XVII.
Washington’s Attitude.
It will be interesting to note Washington’s bearing on the subject of titles while it was under debate in Congress. His position was most embarrassing and called for tact and equanimity as the first title considered was that for the President. On its fate depended the granting of titles for the lesser officers of the government. That Washington conducted himself with his usual fortitude, impartiality and broad-mindedness is fully attested by the following entry in Maclay’s journal: “Through the whole of this base business [granting titles] I have endeavored to mark the conduct of General Washington. I have no clew that will fairly lead me to any just conclusion as to his sentiments. I think it scarce possible but he must have dropped something on a subject which has excited so much warmth. If he did, it was not on our side or I would have heard it. But no matter. I have, by plowing with the heifer of the other House, completely defeated them.”
XVIII.
No Titles “for the Present.”
And so ended the momentous debate in the first United States Senate on the subject of titles which, in one form or another, “engaged almost the whole time of the Senate from the 23d of April, the day that our Vice-President began it,” until May 14 when the Senate, by a vote of ten to eight decided that they, “for the present,” would not press the subject of titles but so arranged the records as to give the impression that they sanctioned them. When it came to reading the minutes on the following day, Friday, May 15, Few moved that the minute on the division of Lee’s motion be struck out because, as it stood, it had the appearance of unanimity. Lee opposed. Few was supported by Carroll, Ellsworth and Maclay—but the minute stood.
One hundred and eighteen years have lapsed since this debate on a title for the President of the United States—and the consequent “ennobling” of the lesser officials of the “new” government—took place. That debate left the situation as follows: the House of Representatives rejected titles of any kind most positively. The Senate, finding that it could not bring the whole Congress to the point of giving titles, fell back to the position that the President and the Senate were the only fountain heads of titles and that, merely as a matter of accommodation, “for the present” they waived the question but put themselves on record—by placing on the files of the Senate a resolution which never was passed—as being in favor of appellations of nobility.
IRISH PIONEERS OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY—JOHN WOOD, THE FIRST REAL PIONEER SETTLER—FOUNDER OF QUINCY, MODEL STATE EXECUTIVE AND PATRIOT—HEROIC SETTLERS IN VARIOUS STATES.
BY MR. MICHAEL PIGGOTT, QUINCY, ILL.
After many thousand years separation at the cradle of their race, in India, it was the coming together and blending of pure Celtic and Teutonic families that finally gave order and civilization to Europe after the fall of Greece and Rome produced the dark ages. It was the further mingling and blending of the same kindred blood in America that produced the men, who, in 1776, gave the governments and civilizations of the world their brightest jewel in the Declaration of American Independence, a new civic chart to inspire and guide all nations on the highway of justice, freedom and equality to the highest civilization. It was a further blend of the same virile and liberty-loving blood that enabled the immortal Lincoln to save the Republic in 1861 and place it at the head of the nations, without a peer in ancient or modern history.
It was the marriage of an Irishman and a German woman in the Mohawk Valley of New York in 1795 that gave America, in the person of John Wood, one of her best and bravest sons; the Mississippi Valley, its first real pioneer settler; Quincy, its beloved founder; Illinois, a model executive and the republic a patriotic defender.
Governor John Wood was born in Moravia, New York, December 20th, 1798. He was the second child and only son of Doctor Daniel Wood, and Catherine (Crouse) Wood. His father, a surgeon and captain under Washington during the war of freedom from British despotism, was of Irish descent, being the grandson of Timothy Wood, of Longford, Ireland.