Early Politics and Government -- Lucas In Ohio

From the beginnings of state government, Southern Ohio and its inhabitants played a crucial part in politics. Robert Lucas became a key player in Ohio and in national public affairs. Both his political and military reputation made him a widely respected figure. It was a critical time for leaders dealing with the future of the young nation as it was expanding its western boundaries and adding new states to its Union.

Robert Lucas was elected to the Ohio General Assembly for the first time in 1808 as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. Then, after his service in the War of 1812, Lucas's political career blossomed, and in 1818 he was named Speaker of the Ohio State Senate

Lucas was the Ohio Presidential elector in 1820 for James Monroe, a Virginia Democratic-Republican was heir apparent to James Madison. In 1822, Robert lost the State Senate election to his former brother-in-law and political rival, William Kendall. However, Lucas regained his State Senate seat in 1824, and actively campaigned for Andrew Jackson.

The Election of 1824 was contested by four members of the Democratic-Republican Party – Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. No candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, necessitating a contingent election in the House of Representatives under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president. The 1824 presidential election was the first election in which the winner of the election lost the popular vote.

Robert Lucas was again an Ohio Presidential elector in 1828 for Andrew Jackson. Lucas again lost his senate seat in 1828 to Kendall, and Lucas was part of the electoral congress that elected Jackson President that year over John Quincy Adams. Adams's supporters rallied around the president, calling themselves National Republicans in contrast to Jackson's Democrats.

Jackson was the nation’s first frontier president, and his election marked a turning point in American politics, as the center of political power shifted from East to West (Of course, Ohio was part of the western frontier of the time).

“Old Hickory” and his supporters and opponents shaped themselves into two emerging political parties: The pro-Jacksonites became the Democrats (formally Democrat-Republicans) and the anti-Jacksonites (led by Clay and Daniel Webster) were known as the Whig Party.

Lucas won his senate seat back in 1829, in a special election after Kendall resigned; again, he was elected Senate speaker. In 1831, Lucas ran for the state assembly and lost, but he quickly rebounded.

Perhaps the highlight of Lucas's career was to serve as the chairman and president of the1832 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party's first national convention. The convention nominated President Andrew Jackson for a second term and nominated Martin Van Buren of New York for vice president.

Delegates to the 1832 Democratic convention refused to renominate John C. Calhoun as vice president. Many Democrats opposed Calhoun because of his tariff policy and his defense of the doctrine of nullification, which claimed that a state had a right to nullify federal laws within its own borders. South Carolina, with Calhoun’s backing, supported the nullification doctrine. The nullification debate foreshadowed the slavery controversy that would become the most divisive national political issue in U.S. history.

The 1832 conventions played a crucial role in making organized parties a fixture of the U.S. political system. The Democratic convention adopted rules that succeeding conventions retained well into the 20th century. One rule based each state’s convention vote on its electoral vote, an apportionment method that remained unchanged until 1940. The 1832 convention also adopted the procedure of having one person from each delegation announce the vote of his state.

Lucas was also nominated the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1832, and won after a vitriolic campaign. Lucas County, Ohio, was established and named for the governor during his second term, in defiance of the Michigan Territory, which also claimed the land around the mouth of the Maumee River – thus provoking the almost-bloodless Toledo War.

Early Ohio Politics

The General Assembly first convened in Chillicothe, then the Ohio capital, on March 1, 1803. This body consists of the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate. Ohio's original constitution created the General Assembly in 1803. Originally, senators served unlimited two-year terms, while representatives served unlimited one-year terms.

The legislature held the most power in state government, with the governor not having the power to appoint state officials or to veto legislation. The first General Assembly consisted of thirty members of the House and fourteen members of the Senate. Each county received a certain number of legislators based upon the county's population. Forty-nine General Assemblies met under the Constitution of 1803.

The story of Ohio's statehood dates back to the Ordinance of 1787 and the creation of the Northwest Territory – a large body of unsettled land that encompassed what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. The territory was ruled by a governor, a secretary, and three judges, who were all appointed by Congress. These five officials performed the executive, legislative and judicial functions of government.

It wasn't until 1798 – after the male adult population of the territory reached 5,000 – that the settlers were given the right to elect a house of representatives. The first meeting of the legislature convened in Cincinnati in 1799. The body elected Edward Tiffin as Speaker of the House and William Henry Harrison as the territory's representative to Congress.

Though the territorial government was just getting on its feet in 1799, Ohio settlers were already clamoring for statehood. And just a few years later, in 1802, Congress passed an enabling bill that authorized the formation of a state government in Ohio.

The Ohio Constitution

Ohio's first constitutional convention convened in Chillicothe. In November 1802, thirty-five delegates met to draft an Ohio state constitution. In order for Ohio to become a state in the United States, representatives of the territory had to submit a constitution to the United States Congress for approval. This was the final requirement under the Northwest Ordinance that Ohio had to meet before becoming a state.

Thomas Worthington personally carried the document to Washington, DC. He arrived on December 19, and formally presented the Constitution to Congress on December 22. The Constitution became law on February 19, 1803, when Congress passed an act stating that the citizens of Ohio had adopted a constitution in accordance with the 1802 Enabling Act and the said state had become one of the United States of America.

The majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention favored the platform of the Democratic-Republican Party. Democratic-Republicans favored a small government with limited powers. The legislative branch should hold the few powers that the government actually possessed. Some delegates to the convention were members of the Federalist Party. Federalists believed in a much stronger government. Since the Democratic-Republicans controlled the convention, Ohio's first state constitution established a relatively weak government with the legislative branch holding most of the power.

The Ohio Constitution of 1803 provided all white men with the right to vote, assuming that they paid taxes or that they helped build and maintain the state's roads. The governor's term was for two years and he did not have the power to veto acts of the legislature. The legislature was called the Ohio General Assembly and consisted of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Representatives served only a single year before having to be reelected, while senators served two years. The General Assembly had to approve all appointments that the governor made. The legislature also selected Ohio's judges. The Ohio Constitution of 1803 prohibited slavery, honoring one of the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance. The convention members failed to extend the suffrage to African-American men in the constitution by a single vote.

The Ohio Constitution of 1803 was one the most democratic state constitutions in America to that time. The Democratic-Republican delegates to the convention distrusted a strong governor. The governor of the Northwest Territory had been Arthur St. Clair. St. Clair had pursued his own policy goals and had not worked well with the territorial legislature. That would not be possible under Ohio's first state constitution.

Ohio's Constitution of 1803 remained in effect until the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1851 adopted a new one.

Ohio Admitted to Union

Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803. Chillicothe served as the temporary capital for the new state until 1810 when the legislature moved the capital to Zanesville. The capital was shuttled back to Chillicothe in 1812, while the legislature searched for a more centralized location. The legislature finally decided to build a new capital on "the high banks of the Scioto River." Columbus became Ohio's permanent capital in 1816.

For the first several decades of Ohio's existence, the Democratic-Republican Party dominated the General Assembly. With the advent of the Whig Party in the 1830s and then the Republican Party in the 1850s, these two organizations battled the Democratic Party for control of the legislative branch. Throughout the late 1800s and most of the 1900s, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party commonly alternated control in the General Assembly.