against their proceedings. This is the great evil of lynch law. The lynchers set out with the moderate and honest intention of exterminating notorious rogues only. But as they proceed they find opposition from many honest persons who can never divest themselves of the belief that the laws of the country are amply sufficient for the punishment and prevention of crime. The lynchers then have to maintain their assumed authority in opposition to law and regular government,
-- 440 --
and they are apt to be no less arbitrary and violent in so doing than tyranny generally is in maintaining its pretensions. For this reason they think they must crush all opposition, and in this mode that which at first was merely a war between honest men and rogues is converted into a war between honest men alone, one party contending for the supremacy of the laws and the other maintaining its own assumed authority.
Not long after these events the circuit court was held for Massac. Judge Scates delivered a strong charge to the grand jury against the proceedings of the regulators; the grand jury found indictments against a number of them. Warrants were issued upon the indictments; quite a number were arrested by the sheriff and committed to jail. The regulators assembled from Kentucky and the neighboring counties in Illinois with the avowed intention of releasing the prisoners. They threatened to lynch Judge Scates if he ever returned again to hold court in Massac; and they ordered the members of the grand jury and the witnesses before them to leave the country under pain of corporal punishment. The sheriff set about summoning a posse to secure his prisoners, to resist the regulators, and to maintain the authority of government. But now was the reign of terror indeed. The regulators by their violence had struck terror into all moderate men, who, although they disapproved of their proceedings, were afraid to join the sheriff for fear of being involved in the fate of the horse-thieves. These moderate men who disapproved of the proceedings of the regulators were in a majority of three to one in the county; but such is the inefficiency of moderate men that one bold daring man of violence can generally overawe and terrify a dozen of them. For this reason the sheriff failed to raise a force among the reputable moderate men of the county and was joined only, for the most part, by sixty or seventy men who had been ordered to leave the country, many of whom were known to be notorious rogues.
-- 441 --
The regulators marched down to Metropolis city, the county seat of Massac, in much greater force. A parley ensued between the sheriff's party and the regulators; and it was finally agreed that the sheriff's party should surrender under a promise of exemption from violence. The regulators then took possession of the jail, liberated their friends confined in it, carried several of the sheriff's posse along with them as prisoners, and murdered some of them by drowning them in the Ohio river. The sheriff and all his active friends were again ordered to leave, and were driven out of the country.
The sheriff, the representative to the legislature, and another gentleman then proceeded to see the governor, who was then at Nauvoo in Hancock county with a military force endeavoring to reinstate the exiled citizens of Hancock. As he was now within twenty days of the expiration of his office he was loath to begin measures with the Massac rioters which he feared might not be approved or pursued by his successor. Besides this, from all former experience he was perfectly certain that it would be entirely useless to order out the militia for the protection of horse-thieves. He well knew that the militia could not be raised for such a purpose. He therefore issued an order to Dr. William J. Gibbs of Johnson county authorizing him to call upon the militia officers in some of the neighboring counties for a force to protect the sheriff and other county officers, the magistrates, the grand jury and the witnesses before them, and the honest part of the community. Dr. Gibbs proceeded to Massac, and calling to his assistance two justices of the peace, he required the regulators to come before them and establish their charges so that he could know who were and who were not rogues, to be put out of the protection of law. The regulators declined appearing before him, wherefore the doctor adjudged that there were no rogues in Massac county and that all were entitled to protection against the regulators. He proceeded to call for the militia of Union and other counties; but
-- 442 --
notwithstanding the doctor had adjudged that there were no rogues in Massac the militia knew to the contrary, and as was foreseen by the governor the militia refused to turn out for their protection. Thus the regulators were again left undisputed masters of the county. They now assembled themselves together, caught a number of suspected persons, and tried them by a committee; some were acquitted, others convicted, and were whipped or tarred and feathered. The numbers implicated with the counterfeiters increased rather than diminished. Many persons who had before been considered honest men were now implicated, which increased the excitement. Many who were formerly in favor of the regulators now left them and disapproved of their conduct. The one party was called "Regulators," the other "Flatheads."
A party of about twenty regulators went to the house of an old man named Mathis to arrest him and force him to give evidence of the guilt of certain persons of the neighborhood, and of some who had been inmates of his house. He and his wife resisted the arreSt. The old woman, being unusually strong and active, knocked down one or two of the party with her fists. A gun was then presented to her breast, accompanied by a threat of blowing her heart out if she continued her resistance. She caught the gun and shoved it downwards, when it went off and shot her through the thigh. She was also struck several blows on the head with the gun-barrel, inflicting considerable wounds, knocking her down in her turn. The party captured the old man Mathis and carried him away with them, since which time he has not been heard of, but is supposed to have been murdered. The regulators say that the shooting of the old lady was accidental. She made the proper affidavit for the purpose of having the perpetrators of the crime arrested. The proper authorities succeeded in arresting about ten of them. They were carried to the Metropolis house in Metropolis city and there placed under a guard while search
-- 443 --
was made for the old man Mathis, who was desired as a witness against the prisoners. The news of their arrest having gone abroad, it was rumored all over the country that the Flatheads intended to put them to death if they failed to convict them. This brought out a large force of regulators for the avowed purpose of rescuing the prisoners. They marched to Metropolis city, where they found the sheriff with a party about as numerous as their own. Various attempts to compromise the difficulty without the effusion of blood were made; but this could be effected only by the unconditional release of the prisoners. After getting their friends from the sheriff's party the regulators arrested several of the sheriff's guards and delivered them to the Kentuckians to be dealt with as they saw proper. In attempting to arrest one man they fired at him twice without injury, when he surrendered; and as he was led down stairs he was stabbed from behind by one of the regulators; and he having screamed murder in consequence of his wound, a Methodist preacher who commanded one of the regulating companies exclaimed, "Now they are using them as they should be." [21] The wounded man was said to be respectable, and upon good authority was represented to be an honest, industrious young man. The man who stabbed him had before had a personal difficulty with him and sought this means of getting revenged. Thus it is when regular government is prostrated and the laws trampled under foot, apparently for the best of purposes, men will avail themselves of the prevalent anarchy to revenge their private quarrels; in a short time the original purpose for which force is resorted to will be forgotten; and instead of punishing horse-thieves and robbers those who drop the law and resort to force soon find themselves fiercely contending to revenge injuries and insults, and to maintain their assumed authority.
The prisoners taken away by the Kentuckians were mostly
-- 444 --
suspicious characters; one of them resided in LaSalle county near the Illinois river, but had resided several months at Metropolis in settling the affairs of an estate, and whose only offence was that he had taken an active part in arresting and securing the prisoners just now released. He was tied, together with the other prisoners, and all of them taken off towards Paducah. Letters were received from the regulators by their friends in Springfield in which they gave an account of what they had done with several of these persons. They wrote that several of them "had gone to Arkansas," by which was understood that they had drowned their prisoners in the Ohio river and left their bodies to float with the current in the direction toward Arkansas. On the 23d of December, 1846 a convention of regulators from the counties of Pope, Massac, and Johnson met at Golconda and ordered the sheriff of Massac, the clerk of the county court, and many other citizens to leave the country within thirty days. The sheriff and many others left the country and were absent all winter. The new governor and the legislature then in session were busy all winter in devising measures to suppress these disturbances; but nothing effectual was done. The legislature passed a law, the constitutionality of which was doubted by many, authorizing the governor when he was satisfied that a crime had been committed by twenty persons or more to issue his proclamation; and then the judge of the circuit was authorized to hold a district court in a large district embracing several counties. By this means it was sought to evade the constitution and take the trial out of the county where the crime was committed, against the will of the accused. In other words, it was believed that in this indirect mode the State could entitle itself to a change of venue in criminal cases against the will of the prisoner. Our former experience had abundantly showed that when crimes had been committed by powerful combinations of men the guilty never could be convicted in the counties in which the crimes had been committed.
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I have never learned whether any proceedings have taken place under the law; but so it is, no one has yet been punished; the disturbances in Massac have died away. And whether they died away naturally, being obliged like everything else to come to an end, or whether the rioters were deterred by the provisions of the foregoing act of the legislature is unknown to the author.
In the conclusion of this history the author must be permitted to indulge in a slight retrospection of the paSt. In 1842, when he came into office, the State was in debt about $14,000,000 for moneys wasted upon internal improvements and in banking; the domestic treasury of the State was in arrears $313,000 for the ordinary expenses of government; auditors' warrants were freely selling at a discount of fifty per cent.; the people were unable to pay even moderate taxes to replenish the treasury, in which not one cent was contained even to pay postage on letters to and from the public offices; the great canal, after spending five millions of dollars on it, was about to be abandoned; the banks, upon which the people had relied for a currency, had become insolvent, their paper had fallen so low as to cease to circulate as money, and as yet no other money had taken its place, leaving the people wholly destitute of a circulating medium and universally in debt; immigration to the State had almost ceased; real estate was wholly unsaleable; the people abroad, terrified by the prospect of high taxation, refused to come amongst us for settlement; and our own people at home were no less alarmed and terrified at the magnitude of our debt, then apparently so much exceeding any known resources of the country. Many were driven to absolute despair of ever paying a cent of it; and it would have required but little countenance and encouragement in the then disheartened and wavering condition of the public mind to have plunged the
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State into the irretrievable infamy of open repudiation. This is by no means an exaggerated picture of our affairs in 1842.
In December, 1846, when the author went out of office, the domestic debt of the treasury, instead of being $313,000 was only $31,000, with $9,000 in the treasury; auditors' warrants were at par or very nearly so; the banks had been put into liquidation in a manner just to all parties, and so as to maintain the character of the State for moderation and integrity; violent counsels were rejected; the notes of the banks had entirely disappeared and had been replaced in circulation by a reasonable abundance of gold and silver coin and the notes of solvent banks of other States; the people had very generally paid their private debts; a very considerable portion of the State debt had been paid also; about three millions of dollars had been paid by a sale of the public property and by putting the bank into liquidation; and a sum of five millions more had been effectually provided for to be paid after the completion of the canal; being a reduction of eight millions of the State debt which had been paid, redeemed, or provided for whilst the author was in office. The State itself, although broken, and at one time discredited and a by-word throughout the civilized world, had to the astonishment of every one been able to borrow on the credit of its property the further sum of $1,600,000 to finish the canal; and that great work, at one time so hopeless and so nearly abandoned, is now in a fair way of completion.
The people abroad have once more begun to seek this goodly land for their future homes. From 1843 until 1846 our population rapidly increased; and is now increasing faster than it ever did before. Our own people have become contented and happy; and the former discredit resting upon them abroad for supposed wilful delinquency in paying the State debt no longer exists.
It is a just pride and a high satisfaction for the author to feel and know that he has been somewhat instrumental in producing
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these gratifying results. In this history he has detailed all the measures of the legislature which produced them; and if these measures did not all originate with him, he can rightfully and justly claim that he supported them with all his power and influence and has faithfully endeavored to carry them out with the best ability he could command. For so doing he has had to encounter bitter opposition to his administration; and enmities have sprung up personally against himself which he hopes will not last forever. For although he wants no office, yet is he possessed of such sensibility that it is painful to him to be the subject of unmerited obloquy; and for this reason, and this alone, he hopes that when those of his fellow-citizens who disapproved of his administration in these particulars have time to look into the merits of these measures and see how they have lifted the State from the lowest abyss of despair and gloom to a commanding and honorable position among her sisters of the Union, they will not remember their wrath forever.
