Indiana
History Part 5
Education and Religion
Before the Civil War
(1850-1860)
Although
the Indiana Constitution called for the establishment of
“a general system of education, ascending in a regular
graduation, from township schools to a state university, as
soon as circumstances will permit,” there was no formal system of
education before 1851, when a new state
constitution was adopted.[1]
Schools
that were built before 1851 were funded by the county, city,
or township they occupied.
Many of these early schools charged tuition.
Churches and individuals maintained many good private
schools, but they were generally not free (i.e. Notre Dame).
The Quakers probably had the best elementary schools,
while many ministers, especially Presbyterians, taught
schools.
There
were several obstacles to public schooling.
Taxes would have to be charged, Indiana still had a
very sparse population, transportation difficulties and the
preference by some families for schools to be under church
or private control. The
state of Indiana had plunged itself into so much debt
building, a now inoperable, canal system that it was unable
to support a public school system.
There were several colleges and universities
throughout the state, but they barely survived financially
and had meager enrollments.
The Indiana General Assembly incorporated Vincennes
University in 1806. Indiana University was opened in Bloomington around 1825.
Indiana University is the oldest state university
west of the Appalachians still in continuous operation.
Other colleges that were founded before 1860 included
Hanover, Franklin, DePauw, Notre Dame, Earlham and Butler.
Most
of early Hoosiers were Protestants, with the Methodists,
Presbyterians and Baptists among the earliest and most
numerous. After
1840 the Christians (Disciples of Christ) increased in
membership to be included in the “big four” of
Protestantism. The Quakers, United Brethren, Episcopalians, Lutherans and
Unitarians were also among the Protestant groups. The oldest religious group in Indiana was the Roman Catholic,
established by the French at Vincennes before 1750. Domestic immigration brought additional Catholics to Indiana
and their number also increased with the immigration of the
Irish and Germans.
Many
early churches were organized and first met in homes,
schools and barns. The
itinerant system of Methodism was well suited to frontier
conditions and helps explain its rapid advance.
The circuit-preacher was also used by other religious
denominations. Many
of the circuit-riding ministers showed great zeal that
motivated them to continue their work even in extreme
hardships. Not
everyone responded favorably to the Gospel message and a
system of “revivals” were set up that were commonly
supercharged with emotional appeals to better conduct.
The churches were the main social antagonists to
frontier drinking, brawling and gambling.
Political
Parties and Issues
When
the Indiana Territory was organized, the Federalist Party of
Washington and Hamilton was about to be overthrown by the
Jeffersonian Republics.
In the Indiana Territory a rivalry soon developed
between the followers of William Henry Harrison and Jonathan
Jennings, but both factions were Jeffersonian Republicans.
There was another east-west political rivalry between
the Whitewater Valley and the lower Wabash settlers that was
partly identified with this personal rivalry.
Issues among the two factions were not sharply
defined, but a general demand existed for increased
political democracy, support for the War of 1812, a stern
Indian policy, land legislation more generous to settlers
and Federal support for internal improvements.
With
the national election of 1824, the Jeffersonian Republicans
split into the National Republicans, led by John Quincy
Adams and Henry Clay, and the Democratic Republicans, led by
Andrew Jackson and others.
The National Republicans supported internal
improvements, the United States Bank, a strong
representative government and liberal interpretation of the
Federal Constitution. The Jacksonians included men of odd views who were less
certain about what they favored, but they represented a
western surge toward a broader democracy and elevation of
the “common man” that was irresistible.
The issues were often overshadowed by personalities.
Indiana voted for Andrew Jackson for president in
1824, 1828 and 1832, but generally favored the National
Republicans in state and local elections during these years.
The
Democrats dominated state politics in Indiana from 1843
until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
They lowered the state debt, preached economy,
established common schools, urged states’ rights, stressed
the rights of individuals and provided institutions for the
insane, blind and the deaf.
Until around 1850 they generally ignored or evaded
the emerging slavery issue, viewed temperance as a moral
rather than a political issue.
After a considerable fight in the Indiana General
Assembly, they passed the new state constitution that was
drafted in 1850-1851, with Democratic influence.
It made elections more frequent, increased the number
of elective offices, prohibited a state debt except for
certain emergencies and prohibited further Negro immigration
to the state.
Slavery
and the Civil War (1861-1865)
Slavery
Though
slavery had never been an institution in Indiana, neither
had free blacks been welcomed.
Indiana had about 11,000 people of color when their
immigration to the state had been prohibited by the new
constitution. Some
Free Soil newspapers around the state voiced the more
militant antislavery movement and some church leaders
increasingly condemned slavery on moral grounds.
The agitation of antislavery parties, such as the
Liberty and Free Soil groups was felt.
Then
came the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, allowing settlers in
either territory to determine whether they would have
slaves. This
was the spark that caused the change within the political
system. The
Republican Party emerged opposed to slavery extension and
demanding free land from the public domain for settlers.
An increasing number of Hoosiers were going west and
they not only wanted the free land, but land free of
slavery. The
Democrats throughout the elected offices within Indiana were
hard to dislodge, but in 1860 the Republican Party did carry
Indiana for the Presidency and elected a Republican governor
(Oliver P. Morton), but carried a majority of representatives
in both houses of the General Assembly.
Threats
of secession alarmed most Hoosiers and although a vast
majority supported a compromise short of war, they were
equally firm in believing that preservation of the Union was
an economic and political necessity. The compromise was never to come with the Confederate forces
firing upon Ft. Sumter in April 1861.
With that shot there was a unity of purpose and a
feeling of patriotism never known previously in this state.
Indiana
and the Civil War
President
Abraham Lincoln made his first plea for volunteers to end
this secession crisis.
Hoosiers responded in numbers that far exceeded that
which Lincoln had requested or needed.
After receiving President Lincoln’s call, the next
day there were 500 men who camped in Indianapolis.
Within a week’s time, the state house building and
lawn looked like a military headquarters.
Nearly three times the number of men Lincoln had
called for was now available for armed service. Governor Oliver P. Morton, determined to support the Union
vigorously, moved so fast that he did not even wait upon
public opinion or the war’s developing events.
Initial patriotism and unity waned as the prolonged
conflict brought accounts of suffering and heavy casualties
that made soldier recruitment very difficult.
Bounties were offered (payment for each man who
signed up to fight), and then drafting was enforced.
Oliver
Perry Morton
Oliver
Perry Morton was born in Wayne County, Indiana, in 1823.
He is the first governor of Indiana to be born within
the state. He
started out as a hatter’s apprentice but desiring to
obtain a better education, he quit his job to go to Miami
University in Ohio. After
graduating he returned to Indiana, where he studied law at
Centerville. One
of his teachers said that Oliver was “a diligent, earnest
student,” and more anxious to acquire knowledge than to go
bragging about it. In 1852 the Indiana General Assembly elected him a circuit
judge, but he soon found out that he preferred being a
lawyer and resigned at the end of a year.
Mr. Morton had been a Democrat, but when a split
occurred in the party in 1854, he sided with the Republican
Party. In 1856
he ran for the office of governor as the candidate of the
new Republican Party, but was defeated.
Four years later he was elected lieutenant governor
and in two days became governor when the elected Governor
Lane resigned to become a U.S. Senator.
During
his first term as governor, Oliver did his best public work
and created a name for himself as a great war governor.
He was, at first, opposed to any compromise the U.S.
government made with the South, and foreseeing the approach
of war, went immediately to work preparing the state for the
coming conflict. When
the Civil War broke out, his well-organized administration
pushed Indiana as being the first western state to mobilize
for the war. Governor
Morton’s executive ability was recognized by all and even
an Ohio newspaper wrote that “The governor of Indiana has
out-generaled the governor of Ohio.” President Lincoln referred to him as “Deputy President of
the West.”
In
1864 Morton was elected governor by a majority of over
20,000 votes. Although
he had already served as governor for four years, he was
eligible for election because he had only served out the
remaining term of Governor Lane.
He was partially paralyzed during these years and
unable to walk without the use of canes.
This, however, did not prevent him from being elected
to the United States Senate in 1867 where he served until
his death in 1877. Under
Governor Morton, Indiana was guided to a position of great
influence among the state.
Indiana’s
Call to Arms
Altogether
Indiana supplied about 200,000 men to the Union forces
during the Civil War; this represented about 15% of the
state’s total population as of 1860.
About 25,000-or one in eight-lost their lives from
battle wounds, disease or accidents. Thousands of others were maimed with the loss of arms, legs,
eyesight, hearing, etc.
The Civil War was the most terrible and costly war in
terms of human life in which Indiana has ever been engaged.
Indiana’s losses in the Civil War were not far from
twice Indiana’s losses in men (and women) during both
World War I and World War II.
About 95% of Hoosiers who fought in the Civil War
were volunteers.
Indiana
was not the scene of any decisive battles, but there were
occasional raids on the Indiana side of the Ohio River.
General John Hunt Morgan made the most alarming raid
in the summer of 1863 at Corydon.
Jeffersonville served as an important military depot
for Union forces being sent into the South.
On
the homefront during the Civil War there was abundant
political strife resulting from a blending of politics and
patriotism. There was some opposition to the war, including interference
with the draft by organized secret societies.
Democrats accused Governor Morton with being a
dictator and under-handed mobster, while the Republicans accused the Democrats of
treasonable and obstructionist tactics in the conduct of the
war. When the
General Assembly gained a Democratic majority in 1862 and
refused to give Governor Morton the appropriations and
supplies he demanded, he borrowed money from James F. D.
Lanier, New York financier, formerly of Madison, to carry on
the state’s activities.
Eventually the state sustained Governor Morton’s
independent action and repaid this and other loans.
James
Lanier
James
Lanier had been the president of a branch of the state bank
in Madison, Indiana. Lanier
also had interested in railroads, real estate and the pork
packing industry. A prosperous financier, he left Indiana in 1848 for New York
where he increased his fortune.
Lanier, however, was still a Hoosier at heart and
when Governor Morton approached him for a state loan, Lanier
was quick to respond. At
two different times he loaned the state of Indiana what
amounted to over 1 million dollars without any security.
Not only was the loan repaid, but a grateful Indiana
citizenry in thanks to this famous Hoosier preserved his
home in Madison.
Morton’s
opponents could do no more than watch with amazement the way
the governor was running the state without the Indiana
legislature and with help from James Lanier.
The
Effect of the Civil War on Indiana
The
Civil War brought many other changes to Indiana in a short
amount of time. The
common school system that had been established during the
1850s suffered many setbacks and thus hampered the
development of schools at the secondary and college levels.
Within the state there was an increase in the use of
machinery for manufacturing.
Even agriculture was responding to the use of
laborsaving machines like the reaper, the improved plow and
the threshing machine.
Railroads were extended so that in the remaining
years of the 1800s the basic railway system was completed.
Changes in transportation and manufacturing were
powerful factors in establishing urban settlement.
The population of northern Indiana grew rapidly
during and after the Civil War.
Although Indiana remained primarily rural and
agriculturally based after the war, the advent of
mechanization, industrialization and urbanization began to
erode old pioneer ways and influence.
A new Indiana society was now emerging.
The state had begun to provide asylums for the deaf and dumb, the blind and the insane in the 1840s. The war produced orphans and widows, thereby enlarging the social responsibility and concern of the state government. Black exclusion from Indiana settlement was ended, women’s suffrage was extended and schools were opened for Blacks. Following the Civil War, questions of tax assessments, regulation of industry and the railroads, labor-management relations, marketing and the like, soon thrust themselves into politics, despite the reluctance of politicians to deal promptly with them.
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