REVIVAL
It was to be expected that, upon the anticipated retirement of Governor
Miller, General William R. Marshall, the most prominent among the
founders of the Republican party in Minnesota, who had added a highly
honorable military career to his civil record, would be called to
succeed. And he was; but not without opposition from other gentlemen
who had also distinguished themselves in both civil and military
duties. It took twenty-two ballotings in the Republican convention to
secure his nomination. At the polls he met that veteran of Democracy,
the Hon. Henry M. Rice, whose popularity, especially among “old
Territorians,” was so great as to reduce his majority to less than 3600
in a total of 31,000 votes. He took office in January, 1866, and so
commended himself by a judicious practical administration that his
reëlection in the fall of the following year was but formally
contested. Mr. Rice closed his political career with the campaign of
1865, which he survived for a quarter of a century.
Marshall’s double term was a period of recovery and repair after the
exhaustion of the wars; and it was something more. Neither the people
severally nor the state were heavily burdened with debt, and there was
work for all and good prices for produce. Railroad building was
continued on a scale of a few more than one hundred miles a year. In
1867 the line now known as the Iowa and Minnesota Division of the
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, begun at both ends, was
completed, and trains were put on from the Falls of St. Anthony to
Prairie du Chien, whence rail connection eastward already existed.
Minnesota was now in the great world all the year round. No important
terminals were reached by additions to other lines, although seven
hundred and sixty-six miles had been constructed by the close of the
decade.
The development of the common schools of Minnesota was tardy. The act
of 1851, providing for a state system, created the office of
superintendent of public instruction, but attached only a nominal
salary to it. Four persons were appointed in as many years, whose
duties seem to have been confined to making formal annual reports. From
1856 to 1860 the office was virtually, if not technically, vacant. The
legislature of 1860 devolved the duties upon the titular chancellor of
the university, the Rev. Edward Duffield Neill, who held it till April
29, 1861, when he resigned to take the chaplaincy of the First
Minnesota Infantry, leaving the office to a competitor for that
position. In the legislative session of 1862 the school laws were
revised and the secretary of state was made _ex-officio_ state
superintendent. This absurd arrangement continued for five years,
against the advice of the two gentlemen who held the double office.
Governor Marshall informed the legislature of 1867 that the children of
school age in the state were over a hundred thousand, and that the
school fund had grown to nearly a million and a half. Upon his earnest
recommendation the office of state superintendent was reëstablished,
with a salary more than nominal, but inadequate. He appointed Mark H.
Dunnell of Owatonna, a young lawyer who had been successful as a
teacher in his native state of Maine.
Mr. Dunnell threw himself into his duties with great enthusiasm and
industry. He gathered the teachers into “institutes” for pedagogical
instruction and raised the standard of qualification for certificates.
A state teachers’ association was organized to stimulate pride in the
teaching profession and provide for interchange of ideas and
experiences. It is notable that Mr. Dunnell as late as 1869 thought it
necessary to argue in behalf of a public school system free from
religious dogma or discipline. The organization of high schools in the
leading towns had already discouraged the proprietors of numerous
denominational academies and seminaries desirous of holding the
secondary field.
In 1858 a bill had been worked through the first state legislature to
establish three normal schools, one at Winona as soon as practicable
after passage, the others at times to be later determined. This bill
was fathered by Dr. John W. Ford of Winona, an enthusiast in the cause
of professional education for teachers. So little was known in the
longitude of Minnesota of what a “normal school” might be, that it is
not strange that the friends of the bill got more credit in the
newspapers and among the people for securing a state institution for
each of three towns than for zeal in the cause of education. Six years
passed before a beginning was made in the first state normal school at
Winona, under the charge of William F. Phelps, an Oswego graduate. No
man less confident of the righteousness of his cause, nor less willing
to fight a bitter opposition, could have built up a school for teachers
which has served as model for many others in Minnesota and other
states. The second state normal school was opened in Mankato in 1868;
the third in St. Cloud in the next year.
The “wing and extension” of the great building planned for the
territorial regents of the university in 1856, and built in that year
and the next, stood empty for ten years, except that at different times
private teachers were allowed to hold their classes in some of the
rooms. The legislature of 1858 authorized the regents to borrow $40,000
and issue ten per cent. bonds in evidence of debt. These securities
were negotiated in New York after great effort and at a ruinous
discount. The claim was later made that they could not have been
disposed of at all had they not been improperly represented to be
virtually bonds of the state. The proceeds released the regents from
obligations which they had personally assumed and satisfied a portion
of the creditors.
The Republican legislature of 1860 thought it time to oust the “old
Democratic board” and install a new administration. The new “state
board,” consisting of three members _ex-officiis_ and five appointed,
had nothing to report to the next session but a debt of $93,500,
including $8000 of overdue interest. Their recommendation was that the
land grant be turned over to the creditors, the campus and building
being retained. An act of Congress of March 2, 1861, donating to the
state the university lands “reserved” for the territorial university,
rendered such action feasible.
Governor Ramsey could make no other suggestion to the legislature of
1862, and that body conferred the desired authority. In 1862 wild lands
were a drug in the market. “Pine” would not go at four dollars an acre.
The regents reported to the legislature of 1863 that the creditors were
not disposed to accept “equitable terms.” That legislature did not
formally dissolve the corporation, but ordered the regents to turn over
to the state auditor, as state land commissioner, all the lands,
buildings, and appurtenances. This was accordingly done, and the
University of Minnesota existed only in supposition.
After the midsummer of 1863 matters were looking up in Minnesota. The
victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg gave hope of an early return of
peace. Money was plentiful and prices were rising. Notwithstanding the
homestead law, there was a market for well-situated public land. John
S. Pillsbury of St. Anthony had been appointed to a vacancy in the
board of regents in November of that year, and immediately applied his
remarkable business talent to the university affairs. His conclusions
were embodied in a bill introduced into the state senate of 1864, of
which he was a member. Enacted into law March 4, the bill created a
special board of three regents: John S. Pillsbury, Orlando C. Merriman,
a lawyer of St. Anthony, and John Nicols, a merchant of St. Paul, also
a state senator. This board was authorized to sell land to the amount
of twelve thousand acres and use the proceeds in “extricating” the
institution. Taking advantage of a time of general liquidation and
scaling down, they bought in claims of many creditors at thirty-three
per cent. of their face. The bondholders, satisfied at length that they
had no recourse upon the state, moderated their demands and consented
to “equitable terms” of adjustment. In this way a “great state”
redeemed the bonds it had authorized by law, and canceled a body of
debts pronounced by the regents of 1860 to be “honestly due.”
It took two years to accomplish this “extrication,” so that the
legislature of 1867 was ready to make a small appropriation to renovate
the building and open “a grammar and normal department.” It was not
until October 7 of that year that the doors were opened, and thirty-one
boys and girls were enrolled in the first term. The school being of
academy grade, no objection was made to the admission of girls, but
there was no intention to settle then the question of coeducation in
the university. It was, however, thus settled.
The special board, having accomplished its purposes to the satisfaction
of all concerned, recommended to the legislature of 1868 the transfer
of control to a permanent board of regents. The act of February 18,
1868, passed in pursuance of this counsel, is the charter of the
university, and has not been materially modified. The new board
appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate properly
contained the names of Pillsbury, Nicols, and Merriman. At the close of
the school year of 1869 the regents resolved to open the “College of
Science, Literature, and the Arts,” as the statute ambitiously named
the academic department. Although there were but fourteen provisional
freshmen and a hundred and fifty preparatory students, a president,
eight professors, and one instructor were elected. The faculty thus
constituted organized in September, and took up the work before them,
mostly that of a fitting school.
The title of the charter of February 18, 1868, contained the clause,
“and to establish an agricultural college therein.” The original act of
1851 creating the university named as one of its five departments that
of agriculture, but on March 10, 1858, a separate “state agricultural
college” was established and located at Glencoe in McLeod County.
Minnesota’s share of the so-called Morrill land grant of 1862 for the
benefit of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts was 120,000
acres. By an act approved March 2, 1865, the proceeds of this grant
were applied and appropriated to the said agricultural college of
Minnesota. What influences or interests prevailed to induce the people
of McLeod County to consent to the merger of their institution with the
university are not well known, but the legislature of 1868 decided on
that policy, and inviolably appropriated the income of the Morrill land
grant to the united institutions. The friends of the university were,
of course, gratified over the return to the scheme of the original
creative act of 1851 and the concentration of the state’s resources for
the higher education. Governor Marshall had the satisfaction of seeing
the University of Minnesota, in which he had been deeply interested
from its statutory creation, at length fairly launched on a career of
promise which he lived to see fulfilled. He had also the gratification
of seeing the color line removed from the state constitution by the
adoption, at the election of 1868, of an amendment expunging the word
“white” out of the article on the elective franchise. A much needed
revision of the laws of the state went into effect about the same time.
* * * * *
Ignatius Donnelly, who had been elected to Congress in 1862, had been
accorded two reëlections. His diligence in business and readiness in
debate had gained him influence in the House, and his campaign speeches
had increased his popularity at home. To all appearance he was certain
of a third reëlection in the fall of 1868, and among his admirers were
those who suggested that the state and country would profit by his
promotion to the Senate. Such propositions were not relished by the
friends of Senator Ramsey, whose first term would be expiring in the
following winter. Elimination of Mr. Donnelly thereupon became to them
a desirable political object. It might not have been attained but for
an error of Mr. Donnelly himself in a moment of perhaps excusable
exasperation.
In the winter of 1868, in a letter to a constituent explaining why he
had not pushed a certain railroad land grant bill, Mr. Donnelly stated
that E. B. Washburne, member of Congress from Illinois, had repeatedly
hindered his efforts to secure legislation for his state. Mr. Washburne
replied through a St. Paul newspaper, April 10, 1868, attacking Mr.
Donnelly’s personal character, and declaring him cowardly and
mendacious. He represented him also as “whining like a schoolboy” over
his disappointments. Thus assailed, Mr. Donnelly, on May 2, made on the
floor of the House a consummate display of those powers of ridicule and
invective of which he was master. Tolerated by the House because of its
enjoyment of the play of rhetorical lightning, and perhaps because of a
feeling that the speaker’s indignation had some just ground, the
Minnesota member descended into an utterly indefensible tirade. It has
ever since been traditional in Minnesota that that speech “cooked
Donnelly’s goose.”
Washburne could only say in wrath that he would “make no reply to a
member covered all over with crime and infamy, a man whose record is
stained with every fraud, a man who has proved false alike to his
friends, his constituents, his country, his religion, and his God.”
Both gentlemen apologized for using unparliamentary language, and the
special committee of the House reported that as neither had made
charges affecting the action of the other as a representative, they
might be left to settle personal difficulties outside. On his return to
Minnesota after the close of the session, Mr. Donnelly gave expression
to his sentiments towards the Washburn family in a series of speeches
in which his peculiar gifts were displayed in the highest degree.
The friends of Senator Ramsey selected for their support, as successor
to Mr. Donnelly, William D. Washburn, a younger brother of the
representative from Illinois just mentioned, who had won for himself a
place in their esteem for ability and character. When the hour for the
convention came, Mr. Donnelly’s supporters “bolted,” and in a separate
body put their idol in nomination. Seeing the regular convention so
largely depleted, Mr. Washburn withdrew after the first ballot. General
Lucius F. Hubbard also declined the honor of a candidacy; and it was
only after assurances of active and substantial support that General C.
C. Andrews was persuaded to enter the lists. The Democrats saw their
opportunity in this split in the Republican ranks, and put in
nomination and elected Eugene M. Wilson of Minneapolis, a gentleman
whose character and services entitled him to their support. He served
to the general satisfaction in the Forty-first Congress.
Mr. Donnelly now came out openly as a candidate for the senatorship,
and he had reason to expect an election. On the eve of the Republican
caucus, however, his muster roll contained but twenty-six names of
those who could be depended on. Twenty-eight votes were necessary to
nominate. Failing to secure absolute pledges of the two lacking votes,
Mr. Donnelly advised his friends to give their support to Morton S.
Wilkinson, who was willing to serve another term in the Senate. His
hope was to give Mr. Ramsey a rest from senatorial labors. In that he
was disappointed. Mr. Ramsey’s friends secured the adoption of a
resolution to dispense with informal balloting, thus revealing their
strength, but they were only able to give him the exact number of votes
(twenty-eight) necessary to a choice. The election followed as a matter
of course, and Mr. Ramsey continued in a senatorial career creditable
to himself and serviceable to the state and nation. Mr. Donnelly did
not at once renounce the colors of the Republican party, but he was
ever after a free lance in politics. He was repeatedly elected to the
state legislature.
In the fall of 1869 an effort was made to give Mr. Donnelly the regular
nomination for the governorship. This was not opposed by the Ramsey
leaders, who were willing to bring back into the fold so dangerous a
rival. That effort, however, had but slight recognition in the
nominating convention, which chose for the party candidate a gentleman
as yet not widely known in state politics, the Hon. Horace Austin of
St. Peter.
The removal of the state capital from St. Paul, which would have been
accomplished in 1857 but for the high-handed exploit of Councilor
Rolette, though frequently broached informally, was not seriously taken
up by any legislature till 1869. A bill for removal to Kandiyohi
County, on to land belonging to the state, was passed through both
houses so easily and rapidly as to invite the surmise that the
necessary votes had been secured in advance. Superfluous debate was
shut out by the operation of the previous question. The vote in the
house was 39 to 7, that in the senate 12 to 10; but the house could not
muster enough votes to pass the bill over Governor Marshall’s veto. The
veto message was moderate in tone; suggesting that it would be wise to
hear from the people on the question, that there should be no haste
about a final location of the capital, and that it was no time to
expend a great sum of money on buildings.
Two years later a final proposal to remove the capital from St. Paul to
the imagined city of Stanton met with a prompt indefinite postponement.