EARLY LEGISLATIVE TURMOILS IN NEW JERSEY

Pessimists point to the “frenzied politics” of our day as evidence of the facilis descensus Averni from the purity, the lofty and unselfish patriotism of the fathers; and they sigh over the decadence of the statesmen of these modern times, lament the corruption and essential dishonesty of parties and partisans in general, and yearn for a return of the purity and patriotism and statesmanship of the Fathers. The student of history, however, finds that human nature was and has been much the same through all the ages. The business contracts between merchants of Babylon, stamped on bricks five thousand years ago, and brought to light but yesterday, are in much the same terms as those settled in the courts to-day. The Code of Hammurabi, formulated 2200 B. C., shows in every sentence that like questions of rights and wrongs of persons and things were raised in that remote era as are discussed in the luminous pages of Blackstone, and determined in our own day in the fori of the several States, and in the Capitol at Washington. Is it possible, then, that the development of mankind has been on entirely different lines in the political arena? The thoughtful reader must say no. Freeman’s remark has become trite: “History is past politics, and politics past History.” The burning political issues of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1799; the purchase of Louisiana; the Embargo of 1807–09; the annexation of Texas; the Oregon question, with its alluring alliteration “Fifty-four-forty or fight;” “Bleeding Kansas” and its other expressions, “Free Speech, Free Soil, Free Men;” Anti-Slavery, Abolitionism and Secession; the Greenback craze—not to speak of more recent partisan shibboleths—all were “politics” of the intensest sort in their day. All are now relegated to the background of “history,” to be studied in the cold chiaro-oscuro of the past. And the men who led the forces marshaled against each other in those great conflicts.—Ah, “there were giants in those days!” Yes, but to their contemporaries they were merely politicians, too often opprobriously dubbed “political tricksters,” or even “traitors to their country.” What a lot of truth there is in the late Thomas B. Reed’s cynicism: “A statesman is a dead politician.”

The lust for power is one of the deepest instincts of the human mind. Civilization has not quenched it, but has merely directed it into new channels. Instead of the savage chieftain who once impressed his will on his fellow-tribesmen by tomahawk or flint-tipped arrow-head, or by terrifying shamanism, we have the statesman—“politician,” if you will—exercising his mastery by all the subtle arts which a keen intellect and a profound knowledge of men and the influences to which they are severally and collectively subject, can devise. Here is a splendid field for the orator, to persuade by his burning eloquence; for the leader, to show his mastery over men; for the partisan, to cajole with the promise of sordid spoil, or to threaten the recreant with loss of influence. There is a glorious zest in this pursuit of power, in this forging to the front as a leader of men. Admirable ambition, if inspired by worthy motives. Fascinating, most attractive, to every virile man. What wonder, if in this eager thirst for eminence among his fellows, the ardent leader becomes oblivious at times to the relative rights of meum and tuum? Success is his aim. He must win. The future of his party, the welfare of his country, demands it. No time to palter over finical questions of what is proper, of what is right. “The end justifies the means.” Ah, facilis est descensus Averni, indeed.

All this by way of preliminary to a few gleanings from some old records of New Jersey, illustrating “past politics” principally in the days of that erstwhile Royal Province, under that unique Chief Executive, Lord Cornbury, who was foisted on the people by his amiable cousin, Queen Anne, doubtless glad enough of the chance to banish him by an ocean’s broad expanse from her Court. For a score of years New Jersey had been divided into two Provinces—East Jersey, largely controlled by the Scotch proprietors and their settlers; and West Jersey, dominated by the outwardly meek but inwardly determined Quakers. When the two Provinces were reunited into one—New Jersey—the profligate courtier, the ruffling gallant, the soldier of doubtful reputation, Lord Cornbury, of all men was chosen as the solvent to blend these and all the other antagonistic elements in the Province into one harmonious whole.

His troubles began with the first election of representatives to the General Assembly, held between August 13 and September 9, 1703. That body was to be composed of two members each from Perth Amboy and Burlington, and ten from each Division—twenty-four in all. (So long ago was ordained the exact political equality of East Jersey and West Jersey, which has been scrupulously maintained for two centuries, at least in the upper branch of the Legislature, regardless of the overwhelming preponderance of population now concentrated in what was formerly East Jersey). In the latter Division there appeared at the polls forty-two qualified voters in the interest of the Scotch Proprietors, a great part of them from New York and Long Island. “On behalfe of the Country there appear’d betwixt three & four hundred men qualifyed & had they thought necessary could have brought severall Hundred more.” But the High Sheriff (Thomas Gordon) appointed in the Scotch interest, “multiply’d Tricks, upon Tricks, till at last barefac’d he made ye returne contrary to the choice of the Country.” So too in West Jersey, the Quakers, though really in the majority only in Burlington County, “by their usuall application & diligence” secured the return of ten members. Lord Cornbury was intensely disgusted at so adverse a result, and complained to the Lords of Trade that “Severall persons very well qualified to serve, could not be elected, because they had not a thousand Acres of Land, though at the same time, they had twice the vallue of that Land, in money and goods, they being trading men, [while] on the other hand some were chosen because they have a thousand Acres of Land, and at the same time have not twenty shillings in money, drive noe trade, and can neither read nor write, nay they can not answer a question that is asked them, of this sort we have two in the Assembly.” However, the Royal Governor was prejudiced against the plebeian Jerseymen.

When the House met, November 10, 1703, a petition was presented, complaining of an undue election of five of the members returned for the Eastern Division. Sheriff Gordon, at his request, was furnished with a copy of the petition, and time was given him to answer it, and to send for such persons as he should find necessary for his defense. Gordon, by the way, was a member of the House from Perth Amboy, and so had a great advantage over his adversaries, as he could sit on his own case, and by judicious logrolling could influence votes in his own behalf. Nor is there anything in the records to show that he had the slightest hesitation in availing himself of his opportunities. Apparently he had doubts about the allegiance of one of his fellow-members, Richard Hartshorne, for on November 16, Messrs. Gordon and Reid were given permission to ask the Governor and Council whether Hartshorne was qualified to sit in the House, and to give their opinion thereon. The Governor advised Mr. Hartshorne to qualify himself as the law required (by the ownership of a thousand acres of land), but in the meantime the House ordered him to withdraw, until he should qualify himself, and he left his seat. The complaint against Gordon was taken up on November 16, and evidence produced on both sides on that and two succeeding days. Hartshorne was unseated on the 17th, and on the 18th it was voted that the evidence for the regularity and legality of the return made by Mr. Gordon was sufficient, and the petition was dismissed. The House declined, however, to allow the Sheriff his charges against the petitioners. It was also voted not to take any action against the clerks who took the poll at the election in Amboy, and who had refused to deliver them to the Sheriff. It is quite apparent that the House was pretty evenly divided between the friends and foes of the Sheriff-Assemblyman. It is not unlikely that Gordon’s finesse in unseating Hartshorne before the final vote was taken determined the result.

Governor Cornbury found the First Assembly so recalcitrant that he dissolved it, September 28, 1704, and a few days later issued writs for the election of a new Assembly, to meet at Burlington on November 9, 1704. His enemies charged that “The writs were issued and the Elections directed to be made, in such hast, that in one of the writs the Qualifications of the persons to be elected was omitted, and the Sheriff of one County not sworn till Three days before the Election, and many of the Townes had not any (much less due) notice of the day of Election.” Despite these extraordinary precautions of the Governor to have the elections controlled by his friends there was an adverse majority in the Second Assembly, when it met at Burlington on November 13, 1704, and organized the next day. How was this to be overcome? The way was quickly and readily devised. On November 15, Messrs. Thomas Revel and Daniel Leeds, two of Cornbury’s staunchest supporters in the Council, presented a petition to that body, questioning the right of Thomas Lambert, Thomas Gardiner and Joshua Wright to sit in the House. The Governor thereupon refused to swear in those three members-elect. The next day the petitioners asked for fourteen days’ time in which to show that these men lacked the requisite property qualification of 1,000 acres of land. The object in asking this long time was to outwear the patience of the Assembly. The same day (November 16) the members in question produced to the House copies of returns of surveys of lands possessed by them, and were given further time to make their qualifications more fully appear, the result being that on December 6 the House decided that each of the men owned a thousand acres of land, and voted unanimously to seat them. Lord Cornbury, however, still declined to administer to them the prescribed oath. The counties for which the three men were chosen to serve, with several other representatives, delivered an address to his Excellency for having them admitted, which, “mett with noe other Reception, than being called a piece of Insolence, and Ill manners.” By this exclusion a majority of one was gained for the Governor’s party, and he having secured such legislation as he most desired adjourned the Assembly, December 12, to meet April 27, 1705, leaving the three members-elect in question to cool their heels on the outside.

The House did not meet again until October 17, 1705. The Governor sent in a message commending sundry measures to be enacted. By this time the Assembly was ready to lock horns with his Excellency, and to stand on its rights. It was accordingly resolved that it should be “full” before considering his suggestions, and a committee was appointed to wait on him and ask him to admit the three excluded members. He parried the issue, but the House would none of his evasions, and decided to do no business until those three men were admitted. The Governor wanted an appropriation for his support, and was compelled to yield and swear in the men, who took their seats October 26, 1705. The Lords of Trade disapproved of his course in a letter of April 20, 1705: “We think, your Lordship will do well to leave the Determination about Elections of Representatives to that House, and not to intermeddle therein otherwise than by Issuing of Writs for any new Election.”

Does this incident remind one of the “Broad Seal War,” arising out of the action of the Governor of New Jersey issuing his certificate of election to five men as Members of Congress, in 1838, who were really in the minority, on the ground that the returns from certain townships (which would have changed the result) were not before him in due season? Or does it in any way recall the attempt of ten members of the New Jersey Senate to assume to be a majority of the twenty-one members of that body, in 1894?

The Third Assembly, which met at Perth Amboy, April 5, 1707, was also hostile to the Governor. Two of the members of his Council—the pugnacious Lewis Morris and the imperturbable, hard-headed Samuel Jenings, a Quaker—actually resigned from that body in order to be elected to the Assembly, where they could the better harass his Excellency. The Governor had assumed the right to appoint the Clerk of the House, in the person of one William Anderson, who incurred their dislike, and they resolved to get rid of him. How? By the simple expedient of resolving themselves into a committee of the whole, wherein from day to day they discussed the public business, and figuratively “cussed” the Governor. Of course, the committee had a right to choose its own clerk, and selected one of the members. Anderson did not like this, and insisted on his right and duty to sit with them. He imprudently admitted “y^t he was Sworn to discover Debates y^t were dangerous to y^e Goverm^t, & y^t he did not know but y^e Comittee were going to have such Debates, & y^rfore did turn him out.” The chairman promptly caught him on this indiscretion, and exclaimed, “Then you suppose we are going to have such Debates?” “It looks like it,” replied the clerk. The committee indignantly resolved that his refusal to withdraw from the committee of the whole was a “high Contempt, & a great Interruption of y^e public Affairs of the Province,” and that his words were a “Misdemeanor & a scandalous Reflection upon y^e Members of this House.” Here was a new grievance whereof to complain to the Governor, and in order to give him time to think it over the House adjourned for a week, and then sent a committee to ask him to appoint another clerk, who should be “a Residenter of this Province.” It may be readily imagined that the Governor was loth to lose the services of so faithful a henchman, but he was anxious for another appropriation and was obliged to give way, and named a new clerk. How impatient he must have been to get that Assembly “off his hands!” Have there not been Governors, yea, even Presidents, similarly embarrassed within our own recollection?

Now the Assembly had another rod in pickle for the Governor. It was whispered about that a fund had been raised to bribe him to favor certain measures in the interest of the Proprietors, and that many citizens had been virtually compelled to contribute toward this fund, under threats of serious inconvenience in various ways. The House determined to investigate these rumors, and sent out subpœnas for a large number of witnesses. One of the parties implicated was Capt. John Bowne, a member from Monmouth County. He was a man of resources, and when a certain witness came to town to testify against him he had the man arrested on a capias in a civil suit and sent to jail, where he was detained, all bail being refused. Whereupon the House (April 30, 1707) promptly expelled Bowne for “a Contempt and a breach of the privileges of this House,” nem. con. They moved more quickly in those days than even in this modern era of hustle.

The Governor’s exclusion of three members-elect from their seats was still a sore grievance to the House, and finally that body expressed itself in language the good sense and dignity of which excuse its eccentric orthography:

“We are too Sensably touched with that procedure not to know what must be the unavoydable Consequences of the Governor’s refusing to Sweare which of the Members of an Assembly he thinks fitt; but to take upon himselfe the power of Judging of the qualifications of Assemblymen, and to keep them out of the house (as the Governour did the afores^d three members nigh Eleven Months till he was satisfied in that point) after the house had declared them qualified, is so great a violation of the Lyberties of the people, So great a breach of the privileges of the house of Representatives, So much an assuring to himselfe a negative voyce to the freeholders Election of their Representatives, that the Governour is Intreated to pardon us if this is a Different treatment from what he expected; It is not the Effects of passionate heats or the Transports of Vindictive Tempers, but the Serious Resentments of a House of Representatives For a Notorious violation of the liberties of the people to whom they could not be just nor answer the trust reposed in them Should they declyne letting the Governor know they are Extremely Dissatisfied at so unkind a treatment Especially when its Causes and Effects Conspire to render it so disagreeable.”

Lord John Lovelace having succeeded Lord Cornbury as Governor of New Jersey, ordered an election for a new Assembly, which met at Perth Amboy March 3, 1708–9. They were not willing to forgive and forget, any more than are modern partisans. A fulsome address to the Queen had been adopted in 1707 by the gentlemen of the Council, praising Lord Cornbury, and assailing the House, and particularly Lewis Morris and Samuel Jenings, two of its members. The Assembly had got wind of this document, and now requested a copy from the new Governor, who caused it to be furnished to them and it was treasured up for future use.

The wheels of legislation rolled smoothly along for several weeks. There was a sudden jolt, however, on June 11, 1709, when the Council had the temerity to appoint a committee to inspect the journal of the House. The latter body at once retorted in kind, by appointing a committee to inspect the journal of the Council, and desired them to send their journal to the committee that afternoon! The Council of course objected, urging that their proceedings were secret; but the House insisted, and desired to have the journal sent down at seven o’clock the next morning.

And that was the last that was heard of either house attempting to “inspect” the minutes of the other. The Assembly—the representatives of the people—had again triumphantly asserted and maintained their independence.

The Fifth Assembly, which met and organized December 1, 1709, had a number of contested elections before it, which were in general decided in favor of the sitting members. The business of the session proceeded steadily and with unusual monotony until January 2, 1710, when it was enlivened by this incident: A certain bill having been referred to a committee, Mr. Lawrence, one of the members, reported that “they had blotted out the whole of the bill, except the title, which he thought was the best amendment they could make to it.” This seemed to be quite a joke, until the chairman complained that while the committee were discussing the measure Mr. Lawrence “Did contrary to his Consent blot out & Cancell the s^d bill and had left nothing remaining Except the title. And that M^r Gershom Mott another of the s^d Committee forcibly detained him when he would have departed the room whilst M^r Lawrence was blotting and Cancelling some part of the said Bill.” The House voted that the action of Messrs. Lawrence and Mott was a contempt, and ordered them to be brought before the bar “and there ask forgiveness, with an acknowledgement of the favour of the H^os that they were not Expelld the H^os & rendered uncapable for ever Serving in this H^os againe & other punish^mts which this H^os might inflict. And that they promise for the Future to behave themselves as becomes Members of this H^os.” The two practical jokers made the required amende and were allowed to resume their seats.

There was another break in the tedium of the session on January 5, when “M^r Sharp Complained that Cap^t George Duncan this morning, Early had called him out privately & drew his Sword upon him unawares he being unarmed, & made at him with his drawn Sword, upon which the said Sharp fled & was pursued by the s^d Cap^t Duncan who hee believes had a designe to kill him.

“And desired the protection of y^e h^os.”

Capt. Duncan was ordered into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and to be kept disarmed until further orders. There he was detained for six days, when, being apparently both sober and sorry, and having asked Mr. Sharp’s forgiveness, he was brought before the House, made his apologies all around and “promised to behave himself for the future as becom’s a Loyall Subject and a good member of this House,” and was allowed to take his seat.

The Assembly elected in 1716 was violently rent by factions for and against the impatient and impetuous Governor Robert Hunter. Col. Daniel Coxe, who had served for several years in the Council, was removed at Hunter’s request, and forthwith set about getting even. To that end he secured his election to the Assembly in 1714, having cleverly manipulated the “Swedish vote” on his immense paternal estates in the southern part of the Province. He was again chosen in February, 1716, from both Gloucester County and the town of Salem, although Sheriff William Harrison, of Gloucester, was accused of resorting to sharp practice to secure his defeat, by removing the polls several miles from the usual place of holding the election. Coxe declared to serve for Gloucester, and being chosen Speaker on April 4, lodged a complaint against Harrison, had him arraigned at the bar of the House, and by order of that body publicly reprimanded him. Governor Hunter was intensely disappointed at the result of the election, and prorogued the Assembly until May 7. On that day the members in opposition stayed away, to prevent a quorum, but after two weeks the friends of the Governor managed to get together thirteen members—a bare majority,—and elected John Kinsey Speaker in the absence of Coxe, and then proceeded to expel Coxe and his whole party for non-attendance, and moreover declared them incapable forever of sitting in that body. Several of them were re-elected, nevertheless, and were gently but firmly again expelled.

I might speak of the action of the West Jersey Assembly in 1685–6, when they “declared to y^e Governor y^t officers of State & Trust belong to them to nominate and appoint.” And to that other assertion of their independence when they refused to recognize the course of the Proprietors in appointing John Tatham as Governor. Even in the opening days of the Revolution, when the friends of the new government were welded by the force of circumstances into a harmonious body, strongly disposed to uphold the patriotic Governor, William Livingston, they nevertheless enunciated an important construction of the constitution, in 1778, in declaring void a patent granted by him, incorporating a church, after the manner of his Royal predecessors, and asserting that “the power of granting patents and charters of incorporation, under the present constitution, is vested solely in the Legislature of the State.”

Something has been said in this paper of the scandalous conduct of elections. It is gratifying to find a popular reaction as early as 1738, at least in Quaker Burlington, where, though the election was so vigorously contested as to require three days to conclude the polling, it was, notwithstanding, managed “in such a candid and peaceable Manner,” according to a newspaper of the day, “as gave no Occasion of Reflection to each other, nor was there any reaping of Characters, or using of Canes in a Hostile Manner on one another, being sensible that such a Practice is inconsistent with the Freedom which ought to Subsist in our Elections.” The inference is irresistible that the conduct of this canvass was in violent contrast with the usual practices.

I might also mention the passage of an act by the Legislature seventy years or so ago, providing for an increase in the membership of the Supreme Court, and then the appointment by the same Legislature of one of its own members to the office thus created! The appointee was an honor to the Bench, and ranked then and for thirty years afterwards as one of the most distinguished men in the land. But what would be thought of such a procedure to-day?

And speaking of courts, I do not recall anything in recent times to match the daring of the Monmouth County people, who on March 25, 1701, captured the Governor of East Jersey, two of his Councillors and two of his Justices, who were holding court for the trial of a townsman on a charge of piracy, he having confessed that he had been on a voyage with the famous Captain William Kidd, “as he sailed, as he sailed.” The people would not “stand for” judicial interference in a little thing like that, which brought plenty of “Arabian gold” to our coasts, and so, with grim humor and determination, they kept the Governor and his Court of Sessions, together with the Attorney-General and the Secretary of the Province, in close confinement for four days. As nothing further is said about the matter it is not unlikely that the prisoners were compelled to promise immunity to their captors before being released.

“They didn’t know everything down in Judee,”

chuckled Hosea Biglow in self-satisfied complacency. But from the few instances cited it is quite apparent that our honored forefathers, could they “revisit the pale glimpses of the moon,” would have little to learn from the modern “Boss” in the way of political audacity, chicanery or finesse.

“For ways that are dark

And tricks that are vain,”

the modern politician is much the same as his predecessor of two centuries ago. But in fact there has been a steady improvement in political methods. What appears to have been common in New Jersey in the early days of the eighteenth century—such as turning a Legislative minority into a majority—is so exceptional to-day as to excite general surprise, and more or less genuine indignation. In that State ten years ago it caused a political revolution.

The golden age of American politics does not lie in the past. It looms up brightly in the future.

All the patriots, all the statesmen who have ever lived in our land, are by no means dead. To-day there are more with us than ever. Perhaps when they have left this sublunary sphere as long as have Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Webster, Calhoun, Clay and Benton—nomina clara et venerabilia!—future generations looking back upon the eminent men of this day, through the haze of a century, may see our contemporaries surrounded by as effulgent a glamour as that which to our eyes enshrines the worthies who guided the first steps of the Nation along the paths of sure and permanent progress. Let us have faith in the Republic, and in our present leaders, following where they lead aright, and leaving them when they go astray; remembering the golden rule in government, embodied in those matchless words:

“That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

When the time comes that our people shall fully live up to that immortal Declaration we shall see before us and within reach the iridescent rainbow of our hopes, the harbinger of tranquility after the storms of past conflicts; then we shall have attained indeed in our political system and practices to the “golden age.”

WILLIAM NELSON.

PATERSON, N. J.