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who reside in various parts of the territory have it in your power to understand what will tend to its local and general advantage. The judiciary system would require a revisal and amendment. The militia law is very defective, and requires your immediate attention. It is necessary to have good roads and highways in as many directions through the territory as the circumstances and situation of the inhabitants will admit of-it would contribute very much to promote the settlement and improvement of the territory. Attention to education is highly necessary. There is an appropriation made by Congress, in lands, for the purpose of establishing public schools. It comes now within your province to carry into operation the design of the appropriation.

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During this session of the territorial legislature several laws were passed, and the general welfare of the settlements provided for. In the following year owing, principally, to the great success of the army under General Harrison, in the northwest, the settlements in Indiana began to improve. The fear of danger from the incursions of the hostile Indians had, in a great measure, subsided, and the tide of eastern emigration again began to flow into the territory. In January, 1814, about one thousand Miamis, in a state of great destitution, assembled at Fort Wayne for the purpose of obtaining food to prevent starvation. They met with ample hospitality, and their example was speedily followed by others. These, with other acts of kindness, won the lasting friendship of the Indians, many of whom had fought in the interests of Great Britain. General treaties between the United States and the northwestern tribes were subsequently concluded, and the way was fully opened for the improvement and settlement of the lands.

CHAPTER XVI.

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REVIEW OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL EVENTS.

ET us review, in this short chapter, some of the affairs of the Indiana territory-which, owing to the press of military operations, we have neglected in the previous chapter and then pass on to the events in the history of the STATE OF INDIANA. The well known ordinance of 1787 was designed for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio, and when, in 1800, this large territory was divided for the purpose of forming the Indiana territory, Congress declared that there should be established in Indiana a government similar in all respects to that provided by the ordinance of 1787, and that the inhabitants of the territory should be "entitled to and enjoy all the rights and privileges, and advantages granted and secured to the people by the said ordinance." And yet, with all these privileges and rights, the people of Indiana, at that time, did not enjoy the full blessings of a republican form of government. "I find, however," says Mr. Dillon, "that these general terms did not confer upon the people of the territory a right to exercise any great degree of political power. The authority to appoint territorial governors, territorial secretaries, and judges of the superior court of the territory, was vested in the President of the United States and the national Senate. The organization of a territorial legislature or general assembly, depended upon the vote of a majority of the freeholders of the territory Before the organization of such a legislature, the governor and the judges of the territory, or a majority of them, were invested with power to adopt and publish such laws, civil and criminal, of the original States as might be best suited to the circum

stances of the people; but laws thus adopted and published were subject to the disapproval of Congress. A freehold estate in five hundred acres of land, was one of the necessary qualifications of each member of the legislative council of the territory; every member of the territorial house of representatives

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was required to hold, in his own right, two hundred acres of land; and the privilege of voting for members of the house of representatives was restricted to those inhabitants who, in addition to other qualifications, owned, severally, at least fifty

acres of land." The governor of the territory was vested with the power of appointing officers of the territorial militia, judges of the inferior courts, clerks of the courts, justices of the peace, sheriffs, coroners, county treasurers, and county surveyors. He was also authorized to divide the territory into districts; to apportion among the several counties the members of the house of representatives; to prevent the passage of any territorial law; and to convene, prorogue, and dissolve the general assembly of the territory, whenever, in his opinion, it might be deemed expedient to exercise such authority. It may now be stated, to the honor of the territorial governors of Indiana, that neither of them ever exercised these extraordinary powers arbitrarily. Nevertheless the people were constantly agitating the question of the extension of the right of suffrage. Five years after the organization of the territory, the legislative council, in reply to the governor's message, said: "Although we are not as completely independ ent in our legislative capacity as we would wish to be, yet we are sensible that we must wait with patience for that period of time when our population will burst the trammels of a territorial government, and we shall assume the character more consonant to republicanism. * The confidence which our fellow citizens have uniformly had in your adminis tration has been such that they have hitherto had no reason to be jealous of the unlimited power which you possess over our legislative proceedings. We, however, can not help regretting that such powers have been lodged in the hands of any one, especially when it is recollected to what dangerous lengths the exercise of those powers may be extended."

* *

After repeated petitions the people of Indiana were empowered by Congress to elect the members of the legislative council by popular vote. This act was passed in 1809, and defined what was known as the property qualification of voters. These qualifications were abolished by an act of Congress in 1811, which extended the right of voting for members of the general assembly and for a territorial delegate to Congress to every free white male person who had attained the age of twenty-one years, and who, having paid a county or territorial

tax, was a resident of the territory, and had resided in it for the period of one year. In 1814, the voting qualification in Indiana was defined by an act of Congress, "to every free white male person having a freehold in the territory, and being a resident of the same." The house of representatives of the Indiana territory was authorized, by an act of Congress of the fourth of March, 1814, to lay off the territory into five districts, in each of which the qualified voters were empowered to elect a member of the legislative council. The members of the house convened at Corydon, in the month of June, 1814, and divided the territory into districts. According to this division the counties of Washington and Knox constituted one district; the counties of Gibson and Warrick one district; the counties of Harrison and Clark one district; the counties of Jefferson and Dearborn one district; and the counties of Franklin and Wayne one district.*

At the session of the general assembly held at Corydon, in August, 1814, an act was passed dividing the territory into three judicial circuits, and making provisions for the holding of courts in these circuits, and defining the jurisdiction of such courts, and investing the governor with power to appoint a presiding judge in each circuit, and two associate judges of the circuit court in each county. The compensation of these judges was fixed at seven hundred dollars per annum.

In the same year the general assembly of Indiana granted charters to two banking institutions, viz., the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Madison, and the Bank of Vincennes. The former was authorized to raise a capital of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the latter the sum of five hundred thousand dollars. As we shall see, these banks, upon the organization of the State, were merged into the State Bank and its branches.

Our history of the INDIANA TERRITORY, which closes withr this chapter, is not so full as it could have been with the

* Dillon's History of Indiana Territory.

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