from and after the thirtieth day of June next, shall be and remain exempt from any tax laid by order or under authority of the State, whether for state, county, township or for any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale."

The election of delegates to the convention was carried on with much feeling on both sides. It was a question of the endorsement or rejection of the administration of St. Clair. The Enabling Act did not meet with very hearty acceptance. Many felt that the offer made by Congress on condition of the remission of taxes on the sale of government lands for five years was very inadequate. The exclusion of Michigan and its inclusion in Indiana Territory was another feature of the Act which met with little favor and was regarded as an illegal exercise of Congressional authority.

The convention met November 1, 1802, and it was voted by a large majority to form a constitution and State government. St. Clair asked the privilege of addressing the convention, which was granted him, though very grudgingly. The speech was a denunciation of the interference of Congress and was anything but conciliatory in its effect. The division by which the northern part of the Territory was lost to Ohio was referred to in this opening speech in vigorous language. The five thousand people who had been thus thrown back into the first stage of territorial government had been bartered away like sheep. The conditions suggested by Congress did not meet with his approval. He seemed to regard it as a trick by which Congress would gain much and give Ohio very little in return. The gift of section sixteen in each township meant nothing because it had already been given for the use of schools just as thoroughly as Congress could do it. The gift of the Salt Springs to the State would be no gain to the people, because they had been worked for years and nothing had been paid for the privilege of working them. If this privilege should be leased it would mean dearer salt, so that the gift to the

General James Wilkinson.

State would be an injury instead of a benefit. The third proposition was a mere illusion. The money for making the roads would be in the hands of Congress and the people of Ohio would have very little to say about the way in which it should be spent. The conditions were an insult to the people of Ohio. It would make the expense of government very heavy for the people and the tax would fall unequally.

As a result of this speech, on November 22d the President dismissed St. Clair from office in this letter:

"The President observing in an address lately delivered by you to the convention held at Chillicothe, an intemperance and indecorum of language toward the Legislature of the United States, and a disorganizing spirit and tendency of very evil example, and grossly violating the rules of conduct enjoined by your public station, determines that your commission as governor of the Northwestern Territory shall cease on the receipt of this notification."

Charles W. Byrd, secretary of the Territory, was placed in charge of the office until a successor should be appointed. This summary dismissal of a man who had spent a long and useful life in the public service, is one indication of the extreme bitterness of the partisan spirit of the time. St. Clair might have been spared the disgrace of this expulsion without any harm to his country. His term of office

was at the time within a few weeks of its close. His dismissal ended his public career. No doubt he was headstrong and obstinate, but he was never dishonest. What he did seemed to him for the best interests of his country. He had many excellent qualities and tried honestly to rule well. But it was a task of immense difficulty. He was better fitted for military rule than civil, and his military work in the northwest is principally known for his disastrous defeat by the Indians. His work as a civil ruler was better in the earlier period when he ruled with his council than later when he tried to work in harmony with the legislative body. He was inflexible in his methods and opinions

and met a legislative body equally determined to have its own way. Much of the unhappiness of his later years as governor of the Territory was, however, due to the increased bitterness of the conflict between Federalists and Republicans.

After his dismissal he returned to his home near Ligonier, Pennsylvania, and there spent the remaining years of his life in poverty, due to the ingratitude of the republic which he had served so faithfully. The man who had given himself so completely to the patriotic cause, who stood so near Washington in the trying days of the Revolution, was allowed to pass his declining years in a log cabin, making his living by keeping a little country store. In August, 1818, he was driving to one of the neighboring villages to purchase supplies, when his wagon was upset and he was thrown violently to the ground. He was found in an insensible condition and was carried to his home, where he died on August 31st. His age was eighty-four years, and he retained to the last a dignity and courtesy which impressed all who saw him. There is hardly a more striking instance in our history of great service rewarded by utter neglect.

He

The new constitution, adopted by this convention, was a peculiar one in the fact that the governor was little more than a figurehead. The people had become weary of what they considered the autocratic and aristocratic methods of "Arthur the First," and so limited the power of the governor that the position was largely an honorary one. had no veto and this feature still remains a part of the Ohio constitution. The overshadowing branch of the government was the legislative, because the power of appointment was with that branch rather than in the hands of the executive. The question of suffrage was considered in Article 4, which as it was finally passed restricted the right of voting to white male inhabitants. The convention voted nineteen to fifteen, on November 22d, to add these words: "provided that all male negroes and mulattoes now residing in the territory shall be entitled to the right of suffrage, if they shall