Copyright 1989, Charles K. Wiggins
"Willow of the Palouse"
Charles S. Voorhees served two terms as delegate to the House of Representatives from Washington Territory, from March 4, 1885 through March 3, 1889. Voorhees figured prominently in the congressional debates leading to passage of the Omnibus Admissions Bill which entitled the Dakotas, Montana, and Washington to admission into the Union as states.
Voorhees was born in Covington, Indiana on June 4, 1853. He attended Georgetown University, graduating in 1873, then studied Law in the office of his father [1] in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was admitted to the Bar in 1875.
Charles Voorhees held the position of Assistant Cashier under the clerk of the House of Representatives from 1876 to 1882, perhaps through the influence of his father, who was serving his second term as Senator for Indiana. In 1882 Voorhees moved to Washington Territory, settling at Colfax and opening a law office. In the same year he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Whitman County on the Democratic ticket. In 1884 he was nominated delegate to congress by the Democratic Convention. Voorhees' father, who stood six foot four inches tall, was known by his colleagues as the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," and Voorhees became the "Willow of the Palouse."
The Railroad Forfeiture Controversy
Two issues dominated the election of a territorial delegate to Congress in 1884: admission of Washington to statehood, and forfeiture of the land grant to the Northern Pacific Railroad. Prior Republican representatives had labored vainly to convince Congress that Washington was ready for admission. The reason was political--heavily Republican Washington Territory had never returned a Democratic delegate to congress. From 1876 until 1889 the Democratic Party controlled either congress or the presidency. The Democrats regretted having admitted Colorado in 1876, and were not inclined to admit another Republican state. In the presidential election of 1876, Colorado had cast its three electoral votes for General Hayes, the Republican candidate. Without Colorado's Republican votes, the Democratic candidate Tilden might have been elected. The Democrats in congress declared that they would not soon again admit a Republican state. In 1884, the Washington Democrats argued that election of Voorhees, a Democrat, would more favorably incline congress to admit Washington to statehood.
The second major campaign issue in 1884, railroad forfeiture, was deeply rooted in history. In 1864 congress had given the Northern Pacific Railroad the right to construct a line from some point on Lake Superior to Portland, Oregon. Congress gave to the railroad forty alternate sections of public land for each mile built within the territories, and twenty sections for each mile within states. This was an enormous amount of public land--approximately 50,000,000 acres. The railroad was to commence construction within two years, but money for construction proved hard to find. Congress eventually extended the time to commence construction to 1870, and the time for completion to 1877. The railroad enlisted the foremost banker in the United States, Jay Cooke and Company of Philadelphia, to assist in raising the funds to build the railroad. Cooke had sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government bonds during the Civil War, and was well regarded among foreign investors. Congress again amended the charter of the railroad to permit it to issue mortgage bonds, and to authorize the construction of a branch line from Portland to some point on Puget Sound to be selected as the terminus of the main line.
The bond sales proceeded and construction commenced. Recognizing the importance of the railroad terminus, the Puget Sound cities competed to become the point at which ocean traffic met the transcontinental railroad. The two largest towns on the sound, Olympia and Seattle, offered various inducements to the railroad to select their town. The railroad however, quietly bought up as much land as possible on the west shore of Commencement Bay, and selected the tiny village of Tacoma as its terminus. By 1873 the Northern Pacific Railroad reached from Kalama on the Columbia River to Tacoma, and a barge across the Columbia connected with Portland.
Construction of the Northern Pacific was interrupted by the failure of Jay Cooke and Company. Cooke's efforts to market the railroad bonds in Europe were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war, and the railroad went into receivership. After the failure of the Northern Pacific, Washington territory's delegates to congress repeatedly petitioned congress to reopen for settlement lands which had been withdrawn from sale or entry pending construction of the railroad.
In 1878 conditions began to improve and the railroad gradually resumed construction. Company officials also planned the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific, running west from the Columbia across the Cascades to the main terminus. Plans for the Cascade Division were foiled, however, by one of the more remarkable figures in northwestern railroad history, Henry Villard. Villard was German who had served as a newspaper correspondent during the Civil War. He became involved in Oregon railroad matters in an effort to protect German bond holders, and eventually gained control of river and rail transportation on the Columbia River, leading to the organization of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. Villard and the Northern Pacific entered into an agreement by which the Northern Pacific used Villard's rails through the Columbia Gorge. Villard had no desire to see the Northern Pacific build a competing line through the Cascades, and set out to gain control of the Northern Pacific. He organized the famous "blind pool" by convincing friends to invest millions of dollars with him for an undisclosed venture. Villard quietly bought stock of the Northern Pacific, eventually gaining control. Villard delayed the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific, but under his leadership the railroad completed its transcontinental line with the driving of an symbolic last spike in western Montana on September 8, 1883. Unfortunately, the enormous construction costs had so drained the companies that Villard's empire collapsed in December 1883.
Villard was succeeded by a management which was financially interested in the Tacoma Land Company, and was thus more inclined to exclude Seattle from rail connections and to focus development on Tacoma. The president of the Northern Pacific visited Seattle in July 1884 in order to assure the people of Seattle that the railroad would build its Cascade Division through Stampede Pass, and to quiet the agitation for forfeiture of the railroad's heretofore unearned land grant. The visit failed of its purpose, and in August the Northern Pacific terminated all railroad service to Seattle.
The hostility to the Northern Pacific and the demand of the people of Seattle and King County for forfeiture of the railroad's land grant created a unique political opportunity for Washington's Democratic Party. Thomas Brents, the Republican territorial delegate to congress, had opposed forfeiture of the land grant. When the Republican Territorial Convention met in September, the Republicans compounded their difficulties by rejecting the credentials of a delegation from Yakima County which favored forfeiture, and rejecting a forfeiture plank in the Republican platform. The Democratic convention, swollen by defecting pro-forfeiture Republicans, called for forfeiture of the unearned land grant, denouncing "as fraught with peril to our rights and liberties, the high-handed attempts of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company to control the legislation and politics of this territory." Voorhees was nominated as the Democratic delegate, and as an eastern Washington candidate, helped to defuse the criticism that forfeiture was "the Seattle idea."
In the midst of the election campaign, Voorhees ran afoul of the classic nemesis of the attorney--an inconsistent position taken previously on behalf of a client. Voorhees had defended the Northern Pacific against a settler who claimed that his rights were superior to the railroad's. Voorhees had argued that the land had not returned to the public domain when the railroad failed to comply with the conditions of the land grant--the opposite of his position as Democratic candidate.
The prominent Seattle lawyer Thomas Burke defended Voorhees in a letter to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer which explained the difference between a lawyer's brief and his true opinions, which, as Burke's biographer later observed, "must have brought comfort to many baffled laymen who had long suspected that lawyers were congenital liars." [2] Burke went on to explain Voorhees' change of heart:
The trial of this...case and other cases of this type, soon revealed to Mr. Voorhees the harsh, unfeeling, and oppressive character of this corporation, and like a true man and conscientious lawyer that he is, he promptly threw up his retainer and severed his connections with a client insensible alike to justice and honesty. He left the employment of the wealthy corporation to enter the service of his poor neighbors. . . Neither threats or honeyed words nor glittering wealth had power to swerve him from his duty. . .
Voorhees won by a bare margin of 146 votes, becoming the first Democratic delegate to congress from Washington Territory since the Civil War. The forfeiture sentiment in King County clearly carried the day, giving Voorhees a margin of 3659 to 1413 votes.
Once in congress, Voorhees labored unsuccessfully for forfeiture of the railroad land grant. In a lengthy speech to the House of Representatives on July 26, 1886, Voorhees reviewed the history of the Northern Pacific and criticized its predatory tactics: "Alarac and his Goths would have blushed to have been charged with such wholesale and comprehensive villainy." Voorhees concluded his speech:
Mr. Speaker, the day of unquestioning acquiescence in railroad domination in this country, had passed away. The day when the American citizen was forced to humbly sue at the feet of the railroad magnate for permission to enjoy the natural rights of man has given place to a kindlier day, and a mighty protest is taking its place in history as an outgrowth of the gross wrongs committed upon the sovereignty of the American people.
The multitude is patient to a certain point, and the American people after years of lethargy and indifference have reached that point and refuse longer to act the role of pack horses for the corporations of this country.
Congress declined to forfeit the land grant, but the agitation for forfeiture spurred the company's construction of its Cascade Division. Construction began in 1884, and a connection was temporarily effected across the Cascades through a series of switch-backs on July 3, 1887. The Stampede Pass tunnel was opened soon thereafter.
Working For Admission To Statehood
Voorhees introduced two bills into the 49th Congress in hopes of achieving statehood for Washington. One bill would have annexed the counties of northern Idaho to Washington Territory, thus increasing Washington's population and improving its chance for statehood. The second bill would have admitted Washington to the Union. Senator Joseph Dolph of Oregon introduced a statehood measure in the Senate. Annexation was made more difficult when Joseph Toole, the territorial delegate from Montana, presented a memorial asking to annex northern Idaho to Montana instead of Washington. Voorhees' bill ultimately succeeded despite the Montana diversion, and both the House and the Senate passed the annexation measure and sent it to President Cleveland for signature on March 2, 1887, in the closing days of the 49th Congress. For unknown reasons, Cleveland withheld his signature and the bill died by pocket veto. Thus ended Washington's hopes of annexing northern Idaho. Cleveland's pocket veto hampered Voorhees' election campaign in 1888, and was probably a factor in his defeat.
Voorhees' admission bill was also unsuccessful in the House. Senator Dolph met with more success in the Republican Senate. Dolph warned the Senate that if admission were delayed too long, Washington might rightfully demand to be admitted as two separate states. Voorhees' father, the Indiana Senator, supported Washington's admission, despite the warning from a fellow Democrat that admission of Washington would mean Republican state officers, Republican congressmen, and three electoral votes for the next Republican candidate for President. Despite Dolph's success in the Senate, the House Committee on Territories was solidly Democratic and refused to consider Dolph's admission bill or Voorhees' proposed bill, and all admission measures died at the end of the 49th Congress.
In 1886 the Republican party of Washington again nominated a candidate for Congress who was identified with railroad interests. Charles M. Bradshaw, a Port Townsend lawyer, had traveled the Oregon Trail in 1852, had served a number of times in the Territorial Legislature, and had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1878. Bradshaw was opposed by many women, who had recently won the right to vote, because Bradshaw had lived for many years with an Indian woman with whom he had children, conduct considered by many to be disreputable. Voorhees defeated Bradshaw, which soured Republican party leaders on women's suffrage and may have contributed to the defeat of women's suffrage in 1889.
Voorhees again introduced statehood and annexation measures in the 50th Congress. The annexation measure was adversely reported in committee, and the statehood bill was replaced by an omnibus bill covering Washington, Dakota and Montana. Senator Dolph of Oregon again introduced a statehood measure in the Senate, but the bill was delayed to the point that the impending presidential and congressional elections of 1888 preempted the admission issue.
In June 1888 the national Republican party adopted a statehood platform plank for the Dakotas, Montana and Washington. The Republican platform condemned the Democratic House of Representatives for its refusal to extend statehood to the deserving territories as "a willful violation of the sacred American principles of local self-government. . ." The platform stated that the people of Washington, North Dakota and Montana Territories should be permitted to form constitutions and establish state governments without unnecessary delay. Benjamin Harrison's letter accepting the Republican presidential nomination similarly emphasized the rights of the territories: "Several territories are well able to bear the burdens and discharge the duties of a free commonwealth in the American union. To exclude them is to deny the just rights of their people and may well excite their indignant protests." By contrast, the Democratic platform was silent on the question of territories, as was President Cleveland's acceptance letter. The Republican platform also embraced the principle that federal offices in the territories should be filled from the ranks of citizens of the territory, a break from the tradition of dispensing territorial offices to loyal party supporters who had never set foot inside the territory. President Cleveland had consistently appointed outsiders to territorial offices, which was only natural, since the territorial residents had no voice in national elections.
The failure of the Democratic platform to promote the rights of the territories severely hampered Voorhees' campaign for re-election to a third term. He was forced to distance himself from the Cleveland administration on the issues of annexation, statehood and the appointment of federal officers. Voorhees was reduced to the theme of his prior campaigns, identifying the Republican party and its candidate with dominant corporate interests, notably the Northern Pacific. The Republican delegate, John B. Allen of Walla Walla, was a lawyer who had served as U.S. Attorney for Washington Territory for 10 years, before moving to Walla Walla in 1881. Allen had unsuccessfully defended the Northern Pacific in the action brought by the City of Yakima to force the railroad to restore railroad connections to the city after it had bypassed Yakima and established the town of North Yakima. Voorhees renewed his argument that the railroad had been guilty of "colossal and gigantic scoundrelism" but by 1888 the argument had lost its force and Voorhees was defeated.
Allen never took his seat in the House of Representatives. By the time the 51st Congress convened in December 1889, Washington had been admitted to statehood. Prior to the 20th century, senators were chosen by the state legislature, and Allen was a leading contender, again opposed by Voorhees and others. The overwhelming Republican majority in the first legislature doomed Voorhees' aspirations, and Allen and ex-governor Watson Squire were chosen for the senate.
The Omnibus Admission Act
Jubilant celebration throughout Washington territory marked Benjamin Harrison's election victory. Territorial newspapers uniformly concluded that the Republican victory insured statehood, if not within a year, at least in the near future. In Seattle a raucous parade and celebration was organized by the Harrison legion, a local committee which had supported Harrison's campaign. Ex-governor Elijah Ferry mounted an impromptu podium on a wagon and addressed the crowd:
We have reason to rejoice, not only because Harrison has been elected, not because Allen has been elected. . . We have reason to rejoice, for our victory comes near our homes. In one year and one month Washington Territory will be a state.
Ferry was remarkably accurate. Twelve and a half months later, Ferry took the oath of office as first governor of the new state.
The Republican party not only regained the White House, it also gained control of the House of Representatives by a slender majority, and retained its control of the Senate. In December 1888 the House Democratic caucus struggled to decide whether to bow to the inevitable and reap what political capital it could by authorizing the admission of new territories expected to be Republican. In a speech to the caucus, Voorhees attributed the Republican majority in Washington Territory to the failure of the Democrats to pass an enabling act for Washington's admission. Two issues dominated the debate. First, should Dakota Territory be divided, doubling its (Republican) representation in the Senate. Loathe as the Democrats were to allow Dakota to divide, they could not ignore Dakota's population of 700,000, far more than the 180,000 required for a representative in the House, and far more than Washington's 186,000. The Democrats eventually agreed to allow the residents of Dakota Territory to vote on division. The second major issue was whether to admit Utah Territory, with sufficient population at 210,000, but disfavored because of Mormonism and the practice of polygamy. The Democratic caucus eventually agreed to an omnibus admission bill for the territories of Dakota, Montana, Washington and New Mexico, with a separate admission act for Utah.
The full house debated admission from January 15-18, 1889. Each of the territorial delegates urged the House to admit his territory to statehood. Admission of the territories was eloquently championed by S. S. Cox, an attorney who had represented New York City for several terms in Congress. Cox's reference to Washington as the "sunset state" earned him, in Washington at least, the sobriquet "Sunset" Cox. Cox continued:
The people of Washington Territory come, like the wise men of the east, not asking gifts, but bringing gifts. What do they bring? Why, sir, the trophies of their own labor, the evidence of their own worth. They present before us the cities and towns which they have founded. They present schools, churches and workshops. They bring all--all the products of their labor, and place them upon the altar of the union, a pledge for the common defense. Such a people can safely be entrusted with self-government.
Refuse to admit this state and its territorial sisters? Why, sir, you may enact that frost shall cease in the north and blooms in the south, or try to fix the figure of Proteus by statute, but you cannot prevent the people of this territory from their demand, and you must accede to it; if this Congress does not we know that the next Congress will. The spirit of the people of the Northwest is that of unbounded push and energy. These are the men who have tunneled our mountains, who have delved our mines, who have bridged our rivers, who have brought every part of our empire within the reach of foreign and home markets, who have made possible our grand growth and splendid development. They are the men who have made our national life. There is no parallel in history to their achievements. You cannot hold them captive to the Federal system. You must give them self-reliant statehood.
Cox later explained in a speech to the Washington constitutional convention in July 1889 that he himself came from pioneer stock and was familiar with the hardships of pioneer life. In his early days in Congress, he had been active in the question of the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, and had become committed to popular suffrage and self government, "the doctrines of our fathers in the revolution. . . consecrated by blood and afterwards crystallized in our constitution a hundred years ago."
After several days of debate, the House voted to amend the bill which the Senate had passed for the admission of South Dakota, and substitute the Omnibus Bill authorizing the citizens of Dakota to vote on division, and for constitutional conventions in North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington and New Mexico. The delegate from Dakota vigorously opposed the Omnibus Bill, which had the effect of delaying the admission of South Dakota. Since the House had completely changed the contents of the Senate bill to admit South Dakota, Grosvenor of Ohio moved to amend the title as well, to read, "to try to convince the people of Dakota that the Democratic party is willing that Dakota should come into the union, but in fact to keep that territory, and all others that have a Republican majority, out of the union for an indefinite period of time."
Delegations were present in Washington from both North and South Dakota, and they urged the Senate to reject the Omnibus Bill and to press for the immediate admission of South Dakota. The Senate refused to concur in the Omnibus Bill, and for several weeks the bill was stalled in the Senate, and then in a joint Senate/House conference which sought a compromise. Hopes for admission dimmed as the final adjournment of the 50th Congress and the inauguration of the Harrison administration grew nearer. Unless the president-elect chose to call a special session of Congress, admission would be delayed until the new Congress reconvened in the fall of 1889.
After many weeks of wrangling, the House finally receded from its demand that New Mexico be admitted. Representative Cox offered a resolution that South Dakota be admitted by proclamation of the President if its citizens voted to adopt the Sioux Falls constitution, and that North Dakota, Montana and Washington all be authorized to vote on a proposed constitution and then admitted by presidential proclamation. Cox's resolution prevailed and both houses passed the Omnibus Bill on February 20, 1889. President Cleveland signed the bill on February 22, Washington's birthday.
One final amendment to the Omnibus Bill was particularly significant for Washington state. Representative Springer of Illinois, chairman of the House Committee on Territories, wanted to rename Washington as the state of Tacoma. The move sparked considerable controversy in Washington, including a letter by ex-governor Watson Squire charging that the Northern Pacific had chosen the name for the city of Tacoma, had wanted to change the name of Mt. Rainier to Tacoma, and now wanted to rename the state. Watson argued the importance of keeping the name as a "trademark" and in honor of George Washington:
And is not this commonwealth one of the monuments erected to the father of the republic? Why impiously seek to tear it down? Is the monument unworthy of the name? Only an ignoramus could harbor the thought!
The Omnibus Bill would have renamed the state Tacoma until the final vote on February 20, at which time the name of Washington was restored.
Epilogue
Voorhees' service in Congress ended on a high note--he could point with pride to the passage of the Omnibus Admissions Act. A number of congressmen attributed their support for statehood to the efforts of Voorhees and J. K. Toole, the delegate from Montana. Voorhees moved to Spokane in 1889 and continued in the private practice of law until his death on December 26, 1909.
Note on Sources
Voorhees' election campaign of 1884 is discussed in R. Nesbit, "He Built Seattle": A Biography of Judge Thomas Burke (1961). Keith Murray has chronicled the admission controversy in The Movement for Statehood in Washington, 32 Pac. N.W.Q. 349 (1941). I have drawn the account of the debate over the Admissions Bill from contemporary newspaper accounts.
Footnotes
[1]Voorhees' father, Daniel W. Voorhees, was a prominent Indiana congressman and lawyer. In 1859 the senior Voorhees defended John E. Cook, one of the raiders in John Brown's expedition. After serving five terms in the House of Representatives, from 1861 through 1872, the senior Voorhees was elected to the United States Senate in 1872.
[2]R. Nesbit, "He Built Seattle": A Biography of Judge Thomas Burke, page 85 (1961).