On July 24, 1805, a third Richmond appeared in the Pittsburgh newspaper field in the person of Ephraim Pentland. He established a weekly newspaper called The Commonwealth, which was published in a building situated in the West Diamond, opposite the southwest corner of the new court house. The newspaper resulted from the dissension in the Republican party in Pennsylvania.
Governor McKean’s second term was drawing to a close. For two years prior to 1805, he had disagreed with the Republican General Assembly because of its extreme radicalism. It had enacted several revolutionary bills which he vetoed. The members appeared to have an especial aversion to lawyers, and a bill was passed to substitute, in civil cases, referees for juries, and prohibiting the employment of counsel. This bill was also vetoed. The House assumed that the Supreme Court was arrogating to itself powers which it did not possess, and on February 28, 1803, scarcely a month after the impeachment and removal from the bench of Judge Addison,[233] the first step was taken in the attempt to impeach three of the judges of the Supreme Court for alleged arbitrary conduct in committing to prison for contempt, the plaintiff in a suit pending in the court.[234] Brackenridge was absent from the bench when the offender was imprisoned, and although accused of being largely responsible for the impeachment of Judge Addison, was now loyal to his colleagues, and sent a letter to the House in which he declared his full concurrence in the course taken by the other judges, and asked to share their fate. The House replied by addressing the governor, and asking for Brackenridge’s removal. McKean refused to comply with the request. On January 28, 1805, the impeachment trial came to an end; a majority of the Senators pronounced the judges guilty, but as the majority was short of two-thirds, the result was an acquittal. The anger of the radical Republicans was boundless. A division took place in the party, which caused intense feeling throughout the State. McKean’s supporters took the name of “Constitutionalists,” while the opposition called themselves “Friends of the People.” The charm of French phrases was still strong.
The “Friends of the People” now put forward Simon Snyder as a candidate for governor in opposition to McKean. The abuse that was heaped on their former idol was appalling; threats of civil war were in the air. McKean was charged with being a demagogue who pandered to the worst elements in the Republican party, while being by education and sentiment an aristocrat. He was also accused of having gone over to the Federalists. The Tree of Liberty continued a staunch supporter of McKean. Its former violence had given way to an advocacy of “moderation.”
The Commonwealth was established in the interest of the faction opposed to McKean, and its attacks on him and his supporter, the Tree of Liberty, were brutal. Israel came in for the most violent abuse. Pentland accused Israel of being ignorant. “Let a beardless boy instruct you, old goat!” was one of his coarse thrusts. In the same article he designated Israel as “the man with the long beard, but no brains,” and concluded crudely, “Let a goslin’ instruct you, old goose!”[235]
The campaign teemed with personalities. The Federalists looked on in amusement, but finally came to the support of McKean, and he was elected. Pentland’s chagrin knew no bounds, and after the election was over, he continued to attack the Tree of Liberty, the management of which, by this time had changed. He vented his spite on the supposed owners. He charged that, although the newspaper was published in the name of Walter Forward, Tarleton Bates and Henry Baldwin,[236] the two most prominent politicians in Pittsburgh, were the real proprietors, and that Bates was the editor. Baldwin, who was not quite twenty-six years of age, later in life became a member of Congress and a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Forward was a young man of nineteen, a law student in Baldwin’s office, and subsequently attained high political distinction. He was several times a member of Congress, was Secretary of the Treasury under President Tyler, chargé-d’-affaires to Denmark, under President Taylor, and president judge of the District Court of Allegheny County.
Bates was the oldest and best known of the three men. His tragic end has caused a halo of romance to be cast about his striking personality. He was a native of Virginia, where he was born on May 22, 1775. He was of Quaker origin, his father having lost his membership in the Society of Friends because of his services as a volunteer at the siege of Yorktown. The family seat was Belmont in Goochland County. Tarleton Bates came to Pittsburgh when eighteen years of age. During the early years of his residence he was employed by the national government in the Quarter Master’s Department under Major Isaac Craig, the Deputy Quarter Master and Military Storekeeper at Pittsburgh, with whom for a time he made his home. When the Spaniards surrendered their rights to the country on the lower Mississippi in 1798, and the Mississippi Territory was organized with Natchez as the capital, Bates determined to leave Pittsburgh and settle in the southern town, but did not carry his design into execution.[237] Upon the appointment of John C. Gilkison to the office of prothonotary, he became a clerk under him.
He had a fair education, was studiously inclined, and was possessed of considerable culture, including a knowledge of the French language. He owned the best copy of Lavater in Pittsburgh. His letters to members of his family[238] indicate that he was generous, warm-hearted, and tender. The family fortunes were low. His brother Frederick, just starting out in life, felt the need of money and made his wants known to Tarleton. Although in the habit of speaking of himself as living in “exiled poverty,” he responded without hesitation: “Nothing within my ability shall be wanting to smooth the entrance of the rugged path of life”; and he offered to help Frederick to the extent of thirty dollars a month. He led an upright life and ever attempted to deserve the good opinion of his mother and “avoid the imprudencies of youth.” Frederick charged him with being engaged to be married. His answer was an admission that he was in love, and a frank intimation that thus far success had not crowned his efforts. That he was fond of the society of ladies appears from a letter in which he tells of the many charming ladies in Pittsburgh. His acrostic on the name of Emily Morgan Neville, the daughter of Colonel Presley Neville, lends color to the imputation that at one time he was in love with that fascinating young woman. His complete obsession with politics was probably responsible for his remaining unmarried.
He was warmly attached to his party. In a letter written while the Republican party—which he was in the habit of calling the Democratic party—was still in its infancy in Pittsburgh, he said: “I believe I am almost the only Pittsburgher who is not ashamed to call himself a Democrat, and I am sure the appellation will never discredit me.” He related humorously that on one occasion he attended a Fourth of July celebration, and among the speakers was Colonel Presley Neville, who, “abhors the Democrats as so many imps of hell.” He was proud and told his family that he acknowledged no superior, and “admitted no knave, however bloated with wealth, to be an equal.” He was one of several famous brothers. His younger brothers, Frederick, James, and Edward, after his death, emigrated to the Missouri Territory where Frederick was the first secretary of the Territory, and the second governor of the State. James afterward settled in Arkansas and became a delegate to Congress from that Territory. Edward became the friend of Henry Clay and in 1860 was a candidate for President before the convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln; he became Attorney-General in Lincoln’s Cabinet.
On Christmas Day, 1805, the article appeared in The Commonwealth, which was the direct cause of the death of Tarleton Bates in a duel. In the course of the incendiary diatribe, Pentland declared that Bates and Baldwin were “two of the most abandoned political miscreants that ever disgraced a State.” He demanded savagely: “To what party do they belong?” and answered the question himself. “To no party, to all parties. They have been Whigs and Tories, High or Low Republicans, Democrats or Anti-Democrats, Jacobins or Anti-Jacobins, Constitutionalists or Republicans, according to existing circumstances.”
Pentland’s punishment was to be publicly cowhided by Bates on Market Street on January 2, 1806. He is said to have fled precipitately when attacked. Pentland gave a darkly colored account of the occurrence: “On Thursday evening last, a considerable time after dark, the editor of this paper was waylaid, and attacked in a most outrageous manner, by Tarleton Bates, the prothonotary of this county, and co-proprietor and editor of the Tree of Liberty. Bates was in company with some persons who were no doubt to act as aids, should their assistance be wanted, but owing to the mistiness of the evening, and their quick disappearance, all of them could not be recognized. Baldwin, Bates’s colleague in infamy, and the brave and redoubtable Steele Semple, who never feels afraid but when he is in danger, were in the gang,—both limbs of the law, students of morality!”[239]