Thus ably and ingeniously the governor forced upon the military the onus of acknowledging having patched up a fictitious peace by granting immunity to murderous savages, whom it was their duty to punish. This they could not bring themselves to do; they were obliged to abandon their protégés to their fate, and the requisition was made. One cannot but think, after a careful study of all the evidence, that the Indian murderers were led to believe in the promise of immunity, if it was not explicitly promised them.

At the end of December he broke away from these engrossing cares and labors for a few days, and went North for his family, having leased a commodious brick house, No. 510, on the north side of Twelfth Street, between E and F, at $200 a month; but on January 4 he is again at his post in the House. He installed Mr. James G. Swan as his secretary, set apart the upper rooms in the house as an office, and plunged with redoubled energy into the important and multifarious duties and objects he had undertaken, chief of which was the confirmation of the Indian treaties; payment of the Indian war debt; advocacy of the Northern route, separate Indian superintendency for Washington Territory, armed steamer for Puget Sound, mail route, military roads, appropriations for Indian service, and for other needs of the Territory; and pressing before the departments many private claims growing out of the Indian war. Besides all these, he published, February 1, a circular letter to emigrants, giving useful information for those wishing to move to the Territory. In this month he also wrote a strong appeal to the Indian Department, urging that the farms promised the Blackfeet by the treaty of the Blackfoot council be established without further delay, and suggesting that the commissioner confer with Alexander Culbertson, who was then visiting Washington,—an appeal which bore fruit, for the commissioner immediately sent for Mr. Culbertson, and took steps to start the farms. The governor also gave effective aid to Mr. Culbertson in collecting an account due him from the government.

The appropriation of $30,000 for a wagon-road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla—made in 1855—had never been used, in consequence of the Indian hostilities, and the governor now induced the Secretary of War to authorize the commencement of the road, and to place Lieutenant Mullan in charge of it. The topographical engineers of the army were not a little put out at the governor’s action in Mullan’s behalf, claiming that the duty rightfully belonged to one of their corps, and that he was disregarding the rights of the engineers in bestowing it upon a line officer; but he had found Mullan one of the most zealous and efficient officers of the Exploration, and one, moreover, especially conversant with the country. His recommendation had great weight with the War Department, thus to overcome the influence of the corps and the almost invariable usage. Another incident which occurred at this time afforded further evidence of his influence. An officer of General Wool’s staff, Captain T.J. Cram, in 1857 made a report to him upon the upper Columbia country, much of which was taken from Governor Stevens’s exploration reports without acknowledgment. Moreover, the navigability of the great river was pronounced utterly impracticable, and the country itself stigmatized as essentially barren and worthless; and the report was made the vehicle for reiterating all Wool’s exploded charges against the territorial authorities, people, and volunteers, and collecting and retailing all the stories of outrage upon Indians by whites that could be trumped up. This precious “topographical memoir” was widely published in the newspapers, and was submitted by General Wool to the War Department, with the evident design of defeating the confirmation of the treaties and the payment of the war debt. When the report arrived, the governor filed a statement in the department exposing its character; and at his instance Captain A.A. Humphreys, who had charge of all the Pacific Railroad reports, also filed a similar statement, pointing out Cram’s unreliability and plagiarisms, so thoroughly discrediting the report that the department would never give it out, and it failed of its intended effect.

It was a hard fight over the treaties before the Senate committee. Wool’s charges, widely spread in the newspapers, had excited much prejudice against them, and they were strenuously opposed by most of the regular officers on the Pacific. But by the middle of March the governor was equally successful in convincing that committee that they ought to be confirmed, and was able to write Nesmith that the committee would report favorably, and that there was every prospect of confirmation.

The Northwestern boundary, with the disputed question of the San Juan archipelago, also claimed his attention. His resolute letter of May, 1855, to Sir James Douglass, declaring that he would sustain the American right to the islands to the full force of his authority, having been submitted to both governments with Sir James’s protests, had brought home to them the risk of armed collision unless the boundary question were speedily settled. Accordingly commissioners were appointed on both sides to determine and delimit the boundary as drawn by the treaty of 1846. But as the controversy turned on the construction of the treaty itself, it could not be settled by any survey, and in this, the most important part of their task, the commissioners soon became clever disputants, each advocating his own side of the question. Jefferson Davis, now a senator of great influence, writes Governor Stevens, March 18, requesting him “to call on the President and Secretary of State, and give them your views as to the importance and necessity of marking the boundary,” etc. The American commissioner was Mr. Archibald Campbell, and Captain J. G. Parke, of the engineers, was the chief surveyor, both old friends of Governor Stevens. With his thorough knowledge of the islands in dispute, and of the astute, grasping, and persistent character of the Hudson Bay Company and British officials, the governor strove to stiffen the backbone of the administration, and to expedite the boundary survey.

Governor Stevens’s first speech in the House occurred May 12, on his bill to create additional land districts in his Territory, and was a brief one. The next day a bill came up to reimburse Governor Douglass for the supplies he had furnished in the Indian war, and the governor seized the opportunity to deliver a powerful speech in behalf of the war debt. He referred to Sir James’s emphatic testimony that his, the governor’s, course was the only one which could have protected the settlements, or prevented their depopulation, and vigorously defended the people and volunteers:—

On the 31st he delivered a long and exhaustive speech on the same subject, giving the history of the war, vindicating his own course, and the patriotism and conduct of the volunteers and people.

On May 25 he delivered a speech of an hour upon the Pacific Railroad, the subject of all others in which he took the greatest interest and expended the greatest exertions. He took the broad national view, embracing the whole country, and advocated three routes, and then pointed out the superior advantages of the Northern route, and dwelt upon its value for gaining the trade of Asia:—

These views have become established facts for so many years that it is hard to realize how far in advance of his contemporaries Governor Stevens was in holding them. He was one of the first, if not the very first, to discern the necessity for three transcontinental railroads, and the opportunity for securing the trade of Asia offered by the Northern route.

A few days later he sprang to his feet in defense of his friend Nesmith, who was bitterly assailed by M.R.H. Garnett, of Virginia, and answered him in a manner so complete and satisfactory as to defeat an amendment offered by him.

On the 27th he spoke in support of an appropriation for a military survey of the upper Columbia, and in a sharp and breezy debate had the satisfaction of exposing Cram’s report.

Congress adjourned on June 9. The treaties were not reached, but the governor writes Nesmith that a test vote showed that the Senate was strongly in favor of them, and that they would all be confirmed next session.

During the session Governor Stevens introduced nineteen bills and resolutions, and offered four amendments. He spoke nine times, making five considerable speeches, including two on the war debt, one on the Pacific Railroad, one on the survey of the Columbia, and the defense of Nesmith. The following synopsis gives the matters which claimed his attention in Congress:—

• Indian war debt.
• Military roads.
• Additional land districts.
• Settlement of accounts of clerks of courts.
• Erection of public buildings.
• Survey of Columbia River.
• Geological survey.
• Military road, Columbia to Missouri.
• Increased pay for land surveys.
• Relief of C.H. Mason.
• Additional post and mail routes.
• Pacific Railroad.
• Port of entry at Vancouver.
• Marine hospital.
• Land for lunatic asylum.
• Port of delivery at Whatcom.
• Enrolling clerk for legislature.
• As to false reports of Wool.
• Bringing on Indian chiefs.
• Payment territorial deficiency.
• Extending certain acts to Washington Territory.

The above summary gives but a faint idea of the amount of work and attention involved in the several matters enumerated. With characteristic thoroughness, the governor always paved the way for his measures by first obtaining the support and recommendation of the department to which each pertained, and was equally indefatigable in following them up before the committees. But nothing engrossed so much of his time and attention as the numerous claims for losses and services growing out of the Indian war, sent to him by his constituents, almost all poor men, all of which he presented and pressed with the greatest pains and assiduity.

So intent had he become upon all these important measures that, as he writes Nesmith, he determined to remain in Washington during the recess of Congress, and prepare for success the next session.

On July 21 Governor Stevens submitted an able and exhaustive memoir to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, on the unjust and exorbitant exactions imposed upon Americans, who were then flocking to the newly discovered gold fields of New Caledonia,—now British Columbia,—on Fraser and Thompson rivers, having previously, on May 18 and June 29, informed him of this emigration, and the impositions placed upon it by Governor Douglass. The chief of these were, a license tax of five dollars a month for the privilege of mining, and the prohibition of all navigation and trading except by license from the Hudson Bay Company, and the requirement that all supplies must be purchased from that company. He showed that with forty thousand miners, nearly all of them American citizens, entering the gold fields, as was the estimate of the most intelligent gentlemen of the Pacific coast, the license tax would amount to $2,400,000 per annum; while the Hudson Bay Company, from the exclusive right of furnishing supplies, would reap the enormous harvest of $14,000,000 per annum. Moreover, as the bulk of these supplies could not be furnished from the present resources of that company, they would have to be drawn by it from California, Oregon, and Washington, so that in fact those States were compelled to make that company their factor for the sale of their products, and allow it all the profits from the sale of their own products to their own citizens.

The governor declared that this state of things could not be submitted to by American citizens unless imposed by positive and imperative law, and that the exactions in question had been imposed without any legal authority which should be respected by the citizens or government of the United States.

He held that, the British government having passed no law levying a mining tax, Governor Douglass, as governor of Vancouver Island, was not given authority by his commission or instructions to impose such tax; that he was governor of Vancouver Island only, and his political jurisdiction did not extend to the mainland, where, in fact, he had always declined to exercise authority over the Indians as governor, while he had dealt with them as chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company.

That the company, a mere Indian trading company, had no authority under its charter to set up a monopoly of selling supplies to white men, whether American citizens or British subjects, such monopoly, moreover, being expressly prohibited by British law.

And he concluded by asking, in behalf of the citizens of our whole Pacific coast, that the government would interpose with the British authorities for the removal of the restrictions, and would demand the repayment of all mining taxes collected, and of the value of all vessels and cargoes confiscated. In the last paragraph he takes pains to acknowledge the assistance of his friend, John L. Hays, Esq., in the investigation of the legal questions involved.

The memorial was widely published in the papers, and produced an excellent effect on the Pacific coast. The Hudson Bay Company relinquished its attempt to compel the miners to purchase supplies from it exclusively, and the monthly mining tax was reduced to a moderate yearly one. The memorial was a timely and much-needed warning to the Buchanan administration to stand up against the ever greedy and bull-dog demands of the British upon the Pacific Northwest.

The news of Steptoe’s defeat reached Washington in June, and created a great sensation. It was looked upon as a complete vindication of Governor Stevens’s views and policy in regard to the management of the Indians, and a convincing proof of the folly and failure of the Wool military peace policy. The very officers who had condemned and denounced the governor’s plan of punishing and subduing the hostiles in order to preserve the fidelity and peace of the friendly and doubtful tribes, now that their weak temporizing had drawn the latter into hostilities, breathed nothing but war. Writes Colonel Nesmith with glee, natural enough considering how his request for two howitzers had been brusquely refused, and himself treated with contumely, by Wool:—

The War Department took energetic measures in consequence of Steptoe’s defeat. Colonel Wright was largely reinforced, and in September led a thousand troops into the Spokane country, defeated the Indians in two engagements, and summarily hanged sixteen of them without trial. The same month Oregon and Washington were constituted a separate military department, and the veteran general, William S. Harney, was sent out in command. This appointment was highly satisfactory to Governor Stevens, for General Harney adopted all his views in regard to the military problem, the Indians, the opening of the country to settlement, and later, as will be seen, in regard to defending our right to the San Juan archipelago. The governor writes Colonel Nesmith and Governor Curry requesting them to call on the veteran commander on his arrival, and extend to him their good will and support.

General Harney’s first act on reaching his new command was to throw open to settlement the whole upper country, revoking Wool’s orders excluding settlers therefrom. This was a notable victory for Governor Stevens, and wiped out the last of Wool’s reactionary measures.

The governor spent the whole recess in Washington, except for a flying visit North in July (when, in passing through New York, he had his phrenological chart again drawn by Fowler) and a visit of three weeks in the fall to Newport and Andover.

In the evening of December 2 he delivered before the American Geographical and Statistical Society, in New York, an elaborate address on the Northwest, comprising fifty-six printed pages. Mr. E.V. Smalley, the historian of the Northern Pacific Railroad, says of this address that “he presented the whole argument in behalf of the Northern route. Some of his statements were received with a great deal of skepticism, but time has shown that they were strictly and conscientiously accurate.”

Mr. Swan returned to the Pacific coast in the fall, and a very capable, faithful, and agreeable young man, Mr. Walter W. Johnson, succeeded him as secretary. The adjacent house on the south side was occupied by Mr. Johnson’s aunts, Mrs. W.R. Johnson and Miss Donelson, most estimable, cultivated, and attractive ladies, and the two families contracted the warmest friendship for each other.

Congress reassembled December 6. During the session Governor Stevens offered seven bills and five resolutions, and moved four amendments. His longest and most important speech was on the payment of the war debt, delivered February 21, 1859. He also spoke on bringing Indian chiefs to Washington, twice on the Northwest boundary, and on the military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla.

In January he had two hearings before the Senate Indian Committee. The treaties were all confirmed in the Senate on March 8 without serious opposition, for by this time their wisdom and merit were recognized on all hands. J. Ross Browne, special agent sent out by the Interior Department to investigate matters, strongly urged their confirmation. Judge G. Mott, another special agent, who had been dispatched to examine Nesmith’s superintendency, did the same. Colonel Mansfield, the inspector-general of the army, after visiting the upper country and studying the conditions there, strongly recommended the treaties. And even General Clarke and Colonel Wright, nobly acknowledging their mistake in opposing them, joined in the recommendation. At last Governor Stevens’s great work was vindicated by the test of experience, and approved by its former opponents.

It has already been related how Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, summarily rejected Governor Stevens’s plans for continuing the surveys on the Northern route, throwing the whole influence of the government in favor of the Southern route, and strove to discredit his report of the superior advantages of the former; and how the governor, on his expedition to the Blackfoot council, notwithstanding this rebuff, indefatigably continued his surveys, taking barometrical observations, and making careful examinations of different passes and routes, using the officers and parties of the Indian service for the purpose. Throughout all the labors and responsibilities of the Indian war he kept up the determination of important points, and the collection of data concerning the climate, snows, navigability of the great rivers, passes, etc., making use in like manner of the volunteer parties.

During this fall and winter he made his final report on the Northern Pacific Railroad route, giving the results of his labors since the first report, made some three years before. This final report was published in two large quarto volumes, containing 797 pages. The first volume contains the Narrative, 225 pages; Geographical Memoir, 81 pages; Meteorology, 25 pages; Estimate, 27 pages; and, with the exception of the meteorological tables and a paper on the hydrography of Washington Territory, comprising 28 pages, was entirely the governor’s own composition, and equal to about 700 ordinary printed pages. The second volume contains the botany, zoölogy, ichthyology, etc., with numerous plates.

The governor expected, on returning from Fort Benton, to devote a year to the preparation of his final report, but this was interrupted by the Indian war, and then, with largely increased data, he found himself absorbed in these congressional duties and labors, which completely engrossed all his time and attention. It was a physical impossibility for any man to write out with his own hand in a few months such a report, even if it lay all composed and arranged in his mind. The way in which Governor Stevens overcame the difficulty was original, and showed his remarkable mental grasp and powers of memory. He dictated the whole report. Every morning an expert stenographer came at six, and the governor, walking up and down in the dining-room, dictated to him for one or two hours before breakfast. The reporter then took his notes, wrote them out, and had the manuscript ready for the governor’s revision at the next sitting. Walter W. Johnson, Dr. J.G. Cooper, and other assistants were kept hard at work on the report, and on February 7, 1859, the governor had the satisfaction of submitting it to the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, Jefferson Davis’s successor.

The report is written in a clear and graphic style. The facts presented in it fully sustained and confirmed the conclusions of the first report, and made a crushing answer to Jefferson Davis’s doubts and criticisms. And Governor Stevens’s views set forth therein have been fully and strikingly borne out in the subsequent development of the country.

Ten thousand copies of the report were ordered to be printed by the Senate March 3, and afterwards the House ordered ten thousand extra copies March 25, and the Senate as many more May 9, 1860. Those first printed were not satisfactory to the governor in execution, paper, or binding, and he was at no little pains to have the twenty thousand extra copies ordered. Being disappointed in a certain senator whom he expected to pass the desired order in the Senate, the governor frankly applied to Jefferson Davis to secure the order, and Davis was manly and magnanimous enough to do so at once. It was characteristic of Governor Stevens, as has already been pointed out, to base all his action and objects upon the high ground of public needs and welfare, and therefore, ignoring any personal considerations, he demanded Davis’s aid, on the ground that the valuable data in his final report ought to be published for the benefit of the country.

The governor was inclined to attribute good motives to his opponents, or those who differed from him; was quick to see and admit their points of view; and never assailed their motives, nor descended to personal attacks. Indeed, he was inclined to think too well of men, and to expect too much of them. CHAPTER XLV SAVING SAN JUAN Six weeks after the final adjournment of Congress, Governor Stevens left New York in April, on the steamer Northerner, on the long journey to Puget Sound, via the Isthmus and San Francisco. He was accompanied by his family, except his son, who remained at school in Boston, and by his brother-in-law, Mr. Daniel L. Hazard, who was going to the Pacific coast to seek his fortune, which he found after six years’ devotion to business. The journey out was a pleasant one, and they reached Vancouver on the Columbia, and repaired to the hotel of the town. General Harney immediately called, and insisted on taking the governor and family to his house, where they remained several days. The incident is significant as showing the close relations between the veteran commander and Governor Stevens, and helps explain the prompt and decisive action of the former on the San Juan controversy a few weeks later. This dispute was in the acute stage; the boundary commissioners were as busy with arguments and contentions as a whole bar of lawyers, and as far from agreement. Undoubtedly the governor, in his earnest and convincing manner, fully imbued the general with his views of the American right, and the duty of the authorities to defend it.

The journey from Vancouver to Olympia was made in the manner usual in those days,—down the Columbia in river steamboat, up the Cowlitz in canoes paddled and poled by Indians, and across country in wagons to Olympia. The governor was everywhere received with demonstrations of popular confidence and goodwill. The Democratic convention unanimously renominated him as delegate to the next Congress.

Colonel William H. Wallace was nominated by the Republican convention. Selucious Garfielde, having been removed from his office of receiver of the Land Office for misconduct, now vehemently opposed the governor, and came out in support of Wallace. Governor Stevens at once entered upon a systematic and thorough canvass of the Territory, inviting his competitor to accompany him, which he did. But Garfielde and Judge Chenoweth started around the Sound ahead of the candidates, hoping to capture the vote of the people for Wallace beforehand. Mr. Daniel L. Hazard accompanied the canvassing party. The governor, as was too much his habit, crowded into a short space of time a greater amount of speaking and traveling than most men could stand. Colonel Wallace broke down on the Columbia River under the strain, and had to return home, whereat the governor seemed rather pleased, not at his opponent’s misfortune, but at his own superior endurance.

The election took place July 11, and he was chosen by a vote of 1684 against 1094.

Mr. Charles H. Mason, the secretary of the Territory and at times the acting governor, died on July 23, rather unexpectedly. He was beloved by every one, and the whole town was plunged in mourning. The governor felt his loss as that of a brother, and was very much affected. Two days later the funeral services were held in the Capitol building. Governor Stevens delivered an eloquent and heartfelt eulogy, moving all present to tears, after which a procession was formed, and almost the entire population followed the remains to the grave. He was laid at rest on Bush prairie, beside his friend, George W. Stevens.

A row over a pig precipitated a crisis in the San Juan dispute. An American settler shot a Hudson Bay Company’s porker found rooting in his garden, whereupon Governor Douglass promptly dispatched a steamer to the scene, bearing his son-in-law, who was a high official of the company and also of the colony, and two members of the colonial council. Landing, they loudly claimed the island as British soil, and ordered the settler to pay one hundred dollars for the slain pig, on penalty of being taken to Victoria for trial if he refused. But the settler, who had already offered to pay the reasonable value of the pig, did refuse, and boldly defied arrest, revolver in hand. The British officials retired, baffled for the time, but declaring that the settler was a trespasser on British soil, and must submit to trial by a British court for his offense. A few days after this episode General Harney, returning from a visit to Governor Douglass, stopped at San Juan, and the American settlers there invoked his protection against British aggression, relating the story of the pig. They also begged protection against the raids of the northern Indians, who had committed many depredations on Americans, while they never molested the English or Hudson Bay Company people, whom they regarded as friends. The old soldier realized the defenseless condition of the settlers. His blood was stirred at the attempted outrage. On his way back to Vancouver he stopped at Olympia and dined with Governor Stevens, and discussed with him what action the emergency required. Immediately on reaching his headquarters at Vancouver, General Harney ordered Captain George E. Pickett,—the same who, a Confederate general, led the famous charge at Gettysburg,—to proceed with his company of the 9th infantry from Bellingham Bay to San Juan Island, occupy it, and afford protection to American settlers. Pickett landed on the island July 27, and at once issued a proclamation declaring that, in compliance with the orders of the commanding general (Harney), he came to establish a military post on the island, notifying the inhabitants to call on him for protection against northern Indians, and stating that “this being United States territory, no laws other than those of the United States, nor courts except such as are held by virtue of said laws, will be recognized or allowed on this island.” This was throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the British lion with a vengeance; and Governor Douglass, a bold, haughty, and determined man, hurried three warships to the island, with positive orders to prevent the landing of any more United States troops; but Pickett took up a position on high ground, threw up intrenchments, and notified the British that he would fire upon them if they attempted to land.

Governor Douglass now issued his proclamation, protesting against the “invasion,” and reasserting that the island was British soil; and, armed with this document, his three naval commanders waited on Pickett, and formally demanded his withdrawal. On his refusal, they proposed a joint occupation. But the daredevil American officer was equally obdurate in rejecting this compromise, and repeated his warning to them not to land. Nothing remained for them but to report their mortifying failure to Governor Douglass. It happened that Admiral Baynes, commanding the British Pacific fleet, had just put into Esquimault Harbor, the British naval station on Vancouver Island, four miles from Victoria, with a strong naval force. Sir James, his indignation at white-heat, and fiercely determined to expel the Yankees from the coveted island, now ordered the admiral to take his whole force and drive them from it. As governor of a British colony, Sir James was authorized to give the order, and it was the admiral’s duty to obey it. But Admiral Baynes took the responsibility of not obeying it. It would be ridiculous, he declared, to involve the two great nations in war over a squabble about a pig. But he reinforced the ships blockading San Juan, and renewed the orders to prevent the landing of any more American troops. Five British ships of war, carrying 167 guns and 2140 men, closely beset the southeastern end of the island, charged with the execution of these orders.

Governor Stevens visited San Juan soon after Pickett landed, and on August 4 left it in the steamer Julia. Captain Jack Scranton, with dispatches from Captain Pickett to General Harney, reached Olympia the next day, and at once forwarded the dispatches by special messenger to General Harney at Vancouver. In return, Harney’s orders reached Olympia on the 8th, were forwarded immediately by the Julia to Steilacoom, and in pursuance of them Colonel Casey embarked on the steamer with three companies, hastened down the Sound, silently stole through the blockading fleet in a dense fog, and effected a landing on San Juan on the 10th. The sight of the empty steamer anchored close to the shore in the gray of the morning, and the cheers of the reinforcements as they marched into Pickett’s fort on the hill above, first apprised the British navy of the successful landing.

Soon afterwards Admiral Baynes withdrew his ships and relinquished the blockade, leaving the American forces in undisputed possession.

While the British were omnipotent on the water, they were ill prepared to sustain a contest on land, and undoubtedly the knowledge of this fact influenced Admiral Baynes, and Governor Douglass, too, after his first indignation, in their forbearing attitude. Victoria and all the points on Fraser and Thompson rivers and other places on the mainland were thronged with American miners, attracted by the recently discovered gold fields. The British were but a handful. The brave and adventurous pioneers of Washington and Oregon, the Indian war volunteers, were close at hand. The first clash of arms on San Juan would have signaled the downfall of every vestige of British authority in northwest America, except on the decks of their warships. There is no doubt that Governor Stevens and the American commander intended to press their advantage to the utmost in case of conflict. The governor of the Territory was then R.D. Gholson, a well-meaning and respectable Kentuckian, who had recently succeeded McMullan, and who reposed wholly on Governor Stevens for advice and guidance, constantly consulting him. This governor now tendered to General Harney the support of the territorial militia in case of need, sending him a return showing the number of stands of arms the Territory possessed, with the statement that there was a lack of ammunition. In response General Harney immediately dispatched a large quantity of ammunition to Fort Steilacoom and placed it at the governor’s disposal. Truly the times were changed since General Wool refused ammunition to the settlers battling for their homes against the savage foe, and maligned their patriotic efforts.

The directing hand of Governor Stevens is manifest in this resolute assertion of American rights. It was his determined stand, when governor, against the persistent encroachments of the British, which first put our government on its guard. He it was who instructed General Harney as to the merits of the controversy, encouraged him to take decisive action, visited San Juan and noted the conditions there at the critical time, and saw to hurrying reinforcements to Pickett. It is not too much to say that he was the master spirit whose bold and decided action repelled the foreign aggression, aroused public opinion, deterred a weak and timid administration from surrendering our rights, and saved the archipelago to the United States.

Judge James G. Swan, who was acting as the governor’s secretary at this time, quotes from his diary how General Harney and Governor Gholson consulted Governor Stevens, and declares that the stand he took and his influence were the great means of saving San Juan to the United States; that, without his clear and decided counsel, General Harney would hardly have felt justified in taking such vigorous action as he did; that there was a deal of doubt felt and expressed among officers of the army, and it needed the strong, outspoken action of such a man as Governor Stevens at that crisis to turn the scale.

Alarmed at the risk of war, and the scarcely veiled threats of the British minister, the government hastened to send General Scott to the seat of war, big with compromise. He withdrew Captain Pickett and all the troops save one company from the island. Admiral Baynes established a post of an equal number of marines on the opposite or western end, and the joint occupation was maintained thirteen years, and until terminated by the Emperor William’s award in favor of the United States.

Scott then endeavored to perform a still more ungracious task, laid upon him by the administration, to wit, to remove Harney in deference to Great Britain, without arousing the indignation of the people at such a rebuke for his spirited and patriotic action; to cringe to the Lion without exciting the Eagle. He gave Harney an order to relinquish his command on the Pacific and take the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis, with permission to accept or decline the order as he saw fit. But Harney was not disposed to assist in his own rebuke, or smooth the way of truckling to England, and kept his post. Hardly had Scott turned his back, when Harney ordered Pickett back to San Juan, an order in turn countermanded by the general-in-chief.[12]

The people of the Pacific coast were enthusiastic over Harney, the legislatures of Oregon and Washington applauded his course by public resolutions, and the public opinion thus aroused put a needed check to the compromising spirit of the administration.

Governor Stevens spent the remainder of August and part of September in Olympia. He enjoyed visiting his farms and planning their improvement, for his early and hereditary love of the soil was always strong. In September he started eastward by the Isthmus route with his family, and reached Washington the following month.

CHAPTER XLVI
THE STAND AGAINST DISUNION

The Indian treaties confirmed, Governor Stevens was more determined than ever to secure the payment of the Indian war debt. This had been thoroughly examined and audited by a commission appointed by the Secretary of War, consisting of Captains Rufus Ingalls and A.J. Smith, of the army, and Mr. Lafayette Grover, the brother of Lieutenant Grover and afterwards governor of Oregon, and their report had been referred by the last Congress to the third auditor. It was a long time before he reported, and his report, when made, was a very unjust and condemnatory one, manifestly tinged with the prejudice so widely spread by Wool’s slanders. The friends of the debt for some time were unable to get it before the House, and had to content themselves with enlightening individual members and the public.

The governor followed up the various matters in behalf of the Pacific Northwest with his usual energy this session. He spoke on the Pacific Railroad, on steam vessels for Puget Sound, on Indian appropriations, military post on Red River, appropriations for surveys, separate Indian superintendency for Washington Territory, etc. He succeeded in obtaining an appropriation of $100,000 for the military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, which Lieutenant Mullan was now building, $10,000 for a military road between Steilacoom and Vancouver, $4500 for the boundary survey between Oregon and Washington, $95,500 for the Indian service, and secured a new land office and district for the southern part of the Territory. During the session he offered thirteen bills, eight resolutions, and two memorials.

His chief interest and labors, however, were on the Northern Railroad route. He was indefatigable in making known its great national advantages. On April 3 he addressed an elaborate letter on the subject to the railroad convention of the Pacific coast, held at Vancouver. In this he again advocated three routes; showed the national importance of the Northern route, its advantages for securing the trade of Asia, and the danger, if that route were neglected, that the British-Canadians would build a line to the Pacific within their own borders, and thereby forestall this country in developing its Pacific ports and securing the Asiatic commerce. He declared that the explorations thus far made were simply reconnoissances; that two years would be required to complete the surveys, and probably ten years to build the road. He urged the convention to reject absolutely the compromise in the shape of a branch line from some point on the central route to the Columbia River and Puget Sound, which had been urged in Congress and elsewhere, and firmly to insist on the Northern route as a great national work. As published, this letter makes twenty-four printed pages, and Mr. Smalley, the historian of the Northern Pacific Railroad, already quoted, says of it that—

Governor Stevens had now become the recognized authority on the Northern route, and the acknowledged leader of its advocates in Congress. He was ably supported by General Lane, and by the Minnesota senators, Rice and Ramsay, and was indefatigable in furnishing them with data and points for use in debate. At a dinner party on one occasion, Senator Gwin openly taxed the governor with writing the speech which a certain senator had just delivered in behalf of that route, and which made some stir, declaring that no one could mistake the governor’s style and ideas; and the charge was well founded.

During Governor Stevens’s first term in Congress great efforts were made by the friends of the Central route to pass a bill granting a subsidy in lands and bonds to that route, and the bait of a branch from the vicinity of Salt Lake to the Columbia River and Puget Sound was held out to placate the adherents of the Northern route. Governor Stevens strenuously fought this scheme of a branch instead of the through Northern route. The proposed bill failed.

In the next Congress the adherents of the Central and Southern routes joined forces. The extreme secessionists, on the eve of withdrawing from Congress in order to break up the Union, were ready enough to vote subsidies to the united routes, and the Union sentiment was invoked by the argument that the aid extended to the Southern route would help satisfy the South and strengthen the Union. By this combination the House, on December 20, 1860, passed a bill for a land grant and subsidy to both the Central and Southern routes. The Northern route was completely ignored. An amendment offered by Governor Stevens, granting ten sections of land per mile for a road from Red River to Puget Sound, was rejected. But when the bill came before the Senate, an amendment was offered by Senator Wilkinson, of Minnesota, and adopted, the New England senators aiding those from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon, giving a subsidy of twenty-five millions for a railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, and a land grant of six alternate sections per mile on each side of the track in Minnesota, and ten alternate sections for the rest of the way. The amendment created the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and empowered Charles D. Gilfillan, of Minnesota, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Wisconsin, and Isaac I. Stevens, of Washington Territory, to act as a board of commissioners to organize the company. The bill thus amended went back to the House for concurrence, but the session was almost at an end, and repeated efforts to take the bill from the speaker’s table, to get it before the House for consideration, failed for lack of a two thirds vote.

Governor Stevens rapidly overcame—lived down—the prejudice excited by the charges and reports against him, and won the respect of his fellow members. Several of them expressed to him their surprise at finding him so different a man from what they had been led to believe. Said one gentleman, “I expected to find you a loud-voiced, tobacco-chewing, drinking, swearing, violent man, and instead I find a gentleman of quiet manners, education, ability, and high aims and ideals.” The governor used to regard this change of opinion, which he personally made upon members, with a good deal of satisfaction.

He usually rose early, and spent the two hours before breakfast at work in his office. After breakfast and until noon, when Congress met, he would spend in visiting the departments. He kept a light carriage with one horse for this purpose, and for going to and from the Capitol, having the colored servant Bob drive it, or driving himself. He had unbounded influence in all the departments. The clear, lucid way in which he presented his cases; his brief, prompt, business-like methods; the fact that he never asked anything that he did not believe to be right, and called for by public interests, and that he would not submit to delay or neglect, but would follow up his matters until they received due attention, even to the President himself if necessary,—made him respected and somewhat feared, while his uniform courtesy and consideration for the clerks and subordinates won their goodwill.

He acquired great influence with President Buchanan. His son Hazard was desirous of entering West Point, and he took the youth to call on the President and ask an appointment for him. Mr. Buchanan very naturally asked the governor why he did not give his son the appointment within his own gift as a member of Congress. The latter declared he could not do this with propriety, and pointedly requested the desired appointment, which the President seemed reluctant to make, pleading the many claims upon him for the few cadetships at his disposal. But finding the governor still firm in his request, he promised unequivocally and positively to appoint his son. The governor carefully refrained from advising or influencing the latter in the choice of a profession, telling him that he had better decide the matter for himself. An uncle, however, very strenuously urged him not to go to West Point. At last the young man besought the advice of his father, who simply said that he would not advise him to enter West Point, or adopt the army as a profession, but told him to decide according to his own judgment and inclination. Under these circumstances he concluded to give up West Point. Within a year the rebellion broke out, and he was carrying a musket in the ranks of the Union volunteers. How little can we foresee the future!

The governor appointed Robert Catlin as cadet to West Point from Washington Territory.

He dined at six, and spent the evening in social intercourse. Sometimes he would make the rounds of the hotels, meeting old friends and acquaintances, and frequently would work late in the night on some matter that engaged his attention. Like all rising and influential men, he was more and more sought after in behalf of all sorts of people and schemes. Mrs. Stevens relates that on one occasion, when she was reading in the rear end of the large double parlors and the governor was receiving two gentlemen in the front room, she was startled to see him suddenly spring from his chair, face his visitors with upright, soldierly bearing and head erect, exclaiming in a stern and indignant voice, “Look at me, gentlemen, and tell me what you see about me that you dare intimate such a proposition! Leave my house!” They slunk off without a word.

The governor delighted in hospitality, and was never happier than when entertaining his friends. While in Washington he was visited by many of his own and Mrs. Stevens’s relatives.

Governor Stevens was preëminently a national man in all his ideas and sympathies. His Revolutionary ancestry, his West Point training, his participation in large national interests,—as the Mexican war, the Coast Survey, the exploration of the continent and upbuilding of the Pacific Northwest, together with the natural bent of his patriotic nature and comprehensive, far-sighted mind,—strengthened his love for and pride in the great Republic, and made sectionalism or disunion utterly abhorrent to him. Like Webster, he regarded the Union as the palladium of national liberty, life, and power, and its preservation the highest patriotic duty.

There was an aggressive disunion faction, in the Southern tier of slave States, seeking to disrupt the Union by magnifying Northern encroachments against the Southern institution of negro slavery; but the great bulk of the Southern people still held fast to their ancient moorings. Governor Stevens firmly believed that to maintain unimpaired the compromises of the Constitution in regard to slavery was not only the highest statesmanship looking to the preservation of the Union, but a matter of justice and good faith to the Southern Unionists. He believed that as long as the Northern Democracy stood by the constitutional rights of the South, they would continue to hold fast to the Union, and defeat the Secessionists, and that thus, by the league of broad-minded national men both North and South, the extremists could be kept down and the Union maintained.

The political issues of the day sprang up over the question of slavery in the Territories. The Republican party held that Congress had the right, and it was its duty, to prohibit slavery within them; and its more progressive leaders openly expressed the belief that the institution, if debarred from extension and confined to the existing slave States, would ultimately become extinct. The Democratic party was divided between two doctrines on the question. The majority of Northern Democrats upheld the “Squatter Sovereignty” doctrine of Stephen A. Douglas, to wit, that the people of each Territory had the right to decide for or against slavery; while the Southern Democrats and a large part of those in the North, including many of the oldest and ablest leaders and public men, held that, as the Territories had been acquired by the blood and treasure of all the States, neither Congress nor the citizens of a Territory could lawfully prohibit slavery therein as long as they remained Territories; but when they assumed Statehood, the people could prohibit or establish slavery, as they saw fit. The latter doctrine had the support of a dictum of the Supreme Court. Moreover, well-informed men knew that, as a practical matter, there was no probability that negro slavery could be extended into any of the existing Territories, for both natural conditions and the great preponderance of Northern emigration to the West were adverse to it. A few brief years would settle the question in the Territories, and remove it from national politics; and meantime, if the Southern people, the great majority of whom were Union-loving and patriotic, could be reassured that their constitutional rights as to slavery would be respected, the disunionists would become powerless, the dangerous controversies over slavery would die out, and the Union would be saved, stronger and more glorious than ever. Such were the views of Stevens and many of the ablest Democratic leaders, the same views that actuated Clay and Webster and their compatriots when they allayed the storm of an earlier strife over the same subject. No spirit of subserviency to the South actuated them, but a strong sense of justice to the weaker section, of fidelity to the Constitution, of loyalty to the Southern Unionists, and, above all, a broad-minded national patriotism. Thus it was that the men of whom Governor Stevens was a type, after striving to the utmost to safeguard the Southern constitutional rights, when sacrilegious hands assailed the nation’s life, and the Southern people, frenzied with the madness of the hour, were swept into the maelstrom of the great rebellion, were foremost in defense of the country, in self-devotion and self-sacrifice for her sake. In this school of patriots are numbered two members of Lincoln’s cabinet, Edwin M. Stanton, the great War Secretary, and Joseph Holt, the Attorney-General; General John A. Dix and Daniel L. Dickinson, of New York; Generals Grant, Sherman, Halleck, Sheridan; Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts; John A. Logan, of Illinois; and many others, all of whom supported Breckinridge and Lane.

Although deeply immersed in the important practical measures for the advancement of the Northern route and the Pacific Northwest, Governor Stevens was as earnest and decided in his political views as in everything else he undertook. He attended the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Charleston, S.C., April 23, as a delegate representing Oregon, the Territories having no representation. He ardently advocated the nomination of General Lane, his friend and co-worker in behalf of the Pacific Territories. General Lane had achieved much distinction in the Mexican war, was a man of broad, statesman-like views, sound judgment, upright, high-toned, generous, and considerate of others, and universally esteemed. He was just the man for a compromise candidate, and his chances were good for the nomination after the more prominent candidates should defeat each other. But the convention split upon the platform, the Northern delegates insisting upon the squatter sovereignty doctrine; whereupon the representatives of nine extreme Southern States seceded from the convention, which, without making any nominations, adjourned to meet at Baltimore on June 18. In the few ballots taken, General Lane received six votes; but the opportune moment for which his friend hoped never arrived, owing to the disruption of the convention.

The Baltimore convention served but to emphasize the irreconcilable difference between the two doctrines and wings dividing the Democracy. Douglas’s doctrine was adopted, and himself nominated, by a reduced convention; while the delegations of eight more States, withdrawing from it, met in separate convention on June 28, in the same city, and nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for President, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for Vice-President, on a platform declaring the other doctrine, and assuming the name of the National Democratic party.

President Buchanan and the entire influence of the administration supported the latter, and, as the election showed, not only the majority of the foremost public men of the Northern Democracy, but one third of its voters.

Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin were nominated by the Republican party on a platform opposing the extension of slavery in the Territories; and a convention representing the old Whigs, and many moderate men and Unionists in both sections, nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, on the bare declaration of “The Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the Laws.”

The National Democratic party, thus launched into the struggle, was destitute of any national organization, so essential for carrying on a presidential contest. The leaders, including the nominees and members of the cabinet, after full consultation, besought Governor Stevens to accept the position of chairman of the National Executive Committee, organize it, and carry on the canvass. Ever ready to devote himself to any cause in which he was enlisted, the governor undertook the herculean task. In a single night he wrote the party address to the country,—an address covering a whole page of a large metropolitan newspaper, a feat for which General Lane years afterwards expressed unbounded admiration and astonishment, both for its ability and for the ease and rapidity with which it was dashed off.

During the next four months Governor Stevens drove on the canvass with his accustomed energy and ability. Headquarters were opened in New York, contributions collected, meetings organized, and large numbers of speeches and documents circulated all over the country. On September 5 he entertained at dinner, in Washington, General Lane, Secretaries Howell Cobb and Jacob Thompson, of the cabinet, and a delegation from New York. The situation seemed by no means hopeless to the adherents of Breckinridge and Lane. The Republican vote at the last presidential election was far in the minority, even in the North; and now, with four candidates in the field, it seemed probable that there would be no popular election. In such case the choice of President would devolve upon the House of Representatives, voting by States, and the Democratic members controlled a majority of the States, and could therefore choose one of the Democratic candidates. In the event that the House failed to elect, owing either to dissensions among the Democratic members, or the abstention of enough members to break a quorum, which the Republican members could bring about, as they had the numerical majority, then the Senate had the election of Vice-President, who would act as President, and that insured the choice of General Lane, because the majority of the States were represented in the Senate by senators who supported Breckinridge and Lane.[13]

The election of Lincoln in November overset all these hopes and calculations, and the drama of the great rebellion, which was to humble the arrogant fire-eaters of the South, free the land from the curse of slavery, and vindicate the Union by the sword, the last argument of kings and nations, was ushered in.

At the last session of this, the 36th Congress, the bill to pay the Indian war debt was passed, notwithstanding the most strenuous and bitter opposition, led by a member from New York, General Wool’s State, and inspired by him. The report of the third auditor, which greatly and very unfairly cut down the award of the Ingalls commission, was made the basis of the bill. Governor Stevens, in his speeches in Congress, severely criticised and exposed the mistakes and unfair findings of the auditor, without impugning his honesty. He was a well-meaning but narrow man, who had allowed himself to be prejudiced against the volunteers. Other advocates of the bill were less considerate towards him. On one occasion he thanked the governor with great warmth and sincerity for always treating him, and referring to him, as an honest man and well-meaning public servant, much to the governor’s surprise.

He also succeeded in having his Territory made a separate Indian superintendency, and his friend W.W. Miller appointed superintendent. He also increased the mail service on the Sound from weekly to semi-weekly, and secured appropriations of $59,700 for the Indian service, $61,000 for general expenses, and had Lieutenant Mullan’s report on building the military road across the mountains printed. He offered five bills, six resolutions, and four amendments, and spoke on the Northern Pacific Railroad, in defense of the Coast Survey, Indian war debt, increased mail service on Puget Sound, military post on Red River, etc.

During his congressional tour the governor was particularly indefatigable and successful in establishing new post-roads, and increasing mail facilities in all parts of the Territory. Years afterwards General Miller declared that the government had done nothing since his death but to cut down the mail service, and abolish the post-offices and routes he had caused to be established.

The military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, which the governor caused to be opened, and in charge of which he had placed Lieutenant Mullan, known as the Mullan road popularly, was for a number of years the highway across the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains, traversed by thousands of trains, and the great artery for communication with and supply of thousands of settlers and miners in Montana, until superseded by the railroads.

The payment of the Indian war debt was a great triumph for Governor Stevens, and completed the vindication of his course, as the confirmation of his treaties vindicated his Indian policy.

During the last seven years, what severe and unremitting labors he had undergone, what great results he had achieved, and what tremendous obstacles and opposition he had overcome! He had made the exploration of the Northern route the most complete and exhaustive of all; had demonstrated its superiority, not simply as a transcontinental line, but as a world route for the world’s commerce, and had made himself the authority and exponent of that route. By his Indian service he had treated with over thirty thousand Indians, extinguished the Indian title to a hundred and fifty million acres, established peace among hereditary enemies over an area larger than New England and the Middle States, and instituted over thousands of savages a beneficent policy of instruction and civilization. By calling out volunteers and waging an aggressive war against the savage foe, when all was gloom and terror, and the settlers were not only forsaken but vilified by the military authority, whose duty it was to protect them, he saved the settlements of his Territory from extinction, and the progress of the Northwest from being set back for years. And his firm and patriotic stand against British aggression saved the San Juan group to the United States.

Entering Congress vilified by high and low, with the censure of his territorial legislature and the disapproval of the President recorded against him, he had so ably demonstrated the wisdom and rightfulness of his course that he secured the ratification of his Indian treaties, the payment of the Indian war debt, the reversal of the reactionary policy of Wool, the opening of the interior to settlement, and the punishment of Indian murderers.

During his brief career up to this time he disbursed over three quarters of a million dollars for the government, as follows:[14]—

Events followed fast that winter in the great national drama. The ultra-secessionists in the cotton States had it all their own way; and the Democratic leaders throughout the South, regardless of their Northern allies, who had stood by them so bravely and against such odds, were only too ready to follow in the same treasonable path, some accepting Seward’s doctrine of an irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom, and believing that separation and an independent government were the only means by which slavery could be maintained; while others, furious at the loss of political power, like Lucifer, would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven,—would ruin where they could no longer rule.

Great efforts were made by the moderate men, especially of the border States, to heal the breach; the Republican leaders, frightened at the storm, displayed a conciliatory spirit; and it seemed for a time that the differences might be compromised, the fears of the South allayed, and the Union peacefully preserved. Governor Stevens clung to this hope to the last. He thought that if a constitutional convention could be held, the breach could be healed; that the strong Union sentiment in most of the Southern States would cause them to adhere to the Union; and that the few seceding States, isolated and helpless, would soon be glad to resume their places. It is altogether probable that this view was correct, but one essential condition of such a plan was that no overt act of hostility should be committed. The secessionists, by violently seizing the national forts and property, and beginning hostilities, rendered peaceful adjustment hopeless.

Governor Stevens was firm and decided in his opinion that it was the duty of the President to protect the national property and forts and enforce the laws. The following sentences culled from his correspondence show his views and feelings at this trying and momentous crisis:—