CHAPTER XI

BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI

THE authority of Congress to prescribe conditions for a Territory* was further illustrated by the act of 1832, limiting the franchise in Arkansas to free white males. Of the slave-holding States, North Carolina alone, by its constitution, recognized the right in free persons of color to vote, and public sentiment there was soon to be gratified by the abrogation of the right. A like change was in sight in Tennessee.§ A slave-holding democ

* The principal authorities for this chapter are the statutes at large and the records of the conventions referred to.

+ May 31st.

See Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of North Carolina called to amend the Constitution of the State, which assembled at Raleigh June 1835, to which are subjoined the Convention Act and the Amendments to the Constitution, together with the Votes of the People. Raleigh: Printed by Joseph Gales & Son, 1835, pp. 351-358. Also, Sec. iii., p. 421. The provision of the constitution of 1776, vii., viii., allowing “all freemen" (otherwise qualified)" to vote" was modified in 1835 so as to exclude every "free negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood descended from negro ancestors to the fourth generation, inclusive."

§ Compare Constitution of Tennessee, 1796, Art. iii., Sec. i., with that of 1834, Art. iv., Sec. i. “Every freeman" changed to "every free white man." See, also, Studies in the Constitutional History of Tennessee, by Joshua W. Caldwell. Cincinnati: The Robert Clarke Company, 1895, p. 113.

Making the Arkansas Constitution

racy must of necessity be a white-man's government. When, on the 4th of January, 1836, the people of Arkansas met in convention at Little Rock to form a constitution, they had before them as recent precedents the exclusion of free blacks from the franchise in North Carolina and Tennessee, and, practically, their exclusion from the basis of representation. The constitution was completed on the 30th, was approved without delay by Congress, and the State was admitted in the middle of June. On the 23d of June a generous grant was made of school lands and salt-springs, and a five per cent. donation for public roads and canals. Fifteen sections were given to complete the public buildings at Little Rock, and two townships for a university. These donations were formally accepted by the General Assembly in October, under promise never to tax the property of the general government, or discriminate in taxation against that of non-residents. The new State, in its constitutional outlines, was a duplication of Alabama and Mississippi. There could not be a great variation from the type in any pro-slavery constitution.

Immigrants had for several years been appearing west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri, but they were not yet sufficiently numerous to warrant the organization of a new Territory; therefore, in 1834 the region, indefinite in boundary, north of Missouri was attached to the Territory of Michigan. Two years later the northern boundary line of Ohio was in the way of settlement, and the people

of Michigan were authorized to organize a State government. The Detroit convention rejected the boundary named in the enabling act, but a supplementary one practically removed all obstacles. Michigan acquiesced on the 15th of December, and was admitted on the 26th of January following. The Arkansas constitution followed the Southern type; that of Michigan the Northern, being in outline like those of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. These four States of the Northwest followed the model of New York, as their four contemporaries of the Southwest did that of Virginia.

It seemed at this time that the vast region north of the Red River and west of Arkansas and Missouri was destined to remain a wilderness for many generations. The pressure of population east of the Mississippi seemed now in part to cease. Powerful Indian tribes, which, a few years before the Missouri Compromise, stood in the path of immigration, had sold their lands meanwhile, and disappeared, at least for a time, across the great river. With others that yet remained on their

* See especially the following authorities bearing on this subject: Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention to form a Constitution for the State of Michigan, begun and held at the Capitol, in the City of Detroit, on Monday, the 11th day of May, A. D. 1835. Detroit: Printed by Sheldon McKnight, 1835. Index-Boundary. Appeal by the Convention to the People of the United States, with other Documents in relation to the Boundary Question between Michigan and Ohio. Detroit: 1835. Journal of the Convention held September 26-30, 1836, to Consider Admission into the Union. Pontiac: 1836. Journal of the Convention held December 14-15, 1836, to give Assent required by Act of Congress previous to Admission. Ann Arbor: 1836.

Inauguration of an Indian Policy

ancient hunting-grounds, negotiations were in progress, and their removal was impending. But the negotiations seemed slow to the thickening line of frontiersmen clamoring for land.

On the last day of June, 1834, Congress set apart as the Indian Country all the unorganized public domain west of the States. This proved to be the great organic act in the history of the tribes, for it began a new Indian policy. From this time began the process of gathering the Indians into reservations. At first the vast unorganized West comprised one. As time passed and Territories were organized, reservations were increased in number and diminished in size. An Indian policy was begun which, before the century closed, was to scatter, yet to concentrate, the tribes; to break up their organization, and gradually to force an exchange of Indian title for annuities, or for other lands, or for lands in severalty.

Technically, in 1834, the Indian Country lay east as well as west of the Mississippi, for it included all lands to which the Indian title had not been extinguished. For judicial purposes, this country was attached to Missouri. One great purpose of the act was to exclude the whites from the reservation. It could be entered only by the agents of the national government. At the same time a Department of Indian Affairs was created, under charge of a commissioner. The public, ignoring the correct title of the reservation, called it the Indian Territory, and the popular name was soon sanctioned by the department and by the Presi

dent. There has never been an organized Indian Territory.*

The States, about this time, began accurate surveys of their boundaries. Congress, in 1831, ordered the survey of the line between Alabama and Florida, and between Illinois and the Territory of Michigan. Usually, the enabling act described the boundaries of a new State, but, at best, only approximately. Maps were inaccurate, and actual surveys were necessary to establish the lines. The new States, like the old, soon had boundary disputes on hand. The admission of Michigan left the region to the west for Territorial organization, and, early in 1836,† Wisconsin was given a government, modelled after those already familiar in the old Northwest. In one respect, however, there was a departure. Members, both of the Council and the House, were chosen by the voters. On the 2d of July, Congress directed the surveyor

* The lands within it were granted, at various times, to the Indians in 1838, a portion, by patent, to the Cherokees; in 1842, another portion, by patent, to the Choctaws; in 1852, the remainder, by patent, to the Creeks. These patents included lands within the present boundary of Kansas. By these patents the land was conveyed in fee forever. Many other tribes have been moved into the territory and lands assigned them by treaty. During the first half of the century the tribes were not disturbed. They were treated as separate and independent nations. Treaties were made by the War Department. The Indian Commissioner was in that department until 1849, when the Department of the Interior was created, and the Indian Bureau was transferred to it, where it has remained. See Report on Indians Taxed and Indians Not Taxed in the United States (except Alaska) at the Eleventh Census: 1890. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing-office, 1894, pp. 1-69.

† April 20th.