1831 and 1832 the Sacs, Foxes and Winnebagoes, led by Black Hawk, refused to leave lands which they had ceded to the government, but the Black Hawk War, as the resulting disturbance is called, was soon ended and the leader captured. In 1836 and 1837 there were minor disturbances in the South with the Creeks and Chicopees, connected with their removal west of the Mississippi. From 1835 to 1843 the Seminoles in Florida, led by Osceola, were in arms, refusing to remove_to Western reservations. In December, 1835, Major Dade with a force of over a hundred men fell into an ambush and all but four of the command perished. Various battles were fought, but the Indians prolonged the war among the swamps of Florida for seven years. Colonel Zachary Taylor was among the leaders of our troops. Finally, after the expenditure of many men and much money the persistent Indians were removed to the West. In 1872 the Modoc Indians in Oregon refused to go upon a designated reservation. They retreated before the troops to a volcanic region known as the lava-beds and could not be conquered. A peace conference held with them in April, 1873, was broken up by their treacherous murder of General Canby and Dr. Thomas. About the first of June, however, General Davis forced them to surrender; Captain Jack, their leader, and others were executed. In 1876 the Sioux Indians gave trouble in the Black Hills region on the borders of Montana and Wyoming. A large force of regulars was sent against them under Generals Terry, Crook, Custer and Reno. On June 25, 1876, the two latter attacked at different points a large Indian village situated on the Little Horn River. General Custer was killed with 261 men of the Seventh Cavalry and 52 were wounded. Reno held his ground till saved by reënforcements. Additional troops were sent to the spot and the Indians were defeated in several engagements, and in the beginning of 1877 the Indian chief, Sitting Bull, escaped to Canada. In 1877 trouble with the Nez Percé Indians of Idaho, led by their chief Joseph, came to a head. General Howard was sent against them, they were soon hemmed in, and in October were completely defeated by Colonel Miles. In 1879 an outbreak of the Ute Indians cost the lives of the government agent Major Thornburgh and a number of soldiers before it was quelled. Ingalls, John James, was born in Middleton, Massachusetts, December 29, 1833. He is a graduate of Williams College and a lawyer by profession. In 1858 he moved to Kansas, holding several territorial offices. In 1873, he entered the United States Senate and was constantly re-elected until 1891 when he was defeated by the Farmers Alliance candidate. He was President pro tempore of the Senate from 1887 to 1891. Innocuous Desuetude.-March 1, 1886, President Cleveland sent a special message to the Senate on the subject of removals from office. In it he used the above words in referring to certain laws which had become dead letters. Insolvent Laws. (See Bankruptcy.) Insurrection.-The Constitution, Article 1, section 8, clause 15, gives Congress the power to call forth the militia to suppress insurrections. Acts were passed in 1792, 1795 and 1807, giving the President power to call forth the militia when notified by an associate justice of the Supreme Court or a district judge that the execution of the laws is obstructed, and on application of a legislature or a governor, when the legislature could not be convened, and to employ also the land and naval forces of the United States. The Whisky Insurrection was directed against the federal authority, and the President employed force to suppress it on notification by the federal judge. During the Buckshot War the Governor of Pennsylvania asked for assistance, but it was refused. The Governor of Rhode Island made a similar application during the Dorr Rebellion and the regulars were held ready for action, but their aid proved unnecessary. These last two cases came under Article 4, section 4, of the Constitution, which provides that "that the United States shall protect" each State "on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence." When the Civil War broke out, the President was obliged to take prompt steps in calling out the militia, though no application had been made to him as required by the acts of 1792 and 1795. His action was justified by Article 2, section 3, of the Constitution, providing that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed," but Congress on August 6, 1861, formally validated and made legal all Lincoln's previous acts, proclamations and orders. The Force Bill of April 20, 1871, gave the President power to call forth the militia and to employ the forces of the United States to suppress disorders intended to deprive any portion of the people of their constitutional rights, even if the State authorities should be unwilling to restore order. During the reconstruction period federal troops were called for in all the States that had seceded, except Georgia and Florida, to preserve the peace, which had been disturbed by attempts to overthrow the newly established Republican administrations in those States. During the railroad strikes in 1877 federal troops were employed with good effect in Pennsylvania and in Baltimore. Interior, Department of the. One of the executive departments of the government, established in 1849 and called Home Department in the title of the act creating it. To it was assigned the charge of patents, copyrights, censuses, public documents, public lands, mines and mining, judicial accounts, Indian affairs and pensions. To these were subsequently added railroads, public surveys, territories, Pacific railways and the charge of certain charitable institutions of the District of Columbia. The Secretary of the Interior is at the head of the department; his principal subordinates and their salaries are given below: Assistant Secretary.. Commissioner of Patents.. SALARY .$4,500 4,000 2,750 5,000 The Secretary receives a salary of $8,000; he is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and is (by custom, not by law) a member of the President's Cabinet. A list of the Secretaries of the Interior Caleb B. Smith, Indiana... 1861-1863 John P. Usher, Indiana, Jan. 8, 1863, and re-ap pointed March, 4 and April 15, 1865.. 1863-1865 James Harlan, Iowa.... 1865-1866 O. H. Browning, Illinois... 1866-1869 Jacob D. Cox, Ohio.. 1869-1870 Columbus Delano, Ohio, 1870, and re-appointed Interior, Secretary of the. (See Interior, Department of the.) Internal Improvements.-From the beginning of this government until the year 1860 the question of a system of internal improvements carried on by the general government was a party question. The Republican (Democratic-Republican), and after it the Democratic party as the party of strict construction, opposed such a system. Improvements, the property in which remains in the general government, as light-houses and the like, were not opposed, but improvements on rivers and roads, the benefits of which passes to the States, were the objects of attack. Most of the earlier States were on the seacoast, and the improvement of their harbors was at first carried on by means of tonnage taxes on the commerce of the port, levied with the consent of Congress (see Constitution, Article 1, section 10, clause 3). But a tax on tonnage is a tax on the consumer of the goods carried in the vessel, and the growth of inland States rendered it unjust thus indirectly to tax them in the price of articles consumed in order to improve the harbors of the sea-coast States, and although this practice was in isolated cases continued until the middle of the century, it was generally discontinued much earlier. As early as 1806 the improvement of roads by the National government was conceived in order to indemnify the interior States (see Cumberland Road), and in 1823 the improvement by the National government directly of rivers and harbors was begun. The Republican (Democratic-Republican) Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, opposed these improvements as unconstitutional, although toward the end of his term Monroe became more favorable to the system. John Quincy Adams was a warm advocate thereof and Jackson its stern opponent. Although the Democrats opposed any general system of improvements they continued to apply funds to particular purposes. The Whigs now adopted the system originated by the Democrat Jackson, namely, the distribution of the surplus among the States. (See Surplus.) But once did the Whigs attempt to put this into execution, and then in 1841 the veto of President Tyler, at odds with his party in Congress, put an end to that scheme, which has not since been revived. The introduction of railroads has done away with the question of improvements for roads, while a system of assistance to the railroads by means of the grant of land along the line of their route has sprung up. These grants have been made to many railroads in new sections of the country; enormous tracts, in several cases between forty and fifty million acres being so granted. From this policy a revulsion has now set in, and the present tendency is to the recovery of as much of the land so granted as has not been earned by a strict compliance with the terms of the grant. To this both of the great political parties stand committed. (See Party Platforms.) The aid rendered the Pacific railroads is referred to under that head. In 1860 both parties favored the completion of this work by the government. (See also River and Harbor Bills.) |