The governor resolutely met the issue thus raised. The court was duly opened on the appointed day, the lawyers were ready with their motions, when a detachment of volunteers under Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw marched into the court-room, arrested the chief justice on the bench and the clerk at his table, and carried them under guard to Olympia, where they were released.
As soon as the detachment had departed with the prisoner judge and clerk, the clique, which had so cunningly engineered this conflict between the federal governor and the federal judge, both commissioned by the same President, made haste to hold a meeting of the “bar,” vociferously to denounce the “flagrant usurpation and high-handed outrage” of the governor, and to pass a long string of condemnatory resolutions, which were signed by all the members participating in the meeting, nine in number. Immediately afterwards the same parties held a “citizens’ meeting” with a few others in the same room, and gave vent to more vituperative oratory, and passed more denunciatory resolutions. The whole proceedings were then published in a circular and in the newspapers. Undoubtedly some who took part in these demonstrations were sincere in believing the governor’s action to be wrong and uncalled for, but the real motives and animus of the prime movers were abundantly shown by the false, bitter, and scandalous statements and affidavits they made against him, and dispatched to the President, committees of Congress, and the Eastern press. They vehemently accused him not only of high-handed tyranny and usurpation, but of getting up the war by his Indian treaties, which he had made in obedience to the instructions of the government; of vindictively oppressing and persecuting the Indians, when he was feeding five thousand of them on the reservations, and standing like a rock to protect them from abuse; and even of drunkenness and embezzlement of public funds. These charges, from their very excess and bitterness, largely defeated themselves with the government, and with all by whom Governor Stevens was personally known; but they excited a deep prejudice against him in the minds of many, as he afterwards found in his congressional career. Wool, too, welcomed with avidity these reinforcements to his crusade, and immediately forwarded copies of the resolutions, together with anonymous articles reflecting on the governor, to the War Department.
The signers of the resolutions were: W.H. Wallace, George Gibbs, Elwood Evans, C.C. Hewitt, Frank Clark, B.F. Kendall, William C. Peas, E.O. Murden, H.A. Goldsborough. Wallace and Gibbs were the principal speakers at the citizens’ meeting; Thomas M. Chambers, chairman; E. Schrotter and E.M. Meeker, secretaries; S. McCaw, R. S. Moore, Hugh Patteson, William M. Kincaid, William R. Downey, committee on resolutions.
Evans and Kendall came among the aides whom Governor Stevens brought to the country with the Northern exploration, and who settled in Olympia. The former became distinguished as an eloquent speaker and writer and historian of the Pacific Northwest, and, in after-years, paid the most warm, heartfelt, and appreciative eulogies to Governor Stevens’s character and public services. Gibbs and Goldsborough, whom it will be remembered the governor had employed in the Indian service and treated with great kindness and consideration, were unsuccessful and disappointed men. The former nursed a grievance, in that the governor had rejected an extensive and ambitious policy of Indian treaties and Indian management which Gibbs had elaborately set forth in his report on the Indians, and which, if accepted, would probably have furnished a good position for himself.
The circular contained many misstatements, and was highly colored to give a wrong impression of the actual condition of affairs. To correct this, the governor published his vindication for proclaiming and enforcing martial law in Pierce County. In this he clearly and forcibly states the facts and conditions rendering it necessary, for the success of military operations, that the suspected men be removed from the Indian country, and sums up:—
“It is simply a question as to whether the executive has the power, in carrying on the war, to take a summary course with a dangerous band of emissaries who have been the confederates of the Indians throughout, and by their exertions and sympathy can render to a great extent the military operations abortive.
“It is a question as to whether the military power, or public committees of the citizens, without law, as in California, shall see that justice is done in the case.
“And he solemnly appeals to the same tribunals, before which he has been arraigned in the circular, in vindication of his course, being assured that it ought to be, and will be, sustained as an imperious necessity, growing out of an almost unexampled condition of things.”
Judge Lander’s own district included Thurston County and Olympia, and the term of his court was to be held in a few days after his release from arrest. The governor’s opponents and the judge determined to call him to account for contempt of court in proclaiming martial law and arresting the judge; and a strong-room was quietly prepared by the United States marshal for his incarceration in case of sentence to imprisonment. The governor issued his proclamation declaring martial law in Thurston County on May 13, and sent two of the prisoners, Charles Wren and John McLeod, to Cape Montgomery for trial before a military commission. The others were released and permitted to go to Steilacoom, on giving their parole to remain there.
Judge Lander opened his court on the 14th, and issued notice, and then a writ, summoning the governor to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. No notice being taken of these missives, on the 15th a writ of attachment was issued to be served instanter, and United States Marshal George W. Corliss, with a strong posse, armed with this document, proceeded to the executive office for the purpose of arresting the governor and bringing him before the court. The governor received them, when they announced their business, with a quiet, cool dignity, which completely nonplussed them, and remarked, “Gentlemen, why don’t you execute your office?” As they still hung back, and looked at each other, as though at a loss to know what to do, the clerks, aided by some gentlemen present, ejected the posse from the office, to which they offered no resistance. Major Tilton, Captain A.J. Cain, James Doty, Quincy A. Brooks, R.M. Walker, A.J. Baldwin, Lewis Ensign, Charles E. Weed, and Joseph L. Mitchell were they who expelled the posse; but it is evident that the latter made only a formal show of executing the writ.